Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

AIDS: The Unheard Tapes is a genuinely powerful three part BBC2 documentary that digs into audio recordings from the eighties and nineties, pulled from the British Library's archives, to piece together what the early HIV and AIDS crisis actually looked like in the UK. These recordings get brought back to life through carefully recreated period settings, with actors lip syncing the original voices. That's paired with present day interviews featuring activists, scientists, and doctors who were on the front lines fighting the virus and pushing back against all the misinformation and homophobia surrounding it. Each of the three episodes runs about an hour, and I'll just say upfront, this might be the single most important documentary made about AIDS history from a UK angle, and it should honestly be required viewing for everyone, especially within the gay community. The documentary opens at a point where homosexuality had already been decriminalized for fifteen years, yet arres...

This Thai film is going for that crime and romance mix inside the BL space, trying to blend coming of age struggles with gritty gang violence thrown in. Honestly, this movie really didn't need to exist. It grabs actors straight out of BL shows that you'll recognize instantly, then tries to drop them into this gritty setting with a story that just doesn't land. Even if there was some kind of heart buried in here somewhere, the way it's actually put together feels pretty amateur. Kheng comes from a rough background and has his heart set on studying in China, so he's grinding hard trying to land a scholarship. We don't get much of his backstory, but he's living with his friend Tai, who I'm pretty sure has feelings for him too, and Tai backs him up in every way he can. One day Kheng witnesses a group of thugs beating up a guy named Boang, who turns out to be a drug dealer, though Kheng has no clue about that at the time. He ends up saving Boang's life an...

Muxes are recognized as a third gender among the Zapotec people down in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, and they're non-binary in how they live their identity. Mexican culture leans pretty machista overall, so muxes end up filling caregiver roles a lot, and they earn real respect both for that work and for who they are. This film feels less like a movie and more like a piece of visual art that pulls you straight into what it actually feels like to live as a muxe. I honestly can't think of another film that functions this much like a painting come to life. It's packed with life, with love, with real heartbreak too, and the whole thing comes across as this incredible burst of culture and creativity. You might not walk away loving it purely as a story, but there's no arguing with how gorgeous and vivid it looks. The film follows a community of muxes pushing back against the idea that gender only exists in two boxes, and we spend time with three of them, Delirio, Amaranta, and Mar...

Its been a while since I saw a film set during Pandemic days, and this one pulled me right back into that strange bubble of time that somehow already feels like it happened in another life. A Brazilian filmmaker who also wrote the script and plays the lead character Chico puts you straight back into that headspace, the endless indoor days, the isolation, the Zoom calls, the social distancing that started to feel like the new normal. The problem is the film itself is genuinely dull. Whatever point the director was trying to make could have landed perfectly in a short film, but instead everything gets pulled and stretched into long scenes of pretty much nothing happening. Chico is a bear living alone through lockdown, watering his plants, following along to workout videos, and treating covid protocols like they are basically sacred law. His friends have actually started calling him the protocol police, and that rigidity has slowly pushed them all away from him. A Zoom call brings more ba...

Set in the coastal town of Latina, Italy, the series explores adolescence with an honesty that is both disarming and deeply immersive. It masterfully explores gender fluidity, sexuality, and the struggles of modern youth. I wouldn't call this strictly a queer show but then a good part of it I about the lead hiding the true nature of his gender fluidity and how a lot of things happening around him is because of the guilt/secret that he is hiding regarding it. So in that regard, I would say that the show expands on familiar coming-of-age themes but pushes them into more complex, fluid territory. Season 1 is 8 episodes each of about 45 minutes. The central characters are two brother Andrea and Marco, both high school students and not legal yet. Marco is outwardly confident but secretly struggles to connect with others, while Andrea, the more outgoing of the two, wrestles with his gender identity and expression. Told via time jumps between present day and recent flashbacks, Marco’s tur...

Coming from Simon Boulerice—who is a huge deal in Canada as a writer, actor, and TV star—this romantic show is based on his own personal book. It’s a super close-up look at a guy who is feeling pretty lonely and keeps looking for a boyfriend in all the wrong spots. We follow him through a bunch of random hookups as he tries to find a soulmate or even just a decent one-night stand, but things just keep getting more and more complicated. The whole season is made up of ten short episodes that only last about 10 to 15 minutes each, so it moves really fast. The story focuses on 39-year-old Simon, who is basically addicted to dating apps because he's desperate to find "The One," even though he mostly just ends up with shallow chats and quick flings. He’s been talking to this guy named Felix and thinks he’s finally found love, but it turns out the whole thing is a fake profile. Luckily, he has his best friend Jocelyn, who is always there for him when things go south. As he trave...

This docuseries is a lively and personal look at what it’s like to be queer in New Zealand today. Hosted by the really charming Aniwa Whaiapu Koloamatangi, it feels like you're being invited into all these different parts of the rainbow community that usually don't get much time on TV. The first season is made up of six episodes, each about 30 minutes long, and they all dive into different topics like family, faith, and the specific experience of being Takatāpui, which is the Māori queer identity. It does a really nice job of balancing the tough history of the LGBTQ+ community with a lot of modern-day happiness and pride. The show starts with Aniwa traveling all over the place to meet folks from every walk of life to see how their background and identity mix together. In the first episode, Aniwa actually takes his first HIV test, works through some stuff from his childhood by playing rugby with the NZ Falcons—one of the country’s gay teams—and checks out what Rainbow Youth is d...

I'm guessing the whole point of this movie was to show a realistic "slice of life" look at gay men in Tokyo and how they connect with each other. The idea behind it is actually pretty interesting, but the film spends a good 35 to 40 minutes just setting up the characters. The problem is it feels so disjointed that you start wondering why they bothered giving these people backstories when those details are never mentioned again later on! The story kicks off by introducing us to Tomayo, a student in his early 20s who is hanging out with two close friends. He meets a gay bar owner who takes an interest in him right away, which basically starts Tomayo’s journey of figuring out his own sexuality. Then we meet an 18-year-old guy who is more on the effeminate side; he’s desperate to find love and be in a relationship, but he keeps getting rejected. He ends up sleeping with one of Tomayo's close friends. After that, we meet Akiko, a 33-year-old corporate worker whose coworker...

This movie is such a sharp look at the way we mess with other people’s heads and even our own. It really digs into how unreliable and messy our memories get as we grow up, showing how we can basically rewrite our own history and lie to ourselves without even knowing it. While it misses the mark a few times in how it’s put together, the whole idea is super gripping, and there are some genuinely tragic moments that really stick with you. It’s not strictly a "gay movie" in the usual sense—the main guy is bisexual and has a boyfriend in the present day—but the plot is about so much more than just sexuality. By following four rich kids in Venezuela, it explores things like class tension, masculinity, and how fragile our past really is. The story jumps back and forth constantly between the past and the present. We meet Alain, a young guy who’s pretty troubled and seems totally bored with life. His boyfriend, Salvador, is a journalist, and their conversations end up triggering all t...

This movie is actually a Peruvian remake of a Mexican film called  Hazlo Como Hombre , which I’ve reviewed before. One nice thing about watching so much stuff is that I eventually forget the details, so this didn't even feel like a repeat to me. It helped that the cast was new and the setting was different, but they definitely kept the same sense of humor from the original. We don't see a ton of LGBTQ+ stories coming out of Peru, so it was a nice change of pace to see them tackle this subject. The story is about three childhood best friends—Raul, Eduardo, and Santiago—who have always lived that typical, "alpha male" lifestyle. Raul is about to be a dad, and Santi is actually dating Raul’s sister, though she’s been complaining that their sex life is pretty non-existent. Everything gets flipped upside down when Santi finally comes out as gay and breaks up with her. Raul’s sister goes into overdrive trying to win him back with some pretty hilarious (but useless) schemes....

This is a Japanese comedy series primarily focusing on a fujoshi, who is totally shipping two of her office male colleagues and imagines them in all kinds of torrid situations. Oh man!1 I laughed so hard in almost every single episode. The female lead is brilliant, and her boundless enthusiasm propels the funny antics. I wouldn't call this strictly a BL because we are never really told about the real relationship, but honestly I don't care. Breezy 25 episodes of each just 5 minutes were so much fun to watch, that I will be going around recommending this show.  Oto is a female accountant in a sales office. She often sees Daichi (one of the youngest sales employee who has a very outgoing and perky personality) and Hong (a 32 year old more mature man and also boss of Daichi) working together a lot and helping each other. She lets her imaginations run wild and totally dreams about them being in love and doing things together. The two men are close friends with chummy interactions, ...

Art Johnston and Pepe Peña, LGBTQ+ rights leaders and owners of the iconic gay bar Sidetrack in Boystown, are the subjects of a documentary. It follows their love story spanning 50 years and the history of the Sidetrack bar amid their fight for LGBTQ+ rights in Chicago. It tells the story of long-term gay marriage/partnerships as the partners weather health battles, senior-citizenship, and some of the difficulties (and rewards) of becoming elderly together. The film documents Art and Pep’s arrival to Chicago from small-town Illinois and Cuba respectively. The two discovered bar culture, and how precious it could be to those marginalized communities who craved a safe haven all their own. When the pair fell fast in love, an opportunity arose that took their lives in an altogether new and exciting trajectory: opening their own bar would allow Art and Pepe to continue celebrating the freedoms they found in Boystown as well as make a positive impact on their community. We witness their role...

I have mixed feelings about this film. At every point it talks about 'going with the flow', let your heart experience new things, make yourself open and explore new things, but the way it has been setup is quit contrived. It is definitely an interesting story to tell but besides a totally random ending, even the way two men come together wasn't completely established. The one good thing about the film is that they shot in the beautiful city of Taxco, Mexico; which is now added to my bucket list of cities I Want to visit in Mexico. Josh, a white American is visiting Taxco with his Mexican girlfriend of few years. They are very much in love and she can't wait for Josh to experience her childhood memories. On their first day, they see a guy proposing to his girlfriend, a very loving scene but in a stark contrast, they both having a huge fight in the evening leaving the couple apart. They both laugh it off and continue with their life. Next day when the girlfriend gets an u...

This film definitely takes on a very interesting premise and tries to weave a thriller around it. Set in the 70s, it weaves the fascinating lives of cisgender men embracing their female alter egos under Izabel's guidance in a secluded retreat, offering a unique glimpse into Brazil's history and societal nuances with warmth and depth. There is a secluded house in middle of nowhere, called 'Casa Izabel', where cis gendered men come, disguise as women and spend their time. These are all socially well to do men and they live out their fantasies while no one judges them. It is a temporary escape, allowing them to become the glamorous women they desire to be. They don wigs, make-up, gowns, and aliases to live openly for their short stay — tossing back champagne, dancing, and even hunting wild boar in their pumps. This setting, managed by the transvestite Izabel, becomes a sanctuary for their unique escapades. But Izabel is extremely old now, so the things are managed by a car...

Mel is an intimate documentary about Mel Daluzyan, one of Armenia's most talented weightlifters, a once beloved champion who has won medals and broken world records, but whose fame transformed into infamy when his transgender identity became public knowledge. Today, under asylum in the Netherlands, his dream of gender transition is finally within reach - but how much must he sacrifice for it? Mel Daluzyan was, at one time, a national treasure to the people of Armenia when in 2006 he became the first female from the country to win a medal in the World Weightlifting championships. Having been born with higher levels of testosterone than an average woman, Mel had a noted advantage over his competitors. He would continue to see further success until the 2012 Olympics when he was unable to set a total. Mel now has a girlfriend Lili and when the threats become too much in a conservative society, he seeks refuge in Netherlands.  As time moves by, Lilit feels the pressure of not only leavi...

This is an experimental queer musical film that uses opera/documentary and other styles to explore gay relationships and polyamory in a contemporary Arab context. The film’s artistic, nonlinear narrative incorporates a combination of live action, animation and music video-style sequences, along with more than its share of sexually explicit sequences. Even though I found the style and experiment quite interesting, including the narratives but overall I wasn't sure why this was made. In the sense that it had interesting representation of urban gay life and relationships but it was very confusing and one of those art for art's sake pieces. A glance leads to a smile, a smile to a rendezvous: every love story begins the same way. At the center of it all, from what I understood, this Arab love story is about a group of men trying to navigate a polyamorous relationship. Three men in a relationship and what each oof them thinks about it, how they got into it, how the meetings happened,...

This film, set in 2015, is a feel-good comedy about people trying to follow their hearts, whether it involves an inter-generational romance, a middle-aged interracial throuple or an artistic trans man looking for love in all the wrong places. Sadly a treatment of a subject like me would have likely worked in early to late 2000's but somehow in 2022, this subject feels a bot dated, especially the way it has been directed. It feels very obvious and simple and the plot feels contrived and a bit corny at places. It was good to see Matthew Montgomery after a long time. I do remember when I had just started watching gay films, he used to feature in a lot of films. In 2015, just as Supreme Court rules on marriage equality, long term couple Max and Josh decide to get a divorce, except that they have a hard time separating. We see Josh occasionally hooking up with a cop Pete while Max still harboring feelings for his ex. When a young guy named Conrad moves into Max's old apartment, he g...

This Vietnamese series is very mellow, given its base in a countryside setting. The series has an interesting premise but the makers have added too many characters and too many parallel stories and they all keep vying for attention. So what happened here is that the leads barely get any time to develop their romance and focus on it, making it really hard to connect with them or root for them. The show is 9 episodes with average 20 min each. Yes, the Vietnamese BL scene is improving but this is going to take time. Dang is a student in city who is not very good in studies and has already failed twice for university entrance exam. Tired of his antics, his mother decides to bring him to the village to his grandma after finding out that there is this teacher in village who could possibly help Dang study. We meet Son, a young man, who has taken responsibility of teaching younger kids so that the family members can work. While not a teacher by profession, he reluctantly agrees to teach Dang. ...

I feel like maybe I did not understand this film completely. It is the story of a gay Latin man and his childhood trauma coping up now with mental illness while he is in relationship. The horror for me started to become repetitive with no deep insight into what the resolutions are, what ws real and what was figment of imagination. The film starts with a young boy and his mother in house. It feels like the mother has some mental issues and in a lot she tries to strangle her son. When the father is back, he does nothing much about it. Circa many years later, The boy is a grown man now. Will is now a potter in an upscale boutique. He is in a committed relationship with Luke, and even with their differences, both young men are virtually certain what they’re feeling for one another is nothing less than love. Will avoids talking about his family, especially mother all the time. He has not mentioned that years ago, his father had committed his mother to a mental asylum. Now Will avoids his mo...

TBH, To Be Honest, is NOT a gay web series. This has a very strong gay sub-plot but the show is mostly about teenage sin a high school and what happens in the aftermath of a shooting in one of the high schools in Brno, where the rules bordering on bullying are set by members of a floor hockey team and their groupies, a girl gang called Bitchez. In ten episodes, Czech Television’ s first original streaming series tells the story of searching for boundaries in the painful world of being a teenager, during a time of manipulative social media. The series has 10 episodes which run from 11 to 15 and a half minutes each In a high school, one day a stranger arrives shooting at students. Maja is an activist who live-streamed her fight for survival and now must deal with the resulting sudden internet fame. Unfortunately, she also streamed the awkward moments between the popular Nessa and her boyfriend, floorballist Luky. Because of the attack, floral captain jumps out of the window. It turns out...