Here’s a first look at the newly released poster art for Chris Mason Johnson‘s acclaimed gay coming-of-age dance-world drama, Test.
Co-starring modern dancer Scott Marlowe (the blond on the left and above) and veteran Broadway actor Matthew Risch (also seen most recently on HBO’s “Looking”), Test took home the Grand Jury Award for Outstanding U.S. Feature and Best Screenplay at L.A.’s Outfest last summer and is set for a U.S. theatrical release in June (with a simultaneous DVD and VOD release).
Like “Looking,” Test makes use of San Francisco as a backdrop — with a twist: it’s set in 1985 in the midst of the AIDS crisis at a modern dance company. The film also features a period soundtrack including tracks from Laurie Anderson, Bronski Beat, Cocteau Twins, Martha and the Muffins, Romeo Void and Sylvester.
See the trailer below, follow the film on Twitter and Facebook; and pre-order the DVD right HERE.
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Aaron
Yes! We need more gay films!
Billy Budd
Please don’t attack me for saying this, but I am tired and bored with AIDS related movies. I wanna see normal movies where gay guys just live their lives and live like the other straight characters. An action movie with gay guys. A musical with gay guys. A dramedy with gay guys. A melodrama with gay guys. And so on. I mean, I think gay people should be incorporated into the regular hollywood productions, in a natural way.
I am sick of seeing the same thing over and over. Gays dying of aids on camera.
Fang
@Billy Budd: I somewhat agree, but gay men are at a time where we are desensitized to HIV/AIDS. Many have never even been tested and many more are contracting the virus through high risk behaviors. The greater amount of media concentration on gay men and HIV is hopefully the reversal of a media blackout of the issue. Really though, there should be more coverage and more resources pooled to address the issue.
Tackle
Definitely a movie I will see.
JennyFromdabloc
Scott Marlowe is beautiful. Love watching him dance. @Billy Budd: @Fang: I agree with both of your points. It is a tired narrative but does have a message that bears repeating.
CCTR
@Billy Budd: I once felt that way until I discovered so many movies with gay themes and gay characters that are not mainstream, advertised much or big budgeted, nor about AIDS…some good some not so good…some more difficult to find than others. I think there is enough room for all of these stories. The impact of HIV/AIDS in the gay community and the response to it is an important part of history.
If you have not done so already check out IMDb they list gay themed/character movies by year. Wolfe releasing, TLA Releasing also are sites to check out.
Some “relatively recent” movies mostly dramas that I found to be interesting are: The Green, Handsome Harry, Weekend, In the Family, C.O.G., Any Day Now, Children of God, Beauty, and Yossi.
chrismasonjohn
@Billy Budd:
Hi Billy Budd — this is the writer-director of TEST. One of the things that motivated me to tell the story of TEST is that it is NOT a story of gays getting sick and dying. Up to now, that’s what “AIDS movies” have been about, understably I think, because if you deal with a deadly disease in a narrative, it makes sense people will get sick. And those stories were (and probably still are) very important to tell for political and emotional reasons both.
But frankly, I too was tired of that narrative – the “death-bed” AIDS movie – and TEST is about something very different. It’s about people who DO NOT get sick. It’s a very hopeful movie with a surprising perspective. I hope you give it a chance!
-Chris