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Showing posts from August, 2012

Straight (German)

Mostly shot by hand held camera (or at least that's what it seemed like), this film shows the story of 3 individuals who are coming to terms of their individual feels and what effect their feelings will have on the people around them. Did the film succeed in portraying what it set out to? Let's figure it out. Jana is a lonely social worker. She is in a lackluster and boring relationship with David which has no spark left. David spends most of his time at work and avoids Jana. Whenever he meets her, there is no chemistry and together they are both aware of the drifting chemistry, both physically and emotionally. And then we have a young German Turk Nazim, who also tries hard to keep up the appearance of straightness. Night after night he goes out with his homies, dances with girls like Jana and deals with drugs on Hermann Square. It is first jana who ends up sleeping with him. In a different turn of events, Nazim and David end up sleeping together as well. When the three of the

Into The Lion's Den

Started off well, this movie soon became one of those wannabe's bad bad thriller gay movies. The story is simple but then its the acting, execution and just about everything else which makes a huge huge difference.  Three friends are on a cross country road trip from LA to NYC. Johnny is the eldest of the group who does not miss any opportunity to hook up with a stranger on the road. Mikey owns the car and is dealing with a breakup. Apparently he just found out that he is positive too. The third friend is just coming out and wants to live life a little bit. When they are few hours away from the city, they decide to spend the night at a motel and Johnny drags all of them to a bar called 'Lion's Den' where he is meeting a trick from internet. Johnny gets into an argument with his friends who leave him and go back to the motel. It turns out the motel owner duo of husband-wife have some other plans. The husband likes men and the wife tortures the guys while the husband is h

Le roi de l'evasion (French) [The King Of Escape]

Was this film a spoof or a comedy or drama? It is so hard to say. A lot of viewers describe the movie as comedy but I saw WTF!! And where was the plot? A lot of scenes were just there for the heck of it. The story idea was good but it was so badly executed. Armanda, is a 40-something gay man who is very popular in the social circle. He sells farm machinery in the countryside. Just when his life was going monotonous and nothing exciting was happening, he meets a 16 year old girl Curly and they both fall in love with each other. The expected restrain from the parents follow and Armanda woos the girl and they go on a run from the parents and the police. Somehow Armanda finds this magic root which can get him hard to be able to perform. Whenever him and Curly get a chance to make out and "do" something, they are always disturbed. Finally they get an opportunity and they make love but Armanda gets bored and now wants to leave Curly. In the meantime Armanda is being pursued by an

Somewhere I Have Never Traveled (Mandarin)

Somewhere I Have Never Travelled is a deceptive little film. As a slice of life in rural Taiwan it promises many things overly familiar to anyone who's seen more than a handful of films from the country over the past five years or so. It is wrong to classify this film under gay themed, since it is just that one of the 2 characters happens to be gay and is dealing with it. There is nothing much more than that to this. Ah-Guei is a fifteen-year-old girl who comes from a family of misfits -- her father is intellectually challenged and cleans streets for a living, while her grandfather is a neighborhood character known for his short temper. While Ah-Guei seems like a happy and well-adjusted girl on the surface, she was born color-blind and cannot see red or green, a seemingly minor disability but one that sets her apart from her classmates. Ah-Guei's most trusted confidante is her twenty-year-old cousin Ah-Xian, who dreams of traveling the world and owns a large collection of

Lilies (Canada)

Sometimes when you experiment in the way a story is narrated, it backfires on you, because as a director you become very self-obsessed. Thankfully this film does not fall in this category. It still is surprising that not many people might be aware of this film. It is a shame because I have never seen this way of showing flashbacks sequences. It must have been a difficult screenplay to write IMO. A prisoner Simon requests for a specific priest to make a confession. The preist is surprised but gives in and visits the prison not knowing what to expect. He is locked by the prison priest in the confession room and soon a play begins. Apparently Simon wants the priest to do a confession of his own. The play being played by the prisoners is real life story of Simon's young adulthood days. Simon used to attend all Catholic school and was in love with another boy Valier. Their love was pure and secret until one of their classmates (the now priest) finds out about them. He confronts them. Th