Leather Jacket Love Story

This is a clip from the first movie I ever did. Someone posted the ENTIRE movie on YouTube and it's still up. I'm surprised because there's a LOT of nudity in this movie.

I edited the clip I was in and made it PG-13 so I can post.



http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-movie980521-4,0,5481853.story
MOVIE REVIEW
Leather Jacket Love Story
Genuine Characters Inhabit Outrageous 'Leather' World
By KEVIN THOMAS
LA TIMES STAFF WRITER

May 21, 1998


Friday May 22, 1998

David DeCoteau's "Leather Jacket Love Story" could well be the sunniest gay movie ever made, yet it is also genuinely poignant. It's campy, raunchy and funny as well, glowing with an unabashed gay sensibility. It's no less perceptive for having been made with a light touch and an ear for broad humor and has an easy, graceful style heightened by Howard Wexler's beautifully modulated black-and-white cinematography.
An aspiring 18-year-old poet, a towheaded Valley boy named Kyle (Sean Tataryn), decides to take an apartment in Silver Lake for the summer before enrolling in UCLA in the fall. He's gotten tired of hanging out with his best friend Ian (Geoffrey Moody), a determined hedonist with a house in the hills with a pool populated by a revolving door of "Chads and Brads," well-built guys who swim in the nude. Ian thinks Kyle is crazy to forsake West Hollywood sex and glitz for Silver Lake bohemia, but Kyle is serious about his poetry.
Kyle is drawn to a local coffee shop, a magnet for drag divas and a site for poetry readings hosted by none other than "Pink Flamingos' " Mink Stole. One day Kyle is transfixed when in walks a good-looking man in a leather jacket, having arrived on a motorcycle, natch. The newcomer spots Kyle staring at him, and in turn likes what he sees.
He's Mike (Christopher Bradley), a 29-year-old carpenter and roofer in a seven-year partnership, now more professional than romantic, with Sam (Hector Mercado). Mike is a hunky, easygoing guy who effortlessly sweeps Kyle off his feet.
*
Writer Rondo Mieczkowski and DeCoteau know exactly what they're doing and where they're going with their blithe romantic fantasy. Their romance is as tender as it is hot, and the filmmakers could not be more deft in steering it in a credible direction. They know how to camp it up and take sex right to the edge of hard core, but they also know how to be subtle and sensitive in depicting Kyle and Mike's relationship.
Most important, perhaps, is that the filmmakers are inclusive. In their gay world there's room for young guys like Kyle, older guys like Sam (about to celebrate his 40th birthday) and leather types like Mike. At a poetry reading there's pioneer gay rights activist Morris Kight, amusing as a grumpy poet. And then there are the local divas--Madame Dish (Stephen J. McCarthy), Erin Krystle, Craig Olsen, Momma (Worthie Meacham), Daniel Escobar, Ruby Tuesday and Moist Towelette--on hand to dispatch gay bashers, dispense bitchy humor and not a little wisdom besides.
The best advice to Kyle comes from a middle-aged poet (Nicholas Worth, in a stylishly theatrical turn) who reminds the youth that he needs to write about what he knows--and what he needs to know most is love.
Amid much that's deliberately and delightfully outrageous, DeCoteau directs Tataryn and Bradley toward giving legitimate, winning portrayals. "Leather Jacket Love Story" may be a fantasy, a crowd-pleaser with lots of laughs, but Kyle and Mike are for real.

Leather Jacket Love Story, 1998. Unrated. A Goldeco Pictures presentation. Director David DeCoteau. Producer Jerry Goldberg. Executive producer Bruce Baker. Screenplay by Rondo Mieczkowski. Cinematographer Howard Wexler. Editor Jeffrey Schwarz. Music Jeremy Jordan. Costumes Edward Hibbs. Production designer Jeannie Lomma. Art director Brian Virwani. Set decorator Jeffrey Morris. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes. Sean Tataryn as Kyle. Christopher Bradley as Mike. Geoffrey Moody as Ian. Hector Mercado as Sam.

NY TIMES
February 20, 1998
'Leather Jacket Love Story'; Directed by David DeCoteau; Not rated; 85 minutes
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: February 20, 1998

Can Kyle (Sean Tataryn), a dewy and tow-headed 18-year-old poet from Sherman Oaks, find true love in the arms of Mike (Christopher Bradley), a well-traveled 30-year-old carpenter in a black leather jacket who scorns what he calls ''vanilla sex'' (any coupling not involving handcuffs and other heavy-duty hardware)? That's the question hanging breathlessly over ''Leather Jacket Love Story,'' the movie equivalent of a gay romance novel that opens today at the Quad Cinemas (13th Street, west of Fifth Avenue, in Greenwich Village).

Filmed in gay clubs and neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the black-and-white film has moments that border on hard-core pornography without actually going over the edge. Under Mike's affectionate guidance, Kyle buys his first black leather jacket and has one of his nipples pierced. The movie, directed by David DeCoteau from a screenplay by Rondo Mieczkowski that strains for its jokes, includes a sassy Greek chorus of wisecracking drag queens, three of whom band together to rescue Kyle when he is menaced on the street by a gang of gay bashers.

By the end of the amateurish but energetically frothy movie, Kyle has grown significantly as a poet. Instead of churning out tortured images of the pitiless stars looking down from heaven, he makes his poetry-reading debut in a coffee house with verses exalting the aroma of Mike's leather jacket. And Mike seems to reform his wayward ways, at least temporarily. He ostentatiously tears up the telephone number of a man he has just picked up on the street and takes Kyle in his arms for some very vanilla-flavored smooches. STEPHEN HOLDEN

`Leather' Doesn't Fit in Places

Bob Graham, Chronicle Staff Critic

Friday, December 18, 1998

ALERT VIEWER LEATHER JACKET LOVE STORY: Romantic comedy. Starring Sean Tataryn and Christopher Bradley. Directed by David DeCoteau. (Not rated. 85 minutes. At the Lumiere.)
The contrasting worlds of drag queens and leather queens in L.A.'s Silverlake district form the background for ``Leather Jacket Love Story,'' a lightweight -- not the same thing as lighthearted -- gay comedy that opens today at the Lumiere.

The drag performances in particular run hot and cold, which pretty much sums up the film. It is by no means the romp the bouncy soundtrack intends to signal it as.

The tone of the comedy has a slight satirical edge that doesn't go far enough in this story of a good- hearted 18-year-old innocent named Kyle (Sean Tataryn) who desires a life of monogamous bliss after an all-night stand with a 30ish biker (Christopher Bradley).

Kyle calls himself a poet but is so sappy, as his poetry confirms, that it's hard to imagine him holding anyone's attention for long, either Mike the biker's (Bradley) or the audience's.

A couple of unfunny drag queens stop the action cold every time they open their mouths, but another trio of cross-dressers (Erin Krystle, Craig Olsen and Mink Stole) shows up regularly as a kind of Greek chorus, if you catch my drift, and make up for their sisters.

There is a lot more nudity than anyone might expect in a film like this, an otherwise modest affair in black and white. Bradley has presence and can deliver a line and benefits from the exposure he gets.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1998/12/18/DD9951.DTL