Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

I am absolutely fascinated by this documentary. Blond, blue-eyed, All-American Jack Wrangler was one of the top porn stars of the 1970s. He wasn't much of an actor but he gave the people what they wanted: beefcake. He rose to the top of the gay, and then straight, adult film industry. In this documentary Jack is fascinating and quite entertaining while he reminisces in everything that he has done or about his life so far. Comprised mainly of interviews with Wrangler and various other icons and experts, the film manages not only to provide a history of the man himself, but also a rundown of the early days of the industry. Jack was born into wealth to a family of a producer father and an actress mother but since his teenage years he knew he was attracted to men. He tried his hand at acting, but he soon realized he wasn't very good. Trying his hand at acting, Wrangler fell into the lucrative world of dinner theater, which gave him some recognition and Hollywood connections. One th...

This beautiful queer sitcom from early 2000's from BBC Two caught my attention only because it has my favorite Olivia Colman in it. Spanning over 2 seasons with 6 episodes each, the sitcom is unapologetically happy, camp and very, very gay. The show is based on the book by Simon Doonan, who is Creative Ambassador of the New York clothing store Barneys. The book tells of his upbringing in Reading during the ‘50s and ‘60s intertwined with his adult life as a gay man. So the show writers took situations from the book and relocated the setting to the more contemporary 1990s. Each episode of the series 1 opens and closes with the adult Simon, working as a window dresser in America, and the lion’s share of the story set in his teens. In season 2 Simon moves back to England after his relationship with his American boyfriend ends, which allows us to see interactions between Simon and his mum as adults. In a typical sitcom style. The show is a big and brash exploration of identity and the c...

This show from back in early 2000's was such a drab to watch. I can guarantee you that some of the college film projects are probably more sophisticated, better directed and acted than this one. Also, the story of this show was all over the place. Apparently there were two more seasons of the show and I seriously hope I do not have to watch them. The first season had 11 episodes of about 8-9 minutes average. Maykel and Johannes, a gay couple, just broke-up and Maykel is now a mess and is also taking anti-depressants. Still in love with Johannes, he seeks help from his friend Margaret, an old lover from high school , whom he also dated for 2 years. It seems she still has feelings for Maykel too. Enter another girl from high school Esther, who apparently was friends with him and suddenly shows up unannounced and gets almost attached to hip of Maykel. And then one day Maykel meets another high school friend of his Greg. Esther decides that it's time to resort to drastic measures, ...

In this revealing look at a taboo world, sixteen of the hottest adult film stars provide a candid and raw insight into their careers and lifestyles, describing in shocking detail the dangers of the gay porn industry. At 7 episodes, of about 25 minutes each, this series does try to go deep into many things. Unfortunately, this documentary series has been produced on an extremely low budget, probably shot with hand help camera, fails to really enlighten audience anything additional about the business that an average person doesn't really already know about.  The episodes keep cut to cut moving from one person to another answering basic questions like how they got into the business; their childhood, how did they tell their family, self-image; how they "act" (get it up, basically); they're private lives, drugs, especially their romances--or lack of them; and they're coming-out experiences. It also talks about the silly plot lines that they are made to shoot, what craz...

This film is about friendship, love and sometimes jealousy that comes with all these things. Thankfully the film is just about 75 minutes long, so an easy watch, but. The transitions between scenes and emotions are so quick, that I found it hard to keep myself connected and emotionally invested in either the characters or their bonding and relationship with one another. Shinya and Miyako are friends from high school. Now in college, they live together in a small rented flat and their relationship a secret to avoid any drama. Things take a turn when a girl from their high school comes back in their life. Miyako welcomes her with open arms but Shinya is not so keen, since he is also jealous about the fact that in school there were rumors about his boyfriend and this girl dating. Slowly Shinya becomes unfriendly and even hostile towards his boyfriend leading to misunderstandings and the duo deciding to take a short break from one another. Meanwhile, a common friend of theirs who is gay an...

I had never heard of Frankie Howerd, a famous radio and film comedian. Sure, true stories make for interesting movies, but despite not knowing anything about the man, I very very much enjoyed this film. I can very confidently say that the leading actors do such an incredible job of portraying the famous guy, I can only imagine. The film mostly covers the times when Howerd was in his downfall and is shown through the eyes of his partner Dennis. The time is 1950's and Frankie Howerd is a successful comedian. He is closeted gay and he meets Dennis, a bartender who for some reason is very much into Frankie. Dennis is young and extremely good looking. After a few instances Dennis eventually manages to make a place for himself in Frankie's life. As time passes, Frankie gets more and more insecure about his looks, his body and he also wears a wig. Despite a very loving boyfriend, he looks for cheap thrills outside for self assurance. Dennis first becomes his driver and then his manage...

Sometimes just a stellar cast is not enough to make a good film. This film tries to be political, without really taking a side or giving out a message. There are way too many subplots which take away from the most important subject that should have been handled: the whole idea of trans people and their struggles and maybe an acceptance. A very successful married doctor is struggling with his feelings. Of late, more and more he wants to wear female undergarments and even dreams of makeup and dresses. Bt given his profession(gynecologist) and him having two kids don't make things easy. His eldest son, almost 18, is dealing with a pregnant girlfriend unknown to his parents, younger 10 year old son is seeking sexual experiences online, and his wife is frustrated for having had sex and her son's friend openly flirts with her and make advances. When a trans male visits his office for medical checkup, it surprises the doctor because  of his boldness but also because it is probably the...

This film had a cute story but somehow the way it is executed, it never manages to life above its below average status. Swim team romance, love triangle, teenage love; on paper it seems to have right ingredients but the execution is strictly average with some really bad editing happening here. Shibahara is high school who enjoys swimming. His father is the coach of the team and Shibahara was born after his father's affair with one of his students and hence his nickname is 'Gymnasium baby'. When he is diagnosed with some heart condition, he os forced to quit swimming team and his father/coach starts favoring another student Murai. Murai feels an affinity and attraction to Shibahara and asks him to become his coach. The two spend time together and soon enough one day Murai confesses his feelings and kisses him. This leaves Shibahara confused and runs away and tries to avoid Murai. Shibahara tells what happened to his best friend, Kato, who takes an overprotective attitude tow...

This 2008 film is more about coming out, longing and desire rather than a full on gay themed film. Made probably at a very shoe strong budget and a hand help camera, even though the film feels amateurish in its direction and camera work at a lot of places, but there is a narrative, a story and a should behind all this. Teenage Antonio lives along with his mother. They are making their ends meet while the father sends money from Dubai and is probably never returning. Antonio is trying to discover his sexuality and his first sexual experience happens overnight with his friend and sadly he freaks out and avoids him. His other best friend from childhood is more supportive of Antonio probably being gay. One day his uncle (father's brother) Jonbert visits. Them and needs to stay with them for few days. The two boys share a room. The uncle walks around naked sort of teasing Antonio. Then one rainy night, he begins to touch his uncle while the latter is sleeping. The next day Jonbert tells...

By now I have seen plenty of films which are prison based where a supposedly straight guy gets protection in prison by another man in return for sexual favors and the story goes on in some direction. I am actually stating to get tired of this genre. This is one more film in the same space, albeit slightly different in its approach. Rommel is young man who accidentally is responsible for death of a young boy and is sent prison for that. He makes friends with his cell mates including Esteban a tough but fair-minded man who is considered the unofficial mayor of the cell block. Rommel is raped one day and from then Esteban sort of becomes his protector. When Rommel sees the rapist torturing another boy, he kills humbug Esteban takes blame on himself. This leads to a sexual night between Rommel and Esteban. Rommel is released soon and seven years later, he is happy living with his wife and daughter in a village farming. When Esteban is released, he visits Rommel and unofficially starts stay...

Musicals have not been my cup of tea, except for the very rare occasions. I debated for a while before watching this filmed version of the staged play, but eventually gave in hoping may friend, the fast forward button, will come in handy. The show is about the students Peter and Jason in a catholic boarding school. They are in love but Jason is in closet afraid to be anything that isn't "normal," while Peter is ready to be open about their relationship. The students audition for Romeo & Juliet in school and Jason gets the lead part, while his best friend Ivy gets Juliet. This upsets Mark, who wanted to be Romeo and also likes Ivy. Given how Jason is always afraid to show his true feelings to Peter in person, Ivy and Jason end up making out, which doesn't go well with Peter and he breaks up with Jason after confronting him. Peter ends up having sex with Ivy hoping this will fix things , but they don't. By the time Jason realizes, he really trill only loves Pete...

Seriously!! Weren't the first two films torturous enough, that someone had the god awful idea of making the third film in the series. God help us. Following the pattern of the lead man daydreaming about naked men in their full glory, this film is just slightly better than its predecessors. 21-year-old Wylie is visiting his freshly divorced dad, who is enjoying walking around naked in the home and dating new girls and proudly announcing them to his embarrassed son. While his father is out, he finds the video blogs of Clayton and is soon questioning his own sexuality. Turns out Wylie has a crush on his room mate Greg. He invites Greg along with couple of other friends over for some R&R. For two straight nights, Wylie gets Greg drunk so he can have his way with him but something stops him feeling not right. When the secret is revealed, greg is shocked initially but he talks to Wylie that he should just have talked to him rather than doing silly stuff like that. thankfully the fath...

Yet another one of those slightly older silly gay films, that was made just for the heck of it. A crappy, supposedly funny script wit stiff acting and low budget production value. I mean, yes the idea and thought was novel and the film in itself was quite boring. It could have made for an interesting 15 minute short film with better actors and director. Best friends and biogeneticists Richard and Ed have been working on some secret formula that involves inhibiting the sex drives of rats. The duo are also secretly screwing around with each other's wife. When the president gets a wind of it, he throws money to them to speed up the experiment to use this formula to suppress teenage horniness so that people can have sex only in marriage. While they are testing the product, they realize something is off and the product actually reverses sexual orientation instead of suppressing sexual drive. Th product is stolen and sprayed across all over the world. Sadly, there is no antidote. As you ...

This film is such a bad gay zombie movie (if thats even a genre of films in queer cinema). Right from the weird title of the film to a plot that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The sex scenes with gay zombie was gut wrenching and not fun to watch at all. Otto has just woken form the dead and doesn't know who he is and where he is going. He just randomly walks around till he is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea who begins to make a documentary about him with the support of her girlfriend and her brother Adolf. Medea is trying to finish Up with Dead People, the epic political-porno-zombie movie that she has been working on and convinces its star, to allow the vulnerable Otto to stay in his guest bedroom. Otto discovers that he has a wallet that contains information about his past life, remembering details about his ex-boyfriend, Rudolf. He arranges to meet him at the schoolyard where they met. This film was utterly amateurish. The acting was pretty terrible to b...

When I started watching the film, I wasn’t aware of it being a sequel. Only 15 minutes into the film, I realized the fact and so had to go read my review of the original film to jog my memory. Now that I remembered the original story, this film started to make more sense. This time, however, the focus of the movie isn't really the gay guys; but it's the women dealing with the aftermath of how the first movie ended. Of course, gay characters are still integral to this story. The new gay on the block Eli, kind of accidentally rents himself Corin & Jake’s old apartment. He interviews with Judith (Elliot’s mom) and somehow starts getting injected into Eliott’s life. Judith’s negative attitude toward her son's sexuality in the first film was a chief ingredient to the tragedy that ensued. Enter an old man, George, who is introduced as Eli’s father, starts dating Corin’s former co-worker Nancy. But something doesn’t feel right. Neither father-son relationship and nothing ...

Oh My God!! What a piece of garbage this was ! yes, you read it right. I have actually written those words right at the beginning to save many viewers who are still yet to watch it, save themselves over an hour of their life. Sure the film wants to make some point about depression and loneliness but then why drag it to 90  long boring obnoxious minutes. The message could have been so well passed on in a 10 minute short feature film. I will struggle to write the plot here because there was none but let me try in a couple of sentences. We see Brian, a handsome young man, going though past and present of his life and living in depression and fear of something. We also meet Joe. an older fit and handsome man, who time and again comes in Brian’s life as a source of strength. The chapters of their life are then shown in repeat mode with pretty much every scene repeated like 5-7 times, which didn’t make any sense to me. The films starts with Brian’s death so we know what’s in store...

Why do we waste money and effort in making such bizarre films. Supposedly this film is based on slice of life story of the film-maker himself. And when that happens, you end up making a film which is quite self-indulgent as this one. I don't mind weird artsy films, but they should have a purpose at least. This films lacks that and much more. Middle class guy Joe joins the prestigious Rhode Island school of design. He is one of the few students who are not from rich families. He comes friend immediately with like-minded Jennifer who also is sailing on a similar boat. Joe becomes friends with a local hustler Ramon, in hope to find inspiration for his artwork. Jennifer and Joe go through a number of sessions of arts projects of weird nature. They also explore their dark side where they do shop-lifting, mugging, drugs, alcohol and clubs. They both get indulge in free booze and cheap unsafe sex. Joe himself gets ion hustling trying to figure out whatever that he is trying to figure...

Sometimes intentions behind a film are good. The plot is good, direction is ok, acting is decent, but still there is something that gets missed in connecting with the audience. Focussing on a very important issue of human trafficking and sexual slavery , there are ups and downs in the story telling. There are moments that you connect and are totally there with the characters and then there are other times, when you just feel things are just not going in the right direction. This film, with all right intentions, unfortunately falls in the second category. Joaquin is a fisherman in a small village and is in relationship with his neighbor Waldo. When his wife suddenly arrives from her overseas job, Joaquin suddenly has to divert his attention on her because she just wants sex and get pregnant. Unable to handle Joaquin's behavior, Waldo, a young teenager, leaves for Manila in disgust. He is so hurt by his lovers behavior. When Waldo is gone, Joaquin realizes ho much he loves him a...

A story about friends and friendship. A tale about childhood love. A boy falls in love with his childhood best friend, who happens to be a boy too, and he keeps his feelings secretly up unto his adult life. But will this love bring two people together or will this tear them apart. This is one of the many questions that this film tries to answer. Enzo and Adong have been childhood friends. They are bound by the love that only comes from years spent frolicking as children and teens. Enzo has always had major attraction and love for Adong but the latter is completely clueless. But Adong doesn't feel the same and he elopes with his girlfriend. Five years later, Enzo has moved to Manila and like so many before him is working in the sex trade. Still young and beautiful he has no trouble earning a great living. Then one night, he is required to do a live on-stage act with another boy, one he as not met yet. Imagine the shock on the face of the 2 boys when Enzo finds that this other b...

Thankfully, Lovebirds doesn't fall in the category of of your atypical, sexually explicit skin flicks whose purpose is to entice men and get them sexually charged. Now, there is nothing wrong with it but once in a while it is good to watch a different film. Mario lives in Philippines and has been chatting on internet with Alexis, a Spanish guy. When Alexis decides to visit, as per Philipino culture, Alexis is thrown a big bash. But there is a surprise. Mario's mother so far thought that Alexis is a girl and gets shocked to see that he is a man. She fabricates a story that he is Alexis' brother Alex in front of everyone in the family. Fearig that Mario is gay, his mother, who is very dominating, asks him to ask Alexis to leave the next day and that Mario should meet a girl and get married soon. Mario's father on the other hand tries to be friendly. Bt in between this, Mario and Alexis are struggling. They have just chatted on internet a few times and are not getting...