10 July 2008

Matthew Montgomery and his films

After months of Netflixing TV shows I've missed, I started to rent some gay themed films. Shelter was nice, and did a brief review of it on the blog. East Side Story was another. Then I rented two flicks that starred Matthew Montgomery, an actor friend who played on the web series Star Trek: Hidden Frontier as a Klingon that I worked on. Now he plays Own Vaughan on the HF spin-off, Star Trek: Odyssey.

The first was the horror thriller Socket

I liked it very much, despite the film resembling an even lower budget David Cronenberg film (writer/director Sean Abley used Videodrome as template). Still, Matthew Montgomery showed his acting chops (among other things) and now I know why HF cast him. He's very good.

I then rented Long-Term Relationship, a romantic comedy that once again showed me what a find Matthew really is. His range between drama and comedy is near perfect, and I began to wonder why he is not doing more films, even though he's found a rewarding career in indies.

I've qeued up Back Soon, the film he did after LTR, from the same writer/director and most of the same cast.

According to his IMDB posting, he's completed four films in 2008, with another currently getting close to production.

In a recent interview with AfterElton, Matthew explained why he's not gone mainstream:

AE: Do you have an agent? Are you auditioning for studio movies? Network roles?

MM: I’m still a non-union actor. So everything I’ve done up until now has been without representation, without being in a union. It’s all been on my own. Most of the network stuff, I’m not eligible until I’m in the union. And a lot of reps don’t feel comfortable representing an openly gay actor or someone who does primarily independent gay cinema, and I have no interest in changing how I represent myself.

So, yeah for Matthew. Yet, despite knowing him sort-of well, I think he's a brilliant actor who should be doing movies or network TV shows.

And he's really good on Odyssey.

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