Another Gay Movie: a director's cut of a raunchy gay cinema milestone

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

14 APR 2021 - photos supplied by publicist

Everything old is new again. In 2006, 15 years or 105 in dog or gay years, Another Gay Movie was unleashed on an unsuspecting but eager world. It was not a turgid melodrama or message film, it was a comical colourful teen sex comedy in which four gay friends make a pact to lose their anal virginity in the summer between high school graduation and the last blowout party of the summer. Simultaneously innocent and raunchy, the gaybies suffer humiliation after humiliation before a gloriously sweet climax (pun intended) of debauchery and/or romance. Since 15 years is a milestone, the director of Another Gay Movie, Todd Stephens has created a "director's cut" to unleash upon the unsuspecting but eager world of 2021.

Somewhere around 2006, I saw Another Gay Movie (either at the Inside Out festival or in conjunction with my duties at fab) but I remembered little other than laughing a lot. Another Gay Movie is very funny with lots of slapstick, gross out gags and relentlessly mocking of gay stereotypes, particularly sexual foibles. The cast is uniformly attractive and there is abundant nudity and partial nudity to spice up the proceedings. And who could resist a bouncy theme song, "Another Gay Sunshine Day," sung by Nancy Sinatra? The publicist at Breaking Glass Pictures Pictures sent me a tantalizing press release followed by a screener link. I settled in to watch, but some homophobic malevolence messed up my internet connection so that the screener lurched and glitched. Fortunately, so I thought, I did have a copy of Another Gay Movie (unrated) which I had never perused. So I decided to watch it instead and then compare when the internet connection revived. I somehow knew that experiencing Another Gay Movie twice would not be a hardship.

While I have no idea how the (unrated) version compares to the original theatrical version, but the differences between it and the new director's cut are telling. 2006 was a long time ago in socio-political terms as well. The director's cut dispenses with some iffy subtitles for an Asian cheerleader, a NAMBLA joke, and a visual punchline involving scat. All of which might have been hilarious in 2006 but just wouldn't fly in 2021. What is added is a monologue by the iconic Mink Stole that is extraneous to the film but is a master class in gay icon theatricality. Stole reaches beyond her John Waters star power to channel a Tennessee Williams heroine by describing, "Years of muffled masturbation with homemade sex toys not fit for a farm animal." Also preserved is porn star Matt Rush as a drugged out party boy (a little disturbing considering Rush's recent past) and Richard Hatch's full frontal unpixelated moment (there is a bit part joke in there somewhere and, tragically, it is the only talent he displays). 

But while much has changed since 2006, Another Gay Movie is ripped-from-the-headlines relevant to one enduring gay dilemma: bottom shaming. The boys have made a pact to lose their anal virginity but all of them are determined to be seen as tops. Even our hero Andy, the very boy next door sexy Michael Carbonaro, who has been practicing the joys of anal penetration with his mother's vegetables. His mother, who cannot understand where all her salad ingredient are disappearing to, is played, far too fleetingly, by Lypsinka in a flawless June Cleaver/Joan Crawford hybrid complete with a Mommie Dearest gag. However the star of the family is comic genius Scott Thompson (of Buddy Cole, Mouth Congress, Star Trek, The Larry Sanders Show and stand-up comedy fame) in what begins as an homage with a gay parody twist of the Eugene Levy role in American Pie, but hilariously expands into something uniquely of Thompson's creation. Even his stunt penis is award-worthy.

The four boys all have unique gay cliché impediments to their quest for butt fucking nirvana. Andy lusts after his teacher Mr Puckov, Graham Norton, who turns out to be hiding a lot of uproarious prosthetic enhancements under his classroom wear. Jarod the jock (Jonathan Chase) is concerned that his dick is not is proportion to his deltoids. Griff the nerd (Mitch Morris) is hugely hung but thinks his derriere is not bubbly enough. The ringleader queen Nico (Jonah Blechman) has yet to come out to his mother and is looking for "a man who can fuck all night and then discuss the filmography of Shelley Winters." Blechman emphasizes the effeminate fabulousness of the character and also suffers the greatest humiliation in not only attempting to seduce Richard Hatch, but by ingesting three enemas beforehand to be prepared. Blechman references Paul Lynde, Liza, Charles Nelson Reilly and Carol Channing, who are all gay icons but may be unknown to a 2021 audience. I suspect that Richard Hatch is unknown to a 2021 audience despite Survivor's continued inexplicable popularity. 

While the boys are well-versed in gay icons, they are woefully naïve when it comes to gay sexual lingo and practices. Which is odd for computer and 'dating' site literate young men (Nico has tapped into the cameras in the boy's locker room for some gleefully gratuitous nudity and solo action by an unsung stunt player, and their lesbian advisor, Ashlie Atkinson, turns them on to the interactive website broadcasting Andy's ultimate sexual fantasy turned slapstick humiliation). Though, if the boy's knew what BDSM stood for (and in a post-Madonna world wouldn't even a 12-year-old be versed in leather and chains?) then the funniest scene, and probably Graham Norton's biggest (pun intended) comic triumph, would not exist. Sometimes logic has no place in a comedy's lexicon. Nor does tastefulness. While a hoary gerbil joke offended my sensibilities, I laughed out loud at the audacity of the over-the-top visual driving the punchline home.

Another Gay Movie is not a long lost classic or a nostalgic time capsule, it is an important milestone in the history of gay cinema and, it must be emphasized, it is entertaining enough to watch twice in slightly different versions. The film exists in an unabashedly gay world where our kinks and preferences are comedy instead of concerns. where gay sexual initiations and romance are the norm instead of oddities. Yes, it is all played for laughs, but it is laughter of recognition instead of derision. Where the true love first fuck is as weighted as the first delighted double penetration. Where the film has been made for a gay audience without any concern if the hets will understand or approve. Where the eye candy  is male gaze on male (sizzling hot Darryl Stephens is a go-go dancer who leads a homoerotic aerobics class before slithering into our hearts and pants, the Bad News Bears baseball team is as ogled as the Frisky Chickens). Where a sage overtly sexual lesbian can explain in no uncertain terms, that bottoming is as honourable as topping.