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Showing posts from January, 2013

Mysterious Skin

This film is very real, raw and engaging. The characters add a life to the film and your mind plays them back even after the film finishes. The film is not easy to digest. Seeing that there is pervasive sexual exposure between adults, as well as between adults and kids (though discreetly handled), this film will repulse many viewers. The film traces parallel about 2 guys Neil and Brian from childhood to adulthood. When he was pre-teenage, Brian one day is found in his cellar with his nose bleeding and he cannot remember what happened in last 5 hours of his life. He starts getting these weird dreams and he is convinced that aliens had something to do with this. On the other hand we have Neil, who has grown up gay, attracted to his mother's boyfriend and also his baseball coach, who ends up seducing and getting physical with Neil when he was a kid. Neil grows up to be a hustler and ends up sleeping with pretty much every old fat man in his town to make some money. His best frien

Pedale Douce (French) [What A Drag]

The first 15-20 minutes of this film were really good and my expectations went soaring high with the film. Unfortunately the film became drama from a comedy and the change was so sudden that I didn't have to digest and by the time it went back to being a comedy, my expectations had already taken a beating. That does not mean that this film is not entertaining. The film is still pretty good with exceptionally great acting. Adrien is in the finance world, a 30 something gay man. His best friend is Eva who owns and runs a gay restaurant and club. They both are very very close to each other. Adrien is in the process of finalizing deal with Alexander, a banker, which leads to him having to bring Eva as his wife. Alexander and Eva feel some connection and they start seeing each other. Slowly Eva introduces Alexander to the gay world, thereby ultimately exposing to him that Adrien is gay and not the straight man that he though he is. When Alexander's wife sees him in a gay club,

Happy, Texas

After a string of watching bad gay films, I finally got a respite in a decent comedy. This film was good in the sense that it wasn't over the top or anything, provided right laughs at the right time with right set of acting skills. Of course you do get to sees certain stereotypes but then it happens everywhere. Wayne and Harry escape prison when they are being moved. On their way, they steal a RV van owned by a gay couple Steve and David. While traveling hone they reach the town of Happy in Texas, the town sheriff mistakes them for the gay couple who travel around the world to help girls prepare for beauty pageants. They both get excited to do this since it will give them time to spend with girls. Their dreams get shattered when they realize that it is pre teen girls and not young girls. Wayne aka David is given the task to teach the girls and prepare them for their dance and Harry decides to plan to rob the bank of the small town. He befriends the young manager of the bank an

Hatachi no binetsu (Japanese) [A Touch Of Fever]

This is supposedly an art house cinema from Japan. I either must be watching this film too late in the game but I honestly ran out of patience sitting through this film and trying to make head or tail out of this film. Doing my research, I did find that this film was a huge hot in Japan when it came out but I still can't figure out why! I asked the same question when i saw the film and find myself asking the same question while reviewing the film. The primary focus of the film is on its 2 main characters. Tatsuru and Shin are both teenage boys and they work in a club as rent escort boys for gay guys to make that extra money and get them going in their day to day life. Tatsuru has a girlfriend but he doesn't feel sexual towards her. Deep down he knows he is gay but is not ready to accept it and his girlfriend is ok with not being overtly physical. Shin also has a girlfriend but they are both like girlfriends. When Shin comes out to his parents, he is thrown from the house a

Heels

It did not come as a surprise to me when I saw that the lead actor was also the writer-director of the film because no one else would have wasted their money and effort on something so bland. The story idea was interesting but the clearly the film was made a s rush job with very low production costs. Kevin lives with his girlfriend, who by the way, was the most annoying bitch you can ever encounter. Kevin cannot hold on to jobs and always gets beaten up by her girlfriend by words and insults and for some crazy reason still decide to stay with her. When their close friends take them out for a dinner party to a cabaret club, Kevin is very uncomfortable watching drag performances. A contest is soon announced for best drag show and he sees that as a quick way to make money to keep his girlfriend happy. He befriends one of the drag queens who after much reluctance agrees to train Kevin to take part in the competition. Jason (his real name an snot drag name) starts developing friendship

Scenes From A Gay Marriage

What the f*** was this film? I just did not get the point of the film. Forget the point, the film felt such  drag to watch. It was slow, uninterested acting in this supposedly romantic comedy, which is odd cos the director also plays the primary part in it. Let me just be very clear. This was neither romantic nor comedy. Darren has recently broken up with his long term boyfriend. He doesn't have a job and spends time at home doing odd things. He surprisingly finds a guy who likes to see his pics in beard very week and he is fine with that. A gay couple lives above him and he can hear everything that goes on in their life through the air ducts. Their casual conversations and loud sexual escapades soon prove far more exciting than anything on television and Darren gets a little obsessed. He finds himself even deeper when he discovers that one of the guys may be cheating on the other. Thus begins Darren’s quest for the truth by surveilling, snooping and basically stalking them. H

Le Refuge (French) [Hideaway]

This film is also one of those films which really do not belong to the gay themed genre. It is a more universal theme which, people can relate to but as in most cases, one of the prominent characters happens to be gay and hey! you get to read the review on my blog then. :) The film has a very basic linear plot without much drama. The focus has more been on visual presentation. The film starts with lovebirds Mousse and Louis enjoying drugs. An overdose of drugs takes them both to the hospital where Louis dies and Mousse is saved. The doctor also tells her that she is pregnant, which she had no idea about. At Louis's funeral, she meets his divorced parents where the mom is the more dominating one and Louis' brother Paul. The mother requests Mousse to not keep the baby since they would prefer to not have his legacy since he is already gone. Mousse leaves the place. Few months later, we see that Paul visits Mousse in her countryside house on his way to Spain and sees that she

Morgan

Morgan is a film about hope, life and aspirations. It is a very universal and inspiring story of how to move on with life after a tragedy and how to find one's way out of it. The depth of universal human emotions depicted in an above average production has been shown very profoundly in this film. Morgan is a cyclist who has recently been paralyzed after a bad accident in a cycling race. He has lost purpose in life and spends his day drinking and watching TV. He is also in a financial stress but somehow still doesn't take his life seriously despite constant interruptions by his mother. He also has a good and loyal friend lane but neither her nor his mother can motivate him enough. When day when he is rolling through a park, he has chance meeting with Dean. Starting with a small talk, they soon start dating. Love brings back confidence in Morgan and can brings out the fun and bright side in him. When the current year's race is announced, Morgan decides to take part in it

Bear City 2: The Proposal

I had tremendously enjoyed Bear City part 1, more because I had almost no expectations from the film. And I must admit that after watching part 2, i still found the film pretty interesting and funny in parts. The films takes forward the lives of the principal actors whom we met in the first part and see what happens in their life when they all head to P-Town for the bear weekend. Muscle bear Roger and his twink-ish boyfriend Tyler are living a happy life. When Roger proposes to Tyler after NYC passed the gay marriage act, Tyler is initially surprised but later gives in and accepts. Since their vacation for the bear week in PTown was already planned, they decide to get married that week. They all decide to stay at a house owned by Rose, mother of their close friend Brent, whose partner is hell bent on making a documentary on bears. We have a third couple, a theatre producer bear whom Tyler works for and his boyfriend who is in the process of opening his bar. The movie then focuses

Spinnin' (Spanish)

What was the deal with this film. It had such an excellent story and such huge potential. Great actors, beautiful chemistry but it was all spoiled with random scenes and characters thrown in, I don't know for what ! And what was the director thinking? Just adding a lot of weird moments and random interactions between people, make the film artistic and enigmatic? It was annoying , if anything for me. Story is simple. Garate and Omar are  young gay couple. Omar wants a kid badly but Garate is not so sure since he himself doesn't get along with his father. No idea, on when Omar finally convinces Garate for a child, they try with their respective friends, but never succeed in getting pregnant. Ultimately they befriend, a pregnant woman whose boyfriend has died of Aids and now looking after her. Meanwhile we also see a lesbian couple, one of whom has died and now the other partner is fighting to keep the custody of the child. We also see Garate's father who is afraid of fal

Grande École (French)

I think this film had too much of everything. It has mix of class (high vs low), race, economic status, sexuality, history and weirdness; all together in one mix. What happen is we get a mash-up of everything without being very clear on what exactly happened at the end of the film. And its not one but many questions that are left open and unanswered. Paul comes form a high class family of contractors. He has been raised to be brilliant and racist against Arab workers. He starts college in an alive Paris school to learn about management but thats not his forte. He is more artistically inclined and is seeing Agnes, a liberal arts university student. Paul's room mate is Louis-Arnault, a very good looking business major with penchant for water polo. Paul and his girlfriend have a stable relationship but Paul and Agnes are not doing too well. Paul and Louis-Arnault become really good and very good friends. Paul soon develops physical crush for Louis-Arnault but soon arrives an Arab

Everyone (Canada)

This movie is filled with a giant cast of characters where you hop from person to person to track what is happening as they prepare for and attend a gay wedding. The plot intricately weaves the lives and the themes of death and bearing children. But does it manage to hold your attention and keep you glued to screen to watch the proceedings? Unfortunately not! Ryan and Grant are getting married (civil union) today at their home. 2 of Ryan's brother, Grant's step-sister and Ryan's mother are all invited. Ryan's mother brings with her a street punk to carry her boxes. We slowly are introduced to various problems that all of these couples are facing. One couple is dealing with death of their child. Other is trying to get pregnant although they don't love each other any more. In the third one, wife is pregnant and wants the baby but husband doesn't. And finally in the fourth, the surgeon husband accidentally lets his 10 year old girl patient die and he can't

Dirty Laundry

I absolutely loved this film. This is the kind of feel-good cinema that I like watching on a saturday afternoon. Top it up with the whole black family in the south, its like icing on the cake. I loved it so much that I so badly would have loved to be in person if everything that was happening in the film was real. The while family atmosphere was so real, nice and refreshing. Sheldon returns from New York, to his home town Paris in Georgia after he discovers that he has a son. His life goes topsy turvy since he is young, looking ahead to his career and soon we find out that he is also gay. His family consists of his stubborn and over protective loud mother, a divorced sister with her daughter who os looking to move out and do something worthwhile with her life. Sheldon also has a brother who works in a butcher farm in the small town and is happy with his life. Sheldon has been gone 10 years and life is not the same. He feels awkward, out of place but he needs to get things fixed wr

Two Weddings And A Funeral (Korean)

A Korean dark comedy and a drama, this film very aptly shows the pains and sufferings that goes along with living your life to please others. The film explores issues of living as a gay man in modern-day Korea, following a closeted gay character along with those who “came out” and are shunned by family members who claim that the homosexual lifestyle brings shame to the family. Min-Soo, a young Korean doctor gets married to Hyo-Jin, a fellow colleague at his hospital. We soon find out that this marriage of convenience between a gay man and a lesbian girl. Hyo-Jin lives with her girlfriend who lives across the hall. The only reason the couple got married was so that Hyo-Jin can adopt a baby. Meanwhile Min-Soo also finds a guy in his circle of friends who he falls in love with but that guy wants Min-soo to be comfortable with who he is. in an unfortunate incident, a very close friend of Min-soo dies in an accident when a cab driver is beating him up harshly for being so openly gay a

Bookends

What the hell was this film!! A buddy film where a few friends meet over alight could be so much more interesting. Rather, we get this film which is boring, confused, lackluster and laid with poor direction. Neither actors with their decent acting could save the film because the overall direction and screenplay was so confused and all over the place The film starts with Russell and Brett getting ready for Donnie's birthday. Plans change and we see that everyone ends up coming to Russell's house for the birthday. We have Donnie and his new girlfriend, Gayle, a common friend with her fiancé and another girl. Donnie, Gayle and Brett were together in school at some point. Brett keeps traveling to NY since he is into music and keeps looking for girls for one night stands. Some random scenes with the film sometimes going back to a year, sometimes, few hours, sometimes few months. What I ultimately got out was that Russell likes Brett, Brett likes Gayle who is engaged and some ot

Blue Briefs

Continuing with the series of similar themed short gay films in a series, this collection comprises of 6 gay short films which explore the longing and pain of love. Most of the stories do a pretty good job of delivering the message  with shorts dealing with love, growing up gay, coming out and jealousy. Requited A wonderfully shot short film, this film is about Nicolas who is spending time with his boyfriend Greg. Greg is soon leaving NY to go to west coast and Nicolas has mixed feelings about it. The feelings get even mixed up when he receives an invitation for a wedding from a former straight classmate, whom Nicolas was secretly in love for a long time and probably still is. He can't decide but ends up finally going for it and in the end misses the time that he could spend with his boyfriend who is leaving him soon. This film very effectively shows us the pain that we go through when we so endearingly pine for something we can never have. Boys Like You Sal and Jimmy are

Zombies of Mass Destruction

What the hell is going on? Why am I watching one bad movie after another? I think this is either first or maybe second zombie movie that I saw and this can be seriously added to one of the worst zombie or gay themed movies I have seen. Not only was it bad but it had all this Iranian racist crap that it just wasn't funny There are a bunch of characters in this little island off New York city. We are introduced to a bunch of people who live here, most importantly, an Iranian migrant who owns a restaurant. Her daughter Frida has just returned from her college. We then meet a gay couple, one of whom used to live on the island and now is retiring back after years with his boyfriend to tell his mother that he is gay. That same night, the island gets attacked by zombies and then we have all the hocus-pocus of zombies eating everyone and people running to save themselves. Of course, the gay couple and Frida are all safe in the end. This film is a complete shame to all genres, be it

Apart

What the hell was this? This film was so tedious that I had to fast forward it so many times, just to keep my interest alive and make some sense from the movie. WIth numerous characters that somehow are supposed to be inter-connected or related (which is never shown clearly), this film is one of the worst ones I have seen in recent times. John is either  drug dealer or rock artist. He is friends with Mario and one night they are drunk and end up having one night stand. A young guy meets a hot older guy named Saleheddin and proposes to be boyfriends on the very night time of hookup. Saleheddine's wife Christine suddenly gives him notice of divorce , and she works with John. We also have a straight couple, where the wife suddenly leaves her husband/lover/boyfriend odor she realizes that she is a lesbian. And finally we have an Indian guy Manu, who keeps thinking of a guy who he was with and just keeps smiling throughout the film. As odd the characters were in this film, equall

Deliver Us from Evil (Documentary)

This is a documentary feature about Father Oliver O'Grady, a catholic priest, who was charged for various cases of pedophile in US around 1970 and the attempt by the church to cover up his rape of several children. Moving from one parish to another in Northern California during the 1970s, Father Oliver O'Grady quickly won each congregation's trust and respect. Unbeknownst to them, O'Grady was a dangerously active pedophile that Church hierarchy, aware of his predilection, had harbored for over 30 years, allowing him to abuse countless children. Juxtaposing an extended, deeply unsettling interview with O'Grady himself with the tragic stories of his victims, both young girls and boys, filmmaker bravely exposes the deep corruption of the Catholic Church and the troubled mind of the man they sheltered. I am sure many will never take the opportunity to see this film thinking it biased toward the church. Although it will be a painful experience for devoted catholics

Tensión sexual: Volátil (Spanish) [Sexual Tension: Volatile]

The title of this movie is so appropriate for what has been shown in the film. I think 'Absent', another film from Argentina was the only film that I saw where sexual tension was so intriguing in the film. No wonder, when I was doing some research online after watching this film, it turns out that it is by the same director as that of 'Absent'. How funny is that!! Now I know many people did not like that film, but hey, I did and I also like this film a lot. This film is sort of collection of 6 different stories or you can call it six different scenarios, where chance encounter between people can lead to so much sexual tension. You probably cannot get the guy bit no one is stopping you form lusting after him. We first see 'Ari' where a young boy is infatuated with the tattoo maker and every time he goes to get his tattoo done from Ari, a different adrenalin rush is experienced. In 'The Cousin' , a geeky guy visiting his friend finds himself getting