Cortechba Overrated

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

big-gun I'm usually not a person who goes for romantic comedy or romantic drama for that matter. There have been a few exceptions over the years. This was one of them.One evening I was channel flipping and came across But I'm a Cheerleader on the Indie Channel. What the hell, there wasn't much else on so I decided to watch. Natasha Lyonne plays Megan, all-American cheerleader and all around good girl. John Waters fans, Mink Stole plays her mother. Bud Cort (Harold and Maude) plays her father. Suspecting Megan is gay, they stage an intervention with her friends and Mike from True Directions, played hilariously by RuPaul not in drag.The True Directions campus is every stereotype you could imagine. Pink for the girls, blue for the boys among other things. Here, Megan meets Graham (the amazing Clea DuVall) and begins her journey through sexual re-identification or whatever you want to call it. Other faces you may recognize, Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull), Melanie Lynskey (Rose from Two and a Half Men), Eddie Cibrian (who plays one of the gayest characters in the movie), and Richard Moll (Bull from Night Court).All around, I found this movie campy, silly, funny, touching, a little of everything. When, in spite of the best (or worst) attempts to turn her around, Megan embraces and owns who she is and professes her love for Graham, I was left utterly raw. But in a good way. Three subsequent times I watched the movie and felt the same way. If this movie doesn't touch, you have no heart. For the record, I'm a straight, bearded, tattooed, Republican veteran.

roddekker This almost-inept, often heavy-handed, little "queer" Comedy from 1999 was basically nothing but a contrived, one-note joke that got real tiresome, real fast. I'd say that But, I'm a Cheerleader (BIAC, for short) could've probably been a somewhat amusing little film had the script not been such a inane mess right from the start.Personally, judging from what I saw, I'd say that neither the director nor the blasted screenwriters had the slightest understanding at all when it came to the many subtle nuances of homosexuality. I mean, these guys couldn't have possibly had the least bit of insight into the subject, otherwise BIAC would've surely been destined to become something of a certified cult movie classic, indeed.Megan Bloomfield, a cute, 17 year-old, high school cheerleader, is suspected (for the most preposterous reasons imaginable), by her less-than-enlightened parents, of being 100% lesbian. (Oh, my gosh!) You know, I really wonder how many level-headed parents out there go through this sort of ordeal, trying to determine whether the peculiar behaviour of their little brat indicates sexual deviance from the "so-called" norm? The method taken to get Megan "normal", and back onto the old straight and narrow again, was to promptly send her (thanks to dear old dad & mom) to a ridiculous "reparative" therapy camp aptly named True Directions.Run like a concentration camp by an outrageously strict disciplinary named Mary Brown, it's here that the students (otherwise referred to as homosexual misfits) are put onto a regimental 5 step-program (very similar to that of AA's) that's supposedly guaranteed to convert even the most hardened homo-slut into a perfectly wholesome, happy, little hetero-twinkie in no time flat.And from this point onwards BIAC was nothing but a moronic chant of - 2-4-6-8 - God is good. God is straight. (Ad Nauseum)

jm10701 This movie has almost exactly the same plot as Save Me (2007, IMDb title tt0772200), except the sexes are reversed and it's a comedy instead of a drama. Although Cheerleader gets credit for attacking homosexual conversion therapy eight years earlier, Save Me is a very much better movie in every way.Save Me is both more entertaining and rewarding and MUCH more effective in addressing the therapy fad that claimed to turn gays straight through prayer and therapy but by now (thank God) has been pretty much abandoned even by the fanatics who most strongly pushed it.The "humor" in Cheerleader is so excessively stupid, relentless and campy that it completely undermines any serious message the movie might be trying to present. It comes across as simply a mindless, pointless, frantic, unfunny mess - like a Jerry Lewis movie, for those who remember him.The head of the conversion camp in both movies is a woman, but the characters are as different as night and day. Judith Light in Save Me is a compassionate person who honestly believes in the work she does and really loves the men who are sent to her for "help". Her realization that what she does may NOT actually help, and may instead hurt them, is a far more powerful indictment of the therapy than the gratingly moronic, maniacal, twitching monster Cathy Moriarty plays in Cheerleader.This movie's only assets are three of its actors: Natasha Lyonne, who can't help being charming no matter what she does; Clea DuVall, who is so subtly and sultrily sexy that she makes even this gay man drool; and RuPaul - OUT of drag - completely credible in an entirely male role: the relatively macho athletic director of the camp, of all things.But the movie is so stupidly written and directed, and the other actors are so bad, that it is not worth watching - unless by lesbians who can identify more easily with these women than the gay men in Save Me. Gay men have a hard enough time finding good movies, but the selection is even worse for lesbians.

Anssi Vartiainen I knew, walking into this film, that I probably wouldn't like it. There are some subjects, like pregnancy, war crimes, and yes, homosexuality that require a certain amount of skill to handle humorously. This movie lacks that subtlety, trying to do both a social satire and a homosexual parody at the same time. A good satire can most often be watched as a good parody as well if you don't concentrate on the hidden commentary. But intentional parody doesn't really work as a satire and it's a form of humour that you either love or hate. I belong to the latter group, and thus I don't really think that I belong to this film's target audience. It's too bright, too in your face, too exuberantly and stereotypically gay - and not in a fun way. You're painfully reminded that these people, especially the males, could never exists in real life. They're just too over the top, too stereotypical, too clueless about even the most basic of social norms.By far the worst is the rehabilitation center, though, which is painted in the most obnoxious shades of pink and baby blue. The whole process of trying to turn gays and lesbians into straight people by forcing them to adapt the most masculine and feminine roles imaginable is of course ludicrous, though from what I've gathered, not that far from reality, unfortunately. And I think that this over the topness will actually please the friends of parody as it is always treated with tongue in cheek and with certain amount of "yeah, we're just kidding". But every now and then the movie takes a turn for the worse and tries to point and mock through the use of satire. It tries to say "this is wrong, don't do this", but it feels like it's trying to force the message down our throats. Its message is a good one, don't get me wrong, but its delivery leaves much to be desired.That being said, there are some good things in this film. The acting is mainly rather bland, but the two main characters, Megan (Natasha Lyonne) and Graham (Clea DuVall), have some genuine chemistry between them and you're able to buy their romance. Add in some laughs, which are kind of forced, but laughs nonetheless, and you have a film that has some value as a guilty pleasure.And that pretty nicely sums up the film. It's not a good movie. It simultaneously mocks the gay people and then tries to tell its audience that it's okay to be one, which sends extremely mixed messages. But it is rather funny if its sense of humour tickles your fancy and the main romance is watchable. There are worse films in existence.