I'd seen "Cowboy Forever" before and really liked it. It's the best film of this collection and is worth seeking out as a stand alone short and avoiding the mass of dross that the majority of the other films here are.
"Gay Zombie" was just awful and I fast forwarded through, giving up before the end. I;m not into this type of film metaphor for a gay plague or not. It might have helped had the voices not been so whiningly American.
I enjoyed "Le Weekend", a story within a story of a film graduation piece intersecting with a recording of real life events. It was nice to see the London of nearly 20 years ago too through the eyes of a tourist. The themes were germane and rang true in the context of a straight guy going as far as he could with a gay guy who fancied him like mad while needing to string the gay lad along for accommodation and entertainment. I thought the ending was great - the gay guy had just carried on with his life and the straight tease didn't get to apologise.
"Mirror Mirror" was cruel and plausible for all that it was an imagining. I'm not sure what a film about a tranny was doing here in a gay collection but I guess we have to be LGBT-inclusive. I enjoyed it; it said some home truths.
"Packed Lunch" was fast forwarded through. Boring and uninteresting unless you have a fetish for speedos. I don't.
"Scarred" showed what could have been a terrifying revenge, but also the progression of an aggressive closet case into acceptance of his sexuality. We learn in flashback the significance of the scar and its provenance. I was hooked.
For "Serene Hunter", I'm glad I can speak French as the version I watched had no subs for the French-language dialogue. I found the hero sexy and the story fascinating; it's a good illustration of how many gay men flit from "lurve" to the next coupling.
I'd seen "Summer" in the distant past and wasn't that interested. Unfortunately, in the version of the collection I had, the voices in this film were out of sync with the lips which made it unwatchable so I switched out.
"VGL-Hung". Well I watched it all the way through and thought it was interesting enough despite my dislike of this sort of fantasy sequence. What spoilt it for me was that the supposed raunchy, goodlooking guys were, to me, uniformly unattractive. The protagonist was irritating but I accepted that as a clever part of the film which finally got us to accept him. To me, the horniest guy was the one who fell asleep on the train.
So, five stars because of the utter duds and below average films here. It's always a shame when good films are dragged down by bad ones.
