Luster

Starring:Justin Herwick, Shane Powers, B. Wyatt, Pamela Gidley, Susannah Melvoin, Jonah Blechman, Sean Thibodeau, Willie Garson, Gabriel Dell Jr., Henriette Mantel, Norman Reedus, Chris Freeman (III), JD Cullum, Brian Grillo, Michael McCraine, Beth Lapides, BunBoy, Stephen Berra, Chad Kula, Justin Bloomenthal
Director: Everett Lewis
Studio: TLA Releasing
Product Type: DVD

Description

Jess Wade is innocently accused of having stolen a cannon from the Mexican revolutionary forces. He tries to find the real culprits, a gang of criminals.

Average customer rating:

UNFUNNY, UNSEXY, AND TOO BORING
rEFRESHING, fUNNY AND sEXY
"I think I love you!"
Some reviews here are over-reacting
One of the worst films I have ever seen

Luster
Starring: Justin Herwick , Shane Powers , B. Wyatt , Pamela Gidley , and Susannah Melvoin
Director: Everett Lewis
Manufacturer: TLA Releasing
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B0000DD75T
Release Date: 2003-12-09

Description

An irreverent and refreshing take on the queer world of sex, lust and unrequited love. Lanky, blue haired Jackson, record store employee and poet, is in love with most of the men in his life! There's Billy, who he met at an orgy, Jed, his cousin, Derek, a customer at the shop, and Sam, his boss and best friend! A refreshing departure from the typical gay love story, LUSTER is a raw and darkly comic look at young punks in love. Limited Theatrical release.

Customer Reviews:

UNFUNNY, UNSEXY, AND TOO BORING.......2007-05-15

The story runs slowly and make me sleep till the end of this movie. There's no looking good of the guys.

rEFRESHING, fUNNY AND sEXY.......2006-12-25

"LUSTER"

Refreshing, Funny, and Sexy

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

Unrequited love is usually not much fun and neither is it sexy nor refreshing. At least it is not until you see ?Luster? (Here! TV). Jackson is a cute, lanky frustrated poet who works in a record store. He is mad about Billy, a sexy young blonde who he meets at an orgy but Billy loves Sonny who is a musician into S and M. Then there is Jackson?s customer, Derek, who is in love with him and the owner of the record store who is straight (?) but obviously infatuated with Billy. (Got all this down?). Next we add Jed who is Jackson?s cousin who is responsible for leading his relative to contemplate incest. (Whew!!!!) To make everything even more complicated, Jed is seduced by a lesbian.
From the moment this film begins you know it is going to be different?first the actors are listed only by first name and secondly, the first scene is a bunch of young guys lying entwined and naked. So, is this a teen flick? In many ways it is but it also has a great deal to say about the nature of relationships. There is a good share of ?camp? and several of the mysterious subplots seem to bring the film down from what could have been a really good movie. Yet the more I watched the more I enjoyed it and the youthful exuberance of the cast makes it a lot of fun.
Jackson is the central character, he is cute as can be but he has his problems. His superior, record store mogul may be remembered as the gay guy on ?Sex and the City?, Stanford. He is supposedly straight but he does enjoy being beaten. The other characters give the whole mish mash a soap opera tone. Jackson could have had his character developed a bit more but somehow that did not happen.
This is a fun movie and doesn?t demand a great deal of thought or concentration. You may not remember much about it after you finish it but you will have a good time watching it while it is on the screen. Sit back, enjoy and move on. There is also a great deal of frontal nudity so that is a definite plus.

"I think I love you!".......2005-08-20

Marked as a smart, sexy romantic comedic melodrama, the roughly made Luster is anything but. Well, it's sort of sexy, but it's not particularly smart, with a plot that takes a full hour to kick in and some pretty forgettable performances by the young cast. Also, for the most part, Luster isn't particularly funny, with a storyline that ends up veering into some pretty ugly and heavy S&M, non-consensual sex, and even suicide.

Set in Los Angeles, with much of the action-taking place in the more seedy areas of Hollywood, Luster opens just as Jackson Jones (Justin Herwick) wakes up from an all night orgy. Jackson is an alternative kind of guy - he has piercings and streaky blue hair, a goatee, and works in an independent record store.

Jackson is also an amateur poet, and when he's not shelving CD's while riding through the store on his skateboard, he's writing sexy love poetry in the hope of getting himself published. He has also set his sites on Billy (Jonah Blechman), a damaged twink in white leather pants whom he spotted at a party. Billy, however, is into being bashed about for kicks, and has been having secret liaisons with the deeply closeted rock star Sonny Spike (Willie Garson).

Jackson has been using his love for Billy, as inspiration for his poems and Sonny wants to use them as lyrics for a new album of rock music that he has planned. Jackson, however, is totally oblivious to Billy and Sonny's kinky relationship. A spanner is really thrown into the works when Jed (b. Wyatt), Jackson's hunk of a cousin arrives in Los Angeles from Iowa. Of course, Jackson falls immediately in lust with him, and wonders whether sleeping with your cousin is really incest, if it involves two guys.

Meanwhile, Jackson has a secret admirer in the clean-cut, straight-laced, and absolutely adorable Derek (Sean Thibodeau). Derrick is an unadulterated romantic, who believes in "love at first sight," and who falls hopelessly in love with Jackson when he wanders into the record store. After sharing a rather passionate kiss, Jackson decides that Derek is a bit too "normal" for his punkish, alternative persona.

But is doesn't stop there, while Jackson seems oblivious to all these romantic and sexual machinations that are going on around him, his "straight" best friend, Sam (Shane Powers), has also fallen in love with him. Tragically, Jackson hasn't a clue. He's far too preoccupied with writing his poetry and trying to bed Jed.

If this all seems a little much, well it is. Luster suffers from far too many extraneous characters that are constantly vying for screen time. There's also an unnecessary subplot involving Jackson's friend Alyssa (Pamela Gidley) is an aspiring photographer, who takes a shine to Jeb, and who spends most of her time annoyingly chattering away about post-modernist art.

Director Everett Lewis shows, with varying degrees of success, this alternative, punk acting group of men. Jackson in particular, is straight acting, far from effeminate, and is very accepting of his sexuality. And it's quite refreshing to see slightly edgy images of queer life that have nothing to do with clichéd gym clones or drag queens.

But when one considers the outrageous proceedings, Luster ends up coming across as rather repetitive, dull, and bland. The lack of a meaningful story would be easier to take if the dialogue was wittier; the characterizations were a little deeper, and the production design of better quality.

The tacked on, melodramatic plot twist at the end only further accentuates the artificiality of the proceedings. Yes - there are some good-looking, hunky guys in this film, but don't be fooled by the cover of the DVD with its photo of a group of writhing, naked male bodies, because minor nudity is all that you're going to see.

With all its good intentions and its attempts to be gritty, resolute, and urban, Luster ultimately comes across as rather fraudulent; and even Herwick's quite nuanced and natural performance as Jackson can't save it. Mike Leonard August 05.

Some reviews here are over-reacting.......2005-08-16

The fact is that many gay indie films have poor production values and inconsistent acting, so reviewers who are comparing this to a big-budget studio film are making an unfair comparison. What I liked about this film was that it is unapologetically gay. The gayness of the characters is not a big deal, and is neither the source of a standing joke (as in "Will and Grace") nor the cause of all their problems.

Instead, the film explores these admittedly flawed but interesting characters as they stumble through several days. I agree with the reviewer who wished that the character of Sam had been better developed. I also felt that even for an indie film, the dialogue was sometimes extremely difficult to understand, and this is a technical problem that should have been fixed.

However, I felt that many of the characters were likeable (not necessarily sexy, but that's a separate issue) and I cared enough about them to want to know how the film ended. I found that I was still thinking about the film long after I finished watching it.

One of the worst films I have ever seen.......2005-06-12

Yes, I know gay indie films are often low-budget and fall short in many regards, but that in itself doesn't stop me from enjoying a gay film that actually says something. This film seemed to be so concerned about being deep and portentious that many of the most basic elements of a film (plot, character believability and motivation, character development) were either not considered at all, or just de-prioritized. The film is a poorly-made confusing jumble of scenes about characters we never care about, and who don't even have the benefit of at least being nice to look at as we watch them ham-handedly deliver their clinkers of dialogue. Who do I contact to get these two hours of my life back??

Average customer rating:

Will Penny
Adequate oater
WILL - (SHANE) - PENNY MEETS PALE RIDER
"That's enough Shorthorn"
Pretentious... Uncommon... Extraordinary adult Western!

Will Penny (Ws Sub)
Starring: Charlton Heston , Joan Hackett , Donald Pleasence , Lee Majors , and Bruce Dern
Director: Tom Gries
Manufacturer: Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

4-for-3 All DVDs | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B0000648YW
Release Date: 2002-06-04

Customer Reviews:

Will Penny.......2007-07-02

Tom Gries's fabulous Western transcends various shoot-outs and intrigues to serve as both a touching love story and tale of self-discovery. Sensitive, perceptive script (by Gries) is brought to life by winning lead performances from Heston and Hackett, not to mention an inspired turn by Donald Pleasance as a Bible-thumping psychopath (with two equally demented sons, one played by Bruce Dern). Ben Johnson adds authentic flavoring as Will's no-nonsense boss. "Penny" rates as mandatory viewing for Western fans.

Adequate oater.......2007-06-08

What can one say about the west, a cowboy facing obstacles, a lady looking for just such a man and bloody action bringing the two together? Typical oater fare, but nonetheless a pleasant way to put aside for a brief time real life obstacles and bloody action. The conclusion was unexpected, which raised this movie from a 1 up to a 3.

WILL - (SHANE) - PENNY MEETS PALE RIDER .......2007-04-24

Director Tom Gries is mostly known for the two movies, Breakout and Breakheart Pass, he directed in 1975 for Charles Bronson at the peak of his career then. But this director, unlike the great majority of his contemporary colleagues of the end of the sixties, had the one in a lifetime opportunity to direct a script he had himself written and this movie was WILL PENNY, shot during the 1967-1968 winter.

If, during the projection of the film, the viewer inevitably thinks about George Stevens's Shane, WILL PENNY nevertheless lives its own life and offers scenes that linger in the head, at least mine, for quite a while. First of all, I must say that the scenes between Charlton Heston and Joan Hackett are so bashful and true that I had to make an effort to remember that I was watching a western, the male cinematographic genre in essence. Secondly, I was captivated by the performance of Donald Pleasence who, as Preacher Quint, fills the screen with his magnetism as soon as he appears. Look at him when he curses Will Penny after the death of his son Romulus or when he starts to dance alone in Penny's cabin, madness is literally pouring out of him. These are great moments of Cinema.

A DVD zone baby, it's cold outside.

"That's enough Shorthorn".......2006-12-21

Charlton Heston always seemed to bring a presence to a movie that made it dramatic and "Will Penny" is no exception. He is supported by many fine actors, many who gained fame in later years, actors like Lee Majors, Anthony Zerbe, Bruce Dern, etc. A man with no family who has lived a rugged life but in spite of it all still has a kind heart. The show begins on the last day of a cattle drive. After they're all paid they go their separate ways but Will gives up a chance to keep working so one of the other hands (Big Foot) can go to Kansas City to see his ailing Dad. Will ends up being a line rider for another outfit. He has lots of territory to cover and isn't expected to return till Spring. He finds that someone is occupying the line rider's shack (Joan Hackett and her young son). They were abandoned by their guide on the way to Oregon. He remembers her and she him from a bar/restaurant they were both in previously. He tells her she has to be gone when he gets back, he needs to inspect the layout of the land. He comes back a dying man, she nurses him back to health and a beautiful love story begins. I've left out a lot of major and minor details but the story is engrossing. What seems like a happy ending becomes more bittersweet but your imagination is left to ponder what may or may not happen in the future.

Pretentious... Uncommon... Extraordinary adult Western!.......2006-11-09

The tough, lonely life of the cattle drover (as it really was) is briefly related in the ideal opening scene of Tom Gries' "Will Penny" with an aching Charlton Heston compelled, at the end of an exhausting cattle drive, to take a humble winter job in the cold bleak hillside... His turbulent, crude, oppressive - virtually celibate existence - is marvelously exposed by Gries...

Heston portrays with honesty and sensitivity, a middle-aged cowhand "free and easy" who ignores everything about farming... He is a lonely rider who takes his bath eight or nine times a year, and mends his own clothes... He is a "good steady hand" concerned for Mrs. Allen and her son but "bad scared before, and bad sorry after." He is also a helpless man with uncertain future, a sincere cowboy extremely sensitive...

"Will Penny" is an extraordinary film... Not only does it feature Heston's most sincere and sensitive performance, it has a fine supporting cast and is one of the most adult Western scripts ever written...

Joan Hackett portrays Mrs. Allen with strength and dignity, never collapsing beneath the strain of her tribulations...

Donald Pleasance is the most dastardly villain to grace the screen in many long years... He is mean, unkind, and slightly insane... Bruce Dern is equally effective as one of his sons, the psychotic who "handles a knife just fine."

Realistically spared, "Will Penny" is a straightforward and honest film, a sincere attempt to recreate the Old West, and, more important, the "mighty good men" who lived therein...

Average customer rating:

Why don't they remaster his movies?
I've never saw this movie
Rerelease this Movie!!
Charro
Pass the Pills

Charro
Starring: Elvis Presley , Ina Balin , Victor French , Barbara Werle , and Solomon Sturges
Director: Elvis Presley , and Charles Marquis Warren
Manufacturer: Tapeworm
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B00005Q50J
Release Date: 1999-06-01

Customer Reviews:

Why don't they remaster his movies?.......2006-02-26

I saw this movie when it was first released and very much enjoyed it. I cannot understand why they don't remaster his movies, and put them in stores at an affordable price. It was not so good as to get me to spend $ 59.95 for it!

Doc Farrell

I've never saw this movie.......2005-12-08

I'd like the studio considerate a new release of this movie with subtitles in spanish. There are a lot of fan that don't buy it because of this. I understand language but not so well, but my family speaks only spanish.

Rerelease this Movie!!.......2005-02-15

Please rerelease this Elvis classic"Charro" at a more modest price so that humble people can afford it!!So spread the word!!!!!!!!

Charro.......2004-10-24

All you people who didn't like the Charro dvd I would like to buy it please let me know if you are interested in selling it

Pass the Pills.......2004-06-15

No wonder Elvis took "Prescription Medication" making dreadful movies like this. It's so awful words cannot describe. It looks cheap, nasty, badly acted, badly directed, badly edited with no story. It's just awful.

What on earth was going on in his and the Colonel's heads thinking that fans would put up with watching this crap at the movies when you had the real deal in Clint Eastwood. Even at the time it was made, Westerns were going out of fashion.

This was, thank God, one of the last movies he made. I'm a big Elvis Fan but could not bear to watch it twice.

Customer Reviews:

Will Penny.......2007-07-02

Adequate oater.......2007-06-08

WILL - (SHANE) - PENNY MEETS PALE RIDER .......2007-04-24

"That's enough Shorthorn".......2006-12-21

Pretentious... Uncommon... Extraordinary adult Western!.......2006-11-09

Average customer rating:

Charro! [Region 2]
Starring: Elvis Presley , Ina Balin , Victor French , Barbara Werle , and Solomon Sturges
Director: Charles Marquis Warren
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B00009PAJA

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