Welcome to Steve’s LGBT
DVD & Film Review page!

Who Am I?
Well hello there, and welcome to my corner. Your probably wondering, who is this “Steve” who has suddenly popped up from the middle of nowhere? I thought I’d make my first post to answer that very question! So as you can already establish for yourselves, My name is Steve. I’m 20 years old, and live in Milton Keynes. I work in IT, and have spent the past year being very gay, as this September marks one year of being “Out”.

In my day to day life I work for a company supporting SQL systems and an application distributed by the company I work for, based on SQL. When I’m not working I spend allot of time with my mum, or my best mates James and Alan. I would love to say I spend every weekend out and about, but with rent and bills, that becomes almost impossible!

I’m 21 this month (yay) and looking forward to starting a fresh year, with plenty of desirable outcomes, such as paying a contribution to the local scene and helping to provide Milton Keynes with a greater atmosphere for the LGBT community.

And I guess that answers the final part of my introduction profile as to why I’m here. I’m a fanatic when it comes to the screen (some call it laziness, I’m still trying to think of an excuse…. suggestions??) but even more so when it comes to gay themed movies. The past 12 months has been fantastic for that, with the likes of Shelter & Socket making a buzz to the scene already. So with the current situation and strength of gay dramas, I think it’s just about time Milton Keynes had its own critical eye for the wide screen. My first review is of the recently released to DVD “Socket”, which I will be hammering away at in about five minutes time!

Well there’s loooooads I wanted to put in my introductory blog, but I’ve gotten this far and forgotten it all! There’s a film I plan on reviewing in the near future; quite an old one, so I’ll prepare you for that now, but I think it’s a film people in the scene should be aware of for its pure genius and complexity into the different aspects of the scene.

Well that’s about it. I think I’ve covered all areas for now, so enjoy the blog as over time, more and more movies are added for your reading pleasure.

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Socket (2007)
Where to begin? Well I saw this movie advertised pre-release, and I was intrigued about what it was all about. It’s a film that stood out from the rest for its unique genre bending concept, but just how well did it play the part?

Well to start off with, we meet Bill, a fully trained medical professional, as he arrives at the hospital - but hang on, he’s critically injured and being rushed through the hospital for urgent medical treatment.

The film kicks straight in at this point, and later on having met several characters who play lower key roles at the right tone, and establishing the reason for bills admission being due to a freak lightning accident, we meet a doctor in training, Craig. He spends a few minutes talking to Bill about the experience he has recently had, before talking bill through his own experiences which had lead him to become unsure of a missing part of his life.

So Bill’s in bed, strapped in hooked up to a handful of medical devices, and credit to the sexy Derek Long who portrays Bill as a lovable yet cocky arrogant bum throughout the entire film, doesn’t really think much to Craig’s approach, and initially dismisses it.

We then however begin to see Bill throughout recovery, and come to realise that Craig knew more than what we initially believed. Only then does Bill decide to contact Craig, a decision which ultimately changes his life!

OK, so what did I think of the movie? Well the acting was almost on top notch. Having seen Matthew Montgomery’s (Craig) role in Back Soon, I was already confident that he would be able to live up to his role, however despite the very good looks, I wasn’t always convinced by Derek Long’s role. There were certain scenes, particularly near the end, which seemed to be so over-played on. There is also a cringing scene where he portrays his “first experience” which I think was supposed to be like a first time high, but I wasn’t feeling it. All I felt was a full grown man acting like a plonker, pretending to be ecstatic, when he really wasn’t.

But that said, Bill looked like a hard role to play, with an ever changing twist of emotion and personality for all the right reasons.

Dis-regarding my opinion on the quality of acting, the film/story was incredibly edgy, and kept me gripped throughout. I felt an attachment to the main characters throughout, and this only persuaded me to become accustomed to which direction I wanted the character to take at any given crossroad. And then we reach the end of the movie, and this to me was worth giving the film low marks altogether, despite my enjoyment of the film as a whole.

The film left me cringing at the end. It left the film without really having an ending. The end had just started, and then the film came to a halt. Gone. Finished. Sometimes a film can get away with that, by leaving the viewer to decide what happens next down to their own imagination. In socket, that didn’t work. Socket was meant to have an ending. This disappointed me incredibly, as the whole film was all about leading up to a climax, yet the climax just seemed to be cut off at the end.

So to summarise; It wasn’t a wholly intelligent movie which required that you watch it twice to understand it, neither did provide controversy for a two sided argument, but lived up to the hype in its invention of a genre. Ok, so before now we had hell-bent - a gay take on the whole teen horror flick, but socket wasn’t a teen horror. I wouldn’t even call it a horror, but a drama/thriller.

I’d certainly like to see more of this, and I’m anticipating the next release from Sean Abley, due for a release later this year (once again staring Matthew Montgomery). Abley seems to have always prepared for Socket in some way or another, particularly when taking The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Horror as an example, but I think time has bought maturity with this one, making Socket a well worth watch. My only warning is not to get too hooked on direction, as the end will disappoint if you do.

I give Socket 8 out of 10. It was almost perfect. The story was great, I felt like I was part of the cast in that I had grown an attachment to the characters. The plot was spot on, and Matthew Montgomery remained one of my favourite actors in the scene, after watching the film. I would like to see the trick of time work on Derek Long, as I think he has a lot of potential. I will happily give my critics eye to more of his work as he progresses to further things (I’m really looking forward to his next appearance, in “3-Day Weekend”).

x Steve

Links:
   Socket on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/socketthemovie
   Socket on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0822856/
   Socket on Wikepedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_(film)

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(Please note that the views and opinions of this writer
are not necessarily those of Q:alliance)