Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

Okay so this one's basically about an old writer who ends up having to pump out BL novels just to keep things afloat, but that's really only the surface of it. What's actually going on underneath is this whole tapestry of smaller stories happening inside one family, especially the bond between a grandfather and his grandson, plus everyone else living under that roof. There's a lot of warmth running through it, the kind of show where you watch people show up for each other when things get hard, taking care of one another without making a big deal out of it. There is a slightly messy romance thread too, since the lead basically takes advantage of his friend's feelings early on, though it does eventually turn into a proper redemption story for him. Compared to the usual Thai university BL formula, this one goes in a totally different direction. Twelve episodes total, each one clocking in around an hour. At the center of it is grandpa, once a big deal in the writing wor...

This experimental indie completely misses the mark from start to finish. Both leads, who never leave the screen for a single scene, come across as thoroughly unlikeable and honestly hard to sit through. And on top of that, without any real story holding things together, it's tough to see why anyone would expect an audience to stick around for something like this. Beto and August cross paths at a skate park in LA, and there's instant chemistry between them right away. They connect over their shared love of skateboarding, some seriously destructive habits, and deep conversations about life and death. The two make a pact to end their lives together, and the film follows their final day as they cause chaos across the city, stealing a car at one point, even threatening to kill a young woman at another. And that's essentially the whole movie, just these two guys wandering the city doing random, reckless things. The whole thing feels completely aimless and lacking any real craft, ...

Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...

Watching a filmed stage play on TV can honestly go either way, but this Lincoln Center Theater production of The Nance shows exactly how to do it right. Having Nathan Lane anchor the whole thing as a Depression era comic who plays pansy parts in burlesque shows definitely helps a ton. He's genuinely fantastic in the role. That said, running close to two and a half hours, it does take real patience sitting through a stage play from your couch instead of watching it live in person. I guess what I'm getting at is this review's going to be pretty personal, and plenty of people will probably feel differently about it than I do. The Nance is set in 1930s New York City, during a time when being anything other than straight wasn't just frowned upon, it was treated as criminal. Back then there was this whole world of cheap, sleazy shows called burlesque, featuring women in revealing outfits dancing around while a lot of raunchy adult humor filled out the rest of the show. One re...

This series works as a kind of prequel to the 'Fourever You' universe, but don't stress if you haven't seen that one. I did watch it, and honestly I barely remember any of it. On the surface this is another emotional friends to lovers story, pretty standard stuff, but it's really the execution here that sets it apart. The show mixes gentle romance, cozy home life scenes, and heavier family drama, all built around a slow burn romance that plays out in every glance and small interaction, with the tension quietly building the longer it goes. Yeah, there are subplots involving mafia stuff that don't really hold together logically, but if you can look past that and just enjoy the more intimate character moments, it's a genuinely good watch. 8 episodes, each about an hour long. Tiger and Nao are our two leads. They don't exactly hit it off when they first meet during football tryouts. Tiger comes from a wealthy, powerful mafia family, but he's also incredi...

This web series is another release from Last Leaf Productions on their YouTube channel. There've been a handful of Indian channels before this one trying to do BL content, but honestly the direction and acting on those were pretty rough, so I genuinely respect the effort this production house is putting into bringing us stories about gay relationships in India, specifically set in a big city like Mumbai. For anyone who doesn't know, a lavender marriage is when a gay man and a lesbian woman, or sometimes a straight woman, get married purely to keep up appearances while both of them know exactly what's really going on, and that's the core premise driving this show. It's 8 episodes, each running around 30-35 minutes each. Apu and Mohak are roommates in Mumbai who've secretly been a couple for a few years now, keeping their relationship hidden. Apu's male cousin also lives with them, and he's actually the one who owns the flat. Mohak wants to go public with ...

Season two of this comedy following three middle aged gay friends as they deal with work and love lives just dropped on their YouTube channel. There's a pretty long gap between when the seasons came out, but the story just picks right back up where it left off, and somehow the whole cast looks exactly the same, not a single visible change, which honestly is kind of wild. The first season jumped forward a year and left us knowing that Ray and Dwight aren't a couple anymore. This new batch keeps the spotlight on Ray, Gary, and James as they deal with career struggles, messy romantic situations, and figuring out what their lives even look like now that they're getting older. 8 episodes this time, each running about 25 minutes. Ray's still not over his breakup with Dwight, and on top of that he lands a writing gig on a girls' animated show, where he's constantly trying to figure out how he fits in with a room full of much younger GenZ writers. He just can't let ...

Honestly kind of surprised this one flew under my radar for so long, I'm just now catching wind of it. This is a crowdfunded comedy drama following three gay best friends dealing with life, love, and letdowns as they hit their late fifties and early sixties. What do you actually do once it hits you that time's running out, that you've got more road behind you than ahead, and that your career, your relationship, where you're living, basically your whole life, didn't turn out anything like you pictured when you were younger? It runs eleven episodes, each clocking in around ten minutes. A re-edited Director's cut version was recently released this year with 5 episodes. Ray, Gary, and James have been friends for what feels like forever, and now they're all in what should be their golden years. Ray's a screenwriter who's been struggling financially since work just isn't coming his way, though he's got a younger, attractive boyfriend who's a li...

This is exactly the kind of over the top 90s gay comedy you can't really take seriously, and honestly that's the whole appeal. Go in expecting a fun time, a few laughs, and just embracing how ridiculous it all gets, because outside of that, there's genuinely not much else going on here. The plot is razor thin and everyone's acting is cranked up way past normal, so the whole thing plays more like some kind of spoof, though I couldn't tell you exactly what it's spoofing. The film takes place in Mexico City during the nineties, where we meet Enrique, an up and coming telenovela star. He's on the verge of landing a huge contract with a production company, until they discover he's gay after finding photos of him with his boyfriend. His dad refuses to accept that his son is gay and barely speaks to him because of it. To keep the contract intact, the studio head suggests Enrique fake a romance with a fading pop star trying to relaunch her career, someone the st...

I try to at least skim reviews before diving into these BL shows so I don't waste my time on a dud. Should've listened to myself this time, because this series ended up being a complete waste of hours I'm not getting back. There was real potential buried in this premise, but neither the acting nor the direction brought any life to it at all. Getting through all eight episodes, each around forty five minutes, felt like a genuine chore. A young guy named Kim relocates to an island city to move in with his uncle. There's apparently some backstory behind why, but honestly it barely matters. Once there, he meets a chef named Tao Sor. The next day when he runs into him again, something feels different, and Tao Sor doesn't even recognize him. It turns out this mysterious chef is dealing with some condition that wipes his memory clean every single morning, meaning someone has to constantly remind him who he is. Kim starts developing feelings for him and pitches an idea to t...

It's been a minute since Russell T Davies put out a new show, so Tip Toe was obviously near the top of my watch list. This one feels really tied to the current moment, specifically the fear, anger, and hopelessness that come with being queer in the UK right now. There's this line one character says, something like he used to walk into a room and go ta da, and now he tip toes just in case, and that pretty much sums up the whole show. It runs five episodes, roughly fifty minutes each, blending thriller elements with social drama to capture where things stand with rising homophobia today. Set in present day Manchester, the show puts two neighbors with completely clashing worldviews next to each other and builds its whole story around that friction, working as both a suspenseful watch and a genuinely unsettling mirror of real life. Leo's almost sixty, runs a local queer bar, and has just split from his longtime partner, now getting used to being single again. Right next door is...

This documentary pulls together oral history to trace a very specific New York chapter of gay life in America. Back in 2014, someone found a box stuffed with hundreds of letters sitting in a storage unit in LA. These letters went all the way back to the 1950s and were written to a young guy named Reno Martin, who'd later become known in Hollywood as agent Ed Limato. When Martin left home to chase a radio career, his closest gay and queer friends kept writing to him just to stay in touch. Every letter's signed with a fake name and ends with a warning to burn it after reading, which tells you everything about an era when just being gay, or dressing in drag, could get you thrown in jail. The filmmakers actually tracked down the surviving writers, now in their eighties and nineties, and turned what could've been dry historical digging into something genuinely personal and intimate. The people behind this doc found the original letter writers themselves, several of whom are stil...

How can there be such a dirth of stories that these vertical filmmakers keep rehashing t he same 5-6 permutations and combinations of story and do some sort of mix and match. It's almost like some old fantasies being brought to life in these formats. I am really starting to completely lose it. And then you read all these random glowing made up reviews online and you wonder if people are watching the same thing that I am. Liam and Noah are stop brothers but not many people know it. Noah's girlfriend actually likes Liam and tris to seduce him. Meanwhile Liam secretly crushes on his stepbrother Noah. Since Liam cant have Noah, he suggests the girl that maybe she should ask Noah for threesome. This is where a drunk Noah shows up against his better judgment and the two finally kiss. Now Noah is also confused as to is he gay and ho can he be attracted to his step brother. The story slowly moves with the two men slowly starting to realize the good points of each other and fall in love...

This coming of age movie is about two teenage guys who are total opposites on paper, but both carrying stuff from their past, and we watch them work through it and fall for each other along the way. It plays like a teen rom com at first, but it turns into something way more personal by the end. Not gonna lie, I don't get why they picked the English title they went with, because the original translates to Fifteen Days, and that just fits so much better. It's based on a book apparently, and honestly what makes it work is how uncomplicated it stays the whole time. It's got this bright, warm feel to it, and it's not just about two boys falling for each other, it's really about learning to stop hiding after years of trying to be invisible. Felipe's sixteen and has always been insecure about his weight because kids gave him hell for it growing up. He's out as gay and lives with his mom, who's a big presence in his life. Summer rolls around and he'd honestl...