Rating: 
Summary: Sweet, Charming, and Honest Queer Film
Review: "Edge of Seventeen" is for all of us who grew up gay in the 80's. This movie hits the bull's eye when it comes to capturing the nuances of the summer of 1984. If you remember listening to Eurythmics and the Thompson Twins and the whole "Second British Invasion," then you will relate to Eric and the soundtrack to his adolescence. The songs selected here evoke the emotions that Eric is going through: excitement, naivete, and a hint of melancholy underneath. It's surprising that this movie was made in 1999... you'd almost think it was filmed in the summer of 1984. Eric's journey out of the closet is a sweet and unapologetic one. Granted, the plot of the hip older guy leading the ingenue into his first taste of love and loss is not new, but the actor who portrays Eric gives a performance so honest that it's hard to believe he is acting. This is someone with good eye for detail... from his Tom Bailey haircut to the lost look in his eyes when Rod disillusions him... he really gets it right. And the scene where he comes out of the closet to his mother and pleads with her ("Look at me. Look at me.") is heart-melting.
Rating:
Summary: Edge of Seventeen
Review: "Edge of Seventeen" is an engaging debut . The story of a young man who struggles to find acceptance of his own sexuality through experience and discovery. Set in the 80's, Chris Stafford's debut is gentle, endearing, and wonderfully precise. The movie can be all too familiar in remembering those times of innocents, and how difficult it is to come out to friends and family. This is a very promising debut for Stafford and for the rest of the cast. Absolutely Fabulous!!!
Rating:
Summary: Sweet, Charming, and Honest Queer Film
Review: "Edge of Seventeen" is for all of us who grew up gay in the 80's. This movie hits the bull's eye when it comes to capturing the nuances of the summer of 1984. If you remember listening to Eurythmics and the Thompson Twins and the whole "Second British Invasion," then you will relate to Eric and the soundtrack to his adolescence. The songs selected here evoke the emotions that Eric is going through: excitement, naivete, and a hint of melancholy underneath. It's surprising that this movie was made in 1999... you'd almost think it was filmed in the summer of 1984. Eric's journey out of the closet is a sweet and unapologetic one. Granted, the plot of the hip older guy leading the ingenue into his first taste of love and loss is not new, but the actor who portrays Eric gives a performance so honest that it's hard to believe he is acting. This is someone with good eye for detail... from his Tom Bailey haircut to the lost look in his eyes when Rod disillusions him... he really gets it right. And the scene where he comes out of the closet to his mother and pleads with her ("Look at me. Look at me.") is heart-melting.
Rating:
Summary: Quintessential 1980s ...
Review: "Edge of Seventeen" was a wonderful film, in part for the near-perfect way it encapsulated American popular culture of the early 1980s. This soundtrack album does an equally fine job, providing us with a diverse and generally-memorable collection of tunes from that era. The soundtrack includes a few well-known 1980s "standards" (if there is such a thing), but this is significantly more than a "greatest hits" collection. The real reason to buy this album is for its collection of lesser-known selections, including some surprisingly sensitive and evocative tunes that you probably haven't heard in a decade or more. Chief among these is perhaps the georgeous and etherial "Small Town Boy" by Bronski Beat. There's also great stuff by the Thompson Twins, A Flock of Seagulls, and others. Of course, there's also something to be said for the somewhat tackier pop tunes on the album, too. You could, for example, reenact the movie's opening scene by popping this album into your car CD player, cueing up Toni Basil's "Mickey," cranking up the volume, and singing along. Guaranteed to instantly cheer you up!
Rating: 
Summary: The Gay '80s
Review: Anybody who came out and lived through the 80's will find much to love in this movie. Moving, Funny, Sad. A gay version of a John Hughes film .... and if that isn't 80's I don't know what is. I remember those days fondly - but when I see the visuals - wow do the clothes scare me! Soundtrack is perfect.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbingly Accurate
Review: As an exact contemporary of the character in Edge of Seventeen--and one from Ohio to boot--I can assure all of the younger and luckier generation, that this is a disturbingly accurate portrayal of growing up gay in the 1980s. Nothing is glossed over and this is certainly no gay "propaganda" film. Eric, the main character, has plenty of unpleasant experiences and learns a few unhappy lessons on his way to being an openly gay young man. In the dark ages of the 80s, when very few schools have Gay-Straight alliances, where can Eric turn but the local gay bar? As he takes the first tentative steps toward coming out, he is used for sex by two other men, hit upon by barflies, and taunted by homophobic youths. But Eric also meets some real friends along the way, especially Angie, his boss and owner of the local gay club, played with gusto by lesbian comic Lea DeLaria. The use of thinly disguised real locations for much of the film adds to the realism here. Sandusky's Cedar Point stands in as the Crystal Shores Amusement park, and Cleveland's now defunct Legends nightclub (recently torn down and rebuilt as a drugstore) is the interior of the Universal Fruit & Nut Company bar where Eric begins to explore the seamier side of gay life. The performances here are uniformly outstanding, especially in the portrayal of Eric's parents. Both Stephanie McVay and John Eby are totally believable as typical 1980s Ohio parents. But the movie really belongs to Chris Stafford's Eric, whose portrayal of a young gay man coming out in the age of Reagan makes this film the definitive gay document of my generation. One note about the DVD--the image quality leaves a lot to be desired here, there is a great deal of haze and the colors are oversaturated, with plenty of bleeding red images. Also, the lack of closed-captioning effectively makes this DVD useless to the deaf community. I realize that Strand Releasing is a small company, but captioning is fairly standard now, and with the large number of deaf gay men & lesbians, the lack of captioning is inexcusable.
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Summary: Edge of Perfection
Review: Being a youth and gay, in a closed minded community, I have eagerly searched for perfection in a movie that allows me to outlet sadness as well as laughter, and Edge of Seventeen does that. Andersen Gabrych is unbeleiveably gorgeous and plays his part well. There's not too much else to say without giving the whole thing away. Acting is suberb, and the script is almost flawless. This is one of the first films in gay cinema I've seen, and definately my favorite.
Worth time and money.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Thing? Get Real! Great gay-teen themed flick!
Review: Edge of Seventeen is a wonderfully realized coming-of-age film about the one teen trauma John Hughes never touched: coming out. To start with, the soundtrack is nothing short of spectacular for 80s nostalgia enthusiasts. And the costuming is eerily authentic (rumor has it that the screenwriter ransacked his own home closet to find his 80s club duds). Passing the fact that David Morton has managed to capture the feel of a Hughes teen flick (down to the great opening credits); the performances are the high point here. Chris Stafford will steal every gay Gen-Xers heart; both because he's adorably snuggleable without being implausably beautiful, and because playing a 16-yr old from the mid-80s, he's a stand-in for all of us who WISH we'd had the guts to go after the cute blond boy from our summer job (Anderson Gabrych). Of particular note is Lea Delaria supporting turn as the dyke den-momma; who provides the best possible example for how queer adults should treat queer kids. This is a film that's full of great moments (mostly dominated by Stafford), including a "first-time" love scene that will leave you twitchy with anticipation, and a rimming scene (move over, "Queer as Folk") that will have you rolling off the couch with laughter. Best of all is the fact that for a US-made gay-teen themed film, the plot finally seems to break past the level of "Afterschool Special;" enough for me to rank it above such gay film favorites as "Beautiful Thing" and "Get Real." For American queerboys who came of age in the 80s, this is as real as it gets (or as close to what we wanted in our teen years as we'll find now.) It's a must-have for your collection.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Gay Films Ever.
Review: Edge of Seventeen is one of the best coming out and coming of age gay films ever. It paints a picture of coming out in middle America. The thrill of finding there's are others owt there like you, falling in love, getting dumped without an explanation and dealing with it and coming to terms with parents. It was poignant and brought tears to my eyes as well as painted a nostalgic look at, yes, Sandusky Ohio, and working in a theme park The only flaw os the hokey ending where the wonderful Lea Dalaria sings a song implying that the future will be rosey. Other than that....great film.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent film about ordinarily hackneyed topic
Review: Edge of Seventeen is relentless in its honest portrayal of a teenage boy in Sandusky, Ohio, growing up gay in the early 80s. Most coming out stories of today (including a rather mediocre film that was released about the same time) are very unoriginal, offering nothing new on the topic, and often don't face uncomfortable issues well. Edge of Seventeen does so quite powerfully. The actors are brilliant (Lea Delaria is superb), the script funny and sad, and the pace is good. I was transfixed the whole time. This DVD is definitely worth having.
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