JEFFREY Steven Weber, Patrick Stewart (1995, Orion, R, priced for rental) LIE DOWN WITH DOGS Wally White, Randy Becker (1995, Miramax, R, priced for rental) In two in-your-face (literally) gay-themed movies new to video, characters talk to the camera, which is fine if you're Sir Ian McKellen in Richard III -- otherwise, it's just a lazy gimmick. Admittedly, Jeffrey, Paul Rudnick's Off Broadway burlesque on the complexities of gay life in the '90s, gains tremendous energy from sprightly performances, especially Stewart's velvety smooth decorator caricature and Nathan Lane's hilariously horny priest. Yet Jeffrey's struggles (intimacy, commitment, falling in love with someone HIV-positive) seem so pasteurized, Jeffrey ends up a portrait of gay life with a condom over it. But it's searing stuff next to White's how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation saga, Lie Down With Dogs. This portrait of the goings-on in Provincetown, Mass., is hopelessly juvenile: Being vain and vapid, and drinking, drugging, and whoring all night, isn't that amusing. Jeffrey: C+ Dogs: D -- Lawrence O'Toole
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