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Contrast (Japanese Series)

This is basically a high school BL where two guys who have nothing going on in common somehow end up getting really close to each other, and that's kind of the whole point of the title too. There's barely any drama or fluff packed in here, it stays pretty straightforward the whole way through. A little bit of friction pops up here and there, but it's nothing compared to what you'd normally get in this kind of show. Runtime wise you're looking at 8 episodes, each one sitting around 25-30 minutes. The two guys carrying the story are Akira and Kanata, and funny enough they knew each other's faces way before they ever knew each other's names. Kanata's the type everyone likes, always got people around him, popular guy, but there's this distance to him that people can't quite place. Turns out he had an injury that ended his football days, and that's what pushed him into being more withdrawn, and it only got worse once his younger brother got picked...

Urinal (Canada) [Pissoir]

This part documentary and part drama fantasy film is centered around a research project on the policing around urinals and washrooms in Ontario, Canada where gay men were constantly arrested for sexual acts. The film tries to show the lengths that the cops would go including use of plain clothed agents who would entice you and video footage to make easy arrests. Sadly, the execution of the film is absolutely bizarre and totally weird and awful for common audiences like me.

A mystery man brings together a group of dead, gay artists including Sergei Eisenstein, Dorian Gray, Yukio Mishima, Frida Kahlo and Langston Hughes to investigate a police response to the dilemma of wash-room sex in Toronto. The artists have seven days in which to report on the ethics of police tactics. The artists infiltrate the police only to discover that they themselves are under surveillance as a political subversive group. The artists explore and report on the evolution of toilets and wash-room behavior.

The only redeeming thing about the "movie" was the onscreen revelations of those that had been arrested for lewd acts. It never got explicit or graphic, but dwelt in the melodramatic overacting by the historical dead figures. But besides this, the film was an absolute bloody mess. At various times there's artistic coloring of the faces, as if someone is drawing on them or imagining drawing colors on the faces. I wasn't even sure what were the film makers trying to even say here. I mean you can try and justify this piece of crap by any which way you try, but reality is that "weird" is the only way that you can describe this film at all. I am all about indie films, but please try and execute the idea that you have on paper from the point of view of audience, not just your whimsical fantasies. (0.5/10)

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