Justin Viar | Bucket List Night / 2009

before i die

by Douglas Messerli

 

Soren Bowie (screenplay), Justin Viar (director) Bucket List Night / 2009 [4.5 minutes]

 

Playing dumb in the manner of a Saturday Night Live skit, Dan (Dan Compagna) and his roommate Soren (Soren Bowie) have just finished their bucket list, listing the things they want to do before they die.

    Dan begins innocently enough: “I want to learn karate.” Soren begins a little strangely, but nonetheless withing the boundaries of such absurd lists: “Before I die I want to train a wolf, a wild wolf.” Dan is into it: “Solid,” and even suggests that he can get his buddy a wolf.

      For number 2, Dan wants to “time travel,” and amazing, in the very same spot, Soren has “Build a time machine.” It’s clear these two good friends think alike.

      Or do they? For number 3, Dan wants to “Kiss a man.” Soren is confused, Dan assuring him that he just wants to see what it’s like, “Not gaily,” but just so that he can try it out and say, “Dude, not for me.”

      Soren finally accepts it, although still thinking it’s somewhat strange, as if he 3rd choice, “To punch out a fire with his bare fists,” were a perfect normal macho male desire. “A moderately-sized grease fire.’ Dan’s “cool” with that.

       His 4th bucket list item is, he gets up to act it out, beginning with few punches into space, but what his statement reads: “I want to know what he feels like to be held like a woman.” Now Soren is truly confused. But Dan attempts to explain, that perhaps it begins as a boxing match, the two men strip off their shirts but grow so tired they simply hold on to one another, he gestures, putting his arms around his own torso.

       “Oh, you wanna box,” Soren tries to right the situation. No, Dan insists, “I wanna be held.”

 

      Soren quickly moves down on his list, reading out no. 5: “Meet a chick on a beach and just do her.”

      Dan, excitedly reports, “Dude, my number 5 is to go skinny-dipping with my roommate!” He seems to imagine that both items are the nearly the same thing. But by this time Soren is quite disturbed.

     “I don’t care about seeing you naked. Besides chicks love skinny-dipping, so we could get a couple of girls to come and make you feel more comfortable or whatever.”

    “Is your whole list like that?” Soren glowers.

    “No, it’s filled with awesome stuff, like traveling around the world and shit.” He continues, skipping over a few pages, “OK, no. 26: Take a romantic getaway with my roommate.”

     This time Soren has had enough, and gets up to leave.

     Dan stops him. We could go to Europe.

     “What was all that romantic stuff?”

     “I didn’t mean it like that. We could just…have fun.” He begins to message his buddy’s shoulders.

 

     “Stop it!”

     “Stop what?”

     “Stop getting gay over bucket list night.”

     “These are things I want to do before I die.”

      “Kiss a guy?”

     “I don’t want to kiss a guy. I want to kiss you. …Because you’re the best looking guy I know and I want to start at the top.”

     “That’s true.”

     “Besides the French to it all the time,” adds Dan, “That’s what’s called French kissing.”

      Soren corrects his misapprehension, explaining that French kissing is kissing with the tongue. “And I’m  not doing it.”    

      “Come on, man. I told you I was going to get you a wolf.”

       Before we know it, Dan is ready to give just one kiss. They move closer for the kiss but at the very moment that Dan gets almost there, he mutters, “You are so gay!”

       Angry, frustrated, perhaps a bit frightened now, Soren storms off, returning to his room, swearing that Dan has ruined Bucket List Night.

       The moment Soren is out of the room, Dan expresses his true feelings out loud: “I love you.”

 

Los Angeles, April 12, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).