Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

There are only a handful of gay themed films that have come out from India. Most people are aware of section 377 of Indian Penal code in India according to which  being gay was criminalized. This film is a fictional dramatization of the historic September 2018 ruling from India Supreme Court decriminalised homosexuality and reinstated the fundamental rights of the LGBTQ community. The film starts with final arguments being given by the two lawyers in front of the bench of supreme court judges. To support the argument, we are shown a bit of LGBT history, starting with Arif Jafar, the first man to be charged with Section 377 in 2001. Although an AIDS activist, he is taken to jail and gets sentenced for few years. We get to see his ordeals there. Next we see stories of some of the other individuals, who are primary in the petition that gets filed in Supreme Court. We meet Pallav, a teenager coming to terms with his sexuality but being rejected by his family reaches out to counsel...

It has taken me s long time to get to watching Season 2 and 3 of this amazing gay web series. I watched season 1 almost 5 year ago which is reviewed here. But something or the other kept coming and finally I managed to finish watching this just now. With 10 and 9 episodes of slightly longer duration that the debut season, thankfully the series has maintained the quality in terms of production values, acting, direction and story. We continue with the journey of Ryan who still wants to move on from being a hustler. He becomes assistant to one of his clients who is starting to teach him all about being a chef, which has been Ryan's dream. One one hand, he is doing well there, on the other hand, he is still struggling with his sexuality. The girl he has been dating has been cheating on him with a wealthy man and ultimately ends up marrying the guy for money. Eventually Ryan starts this underground supper club which caters to only rich and famous and eventually starts getting famou...

Satirical and spoof films are not easy to review. you need a very different sense of humor and idea of a lot of pop references and film references that are used throughout to make it appeal to the target audiences. Most people found this film to be quite bad yet very funny at the  same time. Unfortunately, my feelings just stayed at the former. It was pretty bad. Set in futuristic times in 2024 and its illegal to be gay. Gay bars are underground and hidden. The newly elected right wing president is worried about his daughter sleeping around with everyone. On his advisors insistence, he decides to marry her off to a young gay man Bart who has been recently arrested for being gay. If he fails to produce the senator a male heir he will be killed. On his wedding night he is rescued by Dynastud. They have instant sexual connection but Dynastud has his history and cursed superpowers. He literally explodes the man's head who is having sex with when he has orgasms, so even when he is ...

The makers tried to make a simple low-budget film that could address a few issues at the same time - homosexuality, coming out and Christianity. Unfortunately it was quite bad. This film would have been ok had it come like 20 years ago but it came out in 2011. Agreed it is slightly dated but 2011 was still quite upbeat, not just in technology but also about script writing and other aspects. Matthew and Brandon are best friends and form a part of trio. They are all teenagers. When Brandon discovers a gay magazine in Matthew's room, they both come out to each other and confess their love. Unfortunately, Matthew's father sees them together and forcibly sends him to a mental institution. A few years later both the boys are sent to gay conversion camp, where they try to obey the rules as much as they can. When the camp ends, Brandon decides that he cannot pretend anymore and is thrown out of home by his mother. He is 18 now but Matthew is still few weeks short of 18. Despite th...

This film is an an interesting and a very cautious approach to the traces of a long relationship. Sadly, the outlook is really slow and sometimes tests the patience of the audience. There are brief moments of absolute brilliance but they are very few far and between. Most times, we keep seeing the events on how the couple came together and how the relationship has evolved over the years. We meet Martin and Andreas as a loving couple who are very much in love. Andreas works in a workshop and creates furniture, and we are not sure yet what Martin does. Next we see they are a bit older and their 19 year old son Max is leaving home to go to college. And then we see that the couple is dealing with issues which escalate further when they decide to take their annual vacation at the sea. This is when flashback shows us how the couple met, instant attraction, how Andreas slowly tells Martin that he was once married and has a son Max. We share with them some beautiful moments of the three o...

When you star watching this 6 part episodic web series from Here TV, you feel like this could easily have been 6 separate short stories, but they eventually all merge in the last episode. The biggest beauty is of the show is that it puts queer me of color at the center-stage. The common thread binding them all is LA and the 6 stories focus on 6 different neighborhoods of LA telling stories of a diverse, politically-active patchwork of gay and queer men as they fall in and out of love. Lasting at about 22-30 minutes each, they do manage to hold your attention. Ep 1: Boyle Heights A successful Latino lawyer has forgotten his latin roots until he encounters a fiery and sexy activist who brings about a cultural awakening. The coconut finally peels the layers. Ep 2: Koreatown A young Taiwanese-American man begins to have a different understanding of his heritage after meeting a Korean-American adoptee. Ep 3: Leimert Park A young African-American poet struggles to define what it me...

I had been trying to get my hands on this film for a long time now. Actually ever since the movie came out in 1996 but was never officially released in the country. Thank you to the wonderful person, because of whom I finally managed to see the film. If you can somehow manage to ignore some inconsistent direction and discontinuity, you will actually be pretty surprised at the bold concept of the film. This is not strictly gay but the story of an unusual friendship, journey and love between a transvestite dancer and a gang raped woman who begins to dress up like a man. A village girl is kidnapped on the eve of her wedding. She tries to run away but gets gang raped by 3 men. She meets a transvestite, an outcast, who has body of a man but is truly a female from inside and dances in villages to make ends meet; who ends up taking her under her wings. On the insistence, the girl decides to cut her hair and start dressing like a man and that would be the only way for her to survive. Henc...

Mi Hermano (Spain [My Brother] The news of his brother's sudden death forces Alberto (minus his boyfriend Nick) to come back to his oppressive hometown in Spain from Berlin. Only after arriving he finds out hat his brother committed suicide for not being supported by friends or family for being gay. Its time Alberto share his own secret. Gay Dude (USA) A funny short showing a guy coming out to his best girl friend. Cerrojos (Spain) [Locks] A very weird film where a guy is obsessed with his roommate and his anal bleeding. I felt he was also getting schizophrenic. The movie was long, weird and boring. Room Closet (USA) Teenagers Rafael and Dan explore the nature of their friendship when one of them shows signs of feelings that go beyond friendship. The Cream (France) A young man runs through the woods when he suddenly finds a man smearing a gel on his body. The boy will be surprised and trapped by the sensuality of the moment. Its a weird yet funny really sh...

A romantic comedy film, this film has a very interesting premise when started but somehow somewhere in between, I felt the makers were confused as to what genre did they really wanna focus on. It was primarily drama but the comic scenes or dialogues were thrown in at random places, and I as an audience was quite confuse as to what mood should I keep while watching the film. Max and Andi are a couple in college, but when Max decides to go to US for medical studies, she decides to break up with him because she doesn't believe in long distance relationships. 5 years later when he comes back home, he reaches out to Andi increasing her hope of getting back together but all her dreams are shattered when Max introduces her to his boyfriend, a fellow doctor Christian. Max convinces her that he i snot sure of he is gay but he knows that he loves Christian. 2 years later, the film gets in current time when Max and Christian have been together for 3 years and Andi is still struggling to ...

A melancholic film about a troubled young adult who is shy, hates going out of home and has troubles connecting with people and making friends. He is awkward and withdrawn but at night he is sexually provocative webcam dancer for gay men. This film is mostly about loneliness and yearning for company and love. There is a lot of social context from the point of view of the town of Porto Alegre where this is set in when apparently a lot of people are moving out. The film is divided in 3 chapters: The first one is dedicated to his sister Luiza, who so far has been his companion and support for everything. And now she is moving to another city for better prospects leaving our protagonist Pedro alone. An already awkward Pedro is happy and very sad for being left behind but hopefully through his webcam dance shows he will keep busy. Pedro's speciality is that he uses glowing neon paint on his paint while performing shows for his audience but soon he realizes that his audience is redu...

I absolutely loved this film. When a film manages to keep a constant smile and feel-good emotions inside you throughout its runtime, it already has done its job to a large extent. And to top that, me laughing out loud in a couple of scenes was just icing on the cake. It takes a lot to make me lose my inhibitions and loud out loud, so in that department, this film was a total winner. Yes, this is not a path-breaking cinema, but with right mix of comedy, emotions, family and drama, this film is something that everyone would like and enjoy to watch. Oh! and did I say how beautiful the town of Civita is. Antonio is in a very happy relationship with his boyfriend of three years Paolo. Just before visiting his hometown for Easter, Antonio proposes Paolo. Antonio has a female roommate who he is good friends with and they just get a new room mate , an older man who has discovered his happiness for cross-dressing. The 4 of these travel together as a group now to celebrate easter with Anton...

Only if thing and people were so easy and simple, life would be so much better. This movie comes with very very good intentions and to a large extent addresses a lot of issues that it wants to focus on (thankfully it doesn't go all over the place); but ending is so convenient, but religion in every country is so powerful, that this could be a mere wishful thinking. Dave is a young teacher in a very Christian college, who has string resentment against LGBT people, even more stronger since his wife left him for another woman. He is asked by his dean to go check out this group of outcasts, who are in the process of trying to purchase a property that the college also wants to acquire. When Dave finds out that it is an LGBT group, he is initially shocked but continues to visit thereby getting exposed to a very loving community of individuals and what are their challenges. He meets Samantha, a straight girl and activist helping this group for this property, whose brother was brutall...

I had heard of this film so much, that I was very much looking forward to watching it. Created in Indian subcontext of Kerala state, this film was in news for long struggling to get itself a decent release in the home country. The film touches upon various subjects and pubic debates but in the end, IMO, fails to properly raise a message against any of these issues. There are two parallel stories here. Haris is an artist, photographer and painter and is gay and proud. His best friend Vishnu is his muse and model. Vishnu is staunch hindu and besides regular fooling around between roommates doesn't think much about Haris's affection though is close to kissing him a couple of times. One of Haris's close friends is Sia who belongs to a very conservative Muslim family. She is a rebel who wants to make a place for herself and other women and raises a voice against her employer when a woman is humiliated for having her periods. Of course neither goes down well and Sia struggle...

This film was shot on an iphone with a budget of approximately 5k pounds. Unfortunately, that shows, and by that I don't mean production quality but I mean lack of investment in a properly flushed out screenplay that could have done justice to a decent story idea. I believe, this film is intended to be a comedy but not once did I feel like even smiling, forget laughing. On the contrary, I did find myself rolling my eyes quite often. The story is about Sam, a guy probably in late 20s, who clearly is bored at his job and doesn't even try to do something about it. His room mate is his best friend Zoe, who constantly reminds him to get his life together. All Sam cares about is two things: first getting attention of one of his co-workers (a cute guy), and the other, somehow getting together back with his ex-boyfriend, who constantly keeps inviting Sam for sex. Zoe and Sam soon find themselves drifting apart. And they both lose their apartment as well. A tiny prospect of having to mo...

This film is another one of those independent film trying to tackle a "new" theme in the gay world. Sadly, not every idea turns out right. And it has nothing to do with low production values. It is mostly to do with poor acting and not a good direction. We have seen some really funny movies that involve such a thought but sadly this one doesnt come close at all. Primary story is around two brothers: Austin is younger, gay and is struggling for love and making his ends meet. His dream is to won the miss diva beauty pageant. Elder brother Dallas, is supportive but not completely used to with Austin being gay. He is stressed at work and at home he is trying to have baby with his wife. Each brother thinks the other “has it so good.” By a strange twist of fate, they switch places. They know they have switched but no one else realizes this. Only person, who believes the story is Jackie, who is Austin's best friend. Now Austin needs to save his brother's job and his fam...