Viewed at a distance of a decade later, the Gay porn feature "La Dolce Vita" emerges as a quality achievement that probably should have been made as a mainstream film, rather than with XXX content. I don't mean "edited down" but rather shot as an indie feature with only brief, simulated sex scenes and not the hardcore content which limits it, especially with gay hardcore scenes, to a tiny, niche audience.
Of course, serving that niche audience is what gets such a film made in the first place, as a mainstream audience might not be interested in the subject matter at all -it being more recently riveted by Marvel adaptations and other 3-D stuff. The fantasy presented here is more of a pornographic, with apologies to Fellini, nature.
Tony Di Marco's screenplay presents a contemporary New York City scene that provides a springboard for many of the themes Fellini immortalized in his 1960 classic by this name. He and co-director/star/producer Michael Lucas twice feature the SoHo namesake restaurant on screen, which closed a couple of years after this movie was shot.
Lucas portrays a one-hit-wonder novelist (titled appropriately "Tropic of Nowhere") who has settled into an empty existence as a gossip writer for "Touche" magazine. (In the BTS short subject there is an amusing moment where Lucas tears off the fake cover to his magazine, revealing a real copy of "Jane" underneath.) Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto makes an obligatory cameo appearance but this character does not resemble him at all, but rather an irresistible romantic figure corresponding to Lucas's real-life Gay matinée idol status in the Adult industry.
The lengthy (211-minute) movie, divided into 2 parts for release, picks up steam in the second part with the emergence of a femme guest star, properly billed as "Vivid Girl Savanna Samson'. She portrays a movie star much hounded by the paparazzi, who of course got their collective name from Fellini's movie originally, 46 years prior. She's dating Ralph Casanova (Ray Star, sporting the same high- cheekbones handsome kisser as co-star Lucas), and the couple, interviewed by the press in their bathrobes, suggest an old Hollywood glamour transformed to the Brangelina generation. Lucas's wandering in Manhattan with Sam to re-create the fabulous Anita Ekberg Trevi fountain sequence (staged here at City Hall Park Fountain) is the highlight of the movie.
And that scene, which received tremendous tabloid news coverage when filmed, got me thinking that this project deserved a wider audience. Jettison the seven or eight lengthy XXX set-pieces, with their 11-inch dicks bandied about and condoms appearing as far as the eye can see, and concentrate on the characters, acting and meaty (pun intended) material.
Personally, I would have preferred if Di Marco's starting point were not the obvious Fellini model but rather a couple of superior Italian classics, lesser-known but holding up better. Dino Risi's "The Easy Life" and its successor "Il Successo", both starring Vittorio Gassman and Jean-Louis Trintignant, are unbeatable in showing up the fake and transitory quest for success which plagued the materialistic Italian society in the early '60s, and bears as much relevance a half century later for ours here in America. Sure, Risi and Gassman's "Scent of a Woman" got Hollywood's attention and generated the award-winning Pacino remake, but it is these two that set the standard for greatness.
Oddly, Lucas' performance is a weak link in an otherwise successful film. He's the producer and main reason for the project being made, but he should have replaced himself with a better actor. Unlike Mastroianni (or Gassman, or any number of Italian greats of yesteryear like Tognazzi, Manfredi and Sordi) Lucas with clothes on more resembles an Arrow shirt ad model than an actor, and as the talent in these films (see the DVD notes) are referred to as models that is appropriate. But he cannot act, and does not change his facial expression for over two hours, perhaps looking a bit dyspeptic at moments where angst or despair is called for.
His co-stars are far more effective: Star as the smug star, lowercase; Cole Ryan as his live-in lover who's finished his novel while our Hamlet-like hero endlessly procrastinates; Savanna, brimming with life in a larger-than-life performance -freed of the need to do her d.p. thing that made her a porn star; Preston Connors in the key Part 2 role of a publishing colleague whose life is ruined by a chicken-hawk dalliance with a boy ("I thought he was 18") for a hump in a huge walk-in clothes closet; and many other colorful characters.
Part 1 is all warm-up action before the story really gets going, dwelling on a male fashion show presided over by supercilious designer Jack Bond. I was surprised that it turned out to be "Zoolander" played straight, if you'll pardon the expression. Certainly the atmosphere is beautifully captured, along with party and press scenes which perfectly display the hangers-on mentality I observed when I was a journalist in NYC in the '80s, rubbing shoulders with Sylvia Miles, Warhol and yes, Michael Musto in covering movies and the folks who made them.
Of course, serving that niche audience is what gets such a film made in the first place, as a mainstream audience might not be interested in the subject matter at all -it being more recently riveted by Marvel adaptations and other 3-D stuff. The fantasy presented here is more of a pornographic, with apologies to Fellini, nature.
Tony Di Marco's screenplay presents a contemporary New York City scene that provides a springboard for many of the themes Fellini immortalized in his 1960 classic by this name. He and co-director/star/producer Michael Lucas twice feature the SoHo namesake restaurant on screen, which closed a couple of years after this movie was shot.
Lucas portrays a one-hit-wonder novelist (titled appropriately "Tropic of Nowhere") who has settled into an empty existence as a gossip writer for "Touche" magazine. (In the BTS short subject there is an amusing moment where Lucas tears off the fake cover to his magazine, revealing a real copy of "Jane" underneath.) Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto makes an obligatory cameo appearance but this character does not resemble him at all, but rather an irresistible romantic figure corresponding to Lucas's real-life Gay matinée idol status in the Adult industry.
The lengthy (211-minute) movie, divided into 2 parts for release, picks up steam in the second part with the emergence of a femme guest star, properly billed as "Vivid Girl Savanna Samson'. She portrays a movie star much hounded by the paparazzi, who of course got their collective name from Fellini's movie originally, 46 years prior. She's dating Ralph Casanova (Ray Star, sporting the same high- cheekbones handsome kisser as co-star Lucas), and the couple, interviewed by the press in their bathrobes, suggest an old Hollywood glamour transformed to the Brangelina generation. Lucas's wandering in Manhattan with Sam to re-create the fabulous Anita Ekberg Trevi fountain sequence (staged here at City Hall Park Fountain) is the highlight of the movie.
And that scene, which received tremendous tabloid news coverage when filmed, got me thinking that this project deserved a wider audience. Jettison the seven or eight lengthy XXX set-pieces, with their 11-inch dicks bandied about and condoms appearing as far as the eye can see, and concentrate on the characters, acting and meaty (pun intended) material.
Personally, I would have preferred if Di Marco's starting point were not the obvious Fellini model but rather a couple of superior Italian classics, lesser-known but holding up better. Dino Risi's "The Easy Life" and its successor "Il Successo", both starring Vittorio Gassman and Jean-Louis Trintignant, are unbeatable in showing up the fake and transitory quest for success which plagued the materialistic Italian society in the early '60s, and bears as much relevance a half century later for ours here in America. Sure, Risi and Gassman's "Scent of a Woman" got Hollywood's attention and generated the award-winning Pacino remake, but it is these two that set the standard for greatness.
Oddly, Lucas' performance is a weak link in an otherwise successful film. He's the producer and main reason for the project being made, but he should have replaced himself with a better actor. Unlike Mastroianni (or Gassman, or any number of Italian greats of yesteryear like Tognazzi, Manfredi and Sordi) Lucas with clothes on more resembles an Arrow shirt ad model than an actor, and as the talent in these films (see the DVD notes) are referred to as models that is appropriate. But he cannot act, and does not change his facial expression for over two hours, perhaps looking a bit dyspeptic at moments where angst or despair is called for.
His co-stars are far more effective: Star as the smug star, lowercase; Cole Ryan as his live-in lover who's finished his novel while our Hamlet-like hero endlessly procrastinates; Savanna, brimming with life in a larger-than-life performance -freed of the need to do her d.p. thing that made her a porn star; Preston Connors in the key Part 2 role of a publishing colleague whose life is ruined by a chicken-hawk dalliance with a boy ("I thought he was 18") for a hump in a huge walk-in clothes closet; and many other colorful characters.
Part 1 is all warm-up action before the story really gets going, dwelling on a male fashion show presided over by supercilious designer Jack Bond. I was surprised that it turned out to be "Zoolander" played straight, if you'll pardon the expression. Certainly the atmosphere is beautifully captured, along with party and press scenes which perfectly display the hangers-on mentality I observed when I was a journalist in NYC in the '80s, rubbing shoulders with Sylvia Miles, Warhol and yes, Michael Musto in covering movies and the folks who made them.