Released 1998
Stars Sean P. Hayes, Brad Rowe, Richard Ganoung, Meredith Scott Lynn, Matthew Ashford, Armando Valdes-Kennedy, Paul Bartel
Directed by Tommy O'Haver

"Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss" is a pleasing bit of fluff, a nicely made independent film about a struggling gay photographer who becomes achingly attracted to a man who may or may not be gay. Sean P. Hayes plays Billy with a homespun affability reminiscent of the young Charles Martin Smith (``American Graffiti''). He meets Gabriel (Brad Rowe), a waiter, and asks him to model. Gabriel claims to be straight, but he has a hard time maintaining eye contact when he talks about his girlfriend.

The picture makes viewers believe in Billy's longing to the extent that we start rooting for Billy to get with Gabriel in the same way that we might have rooted for Charles Grodin to go to bed with Cybill Shepherd in "The Heartbreak Kid" 25 years ago. That's no small accomplishment.

The drawbacks don't overwhelm the picture, but they do keep it from being fully satisfying. As the film wears on, Billy starts taking his emotional tribulations a bit too seriously, and that has the odd effect of making the audience take him less seriously.

Summary by Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle