Skip to main content

Grief

This is a low budget, low production story of the employees in an LA office  where the daytime TV show "The Love Judge" is written and produced. This film tries to chronicle lusts and love of men and women working here, their fears, aspirations, relationships, drama. It's a slice of life story trying to be realistic.

Loud mouthed producer Jo of the station has just announced that she will be quitting the show in two weeks. The race for new role is between Mark and Paul, two best friends. Mark is just coming to one year anniversary of his boyfriend's death from AIDS. He has been sulky and moody ever since, but his best friendJeremy, who is a writer on the show tries to keep his spirits up. We also meet Bill, the straight guy who has just broken up with his girlfriend and who also flirts with both Mark and Jeremy. Mark tells Jeremy that he thinks Bill is interest din him, unaware of the fact that Bill and Jeremy have been secretly having an affair and sleeping together fo ra few weeks now. In between this, Bill has also kissed Mark. When the secret is revealed, a momentary rift occurs between the friends but eventually they all stand for each other. How these relationships that combine work and friendship play out is the movie's subject.

The movie is quite simple actually. You can say not much is happening but a whole lot is going on. Primarily we get to see lot of insecurities that everyone is dealing through in their life. Be it love or career or aspirations, at some point we will all be able to relate to one or the other character. These kind of topics usually work better in a comic setting, but this was drama (trying to be a comedy). With a decent story in hand and a good chemistry between the primary cast, this could have been a good film, but clearly something big is missing here. There is no logical conclusion to Bill's two timing his gay friends or his sexuality. It feels campy and amateurish, which trust me, its not! The film is filled with scenes from some of the TV shows that they are producing that try to bring laughter to the audience but in my opinion, all of that falls flat. It is strictly an alright film where is just adds to the list of many queer films out there. It may have been something when it came out, but almost 30 years later, not so much. (3.5/10)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Shortest Distance is Round 3: Fallen Flowers

Continuing with the weird trilogy of "The Shortest Distance", I am so glad that finally I am done with part 3 and won't have to deal with this again in future. Thankfully, as of now the makers have not announced any further parts; which will save all of us on this earth from the embarrassment of watching this in near future. After the first 10 minutes are used in sort of recapping bits of first two parts, the story moves forward. Haruto is now starting to have feelings for Ruka, the mysterious pole dancer from second part. In a fit of rage, Ruka ends up killing the goat man and to save him and Haruto, Shibahara asks them to go underground. Meanwhile Shibahara continues the search for Seiya (the guy who had cut off Haruto's penis). It turns out Seiya is now also taking care of the original club owner from part 1. Both of them were released after they had informed Shibahara of Aoyama's secret location. Shibahara tortures Seiya's boyfriend leading to Seiya killin...

Sei no Gekiyaku (Japanese) [Dangerous Drugs of Sex]

Every person has their own unique way of dealing with loss. This film is as much a psychological thriller as it is a soft porn BDSM portrayal of two young men that makes the film overall horrifying as well as humane. It is really hard to describe the genre of this film in one word. Its important not that the film has some really disturbing scenes so if you go into seeing this film, please proceed with caution. Although any sexual non-consensual activity is not ok, this film has its won strange way of showing that suicide is not the only solution to all life's problems. Makoto is a regular office goer, who just finds out that his girlfriend is probably cheating on him. ON top of it, his parents sudden death coming back from a trip that he forced them to take, he gets completely dejected and decides to commit suicide. Unknown to him, he is saved by mysterious man Yoda Ryoji, and he wakes up finding himself tied up in leather and belts in a very BDSM setting. This mysterious saver soo...

One Summer Night (Korean)

I really wanted to like this film but for non native speakers, these movie leaves a lot to be understood and the way scenes were unfolding in front of me, I wasn't sure many times what was really going on. The story had potential button getting any back story on any of the characters limited my ability to empathize with any of these actors. Film starts with two North Korea military guys Yong Joon and Jae Sung having sex and they are caught red handed and they run. Three years later we see Yong Joon in Seoul leading a very mundane and poor life. He has a boyfriend Tae-Kyu, who is a weird guy. He is carefree, doesn't do any work and is completely emotional and financially dependent on Young Joon. In fact, even Yong Joon will go to any lengths to protect him , fend for him and taking care of him to the extent of even taking up prostitution. Suddenly one day Jae Sung appears in their life again. His motivation is not clear but it is obvious he wants Yong Joon back in his life, who ...