"Eating Out" is a movie I less want to review than reject. I have seen YouTube skits more professionally made than this. It's the kind of movie where you stop bothering to follow the inane and confusing plot and instead just begin ticking off every mistake the filmmakers made.
Where to begin with those mistakes? The movie has near-constant muzak on its soundtrack, often distracting, always migraine inducing. It is also too loud and shows up how badly recorded the dialogue is. The camera also often feels too far away from the actors, the editing is slapdash such that you're often waiting for cuts that don't happen. Shots go on too long, making you expect to see the actors looking at each other, confused. In fact, the acting is about the only thing this movie has going for it.
Even the movie's opening credit sequence is discouraging. The cast and crew's names appear with an effect that looks like a PowerPoint presentation from 1997.
The plot is something to do with straight guys pretending to be gay to get girls, and gay guys pretending to be straight to get straight guys. There are actually some issues that could have been raised and questions that could have been asked about the role of sexual orientation in modern sexual relationships with this premise, but "Eating Out" doesn't go there. It just uses it to confuse you, and you stop paying attention and go back to noticing everything else the movie is doing wrong.
I will say that the movie does have (only) one scene that works. One guy has phone sex with Gwen, the movie's other token female (next to Tiffany von der Sloot) while he is making out with another guy. This was actually kind of sexy.
Let's not forget that this is also an LGBT-themed movie, and yet it is by turns homophobic and misogynistic. That is perhaps its biggest problem, or at least the most unforgivable thing about it. Like its sequels, the movie only really has two female characters. One, a Tiffany von der Sloot, played by Rebekah Kochan, is only in this movie (and all of its sequels) to be mocked for her sexuality. "Sloot", get it? The other, Gwen Anderson (Emily Stiles) was also basically a female stereotype in the second movie (a girl next door, gay guys' best friend type), but here her character is very different. She's a really nasty piece of work in this movie, spewing constant homophobia. I have to wonder why they made her like that. Are we supposed to like her? She is horrible. She even refers to herself with a particular word for the female anatomy, you know, that word which is supposed to be the worst thing you can call someone. Is that the famous LGBT alliance with feminism?
I am at a loss to explain two things about this movie. One, it was successful enough to spawn four sequels, and two, it was made by and for gay men. People must be really desperate for gay-themed sex comedies. But with so much of high culture having come from by gay men, ie. The Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, Wittgenstein, Tchaikovsky, Nureyev... how did something this tasteless and terrible get released under the LGBT banner?
It's a gay-themed, supposedly pro-feminist movie that ends up being genuinely offensive to both women and gays.
Where to begin with those mistakes? The movie has near-constant muzak on its soundtrack, often distracting, always migraine inducing. It is also too loud and shows up how badly recorded the dialogue is. The camera also often feels too far away from the actors, the editing is slapdash such that you're often waiting for cuts that don't happen. Shots go on too long, making you expect to see the actors looking at each other, confused. In fact, the acting is about the only thing this movie has going for it.
Even the movie's opening credit sequence is discouraging. The cast and crew's names appear with an effect that looks like a PowerPoint presentation from 1997.
The plot is something to do with straight guys pretending to be gay to get girls, and gay guys pretending to be straight to get straight guys. There are actually some issues that could have been raised and questions that could have been asked about the role of sexual orientation in modern sexual relationships with this premise, but "Eating Out" doesn't go there. It just uses it to confuse you, and you stop paying attention and go back to noticing everything else the movie is doing wrong.
I will say that the movie does have (only) one scene that works. One guy has phone sex with Gwen, the movie's other token female (next to Tiffany von der Sloot) while he is making out with another guy. This was actually kind of sexy.
Let's not forget that this is also an LGBT-themed movie, and yet it is by turns homophobic and misogynistic. That is perhaps its biggest problem, or at least the most unforgivable thing about it. Like its sequels, the movie only really has two female characters. One, a Tiffany von der Sloot, played by Rebekah Kochan, is only in this movie (and all of its sequels) to be mocked for her sexuality. "Sloot", get it? The other, Gwen Anderson (Emily Stiles) was also basically a female stereotype in the second movie (a girl next door, gay guys' best friend type), but here her character is very different. She's a really nasty piece of work in this movie, spewing constant homophobia. I have to wonder why they made her like that. Are we supposed to like her? She is horrible. She even refers to herself with a particular word for the female anatomy, you know, that word which is supposed to be the worst thing you can call someone. Is that the famous LGBT alliance with feminism?
I am at a loss to explain two things about this movie. One, it was successful enough to spawn four sequels, and two, it was made by and for gay men. People must be really desperate for gay-themed sex comedies. But with so much of high culture having come from by gay men, ie. The Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, Wittgenstein, Tchaikovsky, Nureyev... how did something this tasteless and terrible get released under the LGBT banner?
It's a gay-themed, supposedly pro-feminist movie that ends up being genuinely offensive to both women and gays.