J.P. Pitoc and Christian Campbell in Trick
Boy meets go-go boy and they try to find a place to hook-up…
That’s the basic premise of Trick, but if you’ve seen the beloved 1999 film, you know it’s actually a sweet and charming romantic comedy that has endured and is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this year.
In the New York-based film, directed by Jim Fall and written by Jason Schafer, Gabriel (Christian Campbell) first sees go-go boy Mark (J.P. Pitoc) shaking it at a local gay bar, but a chance meeting on the subway later takes them on an all-night adventure that goes from a piano bar, Tori Spelling (who played Gabriel’s Bff, Katherine), a dance club and Gabriel’s memorable bathroom interaction with none other than Miss Coco Peru.
To commemorate the film, UCLA is hosting an Outfest Legacy screening this Saturday in Los Angeles along with a Q&A with Fall,...
Boy meets go-go boy and they try to find a place to hook-up…
That’s the basic premise of Trick, but if you’ve seen the beloved 1999 film, you know it’s actually a sweet and charming romantic comedy that has endured and is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this year.
In the New York-based film, directed by Jim Fall and written by Jason Schafer, Gabriel (Christian Campbell) first sees go-go boy Mark (J.P. Pitoc) shaking it at a local gay bar, but a chance meeting on the subway later takes them on an all-night adventure that goes from a piano bar, Tori Spelling (who played Gabriel’s Bff, Katherine), a dance club and Gabriel’s memorable bathroom interaction with none other than Miss Coco Peru.
To commemorate the film, UCLA is hosting an Outfest Legacy screening this Saturday in Los Angeles along with a Q&A with Fall,...
- 2/20/2014
- by Jim Halterman
- The Backlot
(l-r) Jeff Ward, director Jim Fall and Claire Coffee during production of Holly's Holiday
(photo by Sherry Gunderman)
It’s December, so if it means anything it’s that there are a slew of holiday-themed movies on our TVs this time of year. One of them, Lifetime’s Holly’s Holiday, comes to us from out director Jim Fall, who has brought us such fabulous films as Trick and Wedding Wars as well as Tori Spelling’s So NoTORIous series.
AfterElton sat down with the director to talk about how you put the gay in a Lifetime movie, his thoughts on the state of gay films and (gasp!) he spilled the beans to us about picking up with Christian Campbell and Jp Pitoc in a sequel to Trick.
AfterElton: Holiday films are so specific in a lot of ways but as a director do you approach them differently than you would another project?...
(photo by Sherry Gunderman)
It’s December, so if it means anything it’s that there are a slew of holiday-themed movies on our TVs this time of year. One of them, Lifetime’s Holly’s Holiday, comes to us from out director Jim Fall, who has brought us such fabulous films as Trick and Wedding Wars as well as Tori Spelling’s So NoTORIous series.
AfterElton sat down with the director to talk about how you put the gay in a Lifetime movie, his thoughts on the state of gay films and (gasp!) he spilled the beans to us about picking up with Christian Campbell and Jp Pitoc in a sequel to Trick.
AfterElton: Holiday films are so specific in a lot of ways but as a director do you approach them differently than you would another project?...
- 12/7/2012
- by nyjimmy67
- The Backlot
Why aren’t there more good gay movies? We hear this complaint at AfterElton.com a lot, and we’ve even made it a few times ourselves (although we think the results of this poll prove that there are more good movies than many of us think!).
There are surely many reasons why more “mainstream” movies don’t include gay or bisexual themes, but no doubt one of them is heterosexual discomfort – not just discomfort on the part of audiences and network executives, but also discomfort on the part of critics and others to champion these films.
This is where our poll of AfterElton.com readers on the 50 Greatest Gay Movies comes in. We can think of no better way to encourage the creation of more good gay movies than to praise and support the existence of past good gay movies!
How does this list compare to our previous poll?...
There are surely many reasons why more “mainstream” movies don’t include gay or bisexual themes, but no doubt one of them is heterosexual discomfort – not just discomfort on the part of audiences and network executives, but also discomfort on the part of critics and others to champion these films.
This is where our poll of AfterElton.com readers on the 50 Greatest Gay Movies comes in. We can think of no better way to encourage the creation of more good gay movies than to praise and support the existence of past good gay movies!
How does this list compare to our previous poll?...
- 9/14/2009
- by Brent Hartinger
- The Backlot
PARK CITY, Utah -- Jim Fall's "Trick" marks a striking shift from the searing and angry works that made up the New Queer Cinema ("Poison", "The Living End", "The Hours and Times") that dramatically shook up American movies at the start of the decade. Significantly, it also lacks the formal ambition of those films.
Exuberant but slight, this Fine Line Features acquisition is a work of limited ambition and modest pleasures that never quite attains the level of a fully thought-out work of art. The film should strike a chord with gay audiences eager to deconstruct the negative presuppositions about their lives. But upon deeper reflection, the movie seems unusually conservative and restrained, as if it were afraid to fully explore the distinct separation of gay and straight sensibilities.
To a large extent, the highly personal "Trick" functions as a gay "After Hours", its narrative detailing the epic, absurd experiences of its two radically different men trying to consummate an unlikely, albeit deeply felt attraction. Ambitious musical theater writer and composer Gabriel (Christian Campbell) crosses paths with the dreamy object of his desire, Mark John Paul Pitoc), a handsome, well-built "go-go boy" he fantasized about at a local strip club.
The conflict arises out of the increasingly absurd and sometimes funny succession of events that preclude them from carrying out their impulses. In their pursuit of carnal bliss, they pass through a gay Greenwich Village milieu of drag queens, muscle boys, piano singers and loners searching for their ideal mate. Neither stereotyped nor pathologized, the cultural definition is etched in painterly strokes with verve and insight.
Fall and screenwriter Jason Schafer incorporate deft reversals into the narrative, in particular their ability to suggest unforeseen nuances and depth in their characters (especially Pitoc, who appears at the start as vacant, though he turns out to be surprisingly complex). It's a film of excellent moments (such as a fantastic sequence in a bathroom bar involving Gabriel and a forbidding drag queen) that unfortunately never coalesces into the work the movie occasionally promises.
The film is conventionally put together. Fall can't break out of the script's circular, repetitive structure in which the pattern of attraction, estrangement and reconciliation is excessively deployed. Worst of all, Tori Spelling has a featured part as a desperately narcissistic actress rather unconvincingly put forth as Gabriel's muse and best friend.
Spelling has been used to ironic effect before ("The House of Yes"), but her shrill, hyper, one-note performance here becomes the stuff of nightmares. She needs to calm down. The other key performers -- Lorri Bagley as an aggressively straight and uninhibited woman, Steve Hayes as a bar singer and Clinton Leupp in drag -- are moving and exact.
TRICK
Fine Line Features
A Roadside Attractions and Good Machine production
Producers: Eric d'Arbeloff, Jim Fall, Ross Katz
Director: Jim Fall
Executive producers: Anthony Bregman, Mary Jane Skalski
Co-producer: Robert Hawk
Screenwriter: Jason Schafer
Director of photography: Terry Stacey
Production designer: Jody Asnes
Editor: Brian A. Kates
Composer: David Friedman
Costume designer: Tracy McKnight
Choreographer: Robin Carrigan
Casting director: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Gabriel: Christian Campbell
Mark: John Paul Pitoc
Katherine: Tori Spelling
Judy: Lorri Bagley
Perry: Steve Hayes
Rich: Brad Beyer
Miss Coco Peru: Clinton Leupp
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Exuberant but slight, this Fine Line Features acquisition is a work of limited ambition and modest pleasures that never quite attains the level of a fully thought-out work of art. The film should strike a chord with gay audiences eager to deconstruct the negative presuppositions about their lives. But upon deeper reflection, the movie seems unusually conservative and restrained, as if it were afraid to fully explore the distinct separation of gay and straight sensibilities.
To a large extent, the highly personal "Trick" functions as a gay "After Hours", its narrative detailing the epic, absurd experiences of its two radically different men trying to consummate an unlikely, albeit deeply felt attraction. Ambitious musical theater writer and composer Gabriel (Christian Campbell) crosses paths with the dreamy object of his desire, Mark John Paul Pitoc), a handsome, well-built "go-go boy" he fantasized about at a local strip club.
The conflict arises out of the increasingly absurd and sometimes funny succession of events that preclude them from carrying out their impulses. In their pursuit of carnal bliss, they pass through a gay Greenwich Village milieu of drag queens, muscle boys, piano singers and loners searching for their ideal mate. Neither stereotyped nor pathologized, the cultural definition is etched in painterly strokes with verve and insight.
Fall and screenwriter Jason Schafer incorporate deft reversals into the narrative, in particular their ability to suggest unforeseen nuances and depth in their characters (especially Pitoc, who appears at the start as vacant, though he turns out to be surprisingly complex). It's a film of excellent moments (such as a fantastic sequence in a bathroom bar involving Gabriel and a forbidding drag queen) that unfortunately never coalesces into the work the movie occasionally promises.
The film is conventionally put together. Fall can't break out of the script's circular, repetitive structure in which the pattern of attraction, estrangement and reconciliation is excessively deployed. Worst of all, Tori Spelling has a featured part as a desperately narcissistic actress rather unconvincingly put forth as Gabriel's muse and best friend.
Spelling has been used to ironic effect before ("The House of Yes"), but her shrill, hyper, one-note performance here becomes the stuff of nightmares. She needs to calm down. The other key performers -- Lorri Bagley as an aggressively straight and uninhibited woman, Steve Hayes as a bar singer and Clinton Leupp in drag -- are moving and exact.
TRICK
Fine Line Features
A Roadside Attractions and Good Machine production
Producers: Eric d'Arbeloff, Jim Fall, Ross Katz
Director: Jim Fall
Executive producers: Anthony Bregman, Mary Jane Skalski
Co-producer: Robert Hawk
Screenwriter: Jason Schafer
Director of photography: Terry Stacey
Production designer: Jody Asnes
Editor: Brian A. Kates
Composer: David Friedman
Costume designer: Tracy McKnight
Choreographer: Robin Carrigan
Casting director: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Gabriel: Christian Campbell
Mark: John Paul Pitoc
Katherine: Tori Spelling
Judy: Lorri Bagley
Perry: Steve Hayes
Rich: Brad Beyer
Miss Coco Peru: Clinton Leupp
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.