5/5 Coming Out Young
  by Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
"Wild Tigers I Have Known"

Coming-Out Youg

"Wild Tigers I Have Known" is one of those movies you are not likely to forget. It has style and is beautiful and sensitive. It is a movie that can be easily related to because we all have had that youthful obsession for someone. As the movies looks at teen sexuality, it is never obscene--it is not "sexy", it is simply beautiful, intimate and somewhat scary. The direction allows each scene to unfold its own pace with precise, poignant camerawork.
Logan is played by the beautiful Malcolm Stumpf. He does not act, he simply is. He is a normal boy who has adolescence thrust upon him. He is an outcast and powerless and searching for an identity that will permit him to act on the feelings that he will not admit to himself that he is having.
We all know that adolescence is not easy but gay adolescence is that much more difficult. There are virtually no role models and no guide to take one through the gay maturation process. Director Cam Archer seems to be telling us that what gay youth needs most are people that they can look up to. The youth of today are exploited by society and must live with a media machine that does not really care about them.
The movie is both unusual and bizarre that is multi-layered. As it shows a gay youth coming of age and dealing with his sexuality, it requires an open mind. When Logan finally comes to realize and accept his homosexuality, he is saved. The film follows his coming-out process and the mood of the film is quiet determination. Logan is alone and has no one to share his feelings. He has a hard time at school as kids can be cruel. The film looks something like a long music video and each song reveals something about the plot. It seems to be a series of vignettes as if they are moments of Logan's life. Without a lot of dialog and plot, the film tells a beautiful story--we are taken on a guided tour of what Logan feels and how he feels and not what he does.
"Tigers' shows the loneliness and isolation we feel when we are surrounded by an environment that is based on heterosexual economics. It shows how we are parallel to the unwanted and feared tigers of society. The movie deals, in reality, with the inner feelings of adolescence. These feelings grow slowly until one realizes that he is different from others, as if he is the only one among an entirely different species.
This is not an easy film to sit through but when you do you will be rewarded by the experience. You will see what we have felt and how we have dealt with those feelings. Anyone who is gay has had these feelings and angst and therefore will be able to easily identify with Logan. There is self indulgence here but that is fine--it does not detract. It is not easy to show the feelings of a 13 year old but Archer has done his film proud. To those who have panned this film. I say, get a life. Here is a beautiful representation f the teen mind as it struggles with one of the hardest decisions ever.


2/5 Sweet story of a puppy love is overwhelmed by artsy-fartsy gimmicks, special effects
  by Hulka (Washington DC)
With all the good reviews and all, I couldn't believe how this movie alternated between irritating and boring.. If you are a fan of art house movies, or special effects, then you might like this movie. But if you are looking for a sympathetic look at the stirring of same sex intimacy among adolescent boys, this movie was big disappointment.

Too bad, because the basic plot had a lot of potential as a sweet coming of age story about an the confusion a young gay boy experiences with his first infatuation--the kind of puppy love we have all experienced at least once in our lives. 13 year old Logan is a clumsy nerd who has trouble fitting in with his classmates. Logan had sexual fantasies about his classmate, Rodeo, the school's wrestling hero. To Logan's surprise, he finds that he has more in common with Rodeo then he expected. Rodeo likes Logan's iconoclastic attitudes toward their boring junior high school social life, not to mention the fawning hero worship that Logan heaps on him. An unlikely friendship develops, and they begin to hang out together, taking walks in the woods and on the boardwalk.

The budding friendship ends when sexually confused Logan calls Rodeo on the phone claiming to be a girl called Leah. Not surprisingly, when Rodeo discovers that Leah is really Logan, he finds the deception too weird for him to bear. Word gets out about Logan and his world comes crashing down on him.

The movie did receive an award for special effects, but I found the special effects took up entirely too much of the movie. The lack of dialogue led me to wonder whether the filmmaker was making a special effects movie instead of romantic drama. There too many long, lingering shots of Logan's face. Several times I was tempted to fast forward through them until the next scene. What dialogue there was consisted of monosyllables, so there was very little character development, or any insight into why the boys were attracted to each other.

The only good part of the movie were the heartfelt performances of the 2 young actors--Malcolm Stumpf and Patrick White. Unfortunately, as good as they two boys were in their parts, they were not enough to save the movie from it's defects.

3/5 Beautiful, "artsy" film is a bit of a downer for average viewer
  by Bob Lind (Phoenix, AZ United States)
Adolescence is a tough time for any boy, but doubly so for someone who is coping with the realization that he is gay. "Wild Tigers I Have Known" (2006) successfully conveys this via the isolation, loneliness and despair of Logan, a 13 year old middle school student who is infatuated with one of the popular, athletic boys, Rodeo Walker. Logan not only dotes on the limited friendship Rodeo is willing to extend to the shy boy, but constantly daydreams about developing the relationship, making it obvious to his schoolmates who proceeds to taunt him unmercifully. Ultimately, Logan's obsession drives him to attempt a dangerous charade in hopes of conveying his feelings to the other boy.

This is a difficult film to watch, with many "artsy" touches and slow, confusing segues from reality to Logan's dream world, justified in trying to emulate the confused, seemingly pointless state of Logan's emotions. While Logan eventually learns to accept his feelings, the film remains mostly a depressing hodge-podge of conflict and fuzzy images of reality, not really the thing to brighten up the day of someone going through what Logan is experiencing. While it may be highly original, beautifully photographed and outstanding as an "art" film, my rating is based on the likely reaction of a regular viewer of gay-themed theatrical films, who would likely consider this just satisfactory overall. Three stars out of five.

5/5 Well, first of all, it breaks your heart
  by Joel, Holden
All the wild tigers and all the Logans chasing thereafter. A soft,sweet dream of a movie,and brave. To approach the most important person in your life, in this case, Rodeo, and to climb that tender, delicate, so perishable ladder and say I love you, knowing giddily, so perfect, please.

And the bravery pays off--I still live, I am not destroyed--as Logan runs off into the world, knowing finally, he is of worth and immense value. The simplicity, the hard-won complexity, and the naceant knowledge that some day someone will phone Logan, full of fear, and Logan's gentle creamy voice will say back, don't worry, you are safe, relax.

One person's need for another human being in the wild tiger years of adolescence and faith in tomorrow, done in lovely cinematography and summery memory colors, a film of healing, a film of hope.

5/5 excellent movie
  by S. Ford (wyoming)
I saw part of this movie on the independent film channel, I was instantly drawn to this movie and bought my own copy. The film focuses on Logan who is 13 and gay, the assults and hate he endures at school are all too real, he is mostly a loner except for his friend Joey who is also basically a loner also. After a session with his counsler he meets Rodeo a teen who is about 3 years older than him just guessing. Logan becomes fixated on Rodeo, part of it is sexual, he visualizes Rodeo while mastrubating, and part of it must be he is an outcast and a loner and needs a friend. Logan takes on another personality as Lea a seductive teen girl to try to seduce Rodeo, after some seductive phone calls they meet in the caves and Logan must live up to his actions, he does but Rodeo walks away, they still meet in the next scene roller skating, so it;s kind of left up to the viewer to decide if they did anything Logan fanticized about. I disagree with the back of the DVD description that describes Logan's crush as impossible, you know these kind of relationships happen, the hang up about age difference is a social predjuice. Logan would benefit from having an older friend/possible lover who would love him and help protect him from being beaten and harassed, is that so bad, I don't think so, maybe some people would rather he end up like Matthew Sheppard. The description also says they are mis matched, the fact that they hung around and got along good together countradicts that, again the ageism curse. I don't hold that description against the movie though. Some of the filming is strange in spots but that doesn't hamper the message or plot of the film. This film touched my soul mainly because I have lived it, as have many others, it had a profound impact on me. Again, excellent realistic film.raven skater.