Luster

Plot synopsis:
Luster takes place over a weekend in Los Angeles.
=== Friday ===
Jackson wakes up in the aftermath of an orgy and heads to his job at his friend Sam's alternative record store. At the store he gets a call from Sonny Spike. On his way out the door, Jackson runs into customer Derek, who professes his love at first sight.
Jackson meets Sonny at his hotel and Sonny asks him to write the lyrics for Sonny's next album. Stoked, Jackson stops back at his house where he finds his cousin Jed in the shower, which immediately inspires thoughts of incest. Jackson and Jed head back to the store, just in time to head out to a book signing by Kurt Domain with Sam (who, sadly, leaves friend Alyssa behind).
At the book signing, Jackson runs into Billy, who he'd met at last night's orgy. Jackson professes his love at first sight for Billy, who agrees to have coffee but flatly informs Jackson he won't have sex with him. The author spots Jed, and, taking him as his muse, writes a piece on Jed's body.
=== Saturday morning ===
Jackson, inspired by Jed, writes several poems. Meanwhile, Jed is in the desert, serving as muse to yet a third artist, Alyssa. A bloodied Billy calls Jackson at the record store. Jackson picks him up and takes him home. Billy explains that his ex-lover sexually tortured him.
Leaving Billy to sleep, Jackson gives his poems to Sonny, who thinks they're great but changes the sex of the subjects to female. Jed returns to Jackson's place and crawls into bed next to Billy. Jackson goes back to work, where Derek is waiting for him. Derek again professes his love. Jackson explains he doesn't feel the same but they kiss anyway. Jackson drives Derek home.
Alyssa takes her photos of Jed to a gallery and lands a showing in New York City.
Billy wakes up next to Jed and engages in some sexual torture of his own. Sonny decides he must meet Jackson's inspiration and sends a private investigator to get him. The P.I. finds Billy and brings him to Sonny. It was Sonny who had tortured Billy previously. Billy tells Sonny that he tortured someone that morning and realized that he hated it and that he wants to enslave himself to Sonny.
Sam visits his mother and surprises her with the news that he's paid off her mortgage.
Jackson returns home and finds Jed handcuffed in the shower.
=== Saturday night ===
Sam, Jackson and Jed go on a bar crawl through the city. Jackson runs into Sonny and Billy in the restroom of one bar and beats Billy up for what he did to Jed. Sonny gets turned on by it. When Jackson leaves the bar, Sam and Jed are arguing over Sam's unrequited love for someone. Sam drops Jackson and Jed off at Jackson's and gives Jed a videotape to give to Jackson. Jed goes inside and he and Jackson have sex.
=== Sunday morning ===
Jackson takes Jed to the airport for his flight back to Iowa. Jed tells him about the tape. Jackson returns home to find Alyssa and her girlfriend Sandra, who tell him that Sam has killed himself. On the tape, Sam says he's in love with Jackson. He knows he'll never be able to be with Jackson the way he wants to and that he has a lot of pain because of that. Distraught, Jackson runs all the way to Derek's place before the tape even ends. He has Derek reassure him that Derek loves him. Jackson strips naked and tells Derek "I'm all yours." Jackson says he doesn't know if he loves Derek but he does think Derek's pretty special, and special is "pretty fuckin' good."

Tags: romantic, sadist

Review:
They've got that really rebellious "I'm REAL punk rock & I'm not a poseur & you ARE & the rest of the world sux" thing from high school still going pretty strong.Everyone in LA is infatuated with the lead character Jackson, even the "guy next door" who stalks him at work.
I'm not sure why, since I was eventually hoping someone would smack Jackson upside the head & shut him up.Amongst the film's problems are too many story lines & subplots fighting for attention, none of which seem to blend or create a sense of relevance to Jackson's life or a cohesive central theme.
The worst of these is an S & M subplot that seems terribly contrived, misplaced, & rings totally false with the rest of the film's "realism."There are a couple of funny moments, like the photographer & the interaction with her "subject."And of course there are a couple of full frontals from a really good looking guy, which help this situation along slightly.But worse of all, I never felt for a minute why Jackson was lusting for these guys & guys were lusting for him.
Just a bunch of obnoxious & pretentious brats pretending to deal with "real life" & "art." Yuck.Plenty of better queer films out there.See it if you must..
Jackson is an amazing character for this film because like this film although he is strange he is believable and thats how the whole film is dramatic enough to be a movie but not so much that you find no common ground.
The relationship between characters is amazing and As a gay guy i can honestly admit i have "fallen in love" a million times before learning the person's last name like how Jackson is crazy over billy who he knows nothing about.
That impulse for a connection is totally believable and the film makes you look at the characters and go i have a friend like that or more importantly "i am like that".
LUSTER is a winsome, engaging look back at a time in the early 1990s when queer nonchalance began to overtake gay pride for the first time.
Something like an early Gregg Araki film (although less angry and more light-hearted), LUSTER is a funny, sexy, and a generally fast-moving look at the early Nineties from the not-too-distant perspective of the early Twenty-first century.
At least it seems that way for a gay audience looking for something beyond the usual post-Queer milquetoast like IN AND OUT or WILL AND GRACE...
The characters were sexy, quirky and fun to watch.
Supporting actor Jonah Blechman (who played Billy) was adorable and his character added some punch to the film.
Those who like a mix of raunchiness and reality with the esoteric and attempts to "be deep" will enjoy the film.
Namely some campy acting, a customer in a record store squealing for Madonna, to numerous subplots that tend to bring down the film as well as audio that tends to be muffled in spots.
But overall the more it went on the more I accepted and enjoyed these vagabonds and the flaws found within.The story centers around a punky, skateboard, party goer, poet, named Jackson (Justin Herwick), who works at a record shop called, how appropriate, `No Life'.
Throw in Jackson's hunky cousin Jed(Barry Wyatt), a clean cut collegiate type customer at the store (Sean Thibodeau) who's in love with Jackson, a lesbian friend named Alyssa (Pamela Gidley) who screws around with Jed and is later found out by her lover, and you get a smorgasboard of a soap opera.
The one character I really wish had been more developed and with whom I felt something towards was Jackson's supposedly straight boss and friend at the record shop, Sam (Shane Powers).
Take it for what it's worth though and you'll have fun with these characters, their loves, lusts, and losses.
I didn't expect much more from a low budget `indie' and it also includes a short documentary with the director and a film commentary and trailers for other TLA releases.Note: plenty of full frontal nudity From TLA Releasing.
His character gives the movie its heart and sole.Shows an interesting side to LA and people trying to find there way.Some of the characters seem a bit extreme, but does add to the theme of the movie.Jackson makes for an interesting protagonist: watching his evolution makes the movie interesting.
He and Derek make for an unusual pair but that makes it even more intriguing.For a low budget movie it really does an excellent job.Worth your time to watch.
The transition between Jackson and Derek makes the movie..
Jackson, he tell us, fall in love with at least 20 people every day, or kind of i can say.
Jackson (Justin Herwick), the center of "Luster", is a poet who works in a friend's record store.
There is a writer as a friend, a funny photographer, she is lesbian, Jackson is gay.
There's a stores customer who sees Jackson, and then he questioned about love at first sight.
"Luster" going to tell us what happen to Jackson and how might he change finally at the Sunday morning.From director Everett Lewis, comes this drama about the love, the young and the old.
The fact that a films is about gay people doesn't mean that an heterosexual cant enjoy it, no deal with that, but there's exist homophobia in the public yet, so some critics just critic for good, doesn't matter if they give it a 10 or a 1.
Some gay films can be so builds so selfish that it makes it feel that the film itself is just for a gay public, and that means that is bad because movies is not something exclusive.
At least i can that "Luster" don't commit that error, actually, in spite of some technical issues, i found it very clever, fun sometimes, not funny at totally but very poetic in its totality."Luster" is an analyse to love developed in Jackson, who grown up at the end of the film.
Is too a very nice and pleasant look to a lifestyle, where other wants drugs and others love bad treats.
There's people who love feel pain in their flesh just.
Jackson lives in that world at Friday morning, but when he really asks about if he really in loved, if he is really loved at a traumatic Sunday morning, he grown up.
He realizes what life want to live."Luster" is about the conflict between love and desire in men, obviously demonstrated in the orgies that Jackson have, in the secrets of her friend.
He think he was sure about the life he want it when the famous artist give him the job, but then he realizes of some things about the same art, the flesh and the man who going to give him the job.
But, in spite that Jackson is the center, the other characters, being or not involved with he, front that growing up to, questioned about it.
More noted for the characters of Sam and Alyssa, this last a very funny woman who have a good definition of love and its chemical relation.
All in "Luster" wonder things, have different lifestyles, ones want pleasures, others just love.
Of course one can say that can be understand it taking on count that is a independent film, but i think that could be some more work in that, specially in sound, the camera work was good.
The performances was great, by everyone, but i really feel it weird about the performances when Derek told Jackson that he is in love with him.
That was my unique complain, but, just for take the thing right, i love both performances, being honest and truly, specially from Herwick, maybe, with Gidley, the best of all movie.
I find "Luster", like i said, very poetic.
I think that, actually, is Jackson who write this movie as his poetry work.
This film ran on the Sundance Channel last night, and after watching less than ten minutes of it, i knew I was in the presence of yet another poorly written, embarrassingly acted piece of TLA crap.
It makes Kevin Smith films seem like Shakespeare...and I hate Kevin Smith.If you are so starved for frontal nudity, I guess you could turn the sound off and get a few nice bodies to look at now and then.
This is was on a list of gay films I wanted to see and wouldn't you know it.
I thought it was a fun movie.
I think a lot of people won't like it because it obviously didn't have a high budget and didn't have all the Hollywood pizazz that you get from a Hollywood blockbuster.I thought the title character finally learned his lesson at the end, because of the end.
This guy didn't look like he had a nice body with his cloths on (you know skater boy body), but when he took off his clothes and did the 360 view of his body.
I admire Everett Lewis greatly - there are too few auteurs like him making heartfelt realistically emotionally painful queer movies.
LUSTER clearly warns us that in our lives (love) and everything that glitters is not gold".The low budget nature of the film only reinforces the aesthetics.
The cast is good and touching, the direction solid and the dialogue pacy and whilst it might sound corny in places - we've all thought or said the same lines.That Everett keeps making films, keeps trying to challenge our lives should be commended.....were the studios more bold to drop big cash into his pocket I have no doubt that he could make and dazzle us all with a film as successful as MILK....thank god for queer film makers like EL....more please..
Reminiscent, funny, quirky, symbolic, thought-provoking, enjoyably ridiculous – relax, watch it.
Luster is not all of those things at once in any one part of the film, nor should it be.
I know everyone involved from top to bottom worked hard on this film.
why didn't they at least have a good script?LUSTER is just another in a long line of films to emerge from the "new gay cinema" that started in the early '90's.
The film centers on a young man who knows nothing of love but falls in love every 10 minutes.
And the biggest problem is that by the end of the film he still knows nothing of love.
None of the performers seem prepared to act on film.
Most of the time I felt like I was watching an acting exercise by students who were less than prepared.
So what we get are several scenes in silhouette that are hard to watch.Like I said in the beginning, I respect independent filmmakers but the hardships they face cannot be used to forgive bad scripts with lousy dialog, inadequate talent, poor directing and a failure to meet minimum production standards.
Despite good intentions, LUSTER is just another bad independent film that fails to live up to the promise of the movement..
Most times I've seen that storyline, I've wanted to beat myself up for being stupid enough to watch the whole thing--not here.
They seemed more like cheap gags (one for laughter, one for tears) than meaningful contributions to the story, but overall it was a good effort.
I must like it, I've seen it at least four times and counting...For one thing, I can't think of another movie that's like this one.
If the definition of a good movie (or, at least, part of the definition) is that it's something new, then "Luster" certainly fits that bill.
What other character is like Jackson, is like Derek, is like any of them?
The actor that plays Jackson is very good, I thought all the actors were really terrific.
Everyone really fit their role and everyone was completely believable.**Remember you were warned that there ARE spoilers!** There was a lot of humor (I loved the way Sandra said "oh my God" the second time in the sentence "Bi?
oh my God!" and when Sam asked Jackson if Jed was in the hospital and Jackson said no, he's in the mens room, and the 'first cousin' line), the director really knows what guys find sexy in other guys (the way Jackson looks at the kid fixing his cycle and the way the kid is photographed) and the ending was really terrific, even if I was very sorry that Sam died cause I kept thinking about how sad his Mom would have been.
That's really it in a nutshell, for a second I thought about these characters in the real world, and I can't say that many movies make me do that at all.
That doesn't make me crazy, it makes the people real.Thank you Everett Lewis..
Just because you are gay and watching a film about gay men and/or women does not mean you have to abide by some unwritten rule forcing you to say that it's good.
I watch a load of independent movies, many with budgets much lower than this film had, and I have yet to see such a badly written, badly directed, badly made and woefully badly acted dud as this.
The film is as unfocused as it is unbelievable and veers off on side plots that contribute nothing to the main storyline.And Justin Herwick is a good actor in the lead role?
His emotions do not change a single time throughout the entire film and he mumbles his way through all of his dialogue as if he could care less.
I've never seen such an inept and lazy performance in my entire life and it's one of the main things that completely ruin this film.
Sad thing is, he isn't all that in the first place and you have NO clue why everyone in this movie is in love with him.
Please!But of course there's a heavy-handed moral to the story after most of the running time has been used up basically showing a bunch of guys parading around naked, useless subplots that exist basically to show even more nudity and people spitting out laughably angsty dialogue (a part where one character compares love to 9 miles of intestines in the human body is about the worst attempt at "deep" dialogue I've ever heard).
The horribly conceived "it's time to grow up" moment in question though is when Sam (Shane Powers), a friend of Jacksons, kills himself because he's also secretly in love with him!
I guess at this moment, almost at the very end of the movie, we're suddenly supposed to sympathize with Jackson.
Too bad you'd already spent an hour wishing Jackson would get run over with a bus and that the Sam character is so poorly underwritten you know almost nothing about him.1/10 (I'd give it a 0 if I could).
The first half introduces Jackson, his love interests and the people who love him.
However, as pointed out by other reviewers, you are left wondering why in the first place (apart from his good looks) anybody will fall for this guy?However, the second half is quite realistic.
This makes him aware of the pain felt by Derek whom he had turned down without a second thought.
By the end, Jackson begins to appreciate Derek's feelings and considers him "special"..
(Hell, the lesbians looked better.)  The lead character has chosen one emotion - blase with a touch of sadness - to get him through the whole movie, which is basically a bunch of gratuitous sex-capades punctuated by musings on the nature of love, record-store hi-jinks, and a bizarre sub-plot involving "Sex and the City"'s Willie Garson as a closeted I'm-Elton-John-no-I'm-Sid-Viscous rocker.
The hardest I laughed was fifteen minutes from the end when the main character's friend, whose part is underwritten and who is basically the comic relief, offs himself because he can't deal with his unrequited love for his blue-haired best bud..
***Warning Spoilers Ahead*** This movie just made me cringe, with its depiction of the "gay experience." I am not sure why this film got funding because the screenplay is a boring mess!
His "closeted best friend's" death is completely stupid & pointless, I don't understand why anyone loves this smarmy punk, much less feels the need to kill himself over him.
There is no point in the whole film where I like any of the characters, much less sympathize with them.
This is the kind of movie that you rent so you can talk about how bad it was later..
Another Awful Gay Themed Movie.
"Luster" maybe it was all about a glow of feeling of every characters in the movie, such Sam feeling for Jackson is just like a luster, just a glow but faded to nothing; Jackson incest with his own cousin; Jackson's feeling to Billy etc., all are like a flash then gone.
And the frontal nudity were useless but I get the point of Jackson character at end, "maybe he realizes he doesn't need to be fond and look for others, for the love of his life is just there for him waiting, and so he ran to Derek, afraid of losing him as he loses Sam".Note: I always wanted to watch LGBT film that can showcase learning, the nature and life of LGBT people etc.
but Luster isn't a good movie just poorly made..
I decided to watch this film as despite that it seemed to have a ridiculously low budget, there were some very good-looking guys in it.
I have to say that there was not one good aspect to this entire film.
There was no passion between any of the actors and the main thing i could not get to grips with was how everyone "fell in love" with someone else after seeing them for two seconds.
The director's poor attempt at making the characters seem poetic or artistic is laughable.