It’s so strange, I can go for months and not see one movie worth mentioning in here, then all of a sudden I come across a bunch. That is a good thing, however, ‘cause I know I am not the only movie nut in this group. My friend Nash actually recommended both of these movies to me first, so I owe him a nod of thanks. I enjoyed both of them.

The first one I would like to revue is called “Say Uncle”. It is the story of a gay artist named Paul (Peter Paige) who just LOVES his godson. In fact, he loves his godson and children so much, one would be tempted to call the man a BL. One day the parents of Paul’s godson announce that they must move to Japan. Because of his strong love for the boy, Paul is oblivious to the news until it is too late. He shows up at their house and they are gone. He is terribly devastated and goes into deep mourning over the loss of his young friend; so much so that he loses his job over it. He just can’t seem to get it together until he goes to the local playground one day and through much prodding by his boyfriend, he tries playing with the children there. This becomes a turning point for Paul as he begins a search for the perfect job involving himself and children. He tries a toy store and also spreading fliers around town advertising himself as a “Manny” (instead of nanny). All of his heart-felt hard work backfires, however, when it catches the attention of a horrible, busybody woman who pegs him for a “terrible Pedophile” and launches a campaign to stop him and bring him to justice.

This is a gay comedy by the same person who invented the TV show “Queer as Folk”. While I have never been much of a fan of that show (not because I don’t like it, I’ve just never been able to catch it on tv…I’ve never seen much of it), I have some seriously mixed emotions over this movie. On the one hand, I found the relationship between Paul and his godson to be lovely and it drew me into the movie right away. And when they moved away, I almost felt just as devastated as he portrayed his character to be. And then when he decides to try to be near children in some other way, I felt for that too, although it is quite over the top in a kind of typical comic fashion. Sometimes I question the gay sense of humor, I don’t really find it funny. This movie got very few laughs out of me and as it went on, it threatened to get the exact opposite.

The turning point for me with this movie was when the antagonistic busybody woman begins to persecute the man and convinces many of the local citizens to follow her. On the one hand it is fascinating to see the process of how a person’s actions can be misinterpreted and he can be seen as a danger to children. It was also interesting to hear the woman talk about how he “fits the profile” of a pedophile, especially when he is so upfront about being a Gay man. But remember, this is gay cinema and(the way I saw it) as the film progressed it became increasingly obvious that the director was leaning hard on the old “Aren’t Those Pedophiles Terrible!” post. And then at one point all of the people who are against Paul hold a rally to “bring him in” and he naively shows up there trying to pass out his “Manny” fliers. He is spotted and he runs, with everyone chasing him. So he ducks into a store to ditch the people. Now, perhaps I am truly reading too much into this movie…maybe not, but when he comes out of the store, he is wearing a makeshift disguise. Now get this; the disguise is a “Jesus Saves” T-shirt and a baseball cap with another Christian logo on it. With this disguise he is able to actually walk right through the whole crowd of people who were just chasing him. Ok, I really have to wonder at this point, is this an actual jab at us? What is the Gay community saying here, that Pedophiles or BL’s are trying to hide their true intentions by using their Christian faith as a disguise?

Or am I being too picky reading too much into this movie? You decide. This is one movie I think we should all watch. I won’t say it is a bad movie, although I think it fails as a comedy. It looks like the film maker was trying to make a real statement with this one and then call it a comedy, and if that is true, I’m not so sure I like all of what he is saying. Check it out for yourself and see what you think, ok?