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It Could Have Been So Good

Amos Lassen | Little Rock, Arkansas | 03/15/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

""Sun Kissed"

It Could Have Been so Good

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

Sometimes a movie has everything going for it and just doesn't make it> "Sun Kissed" (Wolfe Releasing) is one such movie. The cinematography is lush and beautiful, the music is enchanting, the actors are good looking, the plot has possibilities and the movie falls flat.
The music is by rockers "The Sea and the Cake" is what stands out in this movie and the music should be good as the writer-director, Patrick McGuinn, is the son of former Byrds band member Roger McGuinn. If the songs were not there the plot would have been a disaster and the underlying bisexual theme would have suffered. Yet the music alone cannot make a good movie. What "Sin Kissed" seems to be is an Irish stew of a movie that ordinarily would be a fine short but as a full length movie, I found it boring.
The movie opens with a very good-looking man driving a truck along a desert highway. He stops to pick up another good-looking man waiting at a bus stop. Thus begins a romance which is filmed as soft core porn. What appears to be the plot is something like this: Teddy (John Ort) is a budding novelist and is staying at the isolated home of a benefactor so that he can focus on his writing. He meets Leo (Gregory Marcel) and can't seem to think about anything else but him. Suddenly the plot switches both locations and chronologies and no explanation is given why. What could have been a beautiful love story becomes nonsense and questions are left unanswered and even if we knew the answers to some of the questions I do not think we would have cared.
When Leo and Teddy first meet they have sex after a beautiful interlude in the sun. But that is really the only part of the film that seems real. Independent films have been so good lately then along comes "Sun Kissed" with its poor and clumsy editing and horrible close-ups and the overuse of the word "amazing". If this isn't the worst movie I have ever seen, it surely comes close. It does have redeeming features though-good looking men, nudity and great music.
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Why I liked it

George Balan | Germany | 05/23/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are several reasons to consider 'Sun Kissed' an exceptional movie. What most impressed me is the light it throws on the male world that hates discovering itself as gay, even though this impulse is a reality of its own soul depths. Contemplating the evolution of Leo, we witness his slow sexual awakening, in painful conflict with the prejudices of the character, obsessed with the idea "I am not homosexual." So it is he, the supposed heterosexual, who appears inwardly divided to the point of schizophrenia, in contrast to Teddy, who knows very well that he is "completely" gay and draws a remarkable inner balance from this consciousness, in spite of his moments of despair. As such he shows himself to be healthier and more mature than Leo, even taking a certain protecting and enlightening role toward him.

It is also possible to take into consideration the philosophical aspect of this love story, urging us to reflect about fate, death and the meaning of life, and the sense of love in its relation to solitude. Do we love only because, otherwise, this solitude would be unbearable?

And over these issues hangs a meditative and poetic spirit that ennobles the sexual side, naturally predominant. The loneliness of these two souls in the middle of the loneliness of Nature creates a nearly magical atmosphere. I felt incited to view this captivating movie again, as one might listen again to the music of a great master."

Not worth any precious time

Michael L. Wiersma | Springfield, MA United States | 08/03/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is a nothing movie with a nothing story that feels and looks like a bad high school play. The cute guys by themselves do not make the movie interesting or compelling. I'd avoid this completely, and certianly rent it first if it looks interesting to you. I think you'll be disappointed."