Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

This documentary is about the life of the Brazilian transsexual singer Linn da Quebrada. Coming from an impoverished region of São Paulo, where she has to face many prejudices, among others, for being black. Her funk music sounds like a "gun" against machismo. With a really strong and daring stage presence, she constantly seeks to confront and fight paradigms and stereotypes. The titular star and her stage partner Jup do Bairro openly discuss what challenges they face from transphobia and racism growing up in the favelas of San Paulo, exploring how they use their music to give voice to the marginalized communities they fight for. The film shows her in performance, in the studio, reflecting on the nature of identity, hanging out with friends, and also affectionately chatting with her mum in the apartment where she grew up, arguing about the community’s defeatist habit of romanticizing poverty. She aligns the experience of being trans with the marginalization involved in having...

I cant believe. This came out in 2019. A YouTube Premium original series with 6 episodes. Weird City is set in the near future in the city of Weird, which has been physically divided into two halves and segregated by economic class: Above The Line, populated by Haves, and Below The Line, populated by Have-Nots. Each episode follows different individuals as they navigate life in the city. I will be reviewing here only the first episode out of 6 since it was the only gay themed one in this anthology series. This episode is called "The One". We meet Stu, a young man born Below the Line. However, when his mother invented a hot app, he was able to move Above the Line. Now there is one problem. People born Above the Line are assigned mates at birth under specific regulations. Since Stu didn’t move Above the Line until he was older, he was never assigned anyone and has found dating tough. A friend at bar tells him about this company called “The One That’s The One.” This is a company...

Trade is a dark love story that focuses on self-identity, exploration and one's fight for acceptance, which hits home with so many individuals today who fear from the backlash of being gay or transgender. It shows us the story of two men, one a streetwise hustler, the other a straight-laced lawyer, who meet and form a relationship that brings to light who they really are. ON paper the idea sounds good, but the biggest problem of the film is that the director doesn't know when to cut a particular scene. Some scenes in the film go on and on, while other's do not get proper closure. More on that later.  Shawn is a black gay man, who works on the street as a trans hustler Coco. He lives with his aunt. Then we meet Michael, a man married for 10 years, whose wive desperately wants to have a child, who is rich and a successful lawyer, but he has been hiding his identity of being gay and wanting to dress up as a female. The two have a chance encounter when Shawn is being harassed b...

Intersex is a topic that I snot often discussed and we really haven't seen much content about it. After all, it is a tricky subject. As it is, adolescence can be rough, regardless of your background or current circumstances, and on top of that if you have to spend time figuring out your gender, that could likely lead to a lot of therapy sessions, awkward moments and uncomfortable conversations. This film is story of one such teenager Adam, who is raised as a boy and how things change when he gets his first period. Adam, born with both male and female genitals was raised as a boy. He is a touch cookie who picks up fights with classmates if they bully him. This secret is only known to the family but hasn't bothered anyone till now. But things start to get complicated when he first falls for a new transfer in his school, and then immediately gets his first period. His parents consult a specialist doctor, who does some tests and it is confirmed that Adam has equal amount of both fe...

This indie feel film could have been so much more. But even in its almost 2 hours of run time, it takes forever to come to the point. The film is about a man in his early 30s discovering things about his sexuality, something we have seen plenty of time before. Is he bored, is he lonely, is he scared of relationship - there is no deep exploration of any of that. Sure love can hot you anytime, but what was it that this film was trying to say? The story is straight forward. Ryan, a man in his 30's works from home mostly and has a roommate. He is consumed by loneliness, living an uneventful life with a dull job that just about passes the time. Ryan is secretly struggling with his sexuality and finding comfort in online encounters with men, usually on video and never in person. At a birthday party for his friend Brad, Ryan meets Brad’s boyfriend Sam and the two hit it off. Ryan and Brad quickly become close and before either of them realizes it, they start having an affair. The next hal...

This intriguing documentary is a very affectionate profile of Brazil’s growing  gay leather community. Through a quick backstory and a highly amusing parody, we find how Barbudo became the very first winner of the Mr Leather title in 2017, and now the de-facto organiser of the second ever competition that is the subject of the film. The film maker uses an expressionistic approach to tackle the subject, making it quite different from a typical documentary. Thirteen years ago when the mysterious Mr D started the first leather night in Sao Paolo only one other person turned up.  Barbudo.  Now it is one of the most important leather parties in the country. It's time for the second competition in 2019 and we have 4 contestants. The documentary trails the four contestants vying for the title we  get the feeling that this is still quite an intimate affair where everyone knows everyone else. At the Leather Dinner that precedes the competition everyone is decked out in their ...

The documentary tries to build a timeline of Black queer activism in Toronto. Opening with a canonical scene of the disruptive strength of the women-led Black Lives Matter sit-in at the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade event, the documentary flashes back to the lesser-known beginnings of black queer resistance and gives us an opportunity to widen our understanding of the roots of the Black Lives Matter movement in Toronto. Our Dance of Revolution begins in the '80s at 101 Dewson Street. During that decade, writer/activist Makeda Silvera and her partner at the time turned the house into a collective residence for queer folks. Against the backdrop of the feminist movement, protests against police violence, the bathhouse raids and the rise of the AIDS epidemic, this collective of mostly queer women organized, worked, lived, loved and partied together. It became the birthplace for groups such as Lesbians of Colour (LOC) and Zami (the first Canadian group for Black Caribbean queer people). We ...

I am really surprised that despite this show having come a couple of years ago, I had not heard of it till very recently. An indie-made sitcom about a longtime gay couple who can’t stand each other and spend virtually every minute of screen time saying so in the most hateful ways possible, sounded fun to watch. In fact, I thought it may end up being like Vicious, one of my fav sitcoms from UK. Over two seasons of 7 and 8 episodes each, the best thing is this is short n short story format of anywhere 5-10 minutes, so it's a very easy breezy watch. Ralph and Randy have ben a couple for forever now. Ralph is a needy romantic still clinging to his fantasy of a happy-ever-after marriage, while Randy is a vain and unapologetically shallow serial cheater who eagerly jumps at any opportunity to spit venom at his nebbish-y spouse. To call their relationship dysfunctional would be putting it lightly, for example they even get turned on the they physically and verbally start to fight; leading...

Greta is a very interesting film in more than one way.  The film gives us a very compassionate view on people willing to try be in love against all odds - their own convictions notwithstanding. Looking at marginalization through several lenses; including age, sexuality, gender and criminal life; this is a thematically ambitious but narratively very intimate and compassionate story of human relationships. Gay nurse Pedro is way past his retirement age but still goes to hospital everyday and takes pleasure in taking care of others. One night, his trans friend Daniela, who suffers form kidney failure, needs emergency bed in the hospital. But since doctors wont allow her in female ward , she doesn't want to go in the men's ward, which is the only place with some vacancy. So when a bloodied stranger is brought in at the hospital under suspicious circumstances, the supposedly morally upright Pedro helps to smuggle out the man who might be a criminal on the run from either a gang or t...

This documentary of under an hour explores touch based service businesses including cuddling, erotic massage, sex surrogacy and sex work. Some people venture into this line of work as a side hustle, despite having another full time job and for others this is their full time job. Like it goes for many documentary styles, we meet 4-5 folks who fall in this category and who for various reasons are into the business of providing these services.  We meet a cuddle expert, who talk sabot how he wasn't also aware of this service but now he gets clients who like this but the guy also emphasized on the importance of consent. We do overlook how little touch we get every day. And how it can be emotionally taxing as well trying to look for someone to be intimate with -- so hiring someone just makes a lot of sense. There is another guy who talks about how he provides mostly BDSM massage services and how he gets repeated clients and there is something there that he fulfills desires of his clients...

In 2011, the U.S. repealed its discriminatory “don't ask, don’t tell” policy, which banned gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members from serving openly in the military. That reversal, however, didn’t include transgender people, 15,500 of which are estimated to be serving in the military today. This documentary film chronicles the stories of four transgender service members fighting for their right to serve openly. Following one couple and two others across several years, TransMilitary captures their long journey to meet with the Pentagon’s top brass with the goal of igniting dialogue that will reverse the ban. Staff Sergeant Logan Ireland loves serving in the dangerous Kandahar province in Afghanistan. When the film opens, his fellow troops don’t know he’s trans. As he says, “What I like about the deployment is I can be my authentic self,” including growing a wispy mustache. His scratchy mustache is an issue for his girlfriend Laila, an Army Corporal. Her family had a difficult...

Metro Sexual is an Aussie mockumentary comedy following the doctors Steph (lesbian) and Langdon (gay), who work at Metropolitan Sexual Health. As per the show's creator and actor also playing Langdon, the show is the story of the doctors, the staff and the patients in an inner-city Melbourne sexual health clinic and all the unknown struggles that these doctors sometimes face. Spread across 8 episodes in the first season, the exiles are about an average 10 minutes each. Over the course of these 8 episodes, the doctor duo takes us through the various STIs possibilities out there with their own quick ways. Langdon is the ultimate enthusiast, he's always coming up with 101 ideas to promote their little sexual health clinic. Whereas Steph is the typical prank player, who doesn't leave any opportunity to embarrass Langdon. The different episodes focus on different sexual issues like syphillis, cervical screening, crabs outbreak in a retirement community, a celebrity RJ, tough bik...

The Danish Boys is a new short film collection. Featuring 5 shorts from Danish directors to watch, the release showcases rising talent in front of and behind the camera. Each short tells a very different but compelling story, giving glimpses into the lives of young gay men living in Denmark. Hotel Boy Young Samir accompanies a politician Stefan to a hotel room. Samir is ready to abandon his life and go all in with Stefan, thinking that his politician lover is ready to give up his family and live as an out gay man. What starts off as an excited hook-up soon turns into an argument as Samir realises that he had read far more into his relationship than he should have done. It captures the feeling of being young and in love, unable to see what’s pretty clearly right in front of you. Poz Now this was a weird short film. A troubled young man Oliver is searching for a solution to his problems and a way to ensure his sister's continued support. He ventures in a destructive path, where he sl...

People Like Us is a poignant reflection and insightful look at being gay in Singapore, following the lives of four gay men in Singapore as they navigate life and relationships. The series is raw and telling, never shying away from controversial topics while being respectful of the subjects addressed. There are 2 seasons, each with 6 episodes of about 7-8 minutes each. Singapore does have a weird standing where legally gay men have no rights, yet the city-state does have a very active, gay community.  We meet 4 gay men based in Singapore. Joel has been looking for love but somehow all his ex's left him after sometime. He meets Ridzwan, a Malay origin muslim guy who is in closet. Something about. Him attracts Joel and he pursues him relentlessly till he agrees to go out. Before you realize they begin to like each other, but the conflict arises mostly due to Ridzwan not being out. We then have a 20-something old Indian origin army recruit who is constantly on Grindr looking for Mr. Ri...

I think I have reviewed more than a few reviews on various documentaries and even films on the whole America's fascination of conversion therapy. This documentary is surprisingly a neutral look at sexual orientation conversion therapy. As a result, you get an in inkling of the conservative notion that modern mindset stresses tolerance except for tolerance of religion and traditional values. Conversion therapy is the controversial, non-scientifically based process which aims to convert an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Although it has been discredited by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations, some therapists still offer the service for reasons almost exclusively rooted in a conservative religious belief system. We follow Nathan, a gay man in his late twenties, as he seeks counseling from a conversion therapist Christopher Doyle, a (self-proclaimed) formerly gay man who is now married wit...

 slice of life kind of indie film that is probably trying to show us th growing complexities of relationships in today's time. The film starts off well but somehow feels dragging in the middle only to redeem itself in the last 20 minutes. Probably shot with a very tiny budget, the film is set in just one apartment. Clement, a gay man in his early 30's and his roommate Alex, who is lesbian are looking for. Anew roommate. Clement's ex-boyfriend and lover David has recently move out to a new city for a. New job and that has left bitter taste in Clement. Their only demand is that the new roommate is gay. Enter Leo, who desperately needs a room and pretends to be gay to snag the apartment, and in fact introduces his girlfriend as lesbian. The trio start hanging out and occasionally Clement's older sister also visits. Alex tries to kiss Leo's girlfriend who runs away. Two weeks later, she visits them complaining how Leo has been avoiding her. Heartbroken, she tells Clemen...

It's been a while since I saw a version of Skam, and this felt like any other good time. So here I am. Just finished watching Season 3 of the Belgium remake of Skam, known here as wtFOCK. The Belgian version also followed the same pattern as the Norwegian original posting clips throughout the week via social media and posts. By now, if you have seen the original version and any other remake, you know that normally Season 3 focuses on the gay story and it was the same here. This time the story is set in Antwerp, Belgium. Just like the original, here the focus of the season is Robbe, a young teen struggling with family and his own sexuality. He gets a girlfriend, much sooner than any of his other boy friends. But he knows something is off and doesn't feel very sexual for the girl. On one of the seaside trips, he meets another boy names Sander. He is mysterious, attractive and something about him that instantly attracts Robbe towards him. They both feel a certain chemistry towards...

A Thai mini series with only 3 episodes! For a moment, I thought I was missing something. I have surprisingly not seen 'Love Sick' series which was apparently quite popular when it came out. I believe this short series was made more as a promotional material for follow up seasons of Love Sick, keeping the main couple from hat show as the center here. The series tries to explore, in a quick way, life of three gay couples, going through romance, relationship issues and forging friendship bonds while navigating the pressures of school. Son and Pin are a couple. While driving on their way to dinner, they meet a short accident with Noh and Phun and in the process end up breaking their guitar. At hospital, Son thinks this could be a good opportunity to learn guitar from Noh in secret to surprise his boyfriend. But in the process this leads to the boyfriend think that Son is probably cheating on him. In the meantime, we have another couple Two and Wish, who are also trying to navigate...

When the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality across the nation in 2015, many assumed that the fight for LGBTQ rights was won. But politicians and religious conservatives launched a state-by-state campaign to retract the human rights of America's LGBTQ citizens under the guise of religious freedom. Introducing four American families caught in the crosshairs of scripture, sexuality, and identity, this documentary weaves together clips from the national news and the church pulpit, alongside family photos and intimate testimonies to show the undeniable connection between the personal and the political.  These individual experiences of rejection and validation, tragedy and triumph include Ryan Robertson, who was encouraged by his Christian family to attend conversion therapy; Sarah McBride, the transgender student body president who went on to work at the White House; Vico Báez Febo, whose Catholic grandmother locked him out of the house when a neighbor outed him; and Elliot Porch...

As the title suggests, 'Queer Japan' is a documentary that celebrates the country's diversity of queer experience. Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ+ culture in contemporary Japan. The most eye-opening aspect of this documentary is how beautifully outspoken everyone is. The makers talk to a plethora of people in this 100 minute film. Each represents a different aspect of the hentai life — in the Japanese sense of the word, roughly denoting unconventional sexual desires or practices. We meet a butoh dancer who questions the need to classify everyone, a trans activist who writes video-game strategy books, a gay man who’s the MC of Department H, a fashion-runway party for the latex-and-rubber set, a gay erotic artist whose unapologetically sexy and explicit body-fetish drawings have made him a kind of Tom of Tokyo, a de...