Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

k_rchfld This movie was amazingly bad. The characters were cardboard, the script was painfully poorly written, and to top it off, the story (and I use that word loosely) was boring. Also, I had the feeling I was watching home movie by someone who had a video camera handy and a few hours to spare. Having watched several of the recent gay themed movies, and in spite of the fact that many of them have also had limited budgets, several of the others were able to pull the viewer into a story with the element of drama, emotion and a connection to the characters. Most of the time spent watching Issues 101, I couldn't keep enough interest to see if the story was in fact going anywhere, nor did I really care what happened to any of these characters. So regardless of budget, this film could have been made so much better. Enough said.

dj-58 Rent this movie for the special features! Now, this IS the single worst movie I have ever seen; it looks like it was made with a home camcorder, the acting is terrible, the plot is stupid, the characters are hollow, the script is inane, and the sex is gratuitous and poorly done. But the compelling reason to rent this DVD are the actor interviews in the Special Features, which are like a Christopher Guest movie come to life. The "actors" self-serious comments about their "work" are hilarious, and truly worth the rental. Their unintentionally deadpan delivery, filled with "ums" and pauses, after which they completely contradict the inane statement that came before, are Christopher Guest at his best, only they are real. For anyone who thinks Mr. Guest just makes his characters up, rent this movie. True, the interviews are funnier if you have watched the movie, but that would be such a painful task that you can watch the bonus material by itself.

Havan_IronOak Unfortunately, this film should be mandatory viewing for film makers, so that they can see what mistakes NOT to make in their films. Issues 101 has real problems. As a romantic drama it's a failure. Seeing this film only a few hours after watching Andy Warhol's Trash led me to question why Trash is so riveting (albeit in a sick car-crash sort of way) while Issues 101 required real force of will to watch to the bitter end. Neither film has well scripted dialogue and yet they couldn't be more different in their audience impact. One is fascinating to watch and one is painful to watch. Somehow in Trash we see beyond the flaws and imperfections and see that there is truth (in this case what it must have really been like to be in a dead end relationship with a junkie in late 60's NYC) In Issues 101, we see no such truth. The reality of the digital video contrasts wildly with the inane dialogue (lacking in both sense and substance). The result is an insipid film lacking in truth, excitement or interest. The flaws were so off-putting as to keep yanking the viewer back to the `real world' and not allowing for the willing suspension of disbelief that works for most films. The REAL problem for me with Issues 101 is that it gives me a terrible case of the `might-have-beens.' For the most part the actors were pleasing to the eye and the ideas presented in the story could have been told so much better. On the surface, a story about a fraternity pledge that somehow gets through a chink in his frat brother's straight façade, the frat brother setting the pledge up with his younger fraternal gay brother to take some of the pressure off, and the jealousy that ensues are all great plot elements. However in this film almost none of it works. The sex with the supposedly straight brother goes way too far without an adequate `gosh was I drunk set-up'. The whirlwind speed with which the pledge and the younger brother get seriously involved happens way too quickly. And finally the pledge causing all these issues is neither handsome enough nor charming enough to make us believe that either brother would be interested in him.To make matters worse there were scenes that were totally unmotivated and others that were totally unnecessary. I understand that this film ran out of money near the end and so much was lost in the director's vision but overall what was left is nearly unwatchable and actually painful to sit through.

moviemakerinhollywood WARNING: MY review may contain spoilage of plot points in the movie. Do not read if you are sensitive to knowing aspects of the movie. Firstly, the story title does match the movie. However, there was no story at all to tell. The movie circles around a bunch of people and there is no way to tell who the main character is or what that main character wants to do. I missed the point of what the director was trying to convey to the audience, if there was a point.