The only way this thing came to my attention was the fact that Kelly Clarkson made her movie debut in it, with a cameo appearance that was filmed during her first attempt to make it in Hollywood, which ended with her returning to her hometown in Texas after her L.A. apartment burned down. But immediately afterward, she went and auditioned for American Idol and the rest was history, including the awful film From Justin to Kelly that they made her take a title role in. After that, she has concentrated on singing, which she does better than acting, and hasn't made any more movies. However, that pre-fame appearance of hers, which was released while she was rising among the ranks of Idol finalists towards her eventual victory, is out on DVD, for the perusal of anyone who absolutely must see everything that she has appeared in. You shouldn't bother.

Issues 101 is a gay-themed movie. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld said.) It features a young man who is in the process of "coming out" as a gay male (he just gets around to telling his best friend this fact the day before leaving town to go to college). Upon arriving on campus in southern California, he pledges a fraternity (Sigma Upsilon Kappa... that spells SUK, doesn't it? Later... or maybe just in the DVD's deleted scenes, I'm not sure... you see a girl with her sorority's shirt, Phi Alpha Gamma... I guess that's "PhAG".) and soon gets enmeshed in romantic complications involving several other people, including a self-proclaimed straight frat boy who nevertheless has gay sex with him. The frat's hazing ritual also involved some non-straight sexual activity, though you're presumably not supposed to actually enjoy it.

There are a few fairly explicit sex scenes and nudity (though avoiding actually showing genitals "in action"), but it's not really "gay porn"; there are too many long scenes with people sitting or standing around talking, to try to further whatever inscrutable alleged plot this thing has, to make the result of very much interest to those who are just looking for hot guy-on-guy action (unless they use the fast forward button a lot). Eventually, it wends its way to a conclusion, with a student-body election and a "sex tape" turning up at an embarrassing time.

Being of, by, and for gay males, there is barely any presence of the female gender in it; the Kelly Clarkson appearance lasts just a few seconds and consists of her getting picked up by a guy at a frat party ("Do you want to go to the back room with me?" "Why?" "To have fun!" "Sure!" Actually, I'm not sure I got this dialogue exactly right, but I'm not about to watch the thing again to check.). Another female role is of Kim, the girlfriend of the guy who's "straight, with issues". I don't think any other woman has a speaking role. So if you're the sort who digs chicks, this is clearly not the movie to see.

I think the title "Issues 101" really refers to the fact that there's about 101 times in the course of this film when somebody refers to somebody (themselves or one another) as having "issues". Now, I've been the editor of things ranging from diskmagazines to Mensa local chapter newsletters, so I've gotten out plenty of issues in my day, but that's not what they're talking about here... but it's enough of a hackneyed phrase by now so that I'd prefer people returned "issues" to the linguistic role of merely referring to editions of a periodical, and come up with new, better ways of referring to the conflicts of the psyche.

Where production quality is concerned, the less said the better. It's somewhere above the level of home movies, at least because it's not filmed with an unsteady, jerky, hand-held camera, but not very much above it; there's poor lighting, poor sound quality, clumsy editing, cheapo-looking title lettering, and in general looks like something made on a budget not much above $1.98. Even the computer you see in the background in the frat-house room looks like a crappy cheap model. This technical cheapness could be excused if it were being used to present a brilliant artistic vision using limited means, but there's no sign of this here. The acting is also clumsy and wooden-sounding.

There just isn't much at all to recommend in this movie. If you want a well-done gay-themed film, get Brokeback Mountain. If you want a good movie with Kelly Clarkson in it.... well, there isn't actually one in existence, but at least From Justin to Kelly gives you more Kelly for the buck. So avoid this. Maybe if you're lucky, somebody will put the few seconds with Clarkson in it onto YouTube and you'll be able to catch it before it's yanked as a copyright violation, and you won't need to waste time or money renting and watching this to satisfy a Kelly-completist craving. This would be a good one for the DVD shredder, except that I got it from NetFlix and they probably wouldn't want me to return it shredded (even if that's actually an improvement).

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age