Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

A first gay themed film from Finland. No wonder I was wondering throughout the film, why this accent doesn’t sound familiar at all. In the growing trend of coming out gay films, this film is another one of those movies in which being queer is only one of the adolescent issues, rather than the defining characteristic. It is refreshing to have sexuality be only one aspect of the story. Miku is 17 year old and just figuring and venturing out into sex and sexuality. His older brother Sebu talks him into throwing a party for his friends and also invite the girl whom Miku is very interested in. The house gets completely smashed and the parents come back angry and as a result Miku now has to spend the summer with them at their summer cottage in the country. Miku meets Elias, the boy next door, another 17 year old gay boy very comfortable in his sexuality. The two of them form an unlikely friendship and hang out with each other all the time. The friendship ultimately leads to physical sex...

This must be my lucky day. Two bad movies, back to back, :sad: :sigh: Someone, please recommend me a good movie soon. Anyway, coming back to this film, I didn’t expect much from it anyway in the first place. So that way, I wasn’t very disappointed. To be fair to the film, it wasn’t horrible. It was just bad. Poor acting and no emotional connect between characters is a major issue. And when as an audience, that doesn’t happen, then already the film has lost me as an audience, and all I do is watch the movie from a plastic audience with no emotional connect. Gay horror/mystery genre is not much explored and rightly so because most of it is downright terrible. Sadly, this movie as well does nothing to salvage that reputation. Keegan has Hyperthymesia & he cannot forget anything, ever. He is incredibly smart and perceptive, which causes him issues dealing with other people. Even with his boyfriend Will, this causes a concern all the time but thankfully Will is an understanding guy...

What the hell!! How can a film be so bad and still get positive reviews! I just don’t get it. The film is touted as a comedy and not even once did I smile, forget laughing! Maybe I don’t get the weird American humor but I think I am fine. I don’t want to get it, if it means actually liking horrible movies like this. Lawrence works for an advertising agency. He’s not straight enough for his job where he sells testosterone filled ad campaigns to beer companies and he’s not stereotypically gay enough for his boyfriend. One night he gets a call that his father Elijah has died and his last dying wish was for Lawrence to go on a road trip with Kevin, his extremely homophobic half-brother, to bury his ashes. We then witness the two brothers unwillingly take a trip together, all the while encountering weird situations, just for heck of it, in my opinion. Throughout the film, Kevin speaks gay slurs which are not funny at all. That’s pretty much there is to the film. The acting from the c...

This film has been on my watchlist for a long time but then I kept on postponing this viewing for some reason or the other. No specific reason, it someone didn’t seem interesting enough to watch it. I mean it was set in late 90s, so I just had to be a in a different mindset before I saw this film. Thankfully its a rainy day and I thought, maybe today is the day. Touted as the ill-fated romance where the past of a few individuals connect with each other in the present makes the crux of the film. Jet is an extremely charming and handsome hustler who knows his strengths and plays by it. One day he notices a young couple Sam & Kana and somehow their closeness gives him a sense of warmth and he takes a liking for Sam. When Jet tells about this to his closest friend Ching, he tries to help him by putting an ad in newspaper. A chance encounter again with Sam changes things. It turns out Sam is a police officer and they both instantly hit it off. They become extremely close friends an...

Having just watched the film “Everything is Free”, I did a bit of reading on its lead actor and director Brian Jordan Alvarez and found out that that he actually did a 5 episode web-series before the film and I had to immediately check it out. I can now see the kind of work this man does and how the former film in some way was an extension of all the various ideas and thoughts he had, which he presented so well in this web series. Everyone seems to be making web series these days, so its important to have that extra zing that can hold viewers attention. Although the center of the show is the Caleb, the series is as much about his 4 friends as well, all struggling actors in LA. Caleb is best friends with Karen and Billy. billy is straight and Caleb has a crush on him but at the same time Caleb is also in love with Benicio who had to leave LA to move back to London. Karen and Billy are attracted to each other but do not know how to make it work and eventually get sexual. Just when B...

First things first, I am not a fan of musicals. This may be weird for some people but American musicals are just not my thing. Either on broadway, off broadway or movies. So, mind you, my review, will have a bias just because of this simple reason. Coming to this movie, it is apparently a film version of the famous broadway show. As title suggests, I was expecting singing by naked men and sure enough, thats exactly what there is. It turns out that this particular film was shot while the group was performing in front of a live audience. The entire film is song after song of experiences of gay men, including naked maid, when you are born, locker room, gym, pressure to have perfect body etc etc. You notice the nudity for first 5-10 minutes but after that you barely notice it. There is no teasing here. We’re treated to the full monty right out of the gate but thankfully it never gets sexual. Its fun. Music lovers will lap up the songs, few raunchy lyrics and the playfulness of it all....

What happens when a gay man falls in love with a straight guy? This is a question that a lot of gay men would be scared to answer. Quite a few of us have been in this boat and have made our on best judgement on how to handle this situation in our own ways. A few lucky ones even have had some sort of happy conclusions but not many of us are lucky. The protagonist in this film faces a similar dilemma. Ivan is a gay American artist living in Colombia. His best friend Christian and his friend’s brother, Cole, both straight, come to visit him and they stay with him. Christian has never had any issue with Ivan being gay and infact they are both very close friends. As they begin to meet other Americans in Colombia, Ivan finds himself attracted to Cole, and is surprised by Cole’s tentative interest in return. As days progress, Ivan and Cole do get in a physical relationship while Cole repeating every time that “I am not gay”. Physical closeness eventually leads to Ivan falling in love wit...

This film is a classic example of how and why to NOT make films and torture the audience with stupid experiments. This was such a waste of my 1.5 hours that I am never gonna get back ever. A terrible film by every standard , this should never have been made. A group of 4 youngsters performing on July 4th in 1984 piss of an old lady who curses them that the four kids are doomed to wander the titular island for eternity. Only on the full moons will they get a chance to come out of the curse if they can convince 4 others to put on their clothes and perform. Now we are in present day 2007, we meet Jack who has just joined fraternity and his boyfriend is a frat vet. The senior along with many other seniors have one last initiation for new frat members to spend the night at the hell island. We are also introduced to plenty other weird characters; shady dean of the college, Jack’s clown room mate, a runaway patient from a mental institution and a possessive girlfriend of one of the senio...

What was this film? This was my reaction after I finished watching the film. One of my most regular visitors on my blog, Luigi, wanted me to check this film out and post my views here. But I am sorry my friend, I may not be very kind to this film overall. A visually striking and cinematographically one of the most beautiful films that I have seen in recent times, the film failed big time on my expectations. There are very few thrillers where the central character happens to be gay and anytime something new comes up, I really look forward to it. The good thing is that the sexual identity of the central characters is not the main issue here. They could as well have been any estranged straight couple. Gunnar has broken up with Einar and has moved on with another guy. But Einar cannot quite seem to let go. One night, Gunnar receives a late night call from Einar that worries him and he leaves immediately to visit him to a remote outpost. This is Einar’s family home where the couple has...

Seminary is a place where people train to be religious leaders. So, by that definition the film title refers to  a student in a seminary especially of the Roman Catholic Church. The reason I start with this is because its important to understand what the film is probably going to get into. Story of a closet gay seminarian, who is juggling between finishing his thesis on God and love and his own trysts with love in real life including heart-breaks, friendship and being honest to himself and to the friends around him. Ryan is in his final semester of seminary college and needs to submit his theological thesis to continue studies. He is also gay and to receive his grade, he has to fully convince his professor that his beliefs in the thesis are not just factual. He spends occasional nights with hi smother over dinner but do not discuss his relationships.  He also has a online friend Bradley who understand each other well but have never met. He has two gay friends Anthony and ...

I still have mixed feelings after watching this film. At the onset, I wanna say that movie was terrible , uni-dimensional and doesn’t get into the details or provides any solutions; but on the other hand, part of me tells that, the relationship between a couple is shown in the most brilliant way, almost voyeuristically. Yes, the film is slow, repetitive, but after an anxious half an hour of not knowing where this film is headed to, it ultimately grabbed my attention when the unfortunate event happens. Stefan (French horn player) and Andreas (orchestra manager) have the perfect life. They have a great house, beautiful luscious garden, close friends and a charismatic cat named Moses. The couple are so comfortable with each other and nature that a good amount of their time goes walking around naked. They are very comfortable, have sex quite often and sometimes before their friend Lorenz. One day when Stefan strokes Moses, the cat seems to try to bite him, and through some unknown com...

This is again one of those film which would be wrong to call as a gay theme film, but give the tile of the film around the character, I think its reason enough to put a review about the film here. Having said that, I am gonna keep this review quite short because not much happens in the film according to me and it really doesn’t warrant a long write-up. Set in a time long long ago, When Don Diego, alongwith his mute servant Paco, returns to Los Angeles, he finds that his childhood friend Esteban has become the captain of the guard. He finds out that his father was killed a riding accident. At his election speech, Esteban is confronted by Charlotte who tries to educate people of the atrocities that Esteban and his people will do on the common man.Despite their political difference Diego is smitten by her. While home, Diego receives his inheritance from his father which is meant for either of his two sons: Zorro’s black mask, cape, hat, sword and a letter saying that he needs to cont...

Oh my god!! What was this film? Such over the top acting, even for a 2002 film. Actually , more than actors, I would blame the director for not realizing what he was making his actors do. Maybe the idea of doing a gay version of the Charles Dickens’ holiday classic A Christmas Carol would have sounded really good on paper but real poor execution and unnecessary bland songs and broad performances makes for a difficult viewing of the film. Its Christmas eve, and we meet Ben Scrooge, who owns and operates a gay Chicago nightclub. We soon see that he is a cold hearted old man, who doesn’t care about charity, people’s wishes, problems, his employees or even his extended family. All he cares about is his money and business. His gloom and doom life is a complete contrast to the happiness and warmth and cheer. When he is about to go to bed, he is visited by his long term, now dead, business partner Marley, who warns him that if he soon doesn’t change his ways, he will find himself in hell...

Sometimes, a movie has all good intentions but it fails to transform well on screen. And sometimes, its not all about bringing a core issue to the table but to also entertain the audience. It is not very easy to have a balance of the above two ingredients. I felt the movie above did a good balance. Actually at some point I felt like rather than dealing with the trans-issues , the film was more about family dram and about the mother dealing with her daughter wanting to convert. This film suffers the case of making sure entertainment taking over the core issue of gender dysphoria. The film starts with Ray, born Ramona, 16 year old transgender teen discussing the process of converting with a doctor alongwith her single mom Maggie, and her lesbian grandmother and her partner. They all live together and are excited for the change. Though the grandmother is skeptical of this process, Maggie is convinced for her Ray. But is she really? When time comes to sign the paperwork, Maggie now ne...

This film was a little unreal in my opinion. The context and the chemistry and everything seemed a little too convenient. I mean, i agree, that most times, stories are not meant to be real, but I feel there should be a believable path or execution to bring things together. Why would an 18 year old fall for a hustler is beyond my imagination. The film is not even that old. It came out in 2004. Its hard to go back and judge in the past but I doubt , even then I would have thought any better of it. Cliff, lives a sheltered life with his very open-minded mother and 10-year old sister Cookie. Just when his boring 18th birthday celebration is bringing him down, his sister surprises him with Vodka and a joint and asks him to go to town and lose his virginity. Cliff finds himself among hustlers and takes liking for a guy named Butcher. Their attraction is mutual and he has a fun night but doesn’t have sex. That’s cos Butch sees sex only as something to do for money and not for emotional i...

I was very confused after watching this film. Confused because I wasn’t sure if I should like and appreciate the film or whether I should disregard the whole message. As a gay man, who struggled to come out and be comfortable with who I am, this film takes a major step back for LGBT community. Based on a real and true story, the film treats gender and sexuality in a way that many people like may not appreciate but the cause, but I am still going to try to be objective about the whole thing. Michael and Ben are a happening ‘A-List’ gay couple with a very happy life in California. Ben is an architect while Michael works at XY magazine, arguing "being attracted to the same sex doesn't define who you are." They move to Canada for better life and there they meet Charlie who very soon becomes a part of their life as the trio. They travel cross country in US making a documentary about gay youth in areas far from liberal coastal hubs.  In one such interviews a gay student conf...