A magical surprise, the documentary Gay Hollywood Dad traces about a year in the life of Director and Producer Quinten Lee as he invents himself once more this time as a parent. Nicely filmed, directed and presented, the Amazon Instant Video makes a statement while entertaining all walks of life. Not a social venting or pushy script, it’s just a good feeling movie.
Hollywood hopeful Quinten Lee has made several films as director since 1992 with titles like Flow, Shopping for Fangs, Drift, White Frog, and People I’ve Slept With. His most recent is a horror flick called The Unbidden released in 2016. The reason I mention The Unbidden stems from the scene that lasts about three minutes in this movie showing a tad of what Lee has done. In the short length of time the scene startles and pulls off a few surprises.
During the period of making The Unbidden he decides to make this documentary. It opens with Lee showing his friends and his life after about 40 films and wanting to have a child. Being gay, he doesn’t want to procreate with a woman so he chooses to have his baby with surrogate Crystal Primavera through “test tube transfer”. Upon completion of the process and birth of the baby, that’s all shown in the documentary, his new child Casper gets a huge welcome by friends and family.
Thus begins his life as a father and the start of Junyi Casper Lee as a star of his film The Unbidden. The movie actually is fun to watch although a bit of an oddity beyond the first half. Lee does accomplish his task, but deep down it’s more of a home movie and something for his memory chest. Totally a fun and heartfelt view into his life of ups and downs and joy, however, it tends to veer off into a cry for solidarity among his female actors. It then features several actresses who want recognition for their work and less intrusion by non-Asians in “their” movies.
While there is a market for the film, that should attract a gay audience for sure, women in general and budding filmmakers should line up for it as well. But, like all indie films, if you cannot get the venues to show your film, it could be just what my previous paragraph eluded, a prize for his memory chest.
Gay Dad in Hollywood is not rated by either of the rating systems, but contains language and horror depicted in a scene from The Unbidden.
FINAL ANALYSIS: A well-made documentary that will hopefully please audiences around the world. (3.5 out of 5 Stars)
Additional Film Information:
Cast: Quentin Lee, Casper, Candy Cheung, Adrian Ho, Viet Dang, Crystal Primavera, Tamlyn Tomita, Julia Nickson, Akemi Look, and Elizabeth Sung
Directed by: Frank Howley and Quentin Lee
Written by: Quentin Lee
Genre: Documentary, Biography
MPAA Rating: Not Rated, contains language, a scene of horror
Running Time: 1 hr. 35 min.
Opening Date: August 3, 2018
Distributed by: Margin Films
Released on: Amazon Instant Video
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
