Waste of time

Sorry, this movie sucks

Simply Perfect

From my favorite movies..

This falls right into line with every cheesy, over the top, Christmas romance I have ever seen- and I loved it. It was lighthearted and fun and I giggled snorted through most of it. Gunn is absolutely adorkable, and Nathan is just SO snarktastic. All kidding aside, there is a tremendous amount of love and affection in this movie, between the boys obviously, but also those around them. The cast of supporting players was interesting as well, lots of familiar faces. This wasn't made to be any sort of serious social commentary, folks, it's holiday fluff and if you take it as such you'll giggle too, and enjoy it.

I've been a fan of Adamo Ruggiero since his earliest Degrassi days and I really wanted to like this film. Unfortunately it was so poorly made that I can never recommend it to any of my friends. The film just couldn't seem to get out of it's own way.The parents and the neighbors were more caricatures than characters. In fact they would have had to have been toned down considerably to have been reasonable caricatures.The dialogue was good in spots but then seemed to immediately slip off the rails. The dialogue jokes were forced at best and often groan-worthy. If half of them had been removed, the story might have been able to carry them but as it was they were just too much. Just as there always seemed too be one syllable too much in the name Gununderson, the lines always seemed to go a bit too far.Actually, the main characters Olaf and Nathan were OK and both actors were adorable and able to make me care about their characters. However, the mother's character was just too far over the top and the father was beyond "beyond." (I've seen Derek Long in one of this director's earlier works and he was MUCH better in that) I'm not saying that the actors didn't do a great job with what they were given but this film could have really used at least one more script revision before it was shot. I've often railed about the lack of perspective that occurs when the writer is also the director and this film is just another example of that problem.Just one example should suffice but this does contain a spoiler so be forewarned: When Nathan returns to the Gununderson's house after claiming that he's going to fly home. The audience is concerned with what Olaf will think and do. Will he welcome Nathan back? Will he finally be honest with his parents? Instead we're given a meaningless joke about headless gingerbread men. The joke was entirely unnecessary, and then it isn't even executed correctly as Nathan lifts a normal gingerbread man from a plate that has just been shown to contain only headless ones.Overall I really wanted to like this movie and it wasn't as painful as a few gay films that I've been unable to sit through but it was clearly pushing that limit.

Being gay, I'm subjected to a lot of bad gay movies. It's solidarity; we know they're bad, but we watch them anyway, out of loyalty more than anything else. This is why I'm glad to report that Make the Yuletide Gay is, well, not bad. It's not great, but when I was going in expecting another cringe-worthy gay romantic "comedy", I got a pretty decent... gay romantic comedy. The writer needs a few lessons in subtlety, given the vast number of over-the-top stereotypes and often wince-inducing double entendre in the film, but the actors take the material and make it work pretty well. As a long-time fan of Degrassi: The Next Generation, I primarily was interested in Adamo Ruggiero's movie debut, and he acquits himself nicely. His character starts off as vain and somewhat obnoxious but becomes sympathetic as the film progresses, and when Ruggiero smiles that beautiful smile of his, I can't help but love him all the more. It's a fun little film, and if you can get past some of the writing, it's worth a watch.

I enjoyed this movie. . . I was not perfect, but it was fun. . . It didn't preach hard about coming out. . . It seemed that the problems were that there was no communication from any of them. . . It had touches from old screw ball movies of the 1940's. . .Misunderstandings. . .Confused identities . .Anya the mother could have played off of the Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers. . .I would love to see these characters in another movie. . .Perhaps, the lives of the two young lovers as a couple.