{"id":5989,"date":"2017-03-19T11:02:25","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T15:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=5989"},"modified":"2024-01-10T19:01:39","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T00:01:39","slug":"bearcity-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=5989","title":{"rendered":"BearCity-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

BearCity-2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Douglas Langway<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Joe Conti, Stephen Guarino<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #626<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed March 19, 2017<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n

BearCity is a small, independent, LGBT, coming-of-age film that tells of a young man living in New York City, and his exploration of a sub-culture within the LGBT community and the subsequent romance that follows.<\/p>\n

The film is a comedy and has a “Sex in the City” or “Queer as Folk” approach to its storytelling- a group of close-knit friends and raunchy and gratuitous to be sure.<\/p>\n

The budget is very small and some aspects are rather amateurish, but the film is enjoyable, especially for those exposed to the LGBT lifestyle.<\/p>\n

The film is not heavy nor are any of the characters dealing with “coming out” issues, but rather it is a fun sex comedy romp.<\/p>\n

Our central character, Tyler (Joe Conti), is a young man in his twenties, an aspiring actor, who moves to New York City to pursue his career, with a mind for casual dating.<\/p>\n

His roommates encourage him to date Abercrombie and Fitch types, but Tyler comes to realize he prefers “bear” types- mature, hairy men.<\/p>\n

On the sly, he begins to pursue this subculture and makes many friends. The apple of his eye, handsome Roger (Gerald McCullough) is a popular mature man, distinguished in the bear circle, and risks his reputation with “the bears” by falling in love with Tyler.<\/p>\n

The two men spend the greater part of the film conquering their respective fears and finding their way into each other’s arms in a predictable ending.<\/p>\n

BearCity is a fun farce and nothing very heavy and the feature of a strong circle of friends is a nice, positive portrayal- all of the friends connect well and stick by each other through thick and thin.<\/p>\n

Comical sub-plots abound such as one couple (Brent and Fred) awkward parlay into the world of threesomes with unsuccessful results.<\/p>\n

Another bear who is unemployed, and grossly obese, decides to undergo weight loss surgery much to the chagrin of his hunky boyfriend.<\/p>\n

The main story though belongs to Tyler and Roger and their inevitable reunion can be seen miles away. The film throws various hurdles in their ways, such as a third-person briefly dating Roger, or Roger’s commitment issues, but the climax of the film will be no surprise to anyone.<\/p>\n

Tyler and Roger make a nice couple as a whole, but perplexing is how the film makes Roger the undisputed leader of the bear group when he is a lean, muscular man- not a “bear” at all!<\/p>\n

This is odd to me, but BearCity is so light-hearted that I suppose I can let this detail slide in favor of a good romance.<\/p>\n

Critically, the film is nice but quite amateurish, and super low-budget. The acting, especially by some of the supporting characters (the pre-surgery guy’s boyfriend is the most glaring example), is not great.<\/p>\n

I half-expected him to accidentally look at the camera.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the film has a low-budget look and feel, which on one level is fine, but combined with the not-so-stellar acting, enhances the inexperience of the cast and crew. The film is tough to take too seriously- if this is even the intention of the filmmakers.<\/p>\n

The film is a logistical treat for anyone privy to popular gay hangouts in New York City- specifically The Eagle and The Ramrod, both locales are featured prominently, and the use of many real-life people who hang out at those establishments are used throughout the production.<\/p>\n

BearCity (2010) is not a bad experience and a film that is light and comical within the LGBT community seems rather fresh compared to the myriad of dramatic and heavy films that exist.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the film teeters towards goofy too much with more than one silly, sex-crazed, stereotypical gay man, that it almost gives a bad impression, so the film has mixed results for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BearCity-2010 Director Douglas Langway Starring Joe Conti, Stephen Guarino Scott’s Review #626 Reviewed March 19, 2017 Grade: B BearCity is a small, independent, LGBT, coming-of-age film that tells of a young man living in New York City, and his exploration of a sub-culture within the LGBT community and the subsequent romance that follows. The film … Continue reading BearCity-2010<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269,49,3012,41,215,337,122],"tags":[252,3013,73,216,123,338],"class_list":["post-5989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-movie-reviews","category-comedies","category-doug-langway","category-indiefilms","category-indie-comedies","category-lgbt-comedies","category-gay-films","tag-comedies","tag-doug-langway","tag-independent-films","tag-indie-comedies","tag-gaylesbian-films","tag-lgbt-comedies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5989"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19771,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions\/19771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}