Finding Me

Finding Me, a new DVD from TLA Releasing, is about gay black men who are so not ghetto. Since I'm accustomed to seeing black guys shoot each other on The Wire, I can barely make sense of these nice black men with no guns. It's almost science fiction.

At first the romance is sweet, but chaste, and when it finally happens, you realize that there's really no story, except for a B plot concerning the old-fashioned father. Most of the comedy comes from the sassy black chick, one of those junior Wanda Sykes types. But the protagonist is such a drip I can't imagine what the hunk sees in him.

The film's director, Roger S. Omeus Jr., says in an interview that he was inspired by E. Lynn Harris. Now it all makes sense. Probably the most interesting thing about this movie is that it introduced me to the term "same gender loving", which some of these people feel is less prejudicial than the word "gay". Again with the science fiction. All the same, the movie's got such a good spirit that it's easy to overlook the clumsy compositions and atrocious audio and bland performances and overlong running time. That title doesn't do it any favours, either.