I've always had kind of a love hate relationship with Chinese historical BLs. Some are genuinely excellent, but then there are others that cram in so much plot that keeping track of all the layers of betrayal and scheming gets exhausting, and I end up checking out mentally. Part of the issue is also just how much content is out there in this space, so something really has to stand out to keep me hooked. In this case, the production value is genuinely impressive, top tier stuff, but story wise, I just couldn't bring myself to actually care about these characters. There's a ton of political scheming and backstage manipulation running throughout. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, a hostage ends up falling for his own Prince Charming. The show runs eight episodes, each around 50 to 60 minutes long. After spending three years guarding the border, Fifth Prince Yin Qi gets called back to the capital because of a secret letter, only to end up walking straight into a deadly...
A massively atmospheric study of knowing-your-place and abusing it...and, the frailty of the alpha-male. Hugo, 34, an educator at the boarding school, finds is daily life disrupted by Jules, a provocative teenager. Jules is doing everything he can to seduce this teacher who also happens to be the warden of the school. What a predicament for both the student and the teacher. A wonderfully made short film.
A simple story about innocence, appearances, fears. Two guys, one of the Three Kings and Santa Claus spend Christmas in jail, talking about what their future will be like in a world like this. The innocence of one of them. The cynism of the other. A film about youth in clash against a not easy to understand world. A beautiful film which ends in a very passionate and loving kiss.
He would do anything to be touched by his former lover once more. Ecstasy is an exploration of the coalescence of love and violence. A short short of barely 5 minutes.
T'es un bonhomme! (France) [You're a Man!]
A short film where a black guy reminds his brother that he is a man and asks him to go confess his love for another boy. Sweet one!
A weird film showing three different teenage approaches: a hot skater boy asks a bored, heterosexual couple to sexually indulge him, a nerd who is desperately trying to cling on to a young couple and finally, an attractive young guy puts the moves on his identical twin brother's girlfriend.
A trio of teenagers. Rui loves Rita and Nuno, or maybe just the fun of being in a trio. Nuno loves Rita and depends on it. But it's anyone's guess who Rita loves. The three come into the grips of a romantic tension that remains unexpressed because of their inability to communicate.
Tired of living a closeted life on the Lakota Indian reservation, a young gay man must summon up the courage to leave the only home he’s ever known and strike his own path. Average direction but a beautiful message and a nice story. Never have love stop you from taking relevant and important decisions at the expense of compromising who you are.
Yanush grew up in a conservative Romani community in a small Ukrainian town. He is about to get married, just what his parents want. However, Yanush is gay and he is in love with another young man, Pasha. Together they decide to sneak away from the wedding and leave town, but can Yanush really do it? I guess my first gay film from Ukraine.
A former military fortress in Havana, Cuba, is now a clandestine cruising spot for hidden gay men. They look for sex, but most of all for a shelter. While we move around the fortress, many men with hidden identities share their stories with us about their coming out, their sexcapades and their families.
Julien, a shy and withdrawn teenager is spending the summer with his family at a lake cottage. He experiences a sexual awakening when he develops a romantic interest in older neighbour Hervé, who shares his house with a younger male lover. A summertime coming of age drama featuring a very young teenager Xavier Dolan. I am surprised this film was missed by me so far.
Ilias, a young man of Athens, meets Panagiotis, a new-comer from Albania and falls in love with him. He pays dearly for the relationship. An interestingly 35-ish minute short to come out in 1994, this film was probably quite ahead of time. The start is quite focused when the protagonist introduces us to the fact that Greece is getting an opportunity where a lot of hot foreign men are coming to town.
A man sits at his computer and logs onto the interactive game "Caught Looking." He watches as he guides his virtual self through passages, in black and white. He considers but passes on opportunities with rough trade, a teen boy, a threesome, sex in a public toilet, and the kitsch of retro 50's muscle mystic in the Grotto of Tiberius. He sends his virtual self back to a pair of sailors, whom he films in 8mm. Then he meets a young man, Karim. What will happen with Karim? Has our virtual voyeur been caught looking?
A gay poet heads west from New York City in his convertible. He picks up a muscular bisexual sailor and Jackie, a waitress. Jackie is attracted to the poet who rebuffs her romantic gestures; rejection fuels her continued interest in him. The sailor and the poet are bonded by sex, but the sailor's frank advances to Jackie make him uninteresting to her. The landscape changes, they stop in cities and in the desert. They reach a lake. Who will be left out of a final pairing?
A fascinating pictorial history of a New York City bar whose customers, from the hard-drinking working class Irish to the coiffed African American gay male, continually transform its focus during its 10-year reign.
Halloweenie (USA)
This came out in 1986, showing a young gay activist Bob Lyss dressing up as a six-foot penis for the annual Greenwich Village Halloween parade.
A cannibal drama in which the actors play unfinished characters, often unsure of who they are on and off screen: a closeted gay man, his mother and his lover caught between the anxiety and pleasure of castration. This was an extremely disturbing short film where repressed homosexuality and oedipal themes are disinterred using re-enactments, location shots, text readings, and archival footage.
Noam, a young gay man, discovers that his father, who just died, had a secret affair with a married man. He follows and meets that man. He now holds his father's secret. A beautiful and sensitive portrayal. Its hard to judge one's actions in situations like this because I am sure we will all react in our own different ways.
In a confined prison cell, Alexander, a young Nazi officer is watching over Willem, a Dutch resistance fighter. Willem is openly homosexual, in a time when people were persecuted for such lifestyles. As Willem and Alexander sit alone in the cell, the former attempts to engage in conversation with his captor, who initially remains quiet. But over the course of three days, not only do they begin to converse, but they begin to have a profound emotional impact on one another.
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