Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

This one left me kind of torn by the end. The AIDS crisis has been covered on screen so many times already, dramatic weight and all, that a movie really needs to bring something fresh to the table to stand out. I get that this is an older production, but honestly it doesn't add much that feels new. The writing swings into pretty heavy melodrama once act two kicks in, and the shift is so jarring compared to act one that it almost feels like a different movie took over halfway through. The story kicks off in 1984 with Frank, a teenage kid who's openly gay, confident, and constantly chasing sex. His dad tells him to peel the gay stickers off his car, and that's all it takes for Frank to pack up and head to Amsterdam with a couple of friends. Those friends ditch him almost immediately, leaving him broke and homeless, until he stumbles onto a place called House of Boys, a club where the performers actually live on site. His looks and swagger get him a spot there, he starts perfo...

This film goes after the ugly side of TV journalism today, the kind that chases the perfect shot no matter the cost, even shoving cameras and mics straight into people's grief. What we get is a movie showing just how brutal that manipulation and deceit can be. It's basically a film within a film, blending delusion, illusion, and theatrics into visuals that are as unsettling as they are gripping. It's shot in this doc drama style, playing out like an actual documentary while also showing us how that documentary gets made behind the scenes, which gives the whole thing a really meta feel. We open with the news that a gay man named Jay has been stabbed to death in his own apartment, and we see how his mom and the rest of his family react, along with how the aftermath unfolds. We're also told the killer's been caught, but has he really? About fifteen minutes in, the film rewinds back to the morning of the murder itself. Now we're following a cameraman and a director ...

Seven decades after his grandfather fled Nazi Germany and built a new life in Palestine, Israeli documentary filmmaker Tomer Heymann finds himself heading back to Germany to screen his earlier film Paper Dolls at the Berlin International Film Festival. That trip is where he runs into Andreas, a German dancer, and what starts as a 48-hour whirlwind turns into something much bigger between the two of them. Alongside that relationship, the documentary also weaves in the story of Tomer's mother and what is happening in her life during all of this. Two things sit at the center of this documentary, Tomer's bond with his mother Noa, and his growing relationship with Andreas. Noa is struggling with the fact that one by one her children have packed up and left the country she and her family dedicated themselves to building, and Tomer is the only one still around after his parents split. That makes her grip on his life tighter than he probably wants. On the other side, when Andreas event...

Gay Days is a documentary that dives into how the LGBTQ+ community really started to find its voice in Israel. Back in 1985, there were literally only three gay men who were officially out in the whole country, but by 1998, that number had jumped to 3,000. It’s a look at this super short, intense, and dramatic window of time where Israel went through one of the fastest and most vibrant social revolutions at the end of the 20th century. What’s wild is that this whole shift happened without any blood being spilled; instead, it was this rare team-up between professors, sex workers, trans people, singers, barbers, and even military officers. The director, Yair Qedar, was right there filming it all for his own newspaper called  The Pink Times . He uses some really cool old footage, personal stories, and his own private diary to piece together this energetic and bittersweet musical mix of a movie. The film follows Qedar’s own path as a kid from middle Israel who moved to Tel Aviv in...

I am not sure how I feel about this film to be honest. A sort of love story of an aging drag queen. ON paper the story is interesting and to an extent it really is, but I thought the film was stretched way beyond it should have been, plus there are certain elements of the film that it could have easily done without. The film starts in bleak darkness where we see two soldiers first fighting and then leading to gay sex and accidentally stumbling upon a house where two trans women live. One of the soldiers then kills the other because he makes some comment. Change scene and we meet agin drag queen Tonia. She is head over heels in love with Rosario, a gay man half her age, who makes her dresses. Rosário is a drug addict, a thief, and a generally abusive partner – but as the film progresses, the sheer volume of interaction between the pair begins to wear you down. You wonder why is Tonia so much in love with this toxic man, but you stop asking questions. Eventually you're forced to beli...

This documentary is trying to break down the old tired stereotypes and show that gay men can look like anything, blue collar guys, cops, tough athletes, rodeo cowboys, gym bros who could scare anyone just by walking in the room. It brings in a bunch of different guys talking about what being masculine actually means to them. The guys they interview are pretty honest about their sexuality and how people see them. They talk about the usual butch gay categories, leather guys, bears, rodeo riders, muscle guys, construction workers, truck drivers, cops, athletes, and mix that in with stuff like homophobia, being stereotyped, being called too feminine or too polished, and fashion. A lot of them say they feel kind of alone trying to fit into gay culture as masculine guys, like they don't belong to the "normal" gay scene either. Some talk about just not caring about pop culture or fashion or divas like other gay guys do, worrying if they'd be accepted in a typical tough guy j...

A film about sexually and love confused individuals, this film explores a very toxic love stories between a few group os people linked somehow, where they claw their way towards each other's love and approval to the point of death and destruction. The first half intriguingly depicts the characters’ various stages of secrecy, denial and bewilderment; while the second half felt like a very confused screenplay to me where the film maker was not sure where to take the film. I am gonna use the roles instead of names, otherwise it will get very confusing for me. The film starts with two men on a trip where they spend time and make love with each other. Turns out they were being followed by a 'photographer' to follow her 'husband' and the 'lover' because she suspected him of having an affair. What completely shocks here that this person will be a man. Out of anger and respite, she barges into the 'lover's' office and creates a scene. This makes the love...

Reality TV has become part of our everyday life now and most people are used to all kinds of content. But think back to the days of non smart phone, modem internet, technology just coming up with online chats and videos. College Boys Live is, I a documentary feature that follows a group of young gay men living - and performing- in a Florida house in which the inhabitants are under the constant scrutiny of multiple cameras. The footage from the house’s cameras is streamed live on a website.  College Boys Live gives many of its subscribers and performers a chance to experience a truly gay community. The site according to its owner, Zac, is not just about sex and sex chat. He states its main aim is self-empowerment: both for the boys and for the site’s members. Three new members join this house where they have to live minimum of 6 months. Zac likes to give the impression he is doing this for philanthropic reasons, and perhaps he is, we wont know. But the boys, all young and skinny and...

This beautiful queer sitcom from early 2000's from BBC Two caught my attention only because it has my favorite Olivia Colman in it. Spanning over 2 seasons with 6 episodes each, the sitcom is unapologetically happy, camp and very, very gay. The show is based on the book by Simon Doonan, who is Creative Ambassador of the New York clothing store Barneys. The book tells of his upbringing in Reading during the ‘50s and ‘60s intertwined with his adult life as a gay man. So the show writers took situations from the book and relocated the setting to the more contemporary 1990s. Each episode of the series 1 opens and closes with the adult Simon, working as a window dresser in America, and the lion’s share of the story set in his teens. In season 2 Simon moves back to England after his relationship with his American boyfriend ends, which allows us to see interactions between Simon and his mum as adults. In a typical sitcom style. The show is a big and brash exploration of identity and the c...

Having somehow endured the first season of the show, I was dreading g the time, when I will somehow be forced (by myself) into watching this second season. Thankfully the expectations after first season were so low that this season two fits perfectly the bill. The story sort of continues but even if you haven't seen the first season, you will not miss any context. Maykel not has his own work business, which is not important in the context of larger story. Him and Johannes seem to have broken up, but it feels like they both still love each other but are afraid to do anything about it. Thanks to Johannes' friend; he thinks maybe if he makes Maykel jealous by pretending to be with someone else, Maykel will admit his love. Somewhere during this tine, on a drunken night, Maykel ends up sleeping with J's friend. When he and Johannes are back together as a couple, he don't tell him the truth. Enter a new girl, who happens to be Johannes' old friend form younger days, who i...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a series of violent murders took place near Sydneys famous Bondi Beach. Three innocent men were attacked and thrown to their deaths from a cliff top. The murders were part of a much wider wave of violent hate crimes as gangs of youths roamed Sydneys inner suburbs randomly bashing and killing gay men for sport. This series, Crime Investigation Australia is an Australian true-crime series, in which one of the episodes featured these gay killings. Among the victims at Bondi was Wollongong television newsreader, Ross Warren, a gay man who disappeared while visiting friends in Sydney in 1989. Ross Warrens case was dismissed by police as a probable accident. But his mother conducted a long campaign to have her sons disappearance finalised. Then, some ten years after he was first reported missing, Ross' police file finally came to the desk of one courageous investigator who started to dig a little deeper. Detective Sergeant Stephen Page quickly realised t...

This documentary came back in 2009 where before the 30th anniversary, Vancouver's Gay Pride Parade director Ken Coolen, examines relevance of Pride celebrations internationally. He travels to places where Pride is steeped in protest to experience the powerful oppression that still exists. Pride is more than a parade, it's a giant step on the road to equality. Ken Coolen recognizes that the ride celebrations had started to overshadow the whole activism situation at the pride parades and hence he decides to travel to places like Sri Lanka, Moscow, Poland, Canada to understand what its like there. He finds the situation a lot different in Sri Lanka, where just flying the rainbow flag can get you 10 years in jail or the lesbians are sometimes subjected to "conversion rapes". In Poland, where the European Court only recently ruled that pride celebration must be legalized, Coolen encounters anti-gay violence first-hand, as hoards of Catholics (mostly young men) angrily stom...

Although touted as an erotic drama, this film, in my opinion, is nothing but an extended version of a porn film that lasts 90 minutes. Sure the makers can call it an experiment film, or crossing the film making boundaries or an experiment of human desire; nothing can change the underlying factor that this film is nothing but porn. The premise is simple. In an attempt to make a film about the nature of desire, director Claude Pérès invites porn star Marcel Schlütt to have sex with him. They will sleep together while the cameras roll. No contract, no film crew, no boundaries. The end result is a film that challenges viewers to look into the heart of human desire. The makers argue that this is not just porn but an act or experiment of desire and their reasoning is that because they engaged in sensual touching, kissing and stopped to talk about it. So what? That doesn't take away the fact that we see almost 45 minutes of hard core man to man sex. Look, I am not complaining about the se...

Apparently, there were a series of posts published online on some Thai website which became so popular that someone decided to make a movie out of it. I have such mixed feelings about this film. One part of me enjoyed this very basic and sort of emotional bromance/love story but then there were many places where the silliness of the whole proceeding just didn't make sense. And I think this is primarily to do with some amateurish direction nd real poor editing. There are quite a few long drawn shots with nothing happening that just bores the audience. More on all this later. Ped's girlfriend Kai leaves him for another successful man. Heartbroken Ged tries to move on and gets a new job at the airport cargo. To his surprise, a male colleague of his named Oi, makes a very public declaration of how he loves him. Despite constant reminders by Ged that he is not gay, Oi likes to hang out and be with him all time and slowly they become real good friends, while Oi continues to flirt wit...

I am not sure why this film got such great reviews and press at the time when it came out. Agreed that it is an interesting mix of poetic and erotic cinema at the same time but with hardly any spoken dialogues, you really have to focus hard to understand what's actually going on, what the storyline is and what is it the are trying to actually say. Shot in black and white, I want to say that cinematography is excellent and there are plenty dreamlike sequences, but with a duration of over 3 hours, it tests your patience like no one has ever done it before. And I am not ashamed to say that I am definitely not one of those who was willing to venture into this 3 hour of sensory world. I have better things to do and I just had to fast forward at many places just to make sense of this film. The official synopsis says this about the film "Youthful Kieri and Ryo share a deep and passionate love for each other. Kieri sets off in search of his soul mate after Ryo is kidnapped. A female s...

When I read that there is a documentary about Native American gender identity, I was quite intrigued. I had recently visited Arizona and got to know about the Navajo tribe. The fact that this documentary follows the story of Fred Martinez, a Navajo boy who also identified himself as a girl piqued my interest, It helps that the documentary was just under an hour. While homosexuality and gender identities are considered more modern concepts, the Navajo have long believed in the existence of four genders. They believed in four genders and duties were divided accordingly. Besides the two common ones, they also have born male with feminine essence and female born with male essence. The latter two were revered in Navajo community and referred to as Two Spirited humans. Sadly this was lost as Western influence progressed. We learn about Fred, a much loved boy, who he was loved by his family, how he came out, how he led his life on his own terms and how eventually he was murdered in one of the...

This film was actually a very pleasant surprise that Iw wasn't expecting. I did not know much about the film, so sometimes that helps. But some very charming actors, a decent storyline (which is probably not taking it too seriously) and a duration of under 80 minutes, this film was a lot of fun to watch and I had this happy smile to my face which hasn't happend for sometime especially while watching a film. We meet Simon, a clarinet player and openly gay man. He is having an affair with his 'straight' student Raphael and they meet secretly, but he is also seeing French-Arab cross-dresser Naim on the side and he enjoys both their company. When Simon's mother breaks her hip, she has to come live with Simon, who actually doesn't care much for her and is very self centered. Somehow Naim makes hey way into Simon's house as the mother's full time nurse pretending to be Habiba. They get along really well and somehow Simon's dwindling intimacy with Naim gets...

This film is the biography of celebrated Catalan poet Jaime Gil de Biedma, which celebrates his life and work both marked by sexuality and eroticism. The firstling that strikes you while watching the film is that you really need to have. Love for language, especially poetry to appreciate this film. The fact that people like me watch it with subtitles, makes it even more complicated. But regardless, Jaime's life is so colorful, with multiple lovers laced with sexual eroticism, the film still makes for a wonderful viewing. The film starts with an impeccable and presentable Jaime in Manilla seducing local boys in Manilla for sex with his charm and money. But back in Barcelona, his father,  is concerned about the impact of Jaime’s lifestyle on the reputation of the family’s tobacco empire, particularly since the cops are not being very polite to commie sympathizers. Jaime has a lover who is good for him socially but Jaime is refused membership in the Communist Party because he’s openly...

“Dzi Croquettes,” was an all-male dance and theater troupe that had a moment of fame in the 1970s in Brazil and then Europe. Lennie Dale, a virtuoso Broadway dancer and émigré to Brazil, founded the 13-member group in 1973. Their productions were lavish explosions of creativity and imagination that had wide audience appeal. Interestingly, the group flourished in Brazil at a time of extreme repression under a harsh military dictatorship. The documentary gives us a brief history of how the group started, what was the situation in Brazil at that point and most importantly how did a group like this which was all about sexuality where male performers, in full display, out and proud of their bodies, fill of hair, wigs and makeup managed to survive and even more importantly create a name for themselves. We see interviews with 5 of the surviving members reliving their glorious days. It tells the story of the troupe’s life cycle: achieving notoriety, then being torn apart by fame, then being de...

This film is a a strange case of being a weirdly odd film yet funny in many instances. And funny not hahaha, but chuckle and situational funny comedy. Now, what Ia m not sure is that whether this was intentioned this way or not. I have a LOT of problems with the story line, but if I keep that aside for now, this wasn't a bad film, but not a great one either. Armand is a 40- something gay middle age fat guy, who's life is going nowhere. He is into older guys but is tired of meaningless sex. He binge eats and also job wise he is just doing ok. One night he sees 4 thugs troubling young 16 year old Curly. HE saves her, by paying money off to the thugs and in turns becomes an unlikely white-knight. Curly develops a huge crush on him and makes strong sexual advances. And before. You know Armand also wants to explore the bi-side of him. Since the parents would have none of this, after multiple tries, Armand manages to elope with Curly. After a few awkward sexual tries, they make it ha...