Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

Coming out can be a normal experience for some, a secret side for others, and an issue for the old guard to embrace. Presenting yet another facet of stories of coming out, this Australian series was a knock out and a lot of fun to watch. This first season comprised of 6 episodes of each 20 minutes or so. The show focuses on the ups and downs that our lead character Adam embraces as he comes out, cultivates what he thought was first love, discovers the gay scene, feels the pain of a fast relationship crumble, and finds himself and the attraction that others have for him. While we see this, Adam's friends and family also explore their love and sex lives. Adam lives with his single mother and older heterosexual brother Clayton. In the first episode we see that Adam has a huge crush on his brother's friend Josh. One night when Josh is staying over, they do hook up (Josh considers himself pansexual). But Adam needs to be open and out about his sexuality if he wants his relationship ...

This is just a 4 episode mini series with episodes of 20-25 minute duration. So even though this doesn't have too much time investment, it still is a story that should just have been a simple short story of about 20-25 minutes. The show is stretched for no reason. The only good thing about the show is that the visuals of the countryside, village, classic train, waterfalls are really pretty to look at. But besides this, the overall show is just meh. Day is a young musician and violin player who has an audition coming up for an orchestra. Ti prepare for it, he decides to move to a quiet surrounding so he can concentrate on music. He takes up part time job of teaching at a school. This is where he meets Mem. Mem is an art teacher. He loves to draw, even in his free time. Mem likes going to various outdoor locations with his drawing kit and paints for hours. The duo start to get along and Day hangs out with Mem enjoying the local scenery. One day Mem kisses Day after which Day starts t...

I know I am a little late in watching this, but My Only 12% is a warm, tender coming-of-age tale. The thoughtfully crafted narrative explores many meaningful themes, including adolescence, first love, and family bonds. It is heartfelt sentimental show. Even though the love story begins almost when the kids ate in early teens, there were a lot of factors about this show that kept me glued to this one. You feel connected with the leads, you root for them and thankfully the show stays away from unnecessary drama. It is one of the more realistic natural Thai BL series in recent time. The show is 14 episodes of about 40-45 minutes. 14-15 year old Eiw lives with his single mother and an older brother and sister. A sensitive boy, Eiw has delicate emotions and often feels self-conscious about himself limiting to only two close friends in school. But his most important friend is Cake, his neighbor, with whom he almost grew up and they are the closest of friends (someone we all need to have in l...

Time and again, I have said that it's all about expectations and yet once again, expectations have again killed it all. I have been hearing almost glowing reviews about this film, but I had absolutely zero idea what the film was about. The silly me just assumed that this is going to be an amazing love story. I mean it is from the director who gave us "Weekend" and "Looking"; but to be clear this is far from that. Difficult to put in a specific genre, this film is more melancholy, almost depressing story about a middle-aged man struggling to write about his parents is a deeply affecting, supernatural exploration of the profound consequences of grief and structural homophobia.  The film is a journey of a man's journey working through his grief and loneliness, resulting from not only losing his parents at a young age, but also from the scars of growing up gay and being bullied and feeling ostracized for it. Adam lives in an almost empty apartment building in ou...

I loved the first two seasons of the show. Satire comedy at its best. But something is different this season. It's either my mental state or the show itself. But I tried to watch this in several sittings because at any given point, the show just did not grab my attention. This season the series goes more into deep dark existential crisis for the family especially the brother-sister duo while keeping the dialogues and situations sharp. Still, not even one single episode made me say Wow. So, I am sorry but the season 3 of this show just did not do for me. This season also has 10 episodes of about 30-35 minutes each. At the end of season 2 we saw that all the family members are doing well for themselves. Brooke is engaged now to her boyfriend but she has this insecurity of wanting to do good. She leaves the industry but whatever she tries, she doesn't enjoy. She always feel like others are judging her, which also leads to a rift and eventual breakup of engagement. Cary is going th...

Set in 1987 in El Paso, Texas, this film with a unique name is based on a novel (which I had no idea about). I was just fascinated by the intriguing title; a story of two Mexican teenagers Aristotle "Ari" and Dante, their friendship, and their struggles with racial and ethnic identity, sexuality, and family relationships. I had no expectations of the film and I have to say that this was so sweet and charming and cute and touches your heart. It's summer. We meet teenage Ari, a loner by choice since he doesn't identify much with other teenagers his age and lives with his Mexican origin parents. His older brother is in jail but the family never talks about it and he doesn't know the reason. Enter Dante, a guy similar to Ari in heritage who offers to teach Ari how to swim at the community pool. Very soon a friendship develops where they spend a lot of time with each other throughout the summer, the parents approving of the friendship. They are opposites. Ari has a tou...

I am liking the fact that more and more gay films are exploring fresh subjects. No more about coming out or being gay, but stories around normal lives of gay men. Now. Some of these aspects could be interesting while others could fall flat, but when you have actor like Billy Porter associated with a project, my expectations were quite high. This film tackles the downfall of a marriage and eventual divorce between two dads, who end up fighting for the custody of their only son, in time to realize their own mistakes. Nicky and Gabriel have been together for 13 years with their 8-year-old son, Owen and somehow they have neatly divided their parental duties. While Nicky spends his days at the office being the primary breadwinner but often missing key moments of Owen’s childhood; Gabriel is a doting stay at home Papa who reads his son bedtime stories, drops him to school and enjoys cooking his every meal. Gabriel recently has met another person and he tells Nicky who is surprised but this o...

Apparently, this show is the third and final chapter in the My Day series. I have not sen the first two in question but I can assure you that this can still be seen on its own. Even if you have seen the first two, it will not change the fact that this series is really bad and a colossal waste of time of watching nothingness, silly drama, odd people and just bad. The show stretches for 13 whole episodes of almost 40 minutes each, which I guess one can watch the fist two and last two episodes and completely leave the middle ones and you would not miss a thing. Zeke lives with his boyfriend Fifth and two other students in some sort of house/PG accommodation. It seems their's is a perfect love story till the appearance of a new guy Kevin. Kevin keeps trying to chat with Zeke who keeps rebuffing him. Kevin pleads Fifth to introduce him to Zeke which eventually happens. Turns out Kevin is someone who Zeke loved before but Kevin refused his proposal then and now he wants Zeke in his life....

I have a fascination towards Turkish films ever since I lived there for few years. Although there have been a very few gay films from the country, once in a while they do come up with decent surprises. This little small budget film running at just over an hour is one such similar film. The basic premise of the film is very simple and straight forward. Two former high school buddies meet for dinner in a cozy restaurant after 17 years. One of them has just had a baby and they were able to connect through social media. When asked about his wife, the other friend very casually says that he is gay, used to have a boyfriend but is now single. As they drink and talk they realize another life is possible on a land where toxic masculinity does not exist. They represent the great divide in Turkish gay society: The lonely self-declared homosexuals and the married hypocrites. While they talk more anymore, we realize that. They might share a history from high school. As the gay man says that they w...

A forbidden gay love of epic proportions stretching from the Red Scare of the 1950s into the early years of the AIDS epidemic under Ronald Reagan is the best way to describe this 8 part Showtime series. Just like holocaust stories, there remains a cultural need for narratives that foreground the AIDS epidemic; but this show does it with a lot of love between its two leads accompanied with a lot of sex scenes relying primarily on its two very very charming leading men. The series efficiently sketches out the wide variety of ways a wide variety of queer people coped, copulated and compromised. Constantly going back and forth between multiple timelines, the show keeps you on the edge of your seat. The story spans decades so I am just gonna try and give just a basic premise. Matt Bomer plays Hawk, working for a senate in the government with high ambitions and likely a suitable groom for the senator's daughter Lucy. Hawk is but player and leaves no opportunity wasted to have flings with...

In 2011, the U.S. repealed its discriminatory “don't ask, don’t tell” policy, which banned gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members from serving openly in the military. That reversal, however, didn’t include transgender people, 15,500 of which are estimated to be serving in the military today. This documentary film chronicles the stories of four transgender service members fighting for their right to serve openly. Following one couple and two others across several years, TransMilitary captures their long journey to meet with the Pentagon’s top brass with the goal of igniting dialogue that will reverse the ban. Staff Sergeant Logan Ireland loves serving in the dangerous Kandahar province in Afghanistan. When the film opens, his fellow troops don’t know he’s trans. As he says, “What I like about the deployment is I can be my authentic self,” including growing a wispy mustache. His scratchy mustache is an issue for his girlfriend Laila, an Army Corporal. Her family had a difficult...

This two part mini-series is a show that no one asked for and it didn't need to be made. It doesn't even have a coherent plot. It feel like a glorified ad campaign of something (a product that is never shown) or a music video or something like that. With just 2 episodes of 30 minute each, even this one hour series got me so mentally tired. Set around a beach, there is a private resort where on December 30th, a guy named Pond shows up. He loses his key and is forced to then share a room with Golf, a guy who is there of location scouting. The two of them are forced to share a room and each other's company for New Years eve. Mild chit-chats and flirting happens while minuscule non-sensible interactions take place. There is not even a proper love story here, but there are feelings they both start to show for one another. As said earlier, there is no concrete plot here and I am not really sure what it is that the makers were going for when they made this. The first half of the s...

This film is anthology of three stories. As per the director he wanted to take ideas of coincidence and past experiences manifesting themselves into present lives with three separate stories of three gay men and their connections to three of the characters. It is a film where concerning person in each story are drawn to each other for their shared love of gamesmanship. Some characters are in love, while others think they are, but they are all skilled at deception. They all, to some extent, use their wit and charm to play at relationships that are more about power and control than any thoughts of love and sex. While they may not be honest with each other, they are all honest about their desire for physical intimacy. Wyatt - The first story shows Wyatt walking with his best friend Logan, hearing how Logan has met this new guy Shane and he has feelings for him. Little does he know that Shane is Wyatt's ex. Wyatt goes to meet Shane to understand on why he is playing with Logan by cook...

I loved season 1 of the British show Big Boys and I am so so happy that the makers came up with a follow up season of this because I could definitely use more of Jake and Danny and all the people around them. The season 1 handled two simultaneous coming-of-age stories. On the one hand, Jack, coming to terms with his life as a gay man, and on the other, Danny opening up about his experience of depression. This Channel 4 show continues from there on, with the shenanigans of these two with their friends Corrine and Yemi. The 4 friends are now looking for a flat to live together but eventually end up going back to the blue shed as their home. Jack is now out and young and proud and trying to get laid but is still struggling. Corrine has started dating another guy leaving Jack behind but he takes in everything in his stride. He is getting over his depression and with Jack's mom and her family accepting Danny into their own, he has come a long way. We do find out a lot more about Danny...

This Thai BL shows is another one of those soap operas that are quite a deviation from the regular BL stories being churned out there. Set in a periodic historical setting, it tackles many complex themes, including class differences, womanhood, and LGBTQ+ experiences. Each fascinating storyline explores the past era and examines cultural nuances insightfully. The show is produced and made on a grand scale, a lot of parallel stories are tackled and given the respect and attention they deserve, while also making sure that the core love story between two men remains intact and satisfies the viewers. Of course, this means that this needs a lot of time investment from us an audience. The show has 12 episodes where each episode is 60-75 minutes long. In present time, Jom is an architect in a relationship with boyfriend Ohm working on a big house project but he gets vivid visions in that house. Soon Ohm breakup with him for another girl and a drunk Jom while driving gets into the sea and lose...