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Review

Were the World Mine
Timothy (Tanner Cohen) is a gay boy stranded in a private boys school obsessed with rugby. There’s just one thing about rugby he's obsessed with, the über-hot Jonathan (Nathaniel David Becker). Both boys are students in Ms. Tebbit's (Wendy Robie, who "Twin Peaks" fans will recognize as Nadine) English class. She's a teacher with a mission: to excite her students with the literature of the ages. When she decides to cast these two boys as the romantic leads in her production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and to cast boys in girl's roles, you know she’s just as mischievous as Puck himself. The rugby Coach and townspeople are up in arms, and Timothy sends himself off into musical gay fantasies that look as if they're designed by Pierre et Gilles. But Timothy just can't get the language right and Ms. Tebbit advises the boy to let the words work their magic. They do just that as Timothy finds in the script the recipe for a potion to make people gay! One spritz from Timothy's magic pansy and the person goes totally queer. The entire town (filled with Christian fundamentalists) is whipped into frenzy as the glorious production night approaches. This deliciously surreal confection of a film is steered by first-time co-writer/director Thomas Gustafson, whose 2003 short Fairies inspired this bit of magic. The musical numbers are over-the-top, production values first-rate and the acting is as flawlessly beautiful as the boys. We know the Bard would appreciate this totally queer take on his immortal tale of mayhem, "If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended."

Private Romeo
The greatest romantic story ever told is given a dramatically sexy, gay twist when eight high school cadets are left to their own volition on the isolated campus of their military school. Their classroom study of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet spills out into their dormitories and lives - causing the distractingly handsome youths to erupt into wild passion with more boy-on-boy kissing than the Bard could ever have imagined. Private Romeo, not the first gay interpretation of a Shakespearean play, breathes a peculiarly smart, homoerotic edge into everything - from the love dynamic to the family feuding - with gusto, mystery and tenderness. The rivalry and physicality of the boys’ interpretation of the poetic lines lends freshness to both the words and actions, resonating beyond the viewer’s momentary experience. Incorporating YouTube videos and lip-synched indie rock music into the mix, the clever, intelligent retelling of the star-crossed lovers takes on an entirely new, exciting and contemporary meaning with grace and style. Screenwriter/director Alan Brown has created his own endearingly original classic in its own category.

 -- Scott Cranin