Amazon.co.uk Review
Like It Is is much like watching a train wreck--the very idea of it is repellent and yet you perversely can't avert your eyes. While its urban grittiness and sooty veneer entranced some critics who mistook its violent, netherworld neorealism for art, Like It Is offers little in the way of redemption, positive gay imaging or even particularly good narrative. Paul Oremland directed this venture about a young, gay Blackpool tough named Craig (Steve Bell) who bare-knuckle boxes for money. He ultimately moves to London in search of a better life and falls in with the trendy London gay-club scene, meeting and falling for a handsome record producer named Matt (Ian Rose) and his wealthy boss (played by the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey). The better life is quickly tainted by disillusion and misery, much as is the viewing experience. Steve Bell is, in real life, a featherweight boxing champion in Britain and therefore brings an urgent and raw vitality to the lead, but the characters as a whole are either irritating or unsympathetic, and it's ultimately difficult to find anyone to care for, or a story worth empathising with. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
Skinny Dealer Worth Price Alone.......2006-09-15
This film has one saving grace and that is the performance of not Steve Bell, but Steve Moore, who gives an outstanding rendition of Skinny Dealer. Most convincing bit of acting in the entire film. Why he is not a star is a complete mystery.
Not a title to recommend... to your worst enemy!!!.......2006-08-05
Straight off, this movie is lacking in so many areas... a proper story, decent actors, reasonable cinematography, etc etc... the list is endless... and I need not bore you...
SO, I highly recommend against its purchase!!! Watching paint dry might be easier and more enjoyable!!!
Avoid.......2006-01-23
I had heard several good things about this film before I decided to watch it, among them the quality of the acting and the hard-hitting plot. Nonetheless, after sitting through it, I couldn't help but laugh at how absolutely wooden and completely talentless the acting actually was, the utterly predictable storyline and some of the most comically ridiculous one liners ever recorded on film.
Buy and cringe for yourself. It is truly the worst LGBT flick I have ever seen.
Give it a chance.......2005-09-16
I think the majority of reviews below seem to be far too harsh on this film. Ok, so it's an independent film that's been made on a very tight budget (it shows) and the script is not perfect. So what? Not every movie needs to be a "blockbuster" to be good. At least it isn't you're typical cliche gay coming out film and the characters all have depth even if it isn't always explored to the max. I'd recommend renting it before shelling out 20 quid to buy it, but don't be put off the unfavourable reviews - give it a go.
So hilariously awful it deserves 5 stars!.......2005-07-20
I first saw this at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1998. I left feeling....'that's over now let's get to the pub'...in short I was quite indifferent to it. Several years later it was on TV one night and I watched it again....and I realised how atrocious it was. A year or so later I wtached it again and this time another reaction to the film developed within me.....it was actually - if unintentionally - funny. We have the seasoned Matt demonstrating what can only be described as the most laughably innacurate London accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Then we have Craig....a supposedly bare knuckle boxer who doesn't look as if he could knock his way out of a soggy brown paper bag. Enter Roger Daltrey....anyone remember 'Buddy's Song with Chesney Hawkes? Roger please keep to music; and I can only assume the Dani Behr character was created by the vilest imaginable mysoginist. If you don't set out to take the film seriously you can really enjoy it. Horrendous dialogue and acting that would make an infant school Nativity Play look like a RADA production. If any of them had been alive Sid James, Hattie Jacques and the rest of the 'Carry On' crew would have made the film truly complete. Marvellous!
Amazon.co.uk Review
Like It Is is much like watching a train wreck--the very idea of it is repellent and yet you perversely can't avert your eyes. While its urban grittiness and sooty veneer entranced some critics who mistook its violent, netherworld neorealism for art, Like It Is offers little in the way of redemption, positive gay imaging or even particularly good narrative. Paul Oremland directed this venture about a young, gay Blackpool tough named Craig (Steve Bell) who bare-knuckle boxes for money. He ultimately moves to London in search of a better life and falls in with the trendy London gay-club scene, meeting and falling for a handsome record producer named Matt (Ian Rose) and his wealthy boss (played by the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey). The better life is quickly tainted by disillusion and misery, much as is the viewing experience. Steve Bell is, in real life, a featherweight boxing champion in Britain and therefore brings an urgent and raw vitality to the lead, but the characters as a whole are either irritating or unsympathetic, and it's ultimately difficult to find anyone to care for, or a story worth empathising with. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
Skinny Dealer Worth Price Alone.......2006-09-15
This film has one saving grace and that is the performance of not Steve Bell, but Steve Moore, who gives an outstanding rendition of Skinny Dealer. Most convincing bit of acting in the entire film. Why he is not a star is a complete mystery.
Not a title to recommend... to your worst enemy!!!.......2006-08-05
Straight off, this movie is lacking in so many areas... a proper story, decent actors, reasonable cinematography, etc etc... the list is endless... and I need not bore you...
SO, I highly recommend against its purchase!!! Watching paint dry might be easier and more enjoyable!!!
Avoid.......2006-01-23
I had heard several good things about this film before I decided to watch it, among them the quality of the acting and the hard-hitting plot. Nonetheless, after sitting through it, I couldn't help but laugh at how absolutely wooden and completely talentless the acting actually was, the utterly predictable storyline and some of the most comically ridiculous one liners ever recorded on film.
Buy and cringe for yourself. It is truly the worst LGBT flick I have ever seen.
Give it a chance.......2005-09-16
I think the majority of reviews below seem to be far too harsh on this film. Ok, so it's an independent film that's been made on a very tight budget (it shows) and the script is not perfect. So what? Not every movie needs to be a "blockbuster" to be good. At least it isn't you're typical cliche gay coming out film and the characters all have depth even if it isn't always explored to the max. I'd recommend renting it before shelling out 20 quid to buy it, but don't be put off the unfavourable reviews - give it a go.
So hilariously awful it deserves 5 stars!.......2005-07-20
I first saw this at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1998. I left feeling....'that's over now let's get to the pub'...in short I was quite indifferent to it. Several years later it was on TV one night and I watched it again....and I realised how atrocious it was. A year or so later I wtached it again and this time another reaction to the film developed within me.....it was actually - if unintentionally - funny. We have the seasoned Matt demonstrating what can only be described as the most laughably innacurate London accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Then we have Craig....a supposedly bare knuckle boxer who doesn't look as if he could knock his way out of a soggy brown paper bag. Enter Roger Daltrey....anyone remember 'Buddy's Song with Chesney Hawkes? Roger please keep to music; and I can only assume the Dani Behr character was created by the vilest imaginable mysoginist. If you don't set out to take the film seriously you can really enjoy it. Horrendous dialogue and acting that would make an infant school Nativity Play look like a RADA production. If any of them had been alive Sid James, Hattie Jacques and the rest of the 'Carry On' crew would have made the film truly complete. Marvellous!
UK DVD:
- Little Vera [1988] (NTSC)
- Loggerheads
- Lynne Robinson: The Pilates Body [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Making Love [1982] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Mysterious Skin [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Napola
- Night Watch [2005]
- Oedipus Rex [1967] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Out of the Ashes [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Parting Glances [1986]
UK DVD List
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