Dare (shorts program 2018)

“Dare” (shorts program)
Friday, June 15, 1:30pm Castro

1. Men Don’t Whisper, dir. Jordan Firstman, 2017 USA, 22 minutes 👏
2. Kissing Walls, episodes 1 & 2, dir. Zak Payne, 2017 USA, 14 minutes ❓WEST COAST PREMIERE
3. Share, dir. Ellie Wen & Barbara Szász, 2018 USA, 14 minutes 👏 WORLD PREMIERE
4. You Look Good in Blue, dir. Harrison Sheehan, 2018 USA, 15 minutes 👎🏼😴 WORLD PREMIERE
5. The Dare Project, dir. Adam Salky, 2005/2018 USA, 22 minutes 💖 WORLD PREMIERE

update: review added for The Dare Project

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Men Don’t Whisper

“Men Don’t Whisper”

Welcome to the world of selling “clean vitamins.” The com­pany has a weekend sales seminar at a hotel some­where, with Dr. Jocelyn Verdoon (Cheri Oteri) emphasizing the (toxic) masculine qualities needed to excel at selling by knowing what you want and taking it. Reese and Peyton (filmmakers Charles Rogers and Jordan Firstman), a gay couple, worry that they’re not butch enough to be good salesmen, so they pur­sue the obvious solution: picking up two of the women from the seminar at the bar.

It’s unrelentingly cringe-inducing, but all in the service of comedic effect and deconstruction of stereotypical gender roles. Keep an eye out for Brendan Scannell (also in the Frameline 42 Centerpiece Episodic, Bonding) in the role of “effeminate man.” The performances will have you squirming in your seats, maybe even looking away from the screen. You may even be tempted to duck out for popcorn, but I encourage you, as Dr. Verdoon might say, to man up, push through it, and stay to the end. Highly recommended.
• IMDb • 

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“Kissing Walls”

Kissing Walls, episodes 1 & 2
WEST COAST PREMIERE

Unfortunately, this short was not available for advance screening, but friends said it wasn’t very good.

• official website •

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Share • WORLD PREMIERE

Tim Chau in “Share”

Tim Chau (Instagram: @3.1415926535897932384626433832) is a “social media influ­encer,” hired by a startup to help them and their clients with their Instagram presence. He’s gay, but hasn’t yet come out to his overtly homophobic family. He reaches the point where he feels that he has to come out to reconcile his public persona with his family identity, beginning with coming out on camera to a close cousin. Chau talks openly about hav­ing struggled with thoughts of suicide, leading him to have suicide hotline numbers and similar resources in his pinned post even though most of his Instagram feed is much more playful and cheerful. Very well done documentary about one person’s coming out struggle, highly rec­om­mended.
• IMDb •

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“You Look Good in Blue”

You Look Good in Blue • WORLD PREMIERE

Here’s a jumble of images. Somewhere underneath, maybe there’s a storyline. Good luck finding it. Also, in several places the sound was so muddy you couldn’t even make out the dialogue. Not recommended.
• IMDb •

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The Dare Project • WORLD PREMIERE

scene from the orig. 2005 short “dare”

[updated review]
Back in 2005, there was a short film called dare (Frameline 29), which now forms Part 1 of The Dare Project. The protago­nists are Johnny (Michael Cassidy, pictured left) and Ben (Adam Fleming, right), two high school students involved with the school play. They find them­selves in Johnny’s swimming pool, the talk starts getting a little steamy, and the question becomes how far will they dare to go? That short was fabulous, but the filmmaker decided to make an epilogue of sorts, catching up with Johnny and Ben as they round 30. They meet up, having not seen each other since high school, and find the sexual tension is still there, but with more than a decade of life experience informing how they respond. Part 1 is still as sexy as it was in 2005, and 2018 matches it, but the nuanced performances by both lead actors give it an emotional depth far beyond mere eye candy. Don’t you dare miss it! MUST SEE.

• IMDb: 2018 2005 •