Leather Jacket Love Story

The movie is in black-white, it has a coarse film-grain and a lot of background noise that might turn off many people. However, the story line is still relevant today and most of all the film portrays a psychologically healthy view of gay men who enjoy their fetishes, practice safe sex and are genuine buddies. I highly recommend this movie. It also portrays a diverse gay community that includes intelligent, caring, and fighting against gay-abuse drag queens, and overall a community of right minded individuals (gay and straight) in a suburban cafe in Silver Springs, LA. The overarching story on top of this marvelous tableaux is a refreshing love story of an 18-year-old open gay guy falling in love with a 29-year-old open leather guy. The development of their relationship takes place over 72 hours. The protagonists have gay friends who take/invite them to leather clubs and bath houses that are portrayed as good places filled with sexually healthy people (there are no freaks or weirdos). The lack of hunky young guys may be disappointing, but the people shown represent the spectrum of young, old, athletic, and non-athletic individuals who visited these clubs. It is the normalcy of the situations and settings against a backdrop of developing love that I find extraordinary and far-sighted by the directors and producers. I cannot think of many other gay themed films that do this. For young people, this is a fascinating old gay movie made at a time when tragedy and death were common themes in gay movies. For mature people, I ask why were we not aware of this film before. One historical limitation of the film is that it portrays relatively affluent, educated white people. There is one black drag queen, but generally all characters are white. This may be disappointing for non-white people, but remember that when Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GHMC) in New York and gay-support institutions started in response to the AIDs crisis in the late 1980s, they were started by rich, gay white men and oriented to helping middle class, educated white men. The embrace of all peoples of color and background only started to happen in the late 1990s when this film was made. Nowadays gay films show positive and negative issues for all people, and gay institutions are much more inclusive.

This movie is nothing more than a thinly vailed porn movie. And a poor one at that!If you like horrendous silly movies this is for you! It had nothing to do with any kindof a gay love story. The queens were horrible and the acting? It just wasn't there.If you want a REALLY good and real look at gay love I strongly recommend Patrik 1.5Now this movie was sensational! But if you buy leather jacket love storyyou might as well flush yourmoney down the toilet

Not sure why it was filmed in black and white rather than color (this movie is only 10 years old). It was slow at times, far fetched other times (the characters in the movie were supposedly only 10-11 yrs apart but it was truthfully much more than that - why try and sell us on something so trivial and bogus like we are clueless idiots? The young boy's best friend constantly referred to his older companion as a "troll"....you would hope a true best friend would care less about the other man's age but rather how he treats his BF, etc. The music was forgettable as was the acting, but I did make it thru to the predictable ending.

I first saw this with a bunch of friends when it came out on VHS. I was completely taken with the indi feel of the film and especially of it's 2 stars - Chris Bradley and Sean Tataryn. There was a great chemistry between the 2 and the story was well done through them.I have to disagree with some of the comments that Sean was in over his head as an actor and not someone you would notice on the street. I NOTICED! I thought his portrayal of Kyle was dead on as a young gay man finding his way and coming out and into his own. And what a teacher to have in Chris Bradley! Chris' Mike was the polar opposite of Kyle. Comfortable in his skin yet knowing as an aging gay man that he had a short shelf life within the youth obsessed gay community. The growing pains felt by both actors was incredibly honest and added depth to the movie that went beyond what the script was written as!I recently watched the film 3 Day Weekend which featured a pair of actors within the same situation. An older guy falling in love with a younger guy and their working everything out. I think even Queer As Folk did the same with Brian and Justin - so LJLS was ahead of the curve!Also a chance to shoot down an urban myth that Sean was only hired after "dozens of other actors turned down the role because of its nudity and frank sexual content" - as the director states on the commentary track! As in any movie several actors were brought in to read but no one seemed to be right for the role and no one was offered it. It wasn't the nudity or theme of the film - it was finding the right person to play Kyle. Then the director saw Sean in an acting class, invited him to audition and offered him the role. That was it! The nudity was discussed and Sean saw it as an important part of the movie and he had no reservations. The package was complete.In full disclosure, since the film I have had the opportunity to talk with both actors and to tell them how wonderful I thought the film was. I also heard the stories about Sean and found out 1st hand that the directors memory seems to be a bit cloudy!This is a great little indi film that deserves a viewing. I'm not sure if it has been given to a new distributor or not, but I just saw that Here TV will be airing it in the next couple of months. It would great to see a new group of people be exposed to this film.The extras are a lot of B roll from the sex club and the sex scene and the commentary track doesn't add a lot to the film.

I just wanted to say Thank You to you guys who left the nice reviews.I played 'Kyle' in it and got casted about a week before shooting.Most takes were done just once.It was a tough shoot in the sense that we didn't have a big budget, weren't paid very much and as mentioned, didn't get the chance to really do any re-takes.However it was a film I wanted to do.I was offered the part after approx 500 guys had auditioned.David, the Director came to my acting class a week prior to shooting and told me he had been looking and looking for the lead for his new film and after seeing me in my acting class wanted me to play the part. Chris, who plays 'Mike' had been casted several months before I was.I accepted the part then pretty much crammed to learn the ever-changing script in about a week.This film was shot in 1996. Prior to this they were not showing sex scenes between two men like they do in many straight full feature movies.Typically when the sex scenes would start the camera would fade, or cut to a silhouette or move to bedroom curtains blowing in the night sky, heheThe Director and Producer of this film believed the time had come for gay films to start showing sex scenes like straight ones do and they wanted ours to be the first.It was for this pioneer element that I agreed to do the role.I've read the reviews and noticed one reviewer writes that I got the part because I agreed to do the nude scenes. That isn't exactly accurate.I got the part after David saw me in my acting class, then was told of the nude scenes afterwords but agreed to do those scenes because I felt the pioneer element of not having those kinds of scenes in a full feature before was an important step to our community.We took alot of heat for doing this, people even walked out of the editing room because they were so discomforted by it..but eventually things would lead to more gay films now following this, mainstream TV shows like Queer As Folk and many others that would also take this route.The original script was quite a bit different from what me and Chris saw in the actual theater. Scenes ment to go at the beginning were now placed in the middle, and scenes Chris and I both thought were very important to the film were cut-out entirely.I have now been reading reviews and feedback about this film for years. Yeah, I've read the vicious stuff, the cruel stuff and the stuff that made me feel pretty bad.I guess I just wanted to leave this response to say 'Thank You' for those of you who have left the supportive positive comments that were awesome, brightened my day and made me feel proud to make this film a few years ago.Thanks guys, I really appreciate it : )For your kind words, support and just being AWESOME!Thank You.Much Love & Hugs,Your Bud,Sean Tataryn, 'Kyle' in Leather Jacket Love Story

Was it was suppose to be

This is the sickest movie I have ever seen. I bought it by mistake, and threw it in the garbage as soon as I saw where it was headed. The words "Leather Jacket" should have been the clue, not "Love Story." I guess I'm naive. It is all S&M and the worst drag queens I have ever seen. Ugh. For some reason it is in black and white--perhaps they wanted to enhance the griminess of the thing. I urge the saner amongst you to stay clear of this crap, unless you want nightmares.