Open Cam

'OPEN CAM' could have been so much more than it is. Writer/director Robert Gaston takes a few risks with this latest entry into the gay cinema foray, adding a story that avoids the usual topics that stereotype gay men. He assembled a cast of young actors whose best attributes are physical appearance rather than technical training, and then covers the dialogue with incessant background music that makes the viewer strain for the conversations - and much worse, he hides behind the mores of restraint that prevents US films from achieving what European films do well.

The story revolves around a recently jilted young artist Manny (Andreau Thomas) who when not in front of the easel spends his time on the Internet dating on a sleazy chat line, keeping his physical encounters anonymous to avoid personal disappointment. On the Internet chat line (using 'open camera') some murders are captured and a detective Hamilton (Amir Darvish) takes over the investigation - a detective who also happens to be gay and acts out with just about anyone it seems. When Manny's friends (or ex tricks) begin to fall victim to the serial killer on the Internet, Hamilton moves in with Manny to protect him, and it is in this living situation (a very physical arrangement) that the serial killer is finally caught on camera and in person. How the episodes of loss of friends and re-establishment of trust and love replacing just lust brings the story to a bit of a disappointing end.

The cast (Andreau Thomas, Amir Darvish, Ben Green, J. Matthew Miller, Christian Jones, et al) are a good-looking group of men. There are a lot of sensual scenes, but unlike European films the men who are supposed to be nude for a reason are shot to protect them from full frontal exposure - and that seems so very ludicrous and insulting given the theme of the film. American cinema has a long way to go: even movies of heightened physicality in straight films have little problem showing every detail of the female body yet either blur or out-of-focus shoot or drape male bodies as though there were some secret that MUST remain off camera. Time to grow up - and where better to start than in films such as OPEN CAM. 'Tis pity....Grady Harp

Now we know that being a murder suspect can be yet another opportunity to land a piece of ass. If only "Skinemax" could offer us gay boys something like this.

The difference between Open Cam and a porno is that pornos usually have less blood, better acting, and a few more sex scenes. It offers moments of unintentional-but- hysterical camp, and Amir Darvish was often impressive as Detective Hamilton. But the rest of the cast, including it's lead character, Andreau Thomas, come across as community-theatre-amateurs. In the case of Thomas, a community-theatre-amateur who is oh-so-eager to bare his sculpted, sexy bubble-butt for half of the time he's on the screen. silly, stupid, smut.

I recently saw this film (which I thought ROCKED!!!) and found myself wondering why is it only relegated to film festivals? It would surely do well at a run in your local indie film house. I enjoyed everything about it...it was smart, fast, challenging, well paced and sexy. I thought all of the actors did amazing, especially given for most of them (if not all of them) it was their first film. An amazing feat. I would have liked to see the character's friends more as they added an interesting dynamic to the story line. They each had an interesting personality that could have been more evolved. If we had seen more of them it would have given more of a "Sex and the City" feel to it, which we gays love but don't see enough of in films about OUR lives. The soundtrack was amazing and I really do think you need to give it residency at theaters in select cities. I want my friends to see it, but they are definitely not going across the country to see it at it's next showing. Good job cast!

I just saw this movie at the Toronto gay film festival, and let me tell you, if you can't appreciate this satisfying, sexy thriller, you must be secretly straight. That's because this movie has loads of male nudity with the camera lovingly lingering on the beautiful bubble-butts (instead of the quick little cuts we usually get in movies or on TV), shots of guys masturbating, and the oh-so-rare joy of seeing erect penises on the big screen. We even get to see the erection of the hunky hero, an actor named Andreau Thomas, who I consider to be one of the hottest guys on the planet.

All that, plus great characters, writing, directing, acting, and music. This is the type of sexy movie I would make if I was a filmmaker, but I don't know if I would be as skilled in pulling off the amazingly suspenseful climax.

Thankfully, director Robert Gaston is very talented in this regard, and he's given us a movie that successfully puts the c@#k into Hitchcock.

I rushed to the cinema yesterday to make this movie (which was shown as part of the "Verzaubert" Gay Film Festival that takes place each year in the major German cities and which normally shows really good stuff. Anyway, I was looking forward to it (though I am female and straight, I find a lot of gay movies well made and interesting; something else from the usual Hollywood crap!!). However, even though I am definitely not an expert on acting, it was quite blatant even to me that this was extremely poor acting, by almost every character involved!! The lines sounded so studied, there was nothing spontaneous or witty about them. I did find the plot somewhat interesting, but it could have been made into a much better movie, in my opinion. I also did not find the actors particularly dishy, which surprised me as they normally have quite the lookers in gay movies !! I also did not see the necessity for the drawn-out and lengthy sex scenes -- what purpose did they serve?? I mean, this was not meant to be a porn movie, as far as I understood.... Anyway, I considered it a waste of time and money!!