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Reviews
Adam & Steve (2005)
A pleasant surprise
I was fortunate enough to see this film earlier this week at the Tribeca Film Festival. I was expecting something mildly amusing at best, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the movie is a real scream -- wildly funny, and while some of the humor is raunchy (in particular, an early scene that depicts a one-night stand that ends in embarrassment), the film overall is also rather sweet and sentimental. In addition to a witty script, the film features quite a bit of slapstick, visual humor, and even a big musical production number. Writer/director Craig Chester is Adam, and Malcolm Gets (probably best-known from Caroline in the City) is Steve; both are excellent. Parker Posey is quirky (but then isn't she always?) as Adam's fag hag, and Chris Kattan is annoying (but then isn't he always?) as Steve's straight roommate.
Camp (2003)
Adorable, funny film for theater buffs
I thought "Camp" was very funny and just delightful. It was not a flawless film by any stretch of the imagination; there were cliched, hackneyed plot points, for example. Nevertheless, the humor and the energy made up for any such defects.
If you aren't a theater queen, you may not get all the jokes and references. When I saw the film, about half the audience laughed hysterically and the other half sat there, bewildered, half the time. For instance --
SPOILERS
If you aren't familiar with Stephen Sondheim's great musicals, you may not see the humor in a production of "Follies" starring high-school age kids. I thought the idea was riotous. You may not laugh out loud when you see high school girls singing "I'm Still Here" to win a part in the production. I certainly did.
Or picture this: a bus is carrying a group of kids upstate to their summer musical-theater camp. All the kids are singing in unison to pass the time. But they aren't singing "A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall." They are singing "Losing My Mind." I howled, but not everyone got it.
END SPOILERS
The (mostly) young and unknown cast members were all very talented, if not yet sophisticated film actors.