Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

Season 2 picks up right where the first one left off, staying focused on LGBTQI+ pioneers, changemakers, and the broader rainbow community in New Zealand. It keeps shining a light on diverse voices from Aotearoa, including gay Māori men, and runs for 6 episodes of about 26 minutes each. The season kicks off with community activator and actor Grayson Goffe heading over to Australia to be part of the 50 years of world gay pride celebrations in Sydney. He spends time with First Nation leaders and meets trailblazers from the world of stage and screen, drag queens included. Episode 2 keeps us in Sydney where Grayson attends his very first Mardi Gras, connects with First Nation icon Crystal Love, and marches across the Sydney Harbour Bridge alongside tens of thousands of people celebrating 50 years of queer liberation. Episode 3 shifts gears and introduces us to actress and presenter Aroha Newby and her partner Pooja who are hoping to start a family. Since there's very little information...

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...

n00b is a New Zealand coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama television series. Set in the town of Gore, it is primarily about Nikau, a high school student who becomes a social outcast after being outed. He becomes a social outcast and along with a group of "freakish friends and foes" traverses the complicated world of high school, and the internet, in search of the confidence to be his true self. The show is 6 episodes of about 20-23 minutes each. The series is set in 2005 with bad fashion choices, emo music and flip phones, which also serves as a love-letter to the internet. Nikau is a popular high school student and a star rugby player and captain. Secretly he has been writing gay fan fiction stories on the internet. In real life he has a girlfriend Lauren, who dreams of making it big in LA. She is pretty but also like a bitch putting herself always before anyone else. Nikau is finding it difficult to lead double life and Lauren is  getting increasingly frustrated at the lack...

This was such a pleasant surprise. What a lovely little film!! This film is just an hour long and it gives such a nice message while keeping everything so entertaining, that sometime high budget full length feature films fail to achieve. I can't believe this film is not being talked about more.  A really powerful depiction of growing up Trans and Tongan in a catholic school.This one is a very cute, indie teen comedy, with a healthy dose of corniness, giggles and also like really emotional moments like I almost cried. A transgender or fakaleitī student Lisa, of Tongan origin starts her fourth high school, St Valentine’s, after having to leave her previous three schools due to bullying. She was born Lewis and her mother still calls him the and identifies him as her son. She meets Moses, captain and star of the school and they do not get along as expected and also this other bitchy girl who for some reason is jealous of her and the other are in class. By constantly breaking the fourth...

Another queer film with religion as the backdrop. But here the conflict is different and relatively new. The gay couple here needs to confront themselves and each other on their beliefs on what they want before they start to deal with problems that the society throws their way. During an era where legislators and religious organizations are weighing in on queer rights all around the globe, this film provides a considered perspective on the juxtaposing relationship one can have with organized religion, God, and queerness as a whole.  Peter is an English Vicar now serving in New Zealand. He was happily married, and he currently has an adult-aged daughter as well. After his wife died, in his moments of grief, he met Jason, who happened to be in prison at the time. Before this occurred, his queerness wasn’t something Peter ever really thought about. But then Jason fell into his life and the two fell in love an make for a beautiful couple and everyone knows about them. Jason runs a yout...

With a duration of just under an hour, this film from back in 1989 is a short, quirky, and romantic story about two men, one an astronomy-obsessed worrier and the other a free spirit who enjoys breaking into places. The charm of late 80s set in Auckland is what makes this film worth watching. It is atale of opposites: coming together and coming out. Richard, an astronomy-obsessed worrier spends his time fantasizing about outer-space and the cosmos, an activity which antagonizes friends and family. He lives with his sister in an apartment. One day, he meets Johnny, a handsome Italian man at the library, with an enormous appetite for life, whose idea of a holiday involves breaking into the nearest small holiday home. The next day he shows up at Richard's door and asks him to join him at the beach. The two have sex there and Johnny mentions that he will soon be back in Italy after 3 weeks and offers Richard love and an escape from the monotony of work. The duo spend sometime together ...

I remember enjoying Rurangi series a lot and was hopeful that there will be follow up to this. I got my hands on second season titled "Rūrangi: Rising Lights". In addition to the tile we also saw some actors changing from original season. Caz's friend/boyfriend Jem and his father are now played by different actors; but that doesn't impact the show negatively in any way. At 5 episodes of about 20 minutes each, this show is still very much worth a watch. The first season concluded on a cathartic, hopeful note. And, while it was clear the characters would still have significant external conflicts ahead, they seemed to have resolved most of their inner turmoil by the season’s end. Season 2 focuses less on main character Caz but in the town and its issues more. We see the struggles of town mayors modernizing the town while Maori people trying to fight for their motherland. We slowly see the town starting to get behind banning of the chemical fertilizers. We still see Cam a...

I did not know what to expect from this film, but man it was good. A gritty yet warm Kiwi coming-of-age drama about boxing, machismo and teenaged sexual identity and discovery. The direction and presentation is a bit artsy but with some very sensitive performances and a strong understanding of small town dynamics, makes this film a winner in my opinion. We don't really get to see movie of queer athletes coming out, and this film doesn't out it straight in your face, but lets us through a beautiful journey of this teenager. Jim is a seventeen-year-old boxer in a small town. He is a golden boy, preparing for a fight that will elevate him to an early professional status. But his father Stan is a demanding coach and a notorious alcoholic. No staying up all night editing music videos out of frolics with his friends, no messing about, pre-bout with his girlfriend. He likes to make videos of nature and water and dunes. Near one of these volcanic sand dunes, he meets Whetu, who is bull...

Rūrangi is a drama from New Zealand which is an empathetic portrait of a young trans man on a literal and spiritual return to his New Zealand home town. It was originally released as a five part web series, but has now been assembled into a feature for the festival circuit. I saw it as a five part series, and I have to say this has been one of the most satisfying viewings. There is no BS in the show and is very to the point. Its focused, it feels like it know what it wants to say and portray and is very clear how it wants to go about giving that message. We meet Caz, who we are later told is a trans man, helping out trans people in community with various activities. People look uptown him. His lover is a famous sportsman, who is actually married. After his unexpected death, even after months, Can is heartbroken and doesn't know what to do. This is when he decides to move back to his town Rurangi to reconnect with his origin. It's been 10 years since he left the town. He is scar...

This is a very unusual and a very personal documentary. New Zealand filmmaker Paul Oremland, now in his 60s, looks back on 40 years of gay history by interviewing men he's had sex with over the years. He decides to make a list of 100 men he has slept with, primarily in a chronological order that they appeared in his life, except for of course top 10, which were his real top 10.  Growing up in 70s in New Zealand, homosexuality was generally viewed as an aberration. But still mostly men found ways to find a sexual partner. And even in those less tolerant days, there were people who had happy stories to share. As Paul moved from NZ to London to film making to multiple trips around the world, he recounts and even tracks some of these men to give interviews for this documentary.  While on the surface it’s a highly personal tale of one man’s liaisons, in the course of the telling, the tale encompasses profound societal and legal changes from the 1970s to the present day, and how qui...

At less than an hour, this tiny little film came out in 1998. I guess it was made for TV but I could be wrong. Anyway its about two flamboyant gay teenage boys (who totally are in denial about their sexuality) who can't wait to grow up and get out of New Zealand take a trip to Rangitoto Island and recall their friendship. Jamie and Lemmy meet at school and become fast friends after a rather weird gay bashing teenage incident. They both are rather effeminate, yet neither self identifies as gay yet. They are rather rebellious, often cutting class to go on adventures. Their families find their friendship odd but they really cant do much about it. They are both drawn to homosexuality but then they both always make lewd and horrible comments about gays and how they should not be here and all that. In fact they even go to public restrooms to create troubles. They fight it to the point of doing some horribly obnoxious things to those they suspect are gay. However, when they start exa...

Don't let the poster of the summary fool you. Lets make it clear that this is not really a queer film. Primarily, I would like to call this a story of a very very dysfunctional family and a decent amount of time is spent exploring gay relationship between 2 farm boys. But the focus is more on the family and the sham it keeps for their image in society. I am not sure at all why this film is being promoted as a tale of two gay men who find love on a New Zealand farm in 1960s. Given that this film has featured in prominent LGBT festivals, I do feel I should review it here. Set in 1960s, Maori city boy Billy moves away from his family and city life in remote areas to become a farm boy, primarily to escape the rumors of him being gay. In a span of short time, we are then introduced to various characters. Billy meets Eva who is having sex with her brother-in-law and being watched by head farm helper Danny. Eva is married to Frank, the owner of the huge farm and who has a spotless an...

I had no idea about the Māori clan in New Zealand. If nothing else, I at least got some information on Māori clan and the fact that they are natives from New Zealand. The Māori culture and language is strikingly similar to Hawaiian — indeed, the Māori name for their mythical ancestral homeland is Hawai‘iki. The film interestingly shows us family expectations and responsibilities, while being true to yourself. Kawa is a mid 40s man. He has a secure job in a flashy corner office, a big house, a nice car, and a loving wife with two happy kids. However he harbors a secret. Yes, he is gay. He has ben spending some time away form his family because he needs time to think. Everyone including his wife and parents cannot figure out what has suddenly gone wrong with Kawa (since they do not know the truth). He is seeing this guy and is living in a portent on his own but still struggling. After some bathhouse trips and an affair, he realizes that he can't do this to his family and returns back...

A coming of age drama (not another one!) of a 12 year old rowing up boy Billy is the main part of this story. They tred to mix the characters with science fiction was pretty cool but apart from that they have tried to show what kids go through growing up specially n a farm area. Billy's slight weight problem, his flamboyant personality, and his fondness for costume play has made him a target for bullies at his one-room school, and his only friend is Lou, his tomboy cousin who prefers to play football with the boys and is dreading the onset of adolescence. Instead, he prefers to dream about an imaginary life in outer space. As Billy resigns himself to his status as an outcast, he's assigned a new deskmate -- a new arrival in town named Roy. Roy is a few years older than Billy, and takes an immediate liking to him; however, while Billy is a bit fuzzy about the practicalities of being gay, Roy seems to have a good bit of practical knowledge of the subject and seems keen on pursui...

This story is told to us by 2 girls Fig and Sally, members of a wanna be band , a drummer and a singer and they are a couple. Based in New Zealand, this is a movie driven by characters rather than story. The story is about this zombie guy Mark, who writes songs and hangs out with Fig and Sally. Stephen a modest guy in his 30s i looking for love and meaning in life and sees that in Mark but he doesn't reciprocate except in form of hanging out or occasional sex. Mark believes that he just cannot love anyone and does not believe that Stephen loves him. Fig and sally sing Mark's songs in between having casual sex with just about anyone. Steven's best friend is Katie, who was once a very popular singer. She has accepted a big TV project but has no inspiration to sing and hence returns back to New Zealand from US. Viewer is ridden through the emotional turmoil that Katie is going through because of her age and her drowning career and the guy Eddie that she is seeing. After twists...