To Die For/Heaven's a Drag
Having just subscribed to NetFlix, I have found a wonderful genre of movies, a/k/a "Gay and Lesbian," so this is another one I checked out.

Completely unbelievable, horribly acted, and paced as if the director were on uppers or suffered from schizophrenia, this big old mess of a movie was released in 2002 under the title "Heaven's A Drag." It suffered a name change to "To Die For," which should alert us all. One character is as morose as they come; his favorite movie is the documentary "Stories from the Quilt." In between his gig as a drag queen (he knows ONE song--how believable is that?) he watches this documentary; he sews, he cries, he BORED the crap out of me--but I digress.

His companion is one of those "I'm in an OPEN relationship" kinda' guys, who is so shallow you can see through him like used Neutrogena. When his lover passes away, he does the "mourning thing" for about, oh, 20 seconds, and he's ready to move on. But his dead lover comes back to be with him because, according to him, Heaven is dark and lonely. Isn't that sweet??!! No.

This movie suffers from many problems: it doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy, a drama, a serious story, or one of those T & A deals. Whatever it wanted to be, it never became. With characters no one cares about--each one boring, self-centered, and cold--, horrible acting, and a "partner" who didn't even take the time to let his lover's corpse get cold before he was cruising again, this movie was awful.

A haunting love story
TO DIE FOR: a.k.a. Heaven's a Drag. This is a strange little film but very entertaining. It has a lot of emotion. Tears of sadness, laughter, boredom, and so on. You never know what the next minute is going to contain. Simon, played by a very beautiful Thomas Arklie, loses his lover to AIDS, but gets him back in a very haunting way. Marc (Ian Williams) doesn't want to let go of his gorgeous lover even though he is supposed to be dead and gone. He comes back to haunt Simon who is trying to go on with his life with a series of one night stands. His dates are in for a surprising time when the jealous ghost of Marc play tricks on them and Simon. A very different theme than you will see in any other gay film. Arklie's acting is superb, but not a match for his looks. Williams' role spans a wide range from drag queen to mean ghost, jealousy, practical joker, victim, obnoxious queen, undying love, defender and more. His acting is good but not a character I really liked. The sound quality on this film is not real good. I had it turned all the way up and the only thing that didn't need more volume was the musical score which was way too loud and overshadowing. Don't expect a world class production from this movie, but don't let bad reviews keep you from seeing it. I recommend this one but would certainly recommend others much higher. If you're in a mood to see something crazy, funny, and totally unusual, but gay based, this one is a good change of pace.

An uneven film about AIDS, love and ghosts
Simon and Mark, a gay couple living in London, have an open relationship. Mark is a drag performer living with AIDS; Simon his his lover who sleeps around. When Mark passes away, Simon quickly removes every aspect of Simon from his life, tossing his clothes, boxing up their photographs and hiding Mark's AIDS quilt piece in the closet. This does not sit well with the spirit of Simon who returns to wreak havoc on Mark's string of one-night stands.

The film as a whole is uneven. It kept jumping from being a movie about AIDS to a ghost story to a comedy to a drama to a soap opera, and was never quite able to hold my interest. The acting is marginal and sometimes overly melodramatic so I never really liked the characters. Add to that poor sound quality (I had the volume almost at full tilt but could still barely hear much of what was said) and a graininess to the film, and the movie veers away from its potential.

Not great, but kind of cute.
Though the movie did have trouble sort of picking a genre - It was sometimes funny but not very effectively so - it was still entertaining, in my opinion. It was very adorable at times and the music was done well. Very quirky concept - Lover dies of AIDS and comes back as a ghost to help his former lover come to terms with his inability to confront his emotions, not just about his lover's death but about a multitude of events in his life. Watch it if you're bored.

this is not the real "to die for"
This title infringes on the movie trademark "to die for" owned by Picture Entertainment. For more information please contact the law firm of Aaronson & Aaronson, 818-655-7010.