Boy Culture played the 20° Festival Internazionale di Cinema Gaylesbico e Queer Culture (when in Rome...or in this case, Milan) this weekend and I was lucky enough to have not one but two spies. They sent me the following reports, which lead me to believe the movie translates very well overseas. I hope Carmen Maura herself saw it—the star of Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown seeing Boy Culture? How gay does it get? Even better, the film has gotten the highest number and highest caliber of votes from viewers at this poll Spoilers ahead...but then again, all good things were made to be spoiled.

SPY #1

"Ok, first of all let me tell you I loved the movie. And so did everyone else. Don't know if you got my text message on saturday , but the theater was packed. Like I said, it was the main night of the festival, with special awards (a Paramount Comedy Channel sponsored event) handed out to Carmen Maura and Angela Finocchiaro who were both delicious and in their 5 mins on stage got the room standing and clapping non stop. There couldn't have been a better movie for that night , as it is much lighter and brilliant than any other film in the bill. And way more professional in terms of production, acting, script, cinematography and global results of it all.

The audience laughed and there were 5 lines/jokes that got a full round of applause , which is ab-so-lu-tely unusual for an Italian audience at the movies. FYI , here is the list :

-'there would be more Leonardo da Vincis' ( if guys stopped wasting their time with gymn, shopping, beauty care for just a one night stand)

-'... and every movie Marlene Dietrich ever made'

- Andrew's sister welcoming line 'I knew he was gay'

- a line by Andrew's mother I can't remember now [PROBABLY 'He is fine...'—MR]

- the tea bag out of the pocket

At the beginning when I saw your name on screen I was jumping on my seat , I was so proud of you!
While the movie went on I realized how bad my memories were about your book - I happened to associate faces and places to my real life and back then I had a real queer character in the flat next to mine and next door there was a gorgeous guy , so I stuck his face to Andrew's characrter, forgetting that in your book he is X's room mate. In my head the three of them lived on the same floor of a building, not the same apartment. And many other things. But every word, every scene of the movie quickly brought back up to my memory what was written in your book ( I read it many years ago) and so I remembered the confessions, the single lines, that shower scene, and some scenes that did not make it in the movie.

the best one was seeing that statue of the virgin and going ... 'wait a second, it should be another Madonna!!!'

Well, Blondie, Dietrich and Lauper(the latter in a bad way) got mentioned... all but M - funny, isn't it ?

I was a bit disappointed by the soundtrack . Although I perfectly understand a low budget production can't afford the best music around, I kept hearing certain songs in my head or a kind of music which of course was brought to my mind reading your book / knowing your personal taste/ observing X's character and the plot. As a matter of fact as soon as I got home I put on the Pet Shop Boys's Actually album ( it's a sin, rent, one more chance, what have I done to deserve this, heart ...)

I was concerned that such a book told in the form of monolgue / confession would turn into a difficult movie with too much of over dub voice narration, but I must say that X's voice was charming and his story telling absolutely pleasant. Well, you wrote it very well! What can I say ... I loved it , loved it , loved it. This movie will soon be a very popular classic, and I'm sure they'll buy rights to air ir on gay.tv and if they ever release it on DVD, it will sell a lot! I'm going to read the book again !"

SPY #2:

"
Matthew!! I saw it...and my friends too.

We all loved it, it's brilliant..ironic and romantic at the same time.A perfect mix.
It's not vulgar at all...no sex scenes, no full frontal nude guys and the scene he's jerking off gives the idea of X feelings..

Talking about 'X'...I love his character..and he's really a sexy guy with romantic eyes, perfect for this role.

The Director made really a good work..it's a 'fast' movie and dialogues too..

Maybe some jokes could sound familiar...already heard in other g movies:when X goes to visit his roommate parents, Cheyenne say to her parents:'I told you he is gay!'...but we don't have to forget it's based on a book written in 1995, right?

We hope it will be released in italian too..Please, inform me about any dvd release or other..ok?

I discovered he's the same director of "Eating Out", I saw it and loved it too.

Please forgive me if my review is not so technical but my knowledge of english just let me write these words...be sure I loved it and I'll but a dvd for sure."