The Useless Critic 2.0

Imagine, if you will, that you have the power to make the person you love fall in love with you. What would you do? Tom Gustafson's 2008 musical film "Were the World Mine" takes this premise and turns it on its head. Timothy (Tanner Cohen) is an openly gay student at a private boy's school, where he is physically and verbally harassed by the rugby team, including his crush, team captain Jonathon (Nathaniel David Becker), and his gym teacher (Christian Stolte). He has no help on the home front either, as his single mother doesn't understand his sexuality and his father is not a part of his life. The only support he receives comes from his best friends, Frankie (Zelda Williams, Robin Williams' daughter) and Max (Ricky Goldman), and his drama teacher, Ms. Tebbit (Twin Peaks' Wendy Robie). Things change when Timothy is cast as Puck in his school's production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." While memorizing lines, he discover...

A Brief Foreword: I've been watching a number of LGBT-themed films and TV shows lately. I've decided to review them. So. Enjoy. The 2000 film "Big Eden," directed by Thomas Bezucha ("The Family Stone"), features Arye Gross as Henry Hart, a successful artist in New York City, who feels compelled to return to his Montana hometown of Big Eden when his grandfather (George Coe) has a stroke. In Big Eden he meets up with old friends and acquaintances, including his childhood best friend Dean (Tim DeKay), on whom Henry had - and still has - a crush. Dean is straight and newly single, with custody of his two children. But is he really all that straight? Another acquaintance is Pike (Eric Schweig), the overwhelmingly shy Native American owner of the town's general store, who just so happens to have a crush on Henry. The town's denizens - including Widow Thayer (Nan Smith) and a group of older men who spend the vast majority of their time at the general store ...