Who's in It: Malcolm Stumpf, Patrick White, Fairuza Balk, Kim Dickens
The Basics: In case you were wondering if things had changed, it's still a big drag to be gay in middle school, as you'll see in this nearly wordless, borderline-experimental film about a lonely kid and his sexually aggressive crush on an older, cooler kid. That's if you stick around long enough to watch it muck around with more than one coming-out story cliché.
What's the Deal? If you take all the gay-themed films that deal with young boys coming to terms with their sexual orientation and line them up in a row, they'd reach the moon. But this one moves the genre forward by not attempting to join the club. It's got Art Film stamped on every frame. There are no wacky sitcom situations, no climactic moments of self-realization, no painfully uncool prescriptive ideas about "what it means to be gay," just a lot of small moments about isolation, loneliness and boredom. And a lion/tiger metaphor that sort of doesn't work, but whatever. Anyway, it's the coming-out movie for people who hate coming-out movies.
Where It Comes From: First feature from Cam Archer, whose work before this included videos for the band Six Organs of Admittance and some controversial shorts about deceased actors River Phoenix and Jonathan Brandis.
Who'll Hate It: People who like plots, people who hate movies that dare to veer into too-precious territory, dialogue addicts, anyone creeped out by executive producer Gus Van Sant's thing for pretty, pouty-lipped teen-age boys.
Where You've Seen Them: The kid (Stumpf) is already a battle-scarred veteran of gay-themed films because he played Madonna's yoga wisdom-spouting child in The Next Best Thing. Meanwhile, it was cool to see Balk in something (she plays the irritable mom) after barely seeing her in anything for years.