College Boys Live + Greek Pete – A Year In The
Life Of A Rent Boy (2009/Water Bearer DVDs)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+/C Extras: C- Main Programs: B-
It is one
thing to have a documentary and the other “reality TV”, but two new titles from
Water Bearer try to walk the line between the two and with interesting,
unexpected results. College Boys Live (2009) is an actual documentary about a gay
couple who has a website for voyeurs where just of age young gay males live and
have dozens of cameras watching their every move. They get money for this and also have to
constantly write back to those who write to them.
We see
that none of these participants are going to any college, have sad stories
behind the smiles and on camera sex they have and get some interesting fans,
including some who send more money and other expensive items than they ought
to. We meet the couple who set it up and
see the battle the nice upscale neighborhood decides to wage against them to drive
them out of their neighborhood. Instead
of being a “gay documentary”, it becomes a character study of prejudice,
people, privacy, politics and how all of it plays in the Internet age.
Greek Pete – A Year In The Life Of
A Rent Boy (2009)
is a “fictionalized” account of the title hustler, a young British man who
moves to London
to be an “escort” where it is easier and he can make money faster. In this case, this short work (70 minutes)
manages to be brutally honest and share information about the business and
world Pete and company live in that many major feature films on the subject
(gender preference not withstanding) would not begin to address. Pete is in good shape, but he knows it takes
much more than a good body to compete in what is a highly competitive world.
He is
totally aware of how ugly things can get, including the AIDS crisis and those
who get it and totally go out of their way to infect others, so he plays it
safe himself. He then flies out to L.A. and has more
continued success. For being a whole
year in his life, this seems like too short a work, but his (or his
character’s; one and the same?) is a big surprise and this should have been
longer but works well enough.
The 1.33
X 1 image on College and
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Pete
are about the same in quality originating in low def video (digital with some
analog footage) and has the usual flaws, limits, aliasing and variances like a
documentary. The cameras exposing the
lives in College of course are not going to have the highest fidelity
either. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound in
both cases is barely stereo and both have location audio dropouts and other
limits, but Greek has some
distortion problems that make some talking inaudible and not because of British
accents. The only extra on each is a
trailer.
- Nicholas Sheffo
