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Green Plaid Shirt

Green Plaid Shirt

List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $22.46
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Toss the shirt
Review: Long gone are the days when we should go see a gay film simply because it is gay. with the amount of different movies lately with gay plots or subplots I've come to expect a few things. The first being a script, the second being well....a script.

Seriously this film seemed to be under the impression that just putting somebody up there who has lost their lover is enough to keep us tearful and involved for the 17 hours this movie seemed to last. The fact that the sound quality was so bad I had to rewind several times to try and catch important passages was a minor annoyance compared to the complete lack of interest I was able to maintain. It is sad to say that a movie supposed to be sad and about a very serious subject had my friends and I laughing at our foolishness for renting this.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Horribly awful
Review: Sat down last night with a friend to watch what I thought would be a heartwarming love story and ended up laughing at a plot line intended to make you cry. Every turn was predictable, except for some memory transitions that were all too confusing. I would say skip on the green plaid and go for a white shirt and good convesation.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not a waste of money
Review: The movie would have received at least an extra star if the audio was of a higher quality. At first, I considered the possibility that I was having problems with my system. I tested my stereo with a different DVD and discovered it had to be the Green Plaid Shirt DVD.

The acting could have been better also. The two main characters, Phillip and Guy, were above average actors while the others were a bit below par.

I think the movie was suppose to scan ten years of time, from 1978 to 1988. The reason I say 'I think' is because of the flashbacks. It was somewhat difficult to tell which year was which. The movie would have been less confusing if it was a little more linear.

Tha main theme of the movie is, to be as brief as possible, living, dying, and relationships in the era of AIDS. The theme has been done before, as some would say. But the theme is still relevant today, I just experienced another loss of a great friend only a few weeks ago.

I guess this could be the most tragic part of the movie. It isn't the acting, or the sound, or the ending, it is that the theme is still relevant today.

If I could do it over again, I would still have purchased Green Plaid Shirt. I have purchased far worse DVD's, too many it seems. And, at least I didn't fast forward at any time during this movie.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great potential, mixed results.
Review: This could have been a great movie, but it isn't. There's a lot to like about it--heartfelt story, believeable performances, moments of humor, and an unsentimental, matter-of-fact approach to a difficult subject. But the decision to fill the film with flashbacks & flashforwards, rather than tell the story in the sequence it happened, ruins it. It's hard to know what happens when, and I think there was a flashback within a a flashback, but I'm not sure. The story takes place over a number of years. At times, it's hard to tell what year it is. As a result, it's impossible to get involved in the story and its characters. Also, the sound quality is poor, making it even more difficult to follow. There are a number of good individual scenes, but they don't quite hang together. The director should take it back to the editing room and release a cut with a lineal time frame.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Tedious and disjointed
Review: This film has good intentions and gets off to an interesting start but quickly collapes in on itself. First of all, the characters, except for the lead, are basically all unlikable and uninteresting. And I'm sure to the chagrin of many gay viewers, they all end up having sex with each other (no wonder we are talked about - not all gay people and gay relationships are this way!) The major problem that I had with this film was the confusing time line and flashbacks. In many instances, it is hard to tell at what point something is happening and you are wondering if it is after or before the previous scene. Another problem is extremely poor audio (even on dvd). Pluses are good acting and imaginative cinematography but these points alone fail to make this film recommendable.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A fine story of romance, disillusion, forgiveness and love.
Review: This is an exceptionally well-written and convincingly acted film about disillusion in romance and forgiveness in love between men. The opening scene immediately sets the tone when we, along with the protagonist, overhear two men earnestly discussing their relationship with a poignancy recognizable to anyone who has loved. From there, in a series of flashbacks, the film takes us through the deeply faulty path of committment between eternal opposites: one who is essentially faithful and another who is not in the late 70's. Many of the lines are memorable which is what particularly gives this film its depth. Early on we are promised a moment which, to paraphrase, cancels all that goes before giving the strength to endure all that is to come. Yes, AIDS, but not before we witness that moment, one of forgivness so beautifully wrought, so lovely as to instruct us in love itself. Written and directed by Richard Natale who unmistakably knows what he's doing. He is notably aided in this by Gregory Phelan and Kevin Spirtas whose feelings fill and fulfill every silence, look and word of this small masterpiece.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great potential, mixed results.
Review: This is just an awful little movie in every possible way, even the sound is terrible. It is so muffled you often can't understand what is being said. It reminded me of the sound quality you get when you order at a drive-up box at a fast food restaraunt. The DVD starts with a "thank you for watching our film" - a sort of "we hope you don't think it's too bad, we know there are problems" sort of thing - from the producers. It goes downhill fast from there. And another thing - you sure get sick of that "green plaid shirt" gimmick they hammer you over the head with. [....] No one could possibly truly enjoy this film unless they made it or were in it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If I could give this NO stars I would
Review: This is just an awful little movie in every possible way, even the sound is terrible. It is so muffled you often can't understand what is being said. It reminded me of the sound quality you get when you order at a drive-up box at a fast food restaraunt. The DVD starts with a "thank you for watching our film" - a sort of "we hope you don't think it's too bad, we know there are problems" sort of thing - from the producers. It goes downhill fast from there. And another thing - you sure get sick of that "green plaid shirt" gimmick they hammer you over the head with. [....] No one could possibly truly enjoy this film unless they made it or were in it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Merits repeated viewing
Review: This is now my favorite drama about gay men in love; and TRUE love, not fascination, is certainly central here---a rare enough feature as it is. The symbol of that love is the titular item of fabric, worn over the course of ten stormy years, alternately, by the two protagonists, Philip and Guy. The former is the "faithful one.The latter the emotional bruiser in the story.

The thoughtful story is non-linear, composed of shuffled scenes divided roughly into two time periods: (1) "Before he betrayed me" and (2) "After he forgave---and more importantly--- forgot." The syntax of the narrative is abetted, more or less, by the appearance or non-appearance of that green shirt, which serves as a sort of punctuation mark along the rough-and-tumble jumble of events in "constant collision":

(A) A colon, for instance: in one "after" scene the loving revelation of a slotch of yellow paint on the shirt refers us instantly back to a "before" scene explaining the loving source of that same splotch, providing undisturbed continuity between two periods of time, a transition made possible only by Philip's act of forgiveness.

(B) A "comma": When the shirt does not appear in a given scene, the scene is tied to the preceding picture in the sequence in which the shirt does appear. Such as when Linda helps Philip pack Guy's bag for his first (of many) trips to the hospital. We know from the shirt's absence there that the scene falls chronologically after guy's seizure in the kitchen, the topic of that scene which immediately precedes.

Rare intelligence in film-making, regardless of genre.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Terrific film
Review: This is one of those films that make me wish I had seen it in a theater. Well-acted by a cast that SHOULD be stars by now (Kevin Spirtas and Greg Phelan in particular - and a nice turn by Russell Scott Lewis) and featuring a sensitive and nicely thought script GREEN PLAID SHIRT is as wonderful as its title - conjuring up images of that comfortable piece of clothing favored by ones lover. Surprisingly, this film is presented in a widescreen format. It looks wonderful and gives the film a more cinema-like look and feel. There is no doubt this film will look and sound even better on DVD - hopefully Wolfe Video will read this review and decide to issue it. I highly recommend this film.


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