Themes: Prostitutes, Love Triangles, Living With AIDS
Release Year: 2000
Country: FR/US
Run Time: 78 minutes
Plot
The third entry in the Boys Life series collects another set of gay-themed indie shorts. In Inside Out, writer/director/producer Jason Gould -- son of Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould -- plays Aaron, a slightly fictionalized version of himself. Over the course of 30 minutes, Aaron dodges paparazzi, dates a closet case, hangs out with his best friend (Alexis Arquette), and attends a celebrity child support group run by writer/guru Christina Crawford. Gould's father and his stepbrother, Sam Gould, appear as thinly veiled versions of themselves, while several other celeb offspring make cameos. Des Majorettes Dans L'Espace (Majorettes in Space), by French writer/director David Fourier, examines AIDS, religious values, and sexual freedom through a mixture of playful animation, tongue-in-cheek narration, and sometimes mournful live-action scenes. Hitch, directed by Bradley Rust Gray, maps out the sexual tension between two chain-smoking young men, one bisexual and one straight, as they travel the Southwest in a retro van. Writer/producer Christopher Landon's $30, directed by Gregory Cooke, portrays the unorthodox meeting between a matter-of-fact young hooker (Sara Gilbert) and a skittish teenaged virgin (Erik MacArthur) whose father has purchased the girl's services as a gift. And in the seven-minute Just One Time, triple-threat filmmaker Lane Janger plays a ménage à trois-obsessed man who begs his girlfriend (Joelle Carter) to have sex with him and another woman. Things heat up when their gay and lesbian neighbors (Guillermo Diaz and Jennifer Esposito) overhear the couple fighting. The entire cast of Just One Time reunited for Janger's feature of the same name, which appeared around the same time as Boys Life 3. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
Like Strand Releasing's previous two collections of gay short films, Boys Life 3 suffers from quality-control issues. One amazing short and one very good one are paired with two so-so outings and one that's just execrable. The bad one, of course, is the longest of the bunch: Jason Gould's naval-gazing exercise in celebrity-kid self-pity, which finds the son of "Babs" baring more of his behind than of his soul as he goes for goofy humor and earnest self-reflection and ends up with one-note jokes and embarrassing self-indulgence. $30 features another celebrity connection, but the only folks who will catch it are the ones who notice that star Sara Gilbert and writer Christopher Landon share their last names with Little House on the Prairie stars Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon. Such Hollywood trivia aside, 30 actually tells a sweet, grave little story that's as familiar as it is well acted (by Gilbert and Erik MacArthur) and sensitively filmed (by director Gregory Cooke). The best entry, however, belongs to French filmmaker David Fourier, whose abstract approach to the subject of AIDS makes this well-worn tragedy freshly harrowing and tartly comic at the same time. The two remaining efforts are the fair to middling ones, both of which involve serious sexual tension. Hitch is the collection's most self-consciously stylish entry, but writer/director Bradley Rust Gray's frustratingly arty camera movements and overlong segues overpower both his pretty boy protagonists (Drew Wood and Jason Herman) and his sexily atmospheric script. The slicker, more straightforward Just One Time offers an elaborate set-up for a rather slight punch line, but writer/director/producer Lane Janger did use the same cast (Joelle Carter, Jennifer Esposito, and Guillermo Diaz) to far better effect in the feature-length romantic comedy of the same name. Ultimately, such exposure of fresh talent -- even in the rough -- makes mixed-bag efforts like Boys Life 3 worth the effort. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
