Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

Internalized homophobia can be a powerful force. We tend to think of it simply as lingering shame, or even as something that goes away upon coming out, but in fact its can take many different forms and is often culturally specific. We have seen many films about homosexuality and religion.  Add to that superstition and witchcraft and you get a nice little new genre that we probably have not seen before in gay films in recent times. With Egypt as the background and it looks visually stunning, this film is a taut, suspenseful thriller about gay men trying to reconcile their homosexuality against their family’s religious beliefs. It gets intense with several jump scares, but it is artfully made. Mo and Hisham are a couple who are visiting Egypt to meet Mo's mother after his father's death month ago. They need to pretend to be just friends in order to stay safe in Egypt’s very homophobic environment. Coming back to Egypt, however, leaves Mo especially anxious and uneasy, because he ...

Firstly this is not really a movie. It is more like 6 episodes stitched together for a total of about 50 minutes. Now I dont know if the came this way or the version I saw was more like 6 episodes stitched together, whatever be the case, it was just a bit silly and something that I did not enjoy much. The story was basic, acting slightly over the top, and really not much memorable to take back home. Troy recently moved to Brooklyn with his friend Pat and his then-boyfriend Chance, but Troy and Chance broke up, and haven’t yet post-processed the breakup to see if they might reconcile. Troy works as a busboy and just generally walks around grumpy and bitter, still having feelings for his ex. When a new neighbor moves in, the sweet looking 29 year old middle school teacher Abel, Troy's hope for a rekindled romance with his ex-boyfriend gets officially placed on the back burner. Troy and Abel begin getting to know one another, complicating the “will they or won’t they” reunion with Cha...

Layla is a beautifully observed narrative of love, sex, gender and friendship. The summary of the film doesnt even encapsulate everything that the film is trying to show. It says "When Layla, a struggling Arab drag queen, falls in love for the first time, they lose and find themself in a transformative relationship that tests who they really are." It is a pleasure to have a film that revolves around drag performers; not having them at the periphery of the narrative as dressing, but centering their stories and granting visibility to their interiority. The love journey will be full of ups and downs, sometimes you may or may not agree to what you see, but rest assured that everything is handled with a gentle touch that a subject of this nature deserves. Layla is introduced living in London with their community of queer friends, performing drag and attending parties together. They have amazing rapport with each other. In one such parties, Layla meets Max, A conventional very stra...

I saw the first two of the show a few years back, and had no idea on when did the third season come out. It's really hard to keep up these days. I actually had to go back to my review to read and refresh my memory on what the series was about so I could appreciate this season. Consisting of 8 episodes of 10-12 minutes each, the story carries forward from where we left off in season 2. A quick recap: Jason and Brian were together for many years before Jason got cancer and he passed. Brain has a very close circle of friends and support system and he tried to move on with a new guy David and since Brian could never let go off Jason, it didn't really work out with David. The season continues with the story where we see that Brian has immersed himself in work and despite the fact that he wants to move on from Jason, his friends and support system around him don't let that happen. In fact, the ghost of Jason still continues to talk to Brian. At a friend's recommendation, Bria...

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...

Ganymede is something of a hybrid, mainly functioning as a coming of age queer drama commingled with the horror. With its religious homophobia at its core, this feature is semi-horror, not in a scary way but more in subtextual nuances. It confronts us with the horrific bigotry and abuse that is heaped upon LGBTQ existence from right-wing religious hate. The film tries to show an important lesson that will speak to many young people struggling with their sexual preferences, especially amongst problematic family members. Set in a small town in the modern-day Bible Belt, it centers on high school wrestling star Lee , the only son of a deeply religious local politician who runs his household with an iron fist. Kyle , a gay student who is out to his classmates, has a crush on Lee. He finds out that Lee volunteers to clean up trash on the school grounds, so he signs up to join him. They start hanging out together, which makes Lee’s parents nervous, as well Lee also unsure about his feelings....

Queer holiday movies are something that can give you a warm cozy feeling but the timing has to be right. This film, unfortunately, is so slow moving, that irrespective of when and in what mood you watch it, you will lose interest. The acting is flat, there is not much going on and basically very low production and an extremely indie film that sadly leaves nothing memorable. Bailey is a single middle-aged man living with his medicated mother in Florida, who suffers from chronic pain. He’s also going through his own issues, having recently losing his dog by a tragic accident, and being informed that he will be losing his job at the end of the year due to company closure. His mother tells him that her close friend and her son Greyson are looking to move to their town and for that Greyson will come and spend 2-3 days with them. Greyson and Bailey used to be close friends when they were younger but it's been 30 years now. Greyson and Bailey spend a few days together remembering memories...

There are so few comedy stuff out there that every content that comes out is anticipated a lot. I did not know anything about this 6 part Canadian series, but I was happy to be pleasantly surprised. It is exactly the light queer kinda comedy we need right now. It is about relationships, the many and varied forms they can take, and the many and varied challenges and obstacles they present, both real and imagined. Each episode explores the challenges of queer love through new client stories, tackling themes of anxiety, commitment issues, and unconventional relationships. These clients and their stories reflect various topics about queer dating, love, and sex. Mason runs a podcast about love. Relationships and settling down while also running a match making business for queer personnel, a welcome change from the plethora of apps available. He has been married to Jarod for a few years , who has been very supportive of the business but of late Jarod feels that his work is more important for...

The fact that this film came out back in 1978 in itself is a big surprise to me. Sure, from a story perspective there may not be much going here, but again the fact that the film was made years ago is HUGE deal. The life of gays and transvestites portrayed with empathy in a comedy that has Bent, a factory worker, as its main protagonist. We meet his mother, who makes no bones about having always wished for a daughter rather than a son; his closet days at work; and his let-it-all-hang-out off hours with kind. Brent, an aging gay man is the main protagonist of the story. He is a huge fan of his mother, whose used to be a famous artist and is now on death bed with cancer. He has lived in the shadow of his famous mother all his life, and is constantly trying to survive and find out who he really is by stealing and doing odd jobs here and there. Along the way, we meet his group of eccentric and quirky friends, who might be a bit more colorful than most people. A woman friend who runs a bar,...

English Teacher functions as a workplace sitcom, following a group of well-meaning teachers at the Austin, Texas based High School, with central focus on our English Teacher Evan who is gay and proud and whose professional and personal lives never seem to be in order; leading to a lot of funny lol situations. While keeping humour alive, the show keeps focus also on what it means being an openly gay, or even just an extremely liberal, teacher working in an otherwise conservative community. The first season of this show has 8 episodes of about 22 minutes each, a typical sitcom format. We are introduced to Evan Marquez, a high school English teacher who is generally late to school but mostly loved by students. In first episode, Evan is being put under school investigation after a parent reports him for kissing his now ex-boyfriend, fellow ex-teacher-cum-tech bro Malcolm, in front of her son. Much of the season’s first half revolves around Evan’s futile attempts to navigate this scandal wi...

Three unconventional housemates - a daycare worker, an escort and a senior widow - navigate relationships and existential crises while supporting each other through mishaps and getting high together. Apparently this was an article that occurred in a magazine based on which the film makers decided to turn this into a fun fledged series. The show has been 2 seasons of 5 and 6 episodes respectively averaging at a 10 minute duration each. Ian, a day care worker running an after school program and his boyfriend Lamar (a nurse and a prostitute) move in with a scrappy old widow Delores in her house. The first season focuses more on the adjustments these three people are doing to be with each other, while getting to individually know them better. Ian gets berated by angry mums from the daycare he works at; Lamar meets a client he escorts for but the hookup goes sideways; and Delores has a private lesson with her choir director that gets steamy. Then pillow talk between Ian and Lamar turns into...

Twilight Out of Focus is a Japanese anime BL which advertised two leads, Hisashi and Mao, but the series is actually a collection of three different relationships: Hisashi and Mao, Jin and Giichi, and Rei and Shion. They’re all students of an all-boys boarding school, and they’re all either members or tied to the film club. Each couple gets three to four episodes to tell their story, with the series ultimately ending focusing on Hisashi and Mao, the first couple introduced. The series has 12 episodes of about 22 minutes each. Mao and Hisashi - They meet as roommates first. Hisashi seemed aloof and barely socialized with anyone at school. He rejected Mao's attempts to socialize with him. One day when Hisashi breaks down in the room, he confesses that he is gay. Mao responded positively by showing him a lot of support. Moved by his kindness, Hisashi began to warm up to his roommate. They talked more often, grew closer, and eventually became close friends. Mao is a part of a film club...

There is not a whole lot happening in this series. It’s the kind of familiar, silly college romance, where the lead is completely confused over whether his crush likes him back, despite having kissed each other. It ss genre that was really popular just when BL series were starting to pick up but now as audience I have a lot to choose from. Despite a paper thin plot, the series has a lot of light hearted moments and silly moments between friends that keep you engaged for a while. But spanning over 17 episodes of about 50-65 minutes, this shows asks for almost 16 hours of investment; which by the end of it doesn't feel worth it despite it being successful in keeping a smile on your face. Easter and North are college roommates who have just stated university and are eagerly looking for college life making new friend. Eater joins a club whose president is Hill, a very popular medical student, who has three other friends and the one we will focus on is Johan, who is from a very wealthy ...

Never Let Him Go is a four-part docuseries about the mysterious death of Scott Johnson, an openly gay academic whose naked body was found at the bottom of a cliff near Sydney in December, 1988, and the grueling, decades-long investigation his brother Steve launched to get to the bottom of the case spending over 30 years of his life to get the justice. An American prodigy studying in Australia, Scott had a bright future ahead of him. But it was cut short when his body was found at the bottom of a cliff, naked and mutilated, with police concluding simply that Scott had committed suicide. Over the course of decades, however, multiple leads would come up that suggest Scott could’ve been one of the many hate crime victims whose violent and bias-motivated end went unacknowledged. In four efficiently edited, objectively studied yet emotionally told episodes, Never Let Him Go tracks this years-long affair and studies how it evolved from a simple unresolved mystery to a landmark case that expos...