Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

Wedding Wars is a very funny take on gay's struggle for marriage. I liked the fact that the issue has been given a humorous angle and not a serious issue based film. The film mostly explores relationship between 2 brothers who had some kind of falling out after one brother tells the other he is gay. I saw this film for the second time primarily to review it here and secondly cos it is funny too.  Ben and Shel are brothers. Ben who is an advisor to the governor has recently got engaged to governor's daughter Maggie. On Maggie's suggestion that they should try Shel as their wedding planner, Ben unwillingly goes to meet his brother and his partner Ted and asks him to be his wedding planner. Shel is shocked, surprised but readily takes it up, at the same time hoping that this will help bring the 2 brothers close to one another. Ben is clearly not very comfortable with the fact that Shel is gay but doesn't do anything about it. It is elections time and things are all fine un...

I haven't seen Greek gay comedies I think before , so this one definitely came as a surprise. On top of that, when the film is half decent when you have no real expectations from the movie. This one definitely came as a pleasant surprise. If I had seen the movie in its entirety, I probably would have given it higher rating but in comparison with other films, this falls a little short. The film starts with a man who has just died and is trying to wonder how could he have died. The film goes in flashback and explores various reasons how he could have died. And funnily enough all possibilities are to do with a family of husband, wife, a gay son and grandmother who can't listen. The son is a bad student and need some private lessons. The father is a traffic cop who is full of himself and lives with a secret desire to become a famous lyricist. The mother teaches tango lessons and is very very busy. One the mother almost accidentally hits a man while driving, she thinks she has kill...

This is a documentary style feature which talks about 101 rent boys in Santa Monica Boulevard in the LA area. Although the film features 101 different hustlers, it focuses on the lives (and loves) of a few key men. They have been chosen to reflect the immense diversity of the boys of the Santa Monica Strip. An amazing thing happens when you cross a video camera with award-winning directors, $50 and a hustler. To prevent the film from becoming monotonous and repetitious, it was divided into seventeen chapters with titles like, "Losing It," "The First Trick," "Gay," "Straight," "Turn-ons," "Turn-offs," "Pain," "Weird [stuff]," "Drugs," and "The Future." The stories, for the most part, are painful to hear: some interviewees clearly struggle with drug addition and it is clear how they will spend the $50 they earned making this film, many are victims of childhood sexual abuse or parental aba...

This is one of the few French films that either you will like or hate. There is no in between because the subject and treatment is different. It is not easy to hold someone's interest throughout the film of such nature. Unfortunately, I belong in the second category where I didn't particularly cared too much for the characters or the film in general. I could have stopped watching the film at any point and continued after missing a substantial portion and still not miss much because there isn't much going on in the first place. Pierre is a blocked writer, a former gigolo now in his 50's who has been HIV positive for 20 plus years. He is depressed in life because no one wants him and he doesn't have much to go n with his life. Film progresses with Pierre having conversations over cigarettes with various gigolos (former) discussing life and money. He sees a shrink, who advices him to go for younger gigolos so that he can get a boost in his life. He reads aloud a love ...

When I saw that this film was by the same director of the film " The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros", it got me excited. I liked that film and was expecting something similar. This film is not great by any means but it is definitely different. It is a funny and touching story of a up and coming teenage poet who also happens to be a gay boy. A teenage boy goes into a gay nightclub one Saturday night and it is empty except for those who work there and the usual crowd. "Boy" has never been to the club before and knows nothing about the gay lifestyle so he has no idea of the rules that are followed. Suddenly an 18 year old dancer Aries takes the stage and boy is mesmerized although he does not understand what has caused the attraction. The boy gets so attracted to Aries that he sells his prized collection of comic books and action figures to gather enough money so that he can bring Aries home on New Year’s Eve. When he does that, the boy's mother suspects something ...

I know I have said this many a times before but what can I do when it is so true. Frenchmen have come up with some of the best films ever and this holds true even for gay genre. The freshness in the scripts and execution is worth watching. I feel I am lucky to get a chance to watch these films. Not everyone is that lucky. I just hope more people start appreciating French cinema. Handsome Malik returns to Tunisia from France to stay with his widowed mother, Sara. He is half Arab and half French and is already struggling with his roots. He wants to confess to his mother about his homosexuality but as we later find, she always knew just never wanted to acknowledge it. Malik seems attracted to rough local guys whose job is to service young rich men. Sara has an Arab guy called Bilal who lives in servant quarters who does menial jobs for her. Malik has instant attraction for him but doesn't know what he feels like. He keeps guessing it keeping the master-servant relationship going. Mea...

"Hollywood, Je T'aime" is not just a lighthearted colourful popcorn comedy that the cover suggests. There is humour but also some food for thought. It looks at a heartbroken guy's disillusionment with the Hollywood glamour, and ultimately finds out the hard way that streets in Hollywood are not paved with gold. He has to answer the question, whether he loves Hollywood or not. Jerome, a guy from Paris, after having been ditched by his boyfriend, and in order to overcome his infatuation, decides to go to L.A. for Christmas, at first for vacation, and maybe get his hands on acting and then for reasons not quite pinned down that seem like going for a ride. At this journey he meets various local people who help him in his destiny. He meets Ross at the beach, who lives on his own and is a drug dealer. Ross, is attracted to Jerome and helps him at various points. In the interim, Jerome befriends a tranny prostitute and, through her, meets an older, bitter drag queen who lets...

Entirely set among London's gay community in the mid-1980s against the background of the mounting AIDS crisis, My Night with Reg follows the ups and downs of a circle of homosexual friends over a period of several years. One of the group, the Reg mentioned in the title, is not a character in the play but the whole plot revolves around his apparent promiscuity and the chain reaction of deception and betrayal set off by it.  The group, most of them in their thirties, meet at irregular intervals, often at Guy's place. Guy himself is a lonely man who has always had crush on John but never dared to tell him. He lives a solitary life, which he only spices up with phone sex. 18 year-old Eric, is helping him decorate his new flat. During the course of conversation we find that on one holiday he met a gay man who eventually forces himself on Guy and has unprotected sex with him. At his flatwarming party, he has just come back from his holiday. John comes to meet him and they talk. The m...

This film is made up of four unique stories, very different from each other, about 20 minutes long talking about different aspects of gay romance and each story is quite moving. We see also what love is and how it affects the characters. the stories could as well have been for characters of any sexual orientation.  "Don't Ask" is about a interracial couple Cameron and James. The two have been together for 4 years and for most of that part Cameron has been on duty in Iraq. Just before Cameron has to leave again for his duty, they both go out to meet friends, where Cameron is forced to defend himself to a pacifist when she wants to know why he is still fighting in a useless war. Cameron leaves and James stays home and lives in fear that his lover may not return. "Bloodline" is about Gerald, a cute gay goth who finally is able to talk to Christian in his class. He always thought Christian was interested in him. Pretty soon the boys fall in love for each other but ...

If you have been a follower of my blog, I put this post about a short film "Dare" and did mention that this film has the potential of being made into a full length feature film. Well guess what, someone did listen to us and used this idea to make a full length feature film. Although the film really didn't preceded or follow the story but the short story fits in very well in the narrative. I liked the fact that they stuck to the original dialogues and scenes of the short. I wish they stuck with the original actors too.  The film is split into 3 acts from the perspective of individual 3 characters and a final act of them together. Alexa is a typical teenage high school girl who wants to become an actress. He drama partner is Johnny who doesn't take it seriously. She wonders if being bad would benefit her and so she gives in to have a physical relation with Johnny. This transformation in Alexa makes her best friend Ben feel betrayed. He also has had a crush on Johnny. O...

Documentaries that focus on the lives of their subjects are intrinsically voyeuristic. What starts as a not uncommon family avocation turns infinitely darker as several of the family members seem compelled to record disturbing intra-family encounters that both enthrall and repel. I In the late 1980's, the Friedmans - father and respected computer and music teacher Arnold Friedman, mother and housewife Elaine Friedman, and their three grown sons, David, Seth and Jesse - of Great Neck, Long Island, are seemingly your typical middle class American family. They all admit that the marriage was by no means close to being harmonious - Arnold and Elaine eventually got divorced - but the sons talk of their father, while also not being always there for them, as being a good man. This façade of respectability masks the fact that Arnold was buying and distributing child pornography. Following a sting operation to confirm this fact, the authorities began to investigate Arnold for sexual abuse ...

This is an old 70s film which directly actually does not fall in the gay category. There are situations in the film that question whether Paul was gay or not but it is clear that his attraction is more real to wards the girl whom he meets towards the end of the film. So this can be argued. Set in 1930s in Paris during the German occupation time, the film is nevertheless interesting. 7 year old Paul studies in a church run boarding school and visits his home every weekend. For some weird reason he feels that no one at home wants him (including mother, father and elder sister). Soon there are issues between the couple and they split. Paul is no longer in boarding school but school was never his thing. He tries but he just does not like to study. He wanders on the street and like to meet strange men looking for love and acceptance. He does this menial jobs for German soldiers in Paris and make some money out of it. He meets a school friend, they share a bond. Paul steals for him because h...

I am not a big lesbian movie watcher, so I wasn't sure about watching the film. They are just not my cup of tea. So with my own apprehensions, I did start watching the film. In the end it turned out to be not so bad. The funny thing was this film also had all the typical lesbian cliches that you will find in most gay movies too. So in a way , it was funny. PLus the film was in a comedy genre, so it wasn't that bad after all. Meggie, just quit university and preferred becoming part of Vancouver's gay scene, performing in a gay bar and working in a lesbian book store. Things seem to go pretty fine until the day when Maggie's Mum Lila calls and informs her that she just left her current husband and wants to move in with Maggie, bringing Maggie's teen brother Paul with her. The problem is: Mum doesn't know (or doesn't want to know) that her little daughter is gay. Things get even more problematic when one night, after her performing at the club, Maggie meets an ...

This is a film that promises a take on gay life, as most viewers expect and somehow, it gets away from that promise into an introspective view at a young man's soul. The film has a way of staying with us even when it has ended. It is a character study about how a young man gets involved into a love affair with someone so much different than him that, in the end, will leave Mathieu confused, hurt and depressed when things don't go according to what he hoped the relationship would be. The story unfolds with Mathieu, after suffering from depression; revisit his family summerhouse to pull his life together. It is the same place where two summers ago he met his first boyfriend, someone he just broke up with. Mathieu is visiting with his sick mother and his sister to his aunt' summer house. While sunning at the beach Mathieu notices a handsome youth his age staring at him, and we can feel Mathieu's emotions quivering with confusion. The biy ultimately turns out to be Cedric w...

This was such a ridiculous movie. The first thing I read someone's review online was that it is one of the director's best film dealing with contemporary loneliness and alienation. BS !! This was crap, boring and utterly annoying. Viewers just keep waiting and waiting for something to happen but almost never nothing happens. In Taipei, a middle-aged real estate agent, May Lin, goes about her daily routine of putting up signs, inviting potential customers to an open house, then sitting and waiting for them in empty apartments as the hours drag by. Hsiao-kang, a young gay man who sells wall space for burials, soon finds the key to an apartment being shown by May Lin and moves in. When May Lin meets Ah-jung a slick street vendor of women's clothes during a lunch break, they coyly size each other up, then use the apartment for casual sex. Ah-jung, unaware of Hsiao-Kang's presence, takes the key from May Lin and also moves in. The characters live an existence surrounded by s...