All the Rage (1997) Online

There really isn't any reason at all to hate Chris...or is there? He of the strong jaw, sculpted physique, high-paying job and high-rent apartment is wanted by every guy in town, and he knows it. As proof, he has the "little black box" stuffed full of phone numbers. So what if he'll never use any of them? They're just trophies; notches on his belt. That doesn't make him a bad person, does it? It's just that there's always another guy, just waiting to be bumped into, at the gym, in a bar, on the street or who knows where. So when Chris begins falling for Stewart - who's cute but not gorgeous, doesn't work out and is a little bit shy - his friends may be surprised, but no one's more surprised than Chris himself.

Well, that's the premise, and I'm afraid it's all the good news there is. What could have been a sweet, if derivative, story is hobbled by mannered, stagey performances (with the exception of David Vincent as Stewart), uncertain direction and an 11th-hour plot turn that comes out of nowhere.

If this film is sending any message, it seems to be, "We rich, beautiful people experience pain, too - when, for the first time in our lives, something doesn't work out the way we want it to," but it also appears that writer-director Roland Tec is indulging in a little dramatic score-settling. Who among we mortals hasn't wanted to see that full-of-himself "has it all" guy get brought down a peg or two? But the overwrought denouement which seeks to bring this about belongs in another film entirely.

The narrative is punctuated throughout by little "confessionals" in arty black & white (which sometimes go on waaaaaay too long) wherein, addressing the viewer, Chris muses about himself, and what he wants in a man and...well, that's about it. If these interludes are meant to garner sympathy for the character, they fail. If, on the other hand, they're meant to point up his shallowness and self-absorption, they do quite nicely. "I'm not an a**hole," Chris assures us. To paraphrase Bette Davis, but ya ARE, Chris. Ya ARE an a**hole.

Although unsatisfying, ALL THE RAGE is far from the worst gay-themed film you'll ever see (that raspberry still goes, for my money, to "The Last Year"), but there isn't any compelling reason to see it in the first place, either. Of course, you can't know that until you have seen it, but you could just take my word for it.

This movie IS poorly acted and put together, but it's unique in its subject matter, and I think that makes it worth seeing.

This is supposedly a satire of the shallowness of certain types of gays (they're called "twinks," "Gym Bunnies" and "Chelsea Boys" where I am) who are rich, overly groomed and superficial. It follows one guy, a shallow heartbreaker, as he falls in love with someone not of his "class."

A HUGE problem is the acting. I felt that a lot of the lines would have been funny if the actors could have sold them well. With a satire like this, the actors need to go at lines like "Are you telling me you dated someone who doesn't work out?" with absolutre sincerity, but what we get is a sort of "I'm just an actor, I'm not really like this, see" kind of irony. It kills the entire script. Lines that were funny when I read them in a review are absolutely flat on screen. One gets the impression the director asked his friends to be in the movie, and the result is the slightly embarrassed feeling of watching community theater.

Thematically, the movie is VERY tame. It doesn't really go far in satirizing its characters, and ends up in some ways reinforcing their viewpoints. A character who is not rich and doesn't work out is seen as SO DIFFERENT it's SHOCKING that our main character would even BE SEEN with him! So much for embracing diversity, huh? Near the end our protagonist is upbraided for not calling a guy when he said he would and basically being a playboy. Since when is this a crime in gay circles? Did he say he was a virgin and that they would be married? The effect one leaves the theater with is oe of those superficial types saying (and we've all heard it) "Oh I'm so superficial, it's awful" when you know they don't really mean it and won't change. I was curious to see WHO would go to see this movie, and was disappointed to see it's the very audience the movie pretends to criticize. They seemed absolutely unfazed.

But the fact that this movie DOES examine these attitudes at all I think makes it worth a viewing. It's one of those that's better to talk about than to sit through. And, if you're attracted to those kinds of hairless chiseled body types, there is ample chest on display... though if you're seeing the film for that reason, anything it has to say, I suspect, would be irrelevant to you.

--- Check out website devoted to bad, cheesy and gay movies: www.cinemademerde.com

I went with a group of friends, and those who were expecting a comedy (romantic or otherwise) were sorely disappointed. This movie is a merciless indictment of a certain superficial, vicious subgroup within the gay community. In fact, if this movie were your entire view into the gay subculture, it would probably justify the whole ex-gay movement for you. (The character of Stewart probably signed up with Exodus after the events in this film.) It reminded me of Larry Kramer's Faggots in the way it tried to address the lack of genuine feeling and community within its target group.

While I agree that the acting and technical aspects of this film are sorely lacking, I had no problem ignoring the form and focusing on the content. Yes, it's just a movie about a cad who happens to be gay, but I can't think of another movie with this subject in the past 20 years. Most gay films these days seem afraid to turn a mirror on any part of its audience and say "you are the villain", which this movie does. I found it quite difficult to sit through the first half hour, during which we are introduced to two despicable gay men (Christopher and Larry) and two merely insufferable ones (Tom and David). Once Stewart showed up though, it was easier to feel something (other than disgust) for someone in this film, even though it was pretty inevitable what was going to happen to the poor guy.

As for the ending, it was no more out-of-left-field than the ending of Looking For Mr Goodbar, and at least no one wound up dead for no good reason in this movie (although even suggesting it might happen was a big mistake on the director's part).

The great thing about movies like "All the Rage" is that they remind you that movie making isn't as easy as it looks. I've seen some pretty bad movies ("Showgirls", anything with Molly Ringwald or Pia Zadora) and this "film" is definitely up there with some of the worst of them. And this film fails in every category: acting (those "introspective" moments where the lead addresses the camera directly! Yikes!), script, directing (or lack thereof), cinematography (don't drink and shoot), and the hair! Oh! The hair...

But that's not always a bad thing.

If you know that a movie is going to be lousy right from the start, like "All the Rant", you can kick back and scream with laughter and pray to God you've found yourself sitting on a yet undiscovered camp classic. This movie just became more gruesome as it moved along (or didn't move along). By the credits everyone in the theater was either in stunned silence or laughing hard enough to soil themselves.

On another note, it's great that gay themed movies are starting to come out more regularly so the gay community doesn't have to LOVE whatever is handed out. I became a little tired or rewinding the "Maurice" tape...

I'd much rather see a movie that fails on all counts rather than a mediocre snooze fest that a lot of movies today seem to be.

Bravo! If you're going to be bad, be REALLY bad. Make sure you see this car accident.

As a gay man, I can honestly say I HATED this film. It does TRY to show a certain type of gay man (obssessed with the gym, high-paying job, can't commit, treats everyone like dirt) but it fails miserably. Crummy cinematography, really pathetic script (I couldn't believe the actors actually SPOKE these words without gagging or barfing), even worse acting, not ONE sympathetic character, and an ending that doesn't make a bit of sense, seeing it just tells us the same things we've been hearing since the beginning of the movie! This film actually makes the characters in "The Boys in the Band" seem like positive gay men! Also, this "group" of people just shows a VERY small portion of the gay society. It also portrays every gay man as a vicious queen. I can't believe a gay man wrote and directed this movie. Talk about "internalized homophobia"! A total waste of time (I can't say talent). DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!

Here's a film that holds a mirror up to the sometimes shallow, narcissistic, gay male urban world. But why did it take so long for a movie like this to be made? Instead, the "gay" films that do receive distribution tend to be either light comedies about queens or depressing dramas about AIDS. So along comes "All The Rage" like a breath of fresh air--multi-dimensional characters, gay and straight people as friends, and, yes, a fair amount of humor, both light and dark. For a low-budget movie that was adapted from a stage play, the film is very cinematic, with beautiful colors and fluid camerawork. The acting is uniformly strong, with Jeff Miller's quick appearance at the end an especially powerful performance. Although the film has been a hit at festivals around the world, it's no surprise that it hasn't received wide release from a major distributor. It takes a hard look at a certain subculture and resists stereotypes. And everyone knows Hollywood operates out of fear and rehashing what worked before (sequels). Since "All the Rage" breaks new ground, it's deemed too "difficult" for mainstream audiences. What a shame. Writer/director/composer Roland Tec should be applauded not only for having the guts to take on this subject matter, but for pulling it off with such finesse. This first-time feature director is already head and shoulders above many veteran directors who keep churning out trite, recycled, safe "entertainment". Bravo!

I wanted to like this movie. I ordered the DVD hoping it was a controversial satire on the superficiality of the gay ghetto, as promised. What I got was a mildly amusing comedy, with nowhere near as much punch as I expected from the premise.

There were problems immediately. Although he has a perfect body, John-Michael Lander as Christopher portrays a character who is so unlikable, it's not possible to warm to him at all, let alone develop an interest in what happens to him as the plot progresses. Some may find him irresistibly attractive, but frankly I wouldn't have given him a second glance no matter how much he masked what a creep he is – perfect abs and all. A bigger problem to me was the character played by David Vincent. The film's premise – the brunt of the "hard-hitting satire" - is the fact that Christopher's boyfriend is supposed to be the opposite of what we've been "conditioned" to find attractive because (gasp!) he doesn't work out in a gym and actually has love handles (horrors!). He also doesn't have a glamorous job (I mean, really, who knows any gay men like that?) and – now here's the most shocking thing I could imagine in a satire on gay values – he sleeps in PAJAMAS! Now I know a few guys in Chelsea who might find this impossible to believe, but despite the love handles and the pajamas, the "out-of-shape, chunky, under-employed geek" turns out to be the most attractive man in the whole film. Somehow I think that some of the people this film was intended for won't quite get that.

I liked what this picture was trying to say – Christopher is shallow, superficial, vain and annoying, and more or less gets what he deserves in the end. It's not his promiscuity that bothers us, but the way he treats his conquests, refusing to ever have a second date, and finding the most ridiculous faults imaginable in each potential suitor. But the telling of the tale just isn't very interesting, or very funny, and if they really wanted to make it a satire, it should have been far more merciless to maintain my interest.

Maybe I'm just old enough to remember when gay men didn't spend all their time in a gym, staring at the mirror to confirm their own beauty. I seem to recall that when I first came out in the early 70's, gym bunnies were few and far between in the gay male community. In those days, you were either skinny, fat or average, and if people judged you by your looks, it was solely on the basis of whether or not you had a pretty face. The main things we used back then to attract people were wit, charm, personality and intelligence, along with keeping ourselves reasonably well groomed. Now all I hear and see everywhere is stats, stats and more stats – numbers for waists, chests, arms, and thighs, together with demands that everyone have a perfect body, perfect clothes and a perfect career, or forget it. I was hoping that this film might raise some serious objections to such values, but when the final credits were rolling I felt I hadn't really seen or heard very much to either provoke meaningful discussion or challenge these attitudes, which is what I expect a good satire to do. Some may find it quite enjoyable, and feel it delivers on its promises, but I was less than satisfied when it was over.

This film is a very good satire of life in the 90's for gay men. The acting is a bit tireless, yet when taken into context of the genre of the satire, then it places well. John-Michael Lander is very convincing as the 'gay-god' that has decided to fall in love and yet can't give up his other life. This film should be on the list of the "Gay Must-See"

I saw this flick at Outfest in LA five years ago and was saddened it never gained the audience recognition (or distribution) it deserved. It's the best film on the culture of gay narcissism (the clones of West Hollywood, South Beach, Greenwich Village, Dupont Circle, Midtown, etc.). Then again, maybe THAT's why it never saw light of day. It shows an unpleasant side of gay clone life where a leopard truly cannot change his spots.

Sure the acting borders on amateurish (especially the lead), but the script has so much going for it.

This movie is one of the very best and most vicious satires that I've ever seen. Unfortunately, not many people will appreciate it because the satire can only be understood by a gay audience and gay men typically have little or no sense of humor. Unless it involves smirky or catty lines about how someone is dressed.

On the unlikely chance that you are a gay male who does have a sense of humor and understands satire, please see this movie!! My boyfriend and I saw it at Kendall Square Cinema on opening night and howled with laughter all the way through -- while everyone else sat in stony silence. This movie skewers the pretentious and empty lifestyles of life in Boston's South End, one of America's largest gay neighborhoods. And while the acting is terrible, truly terrible, the writing and direction are first rate.

This film is awful. The writing is tolerable but the acting is atrocious. The director was so in love with his own infantile pathos that he includes long long shots of guys looking tragic. If this film had a competent editor, it might have achieved mediocre status. As we saw with the Da Vinci Code, when the main actor is flat or bad, no matter what you do the rest of the movie will fail. And the main actor is not just bad, he is utterly inept. Think of the pathetic attempts at dialog in the 12 seconds of every porn film prior to getting down to business--our main actor is as bad if not worse than that.

The only reason I am even bothering to write this review is to talk about the love interest in the film, David Vincent. So far as I can tell, this is his only credit. That's a shame. His performance was subtle and nuanced. If this was his only acting credit, he could have quit his day job and made it as an actor. In the extras on the DVD you can see him reading for another part, the part of the hook up at the very end of the film. That scene in the film is particularly pathetic and tonally wrong; but from the screen test, you can see that if David Vincent had played that part, he could have carried it off with aplomb. Wherever you are, David Vincent, there is no doubt that you could have had a career in film.

As for the rest of the folks, including the director, don't quit your day jobs.

Roland Tec's full length movie debut easily holds its own against other recent breaking-the-mold independent films like "In the Company of Men." This is one of the most thought- provoking, enjoyable films I've ever seen.

This film leaves you lost in thought and practically forces you to reexamine your life and your attitude toward others. All in all, "All the Rage" is a remarkable debut for Tec -- definitely worth seeing!

I was extremely bewildered by the purpose of this film, but even more bewildered by the positive reviews a few people have left for it. It truly holds almost no value as a movie or social commentary at all. The acting is static and makes you feel like you are watching the first performance of several understudys. The subplot involving Merle Perkins' character Susan is unrelated and incomplete. The random black and white vignettes featuring the main character "Christopher Bedford" are intrusive and uninformative and I didn't care for a single one of the shallow, archetypical characters we were supposed to relate to.

The fact that people found some scathing commentary on the emptiness of the pretty boy "gym-bunny" gay lifestyle within this contrived film astounds me. Did I miss something? I saw a story about one man who sleeps around, cheats, and ends up lonely...Was that not an obvious conclusion? The emotionally charged ending seems out of place and adds 5 minutes of drama to a film that was an hour and a half of blah blah blah....YAWN

This is a truly awful film. Bad cinematography (I lost count of how many first-year film school rules it broke), bad writing, and an ending that came out of nowhere. The only reason I stayed until the end is that the friend I was with fell asleep.

STAY AWAY! Rent Parting Glances or Beautiful Thing if you need to see a good gay movie.

OK,I know this is cheating, but here's a review from Gemma Files of Eye magazine, who pretty much could sum this up better than I...

"Whenever I watch a particular type of movie, the same two thoughts invariably occur to me: why are there so many boring, self-obsessed people in this world -- straight, gay or otherwise -- and why do so many of them seem to think we're all waiting on pins and needles to see films made out of their boring, self-obsessed love lives? Case in point: writer-director Roland Tec's All the Rage, adapted from his stage play A Better Boy. Chris (John-Michael Lander) is a (debatably) hunky gay lawyer who specializes in drawing up wills and having frequent, meaningless sex with guys whose numbers he immediately loses. Eventually, this slick little toad meets up with a nice guy named Stewart (David Vincent) who doesn't work out, knows about baseball and ballet and sends Chris flowers with sickly-sweet poems attached. Is it love? Will their equally shallow friends let them get away with it? Will Chris cheat on Stewart with the first pair of pants that walks by or will he actually -- heavens to Betsy! -- get a quick evolutionary life lesson by having his heart broken for a change? From a purely technical viewpoint, All the Rage is inept film-making at best: everybody on screen talks and looks almost exactly the same, which doesn't help make the oh-so-predictable plot any less stultifying. Working with next to nothing in the way of funding, Tec apparently wants to trade on the idea that low- to no-budget automatically equals "arty." But this is basically an exploitation film with socio-political pretensions, and all the constant bewailing of loneliness and promiscuity in the world won't make his characters' obsessions with each other's baskets seem any less sleazy.

A waste of time, and pretty much unsalvageable on every level. If the choice is between All the Rage and watching paint dry, save me a seat in front of the nearest wall." -- GEMMA FILES

Just what I needed, a gay "Your Friends and Neighbors." Not. Add to the down, tired material dialogue that sounded as if it were being read off cue cards, boring camera work, dull locales, and endless conversations, often as people plodded along in some park. Ugh! What a disappointment! I kept waiting for it to get better. It didn't.

First, I disagree with the commenter's who say this is such a bad movie with bad acting. Maybe these people never knew a screw around guy, a good time charlie, or a sorry roommate. This movie works until the ending. This screw around guy is confronted by one of his tricks who thought he was more than a trick, but he was just another lay that didn't matter. Then the screw around guy punches the trick and suddenly becomes introspective and is sorry for what he has done. What a load of bull. He was one of these jerks who wants a relationship to fill in between the gaps of tricks. The ending should have been the black girl with her new white boyfriend eating with the other gay couple and the screw around guy by himself. Or maybe the screw around guy just saw Stu talking to someone at the grocery store. Then maybe he could just think about what he threw away, instead of suddenly thinking he was a jerk because screw arounds are in for the short haul. Their regrets are few and far between and even if they felt they messed someone over, they just keep on hitting that bar scene every night. It could have ended with him just going to the bar over and over. But the black girl could have easily ended this movie with a good tone, she could have given him something to think about just by resolving her own relationship issues. I don't believe the screw around guy could ever care about the boys he kept bringing home. He just wants his cake - and eat it too!

What an amateurish movie. The acting was uniformly stiff and annoying, and the background music was appalling. This movie benefitted from the current vogue for Indy/Gay Cinema, and had it been a movie about a straight cad, it would not have warranted any attention. Moreover, it would be skewered by critics everywhere, and for very valid reasons. I support gay and independent cinema, but not at the expense of credibility. My gay friend and I were happy we saw this movie, if only to repeat its wooden lines and chuckle. This movie is an embarrassment.

While I applaud Bellhollow's efforts to help this film, it cannot fix the blatant, and untrue, stereotypical portrayal of gay men, lawyers and Boston (where filmed). The story is not realistic, the acting is beyond poor and the dialogue strained. It has hard to have any empathy for the lead character, portraying a lawyer focused only on the material things without having to do any work. His friends are no better, although they seem to offer something of a Greek chorus with nothing to add. No sympathy for the plain-looking, "good guy" boyfriend, who is just as shallow as the others characters. These are 90 minutes of my life I will never get back.