Like It Is is much like watching a train wreck-the very idea of it is repellent and yet you perversely can't avert your eyes. While its urban grittiness and sooty veneer entranced some critics who mistook its violent, netherworld neorealism for art, Like It Is offers little in the way of redemption, positive gay imaging or even particularly good narrative. Paul Oremland directed this venture about a young, gay Blackpool tough named Craig (Steve Bell) who bare-knuckle boxes for money. He ultimately moves to London in search of a better life and falls in with the trendy London gay-club scene, meeting and falling for a handsome record producer named Matt (Ian Rose) and his wealthy boss (played by the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey). The better life is quickly tainted by disillusion and misery, much as is the viewing experience. Steve Bell is, in real life, a featherweight boxing champion in Britain and therefore brings an urgent and raw vitality to the lead, but the characters as a whole are either irritating or unsympathetic, and it's ultimately difficult to find anyone to care for, or a story worth empathising with. -Paula Nechak, Amazon. com.

We're not talking about monsters of the deep here. It's In the Water is set in the imaginary town of Azalea Springs, Texas, where the community is blighted by wealth and smugness and where the greatest crime is not to fit in-and that includes being gay. When the outrageous and fearless Spencer (John Hallum, camping it up) playfully lets on that there's something in the water supply that encourages homosexuality, the temperature of local gossip rises as fast as the sales of bottled water. Kelli Herd, in her directorial debut, aims to cast scorn on such phobic behaviour by sending up the straight guys and idealising the gays. Thus we have our central character, Alex (Keri Jo Chapman), whose life consists of lunches and charitable works, and who is married to Robert, a cold Action Man lookalike (and about as plastic in his acting skills). It's enough of a scandal when she gets enthusiastic about working in the local AIDS hospice, but when she has a lesbian fling with an old school friend, Grace (Teresa Garrett), who has returned to town, freshly divorced after discovering her true leanings, then even Alex's own mother-a complete nightmare of a woman-turns against her. The movie does have occasional witticisms, but it's too cliché-ridden and too sanitised (dying of AIDS was never this pretty) to do more than raise an occasional grim smile. Yes, there's a serious message underlying the film, but it would have needed more plot, stronger dialogue and less histrionic play-acting to give it true power. On the DVD: It's In the Water has only the most basic additional features: two trailers for similarly themed movies, but no subtitles or additional languages. The picture quality is bright and sharp, sparing us no detail in the Versace-inspired interiors and relentlessly garish mode of dress favoured by Azalea Springs inmates. [+]