How sad is this?

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

No I'm not going game show on you, providing the question to the answer the title is supposedly giving us. But Franco tackles another hot topic and something that not many would have wanted to associate themselves with. It's really walking a fine line, even though it is based on a real person. We are talking about someone who suddently has an "epiphany" and thinks him being gay, was just a phase.Something you can just get rid off. Something other people have claimed while shaming those who have those tendencies and feelings. It is tough to watch sometimes, but you have great acting in it. It can also feel like it is dragging at times, but it still has something to say. It obviously is not a movie for everyone but if you are not easily offended, there may be something here, that make you think ...

I have to wonder what they were thinking? Another story of mental illness in post-scientific and religious America. But this isn't some cheesy little indie. James Franco, perhaps the king of the hipster closet cases, colludes with Zachary Quinto, an out gay icon, to further blur the lines between heterosexual and homosexual identities. Let's confuse the kids some more.Gay marriage as the focal point of all gay activism in the past two decades was bad enough. Gays having the right to kill other human beings in uniform was even worse. But this?Fifty years ago, as an adolescent under legal age, I was threatened with kidnapping by my religious Catholic father who was a cop. There was a mad Catholic priest, likely a pedophile, who would kidnap suspected homosexual boys and take them to a place unknown to convert them. I am not making this up. In nursing school, I met a man in my psychiatric rotation who had been lobotomized for repeated escapes from a state hospital here in Liberal Massachusetts where he had been confined as a teen by crazy parents in the 1940's. Why was he locked up? He was homosexual and known to be promiscuous. His parents had died by the time I knew him. He was left to be a permanent ward of the state in that hospital. Probably ended up dying homeless on the streets when the hospitals were all closed to save taxpayers money.So the producers of this joke of a film decided to rationalize the life of a mentally ill homosexual in the misguided name of being broad minded. It would have been fine if the man's mental illness hadn't been rationalized as religious quest. While the film was technically fine, I have to say, "Shame on all of you who should have known better."

Michael is a young man that thinks a lot. We first meet him when he is working for a campaigning, gay magazine and he is with Ben whom he seems to love and has committed to. Then Michael's mother dies and he starts to think about his whole existence and what happens after death.This leads him on a spiritual path where he realises that he no longer identifies as 'gay'. Now that is all well and dandy but this film really takes its time. Michael is shown as a troubled man who seems to engender a lot of care, sympathy and warmth from those around him and this is despite him being as inspiring as a used shopping list.His continual whinging about his inner turmoil with God and his old beliefs wear very thin very fast. I kept thinking the plot might make a welcomed detour but alas and alack nay. It really was an absolute bind to get through and that is even with a very good cast, some excellent performances, high production values and good cinematography. It is based on a short story and that may be where the problem is in that there is just simply not enough 'plot' here to make a full length feature.The other major trip for me is that you have to care about the characters in order to be engaged and gain empathy and I stopped caring for Michael around half way through. The supporting cast are often more deserving and as such this just did not work for me at all.

This film tells the story of a prominent gay activist who found God, and subsequently he decides to openly renounce the gay lifestyle, and go to bible school."I Am Michael" starts off rather shockingly, as James Franco's character tells a young man that he should choose to be heterosexual in order to be closer to God. Watching a film with such a content in a gay and lesbian film festival surely makes viewers gasp in disbelief! The film then continues the development of James' character, from being very embracing the gay lifestyle to renouncing it. Many anti gay comments are voiced, and more gasps of exasperation were made. Three are clues as to whether James'character really got converted or not, which is the pro gay undertone of the story. So on a deeper level, the story is really about exposing the farce of the ex-gay phenomenon, rather than being anti gay.