Another Gilt City event, which meant we got free cupcakes, free champagne, and free arm/hand massages. Again, the planning of the event could have been better, but at least they've learned that people show up EARLY and had a proper place for people to wait.

Now the movie! When I saw the free screening, I pounced on it as quickly as possible considering I wanted to see it for the eye candy, but it was something that I didn't actually want to spend money on. Which on the whole is a good assessment of the movie. I went in with very low expectations, so the movie was more enjoyable than I thought it'd be. But don't really expect much of it. Also, if you're going just to see Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello, you may be disappointed as they don't show up in the movie as much as you'd think with the top billing they keep getting in all the ads.

The two who get the most face time are Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer (the latter we were pleasantly surprised with) and their characters are interesting as two sides of the people who get into stripping, their reasons, and their attitudes towards it. It would have been more interesting to have gotten more sides of it by building up the supporting cast of strippers as well. You never really get to know why they're there other than the fact that they're fit and one has a huge dick. But then considering this was supposedly based on Channing Tatum's experiences when he was 19 and stripping in Tampa, the background characters might have been so one dimensional for a reason.

The plot had more depth than I thought it would and was more realistic than I expected. But then, it had its truly ridiculous moments and because of the depth it had, I almost wanted more out of the story. To see more of the repercussions of the life style they live, especially having a 19 year old stripping, drinking, and doing drugs, plus just the presence of drugs. There was also a lot of hetero-normativity with all the strippers appearing to be straight as well as the club only having female clientele. There was a moment early in the movie where we thought the club the guys stripped at was actually a mixed club (having both female and male strippers) and we were disappointed when that didn't turn out to be the case.

I know, far too much thinking on a movie that is really for the eye candy. I did spend a good deal of the movie going 'Man, people won't be able to wait to cap THIS scene' from a fandom point of view. There is a lot of ass and a lot of abs and even a penis shot (which was funny to see everyone's reaction when they realized that was a penis in the foreground of the shot). There were also interesting cinematography choices in camera angles and lighting choices that made it feel more realistic and less Hollywood glitz.

So, if you like the guys it in, it might be worth a DVD rental or a cheap matinee. Good visuals, an alright story, but nothing ground breaking.