Vacationland (2006/Drama/Gay)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Feature: C+
Todd
Verlow’s Vacationland (2006) has a
good idea in the story of one man named Joe (Brad Hallowell) who is gay and
wants to get out of the poor area he lives in, while continuing to not discuss
who and what he is. Making things more
interesting is that he is in love with the high school football star Andrew
(Gregory J. Lucas) who has some alcohol issues and part of it is linked to also
being gay. What should be an easy
situation to solve is complicated because both have personal pain from their
past and integration issues now and upcoming.
Can they and their potential relationship survive the changes?
The idea
here is good and this is not the worst feature we have seen in what is becoming
the post-Gay New Wave, but the primary problem is that all the actors look too
old to be in high school, even if they are seniors. Yes, they might look good, but they also look
old; older than they should for these roles and it is much more of a problem
here than in the recent thriller Brick. At least this is ambitious and Verlow may be
moving onto richer work if he keeps working into this direction.
The 1.33
X 1 image is a better than usual shoot for an indie production in the waning
years of narrow vision. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo is also good, if nothing spectacular, but the combination of
the two is professional enough to enjoy.
Extras include deleted scenes that are not bad and a trailer.
- Nicholas Sheffo
