Totally Confused (1998)

Directors:

Greg Pritikin
Gary Rosen

Writers:

Greg Pritikin (writer)
Gary Rosen (writer)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Wiley is a gay virgin who spends his nights with a large collection of porno. Johnny's his best friend but he's straight, though does admit to a little experimenting. What to do? what to do? |

Plot Keywords:

Bookstore | Bestiality | Bowling Alley | Bathtub | Break Up

Cast

Greg Pritikin	...	Johnny
Gary Rosen	...	Wiley
Jackie Katzman	...	Annie
Heather Donaldson	...	Cindy
Darek Hasenstab	...	Alistair
Duane Sharp	...	Murray
Patrick LoSasso	...	Stephan
Jay Danner	...	Tad
Timothy James-O'Brien	...	Boy In Record Store (Patrick)
Kay Winters	...	Mother
Dick Kay	...	Father
Timothy Nordwind	...	Bookstore Clerk
Joe Callahan	...	Joe
Louise Post	...	Nina
Nina Gordon	...	Louise

Runtime:

UK:88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Trivia:

Filmed in early 1997 entirely on location in the Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park, this film is an important time capsule of sorts. In interiors and exteriors, it features Wicker Park establishments such as Urbis Orbis Cafe, Quaker Goes Deaf Records, and the Busy Bee Bakery, all of which were mainstays in the neighborhood's early to mid-90s creative heyday but went out of business within a couple years of filming due to skyrocketing real estate prices as the neighborhood continued "gentrifying". As such, the film inadvertently captures a very specific time, place, and lifestyle for Chicago's "Gen Xers."

Quotes:

Wiley: I am exploring the outer limits of masturbation. I think I've solved the chafing problem.

Very Woody Allenesque

That the writer is inspired by Woody Allen here pretty obvious. With all its slightly off-kilter characters, the story is typically Allen too, except that it's Chicago instead of New York here. Since the writer is also one of the lead actors, he manages a Woody Allenesque dialog delivery. And I think he pulls it off quite well. I love that bit where he describes the sex he's having with his childhood buddy as "male bonding...of a more advanced kind". The gay thing is central to the film, but I liked the other parts too (these days nobody seems to make a wholly gay film. it's considered retrograde). The other story line about this pathological-liar agent convincing our untalented hero his music CD being distributed in Greenland is SO funny. I got this film off an American friend of mine visiting India and I liked it a lot. Wish more people might get to see it.