Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

We all love some well made wedding films. More often than not, most of these films have some sort of drama between the lead pair, differences crop up and lo behold, the film ends with the happily ever after scenario. If done well, this simple storyline can be very entertaining. Sadly I feel that the drama and the way it was handled was very artistic. The talkfest makes the film feel very sluggish and an an audience you pray the film to move forward quick. Daniel and Christopher are about to get married. The day before, Daniel, the older and more controlling of the two, is organizing the rehearsal dinner for family and close friends. Christopher's closest friends have a surprise for him when they track down his best friend Emma from his childhood days and invite her for the wedding. Christopher cant control his excitement but Daniel is little upset that he didn't even know of her existence. Few friends have doubts if the couple will make it because of age difference but the...

We have seen many queer rom-coms , so when I started to watch this film, I was wondering what will be the unique perspective that this film will bring to this genre. The one big difference that I felt that its 2020 and thankfully the film normalized gay/queer relationship as normally as any hetero normative movie would have done.  Besides that, to be honest, the film doesn't have much unique or new to offer but at a crisp length of less than hour and a half, the movie manages to hold your attention. The film is about Sam and his high school bully turned friend Harry and their relationship over the course of a few years. Sam has just broken up with his boyfriend and needs to go home for his friends engagement party. He is forced to take Harry with him, who used to bully him in high school. But in that road trip , he realizes that Harry is actually a very decent guy and is pansexual. There is mutual chemistry but Sam firmly believes that once you friend zone someone in gay relat...

Finally, a hindi film that doesn't stereotype gay men and doesn't make a caricature out of them. A film that deals with homosexuality as much with homophobia keeping it all very commercial and easy to understand. India has produced a few gay themed films but more often than not they have either been preachy and outright bad. This film keeps things in humour and make a novice finally understand that love is love and your sexuality is what you are born with without being preachy about the whole thing. Kartik and Aman Tripathi are a loving couple. Its Aman's cousin's wedding and the 2 men decide to join the celebrations. All hell breaks loose when Aman's father sees the 2 men kissing. Kartik reminds Aman that since his father is a scientist he will understand the relationship but that never happens. Aman's parents and his his extended family are furious. They force him and pressure him to marrying a neighborhood girl, despite knowing very well that Aman may be...

So, this whole series wasn't a gay series but I managed to see only the entire gay storyline of this series which in total was over an hour long. This is apparently one of the first Korean dramas to openly have a gay storyline, although few films that shown this before. I wont be able to comment on the entire storyline but watching just the gay storyline was quite enjoyable by itself. Joo Won-suk and his 3 siblings live together. He is extremely handsome, almost a playboy and runs an elite gay club in the city. One day an average university student Ho-dol comes to the bar and Joo Won-suk asks him to leave because he is very average looking and doesn't belong there. Incidentally Ho-dol gets hired as a private tutor for his youngest brother by his sister who hates good looking men. Ho-dol is a very shy, reserved student who is forced to come out by one of his classmates who likes Joo Won-suk. This shatters Ho-dols life and things take a turn here. Joo Won-suk start scaring f...

Fawns (Greece) A beautiful heartbreaking short that uses the nature & story of deer to explain that when you love someone, sometimes its better to let it go. Imagery here is gay but its true for all love. Present Perfect (Thailand) A heart broken gay boy meets a straight guy on a holiday trip and they both get cozy but soon our man leaves the gay boy giving him hopes for him to find true love. Encuentro (Argentina) Two strangers in a dreamlike space of words, bodies, and ideas as they explore the true nature of difference, acceptance, and free will. El amor mola: Cupido in Love (Spain) Super cute short story that shows anyone can fall in love, even the cupid. De azi inainte (Romania) [From Now On] Stefan’s 18th birthday presents are: a driving lesson, a bottle of vodka and an open-minded discussion about women and possibly his homosexuality, which ends with an unexpected surprise. Touch (Belgium) Lieven is confused: confused about his relationship and about h...

After a great film, back to a trashy campy gay OTT film. This film is so damn silly that I wonder if it found any audience at all. To make things worse, the film is unnecessarily stretched beyond reason. If they focussed on the core story and stuck to a maybe 6-80 minute runtime and toned down the gayness a bit, the story had some potential A group of gay guys form a band called "The Ex Choir Boys". One night one of the band members gets killed and another guy sees a nun around the crime scene. Detective mark is assigned to the case, who is a big time homophobic person. And the sheriff invites a very flamboyant detective Chris to partner with Mark on the case. The duo make a couple of arrests but the killings continue and killer nun is on a spree to kill these boys. Pretty soon, the mystery is revealed where the real identity of who Sister Mary is revealed and the history behind the reason for her/him killing the boys. Yes the film was silly and not that I was expectin...

I had no expectations from this film. In fact I didn't even have an idea of what the film is about and what a pleasant surprise this film turned out to be. Although made in 2018, the film is set around the AIDS epidemic in 1985, which to be honest, is not really told to us clearly until very later in the film. The whole black and white photography and a grainy feel literally transports you into that era. And sometimes less is more and this film is a classic example. The film is never overdramatic, everything is underplayed but you can't help feeling your eyes watering with what's happening on the screen. Adrian comes to his small town in Texas after three years over Christmas holidays from New York. He justifies that with reason citing to a big promotion at his office and him being very busy. You see a bit of friction between Adrian and his father. The mother is cheery as usual and Adrian's little teen brother Andrew is upset because Adrian didn't let him visit...

This film also joins the list of movies that do not really fall in the queer genre per say but the underlying theme of coming of age and same sex attraction and a couple of scenes does qualify for it to be reviewed here. The movie is set in Pampanga in Philippines and in summary follows the life of a lonely teenager Felix, whose boring existence is shaken up when a pair of American-Philipino siblings joining his school. Felix is a young teenager, an over achiever and belongs to a poor family. Because he is super smart, he lives a very lonely friendless existence. When two new high school students, half-American brothers Magnus and Maxim join his school, his life takes a major turn. Since the brothers are not the most intelligent but have money, Magnus hires Felix to teach him for money since they are in same class. Maxim also uses Felix to do his homework. Felix finds himself feeling emotions like none before and finds himself drawn towards both, especially Magnus. We hear the bac...

This was a very unusual queer film. A random mix of religion, questioning sexuality and exorcism. And at many places it was unexpected comical (not in a funny way). 4 bible thumping young people are trying to bring the Lord into the lives of people in the ghetto. The lead is Eli with Jordan and 2 girls. Jordan is totally fixated with Eli and we see how he is constantly aroused by his physical presence as well. One of the girls catches Jordan masturbating watching Eli and this creates weirdness in the group, with everyone calling hime a 'pervert'. But things start getting worse when their home gets attacked by the goons. Now, in addition to a local woman, Jordan slowly starts showing signs of demonic possession. Luckily, Eli is a self proclaimed exorcist and he’s ready to do battle with the sinister entity residing inside his friend… but not even faith can protect him from the true evil found within. I am not sure what I was really expecting from the film. I thought it wo...

I am not very sure what was the whole point of this film. It was all over the place. Although it does reflect various themes like friendship, love, loyalty, sacrificing one's morality for money, Mother/Son relationship etc. Miller is a 20-ish young gay black man whose mother in prison for his father's attempted murder. There are a few scenes between mother-son that don't add much to the story. Miller is looking for a job and is in a weird physical relationship with another young street boy named Jay. Jay occasionally comes over for food and some sex. Miller is hired for some 'construction job' buy local goons. Even though he is warned by Jay to not trust those guys, Miller desperately needs money and hence takes the job but it has repercussions since those goons have more than vested interest in the deal. The film just goes back and forth, with continuous sex between Jay and Miller and then as random the movie started, it comes to a sudden end. This film is a...

This film is not a gay film at all but given that in almost half of the film you see all males, full naked with their penises flopping around, I don't think anyone else besides the gay audience would be even remotely interested in the film. And trust me, their is a penis in pretty much every single frame. Chris along with his 2straight male model friends get invited by a a photographer for a cowboy shoot. But as per their agent Tess, they shouldn't do any nude modeling yet. Same night Chris' sister Callie is in town and the 2 other friends along with photographer's assistant party that night. Callie starts having sex with 3 of them but changes her mind. Eventually the assistant is pushed off the roof. To keep the models out of any controversy, their agent Tess asks them to go for the cowboy photoshoot. Surprisingly, the killings continue and one by one people start to die there as well. First the 2 other male models, then the blonde gay couple, then the photographe...

Roosa Kampsun (Estonia) [Pink Cardigan] Henrik is a successful actor and comedian. In his private life he is lonely and insecure, struggling with adulthood. He is not homophobe but somehow circumstances always portray him to be one. When he joins yoga and makes a gay friend, will he end up losing him? Hurt (Singapore) Explores the theme of rejection, acceptance & hurt with the underlying theme of cheating in a relationship which seems to be the norm in the gay community. I Go To School Not By Bus (Hong Kong) A coming out of age story of 2 secondary school students who study in a Christian school. Ming, is in closet and Hei is openly gay., It is a story of self-discovery, struggle through love, loneliness & religion. Do You, Andy? (Taiwan) Andy is about to propose to his boyfriend but his parents walk into the restaurant, throwing him entirely. The foursome eat together and by the end Andy's parents let him know they accept him and his boyfriend. Life Of S...

What a lame idea for a film! Get high on electricity and use that to your advantage/disadvantage. The makers probably thought that this going to redefine thriller genre but OMG! it was pretty bad. Right from the story and screenplay to the acting, everything was pretty bad with no explanations given on why anything , at all, is happening. Dr. Bill wakes up in the hospital because a lot of electricity passed though him, but he should be ok now barring few nerve damages. Hot intern Murphy who has been taking care of him wants him to join a self-help group to get over the incident. Things are odd at home where his TV doesn't run anymore. His lesbian friends try to help him but no use. Bill eventually shows up to the self help meeting where people share the horrible story of getting electrocuted and how this group eventually 'saved' them. The group joins hand and connects themselves to a generator where electricity passes through them and Billy finds himself naked in bed w...

A so called gay mystery 'whodunnit' thriller, this film is so all over the place. This film was so low budget and amateurish that I wonder if this was some sort of a college project or something. Otherwise I would really fail to understand why someone would back this film. On paper the ides might have been good but execution and screenplay was downright bad. We hear the narration of the film by Marty's voiceover. He is best friends with Jake who looks obviously gay but says he is straight. He is the source of all news of what's happening around. Marty is bisexual and has a boyfriend and a girlfriend. New travel that their friend Thomas has gone into hiding because his boyfriend Eddi has been shot dead and now police suspects Thomas of foul play. With help from Marty, Thomas helps discover the 2 rival street gan leaders (one of them, Angel, who also happen to be Eddi's brother) might be involved. When police arrests Angel, Marty helps them uncover truth. Back ho...

It is very evident that this film was made on a shoe string budget. Also the film is set in the run-down parts of the Rio city which is more poor than seedy, and where old man paying for sex with young hookers is par for the course. To be honest, the direction and the treatment of the film felt a bit amateurish to me. No wonder, later I realized that this was the first film by its director. Middle age successful writer EduFalls for young and charming prostitute Fabio. Surprisingly the feelings are reciprocated. Edu is going through a writer's block while Fabio on the other hand is young and carefree and spends his time hustling, hanging out with his other young friends. Edu resents the fact that Fabio doesn't seem to care in the world. Also Edu constantly worries that since they are having unprotected sex and Fabio sleeps around, they are risking themselves. Surprisingly Edu comes out positive but Fabio is negative. This adds more tension to the relationship coupled with t...