Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

You will never be able to forget the opening of the film. An explicit sex scene is a dungeon of the club is not something many movies start with, but I think this film wanted to make a statement and it sure did. Thankfully the 15ish minute scene, although very graphic (with actual penetration scenes), is never meant to arouse the audience, rather wen the film progresses, you realize why the whole build up. More on that later. Starting in a sex club in Paris, curly haired Theo has his eyes set on Hugo, who is engaged in a passionate sex act with a random boy. You can tell that Theo is so mesmerised with him that he wants him at all cost and eventually he manoeuvres his way through to him in that orgy of the sex club. The two have crazy instant chemistry, physically and passionately (and the scene that depicts this is absolutely fantastic). They both leave club and still can’t get enough of each other. Remembering their passionate sexual act, they soon realise that they had unprotec...

This film clearly falls in the low budget, not much thought to the story, just make a gay-film for the heck of it kinda category; which I have reviewed many a times on my blog before. Thankfully it is not that terrible, well, maybe barring a few actors but at least the movie moves along a decent pace and finishes before you realise that you are starting to get bored. The film follows three parallel tracks set between Christmas day and New Years. We have a married couple Cal & Laslo. They live happily for many years and cannot fathom the fact that all their friends are going the family way adopting kids. Imagine their surprise when Cal’s nephew shows up unannounced at their doorstep after he gets kicked out from his home by his mother for being gay. Even though unprepared, they very sportingly take on their new responsibility of caregivers and family to their nephew. Second story is about room mates Julian and Dylan. Since Julian travels a lot for work, Dylan has been secretly ...

I struggled a bit with the film for two reasons: One, whether this film truly belongs the LGBT genre and second, related to the first is what is the point and message that is being tried to made. I am not by any means saying that its  abad or a confused film. I feel, for viewer like me who wants (or rather prefers) a clear distinction between queer cinema and otherwise gets confused when served with something like this. This film may be promoted as a film about a Korean teenager discovering his sexuality but it is actually a broader story of being a first-generation Korean- American, sense of tradition and responsibility for the family and everything that come with it. We meet a Korean family based in LA. David, a young 18-ish boy uses most of his time helping out his mom and dad running their restaurant. The parents have dreams of him studying hard and making something more successful out of himself but clearly David is not very good at studies. The times are tough and the fa...

At the outset, the film may seem like another coming-of-age story but the treatment of the film is quite different. Bit of style and a bit of fantasy intermixed with the normal storytelling methods makes this film an exciting watch. The way the treatment of the film was done, reminded me constantly of Xavier Dolan’s film. The film may not be everyone’s cup of tea but you will surely be impressed by the novelty of the treatment of the subject. Oscar is really young when his mother decides to leave them & the parents separate. We find out later  the reasons but we see that the once loving father slowly becomes aloof an distant. He is probably gay even as a kid and he witnesses a hate crime happen to one of his schoolmates. On asking his father why did that happen, his father mentions that probably because the guy was gay and this makes Oscar further hides his sexuality. He starts dealing with internalised homophobia, specially also given the fact of what his father has alway...

I had heard about Falcon studios but never knew the history of it. Most of us probably have seen porn, especially gay porn and quite enjoy it as well but I, for once, never thought of the history behind, how this industry came about. Who started, why, under what circumstances and all that jazz. This documentary primarily focuses on Chuck Holmes, fonder of Falcom Productions, a pioneer of gay porn industry. It provides a decent insight into how . when and why did this all start and end. Told through various interviews of his friends, colleagues and actors, we learn that in 1971, Chuck Holmes moved to San Francisco to sell real estate. That was the time when the sexual revolution was in full swing and the city was known as the 'Smut Capital of the United States.' Soon his real estate business turned into VHS producing films with mailing list of interested customers, who would pay him all cash money to get their hands of the porn films that he would produce, maybe only twice ...

Hazel (Switzerland) An obsessive mother, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, attempts everything to scare the gay away from her precious child.. A father, carefully blotted out from all the family photos and a dreadful child psychiatrist with unconventional methods. Its a colourful film with OTT characters. A Gay Hike (US) 2 friends make their third friend, who is in closet, come out to them comfortably in the magic of nature. Short and sweet. Slap (UK) A teenage boxer finds expressing himself with make-up and female clothes more natural to him. But in the society where we have gender-defining conditions and expectations, our protagonist confronts the standards of masculinity in sports with keeping your identity intact. Hora (Israel) This animated short documentary investigates what it means being intimate by holding hands in public in various countries. Golden (Germany) A tale of being different and growing up. It talks about how gay people find their safe space i...

This film features in pretty much everyone’s ‘Must see Gay Films of all times’; so I finally decided to stop procrastinating and give this film a chance. I think I was just worried that because the film was a while ago, I just assumed that I may be disappointed and was just trying to delay that as much as possible. But boy, was I wrong! It may be old, but the situation, scenes, landscape and scenarios are as relevant today as they were yesterday. New York city in 1980, some murder victims are found and it is suspected that it is a work of a serial killer. The targets are all gay men (similar age and looks) hanging around in West Village bars. The head of the detective department picks Al Pacino to go undercover, since he resembles the victims. He gets an apartment there, and moves out of his girlfriends home. Unfortunately the assignment takes a toll on their relationship since he cannot tell her the details. He starts frequenting the S&M bars in the area and MeatPacking distr...

Some movies are just meant to be fun. You must watch them, don’t think about it too much, stay in the moment and just have a good time. Don’t try to find logic behind things that are happening and try to question “How is this possible?”. You will only hurt yourself whereas your friends will be laughing their asses off. This is one such film. Nothing but a comedy farce. It doesn’t promise to change your world, rather it just wants to make you smile with silliness and it works ! David and Khaled are much in love couple who live together. David is Jewish, flamboyant and openly out gay man. Khaled on the other hand is arabic origin and is in closet because of fear of his father who is homophobic & runs a restaurant. David runs an art gallery and Khaled is a quiet gym teacher, who must pass his final exam before becoming certified. David’s possessive controlling Jewish mother always interferes in their life and David can not do anything about it. Enter Sarah, a barely 19 year old g...

I debated for a while whether I should review this on my blog, not really sure why; but finally I decided to do it because it made sense. This series dealt with a lot of things that anyone of us has to bear and go through in life. Yes, the show is more in crime series, but the context and setting is very relevant to my blog, so reviewing it here made perfect sense. The story is primarily about 2 high schools in mid-west America. One school is a private school and the other one is public. Within first episode, the context is established. Taylor, a young high school kid, gets assaulted and later is revealed that he has , in fact, been raped by one of the other school students. Because he was drugged, he cannot remember who it was. His single desperate mother, gives all her energy and focus in getting her son the justice that he deserves. Eventually, the name of the guy is revealed and is Eric, one of the co-captains of the private school basketball team. This is the basic premise of...

Yay!! Season 4 of one of my favourite shows. You have no idea how I have controlled myself not to watch the episodes the day that they were telecast, since I am such a fan. But the fun of binge watching all the six episodes was too much and so I waited till all episodes were aired and first thing I did was watch the whole season All my memories from previous seasons came coming back and I am glad that they did a quick preview of sorts from previous seasons to refresh your memory. That was definitely a good touch. Sadly this season had only 6 episodes. Josh & Arnold are still together but clearly something is missing. They try threesome but the third doesn’t like Josh as much. A small divide occurs between them and on a trip to celebrate Hannah’s birthday Josh decides to breakup with Arnold. Meanwhile Tom and his girlfriend seem to begetting along well with each other and being very very supportive of Josh. The girlfriend clearly enjoys Josh’s company a lot more, since he is fu...

Oh my god!! What a utter piece of garbage this film was. Yes! I said it ! Unbelievable!! How can someone be so self-absorbed that they have no idea of what they are doing, or someone around them to tell the makers that they should not be doing what they are doing. The story is straight forward. A young man travels from Ohio to Seattle for an interview. In the hotel, he meets a male prostitute, a young mysterious man, who talk about stuff, have sex and the guy leave sin the morning. Thats it!! Yes, trust me; Thats it!! This 70 min long film could easily be made into a 4 minute short film. How long can one watch the protagonist looking outside his window, or doing stuff on mobile or laptop, or just waiting for the elevator. The talking portions in the movie were barely 15-20 minutes. The rest is long yawning shots of random things. I feel that the makers in their mind thought that they are making a tribute to ‘Weekend’ or something (at least I get that feeling). The direction was...

I don’t know why but I had many expectations form the film. Something about the poster, the story about an Arab teenage got me all very intrigued but alas as always expectations kill a film. I did not know until very recently that the film was based on the autobiography of the director, which in fact surprises me because then the maker should have taken the best parts of the film. Film primary focuses on Abdellah, a young teenage boy who lives with his parents and 6 siblings in Casablanca. His father and elder brother have their own room whereas his mother, 5 sisters and younger brother all share one rom which gives him the familiar feel of intimacy and closeness. Abdellah is a quiet kid, slightly bullied by everyone and a boy struggling with his sexuality. He looks upto his elder brother Slimane and has a huge crush on him. But since he cannot do anything with him, he finds sexual release with older men in the neighbourhood. Its not very clear if they use him or he uses them. Sli...

A teenage love drama, a story of coming-out and acceptance, a story of bullying etc etc. We have seen them all, heard them all; but the makers keep coming up with more of these films, which I am glad because the situations haven’t changed much in a lot of places and we need to continue to educate people around us regarding these issues. Its important to keep them in focus. Nathan, a 16 year old, lives with his single father Stephan, who is a cop. They have moved to a new neighbourhood and Nathan is adjusting in his new school. Within a few days, a picture of him kissing another boy surfaces on facebook and soon he is an object of everyone’s bullying. The situation is bad that even his father completely stops talking to him. Nathan tries his best to protect the identity of the other boy, who happens to be Louis, another guy in his class. The bullying takes harsh turn and one day he gets beaten really bad, primarily by Louis  This shakes up his father completely and he star...

An interesting film where ex-lovers reunite after 15 years. I think the film is supposed to be a delicate and mature touching love story with heartbreaks and everything intercepted in between to make it watchable and more realistic. Somehow the parts of the film made it a bit hard for me to believe. The simple fact of why would there b still so much passion and love for someone who you spent a summer 15 years ago. Isin’t that a long long time ago? By the way, the title of the film comes from the eye condition that Dean has. Dean, who works as a graphics designer in LA, is a bit bored with his job and how his life is going. An out-of-the-blue email from Alex brings a kind of storm in his life. We find out that Alex and Dean spent a summer together 15 years ago before Alex abruptly disappeared and now wants to reconnect with Dean. After an initial reaction of “Fuck off!”, they start exchanging emails with a bit of flirtations and finally decide to meet each other. Dean Dean invites Al...

We have had very few mystery/thrillers in gay genre. I think if we tried, we would easily be able to count them on fingers. This film although may sounds just a standard, simple police-procedural crime thriller but the director has used a lot of homo-eroticism (not just for the sake of it) and that is what makes this film even more charged and exciting. Also important to note is that the film is set in 1980’s in Argentina. The film starts with the murder of a wealthy gay member in Buenos Aires who also happens to be an art collector. Rookie cop Gomez, ridiculously good looking, is at the scene waiting for the cops to arrive. Detective Chavez, a family man and a tough cop is given the responsibility to close the case soon as possible. The initial suspect is Kevin, victim’s lover who left a message on his answering machine. Chavez asks Gomez to join his team and goes as an undercover into the gay circle to get more information. Gomez befriends Kevin and extracts information from him w...