Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician who helped crack the German Enigma code and ended up being a pioneer of modern computing. He was also gay in a Britain where that was a crime. Most of us have probably seen "The Imitation Game," but this film, based on a play of the same name, zeroes in almost entirely on his sexuality and the role it played in his life. The film jumps back and forth in time, but it basically shows us what a genius Turing was. We see how close he was with his friend Chris at school, who sadly dies later on. He applies for a government job and ends up working on the Enigma code that helped in the war, but the focus there stays on his sexuality. Turing lives with a much younger man and doesn't try very hard to hide it. His boss at work even hints that he should keep his private life private so it doesn't give anyone ideas. He meets a beautiful woman at work who tells him she loves him, fully knowing he's gay. One thing leads to another, and ...

Stories of Our Lives is an anthology of five short films with LGBT themes from the East African republic of Kenya. It was made by the Nairobi-based art and activist group The Nest Collective, many of whose members prefer to conceal their identities to avoid possible persecution under Kenya’s notoriously draconian anti-gay laws. The film is still banned in it some country. The five dramas are mostly personal and domestic inspired by true incidents. ASK ME NICELY Kate, a rebellious young high school girl, meets first-love Faith, a fellow student. They begin a secret relationship, until the school principal takes action to separate the two by suspending Kate from the school. Back at home, Kate impulsively has a sexual encounter with a boy in her neighborhood. Two weeks later, Kate and Faith have an awkward reunion leading to their separation. RUN After negotiating a business deal, Patrick stumbles upon a local gay bar with his homophobic best friend, Kama. Patrick later returns to the clu...

Going by the title alone, and now having actually watched it, this show only really works for people who are seriously into gaming. A BL set in that world is a fresh idea for sure, but I wish somebody had told me upfront whether it was worth my time. Sitting through 10 episodes, each 70 minutes or longer, is rough when you end up not enjoying a single minute of it. I'll give it that the production quality is top notch, but the premise just isn't my thing, and with a dull couple on top of that, I had zero interest. The story's paper thin. There's a sharp tongued gamer and streamer, Thee, whose pride takes a hit when some mystery player beats him. He's determined to get revenge, so he tracks the person down and finds out it's a university student named Soh. Thee expects a rival who hates him, but instead he finds a shy, meek geek and falls for him right away. The rest of the show is Thee getting Soh onto his gaming team, helping him build up his confidence, and th...

Honestly, I don't know much about art or the people who follow it closely. The internet tells me Craig Ruddy, the central figure here, won the Archibald Prize, though I'm not even sure what that award is. So I watched this as a love letter from Craig's partner of many years, Roberto, put together entirely from his own personal footage. It opens with Roberto talking about how the two of them met, fell for each other, and ended up together before either of them realized it. From there we get a peek into their life, the fancy house, hanging out with friends, parties, get togethers, Craig spending long hours in his studio, how he makes his artwork, which is gorgeous by the way, plus trips around the world and more. My favorite part was just watching Craig create those pieces. Otherwise we hop from one party to the next, or sit in the sun, or hear about renovations on their home. Near the end we learn that Craig has passed away from Covid complications, and that's when a mut...

This mini series was so damn confusing to watch. It's only 5 episodes, each around 20 to 25 minutes, and I could follow the three parallel stories after three episodes, but how they were supposed to fit together lost me completely. I had to go online and read a summary to figure out what it was even about, and honestly, without that, there's no way I would've understood it. Right off the bat, I'd say it's a real problem when the audience can't make sense of what's going on. Three parallel stories play out, and they slowly come together near the end. Back in high school, Cao Dat falls for his classmate Huy but never says a word because he's scared. Another classmate, Hoang Loc, keeps bullying the two of them. Cao Dat gets angry and tells Hoang Loc to quit harassing them and be honest about who he actually likes. Hoang Loc takes that advice and quietly confesses to Huy, and Cao Dat sees it happen. Thinking he's lost his shot, he moves away, while Huy a...

What could have been a decent drama, but this series has a lot of problems, and I'll get to those in a bit. It could've been a proper love story, and technically it is one, but the makers wrote the lead so vulnerable and so delusional that nobody in their right mind can buy what he's doing or agree with it. It's basically a romance between an emotionally open young man and a guy who turns affection into a power game. And guess what, the good guy is the one I'm talking about as the problem here, not the bad guy. Yes, really. It's 10 episodes, each a long 55 minutes. Jimmy's a charming guy who loves flirting with boys, and once he's got one, he moves on to the next. He wants to go after Fah and tries talking to him, but Fah just ignores him. Jimmy's best friend is Teh, whose older brother Toh dreams of running a cafe. When Jimmy meets Toh, he starts flirting with him, and Toh falls completely for him. It turns out Fah and Toh are good friends too, and ...

The starting point of this film proposes an intriguing question: Can music be an instrument of Hate? This is a British indie drama that digs into homophobia, race, and violence inside London's urban and dancehall music scene. JJ's an up and coming MC chasing his music dream and fighting his way toward the Urban Slam finals. He's white and openly gay. After a tense run in with a rival group called The Ilford Illmanics, he ends up in an onstage rap battle against them. Meanwhile his boyfriend Orlando is backstage, where those four guys jump him in a brutal homophobic attack that leaves him with brain damage. The crew gets defended in court by a closeted gay solicitor, the same guy they'd earlier targeted with a homophobic attack in a shop, which is actually how he ended up meeting and falling for a young carer. From there the film follows what happens after the attack and how it hits everyone involved, from the four men's time in prison to JJ, Orlando, and the people ...

Carlos Jauregui is known as the father of the LGBT rights movement in Argentina, and this documentary is built around old television appearances and interviews with the activists who stood around him. The people who knew him personally and worked right next to him give you the context of that whole era. Jáuregui shows up in a lot of the archival footage, so the film works really well as primary source material. It begins in 1984, when Carlos and another man appeared on the cover of a mainstream magazine and outed themselves in public. That cost him his teaching job at the university. But that article, and the ones after it, got people seeing gay folks for the first time and then got them arguing about it. Carlos was loud about who he was and happy to be in the news, and by dragging homosexuality out of the shadows and not being scared to speak up, he won the admiration of the whole community. Everyone who worked with him respected him deeply, and that never faded even after he died far...

This one feels like it was made more for eye candy than anything else. The film is almost 15 years old now, so it might've been one of the earlier ones to touch on a throuple, or at least hint at it. It runs about 75 minutes, which makes it an easy sit, but with tighter editing and fewer repetitive scenes, it could've been a crisp little short film. Rene runs the family business to support his sick grandmother, while his aunt, who looks after her, keeps trying to match him up with different women so he'll finally settle down. The thing is, Rene's gay, and he's in love with his driver. He's way too shy and closed off to ever say it out loud, but one weekend he loosens up on a seaside trip with the guy he's crazy about. That night, after a lot of drinking, they sleep together and Rene finally admits how he feels. Still, he knows the driver has a long term partner he can't leave. Once Rene's had enough, he heads to the driver's house planning to tal...

What I liked most about this series is how tightly it stays on track. No filler, no over the top drama, no random side characters cluttering things up. Ten clean episodes at just 13 minutes each make for a pretty charming, easy watch. That said, the show definitely has its fair share of issues too. For a series built entirely around a physical relationship between two guys, the sex scenes come across as awkwardly shot and pretty cheap looking. The two leads also don't have much chemistry together, so you barely feel any real heat between them. More on that in a bit. Kaji's a top performing salesman at his company, and basically everyone's drawn to him, women want him and men adore him. He's hiding the fact that he's gay and only goes for the most attractive, elite guys for hookups, mostly because he's incredibly full of himself and thinks extremely highly of his own standards. One day work sends him out of town with Fukami, a nerdy guy from the IT department. Ka...

Once I saw this one came from Oxin films, I already knew to keep my expectations pretty low. I figured I'd be getting plenty of skin and sex scenes, with some kind of story buried in there somewhere, dragged out way longer than it needed to be just to pad the runtime. And yeah, I was right on every count. The series runs ten episodes, each around 50 to 55 minutes, and there is an actual plot in there, but it's nowhere near enough to justify ten full episodes. Also, just throwing a ton of characters into the mix doesn't automatically make a show better, at least not for me. Harry and his girlfriend Jasmine broke up three years back, but he's still hung up on her and wants her back. He's caught off guard when she tells him she's found someone new, another woman, and wants to be with her instead. Still not willing to let go, Harry comes up with a plan to make Jasmine jealous by hiring a professional escort named Brix to pretend to be his boyfriend. Predictably, thi...

I'll give it this much, the concept here is genuinely creative. It's about a business executive and a mysterious tribe up in the mountains, where some of the members can produce a natural scent from their own bodies. The whole show is built around how that ties into their love story, their pasts, and a bunch of family secrets. It runs eight episodes, each somewhere between 55 minutes and an hour. Scent has just been named vice president of Kusuma, a well known perfume company, stepping in for his dad who recently had a stroke. He hears about this tribe in the mountains whose people give off a natural scent, so he heads out to find them for the sake of the business. Eventually he reaches them and meets Gaysorn, the tribe's heir, who everyone treats very protectively, especially his grandma. Gaysorn has always been curious about the outside world, partly because his mom went there once and never came back. Scent convinces him to sneak off to the city so they can look for his ...

Went in with zero expectations, but this charming old comedy turned out to be a genuinely fun ride. Combining gay characters, a pride parade, and a heist plot in one movie sounds like a recipe that could easily fall apart, but when it's pulled off right, like it is here, you end up with something that feels satisfying and delivers exactly the kind of simple entertainment it promises. The setting is Chez Nouz, a gay cafe tucked into the heart of Amsterdam, run by an older guy named Adje who acts as a stand in father figure for Bertie, the bar's main drag performer, a guy who never actually knew his real dad and has spent years fantasizing that he might secretly be the son of some famous Dutch singer. Their little makeshift family also includes Babette, the straight waitress, and Rachid, a regular who Adje took under his wing and gave a room to after his own family kicked him out for being gay. The bar's other regulars include Peter-Jan, a good looking gay lawyer, and Gijs, a...

This final season keeps leaning on the same old formula, and once again never actually gives its main character any real sense of closure. Quick refresher, our lead is a university student who spends all his time frantically trying to dodge romance. No matter what he does though, the universe just keeps shoving him into one intimate situation after another. A lot of these setups are lifted straight from classic love story cliches. The whole point is watching him come up with creative ways to escape his fate and avoid falling for another guy. This season's still got six episodes, each around 23 minutes, and every episode features two of these tropey flags that could tip him into a BL storyline. Season three left off with Mob possibly caught in a love triangle between his ex Kikuchi and Hatano, the younger guy who's still a minor. Turns out that was all a dream sequence, but what hasn't changed is that Hatano is still into him. The first four episodes basically run through ev...