THE DYING GAUL
R, 105 minutes

Bad theater becomes bad cinema in “The Dying Gaul,” a pretentious, mean-spirited directorial debut from writer Craig Lucas. In adapting his own play for the big screen, the fine author of “The Secret Lives of Dentists” has indulged some of the worst tendencies of the stage: phony, overwritten dialogue; preposterous third-act psychodrama; and the sort of arch, under-motivated nastiness that deludes audiences into thinking they’ve witnessed something “bold.”

Peter Sarsgaard stars, mincingly, as Robert Sandrich, a struggling scribe whose latest screenplay, “The Dying Gaul,” is based on the recent death of his lover from AIDS. Jeffrey (Campbell Scott), a hotshot Hollywood producer, is ready to offer him a million bucks for it on one condition: Change the man to a woman. Robert balks, but Jeffrey proves seductive. “You can do anything you want as long as you don’t call it what it is.”

With that cynical precept established, Robert and Jeffrey begin an affair, even as Robert grows close to Elaine (Patricia Clarkson), the boss’s wife. She’s a failed writer, listless in Malibu, but charming, kind, and supportive of her beta-male gay. Robert’s depression earns her sympathy; his chat room exploits stroke her curiosity. As “skinflute8,” she logs onto the Internet, teasing out confessions and learning, eventually, of the affair.

How she alters her online persona in light of the revelation is a development best left unspoiled, tempted as I am to call baloney on the nasty, improbable directions “The Dying Gaul” starts to take. Mr. Lucas makes everyone sympathetic, then vile. Did Hollywood make them do it? Jealousy? Survivor’s guilt? Chat rooms? Or is it just the sniggering self-satisfaction of the highbrow exploitation artist?

– Nathan Lee

GAY SEX IN THE 70S
unrated, 70 minutes

As you might remember, or didn’t know, or don’t care to know, gay men in New York had buckets of hot sex in the 1970s. They had it on the Christopher Street piers, a notorious pickup spot-cumoutdoor orgy; inside empty cargo trucks and abandoned buildings; on the street, at the drop of a dime; in bathhouses and backrooms, fueled by drugs, all weekend long; and even on the banquettes of famous discos, back when indoor smoking was the least of nightlife indulgences. Some may have even done it in bedrooms – imagine! – but you won’t hear about that in “Gay Sex In The 70s,” a documen tary devoted to wide-eyed reminiscences of sex before AIDS.

There’s a little bit of cautionary tale here, but in large part (size matters) filmmaker Joseph Lovett is out to celebrate the hedonistic window of time, post-Stonewall and pre-AIDS, when gay men flaunted their newly liberated sexuality. His mix of middle-aged talking heads and naughty archival materials makes for a cursory but titillating primer on the subject. Gay men of a certain age may grow misty-eyed or melancholy: One interviewee recalls being dragged away from the orgy of his dreams by a prudish boyfriend, then notes that everyone who stayed is no longer around. Generations X, Y, and Z are likely to find this history as remote as Rome, and to be reminded by their elders, yet again, how tasty the Big Apple used to be.

– Nathan Lee

BROOKLYN LOBSTER
unrated, 90 minutes

In the battle of the autobiographical Brooklyn family dramas with life-aquatic titles, “The Squid and the Whale” has vanquished “Brooklyn Lobster.” It is a bit worrisome to enjoy clever intellectuals who are bad parents more than the tale of a struggling family business, but not too much. “Brooklyn Lobster” is one of those well-intentioned little films that exploits its home town warmth to shamelessly pimp the can-do story behind its creation.

Director Kevin Jordan based the script on his own family’s lobster shop, which faced foreclosure after their loaning bank folded. Danny Aiello plays the Giorgio family’s pigheaded patriarch, proudly refusing all help. Absorbed in the chaos of daily business, he can’t quite register that his wife (Jane Curtin) of 30 years is moving out. We parachute into the whole imbroglio with their son Michael (Daniel Sauli). He’s a dot-commer visiting for the holidays with the prospective fiancee.

Papa Giorgio digs himself deeper with some uncouth outbursts, something of a specialty of the honey-bearish Mr. Aiello. Giorgio the younger’s thread is actually more affecting, as he tries to avoid the family dramas he left behind. At times the implied backstory of the current situation – why his sister still works there despite having her own family, or their mother’s cheery departure – seems more promising than the plot.

Instead, the film laboriously rotates its subplots, the weakest of which turns out to be the linchpin. Michael hooks his father up with some investor friends of his girlfriend’s father. These puffy white guys turn out to be a slimy threat to our good and honest ethnic hero (the preppie-hell mock turtleneck their leader wears is criminal enough).

The Giorgios unsurprisingly get the better of their raw deal. But the hasty life-affirming plot shortchanges the characters. Insert your lobster-cooking reference here.

– Nicolas Rapold