Last night I sat down to watch “Tan Lines” on DVD. I’d bought it on impulse a couple of years ago now and hadn’t watched it in a while. I didn’t get very far into it before I remembered just how awful the movie is. The acting, script, story and photography are all bad. When you are filming a surfing movie, please invest in cameras that can get wet so you don’t have to put the actors in a rockpool pretending they are sitting in the surf. It’s easy to spot.
So instead I watched “Shelter” again. It’s a good movie that I think nearly everyone who has come out after their teens can identify with. My favourite surfing movie that doesn’t have as obvious a gay sub plot, is “Newcastle”. The cast are beautiful but very believable in their roles, the story is good and visually the film just nails it and the surfers are sitting in the surf, not in a rockpool.
A friend of mine had friends involved in “Tanlines” and when they were doing pre-production, a senior executive at a major surfing company said “Why are you making a gay surfing movie? There are no gay surfers.” That’s bullshit. While in sydney there are no gay surfing groups like there are for almost every other sport, surfing is a solitary sport and also fairly macho. Gay surfers are out there, quietly riding the waves and watching the swells come in, right beside the straight ones.
if there were no gay surfers, then i’d have sucked a lot less cock!
hehe, that’s a ridiculous remark. and actually the fact that there is no separate gay surfers group in Sidney is rather a good sign – why should they different?
That is a ridiculous remark and I want to hang out with pete! LOL Cheers, AOM
DUH I was an adamant surfer in my younger day and i am gay and had my virginity taken by a surfer
I’m gay and I surf…and now I am confused!!
There are gay surfers. Member of the GLSA right here.
Brenton, I understand the place you come from, making the comments about Tan Lines. But it sounds to me you are a surfer tragic; it would be great if surfing was everything in yr life. If that’s yr reality, gr8! But Tan Lines shows a whole lot of stuff about coastal Oz that is interesting and valid; the way str8s get along with us. Life doesn’t just happen on a wave; to think like that reminds me of the line from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: some people said it was a mistake to even leave the water. I thought TL was a very fresh alive look at gay culture in coastal Oz.
I thought the same thing Pete did. If it were true I wouldn’t have the same 1st time, the same 1st 3 way, or the same 1st bf.
“Tan Lines” is a weak movie but the story rings true in any surf community away from a major city.
“Shelter” surprised me, although not French, not bad at all.
I’ll move “Newcastle” up in my Netflix cue.
No gay sufers oh please tell him to come to Birdie Beach on the Central Coast the place is full of sufer’s either gay or str8 that like a bit of man every now and then.
I love both shelter and Newcastle, but thought Tan lines was a waste of money