Kiss Me Dudley...

Oh dear...

As all two of you that read this blog know, the cat and I are hanging out at Segredos while the boss is away in Florida these next two weeks. This, of course, provides me with an opportunity to watch guy movies - that's "guy" with a "u" - tough, ass-kicking, take-no-prisoners action flicks. Yesterday, for example, I watched Day of the Outlaw with Robert Ryan (tough guy western), The Big Sleep from '78 (tough guy remake of the Hawkes/Bogie original with Robert Mitchum) and Puppet on a Chain (tough Swedish guy detective thriller with a man-sized boat chase from 1971). My blood, now coursing with man-movie testosterone, wanted more.

I grabbed a handful of new DVD's tonight – Fort Apache, The Bronx, Hitman and something called Kiss Me Deadly with a DVD box plot description that read “Ex-spy Jacob Keane is drawn back into the shadowy world of international espionage when his former partner Marta reappears after 17 years, her memory erased, on the run from a pair of deadly, psychopathic assassins.” Hmmm... sounds manly. Spys... check. International espionage... check. Deadly psycho assassins... check. Shannon Doherty... aging hottie... check.

I should have cottoned on during the 11 previews contained at the start of this Hero! label DVD. There seemed to be an awful lot of guys hugging each other in 11 straight (pun unintended) movies that I'd never heard of. Most of them seemed to be shot on that weird video stock that doesn't look like a real movie. None-the-wiser I skipped through the trailers and settled into this direct-to-video B-actioner. The film starts in a flashback to pre-Berlin Wall era East Germany with a Russian defector getting blown up just before our crack NATO-spy team can get to him. Pesky Russians... you'll get yours! I thought. We move forward to the present day in Milan and one of the NATO-spy's from Berlin is photographing two hot couples in bathing suits. Hotties! Check.

Then it happened. A huge, moist man-kiss at the 9 minute mark. The photogrpher/NATO-spy plants a big wet one on his little Italian love-muffin helper. I spilled my glass of coke all over my lap and thought momentarily that Keane was deep, deep undercover. No, as it turns out... he wasn't. He was a gay spy with a capital Q.

The cat glanced up with a suspicious look. “Well now...”, I could hear her little feline brain thinking, “...isn't this an interesting choice with the female away.” No... I didn't know. Grit. Please believe me!

Being the modern liberal man that I am, I decided that I wasn't going to be homophobic and pressed on. A little gay bathroom action with a stranger in a bar and a gay bathhouse murder that included several full on male frontal nudity shots had my hand edging closer toward.... the remote! I know what you're thinking Joe and you're wrong! (and trying not to make eye contact with the cat, who was now squinting at me by this point) but I summoned up the courage to continue.

About an hour in though, I bailed. The hero just kept kissing all the other men and the plot ahh.... well, sucked actually. I honestly tried. It wasn't really a gay movie, it just had a gay lead. I kinda liked him too.

It was all that kissing and hugging... and more kissing... with no girls around. Did I mention that I kinda liked the lead actor?

I wonder what else he was in?....

Think I'll iMDB him....

....so to speak.