The Big Gay Musical (2009)

Excellent, a Must See

Best movie of this year hands down!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Although ultimately well intentioned, the film depicts a rather depressing image of what it means to be gay. If the film is to be believed, being gay means a life filled with religious-based bigotry, disease, a de-humanizing dating scene, low self-esteem, rejection from family and obsession with the body.As a gay man living in a big city and working in the theatre, I can tell you that there's more to gay life than that. There are gay people in happy long-term monogamous relationships. Most gay people I know are involved with community activism and have rich, rewarding lives.I belong to a gay Christian church, and I know that God loves everyone and that anti-gay bigotry is not consistent with Christ's ministry.As a film, "The Big Gay Musical" is passable entertainment. The acting, writing, directing and music are average.

I will be generous with this film because it is a light confection that sparkles, if you watch it with a bottle off wine at hand. Angel Dorothy's big number is very well done, but Steve Hayes as God is a little underused (he was great in 'Trick') and finally, the 'I wanna be a slut' song should have been a little more salty and prominent. However, if I did have cause to buy DVD's for a troubled teen, I would certainly get this and 'Rock Haven' as both are indeed quite family friendly and unpretentious and handle the issues of 'coming out' and 'faith' in a fairly sensitive manner. I did enjoy it, and yes "As I am" is very well sung at the end.It is a shame to say but too many people will be too jaded to appreciate this kind of movie. The age of the big musical is gone, perhaps for good, but the cast is entertaining and more than competent and I think this is well worth a viewing.

This is a story behind the making of a gay musical called "Adam and Steve: Just the Way God Made Them". It follows the backstage lives of Adam/Paul (Daniel Robinson) and Steve/Eddie (Joey Dudding). Paul wants love and commitment but seems to only find guys who want meaningless sex. Eddie is gay and still a virgin and hasn't told his parents he's gay--but they want to see him in his first big role. Throughout the film we see songs and numbers from the musical itself.OK--this technically doesn't deserve 10 stars. The acting isn't that good, some of the actors REALLY overdo the gay stereotypes and a lot of the back stories are woefully underdeveloped (especially the one with Eddie and his parents). However all the songs are good, everybody can sing and even the dancing is GREAT (the tap dancing angels were just incredible). Also the leads are attractive (especially Robinson who's all pumped up), the chorus boys are all good-looking and muscular and there's some REALLY hot guy on guy sex here (nothing hardcore though). Also gay porn star Brent Corrigan pops up (and is very good) as a hustler and Michael Schiffman is incredibly charming as Charles. Also there are happy endings all around. AND the movie is unapologetically gay and goes after the Catholic Church, the Bible and homophobes but in a kind manner. A very gay, very sexy and just great gay musical. I give this a 10!

So, I've noticed that some people try to put this movie-musical down and I really can't understand. I consider myself very knowledgeable of musical theatre (with my embarrassingly large collection of over 200 different cast albums) and this is certainly not bad! It's on par with something like Reefer Madness.The songs are campy. They were meant to be. They do pay homage, and parody existing theatre pieces, and they do it well. The singers are good, if over processed which bothered me. But if you wanted big production numbers, my question is, "why?" They're in a tiny off- Broadway theatre. Of course the songs are smaller numbers. If the "show" made it to Broadway for real, the songs would be re-orchestrated, and changed to make them huge. The acting is spot on. The characters that are supposed to be shallow are just that! And though some people would say that this paints a bad picture of gays, well... gays in the theatre are very often incredibly shallow. But there is depth of character in the important roles. And the actors are very honest in their approach. It's quite nice. Of course, they all play a bit over the top when they're 'on stage'. And let's be honest, they're acting in an off-Broadway show, so they would so be over the top.Overall, this was incredibly entertaining. I laughed, and even got emotional at the end when the Tammi Faye character sang one hell of a show stopping number. I am going to make all my friends watch this! And if I could get this on Broadway, I would!!!