thisnthatwithatwist

One Man’s Trash… 

            Trash movies, we all know them.  They are the movies we love but don’t always admit to watching, at least not to everyone.  They are the movies that we have somewhere on a DVD shelf but still manage to watch every time they are on. People can go on constantly about how bad they are, how the way they were shot is a mess, and that the acting is over the top but it doesn’t affect our love for them, or perhaps it is the exact reason we love them.  Like a good friend you’ve known for years, trash movies are flawed, perhaps not pretty, but they are always there to make you smile when you need to most.         

    For me, one of these movies is The Most Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Greene.  Based on a comic strip with a cult following of mostly gay men, it is the story of Ethan Greene as he struggles with love and friendship and crossing the line between the two. Having never seen or heard of the comic or the movie, I picked it up in a blockbuster one day mostly because it had a plethora of cute men on the cover and the movie I was looking for was out.          

     In the film, Greene’s ex-boyfriend Leo is selling his house that Greene still resides in, and announces he is going to marry a log cabin Republican named Chester Bear.  This sparks Greene to dump his current love interest, an ex-baseball player who recently came out of the closet, because he wants what Leo and Chester have. He bounces around on this topic for a while, dating a party boy, think Paris Hilton but male, but it’s obvious from two minutes into the film that Leo is who he really wants.  Along with the transparent plot, other harsh criticism I’ve heard is that the movie plays on cheap laughs, is at times unrealistic, and was shot in two weeks and that you can tell.  

           I’ll admit that, as far as continuity goes, this is a very poorly edited film. At one point Ethan picks up a Starbucks and a second later he’s walking with a Dunkin Donuts coffee, another time he’s in a book store and you can tell the film’s been reversed because a sign in the window has hello spelled backwards.  However, if you’re not Scorsese, stop paying such attention to the detail and enjoy the movie.   And no the movie isn’t all “realistic,” when Ethan talks to the TV it talks back and when he plays Dreamdate, Reichen Lemkul of the Amazing Race shows up at his door. Those things don’t happen but its fun to imagine.   

         As for the cheap laughs, that’s the fun of it. There are two men who always dress with big woman’s hats on and moo-moos, but still maintain their mustaches. They in no way resemble women but Chester insists the must be female because they are dressed in female attire.  I don’t know why I laugh when Leo and two men are found locked in a bathroom, the men only visible from the necks up there is a, bubble maker and Leo says, “I was just watching.” I don’t even understand what the bubbles have to do with it, but I laughed so hard I need to run to the bathroom.  Another time, in a nod perhaps to The Sound of Music and Gone with the Wind, someone is seen wearing a shower curtain.   

           The only criticism I’ve heard that I’d consider a valid reason not to watch is that, when compared to the comic strip, it doesn’t compare to the constant hilarity and fantasy that made it so much fun to read. However as I have never seen the comic, that hasn’t affected me. I know this movie isn’t great art or a classic, but when it’s over I always feel happy and full of life which is something Casablanca- as much as I adore it- just doesn’t do.                                                     

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