Thanks for the memories!

Fantastic!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Here's a movie full of clichés and terrible performances from literally everybody. A poor collage of insulting stereotypes and unidimensional characters. The cast, direction and script carry the depth, sensibility and sophistication of a C-grade soap opera. So boring and predictable that it is hard to get to the end.Don't waste your time; there are lots of really worth to watch gay movies out there. This is definitely not one of them.CONS: * Uninspired script, full of clichés and stereotypes;* Shallow, unidimensional, unlikable characters;* Tacky dialogues and unconvincing situations;* Really horrible acting from the whole cast. This is so blatant that everybody cry without dropping a tear;* Tasteless direction;* Terribly boring and predictable.PROS: * Still trying to find one.

Some believe in coincidences and some believe in miracles. No matter what some may say, love is never an accident, never a coincidence. Love is always a miracle and it takes years at times for some of these miracles to work out. This film is about such a miracle, what's more in the capital city of miracles, Los Angeles.On one side a young man who has always been gay and does not have any doubts about it. He is working in a restaurant as a waiter and trying to enjoy life, just enjoy it.One day a young Mormon missionary comes across the street with three of his acolytes. This young man is a greenhorn and as such does not know much about the world and even about the doctrine he is predicating and preaching. He repeats what the other elder associated to him says without understanding he is in many ways ruthlessly bruising the feelings of others. Bruising the feelings of women who are not accepted as equal in the church. Bruising the feelings of the Blacks who are not accepted as equal in the church. Bruising the feelings of the gays who are purely rejected as an abomination, excommunicated and severed from all social links within the reach of the church, not to speak of the shock treatment imposed onto that last category of sinners, because it is a sin to be woman, to be Black or to be gay, and to be gay is the most horrible and the most worst of them all.The point is that this young Mormon, Aaron Davis, is falling in love and one night a kiss will be exchanged and the culprit will be found out by his three other acolytes, right in the act with the devil. And that's the drama. Aaron is packed and sent back home in shame. But Christian Markelli follows and catches up at the airport of Salt Lake City and the two will discover what love is for a good number of hours in the Airport Inn. But Aaron will run away in the wee hours of the morning.Then the road is going down for both of them.Excommunication and then suicide attempt on one hand. Finding the telephone number, calling up and being rejected, flying over again to give the watch Aaron had left behind back to Aaron. And then a dead end, a tremendous dead end. Life is no longer funny at all.Aaron seems to be the one who has the good sense that most human beings should have. When something does not work stop it, when some place rejects you go away, when something brings displeasure and no pleasure forget it, when something is pure pleasure and joy run for it.That's how love can survive and constantly rebound in a life where there are more obstacles than coincidences, but luckily for love there are miracles, not the divine type but the simple human kind: a decision one human being takes one day to do what they want most and what they like most. And that is natural, though not as frequent as you may think, in the City of Angels.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I stumbled upon this film just a couple of days ago and it's stayed with me ever since. I've already watched it twice.One thing I like VERY much about "Latter Days" is that it has a happy ending. So many gay-themed films, even when revolving around romance, end in death or disillusionment. It's refreshing to witness a portrayal of a gay couple who, despite a great deal of conflict and major obstacles, find true love and a future together. It DOES happen in real life and, to that end, the film is as "realistic" as any tragedy.Many of the actors deserve mention: Wes Ramsey as Christian, the gay party boy, is excellent. Jacqueline Bissett, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mary Kay Place and Erik Palladino bring something special to their smaller roles. But it is Steve Sandvoss who knocks it out of the park as Elder Aaron Davis, the sweet, shy Mormon missionary who comes to terms with his homosexuality amid the confines of the LDS beliefs.The film is clichéd, no question, but no more so than many romantic movies. If your taste veers toward complete realism, this isn't the film for you. "Latter Days" is basically a drama, but it does contain its share of comedic moments. I myself am not, nor ever have been, a member of the Mormon church, but I have spent a good deal of time around it and have had a number of LDS friends. While I have a certain amount of genuine respect for the church, I would be lying if I said that the portrayals of the Mormon missionaries and families in this film do not ring true.There are a few unbelievable moments, to be sure. As an example, when Christian confronts Elder Ryder about Aaron's whereabouts, Ryder gives in and tells Christian about Aaron's five-hour layover in Salt Lake City. In reality, no missionary with such a lack of sympathy toward "fags" would suddenly soften enough to give out this information."Latter Days" may not be one of the great films of all time, but it brings to light the complex problems that can exist between organized religion, families and homosexuality, with pathos and sensitivity, along with a tug at the heartstrings. For that, it is more than commendable.

Gay romances are rare. Fortunately, that is changing, but slowly. Good gay romances are even rarer; MAKING LOVE (1982) was a good gay romance, but a certain blandness in the script made it fall short of greatness.Great gay romances are virtually impossible to find; Hollywood, even in this day and age, is not shelling out the big bucks for love stories between members of the same sex. So it has been left to the independents to tell the stories of our lives, and LATTER DAYS is a triumphant example of making great art on a shoestring budget.Filmed in just 24 days on a budget of about $850,000.00, LATTER DAYS does not even qualify as a "small" picture in Hollywood parlance, with the average movie budget in Hollywood in the tens of millions. But what they produced with that relatively small amount of money is a gem of a romance in which the lovers just happen to be two men.It must be conceded that there are quite a few clichés floating around here. The story of opposites attracting is as old as time, and the two leads couldn't be more opposite. Christian Markelli (Wes Ramsey) is your basic West Hollywood party boy, who divides his time between working as a waiter at an upscale restaurant called Lila's (a radiant Jacqueline Bisset) and in his free time, getting laid as often as he can, and by as many men. He isn't stupid enough to be unsafe, but he is most definitely a player when we first see him.Enter Elder Aaron Davis of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Steve Sandvoss), and three other young men, doing their required two years of "mission," which consists mostly of knocking on doors and getting rebuffed not just daily, but several times a day. The four move into an apartment in Christian's building and go about their business. Christian takes note of the new arrivals, and something about Aaron makes his gaydar ping.In a typical player move, Christian maneuvers his roommate, an aspiring musician named Julie Taylor (Rebekah Jordan), as well as the rest of the wait staff at Lila's, into a fifty-dollar bet that he can get Aaron Davis into bed within a week.Meanwhile, the young Mormons are not having much fun. They knock on one door and are horrified to find themselves confronted with a gay couple. And in a charming side scene, Aaron stops to comfort Lila, who he sees weeping at a grave in the cemetery.It is a lonely life, and perhaps that makes Aaron susceptible, so when Christian puts the moves on him, he hesitates, but his loneliness has made him vulnerable, so it does not take much effort for Christian to get close to him.Then the unthinkable happens. Alone in the Mormons' apartment, Christian and Aaron kiss, and are discovered by the rest of the mission team. Aaron is immediately sent home "in shame." Christian, who has come to realize that he has fallen in love with Aaron, follows him as far as the airport in Salt Lake City, which gets shut down due to a snowstorm, and the two young men give in to the inevitable and spend the night in a hotel.Aaron's treatment at the hands of his family and his church once he gets home is not pretty. At one point, he says desperately to his angry mother (Mary Kay Place, great as usual), "What if it's not something I did; what if it's who I am?" Her response is a hard slap across the face; she then informs Aaron about the fifty-dollar bet.I won't go any further. Suffice it to say that the two young men change each other in more ways than anyone could expect, and in the end, love does win out. (In this kind of movie it almost has to.) There is also a scathing indictment in here of the LDS Church, in which writer/director C Jay Cox was raised. He knows the milieu, and he pulls no punches.All in all a remarkable achievement for a low-budget independent film; the cast is splendid, the script is wonderful not in spite of, but BECAUSE of all the love-story clichés, and Cox's direction is sure-footed.And if you don't shed tears when you watch this one, check your pulse.