Skip to main content

Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...

Before We Move (French/Russian) (Documentary)

I may not be much of a dancer myself, but I have always always enjoyed dancing and watching people dance and dance shows and stuff. So naturally when I heard about this documentary queer Tango dancing, I was very excited. Tango is one of those dance forms that has always attracted me and I have told myself plenty of times, that if I could be an expert on any dance form, it would be Tango. So with all these feelings, naturally I went in watching this documentary with a lot of expectations. Big mistake!

The film documents two years of a gay couple Misha and Otar before their immigration to Israel. The images of the documentary preserved their lives and emotions in the decision making process. While organizing queer tango events and giving tango classes, they are feeling lost about the upcoming departure. Tango is a pair dance that originated in the poor port areas of Argentina at the end of the 19th century. It was danced by men, emigrants from Southern Europe, Africa, South America. The dance expressed their suffering about the abandoned homeland, family and loved ones. As society changes, how we dance changes too. In the modern time the international queer community reinvented it as Queer Tango. It's a different way to dance, where nobody takes your gender, sexual orientation or choice of role for granted. Like any other popular dance, it is a mirror of the society in which it was developed and from which it emerges. It reflects life and helps people express their complex feelings through dance. People have always moved in search of better living conditions and escaping dramatic political environment in their homeland. The rising level of homophobia in Russia forces many gays and lesbians to leave their country and seek refuge abroad. When narrow-minded traditionalism and xenophobia are rife in the country, tango leads you forward move by move, no matter what gender, sexual orientation or nationality you have.

Even though some of the dance performances were good, just something was not right in the doucmnetry. It just failed to help my attention right from the beginning, and I am struggling to understand what it really was. The lead gay couple was handsome, charming. They were good dancers as well. So I think th basic ingredients were right, but somehow the overall recipe failed. The way the story was brought together somehow felt, not confusing, but more like "what's the point you are trying to make". It just felt disconnected at multiple points, and its a shame because with a subject like this, which personally I would have enjoyed, just became so drab and boring at a certain point that I just couldn't believe and kept asking myself "Why Am I still watching this?". Maybe I was not in the right frame of mind and someone other me can educate me a little more on what was I missing, but as it stands now, I did not enjoy watching this doc even one bit and would not recommend. (2/10)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Phor Lae Lukchai (Thai) [Father & Son]

I think the budget of this film was probably too small, but for that, the film definitely offers a different and unique storyline without over dramatizing anything. Yes, some scenes were a bit amateurish but in the bigger scheme of things, that can be overlooked. The film is both beautiful and sad in its own unique way. Aek is a gay dad, whose partner died right around the time their son Nueng was born through surrogacy in a road accident. The relationship between father and son is unpleasant and unstable. We are not really told why, but it seems the father has been unsuccessful in caring and loving his son because of his partner's death. Aek continues to hook up wit hookers. Also, Nueng is constantly bullied by everyone around him for having a gay dad. He has no friends, except Nat, a neighborhood boy, who also happens to be Nueng's boyfriend. In a sudden turn of events Nat is found murdered along with another boy naked. Saddened by the events, Nueng jumps from roof and k...

Sei no Gekiyaku (Japanese) [Dangerous Drugs of Sex]

Every person has their own unique way of dealing with loss. This film is as much a psychological thriller as it is a soft porn BDSM portrayal of two young men that makes the film overall horrifying as well as humane. It is really hard to describe the genre of this film in one word. Its important not that the film has some really disturbing scenes so if you go into seeing this film, please proceed with caution. Although any sexual non-consensual activity is not ok, this film has its won strange way of showing that suicide is not the only solution to all life's problems. Makoto is a regular office goer, who just finds out that his girlfriend is probably cheating on him. ON top of it, his parents sudden death coming back from a trip that he forced them to take, he gets completely dejected and decides to commit suicide. Unknown to him, he is saved by mysterious man Yoda Ryoji, and he wakes up finding himself tied up in leather and belts in a very BDSM setting. This mysterious saver soo...

The Shortest Distance is Round 3: Fallen Flowers

Continuing with the weird trilogy of "The Shortest Distance", I am so glad that finally I am done with part 3 and won't have to deal with this again in future. Thankfully, as of now the makers have not announced any further parts; which will save all of us on this earth from the embarrassment of watching this in near future. After the first 10 minutes are used in sort of recapping bits of first two parts, the story moves forward. Haruto is now starting to have feelings for Ruka, the mysterious pole dancer from second part. In a fit of rage, Ruka ends up killing the goat man and to save him and Haruto, Shibahara asks them to go underground. Meanwhile Shibahara continues the search for Seiya (the guy who had cut off Haruto's penis). It turns out Seiya is now also taking care of the original club owner from part 1. Both of them were released after they had informed Shibahara of Aoyama's secret location. Shibahara tortures Seiya's boyfriend leading to Seiya killin...