Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

The first thing that strikes you when you watch this film is the reality with which the actors have acted and the direction has been done in the inner streets of Manila. The other main important thing that I thought was the acceptance of Maxi being gay by pretty much everyone around him. No one bullies him or other kids who are so obviously gay that they are more of a girl than a girl. Maxi is a young 12 year old effeminate boy living in Manila slums with his father and 2 elder brothers Bogs and Boy who are all pety thieves and make a living out of this. After the death of his mother due to an unknown illness Maxi has taken over her role in taking care of his family from cooking food to cleaning. Entire family totally adores him and protects him as well. Life is good like that until a cop Victor enters the picture. A no nonsense cop, he wants to wipe crime. Maxi for some reason gets a huge crush on this cop. Victor who is a quiet shy and introvert man also likes the boy and becomes his...

Area X The boy's father unexpectedly picks up his son, sets him up with a hooker with 200 dollars but he is gay and so he runs away. These are just a few of the bizarre events that Paul recounts to Marco, a seductive hustler he meets in a dicey bar on a hidden street underneath New York City's infamous Port Authority Bus Terminal, also known as 'Area X'. Its too late when he realizes that the hustler actually look all his money. The Young and Evil Film follows the zero-to-60 path of Karel, a young African-American who is determined to seduce an older man, an HIV prevention advocate, into giving him the virus. The oft-taboo issues of having gay sex but not using protection are amplified by taking place in the African-American community. A bizarre film for me. Dish Read here Dish Bugcrush It's about this gay high school kid who's attracted to a new kid in the school. The new kid is tall, smokes and is in good shape. The new kid invites him to his house (in the mid...

This is a short 50 minute dutch film. The movie was weird and I cant decide how to rate it. I hope by the time I finish writing this review, I would have made up my mind. Kees is a bright, handsome kid, crippled by shyness, whose life is devastated by a group of school bullies. He lives in a huge mansion with his parents. Kees is attracted to the ringleader Charel, a beautiful athletic classmate who probably feels an undetermined interest but would never risk admitting (possibly not even to himself) having any gay or bi appreciation. Kees invites Charel back to his home when his parents are away, ostensibly to take revenge and seduce the older boy, but Charel's inability to drop the pretense and succumb to Kees' infatuation leads to a painful conclusion for them both. Kees goes completely berserk and self-destructs. I think that the reason for this is a combination of loneliness, self-hatred and frustration. Kees longs for, but cannot attain the object of his desire. Charel is ...

What have we come to? What were the producers thinking when they made this film? Every actor was so over the top and annoying that it was unbelievable that the director at any point didi not notice how bad acting every single member was doing. What a waste of time. Derik and Collin are a gay couple who produce TV shows and live in west hollywood. They are good friends with 2 other gay couple and they all hang out very often. Boyd is a psycho aspiring actor who would go to any lengths to get a role in their next production. Mistaking Boyd for Shawn ( a friend's cousin), Derik and Collin allow Boyd(now Shawn) to live in their house. Shawn is now secretly planning to do anything to get a role in their next production. WHat starts now is a series of ups and downs that happen in not just Derik and Collin's life but even their friends because Shawn makes sure that he seduces at least one of the member of the couple and create some misunderstanding. He to some extent manages to creat...

This is again a collection of 7 short films, two of which I recently saw in other short film collection. Serene Hunter (France) Set in Paris, the 'hunter' of the title is a 30-something gay male who has a string of one-night stands. Content being free and unfettered by relationships, he happily moves from encounter to encounter. He then surprises himself by becoming involved in a more substantial relationship...but can the hunter within him be tamed? An honest portrayal, with some explicit action. Solace (US) This film shows an older and younger man who meet on the internet, and seem to get along well, until the older man tells about his boyfriend and it shatters younger man's dreams. Scarred (UK) An early 20s male has a significant scar on his face from a knife wound - and is fed up of the unwanted attention that it attracts. Will he find someone who can see past the scar? The answer may lie with an older, middle-aged architect, who seems to be the one person to whom the s...

What happens if you're a married man with children in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem and you fall in love and lust with a beautiful young man? A very very different film that probably will shake your beliefs. Aaron leads a very quiet life. Each day he heads from his tidy apartment where he lives with his four children and his wife Rivka to his butcher-shop to his synagogue to pray. His father recently passed away and now he has to take care of it. Enter Ezri, a 20 something guy who is looking for shelter in Aaron's shop on a rainy day. We soon find out that Ezri has come to the town to look up for an ex-boyfriend. As the days pass Ezri and Aaron develop a relationship. Something more happens as sexual desire develops between the two men. Ezri wants to kiss Aaron, but Aaron tells Ezri that it's a challenge for them to pray about. Ezri takes Aaron to a spring outside the city, and desire bubbles to the surface between the two men. As their gay love is consumm...

This must be one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. Totally unfunny, unmoving and uninteresting, even to it's intended gay audience. Thank goodness the director had the sense to give it only a 70 minute running time, as the story could have been told as a short film.Even as a time filler, this one misses the boat. What does Michael do when his lover of fourteen years, Chad, dies from brain cancer? Michael does not have much time to grieve when Chad as an angel immediately comes back to him. Chad has seen Michael's future and now takes it upon himself to guide and nudge Michael along his path. Chad's psychiatrist, Damien, has agreed to support Michael in this process but as hard as Damien tries he cannot deny his infatuation with Michael. The seemingly unrelated "coincidences" begin to fall into steps of Michael's path when cute boy toy Bryan arrives on the scene the night after scattering Chad's ashes. Damien's x-wife, Pat and Michael's...

Wow!!. Until I started reading on internet, I had no idea this film was based on a true story. Still, the impact of the film was quite repulsive. Even after reading this, i really did not find anything worth mentioning in the film that could hold your attention. Fritz Haarmann was a German pedophile and serial killer of young adolescent males during 1919 to 1924 and made nearly 30 victims in only five years of time. Haarmann makes his money by trades food and goods on the black market that he himself falsely confiscated by pretending to be a policeman. This is also how he picks up young lads in the train station and lures them to his apartment loft. He murders the young boys by biting their throats. The atrocities became even more inhuman when Fritz, together with his lover/partner-in-crime Hans Grans, sold the hacked up flesh of the victims on the black market. Haarmann pretty openly declares his affection for young boys and his entire surrounding either deliberately ignores this or ...

This historical drama made by BBC for TV viewing is actually the biography of John Wolfenden's personal and professional struggle to reform the British law concerning homosexuality. The time is 60s when acknowledging that homosexuality was disgusting and an abomination and indulging in the act was crime.  John Wolfenden is a college professor with an openly gay son, well open to the family. When John is appointed to chair the committee which investigated prostitution and homosexuality and recommended changes in the law, his son Jeremy is hopeful that his father will keep his personal prejudices against queers and do what is best for society. Needless to say that John himself is very disgusted with the idea of having a gay son. Many of those on the committee started the investigation full of revulsion for homosexuality, but they did their job and interviewed policemen and gay men to find out what went on. In the end they come to a report which says that in private, consenting adults...

I know most people would be surprised but I really didn't know that the title of the film was derived from 'The Wizard of Oz' (not my fault since I haven't seen the latter). The film sets the tone right from the beginning and follows its characters throughout on what they have to deal with by loss of one of their most beloved persons in life.  Sara, a beautiful unmarried young woman and her mother Natalie have been very close to the extent that the mother likes to know about each and every single thing that is going on in her life. She intrusively calls here daughter constantly with the mutual greeting 'Surrender, Dorothy'. As they do every summer, Sara is accompanying her best friends - gay playwright Adam who is closest to her, Adam's current date Shawn, and married couple Maddy and Peter with their infant son - to a house in the Hamptons. The group seems jolly until a trip to the local ice creamery by Adam and Sara results in an auto accident which kills ...

This film definitely was novel in its theme and treatment of it. I have seen many LGBT films (although primarily gay) but still haven't seen anything similar to what is shown here. It was a very touching drama about a post-op male to female transsexual and a former male schoolfriend.  Karl Foyle and Paul Prentice were best mates at school in the Seventies. But when they meet again in present-day London things are definitely not the same. Karl is now Kim, a transsexual, and she has no desire to stir up the past while she's busy forging a neat and orderly new life. Prentice, on the other hand, has charm but is a social disaster stuck in a dead-end job. His main talent is for getting them both into trouble. Amid the squabbles, they start to fall in love. One night, Kim invites Prentice to a romantic dinner at her flat. Prentice, finding the seduction unexpectedly effective, freaks out. He proceeds to make a public display of both of them and winds up in court. Humiliated and angry...

Also known alternatively as Schoolboy Crush, this film is a theatrical sequel/companion film directed by the same director of 'Boys Love', though it shifts the main plot to a new dynamic set within an elite all-boys boarding school. It is yet another gay love story, this time a controversial one between a student and a teacher. Aoi is a teacher at an aristocratic boys' high school, who has a one-night stand with a stranger after a breakup. Soon after, transfer student Sora enters Aoi's class and the teacher is surprised to see that he is at the same boy whom he hired. Sora excels both academically and athletically and wants to continue to pursue Aoi who tries to constantly avoid him. Sora's roommate is Mizuki, who is a loner and a nerd and who for some reasons starts to fall for his roommate. But jealousy and bullying provoked from another classmate (who we are later told was Mizuki's lover), Sora starts to distance himself from Mizuki. Mizuki slowly figures out...

This movie is very uncluttered with a very clear sense of story. One character explores his feelings for another boy, whereas the other makes you care why he seemingly has everything but has a dark, destructive side. Both give their roles enough depth to make them both compelling. The film tells the story of Mamiya, a 20-something journalist, who is assigned to do a profile on popular teen model (and amateur artist) Noeru. Mature for his years, Noeru takes control of their meeting, and later of Mamiya himself, as he introduces the young journalist to his first experience with man-to-man sex. Visiting Noeru a few days later, Mamiya learns that Noeru is more than a bit of a slut, and seems incapable of settling down with one person or keeping his word to anyone, including his best friend Chidori, who has an unrequitted crush on Noeru. Noeru is totally falling for Mamiya who is not gay. But when he realizes that Noeru has some emotional stress, he agrees to become his friend with the cond...

It is odd that this film is being promoted as a gay film. There is an unresolved subtle and all- but-avoided ambiguity around the lead Sebastian, but it's more of a tease than anything substantial and i wonder who exactly it is in there for ? Sebastian and Mikhael are best friends in a small town. They spend their times together. Seb works in his father's garage. One night when Seb watches Mikhael making out with a girl in the woods, he is hurt. The next 2 days , he doesn't talk to his friend. One day during a football match, Mikhael while hanging on the goal post gets injured and dies. Enter the mayor of the town in the scene who is the subject of suspicion. The town's mayor must face the fact of his office's possible culpability. His son Francis wants to be friends with Seb (I got the feeling that he had soft corner for Seb) and tries to get closer to him now that Mikhael is dead. Also in the scene is Mikhael's mother, who has already lost a husband, must now...

This was a short film of about 30 minutes. After a weird start, the film showed promise but hen again it went nowhere. In a cold future world everybody who is single drops dead. Which means that Tim who recently got dumped by his girlfriend has a serious problem. None of the women he meets at a speed dating event strike a chord with him. His last chance is Denise - or better said a typo called Dennis. Tim was given a pill to increase his libido. Fearing of dying and the fact that he is not attracted to men, he takes the pill so that he can get close to Dennis. Ultimately Tim does find the love in a girl. Short films can be hot or miss. This was definitely a miss. (1.5/10)

What the heck was this film. Absurd, idiotic and totally senseless. I have seen bad movies and this one comes very close to some of the worse ones I have ever seen. Imri is 19 year old, an ex-soldier born in Israel but yearns to live in Japan. Having just left the Israeli Defense Force he spends his days idling in a low paying job, wandering the streets of Tel Aviv, watching Japanese porn on his computer and having meaningless sex with men who are strangers. He is kept afloat by his crazy roommates and neighbors plus his dream to one day travel to the land of his dreams, Japan. The film moves in various directions and just goes on with some sudden random sex and nude scenes which make no sense whatsoever. Imri is a sort of blank slate on whom we can project our fantasies, just as he projects his own onto his beloved Japan. Except the fact that Imri was cute, there is nothing in the film. Avoid (0.5/10)

It was a 50 minute short film that started well but somewhere lost where it was heading. The main character Jonathan was good looking and a lot could have been done with the situation but the film just finishes abruptly exactly the way it progressed. Jonathan, a working-class teenager lives with his distant father and a annoying pregnant step mother. When he finds out he is to be sent to boarding school, he steals money from his father and decides to run away from home. He goes to his friend Steve and convinces him to go on an afternoon trip to Paris where they can have fun spending the money. Jonathan has a soft corner for Steve but thats it. After a failed attempt to enter the sex shops in Paris they decide to go to a squat and find some weed. After smoking a couple of joints, Steve has to go back home and Jonathan decides to stay in a hidden place of the squat and ends up sleeping. When he wakes up, he finds himself tied up by Shooter, whose real name is Antoine, who wants to keep h...

Summer (UK) Two late-teen males, good friends, are in a London park. They find themselves talking about blow-jobs, and one of the friends is nervously trying to pluck up the courage to speak his mind. The characters are far too old to be engaged in such nervous revelations and therefore undermine the authenticity of this usually engaging theme.  Gay Zombie (US) A West Hollywood zombie, Miles, is convinced by his therapist to try to resolve his uncertain desires. He visits a gay bar, and is treated as a freak by the patrons. He does meet two nice guys, who try to give him a make-over. But will his blood-hunger prove too much of an obstacle to forming a relationship? Excellent, bitingly satirical, portrayal of a 'gay community' which desires conformism more than anything.  Serene Hunter (France) Set in Paris, the 'hunter' of the title is a 30-something gay male who has a string of one-night stands. Content being free and unfettered by relationships, he happily moves fr...

The Island (Canada) A filmmaker with a vivid imagination considers, with the help of animation, a piece of fan mail he received. What if all the gays in the world were put on an island? Cowboy (Germany) An estate agent goes to investigate a prime piece of property in the countryside whereupon he encounters a mysterious farm boy. A mutual attraction develops, albeit uneasily, and the pair indulge in a bout of passion amongst the haystacks. Meanwhile, out among the corn fields, a horrifying fate awaits them. Kali Ma (USA) When an Indian mother finds out her son is the victim of a vicious homophobic bully, she delivers her own brand of vigilante justice. Part electric action thriller, part exhilarating comedy, ‘Kali Ma’ finds the secrets that divide mothers and sons and the love that brings them together. Lucky Blue (Sweden) A balmy summer night. A camping site somewhere in Sweden. The grand emotions, the shy teenager, the first love, caravans, karaoke and a bird… This is the story of a b...