Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

Parabéns! (Portugal) Chico wakes up on his 30th birthday to the sound of his girlfriend singing "Happy Birthday" to him on his answering machine. When sexy boy Joao wakes up in bed next to him, he realizes that this is not his typical birthday. Amen (India) - 24 min Andy and Harry meet through internet. Andy is about to get engaged, wanting to have a fling on his last bachelor day meets Harry. The fling leads to talking and Harry trying to make Andy feel comfortable in his gay skin. “Amen” makes two characters meet, experience hope amidst confusion, explore truths about sexuality and the self and delves into the profound meaning of life in the continuum of its trifles. Good acting and story. Office (Pakistan) - 15 min It traces the life of a prostitute in Karachi on her typical work day, the men she meets and the different roles she plays to satisfy her clients. And finally after she returns home to her female lover. The 2 women ultimately find happiness ...

This film is both comedy and also shows dysfunctional characters in Icelandic areas. This is an identical plot to the German movie Guys and Balls but where the Guys and Balls was funny and very interesting, the same cannot be said about this film. Eleven Men Out is a very depressing, serious, and awkward movie where the acting is barely passable. And I did not like that the main character's son gets caught in the middle of his father coming out and his mother being a slut and a drunk. Ottar, a famous local football player playing for the first and most popular team in Iceland announces in the beginning of the movie that he is gay just to get a story and a picture in the local magazine. Life is not the same then. He is forced to quit the team. Being a rebel, he joins a local third rate local gay team to show everyone that he can still be gay but a great footballer. The rest of the movie is the tribulations of him adjusting to his new life and team. His father is a psychiatrist and a...

This DVD was a collection of 25 short gay stories. I think this collection was targeted for Spanish audiences because films were either in SPanish or English or some other language with subtitles in Spanish. I am gonna mention the names of the shorts that I could see not the ones which were completely in Spanish (which were only 13 in number)  $ 30: A father forces his son to go to a prostitute to become a man. He is gay and ends up befriending the girl.  America The Beautiful: A few seconds film that just shows 2 men kissing.  Birthday Time : A young boy is about to turn 18 and wants to be kissed before that by a man. He forces his neighbour who is taking care of him for the weekend.  Doorman: A young renter seduces the doorman for sex when he moves in and then makes him fall in love with him and dumps him.  El Primo: A boy visits his Latino cousin who takes him to a club and then they both decide to go to a prostitue. Thats when the man realizes he is gay....

Its been a long time since I saw a gay film. I just finished watching this one and let me tell you that it was a major disappointment. The story line was interesting but there was a lot of shouting and screaming for no reason. Plus the film never leaves the huge house in Malibu which restricts the viewers. Den and Collin are a couple. Den is a closet TV star and Collin is much much younger to him. Collin who used to be a dancer met with an accident and is now on wheelchair. Enter David, a swaggering 16-year-old homophobe who unexpectedly arrives at their doorstep. His arival sets in new hardships for the couple wherin Den has to suddenly realize and act being a dad and deal with David's instant hatred for Collin because he thinks he is too young. Together the 3 of them have to figure out a way to accept each other's presence and live like a family. The film also has characters in David's grandmother and the couple's fag hag. The biggest problem with the film is that i...

How many times have you heard of movies that deal with 'hermaphrodite'. In fact, how many times have we even heard of this except maybe on occasional book called 'Middlesex' (which I must say here was remarkably awesome). This film beautifully does that and apparently a film like this coming from a first time director from Argentina holds a special mention for the theme of the film. Adolescence is always a roller coaster ride. Add the premise of being a 15 year old Hermaphrodite,and things can get even scarier. Alex is a 15 year old troubled teenager girl. She is hermaphrodite. They live in a village by the sea when her father decided to move there because of her condition. Now that she is a teengae, her father wants to give her a choice to undergo surgery to become a boy or girl but Alex wants to remain the way she is and even stops taking the hormones that her mother gives her. Alex's mother pressures her to decide about surgery by invite her friends from Buenos A...

Another one in the category of 'I have seen this before but have to watch it again so that I can review it on my blog'. I saw this film about 5 years ago and vaguely remembered liking it. I still loved the movie but having seen a lot more gay films, the perception changes. Had I reviewed this movie 5 years ago, I would have rated it very high but now my expectations are very high , so maybe not that high but this movie was still pretty good. Tobi and Achim, 2 teenage boys, the pride of the local rowing club, have been the best of friends for years and are convinced that nothing will ever stand in the way of their friendship. They look forward to the upcoming summer camp to win a big tournament in the countryside of Germany. As Achim's relationship with his girlfriend Sandra, who's also on the team, grows more and more serious, Tobi starts to realize that his feelings for Achim run much deeper than he's willing to admit to himself. He feels confused, unsure of himse...

This film can be described as 5 short films intertwined with each other in some way. Its about 5 lesbian/gay characters who share the same birthday. The film delves into darkest issues that each character struggles with.  Kelly has recently broken up with her girlfriend when her first crush, Martha, a college friend she hasn't heard from in years, calls to invite her to dinner. Ron confidently runs a ministry for "ex-gays" at his church, until a church member calls his bluff. Javed, a Pakistani immigrant rejected by both his family and his Muslim culture, awaits the decision on his asylum application, while his porn star boyfriend earns money to support them. Tracy, a Chinese-American woman who is not out to her family, tries to find common ground with her traditional mother visiting from Taiwan who ultimately discovers her daughter's sexuality. Jim, an obese man too ashamed of his body to dance in a club, is named telemarketer of the year at "Fat No More." ...

I was shocked when the moie ended declaring that this was a true story. I had such a hard time believing it was true because some of the cons seens in this movie are truly worth applauding. Things that a man can do and extents he can goto to prove his love for someone are shown very very well in this film. And when you have actors like Jim Carrey and Ewan McGreor, the premise becomes even more interesting.  Steven Russell is happily married to Debbie, and a member of the local police force when a car accident provokes a dramatic reassessment of his life. Steven becomes open about his homosexuality and decides to live life to the fullest - even if it means breaking the law. Steven's new, extravagant lifestyle involves cons and fraud and, eventually, a stay in the State Penitentiary where he meets sensitive, soft-spoken Phillip Morris. This is where the love starts. His love for Phillip seems irrational and all-encompassing and when he is released he uses his powers of conman ship to...

Pedro Almodóvar movies are always to watch out for. The way he blends two different storylines with the same actors, is worth watching. Though this film of his is a little different from others. The theme (child abuse) is darker. It is going to be had to review the film because there are so many twists and turns and it is a great work of art. Enrique is a Spanish filmmaker who is having trouble settling on a new project when he's approached by Ignacio Rodriguez, who was his close friend when they were schoolboys. Enrique, who fell in love for the first time with Rodriguez, barely recognizes the man as his former crush, but agrees to read the short story he's written. The tale turns out to be an semi-autobiographical account of their days in a Catholic boarding school, in which a cross-dressing night-club performer named Zahara (also played by Ignacio) hooks up with a man named Enrique, who turns out to have been his first lover when he was a student. Recalling their school day...

This is a film about "living with Aids," how it can in some ways "robotize" one's behavior, cut one off and harden one in his interactions with others. How stupid and delusional is the one who gets infected, on purpose, because it's the more "natural" way to make love. It shows the problems that a HIV+ individual has in balancing his desire for freedom with his responsibilities and his long term relationship. Claudio, a successful banker is HIV positive for a while and lives with his partner Dario while also being a caregiver for his sister and mother. Because of his condition he cannot enjoy passionate intimacy and this is building up tension within his psyche. Claudio has had a fling with a guy named Andrea. While Dario and Claudio are planning to move to Milan for good, Claudio meets Andrea again in the restaurant that he works and instant sparks fly again. When they go back home for sex, Andrea clearly says that he wants all natural and no cond...

This was such a immature film. Everyone involved was trying too hard but just the whole premise, the acting and the direction was very very amateurish. And don't even get me started on the parents of the teenagers. They were so ridiculously horrible that I wonder what prompted the director to have any of those parents to be in the film. Nat and Tat are 2 high school friends. Nat is flamboyant and out to the world and the constant target of bullies because of it, with an unrequited crush on Tat. Tat is the nerdy studious one, on the college team. He is in closet but his parents hate that he hangs out with Tat rather than having some real friends. Tat's attention is drawn by Ek, the hunky college basketball star who has a girlfriend, but who shows up at an off-campus gay student meeting and - when he sees the others from his class - quickly claims that he went to the meeting "by mistake". But its apparent that Ek has interest in boys too. He manages to get Tat to tutor...

Yes, the primary focus of this film is love between 2 teenage boys but this film is actually much beyond that. It talks and also shows love between everyone and every relationship like grandmother and grandson, wife and husband, brother and sister, pure friendship; everything. Another aspect that the film had so natural and pure acting by pretty much everyone made this 3 hour long film watchable. It was long but you would be so immersed in the purity of love between everyone that you really dont mind the length of the film. Mew is a young boy who lives with his grandmother. Next door to them lives a very happy family. Tang and Tong are brother and sister who live with their very happy parents. Mew and Tong becomes good friends. Once when the family goes on a vacation, Tong brings back gift for Mew (a wooden doll) which is missing a nose. Tang expresses a desire to stay back with friends for few days and never returns. Saddened by sudden and so unexpected loss of their daughter, the fa...

Almost 3 hours long, Born in 68 is three films in one. This is a very long film, punctuated with some wonderful performances between seemingly eternal interludes. Each act or film is marked by bookends, very similar scenes, which mark the end or beginning of the next act. This was a difficult film to follow. Time did not move in a linear fashion. At one part of the film, a day lasted 10 or 15 minutes, and then time advanced with no warning several years in a minute or two. It was very difficult to figure out how much time had passed. It was also very difficult to keep track of the characters. Catherine, Yves and Herve are three students at the Sorbonne who participate in the events of '68. They are 20 years old and a loose erotic trio. Catherine gets pregnant and aborts putting her life to serious risk;in the meantime, the boys are involved in the Parisian riots. Somehow things get to a halt, and, with a group of revolutionary friends they go to Lot, to an abandoned farm, to form a...

You might need to know a bot of Chinese history around revolution to better appreciate this movie but nevertheless it makes for an interesting viewing. This is an artsy film about a French diplomat falling in love for a Chinese Opera singer. As he pursues his love for the diva he's attracted to, she toys with his foreign ignorance of the cultural differences between their Western & Eastern societies.  A French diplomat named Rene Gallimard is living and working in the China at the time of the Vietnam war. He goes to see the famous Chinese opera Madam Butterfly and instantly falls in love with the woman playing the lead roll. They start an Affair but the woman Song Liling is so modest that she won't let Rene see her naked. The affair is short lived. When the Communist Cultural Revolution separates the would-be lovers, the actress Song is sent off to prison and the diplomat is recalled to France where his wife divorces him. Several years later Song shows up again and tricks h...

This film is a mish mash of reality and illusion. There’s a lot going on beneath Soundless Wind Chime’s stylish, deliberately arty surface. Unfortunately, it’s the filmmaker who’ll probably get the most out of Soundless Wind Chime, and not his audience due to the fact that his intentions are too unfocused, and aren’t bridged to the audience effectively. The main aspect that might draw you away is an attempt to blur the boundaries of reality, memories and imagination. Ricky works at a local restaurant and delivers food. One day he meets a swiss guy Pascal who was being abused by his gay partner. Pascal is now on street with no money left. Ricky brings him home with him. Things are fine and they move out and start living together. The speed with which their relationship was going strong, it comes down with the same speed. The film clearly does not show the reasons for why this happens but there is clearly a rift. One day Pascal does in an accident. Ricky leaves Hong Kong for Switzerland ...