"The Seminarian": Hung gay evangelical looks for love, annoys his friends and the viewer. Three penises, no waiting.

The Seminarian 2011: "A seminarian saves a lady's life. They fall in love."  And "A closeted gay seminarian struggles..."  Well, which is it?  It can't be both.  The only way to find out is to watch on Roku.

Link to the penises

Scene 1: Whoa, the first scene shows a very well hung naked guy changing clothes in his kitchen!  Now we know the audience they're going after.  

He's Ryan Goodman (Goodman, har har) (Mark Cirillo), who lives in an incredible decadent-red apartment with his "when will you find a girl and get married" mother.  He is about to graduate from a conservative evangelical seminary, but he doesn't want to become a preacher: he's applying to a Ph.D. program at Yale.   

Scene 2: Meeting with his thesis advisor. Ryan is writing on how "love and desire" encourage procreation, protection, and socialization, "which enable us to survive and persist as a species."  The point of life is reproduction?  That's the house, job, wife, kids trajectory that my parents were always pushing on me.  I thought a gay guy would come up with something less oppressive.  Besides, he forgot the theology. "Oh, right...um...when we love each other, we reflect God's love." .

Scene 3: A restroom hookup leads to a heart-to-heart.  The guy had a bad breakup six years ago, and hasn't dated anyone since.  "So you're content without love?" Mark asks, horrified.  Some people are aromantic, and some are asexual.

Scene 4: Mark has only one gay friend on campus, Gerald (Matthew Hanon), who has just been dumped by his boyfriend, and doesn't have the energy to listen to his "love is bollocks" moaning.  Also a sraight friend, Eugene, who plasters the campus with "Protect Traditional Marriage" fliers. 

Although he has a girlfriend, Straight Eugene argues that you don't need to be in a relationship -- God's love is enough.  If you disagree, you don't understand God, and what are you doing in seminary?  Judgmental, aren't you?  Oh, right, you're training to become a preacher, and hate gays for a living.

Scene 5:  Mark working on his thesis: "When you love another human being, you love God."  He pauses for cybersex with Bradley, his online boyfriend, who lives too far away to meet. 

Scene 6: Mark decides to busybody into his gay friend Gerald's relationship, but  they have reconciled and don't want him nosing around.

Cut to the gym, where Mark is talking to his other gay friend about the Online Boyfriend. "So he lives far away.  You have to go see him, or you will never find love."  Dude, you live in Los Angeles.  Just walk into any bar and say "I have 8 inches.  Who wants to buy me dinner?"

Cut to Mark sitting on a bench, looking morose while Straight Eugene flirts with his girlfriend.

Scene 7: Mark bites the bullet and drives all the way down to Irvine to meet his Online Boyfriend. Ugh, bare apartment.  Ever hear of paintings?  Cut to the next day, with Mark gushing about the date to his gay friend Gerald.  Gerald isn't interested. 

Scene 8: Uh-oh, Online Boyfriend ghosts Mark. The various intertwining relationships are getting complicated. I'd better stop the scene-by-scene here.

The Online Boyfriend has some problems with drinking and depression, and keeps jerking Mark around, so Mark goes after his gay friend Gerald.  But Gerald isn't into it. 

Mark changes his thesis: "How can love be a gift from God, when it causes so much pain? The pain we feel is the pain God feels when we reject His love." 

He goes farther down the rabbit hole of disbelief: Didn't God know in advance about Adam and Eve's fall, which created this world of misery?  How could a good God allow it?  "This is what I hate about theology. It's justifying senseless beliefs with elaborate pontifications."  His friends wonder why he's still in seminary, and if he's still saved.  "You've backslidden, man."

He comes out to his friend's girlfriend, who respons about as you would expect: "You chose to sin!  You have to repent, and return to God!"  And to his thesis advisor, who advises: Don't tell anyone else, You don't want to be expelled a few months before graduation.  

Finally, we watch Mark sitting on a bench, staring into space, for about five minutes. Then he goes home and stares into space some more, and starts crying.  Mom asks what's wrong.  "Do you really want to know?" he asks.  "I'll tell you." Cut to black.

Beefcake:  Three penises. None of the other actors have any beefcake photos available. Left: more of Mark's penis.

Angst: I thought the crisis would be about "can you be gay and Christian," but it's really "why is love so painful?"  Being gay makes it more painful only because Ryan can't talk to many people about it. Just Gerald, Anthony, and Anthony's new boyfriend Jeff. 

My Grade: Too slow -- we spend 20 seconds staring at a curb, waiting for Ryan to walk by.  Rather wooden performances -- Ryan has one facial expression.  And I hate it when movies end abruptly,without a plot resol.... 

The penises are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends