Monty Wolfe | In Pieces / 2019

broken

by Douglas Messerli

 

Monty Wolfe (screenwriter and director) In Pieces / 2019 [10 minutes]

 

This college satire of sexual behavior was a little hard to bear, despite the charm of it’s two central figures, Max (Connor McGarry) and Rex (Hayden Alminiana).

     In part, it’s the dreadful music with Rex and his band perform. Then there’s the truly tired stereotypes of college behavior that somehow I might have placed back in the 1970s.

     Finally, the acting by all its characters certainly leaves something to be desired. Yet if you stay with it, this story about a couple of young men who meet up previous to this party and already fall in love but haven’t fully expressed their feelings to one another, comes to a nice conclusion.

     Max is frustrated because he has texted Rex all day, whose phone, incidentally, has broken down. Rex, as he tells a female friend is not at all sure that he Max likes him as much as he has enjoyed his time with Max of the other night when they observed a braggadocio fellow student insist that he had sex with a woman who tells others she refused even to jerk him off, pissed on a trash dumpster behind which they hid before himself jerking off, the only fun story of this frankly rather poorly written piece.

     Fortunately, Rex observes Max walking out of the house wherein the party is just getting going, and joins him. Finally, he reads the missed text and simply tells his friend, “Max you’re going to have to be less of a drama queen if we’re going to be a couple.” The two kiss, and presumably descend straight to the heavens.

     This had some of the makings of a good comedy, if only director Wolfe had been able to actually convey the reality of college-student mentality; he seems locked back in high school days, with hardly a semblance of possible intelligent thought among these cretins. And only Rex he had the ability to compose real music and just a little singing talent.

     As it is, I can suggest several far more sophisticated and intelligent college satires. These people, trapped in a private house, not even at a college venue, can’t even dance.

 

Los Angeles, October 23, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2026).

Zsoly Vatany | Halves of Three / 2024

the end of the affair

by Douglas Messerli

 

Zsoly Vatany (screenwriter and director) Halves of Three / 2024 [13 minutes]

 

The British film Halves of Three, is yet another short film in which one of the central characters, beloved by others, is moving away the next day, and the young man who desperately loves him more than just a friend, finally gets up the nerve, too late of course, to tell him.

     In this case, it is Isaac (Frankie Golding) is who finally moving on to the university in Birmingham, leaving his close friends Gheorghe (Gil Sidaway), a foreign exchange student, and Arma (Helen Bishop) behind. Two days before his leave-taking three play tennis, Isaac and Arma obviously far better plays than Gheorghe, and they alternate playing together on the same side or Arma joining him.

     But there is also something flirtatious about Isaac’s gentle treatment of Gheorghe, even as he lights a cigarette for him and particularly in their almost naked shower conversation after their tennis match. What’s clear is that Gheorghe is fully in love with his companion, imagining the two making as they shower in separate stalls wherein they cannot catch a glimpse of each other’s bodies.

      What Isaac primarily talks about, however, is how fond of Arma he has become, and now, on  his last night in London, wants to tell her that he is in love with her.

      Gheorghe thinks it is not a good idea, particularly since it can lead nowhere given Isaac’s soon-to-be-absence. He argues, moreover, that she, as usual, will simply laugh it off with a witticism. But Isaac is convinced that they may still be able to have a long term distant relationship. But as his conversation continues, it becomes obvious that Gheorghe is distracted, somehow even more remote that usual, while still discouraging the decision for Isaac to confess his love.

      Finally, Isaac becomes convinced that the reason his friend is so unresponsive is that he is also in love with her, and confronts him, receiving only denials from Gheorghe, as Isaac finally pushes him up against a wall demanding he confess. Angry, Gheorghe lashes out wrestling with Isaac on the ground, each tumbling over the other until Isaac finally realizes from the look in Gheorghe’s eyes and his behavior, that it is he himself that Gheorghe loves.

      As the two stand erect again he kisses Gheorghe, who momentarily stands in a film lenses that has swathed the two in purple; but the clear daylight quickly returns, and Gheorghe immediately runs off, now furious with himself for having spoken what can have no significance and will forever alter their friendship, as he returns to their usual meeting place under an old tree with three inexplicable tree stumps upon which the trio sit each time they meet up.

     Isaac soon also shows up to the spot, the two boys refusing to talk too one another, but in a gesture of caring with Isaac now offering him a cigarette from a pack he has bought through the loaned ID of a friend. When Arma joins them, she senses the tension between them, perhaps the only one who has realized all along that the closeness between the gay boy and the straight is far more wrought than either of them realizes.

      Isaac does not tell Arma that he loves her, and Gheorghe almost refuses to speak, realizing that now any possibility of real love between them is not possible, and that he will soon lose his secret lover forever. Yet in a strange way, having spoken the truth, he feels freer and is able to accept the loss.

     Our last image is of the three friends sitting their usual places, in pure quietude, not drinking or celebrating in the way they had originally planned.

     It is a moving acceptance of the changes they now all must face as they individually move on with their lives.

     If this is not quite a profound work of art, it is a touching portrayal of friendship, love, and possibilities about to be lost while necessarily being assimilated by three very different individuals.

 

Los Angeles, 10/23/2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2026).

 

Jason Phillips | Black Knuckle and Deputy Maltese / 2018

how the west was one

by Douglas Messerli

 

Theo Poling (screenplay), Jason Phillips (director) Black Knuckle and Deputy Maltese / 2018 [15 minutes]

 

In the anachronistic rewriting of the American West that Jason Phillips’ Black Knuckle and Deputy Maltese represents, the town sheriff is a woman (Kym Wilson) and her deputy Maltese (Lane Campton) is a somewhat closeted gay man in love with their regular prisoner, Black Knuckle (Gabriel Sousa) who keeps getting into trouble just so that he can be locked up with Maltese, who regularly releases him after pretending to be tied up and overcome with violence.

    But this time, despite his almost overwhelming desires, Maltese has had enough, knowing that, after 8 arrests and presumably as many escapes, his job is on the line. He does not intend to tolerate another arrest of his lover or word might finally get out to the Coal Ridge citizens about their real intentions. He wants him, so he claims, to “stay gone.” But Black Knuckle refuses to give up on his favorite deputy.

     Once more Maltese opens the jail cell door and sends his lover off, calling him back only so that he can tie him up: “Make it look realistic.” The suggestion is that they are also into S&M.

      This time it costs Maltese his badge. But this time on top of everything, Black Knuckle has been kidnapped by outlaws, real outlaws too, not petty thieves like Black Knuckle. And Maltese is asked by Sheriff Schaefer to join her, not as a deputy, but as part of the posse to bring Black Knuckle home and arrest the wily outlaw gang.

       The Sheriff’s group, consisting of her, Maltese and a dunderhead named Ricky (Ian Elliott) soon find the camp of the 5 outlaws and determine to take them in the morning. The next morning, they grab one the females of the outlaw gang, gone a way’s off to piss, before knocking out the eldest of the group. But the others quickly put a gun to Black Knuckle’s head and demand the Sheriff’s posse reveal themselves. The Sheriff and Ricky appear and give up their guns, but Maltese hanging back gives a signal, hitting a frying pan over one of their heads, as the Sheriff head-butts another, and Ricky grabs a third. However, the head of the group, The Dark Rider, is hardly fazed by the frying pan’s effect, and as Maltese readies for hand-to-hand combat, although the situation looks dicey.

      But suddenly Black Knuckle grabs a dropped gun and saves the day by arresting the entire outlaw gang. Of course, Maltese has to tie up his friend Black Knuckle again as well, the Sheriff warning him, as the two secretively rub their fingers across each other’s hands, to keep him tied. And a short while later Sheriff Schaefer walks the entire troop into town. As Maltese again unties Black Knuckle, the Sheriff again intervenes suggesting that since the jail will be all filled up, she’s ready to let Black Knuckle go, sending her former deputy off the shine boots in order to get his badge back.

       As she turns to go, she winks, commenting in an aside, “You could’ve just told me.” And before you know it, there’s a hoe-down in the local bar where Black Knuckle and Maltese are sitting at a table sharing a drink, around them, native American and Hispanic women, blacks and their lesbian friends. Maltese finally asks for a dance and they rise to the occasion with a deep kiss, the whole town applauding, one local claiming she “knew it “and winning a bet she’d made on her guess that the two were a natural pair.

 

Los Angeles, April 14, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).