Summer Storm
|
List Price: Our Price: $9.94 You Save: $10.00 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Summer Storm
Movie Review: across many waters
Summary: 4 Stars
A well made movie and powerful depiction of a young man coming to grips with his love for his best friend and the rejection he faces as his best friend falls in love with a young woman. The story's setting of a rowing camp provides a beautiful backdrop to the mounting conflict. I must admit there's a bit of cheesiness in the final resolution, but it detracts just a little from the otherwise powerful portrayals throughout the rest of the movie. And check out the part where the lead jumps in the lake after his best friend walks away; the cinematography was captivating, matched equally with music. What a scene!Movie Review: Ja gut
Summary: 4 Stars
I think it was a very interesting movie to watch, and to see the struggle one has in young life, especially one that is gay and trying to come out and scared of what might happen. Also the movie has some good humor along the way. I enjoyed this movie very much!Movie Review: A cute coming out movie.
Summary: 4 Stars
This was a cute coming out movie. I enjoyed how Germany and others in Europe except the gay community. I wish America was more like Europe.Movie Review: Beautiful
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved this movie, it was beautifully played with beautiful actors and beautiful set. It's a must see picture.Movie Review: The rocky road to true love...
Summary: 3 Stars
Certainly Marco Kreuzpaintner's Summer Storm does what it sets out to do. Moody and atmospheric, most of the film is set in the bucolic German landscape, with its picaresque woods, glassy lakes, green meadows and lots of sunshine. The crux of the story is the sexual politics that is played out over a summer of fun when three teams of championship rowers meet to go head to head with each other.
Will Tobi (Robert Stadlober) be able to hook up with Achim (Kostja Ullmann), his one true love? Tobi is gay - although he hasn't quite realized it yet, whilst the handsome young Achim is fiercely straight, but totally cool about gays and in love with a girl (Miriam Morgenstern). Of course, Achim's sexuality doesn't preclude a little fun-fuelled horseplay with Tobi on the locker room floor.
After confessing a love for each other, that doesn't include kissing and touching; the boys head off with the rest of their team members for a week in the country. Here the season melts into days of friendly camaraderie, the pitching of tents and lots of topless teenage muscle flexing. The boys then discover that one of the teams is called Queerstrokes, a gay team from Berlin.
As Tobi's sublimated desires begin to rise to the surface, the boys in Queerstrokes - and indeed most of the boys in the other teams - get naked together; spend languid hours exercising; mount each other in wrestling matches. For Achim it's all about male bonding but for Tobi it's all about coming out. While he's attracted to Tobi, he's also drawn the lads in Queerstrokes - call it a type of deep-seated affinity. Achim, of course thinks nothing of this. Tobi thinks about it all a little too much.
In Summer Storm the rocky road to true love and coming out is indeed plagued with anguish. There are the usual adolescent betrayals and jealous misunderstandings and a "summer storm" that signifies sexual awakening not just for Tobi, but also for some of the other characters. It's all very clichéd and generic, and plays out almost like a TV sitcom. And while all the actors are pretty - if a bit too adolescent looking - most of the characters are rather bland and are just not that interesting.
As The Village People's Go West and The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood inexplicably begins to play, the sexual politics are played out and closet door flies open. Will Achim accept Tobi's affections? Will his straight rowing team learn a lesson in tolerance? Stadlober is believably awkward as Tobi, but his constant whining and emotional anguish becomes a bit tiresome. Coupled with the whimsical images of woodsy thunderstorms and birds flying off a lake, the film just gets a bit much after awhile.
Kreuzpaintner obviously has some talent as a director, but for a gay coming of age story, Summer Storm is remarkably straight and tame and is surprisingly as unoriginal as most straight sex comedies. Like a hardly legal pornography movie with extra plot thrown in for good measure, the movie is a perfect storm of clichés. Mike Leonard September 06.