Leland Montgomery | Hotter Up Close / 2022

a new sexual planet

by Douglas Messerli

 

Christopher Matias Aguila (screenplay), Leland Montgomery (director) Hotter Up Close / 2022

[16 minutes]

 

Skinny, with a slightly too ovoid face, Chris (Christopher Matias Aguila) is about to celebrate his 30th birthday, but is a bit at odds with the world since his boyfriend, Brad (John David Williams), not only broke up with him—and who had been sleeping with what Chris describes as “every animal in the 100 acre wood”— but was utterly dismissed by his former lover.

     His best friend and co-worker Dana (Liz Jenkins) insists he’ll find someone else. “What about that guy who comes into the shop?”

      “Aiden,” Chris nearly chokes on his drinking straw, “Are you insane. If I think Brad is out of my league, Aiden is, like, on a whole other, like sexual planet.”

      But at the moment it’s time for them to rush back to the coffee shop where they work as barristas.

     No sooner do they return to work, however, than the beautiful Aiden (Francisco San Martin) stops by, inviting them both to a pool party, causing Chris to nearly choke on the muffin his has just stuffed into his mouth.

      Chris quickly tries to squirm out of it invite, but Dana accepts for both of them, and even runs out to get a new pair of swimming trunks for her best friend.

      Although Chris has been listening to tapes in order to build up his self-confidence, one look at the stunningly bronzed muscled bodies in and around sends him into a tizzy. There is no way he might be able to fit in. Moreover, he lathers sunbathing lotion on his face that makes him look like a mime.

    Yet, Aiden does come out of the pool to greet the two, although a cutey in a yellow speedo, Marcus (Elijah Olachea) immediately calls him back into the pool to play whatever ball game they were engaged in.

      Chris leaves to pee, but immediately inside the house encounters her former boyfriend Brad, who’s just been fucking a highly effeminate individual named Indigo (Luke Millington-Drake), which makes things even worse. Yet, re-encountering his old flame does put some anger back into the generally spineless Chris, as he puts on his glasses and prepares to meet the world again—even if he knows it’s not his world.

     Fortunately, Leland Montgomery’s short film, with a script by the man who plays Chris, is a fantasy. And the moment Chris leaves the bathroom he runs into Aiden, who’s been looking for him. In fact, he wants a kiss.

      Chris is so stunned, he temporarily halts the kiss he’s dreamt of and demands an explanation, which Aiden gladly provides, explaining that he finds Chris funny, clever, and moreover, cute, and he is love with him. Chris asks one more question, this about Markus, in who Aiden quickly explains he’s not at all interested: “He’s real, real dumb.” And yes, they kiss, transporting the delighted lead actor into a new sexual planet.

       When Chris and Aiden exit the house, the whole party is singing happy birthday to him, Dana with cake in hand and the only straight man at the party (who Aiden declares has a large penis) breathing down her neck. How Aiden knows about his large penis is not explained, although Chris is clearly curious.

       There is absolutely nothing profound about Montgomery’s film, and nothing much to say about it. Except for his use of highly stereotypical figures, it’s what we used to describe as a sweet little flick with lots of pretty boys as a reward for watching it.

 

Los Angeles, January 17, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2025).

 

Meredith Scott Lynn | Parental Guidance / 2008

the straight kids scold their queer elders

by Douglas Messerli

 

Meredith Scott Lynn (screenwriter and director) Parental Guidance / 2008 [4.40 minutes]

 

Ava (Rachel Nicole Hamilton) and Max (Ryan Ochoa), children, are sitting outside a cabin within which Ava’s two mothers and Max’s two fathers are all busy loudly arguing with each other. Why is never established.

     But Ava and Max are totally fed up and flee to the nearby lake. Max is the first to speak: “Ava, I know you’re hurting. And I can relate to your pain. But we can’t take untimely and dysfunctional communication personally.”

     So begins a conversation between the children that is a level far over their parents’ head, as they commit themselves, if it should ever come to be, to a relationship: “If our winding hearts lead us to one another’s paths in maturation, I will always try to stay mindful of your needs and encourage you to make them known to me.”

     Ava responds with something similar, but these are, after all, amateur child actors and their diction does not always fully translate to my older ears as they breathlessly rush through these long-winded lines.

     But we get the point. They are fully mature, while the parents are like children throwing tantrums.

    If director Meredith Scott Lynn had perhaps extended her one-line satire and created children that behaved closer to the characters in the novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett, in which the children always speak in more grammatically perfect sentences and in a much more intelligent way than the adults, Parental Guidance might have succeeded.

     But frankly, in this silly little piece, we cannot believe either the children nor the adults. Why should two lesbians and two gay men all be shouting at the top of their voices, and why should the

children commit to eternal understanding of one another. If their parents are really that hot-headed it is doubtful that these children would have come to these values or the language they are trying to hurry through. As it is, I might suggest these two obnoxiously correct little beings should enter the cabin and quiet down their maters and paters by simply reminding them there are kids in the house.

     But this little fantasy isn’t interested in a solution, just the obvious juxtaposition of responsible behavior. Sorry, I don’t believe it for a moment. And I was happy that everyone soon after was hurried off stage and back into their real lives.

     Finally, what was the point of this satiric exercise? To point out that even gay men and women lose their cool now and then? That two gay men and two lesbians in the same room generally results in chaos? That future straight children know best? That normalcy is better that being queer? Since its subject is not really about the gay couples it mentions only in passing, the film seems to be moving in the direction of queer baiting, 

 

Los Angeles, January 17, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2025).

Alexander Roman | Lonely in Seattle / 2021

a good masseur is hard to find

by Douglas Messerli

 

Alexander Roman (screenwriter and director) Lonely in Seattle / 2021 [51 minutes]

 

If you’re studying massage therapy, into New Age and Buddhist Studies, and fascinated with “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” (ASMR) (an accompanying score that produces pulsing, pleasurable tingling, so the film’s introductory credits report) Alexander Roman’s Lonely in Seattle is the movie for you. Moreover, there’s lots of pretty pictures of Seattle and nature in general along with the rest of the stuff.

     Never before have I seen a movie of 51 minutes spend almost half of its time demonstrating the techniques of massage. But that’s the point, I gather, of this cinematic effort, to get you into a cozy position, show you pretty pictures, and present a rather banal portrait of a man who has it all—money, brains, and chiseled good looks—who realizes that what he really wants in his bed is not simply a fuck-buddy, but a man who will hang in there, cuddle, and stroke your neck after a long day of buying up new property.

    That man, Luke (Matt Ford) spends most of his time, since this after all is Seattle, in a chic, dark coffee shop—probably one which his own company built—meeting up with his equally capable and busy chatterbox of an assistant, Beth (Christina Ros), she reporting on the newest local zoning meeting she attended, he worried about the fact that he hasn’t yet heard about the offer he’s made on a property.

      She’s a lesbian, he a gay man; but unlike Beth who has a date that night, Luke is hands off, disgusted and discouraged by all the boys who would line up to go bed with him each night, but leave him early the next morning.

      Poor little rich kid. In his spare time, he visits a kind of Buddhist-like psychologist, who attempts to probe into the reasons—gently, carefully, and only with permission—why he finds it difficult to commit himself to others. If there’s a secret, other than he’s tired of one-night stands, we never discover it.

     Beth, who seems to know best what her boss needs, arranges, despite his busy schedule, for him to have a massage by a new guy in town, straight out of Brooklyn, Wes (Alexander Roman), a chunky, backpack carrying guy without even a massage table. He treats Luke this first time just by massaging his hands.

       For Luke, it’s love upon first massage. And soon after he has invited Wes over to the lovely little cottage he has built for himself for a full back and stomach massage, to which we are privy along with the pictures of leaves, lights, and raindrops I hinted at above. Luke is even willing to pay Wes to stay a while longer simply to cuddle.

     Soon enough, Luke is feeling deeply for the masseur, but the therapist himself needs a shrink. He has such a poor self-image that he simply cannot imagine why a handsome, sleek, bearded gay millionaire might possibly be interested in such a slumpy simpleton as he imagines himself to be. Luke assures him that he’s simply lonely, and that what Wes offers can’t be matched all the cute gay boys in the Emerald City.

      The two crawl into bed together and are never seen again. The end.

 

Los Angeles, January 17, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2025).