Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

I had no idea what to expect from the film, but sometimes right frame of mind can make all the difference. The film is a slow, almost meditative narrative that follows the brief but intense relationship between two men in early 1900s. It's a really good story , but an extremely slow pace that dazzles you with visual beauty and striking performances. It's an ode, a love letter to music from those times but more importantly about love that was not meant to be. And with actors like Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor, you know that you are going to get great performances. Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal) has always had a special relationship with music since he was a child, able to feel it, see it, and manipulate it. It was this gift that took him in 1917 from the rural farm in Kentucky where he grew up to the Boston Conservatory to study music. It is here that he came across fellow student and composer, David White (Josh O’Connor). They had an instant bond and also weekly sexual tryst...

I had recently reviewed another one of rugby player Gareth Thomas' documentary. This one, I guess came in sometime after that. In this emotional and hard-hitting documentary he finally goes public about his condition and reveals how hiding the truth about his health left him feeling depressed and contemplating taking his own life. With the help of family, friends, medical experts and others with HIV, he sets about tackling the stigmas, myths and misunderstandings surrounding the condition. The documentary starts by Gareth making the news of him being HIV positive in a video to publicly announce it. Not sure if awareness was the motivation, but the idea for him is to change perceptions about HIV by raising awareness & fighting prejudice. He re-educates himself and the audience through interviews with doctors and other health workers that these days HIV is nothing to be afraid of and people can live almost as normal a life as anyone else. In fact, if he continues to take his medi...

A comedy about a gay British-Pakistani man navigating commitment issues in a world that frequently lapses into the cartoonish colors of his imagination is back with the second season. Focusing yet again on its lead Mawaan Rizwan, as the fun-loving commitment-phobe Jamma, he channels the archetypal man-child vlogger from his real life personality. Puppyish and relatable, he wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and his attempts to conform to the expectations of adulthood. Total slapstick! Continuing from season 1, having been fed from his job and breaking up with therapist boyfriend Guy, Jamma is living with friend Winnie and working as a clown in a care home, who is also best friends with his brother Isaac, a budding artist. Jamma is more interested in sleeping around than patching things up with lovelorn Guy. But after their paths cross again, he becomes determined to win him back. In the second episode, which focuses on Guy's new home and Jamma needing to care of it, it is done a...

If you are a queer film lover, you have been likely hearing about this film for a while now, and I was also anxiously waiting to watch it. Having read some glorious reviews about this film, having seen the trailer, about this BDSM "Dom-com" gay romance, I was naturally quite excited abut it. However, I have to admit that overall I was a bit underwhelmed. I know critics all over are going ga ga over the film and to be fair, technically the film is brilliant. But for me, if I have no intention of rewatching this film ever, then was it really that good? More on that later. The one thing you have to keep in mind while watching this film is that you have to resist the urge to categorize desire as either healthy or harmful. The film is not interested in preaching, diagnosing, or condemning. Instead, it simply watches two people find something they didn’t know how to ask for, and asks us to do the same. Young man Colin works as a traffic enforcement officer. He is fragile, quiet, or...

Now that I know who Mawaan Rizwan is and how popular he is, I found out about this documentary that he did years back and something that I have been somehow delaying watching. The man is popular, openly gay man of Pakistan origin in London and he starts this documentary telling us about coming out as gay to his family last year: it was “the worst news ever for Pakistani parents”. Now he wants o go on a journey to Pakistan to seek an answer to the question: What would his life be like if he’d stayed in Pakistan as a kid? He decides to take on a journey  exploring how LGBT+ folk are perceived and the danger they face for being open about who they are in Pakistan. Starting in Karachi, the central subject he picked was the transgender world of Kami, and her partner Sid: they were the nightclub party-givers in Karachi for the LGBTQ community, though their home world looked far from affluent. Their dream was to be married in South Africa by an Imam who apparently endorses homosexual marr...

I was wondering what happened to Alan Carr's series follow up season. I didn't realize that I was late to the party. Having just finished the Celebrity Traitors UK version, it reminded me ho wI enjoyed this series. Thankfully getting ny hands on season 3 turned out to be easy. I just did not know it was already out. Season 3 returns to Northampton in 1989 and to a 13-year-old Alan Carr navigating the awkward currents of adolescence. The series draws directly from the comedian’s youth while keeping its themes instantly readable. This season centers on Alan’s emerging sexuality and an intense crush on Jake, a handsome classmate. This season we witness Alan having a crush on his classmate Jake. When he sees him working in a local store and then later at swimming pool. Unlike other boys, Jake is not dismissive of Aland and is friendly and of course Alan sees this as a sign of friendship. While the underlying theme is that of Alan finally growing into a teenager, every episode conti...

Ex-Wales rugby star Gareth Thomas came out as gay in 2009 after hiding his sexuality for years. He admitted it almost drove him to suicide after his wife Jemma left him when he told her the truth. Thomas said unless homophobia in football was "policed as stringently as racism is policed, then it will always be a problem". The former Cardiff Blues player looked at the issue in a documentary for BBC Wales. When Thomas was assaulted because of his sexuality, he has been seeking to include homophobic abuse in the 1991 Football Offences Act so it is dealt with in the same way as racism on the pitch. While he had already been lobbying for the change for years, he said the assault made him realise quite how harmful hate speech can be and it further spurred him on. The documentary starts with him trying to get an idea of history of using gay abuses and hurls towards both players and fans and how it was always considered ok and non-offensive. But times have changed. He goes into locke...

The summary of the film says "A stone-broke gay actor and a privileged fuck up with a failing business cross paths on a winter night and join forces in a quest around London to find a meaning to their miserable lives, but when their unlikely connection turns into something deeper, fears and demons from their past come to jeopardize the whole mission." I thought this sounds interesting and should be a good watch, but oh man! was I disappointed! The execution of the film is so bland and uninteresting, it just feels like it's going nowhere.  Brash and cocky, Oliver enters an empty bar asking if someone could buy him a pint? Sitting at the bar nursing his beer is Lukas, who wants none of the entitled fratboy energy this loser is giving off. What Oliver doesn't know is that before he ended up drinking alone on Christmas, Lukas came dreadfully close to jumping off a bridge (which we find out much later). The two men happen to meet again in a bus a short while later. Oliver ...

I was really hoping that this film will be good. But as its title suggests, it was so vanilla and I wasn't sure what was it even trying to say. The synopsis says that it is a poignant exploration of gay relationships and infidelity between an interracial gay couple. To an extent yes it is, but the film never gos into the extent of details and everything is touched upon just superficially. I didn't connect with it at all. Bastien and Matt have ben together for a while, but they have hot a rough patch, since Bastien slept with a woman 8 months back. They are both now visiting Barcelona hoping to mend this rocky relationship. The communication between them seems strained. As Matt grapples with the lingering hurt and its impact on their intimacy, enter British guy Florent, who catches Bastien’s eye and offers top show them around the city. It is obvious that he finds Bastien extremely attractive and given his infidelity before, this just makes Matt more and more angrier. Of course ...

Continuing with the trend of feel good vertical shows, here comes one more. I am enjoying these, since you dont have to use too much of your brain. They are simple stories involving love, misunderstanding, a mandatory third guy who could be the negative lead, a chance hook up and a very happy ending. And most importantly, almost all of these shows (or the ones I have seen so far) have some really hot and good looking leads, which makes the viewing even more pleasurable. But of you take these seriously, this wil just be comical nonsense. Rookie agent Ryan is assigned to investigate powerful CEO Vincent. A chance kissing dare brings Ryan and Vincent together. To avoid a public scandal, Vincent proposes a fake marriage to Ryan to save his company, which Ryan agrees hoping that this way he can investigate Vincent. To stay on the case, he goes undercover as an intern at Vincent's company-only to find that another new guy Thomas is mistaken as the CEO's lover. He actually likes this ...

Yes, one more of those macro vertical dramas stitched into movie versions, the English BL format. I think I should take a break from here because things are starting to mix up now. Having said that hat, these are good fun for guilty pleasure viewing, easily done on phone, so I shouldn't really be complaining. After you have seen a few of these, you really know what to expect. Brian has had a crush on Terry an upcoming football star from his teen days. Now adult, Terry is a very famous football star and Brian is his manager, very good at his job. Terry knows that Brian has had a crush on "someone" for 7 years and that he is gay, but Terry never guesses that it could be him. HE is also extremely flirty with Brian on many occasions and doesn't like when someone doesn't treat Brian right. But Brian has had enough and one day he resigns, forcing Terry to think of his actions. Soon Terry's game starts to suffer. The agency rehires Brian again, but. This time to mana...

This mockumentary series, is not gay series. The two lead actors play almost all roles, including female and gay characters and the sensibilities of the humor is something that might align better with gay audience and hence the review here. The idea of the series is to poke fun at flying at the friendly skies. The duo portray nearly 50 different characters who work at or pass through the fictional airport's imaginary terminal, from pilots, stewardesses and baggage handlers to coffee-kiosk workers and assorted traveling couples. Also it is important to remember that this series came back in 2010. The show has 6 episodes of about 30 minutes each. The series satirizes people who have the time and money to use airports regularly - people with respectable dayjobs, authority and status; people with a shot at a managerial role. It features a wide array of characters such as owner of low-cost airline FlyLo Omar Baba, work-shy coffee kiosk worker Precious Little, highly camp passenger liais...

One more DramaBox series stitched together like a film for audiences like me, making it easier to watch it all at Ince on iPhone. I am not sire how many gay web series like these have been released by DramaBox so far, but I think this is the fourth one that I am seeing. The show was cheesy, a bit unbelievable, but somehow still quite engaging, thanks to the short format and two handsome leads. At their grandmother's insistence, Andrew and Frank marry each other but never see each other's faces. The show starts with Andrew leaving for 1 year business overseas and handing his husband his credit card with a promise to come back and get divorced. One year later, Frank is interviewing for Personal assistant to his new boss William. William gets totally smitten by Frank's hot face and body and hires him and tries to seduce him. But Frank resists temptation for two reasons: One, in his previous job he was seduced by his boss who ended up putting blame on Frank since he was married...

Continuing with watching DramaBox series, this is another series of multiple short episodes stitched together as a movie in vertical format so it is easily watchable on phone. As I might have mentioned before, these shows are total guilt pleasures and they beautiful fit within a 90 minute range (plus or minus) making it an easy watch. The shows starts with one mafia taking over another's business and agrees to let him love, as long as his son Pietro can get married to his daughter Alice. 15 years later, Alice's brother Augusto can't stand that Alice will marry to mob son Pietro. He finds. Loophole in the contract and instead says that he will marry Pietro. What Augusto doesn't know is that since they were kids, Pietro has always like Augusto and he changed the contract to have that loophole. So Pietro very much loves Augusto but he doesn't believe it. Also with this marriage, the entire mafia community goes against this bog mafia family because they don't accept...

Terry and Julian is a British sitcom that aired on Channel 4 in 1992. The show had only one season with 6 episodes of about 22-25 minutes each. Unusually for a sitcom, Terry and Julian breaks the "fourth wall" by recognizing the studio audience and viewers, and employs use of audience participation. I was quite surprised to see how they used this method back in the day by inviting at least one audience member, making them part of the skit midway and sending them back with flowers. Flamboyant Channel 4 television celebrity Julian moves into a flat with geeky well-meaning Terry, completely transforming his life and home and repeatedly upsetting Terry’s pint-sized moustached policewoman fiancee, Rene. Julian transforms Terry’s ugly flat into a Barbara Cartland-ish nightmare and takes over Terry’s life to the point of marrying him. The script consist of a lot of double meaning dialogues that are quite witty. Episode one is when Julian moves in and completely redo carets the flat....

This film is an ambitious costume drama with a very interesting storyline at its hand. Sadly, the low budget is very evident and for some reason, it takes away the fun because of it. I can totally see stuff like this happening in olden times when, just a. Whiff of homosexuality could land you in all kinds of troubles. Once you look past the budget, this film is actually not at all bad. Penelope is learning piano and has a crush of sorts on her teacher, but she doesn't control her destiny. She is married off, by her parents, to a shy and introverted Jonathan. They move into his family’s empty estate where not a great deal happens because of Jonathan’s hatred of social occasions and he generally prefers quiet life. The duo haven't even consummated their marriage and day by day Penelope's frustration grows. To her shock, one day when Penelope discovers that her new husband is having an affair with George the Butler, she finally understands Jonathan’s reclusive personality. Geo...

For a change, the lead trans character in this sitcom, is a self-centered, easily bored agent of chaos; unlike what we usually see as a serious subject. Inherently lazy and a person who doesn't hesitate to use friends and is constantly lying, this was indeed a different cast of trans character that I have seen in recent times. The sitcom is an easy watch with only 6 episodes each of about 22-23 minutes. This workplace comedy set in a supermarket packs its pacy storylines with plenty of gags, and from all sorts of angles and slapstick humor. Supermarket manager Simon is trying to have the most inclusive workplace having launched an accidentally transphobic advertising campaign. A female dwarf, Millie, and a tall, black woman, Beefy don’t cut the mustard, so he thinks the answer is to look up “transgenders in the area”. He remembers that his employee Tim has a trans roommate Olivia, who is inherently lazy. Tom emotionally blackmails her to join the job. Simon assures her “We want you...

Trust BBC to always come up with show that constantly redefine content but also find stories (this one is inspired by a true story), that give a great representation of the LGBTQ+ community. I have seen many stories about trans people, but I am not aware of a major production house creating a series of this magnitude, reminding people that trans lives have always existed, and will continue to exist long after this moment. Apparently the series brings in Paris Lees’ acclaimed memoir to the screen (in all honesty, I have no clue who Paris Lee is, but the fact that it is still an inspiration from someone's actual life, makes it so much more interesting). The series offers a fearless and deeply human portrait of a trans, working-class person rarely seen on British television. It is 8 episodes each of 50-55 minutes. The story follows 15 year old Byron, caught between the homes of his mum, dad and gran, finding ‘freedom’ in Nottingham’s underground club scene. Show starts with us meeting...

Set in 2006 in West Yorkshire, this is your simple boy-meets-boy teenage gay love story touching on nostalgia, teenage angst and indie pop with a gentle hand. We have seen many films in the same genre, so I was hoping for something different, but sadly the film follows a very predictable narrative approach. It's not bad at all, but how I wish there was something more. The film works only thanks to the charm of its two leading actors.  George is 16 year old teenager, navigating the difficult road of social and academic failure in a small town. George, who’s certain of his own talent even though no one else seems to share that belief, dreams of becoming a famous musician. He is not good at studies ether and his father and school teachers are very worried about his future. Enter Max, a handsome student, the son of a mega-famous musical duo, who much to surprise of George, takes interest in George and his music. Their budding friendship both excites and confuses George, leading him to ...

Trust BBC and UK to come up with these heartwarming stories that touch you to the core in the gay genre. This loving and heartbreaking three part (one hour each) series about a gay couple trying to adopt a kid feels like an emotional rollercoaster. One minute you are laughing, the other minute you are enjoying the music and suddenly then you find yourself looking for tissues to wipe your tears. It’s a story about when people collide with each other and try to build a family out of all of their various parts. A beautiful and honest portrayal of queer adoption that takes viewers through the highs and lows of the process.  We meet a Welsh gay couple Andy and Gabe, who have been together for 8 years, meeting a social worker Jackie to start the adoption process. Andy appears easy-going and comfortable whilst Gabe is defensive, with an assurance that suppresses a very dark backstory. Jackie becomes there guid min the whole process. Beyond facing personal doubts and disagreements on what ...