Customer Reviews

The Last Year

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

What a lovely discovery! This bittersweet little film by Jeff London
examines the lives of three young gay men at various stages of being
out, attending a 'Christian' college.

Hector (Merrick McMahon) has been outed, is being persecuted by the
Dean and his jock henchmen, and shunned by classmates. Alex (gentle and
winning Mike Dolan) is new at the school, though a senior, because his
father hopes the religious environment will cure him of 'a certain
young man' from home. Beautiful and troubled Paul (played perfectly by
Ron Petronicolos) is deep in the closet after being compromised in a
library restroom over the summer. He hides his homosexuality at first,
but soon tells his room-mate and best friend Robby (Patrick Hoesterey).
Robby is straight, and unpleasantly surprised, but quickly overcomes
his reservations because of his love for Paul.

The four boys become a little family and try to protect each other from
the violence, intolerance, hate, and hypocrisy that surrounds them.
Each character is lovingly drawn, and they all change in remarkable
ways. Alex falls in love with Paul and leads him towards the light of
self-realization and personal commitment. Hector, unfortunately, is not
so lucky. They are all watched over by St. Jude, who appears briefly in
one of the dearest moments in the film.

There are flaws and stretches of credulity in the story, but the
overwhelming sincerity and heartfelt nature of the writing and acting
negate such quibbles.

The outtakes are serendipitous, nicely edited and really funny --
happily so after the seriousness of the film. The interviews reveal the
actors to be just as sweet, supportive, humorous, and genuine as they
are on screen.

I thought this film was very good...for a low budget independent film. The acting was good overall, though hardly Oscar worthy. The lighting, sound, and video quality were ok. The film is about 3 gay men who find themselves at a very conservative bible college. It deals with the repression, harassment, difficulties, and stresses that exist in such environments, especially when one is coming to terms with being gay. It also explores the friendship, loyalty, happiness, hope, joys, love, and beauty that can develop even in the harshest of places. People considering buying this film should understand that this is a low budget, independent film. It should not be compared with films that have much, much bigger budgets and a lot more resources but instead should be judged for what the actors, writers, directors, and other crewmembers managed to accomplish with the resources at their disposal. I think they did a very good job!

I don't understand a lot of the harsh criticism about this film. I certainly don't believe the "review" that claimed that the owner of a small video chain was removing this video from all his stores because of all the complaints. This is pure bunk!!! I believe that there is more to these types of reviews than meets the eye. Perhaps the "critics" of this film object to the context of this film and the message it sends out. Believe it or not, things like what happened in this film DO happen. I am not a bible-thumping Christian nor am I an atheist. I have no agenda. I'm just a regular guy who enjoys good movies, even low budget ones!!!

I bought this film despite some misgivings. I really believed a lot of the bad stuff that had been written about this film, but decided that it would be, at best, good for a good laugh. Throughout the film, I kept waiting for all of the "bad and horrible" acting, directing, sound and light quality that some "reviewers" said were in this film but none of it ever showed up. To be fair, this film was not perfect. It DID have some major flaws and stuff, but hey, how many "thumbs up" Hollywood films do as well??? And a lot of these bad Hollywood films have huge budgets. This film had a small budget - I can't stress this enough!!!

Generally speaking, I think that the people involved in this film, from the director to the actors to the writers, all did a very good job. This is why I give this film 4 outta 5 stars. I recommend this film. Check it out!!!

From a technical viewpoint, this must rank as one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The "feel" was like that of a soap opera, the sound poor, and script, well... let's not go there.

However, the story itself is powerful and important. At last, someone had the guts to show the bigotry, hypocrisy and outright hate of the religious right in America, which cherry-picks from the bible in order to justify homophobia, while ignoring other equally important messages in the bible. The fact that their bile can result in innocent loss of life is immaterial to them.

From this point of view, "The Last Year" outclasses 90% of all other movies, including so-called "blockbusters", which are generally devoid of any real substance or meaning. So... well done, and thanks for having made this film!

Like others I do what I can to support and promote independent films. This film tells an important story (citing the real Bible to debunk and confront homophobes and others distorting the teachings of Jesus), but it is not a good film (slow, stilted dialogue, lots of pregnant pauses and searching for lines, some bad acting, poor direction, poor editing, predictable story). It was a very long film to endure. However, Ron Petronicolos and Craig Staswick are particularly good so for them I give it one star. Mike Dolan is also good. I am sure they will go on to bigger and better things.

Jeff London ('Regarding Billy') seems to be a director and writer who is committed to investigating the various degrees of problems young gay men face as they live in a homophobic society. His films resound with an honest feeling but too often he settles for stereotypes at both ends of the spectrum and that tends to weaken his work.

The setting is a Bible College somewhere in America where hunky Paul (Ron Petronicolos) is entering his 'last year' of study, his summer having been disrupted by an incident that is revealed later in the story. He re-joins his longtime roommate Robby (Patrick Orion Hoesterey) but keeps asking about his good friend Hector (Merrick McMahon), a subject no one wants to address. He meets Hector's roommate Alex (Mike Dolan) and gradually Alex lets Paul know that he is gay. Paul learns that the Bible College has discovered Hector is gay and the Dean (Rand Smith) and his henchmen are out to have Hector expelled. Paul's changed ways are noted by Robby and he finally confides that his summer incident was a gay experience in a restroom - a fact that Robby finds repulsive at first but soon comes to support Paul's anguish about his parent's disapproval and punishment.

As Paul's feelings for living who he really is surface he finds solace and sanctuary with Alex and the two become lovers. The Dean's spies gradually intimidate the group of four (Paul, Alex, Hector and Robby) and disciplinary action is taken. Among Paul's discoveries in his rebellion against the Bible College's stance against gays is the fact that the dean is a closet case and that is the reason for the rough action against Hector (with whom the dean had an assignation). It all comes to a tragic end for some and a sense of freedom for others - to find out who belongs to which category requires watching the film!

The movie has its moments, due largely to the ability of the actors Petronicolos, Dolan, and McMahon, but it sadly is buried by otherwise mediocre to poor acting from the rest of the cast. The work of Rand Smith, Penelope Ma (who plays the dean's wife), and Lawrence Rinzel (who plays Paul's father) is particularly weak just when strong acting could have supported the flimsier portions of the script. London needed to spend more thought on Bible Colleges, finding that more razor sharp line between right wing bias against gays instead of opting for the usual clich?s that are found everywhere. That dividing line among young men challenged by sexual identity would have made a far more successful film. But the film is worth watching for the performances of the three lead actors - strong young men each! Grady Harp, April 06

I enjoyed Regarding Billy enough to be interested in this movie just because it was directed (and written, I think) by Jeff London, a movie-maker who makes sweet, innocent movies about Average Gay Joe's falling in love and having diffiulties and successes unique to gay folks.

This movie is no exception, and, like his other movies, is stunningly successful at times and embarrassingly amateur at other times.

I like to end on a good note, so let's start with the "bad". There is too much going on in this overlong movie and many unnecessary and underdeveloped characters which muddy up the central story and theme. Some of the peripheral actors are really bad. Some of the dialog is really forced. (Some of it actually made me squirm.)

Now the good. The principal young men in this film are great. Ron Petronicolos and Mike Dolan are absolutely mesmerizing together and it's a joy to see their subtle and somewhat unexpected romance blossom. It's the love story part of this film that's the great part, and I can watch it over and over. True to Jeff London, it's not smarmy and tacky, but wonderful and refreshing.

I'd love to give this film more stars, but it wouldn't be true. You have to take the good with the bad here, and it's certainly worth your time and attention. If you like this film, you'll love Regarding Billy which is a love story without a lot of distracting side stories, and features two similarly talented and refreshing characters and actors.

This film is "worth it" just for the scene when Dolan tells Petronicolos (clearly smitten with each other) that he wishes he didn't make him so nervous (and there can be no turning back.) Enjoy.

As this an extremely low-budget movie, I can forgive the technical problems like awful sound, horrendous lighting, odd use of background music and choppy editing; but I cannot forgive the silly, predictable script, generally awful acting and the relentlessly dull direction. Mike Dolan, playing Alex--the new guy-- does some decent acting with the lines he's given to read, but some of the other actors--most notable the guy who plays Paul's roommate--are so bad and so unbelievable in their roles, it is hard to watch. The basic idea--homosexuality at a bible college--is an interesting idea to explore, but this movie is simply inept and just plain bad

.... too bad the same can't be said about the small minds who penned 1-star ratings for this sincere and heartfelt motion picture.When y'all learn how to "SPEL" and gain a modicum of objectivity and strive to appreciate intent and cool it with the homophobia, well then when you reach these noble goals y'all mosey up to the keyboard one more time and let the good thoughts flow.

What can I say, the Outtakes were the best part. The story was not original, but it was still ok. Problem is for the most part, the acting very well could have been the worst I've ever seen in a movie. They were much more convincing doing the interviews for one of the extras on the DVD. There was a lot of bad dialogue also. Parts were laughable. I would have given it 2 stars, but I gave 3 based on the Outtakes. They were pretty funny.

This is a story that should have waited for better financing.

The actual storyline wasn't original (I've seen this rank & file many times before) and it was made too episodal with the predictable, annoying <Fade Out,> <Fade In> technique for spacing scenes for visually setting the story/characters to the proper surroundings or the quick way to "cut off" from a scene (or action) without any connection to the next section of the story. Personally, I prefer a story that flows, rather than one that stops and starts, but that's only an opinion.

Had more financing become available, perhaps a few Actors who understood acting could have been added to the mix of people on-screen. Too many minutes of awful whining and monotone line reading. Yes, I thought it sounded read instead of spoken.

I just don't understand it. Why are all gay-themed films more expensive to purchase than films with similar storylines, but skuewed to a straight orientation? It can't be because a "gay-themed" film is still considered "underground" (as opposed to mainstream), thus producing an image of being less available, sooooooooo worth more money to purchase.

Slow curtain. The end. <Fade Out>