FAQS

FAQs may not be entirely realistic, but that's not its point. It is a beautiful, well-crafted, touchingly acted, inventively directed independent film about disenfranchised, abused young gay people who protect and care for each other after being victimized by violent familial and societal fallout from our current (7/2006) government-endorsed homophobic culture. It is warm, loving, moving, angry, sexy, politically accurate, honest, triumphant. Straight people may not get its message nor be able to process its images--as with most of Everett Lewis' films, so they may want to buy something more accessible like "Latter Days" or "Brokeback Mountain" (both wonderful films, but more mainstream).

a great little film. sometimes a film can be to realistic to becomfortable. it shows life can get better after a lot of hard thingshappen. you won't go wrong with this one

this movie is very low budget right away the begining isnt that bad then it starts to fall apart gay men hating gays on a sreet they try to beat up gays then at the end they admite they are gay what? there are some sex but the camera doest show all very sneaky

Newly arrived in West Hollywood from Colorado, homeless India (Joe Lia) first gets stiffed on his porn acting wages and then gets chased into a parking garage by two tire-iron-wielding rednecks. A drag queen porn director, Destiny (Allan Louis), shows up with a revolver to rescue India and confiscate for India the nice coat of one of the rednecks. Destiny allows India to move in under various conditions, including spending two daytime hours daily in the nude. Destiny already has a butch Lesbian, Lester (Minerva Vier), in the household. India has a chance to lead a more settled life.India isn't fully trusting and wants to go after the director who didn't pay him. India and Destiny work something out.India latches onto another homeless guy, Spencer (Lance Davis), who has an interest in blowing up his parents.India has become a convert to non-violence and the reclamation of the lost. So when India notices a name and address on the redneck's (Guy's, played by Adam Larson) commandeered coat, he decides to return the coat and possibly find a latent gay person, under the theory that bashers have sexual orientation issues. After some turmoil, the film moves to its conclusion.The skin and sex shots are generous and well photographed. All the younger male characters show something, and India shows all.The strengths of the movie are the performances of Joe Lia and Allan Jones, the cinematography and the editing. The title sequences (including the portion of the 2004 platform of the Texas Republican Party dealing with homosexuality) are done well too. Lia is convincing as a relatively naive character who makes the effort to do well in a hostile world. Jones maintains a dignified flamboyance while barely suppressing hostile rage against the straight world. These strengths keep up interest in the movie.There is a very good commentary by Producer/Director Everett Lewis and Joe Lia. The two also field questions at the 2005 Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.The script calls for the creation of friendships and bonding at a pace that would not happen in real life. For example, if you had attempted a bashing, been stopped and robbed of your coat at gunpoint, how would you act if later the bashee got out of a car, held out your coat, and said you could have it back? There are at least three cases of snap decisions to have someone as a roommate. How much disbelief must one suspend?Characters and actions feel forced to conform to the writer's program and do not flow naturally. For example, one character starts out as a homophobic bully, gets suicidal after a same-sex friend moves away, comes out to a domineering brother, chases after the departed friend in a homophobic despiration, and then changes again, lots of acting range on a forced march.There is scene after scene with pistols drawn or expressions of hostility to either the straight or gay worlds. The film does end up showing a path to a constructive, non-violent acceptance. India emerges into a higher state of being than his mentor, Destiny, who can't give up using fire or pistol shots to make points in a hostile world. The message is a gay kiss is like a bomb to the straight world. This is the key to the movie's redemption.

"If you want to blow your parents up I'll help you"The dialog in this movie is just hilarious!!! They must have been cracking up when they wrote the script to this movie. I know I was when I was watching it.

Everett Lewis' movie, "FAQS" (T.L.A. Releasing TLAD-155), is a story of a tough male drag queen with maternal instincts who gathers young men around her/him who require some nurture, in some cases who simply need to "come out" as gays, in other instances guys (or lesbians) who already are very decidedly gay and know it very well, but who need to develop better survival skills and defense mechanisms to live as gays in a hostile society. The film should have been better than it is. A too blatant urge to push the message of the film too relentlessly non-stop makes "FAQS" a matter of artifice, and low-cost chic, rather than of the kind of kinetic passion that transfigures most of Everett Lewis' other films, despite their meagre means of production, into major works of cinematic art. This one, "FAQS", just is too stiff; the delivery of the dialogue is too coaxed, the words poorly chosen, the actors insufficiently spontaneous-sounding in delivery. The cast, of men of various physical types, from quirkily boyish to ruggedly macho (and some types between), is appealing, visually, but without acting talents commensurate with their good looks.For most of his films, Everett Lewis has been a marvellous director and/or producer, but this one does not quite make the grade -- by his own standards. In most of Lewis' other, greater films the message emerges principally by means of more cunningly devised interplay of characterisation, plot, settings, and more nuanced gestural and verbal interchanges between players who in his earlier movies simply have been much better actors. In FAQS the "message", with its excessively heavy gay liberationist cargo, is so foremost all of the time that the drama and characterisations are subsidiary to the ideology, unlike the case of most of this director's more subtle and artistically satisfying films.Watching the DVD's bonus feature of moments from a questions and answers session that Everett Lewis and Joe Lia (who plays the lad who in the film calls himself India) held with a festival audience, as well as replaying the film with the director's running commentary feature on, one sees how intensely Lewis felt and philosophically thought through every moment of "FAQS". Apparently, though, such a burning sense of commitment to what he was seeking to achieve sacrificed the kind of "critical distance" which is so essential to an artist to produce front-rank and esthetically satisfying work. Perhaps Lewis simply failed to exercise the detachment necessary to have a more objective perspective of what he really was accomplishing, as opposed to what he was hoping to achieve.This motion picture definitely is worth seeing and owning, to view it again at least occasionally, as are all of Lewis' other films worth more frequent multiple viewings, but the director's other movies -- really, any of them -- are better starting points (especially "The Pretty Boys" and "Luster") to discover what this director has to offer at either his more typical (if such a quotient can be said to exist in such a varied output!) or at his very best.

Everett Lewis' movie, "FAQS" (T.L.A. Releasing TLAD-155), is a story of a tough male drag queen with maternal instincts who gathers young men around her/him who require some nurture, in some cases who simply need to "come out" as gays, in other instances guys (or lesbians) who already are very decidedly gay and know it very well, but who need to develop better survival skills and defense mechanisms to live as gays in a hostile society. The film should have been better than it is. A too blatant urge to push the message of the film too relentlessly non-stop makes "FAQS" a matter of artifice, and low-cost chic, rather than of the kind of kinetic passion that transfigures most of Everett Lewis' other films, despite their meagre means of production, into major works of cinematic art. This one, "FAQS", just is too stiff; the delivery of the dialogue is too coaxed, the words poorly chosen, the actors insufficiently spontaneous-sounding in delivery. The cast, of men of various physical types, from quirkily boyish to ruggedly macho (and some types between), is appealing, visually, but without acting talents commensurate with their good looks.For most of his films Everett Lewis has been a marvellous director and/or producer, but this one does not quite make the grade -- by his own standards. In most of Lewis' other, greater films the message emerges principally by means of more cunningly devised interplay of characterisation, plot, settings, and more nuanced gestural and verbal interchanges between players who in his earlier movies simply have been much better actors. In FAQS the "message", with its excessively heavy gay liberationist cargo, is so foremost all of the time that the drama and characterisations are subsidiary to the ideology, unlike the case of most of this director's more subtle and artistically satisfying films.Watching the DVD's bonus feature of moments from a questions and answers session that Everett Lewis and Joe Lia (who plays the lad who in the film calls himself India) held with a festival audience, as well as replaying the film with the director's running commentary feature on, one sees how intensely Lewis felt and philosophically thought through every moment of "FAQS". Apparently, though, such a burning sense of commitment to what he was seeking to achieve sacrificed the kind of "critical distance" which is so essential to an artist to produce front-rank and esthetically satisfying work. Perhaps Lewis simply failed to exercise the detachment necessary to have a more objective perspective of what he really was accomplishing, as opposed to what he was hoping to achieve.This motion picture definitely is worth seeing and owning, to view it again at least occasionally, as are all of Lewis' other films worth more frequent multiple viewings, but the director's other movies -- really, any of them -- are better starting points (especially "The Pretty Boys" and "Luster") to discover what this director has to offer at either his more typical (if such a quotient can be said to exist in such a varied output!) or at his very best.

Funny and also sad. A drag queen looking out for her gay family. Worth watching and asking if the gay "community" could be more of a community.

Being gay has the potential to bind people together in a way which straights cannot really understand. Perhaps it's like being Jewish. The boys in this film are both attractive at a physical level, but as importantly at an emotional level. We may not be them, but we can at least empathise with them.

a really great film