The greatest movie ever made..!

Best movie ever!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The Brandon Teena Story (1998) *** (out of 4) Good documentary taking a look at the female Teena Brandon who believed she was a man so she dressed that way, dated women who thought she was a man and eventually was brutally murdered with two other people. You're probably more familiar with the film BOYS DON'T CRY, which told this story but this documentary, while incredibly flawed, also offers a look at the real people involved in the crimes. I was pretty shocked to see how many of the real people attached to the story were willing to talk and this includes the two men who raped Teena and eventually murdered here. We also hear from everyone's relatives as well as several females who dated Teena, under the name of Brandon of course. As I said in my review for BOYS DON'T CRY, I don't agree with what Teena did. As a straight man I wouldn't want to be dating a female who was keeping it from me that she was an actual man. I understand the outrage that would be gleamed towards Teena but at the same time you can't condone what happened to her with the rapes and eventual murder. Watching this documentary just made me realize that those people we laugh at on Jerry Springer are really in this world and the "white trash" on display in this movie makes you understand why Teena could be raped and nothing be done about it until after she was dead. It's pretty shocking to hear some of the questions that was asked of her during the rape investigation and it's even more shocking to hear that many people probably felt it was okay what happened to her. THE BRANDON TEENA STORY has some major flaws including some really stupid attempts at emotions by using songs throughout the picture. Still, it's pretty fascinating getting to hear from all the actual people and this here is reason enough to see the film.

Just a note of clarification. Brandon, did not lie about his gender. Brandon lived his short troubled life trying to express his gender the way he saw it and wanted others to see it. What he did however cover up was the truth of his biological sex. I tend to agree that full disclosure of these facts to his sexual partners would have been just. However, people are often not understanding of issues of gender nonconformity. Nor, have many people been equipped with the language, self-understanding, support, safe-space, and confidence to speak about these things without fear of being met with fear, ignorance and hatred. Our society has a strictly enforced binary gender system that is extraordinarily hard on those who do not conform. This is so entrenched in the sub-conscious of most everyone from such an early age that sometimes it seems that only those of us who do not fit in that system know that it is there and has been constructed by a society built on easy answers and small thinking that limits so many of us in numerous ways. It is so ingrained in people to believe that woman = feminine / man = masculine and all the stereotypes and behaviors that go with these two choices that they think these unwritten (and sometimes written) rules are natural. Therefore those who do not, nay, cannot play by these rules are unnatural, sick, sinful .. etc. So while I was disgusted by the behavior of the local authorities (including the civil court judge) I was not shocked. Serious deep changes need to be made to the way we as the human race see sex and gender or this type of appalling hatred will continue.

The story of Brandon Teena is fascinating, true, but was terrible filmmaking. I saw this at the Seattle Internation Film Festival, and the filmmakers were there to introduce it themselves. The audience loved it, but purely just for the subject matter. The truth is that this film was put together poorly. The quality of the whole production was lousy, and nothing new or interesting was revealed. It was a second rate true crime documentary that even the subject matter couldn't overcome. It is too bad that the only interesting character in the film appears only in photographs.

_The Brandon Teena Story_ is a shocker. I, a travelled New Yorker, sat in the theater slack-jawed at how narrow minded and ignorant people of my own country (and therefore of my own "culture," presumably) could be. The true story, which takes place in Nebraska, USA, is of a person, born a girl, who lives her life as a boy. People, even girlfriends, believe in her sexuality; however, she is eventually exposed, raped, and then murdered (along with 2 other people who happened to be with her that night). The documentary focuses on her friends and girlfriends, as well as her killers and the people who knew her in Nebraska. There is a general sense of disapproval and confusion, as well as love and acceptance from those who knew her well.Maybe it's my more globally-minded perception, but I simply cannot imagine committing a hate-crime towards a person who is different, a person I simply don't understand. I cannot fathom denying that person's right to live as a human being. I immediately judge those people in that part of the country as ignorant and bigoted. But I do this without giving them a chance, just like they didn't give Brandon one. Is it right to impose my values onto them, just as they did theirs to Brandon? It may not be "right" but I choose to do it anyhow, just as they chose to judge Brandon. Or ... is it the same? What the movie does is challenge the morals and values of the world outside the society in which Brandon lived. I believe that if I had seen the movie in Fall City Nebraska, I would not have heard the gasps in the audience throughout the film. I would have been appalled, but the rest of the audience would have identified with the people on the screen. Do I have to live with that "ignorance" in my own country? To them, I may seem like the "ignorant" one, the "liberal without VALUES." I, of course, see it in the opposite light. But this will not soon be reconciled. The closest thing we can get to is understanding, and we reach understanding through exposure, through sources such as _The Brandon Teena Story_.