The Big Gay Musical (2009) Reviews

• An entertaining musical exploration of gay cliché

  hotkeyz-721-3604062010-04-24

  Call me cliché, call me gay, call me what you like, but I quite enjoyed this movie. Contrary to other reviews I read before deciding to give this film a chance, I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Big Gay Musical.' Having seen many movies with a gay theme - many of which I will never miss seeing again - I was happy to spend several hours of my precious free time on this one. I though the casting choices were very good, and the quality of the acting was commendable. The reality is that for someone looking in from outside the gay culture there is a tendency to focus on key plot points of the story line - call them cliché - and review them negatively. Unfortunately this only underlines a lack of understanding, and misses the important messages of the sub-plots to the people for whom this movie has ultimately been made. The Broadway style vocals and musical styling were a true reflection of what I would expect from a modern off-Broadway musical. Although there were variations in the appeal of the featured music, there were several songs and performers which were inspiring. The love song delivered by Michael Schiffman's character Charles was uplifting, as was Liz McCartney's performance of "As I Am." All in all it's an entertaining story about that old gay cliché about musicals. The use of numerous gay clichés throughout the storyline was amusing, and sometimes thought provoking. I don't believe this is the type of film intended to communicate deep philosophical messages about the gay world. It's a film that's supposed to challenge your beliefs about gay stereotypes and profiling whilst also making you feel good about yourself. And it did.

• Ya know what, this is actually kind of good....

  ekeby2010-05-08

  I enjoyed this, and lord knows I didn't expect to. It's exactly what it says it is, a musical about being gay, stereotypes and all. The premise is a show within a movie. The off-b'way musical in the movie maintains that god created adam and steve because he found adam and eve boring. Adam and steve are transported to modern times and have to deal with Christian guilt and self-hate. There's a lot of that. Maybe a tad too much. The characters who play the leads in the musical have problems of their own, mirroring, to a degree, those of the characters they play. Well, one of them does, anyway. And, yes, the leads are gay stereotypes, as are most of the other characters in the movie. But you know what? Stereotypes are based on truth. What that means is that the actors playing the stereotypical roles have to work a little harder to make the sell. I think they accomplish that in this movie. The singing and dancing is all perfectly competent. The choreography blends a lot of trademark routines from hit shows of the last 40 years. It's kind of funny, actually. You just wish they had a slightly larger stage to work on. Unlike the other reviewer here who hated the music and lyrics, I thought they were just fine. I found the songs pleasant, if not particularly memorable. So if you approach this not expecting Sondheim, you might find that aspect tolerable and maybe even entertaining. I did. Plus the boys are all adorable.

• Call me crazy but I LOVED this

  preppy-32010-07-31

  This is a story behind the making of a gay musical called "Adam and Steve: Just the Way God Made Them". It follows the backstage lives of Adam/Paul (Daniel Robinson) and Steve/Eddie (Joey Dudding). Paul wants love and commitment but seems to only find guys who want meaningless sex. Eddie is gay and still a virgin and hasn't told his parents he's gay--but they want to see him in his first big role. Throughout the film we see songs and numbers from the musical itself. OK--this technically doesn't deserve 10 stars. The acting isn't that good, some of the actors REALLY overdo the gay stereotypes and a lot of the back stories are woefully underdeveloped (especially the one with Eddie and his parents). However all the songs are good, everybody can sing and even the dancing is GREAT (the tap dancing angels were just incredible). Also the leads are attractive (especially Robinson who's all pumped up), the chorus boys are all good-looking and muscular and there's some REALLY hot guy on guy sex here (nothing hardcore though). Also gay porn star Brent Corrigan pops up (and is very good) as a hustler and Michael Schiffman is incredibly charming as Charles. Also there are happy endings all around. AND the movie is unapologetically gay and goes after the Catholic Church, the Bible and homophobes but in a kind manner. A very gay, very sexy and just great gay musical. I give this a 10!

• Exaclty what it meant to be, and what it needed to be.

  mtj052010-07-07

  So, I've noticed that some people try to put this movie-musical down and I really can't understand. I consider myself very knowledgeable of musical theatre (with my embarrassingly large collection of over 200 different cast albums) and this is certainly not bad! It's on par with something like Reefer Madness. The songs are campy. They were meant to be. They do pay homage, and parody existing theatre pieces, and they do it well. The singers are good, if over processed which bothered me. But if you wanted big production numbers, my question is, "why?" They're in a tiny off- Broadway theatre. Of course the songs are smaller numbers. If the "show" made it to Broadway for real, the songs would be re-orchestrated, and changed to make them huge. The acting is spot on. The characters that are supposed to be shallow are just that! And though some people would say that this paints a bad picture of gays, well... gays in the theatre are very often incredibly shallow. But there is depth of character in the important roles. And the actors are very honest in their approach. It's quite nice. Of course, they all play a bit over the top when they're 'on stage'. And let's be honest, they're acting in an off-Broadway show, so they would so be over the top. Overall, this was incredibly entertaining. I laughed, and even got emotional at the end when the Tammi Faye character sang one hell of a show stopping number. I am going to make all my friends watch this! And if I could get this on Broadway, I would!!!

• Nothing to see here. Move along...

  hughman552010-04-16

  This movie is superficial in every way possible. Characters completely undeveloped. Story non existent. As for the script, it's possible to hear more meaningful dialog between two drunks after 2:00am in the most looser laden gay dive than in this shallow attempt at a musical. Speaking of music, it's terrible in this "musical". It begins and ends as a meaningless parade of gay stereotypes and cliché plot points: Cue the promiscuous sex, AIDS panic, and familial redemption. A few unsuccessful shots are taken at religion but with nothing more than over done makeup and southern accents they just fall flat. There's a lot of skin and sex between guys, which for porn might be enough but for a feature length "film" seems a little out of place since there is basically no established characters with any depth or a plot line with any interesting detours. It's possible to tell this story in a meaningful way and even put it too song. But this movie falls flat in every possible way, bad script, bad music, bad acting, and wistful Broadway type vocals. It's actually difficult to comment on this movie because it's barely worth the effort. Bottom line, when a movie doesn't give you any reason to care about anything or anyone in it then there's, nothing to see here. Move along...