Todd Verow Movies
- 2009
A grieving American goes to work for a b-movie actress in Italy, only to discover that living the glamorous life could have deadly repercussions. John (Tim Swain) was mourning the death of his friend Kevin (Josh Ubaldi) when he crossed paths with Solange (Mahogany Reynolds), an actress/singer who shot to fame in the 1980s after appearing in a series of low-budget Italian horror films. At first John is intoxicated by Solange's jet-set lifestyle, though after close encounters with some unscrupulous model managers and psychotic Parisian performance artists he begins to second-guess his decision to become the reckless one-hit wonder's personal assistant. Adapted from the novel by James Derek Dwyer. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Swain, Mahogany Reynolds, (more)
- 2008
Vacationland director Todd Verow draws on his experiences as a teenage rent boy to craft this semi-autobiographical tale of a young art student who turns to hustling in order to pay his tuition, and the important life lessons he learns in the process. Joe (Tiri Swain) is a small-town kid who has recently left home to study at a prestigious New England arts college. Before long, Joe and freewheeling fellow student Jennifer (Julia Frey) have become fast friends. Both are struggling simply to pay the bills and keep up on their tuition, at times resorting to petty larceny in order to make ends meet. Later, Joe strikes up a casual friendship with punky male hustler Ramon (Gil Bar-Sera), who suggests that he consider giving prostitution a try. Upon taking Ramon up on the offer, Joe begins to discover things about himself that he never would have known had he simply remained in his small town. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2007
Ten years after exiting the world of prostitution in order to commit to a celibate relationship, a former male hustler named nail discovers just what a profound affect the internet has had on his chosen profession. When Nail discovered true love, he thought that he would never have to sell his body again. Ten years later, Nail's relationship has failed and he's back hustling on the streets again. But quite a bit can change over the course of a mere decade, a fact that doesn't go unnoticed by Nails as he attempts to ventures into the hi-tech world of internet prostitution. Shot around the globe on a simple cell-phone camera, director Todd Verow's experimental drama offers a stripped-down look at the lifestyle most folks will only read out. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
A homosexual high-school senior coming of age in Bangor, ME attempts to make peace with his sexuality in director Todd Verow's micro-budgeted independent drama. Joe (Brad Hallowell) is a high-school senior who for years has pined for the love of best friend Andrew (Gregory J. Lucas). Unable to adequately express himself to his mother and fearful of her abusive boyfriend, Joe moves into the home of an aging artist to work as part-time caretaker and artist's model. When Joe's female friends figure out that he is more interested in Andrew than he is in the fairer sex, they convince the lovelorn teen to follow his heart. As Joe begins to strike out on his own and make a name for himself in the local gay scene, he is soon confronted with a painful memory from the past that threatens to derail his newfound happiness. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brad Hallowell, Gregory J. Lucas, (more)
Filmmaker Todd Verow updates author Choderlos de Laclos' popular novel Dangerous Liaisons with this stinging satire set in the Bush Administration White House and following the journey of a common male hustler who skillfully ingratiates himself with the most powerful politicians on the planet. Bulldog (Verow) is a power-hungry hustler with eyes on most powerful man in America. Soon after seducing his way into the Washington press corps, this scheming bed-hopper starts sharing the sheets with political bigwigs who are so wrapped up in their sordid encounters that they fail to notice Rome is burning. Now, with puppet-master Karl Rove pulling the strings from behind the scenes, Bulldog will seduce everyone from the reserved press secretary to the biggest religious leader in the country and, ultimately, the Commander in Chief himself. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2004
- Add The Trouble With Perpetual Deja-Vu to QueueAdd The Trouble With Perpetual Deja-Vu to top of Queue
Todd Verow's The Trouble with Perpetual Déjà vu stars Devery Doleman as Danielle, a woman going through a serious personal crisis. With her marriage falling apart, she moves in with her gambling-obsessed mother. Danielle begins drinking heavily, but a chance meeting with an old high school friend provides her with a human connection that may allow her a reason to pull out of her funk. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 2004
When Todd (played by director Todd Verow) tires of his steady relationship and uninspired office job, he looks for a way to return to the sexually charged atmosphere of days gone by. Figuring it had worked before, Todd seeks out wanton, anonymous sex online and inside the stalls of public restrooms. Though it serves as a temporary fix, Todd's boyfriend catches him in the act, promptly cuts Todd out of his life, and permanently throws him out of their apartment. Forced to live in his office, Todd's compulsion for anonymous sex continues to grow and threatens to jeopardize his job. Anonymous also features Dustin Schell, Jason Bailey, Noah Powell, and Shawn Durr. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Todd Verow
A rock diva sinks deep into the gutter as she makes a futile attempt at rising to stardom in this bizarre underground feature, shot using digital video equipment. Antimatter (Philly) is a would-be rock star who fronts a glam/punk band called Eager Meat. Antimatter loves the passionate abandon of performing on-stage, and craves the drugs, sex, and decadent luxury that come with being a major star, but unfortunately the rest of the world is hardly paying her the slightest bit of attention. Antimatter gobbles up any drug that crosses her path and guzzles whatever booze she can cage from her rapidly shrinking circle of friends, as she searches for a place to sleep and a fresh refrigerator to raid. Antimatter's attempts to quit drinking have only earned her another drinking buddy (Eric Sapp), whom she met at an AA meeting, and her psychiatrist (Brenda Velez) has come to the sad conclusion that nothing can be done for her. So what is this aspiring queen of the night supposed to do with herself? Once and Future Queen was directed by Todd Verow, the independent filmmaker responsible for the infamous gay-themed feature Frisk. Incidentally, in real life, drag queen Philly really does front the band Eager Meat that is featured in the movie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philly
Ersatz auteur Todd Verow directs this film about the tragically hip. There's the hard-drinking bowling alley employee (Devery Doleman), a mildly rebellious teen (Aaron Falls), and his punk-rock mom (Philly), who barks out lyrics like "I love you when you sit on my face." Somehow, they interact in a manner that loosely approximates a plot. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aaron Falls
Frances is an upholder of the public order in the daytime: she is a skip-tracer and credit-collection specialist. She is married to a mentally unstable man, and doesn't find enough in his companionship to meet her needs. Each night she determines to abandon every trace of prudishness in herself in her quest for an endless succession of one-night stands. However, she needs to fortify herself with large quantities of alcohol in order to accomplish this goal. In one scene, she pretends to be a prostitute in order to be able to stay overnight someplace. Her new life is marred by some tragedies, but she bravely persists. Despite the fact that this is a movie about the quest for sexual encounters, very few of these encounters are shown, and those are very discreetly handled. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bonnie Dickenson
A man pursues his sexual obsessions to their darkest and most dangerous extremes in this gay-themed drama based on a novel by Dennis Cooper. Dennis (Michael Gunther) is a gay man, who as a teenager developed a perverse attraction to violent pornography and simulated snuff photographs, which he describes in great detail in a series of letters to his former lover Julian (Jaie Laplante). As Dennis grows older, his fascination with the darker side of the sexual underground grows more intense, and in time he meets Henry (Craig Chester), a masochist who posed for some of the pictures that sparked his interest in S&M. When Dennis learns that Henry was murdered, he weaves the incident into an elaborate fantasy, in which Dennis suffers a painful death in a dungeon of erotic torture. In time, Dennis graduates from violent fantasies to sadistic interludes with a male prostitute (Michael Stock) and eventually plans a series of sexually-oriented murders, concluding with an episode in which Dennis and two collaborators (Parker Posey and James Lyons) drug a young punk (Alexis Arquette) into unconsciousness. After having group sex, Dennis and his cohorts murder the punk. As one might expect, Frisk proved to be highly controversial and received a sharply divided reaction in its screening as the closing night attraction at the 1996 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; some hailed it as a disturbing and iconoclastic masterpiece, while roughly half the audience angrily stormed out of the theater before the film's conclusion. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Gunther, Parker Posey, (more)
- 1993
- NR
A group of gay and lesbian teen characters addresses the camera directly in this pseudo-documentary about the travails of queer adolescence in early-'90s Los Angeles. Andy (James Duval), who hides his sensitive side beneath a nihilistic exterior, really yearns to find a nice boyfriend and settle down the way his pal Steven (Gilbert Luna), an aspiring filmmaker, has with boyfriend Deric (Lance May). Meanwhile, their sex-crazed friend Tommy (Roko Belic) has been kicked out by his parents for being homosexual. The only seemingly carefree members of this adoptive family are Michele (Susan Behshid) and Patricia (Jenee Gill), a lesbian couple whose desire to raise a child together leads the boys to participate in a group sperm donation during one of the film's many scenes of these characters just hanging out and rapping about AIDS, fag-bashing, homophobia, and alienation. In-between polemicizing and posing in front of Steven's camera for interviews, Andy meets college student Ian (Alan Boyce), who seems, at least for a while, to be Mr. Right. Just as Andy and Ian's relationship begins to blossom, Steven and Deric's starts to fall apart, but nothing's for certain in director Gregg Araki's angst-ridden world. Framed as 15 vignettes, each one introduced by an ironic intertitle and many of them interspersed with graphic sexual and commercial images, Totally F***ed Up marked the end of Araki's no-budget phase; the glossy, gaudy Doom Generation would follow two years later. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Duval, Roko Belic, (more)
- 1993
An American sitcom family is parodied in this scathing satire that is part of the Independent Television Service's "TV Families" series. The family is comprised of Japanese-Americans fit into the typical Anglo sitcom family mold. The results are hilarious as they deal with drugs, sexuality, discrimination, aging, and the perils of parenting. Ma loafs around in the house dressed in her lovely bedroom clothes taking the life-support drugs of ailing Grandpa. Dad, the perfect TV dad, has a secret urge to murder his sick father. Their daughter is a pregnant cheerleader addicted to sex; their twins boys are total opposites. Kazumi is a drug addict with a space case for a girlfriend. Marvin is the classic computer nerd who secretly lusts after men in uniforms. Surrounding this family are drug-dealers looking to collect on owed money, cheerleaders on a vendetta, and a family lawyer looking for new prospects for the kiddie-porn industry. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sharon Omi, Ken Narasaki, (more)
