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Gross 'Gay Movie' is just jumbled 'Pie'

Writer -director Todd Stephens's ``Another Gay Movie" concerns the sexual misadventures of four fresh-faced teenagers dead set on losing their virginity before going to college. Toilet humor abounds as the friends -- Gay Jock, Gay Nerd, Gay Sensitive Guy, and Gay Really Horny Guy -- try every trick in their gay playbook to get Mr. Right into the sack. That's right, it's a queer ``American Pie."

Like 2004's ``HellBent," which was billed as the first-ever gay slasher movie, ``Another Gay Movie" seems to demand sympathy for being marketed to gays, as if courting that market sets the film on a moral, taboo-busting high ground. That argument might hold water if the movie weren't a nearly scene-by-scene remake of the Weitz brothers' breakout raunchfest, complete with an embarrassing dad, a webcam incident, and, standing in for the iconic pie, a prominently featured quiche. It's hard to buck convention when you're slavishly following it.

OK, so ``Another Gay Movie" won't gladden the hearts at GLAAD. Is it at least funny? If you giggle at fart jokes, guffaw at the mention of lubricant, and go into hysterics when you see a lesbian -- or if you're the world's biggest fan of original ``Survivor" winner Richard Hatch, who makes a brief appearance -- you might enjoy it. If you haven't found potty humor funny since junior high, and have worked hard to avoid the whole ``Survivor" thing, you'll be running for the aisles within the first five minutes.

You get the impression that the cast and crew of ``Another Gay Movie" could have made a genuinely funny film if they weren't obsessed with out-grossing the already gross ``American Pie." The young actors play humiliating scenes with a commendable lack of self-consciousness, and you end up rooting for them to crawl their way out of this movie and into the artificial daylight of prime - time television.

So when you're in front of the theater marquee this weekend, don't give in to the advertising. Say it with me: ``Another gay movie, please."

Michael Hardy can be reached at

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