The Worst Film Ever

A Masterpiece!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is a 2002 film written & directed by Brad Fraser. It is based on his play POOR SUPER MAN.This is only his second screenplay, his first was the equally excellent LOVE AND HUMAN REMAINS.There are only 5 characters in the film.We have a supposedly straight young couple,who own a small diner, a successful gay artist, who takes a part time job as a waiter in this diner,his best friend who used to be a guy,& another friend,who also was born a guy, his story is not a very happy one.Yes we do have both type sex scenes, & they are exceptionally very well handled.Brad Fraser writes with great charm & wit,he has created wonderful, complex people,we may disagree with some thoughts BUT we care for each one. There are enough light humorous scenes in the first hour,so we can accept the sadness towards the ending.The reference to Superman is part of the authors wit.The actors are from Canadien & American TV. they are Troy Ruptash, Vince Corazz, Lynda Boyd, Charlee Taylor & Thom Allison.I hope all 5 become real big stars.The movie was filmed in Winnipeg,Alberta,Canada.The only release it got was in various film festivalsIt did win the Grande Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2002.It should have had more honours, it is that good a movie.Rent this & see it, I am sure you all will like it.Ratings; **** (out of 4) 97 points (out of 100) IMDb 10 (out of 10)

Warning: Some Spoilers The strange thing about this film is that despite its weaknesses, it still works. It generally keeps your interest to the end, even though there were obviously scenes that didn't make the cut that probably should have, at least to make certain things a little clearer. The main character, the painter, wasn't really charismatic enough - you don't really see the relationship between him and his boss developing. The are both suddenly "in love" with almost no sense of tension, subtext or reason. All the other people in the film were quite adequate. The fag-hag best friend is one of the most realistic alcoholics I've seen in film. Without staggering or slurring her words, she gives you a definite sense that she is seeing everything through a glass darkly. The transsexual for once makes you really think of her as a woman, without exaggerating anything. The first time we see her without one of her wigs on is truly a shock. The wife-victim is perhaps the least finely drawn of the characters, and her initial reaction to the situation is not quite as believable as it should be... but somehow she still makes us care about her hurt.I think the best thing about this film is the cinematography. The interior shots were created with a colour-scheme which would have been worthy of an Almodovar film. I think that one of the things that really makes this film (sort of) work is that visually we are rarely asked to look at something unappealing. All of the naked bodies (male or female) are wonderful to look at, and they are shown often enough to basically seduce us into caring more than we probably should have. I get the feeling that the film could have worked better if they had added only two or three more scenes which would have allowed for some more character motivation and development. Some people may not like the fact that (one more time) there is a gay in the film that dies of AIDS... but that has been one of the realities of gay life for the last 20 years, and I see no reason to necessarily avoid it. All in all, not a great film, but an interesting one that at least makes us care about some if not all of the characters. An A for effort, a B for results.

This Canadian effort is accomplished playwright Brad Fraser's film adaptation of his stage play POOR SUPERMAN, in which a celebrated but frustrated artist rediscovers his muse, in the form of a supposedly straight man who's running a downtown diner with his wife. It takes no stretch of the imagination to guess what the basic plot is.From the beginning, lawyers for Warner Bros. and Marvel Comics had threatened suit if the Superman imagery from the play were used in the film. The play was written at the height of public awareness of the AIDS epidemic in North America (ca. 1993), and was replete with metaphor carried by the very imagery lacking in the film adaptation. Just as the protagonist is seemingly the last of his race (gay men not yet victimized by AIDS), Superman was the last survivor of his Kryptonian race. Gay people were in the closet as Superman was masquerading as Clark Kent. So, the film was bound to have major problems once it was cleansed of much of this context. Fraser seems to have compensated for his loss by increasing the gymbot quotient; indeed, the male flesh watchers in the audience were treated to a parade of pecs, abs, and asses. Fraser, who answered questions for the audience after the film, insisting he was working on the principle for "equal opportunity sex scenes," ended up showing much more explicit straight lovemaking scenes. Coming in at a short 89 minutes, this film had me walking away remembering most these scenes with the wife's extra perky breasts. LEAVING METROPOLIS's dialog started out very stilted and the characterizations seemed too heavy handed when translated to film, but as the plot wore on, the uneven acting brought occasional glimpses of brilliance. Troy Ruptash as David the gay artist (in the past, seen on TV in episodes of ER, JAG, THE WEST WING, and BOSTON PUBLIC) put on an occasionally emotionally believing performance. But it is Canadian actor Vince Corazza, a young but veteran TV movie actor, who shone with a great job as the tormented married guy, Matt. Newcomer Thom Allison as David's transgendered, AIDS-inflicted best friend Shannon only endeared with the queeny quips, and fell short trying to bring out the gravity of her situation. David's boozy mentor, Kryla (Lynda Boyd), and Matt's wife, Violet (Cherilee Taylor), weren't given much more than base characterizations to work with. In the end, we don't care much why David didn't seem to think too much about the implications of his helping to break up a marriage, because we don't see much of what Fraser is trying to say about David himself.

This film is basically a gay love triangle. David is a famous painter with "painter's block." He has a live-in, HIV-positive, pre-op transsexual black live-in friend, Shannon. He has a famous-newspaper-columnist fag-hag friend, Kryla. To get his muse back, David decides to become a waiter again. He ends up waiting tables at a small diner owned by Matt and Violet, a married couple (recently married? it's not clear). David is immediately attracted to Matt. Soon, as David encourages Matt's secret talent for drawing comic-book characters and boosting Matt's self-esteem, Matt begins to fall for David. David then paints a series of erotic images of Matt. The film ends predictably enough: Lots of tragedy (divorce, death, friends falling out, etc.) but also a "hopeful ending" (everyone starts over anew). Vincent Corazza as Matt is perhaps the best thing about this film. His physical presence (someone ice me down!) is almost charismatic. But his acting skills are exceedingly strong. He acts with his body, his face, and his voice and makes Matt's confusion about his love for Violet and David believable and moving. Cherilee Taylor as Violet is less effective, although this is probably due to the lack of character development the script gives her to work with. The most telling moment in the film is when she tells a reporter that she collects "wedding couple" dolls. While this has obvious implications and meaning for her character, this is hardly what one would consider "deep characterization." Most of the time, Violet is simply supposed to look dumbly confused by Matt's refusal to spend time with her (while he's off doing the nasty with David). Taylor's effectiveness as an actress comes out best in her final scene, as she confronts her ex-husband outside the art gallery where David's paintings of Matt are shown. The anguish, honesty and intensity of her skills are on display best here. Troy Ruptash as David and Lynda Boyd as Kryla are the film's weakest links. Ruptash is simply unconvincing as the steely-hearted David (the man so traumatized by the deaths of his many friends to AIDS that he cannot love). He fails to carry off the campy/bitchy/queenie comments his character is given, and his confidence in every scene makes it difficult to believe the character is really blocked or that the character is suffering an emotional tempest beneath the locked-down surface. Boyd's biggest problem is that she is given not much more than a caricature to work with -- the tough-as-nails newspaper columnist who can't find love. Kim Cattrall on "Sex and the City" does this a hundred times better. Perhaps the biggest problem with "Leaving Metropolis" is the script and editing. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural, the scenes are truncated and missing sections (due to sloppy editing or bad writing is hard to tell), there is much exposition and characterization missing, and time seems to pass without any visual or verbal clues being given until it's too late. The film's conclusion -- especially the scenes with David in the bath house, Shannon's death-scene, and David pouring Shannon's ashes over the streets of Winnipeg -- seem pointless and serve to drag down the film's momentum. The final scenes themselves (Violet carrying on at the diner, David packing up to move and reconciling with Kryla, Matt at the train station) seem maudlin and uninspired....even trite. The film's editing seems clumsy and clunky. There is little style or point to the cuts that are made. Even simple editing choices like "jump cut or match-on-action" seem to occur randomly rather than with purpose. (True, copyright problems forced director-writer Fraser to cut out most references to Superman, the film's primary cultural reference and main metaphor. This creates blatant holes in the film, which are not present in the stage version, "Poor Superman.") None of this is to suggest that "Leaving Metropolis" is a bad film. In fact, for all its faults, the film still works. There is a certain fascination with Matt's internal debate over his own sexuality, his love for Violet and David, and whether to tell Violet about his affair. Kryla's initial complaints (that David is simply a homewrecker) seem just bitchy at first, but take on a poignancy and morality that is shocking (and surprising, perhaps, to gay audiences that might not prize marriage or monogamy) by the film's end. The plot works itself out fairly predictably, which is unfortunate given the complex issues it presents. Two final notes: First, the soundtrack is goofily "WB" -- too much guitar-driven lesbian-rock or oddly-chosen hard-rock (a la the old Canadian band, Rush). Second, there is a fair amount of nudity -- both male and female, heterosexual and homosexual. The film actually could have done without it, but to my mind it's a nice plus given Corazza's fantastic body.