Shelter
Tonight I saw what was unequivocally the best gay-themed movie (I'm not a fan of "gay movie" because this was so much more) I've yet seen: Shelter (imdb). It was even flat-out one of the best movies I've seen in a long while. To quote the director, "Shelter is a story about people – not gay people - just people. Shelter is about the difficulties we have relating to both the families we are born with and the families we create. It shows that the burden of struggling through these experiences is something we all share."

There is no groundbreaking new territory here, most of these topics have been covered before, but I've never seen them done so flawlessly. The cinematography is beautifully done, and the movie, set in southern California, provides ample opportunity to showcase it.

The acting was convincing. Having been in several of the situations shown in the movie, I didn't at all doubt that the characters knew just what it was like, despite the two main actors both being straight. The (implied) sex scene was very tastefully done, and again, didn't seem contrived at all. Again, the director said it best: "Both of the leads are straight. Instead of trying to sum up the experience of being gay, we simply focused on intimacy. We talked about what it felt like to stay in bed with someone all day – how rare and desirable it is, how fleeting it can be, and how much it can hurt when it’s gone. I really respect that both Trevor and Brad were able to see that it didn’t need to be any more complicated than this."

During an interview with the producer/director, he described the studio's desire to create the "anti-Brokeback." Brokeback was an alright movie, but let's be honest, it was fucking depressing. That's an incredibly common theme among such movies, and for a while I had given up hope. Shelter has led me to believe there's hope for gay-themed films to move beyond angsty, depressing plot lines. Shelter's ending was complete, yet it was happy through and through.

This film was a joy to watch. The main characters were well played, the humor was clever, and, well, the actors were hot. I even shed a few tears, which is pretty rare for me. Lately, I've been watching the trailer several times a day, and yesterday I looked up the DVD release date, May 27th. I jokingly asked myself if I would pre-order it before or after seeing the film, but decided I should wait after some of my experiences with other gay-themed movies. Well, it's pre-ordered, and now I can't wait until May. In fact, I may even go see it again.

There were several times during the movie where I couldn't help getting a huge smile across my face because I was just so happy. My only disappointment is that it's a film, and not my life, heh.