Simply Perfect

Fresh and Exciting

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

What starts as a sort of pretend documentary finally morphs into a rambling series of shopping trips and fake interviews that leads to a sort of Beauty and the Beast sex romp that just left me wondering "Why?" One of the problems with any film that has anything to do with strippers and go-go dancers is that if you've seen one, you've basically seen them all. So here we have Camp, a real life dancer, who is supposedly being stalked (yes stalked) by Tanner Cohen's character.Instead of being concerned about this little geek chasing him, we are to believe he takes him shopping, to the gym and them home for a sort of carry out dinner. Naturally, in a total leap we are to believe that the hot dancer finds himself in lust with the nerd and now wants to have sex with him. And not just any sex, but to bottom for him too boot. (In an interview Camp confessed the director got them both drunk to do these scenes. If you have to get loaded, are you really much of an actor?) Anyway, this all trolls on for what seems an unusually long period of time before finally sinking like a giant lead balloon running out of gas. The film is badly, badly edited. Chopped up and presented with these dreadfully annoying split screen sequences like something out of Directing 101. It's all pretty lame.Just my opinion, but Camp is nice to look at if you go in for the muscle boy with lots of tats look. Cohen should reconsider and keep his clothes on.

This is a movie more about the juxtapositioning of surface thematics than about anything else...and you have lots of them: the innocent narcissist versus the vapid sex toy; the inherent sadness of loneliness versus the snarky adulation of the crowds; indulgent hero worship versus a pure insouciance. The movie uses a lot of interspersed video which itself is a commentary on the initial fragmentation of the characters into those thematic caricatures. Without needing a Pygmalion (Shaw) transition in either direction, the leads Go and Doc find themselves drawn towards each other on their own terms. They integrate rather than further fragment and find common ground right in the middle. The truly fabulous tour-of- NYC make-out scenes are celluloid-melting in a deeply romantic and convincing manner in the most egalitarian kissing yet filmed. They are equals and need no excuses. In the end Doc got exactly what he sought from the beginning: To know himself better through the non-judgmental eyes of a lost (but very sexy) soul.

I knew nothing about this film and believed, while watching it, that it was really a documentary made by the protagonist. Upon discovering that it was actually made by a filmmaker, I become rather confused as to its intentions. Why is the film so crudely and unimaginatively shot?I guess my belief in it as a documentary is a credit to the performances. And specifically not a credit to the production, which did look like it was made by the talentless and obsessive protagonist.The story is one of an antisocial and self-obsessed young man, Doc, who focuses his attention on the image of a go-go dancer he has never met, Go, concocts a plan to "get" him and succeeds. Upon discovering that he is a real person, kind, intelligent and loving, Doc withdraws and blames Go for his own fear and superficiality.Why would we want to follow such a morally and emotionally lacking protagonist through a film he has made in his own image, where he seeks a sexy ass, discovers a sexy person, and then hysterically justifies his rejection of real emotion and affection.

I am not a fan of most American gay films. In fact, many remind me of 1980s California high school films, like "Breakfast Club". Gay cable networks certainly haven't helped to refine the quality of gay cinema in the U.S.. After seeing the French "Stranger by the Lake", for example, I was annoyed that the U.S., a leader in LGBTQ politics, still has a largely puerile gay cinema catalog."Getting Go, The Go Doc Project" is a big step in the right direction. The artistry of this film and its excellent acting by Tanner Cohen and Matthew Camp is seductive. It presents as a documentary and is totally believable as such. In fact, I felt voyeuristic in the sex scenes because they were so convincingly human and genuine.The interactions between Doc and Go transported me back 45 years to my own experiences with first infatuation and sexual exploration in friendship. The mattress discussions between Doc and Go about present-day gay male issues were more candid and pertinent than many pages of published gay observers, and in fewer words. The serial public kissing scenes around Manhattan, despite mimicking Warhol, struck me as passionate, intensely erotic and profoundly political, all at once.I didn't expect to become engrossed in Doc's and Go's world, but I did. Partly because I was revisiting a real urban gay world in which I once lived myself. Since my life hasn't been one of a suburban marriage with children, I found this tremendously moving and encouraging. This movie asserts that there is still a gay male culture aside from heterosexual-lite.