Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Gordon-11 This film tells the story of a man who works in his family owned Mexican restaurant, and has a closeted boyfriend. He wants to move away and break free, but his next door neighbour developed an instant crush for him.I can't quite believe how clichéd the story and the characters are in this film. Everything is rather dramatised for comedic effect. I do like the very dramatic aunt Bianca, who provides much comedic moments. The main character, Pablo, is an amiable person, and I feel a bit sorry for him and his restaurant. Take the film lightly, and you'll find it funny and amusing for a rainy evening.

donwc1996 This film is a winner from start to finish. It has everything. Great story! Great cast! But more than anything else it grabs you by the heart and never lets go. This story speaks the truth in its every nuance. The people behind this film knew what they were doing and they did not miss a trick. Authentic is the word for this film. Authentic and true. There are simply no clichés, no stereotypes, just real people living out their lives the best way they can. The cast is so perfect it hurts. Yet none of the leads seems to have made it big based on information here at IMDb. What a shame! But, hey, that's life in Hollywood - lots of talented people who never make it. And this cast has talent in spades. This film is a real collector's item, the kind of film you keep among your very favorite films and never forget it. You just want to see it again and again, it is so perfect. A real gem.

thesar-2 Ah, to remember the past. Sure, I realize East Side Story came out (on DVD) in 2007, and probably made way before that, but it was surely stuck in the early 1990s. The themes: coming out, closeted individuals, family acceptance of homosexuality, stereotypes and racism is sooo 1992. And you know what? It was refreshing.It was a nice and warm reminder to days past. And this low-budget, independent gay-themed movie was actually well made (filmed) and held enough interest to watch to the end. Sure, it had a familiar plot, enormously stereotypical characters and predictable outcomes, but, strangely, enjoyable.The movie begins with two closeted characters, Diego (enormously hot, but unfortunately straight, Rene Alvarado) and confused real estate agent, Pablo (David Beron) roll-playing sexual encounters. It's obviously doomed, and Diego has to learn to live on his own.His parents passed on and he lives and works with his grandmother at an apparently authentic Mexican food restaurant in a very depressing, racist and homophobic neighborhood. Diego wants out and over to Phoenix. (Side Note: I wished he had at least visited the Valley of the Sun, as I am currently living there. So few films are shown here.) He meets the new neighbors and it's predictable that he falls for attached Wesley (Steve Callahan.) It takes awhile, but you know what's coming.The movie is hard to watch, for some of the racist jokes/statements and throws you a curveball for being a "light romantic comedy" and then shows scenes of explicit sexual encounters or nudity (just backsides and bare chests,) even though the movie begins with a dark-shot blow-job, most of the movie could've been shown edited on LOGO.A friend had been recommending East Side Story to me for a long while, so I finally got around to seeing it. I'm glad I did. It's not groundbreaking, but had some decent acting (though I never truly believed Diego was an educated chef, despite them "telling" us he was,) very funny dialogue (at times,) good eye-candy and a touching throwback to the early 1990s gay-themed film-making. It's harmless fun, if you can understand where the characters are coming from and know soap operas aren't necessarily reserved for heterosexuals.

moonspinner55 Nobody lifts any weights or does a single stomach crunch in this movie, though it's important to note that all the gay male characters have muscular arms and flat stomachs with six-packs. This low-budget film doesn't exist to enlighten or involve viewers--it just wants us to ogle the men as fantasy objects (even the proverbial bitchy queen looks like a steroids-addict). Diaphanous script, co-written by director Carlos Portugal, involves René Alvarado as a waiter in East Los Angeles who always looks on the verge of crying; he's impatient with his secret lover over their closeted relationship without really noticing that he himself isn't 'out' to his family (he seems to have no friends). Just after the affair goes bust, Alvarado meets the new neighbors across the street: a flaming, nagging femme and his partner, a sensitive, quiet butch with abs like granite. In what neighborhood did Portugal come from that he thinks this scenario resembles anything intelligent gay audiences can relate to? A little of the dialogue is sharp and funny (most of which belongs to the female characters), and there's a hammy but rude, snorting scene of satire involving participants of an AA meeting. Otherwise, the picture is a little patronizing to its core audience as it prolongs the see-through melodrama to an excruciating length just to get the waiter and the neighbor out of their shirts. I'm assuming they hit the gym afterwards. *1/2 from ****