EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

scottinhawaii-1 Looks like it was filmed on an iPhone4. They guys are nice to look at and the bartender actor was pretty good and hotter than his Hollywood boyfriend. It gets really outrageous as the two plot lines come together.

Laakbaar I thought this was an OK film, and it is certainly worth more than its current score. I suppose you could say the theme is the devastation created by homophobia in the context of celebrity and religion. There are two tenuously linked plots, based on a closeted movie star and a televangelist with a gay son. The first plot is really a complicated coming-out story. A closeted movie star starts a relationship with a beautiful bartender. At the same time, the star's maternal manager sets him up with a beard, but it turns out that the beard is the bartender's fiery friend. This three-way relationship between the star, the lover and the beard gets complicated. A tabloid journalist is determined to out the star. He is quite creepy until we see he has nobler motives. Both the beard and the lover become disillusioned with the closeted star and think about exacting revenge....The second plot: A televangelist has a gay son, who is -- surprise, surprise -- in a happy relationship with the perfect guy. Regardless, the televangelist wants his son to get "cured" and hires detectives/thugs to dig up dirt on the perfect boyfriend, and worse. However, one of the (straight) detectives falls in love with a gorgeous friend of the gay couple, so he gets to know them and has second thoughts. The detective's hard-nosed partner doesn't take kindly to this, so a conflict between the two detectives arises.This movie had a certain honesty and vision. The acting was pretty good. The writing was fine, the story interesting and the ending unexpected. The characters were well fleshed out and larger than life. This is a movie with a lot of drama and interesting characters. Sometimes the movie became intriguing, like the juxtaposition of the gay and straight sex scenes. One led to love and tragedy; the other led to betrayal and tragedy.However, at times the movie took on a slight melodramatic feel. At first I thought this movie was going to be downright cheesy because of the graininess and sound quality (and, I admit it, the gay theme). But after a few minutes I got into it and started enjoying it for what it was. It's worth seeing.

jm10701 Lost Everything is the story of a closeted thirtysomething movie star and his overbearing, Mommie-Dearest manager; a journalist intent on outing him; a bartender who becomes the love of his life; some gangsters led by a ruthless black Godmama; an insane televangelist; two straight women; and assorted gay men - all in Miami. They're involved more or less with each other in what I suppose is meant to be either a thriller or an object lesson on the dangers of the closet.The whole thing is so preposterous, though, that it's hard to take it as seriously as it clearly wants to be taken. It might have worked as a campy farce, but that's not how it was played. It seems from the interviews on the DVD that the people involved in making Lost Everything were deeply committed to it; the problem is that none of them had enough talent to make it work. The story, dialog and direction are ludicrous. The only credible performance is by Leif Holt as Christian (the televangelist's gay son), but unfortunately it's a very small role.Kim St Leon, the director and co-writer, comes across as a really nice person, so I wish I could have liked her movie, but I just don't. The first ten minutes were SO bad that I almost gave up, but when I saw that nobody had reviewed it here I forced myself to finish it and even to watch the fairly extensive interviews on the DVD (the DVD says it includes a short called The Attachment, but it doesn't). It got a lot better the instant Holt appeared, and every time he was on screen the movie suddenly got interesting, but he wasn't on enough to redeem the rest of it. I'll look for other movies he's done, but he's all that makes this one worth watching.