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Showing posts from October, 2007

Buah, Ha (Israel-Hebrew/Arabic) [The Bubble]

My first experience with Israeli cinema and I must say I was pretty impressed. The movie part in Hebrew and part in Arabic shows what the people have to go through because of war and extreme political situations. The movie starts with a scene from a checkpoint on the Israeli-Palestinian border. This confuses the viewer as to what kind of movie is this. But very soon the whole plot is established. Naom, one of the guys from the checkpoint lives in Tel Aviv with a girl Lulu and a gay roommate Yelli. Lulu is in search of the perfect guy who does not want just sex but wants much more to life. Yelli works in a cafe and is shown as a fun loving guy. The story begins when Ashraf , a guy from the border while Naom was working shows up at his door. He lost his id and had found Naom's id. There is instant spark and the 2 guys ended up sleeping together. Their love slowly starts to grow even though knowing that because of Ashraf being Arab and Naom being a JEw , there is absolutely no future

Sheng xia guang nian (Taiwan-Mandarin) [Eternal Summer]

The tagline of the film is very apt "No One Wishes To Be Lonely, Neither Do We.". Its so story not just in the context of the movie but even otherwise for every individual. Jonathan and Shane are best friends from school. They were forced in school to pair with each other but eventually turn out to be best friends who hang out with each other always. Jonathan meets this girl Carrie and they date for a while until one day he chickens out when they try to go physical. He realizes that he has hidden feelings for someone else. and that some one else is his friend Shane. Jonathan tells Carrie about it and she understands but there is air of discomfort between the two. Oblivious to all this, Shane starts falling for Carrie but there is a conflict of interest with his friendship with Jonathan. Seeing this Jonathan realizes that probably he cannot remain friends with Shane for his and Carrie's best interest. Shane has always seen Jonathan as his best friend and is very scared to

Defying Gravity

This is the kind of film that I personally prefer on most of the movies. Its difficult to put this movie in one particular genre. If I had to say, I would put it as coming out/romantic movie which is totally my cup of tea. The movie per me is almost there where I cannot find a fault with it. Right from the story telling, to the characters portrayed, acting, friendship between the 2 boys, love and affection, acceptance by parents and community; it has just about everything with the right sentiment and right emotion. I have seen the movie twice already.:) The story is about 3 friends Griff, Todd and Pete. Griff and Pete have certain sexual encounters without Todd knowing about it. Griff just wants to enjoy and live with the moment whereas Pete is falling in love and wants something more meaningful which obviously Griff is opposed to. Things take a dramatic turn when Pete is seriously injured and hospitalized after he is gay bashed. Griff stars questioning himself, obviously having these

Breaking the Surface : The Greg Louganis Story

Its hard to classify this movie as strictly under gay genre. Or maybe its not. Because our primary character is gay and it does show the real hardships faced by him in his life. Based on the diving champion Greg Louganis on his book, the movie takes us deep inside how Greg's childhood was, how was his relationships with other people, how he became the great Olympic champion that he was and much more. Greg Louganis is adopted child in his family. His father is not particularly fond of him as a kid but his mother does notice that he is passionate about diving. WIth proper coaching and mentoring, they make sure he gets to do what he likes. Greg's mother is always shown close to him and his father always being that angry man who is not too fond of him because he is not good at reading. Down the line Greg starts living in with a guy Keith and after living together for a while, Keith moves out because he is not comfortable with the fact that Greg would not accept that he is gay in pu

The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me

This film experience was a very different one. Whether it was god or bad, we will decide a little later. The movie is different in the sense that it is a one man show throughout the movie which is more like a theatrical event converted movie for audience. One man talks about his experiences through various phases in life starting from when he was 6 to when he is in his mid 40s. It includes experiences going to the gym, clubs, gay bashing, secret dreams etc. Personally there was nothing for me in the movie. It started ok. I was a little interested initially because I had never seen any such thing earlier. In the initial portions I tried hard to understand and was getting into it. In fact the scene where he acts as he is visiting the gym was hilarious. I laughed a lot in that but after that it just kept going boring. The movie doesn't awaken you or make you curious and sit back and think because most of the issues are known to everyone. You just feel that this one man is very self in

Mil Nubes de Paz (Mexico-spanish) [A Thousand Clouds of Peace]

Gosh!! Was this movie slow or what! In a movie of about 80 plus minutes, the time where there were dialogues was maybe about 20-25 minutes max.There were just scenes and emotions just shown were extended period of time in individual screens. Not that I mind them but then there has to be a limit. I tried to bear with all this for first half an hour but after that I was like, this movie is just not going anywhere. From a story point of view,Gerardo has just finished his relationship with his boyfriend. Then all they show is him wandering around the streets of the city and being tortured by images from his past about which he can do nothing. He just wants to keep whatever he can of his dying love. Like I mentioned earlier, the plot has no relation to the lines the characters were speaking, acting was poor and it was a very aimless movie trying to go nowhere. None of the things in the film really connect to each other. The guy in the movie is as confused as probably the director was. Just

Creatures From the Pink Lagoon

Yet another gay movie where they show a couple of friends spending a weekend at a getaway place for some reason or naother.The difference in this movie being is that there is some thrill element involved. Thats a different story altogether that the thrill was more like funny for me and by the end of the movie, I wasn't sure whether the movie was supposed to be comedy, scary, thrill or wanting to give you a message. Near a chemical factory, there are 2 exits. One goes to the pink lagoon and other goes to a rest stop where men cruise for anonymous sex. It is rumored that some virus is near by the rest stop which makes you eat human flesh which is later discovered to be eating just gay flesh. Essentially they are gay zombies. At the same time, in one of the homes in pink lagoon, a group of friend are meeting to celebrate Philip's birthday (who is way too sissy). It includes Satn, the home owner, his impulsive hunky boyfriend Billy, his shy nerdy cousin Joseph and 2 others. They ar

Blue Citrus Hearts

This was a hands down bad bad film. Poor production, awful actors, terrible sound, very poor picture qulaity. Frankly I failed to understand the whole point behind the movie. Like someone mentioned "Think of all the horrible poetry you read in junior high, and turn it into a 91 min film. This movie was horrid". I finished the entire movie in like 20 minutes. I just had no patience to see the film as it was going nowhere. A few minutes of my life wasted !! The story is of Sam, a young, dorky high school student in Memphis who writes his thoughts in a notebook and finds his homelife and his relationship with classmate Ariel spiraling out of control. The one good thing in his life is his new friends hip with Julian, a long-haired, pimply-faced, fey classmate who begins to spend a lot of time with Sam. I don't care how many festivals this movie has gone into and how many people liked it. This on was just not my cup of tea. (1/10)

Two Brothers and Two Others (Canada)

I was a little skeptical when I realized that was a black and white film. Plus when it started, it was hazy, grainy and with bad lighting but I still wanted to see it having read all good reviews about the movie. And I think the 60 minutes were well worth spent. Considering that the movie was made on a shoe string budget, the movie eventually turned out to be good. After their mother's death, Chad invites over his gay brother Riley to live with him and his girlfriend Tobie. Tobie and Riley instantly hit off very well with each other and she becomes his fag hag. Chad is shown to have some troubles when it comes to talking about his parents which is later shown was because of bad childhood experience. Because of this there is a certain stress between the 2 brothers but they still try to lead a good life. Riley meets Gavin at a bar and they start dating and son become lovers. But Gavin has hidden the fact from Riley that he is positive. Wen Riley comes to know this he feels cheated be

200 American

What happened last night was the reason I started this blog. 2 minutes in the movie and I was like, I think I might have seen this movie before and yes it was true. Well but at least now I can put a review unlike last time and help myself avoid the confusion again. On the onset, a good thing about the movie was that it wasn't targeted at sex. It was a genuine story of men falling in love and showcasing a chapter of every gay man's life. Conrad, a gay man , owner of an ad agency lives in NY and is a control freak by nature. This is the reason that leads to his breakup with his partner Martin. To get over him, he hires an Aussie hustler Tyler. After spending night with him, realized that Tyler is a nice guy who wants to become a photographer. He wants to help him and offers him a job in his company on the same amount that he makes doing hustling. Conrad still wants to make things work with Martin. Meanwhile Tyler whose real name is Ian (Tyler was his hustler name) is being approa

Smukke Dreng (Denmark-danish) [Pretty Boy]

'Smukke dreng' ('Pretty Boy') is a film about a 13 year old runaway boy Nick. Rather than living with his mother who has a very active sex life, he decided to run away to live on his own. On his first night he encounters a gang of young men abusing an older guy. After that he gets the old man's name and address and shows up at Ralph's place. Sharing a common interest for stars, they live together for a while till Ralph's wife shows up and he has to move out. The film doesn't show any sexual activity between these 2 guys Nick then starts working for an older guy Max who buys all the stolen stuff that the gang of young men steal and snatch. One time, Max refuses to budge to unacceptable demands of the gang and it results in his arrest for buying stolen goods after the gang reports about it. After this Nick has nowhere to go so he ends up with the gang of young boys. The gang is led by a girl named Rene who poses as a boy.Rene and Nick discover each other s

Love and Death on Long Island (UK/Canada)

First of all I should make one thing clear. This is not a gay themed movie. There are just hints of the lead character idolizing a screen actor but thats about it. This does not qualify this movie to be a gay based movie. Nothing against the movie, but when I wanna see a gay themed movie, I expect something more and not just whats shown in the movie. Giles, a Brit writer and a widower does not like anything modern including television. One night he accidentally get locked out and ends up watching a movie. He mistakenly goes to the wrong screen and is about to leave the crap teen flick till he sees this young actor Ronnie Bostock who immediately strikes his fantasy. From here starts the journey of Giles love and almost obsession towards Ronnie that makes him watch all his movies and travel to Long Island near New York. He plans all his moves and ends up meeting the actor through his girlfriend and befriends them pretending to be his biggest fan who has seen all his movies. Things are fi

Testosterone (Argentina/US)

Testosterone is the story of love and betrayal. Primary portion of the movie is shot in Argentina and shows a lot of cute sexy men. Dean and Pablo meet just for a hook up and end up living together for 9 months very much in love, until one night Pablo goes t buy cigarettes and never returns back. Dean travels to Argentina to track Pablo down and find answers to his questions. In the process he meets Sofia, working in a coffee shop across Pablo's home. She advices Dean to stay away an do not look for Pablo. In the process Dean meets Marcus, Sofia's brother. They get attracted but Dean finds out that Marcus is Pablo's ex and Marcus keeps saying that Dean was just time pass for Pablo. So Dean asks Marcus to take him to Pablo. Marcus is still very much in love with Pablo and hence he wants to kill Dean. But he is unable to do so. They make love and finally Marcus kills himself. Dean figures something is wrong and looks for Pablo and now wants to kill him. Sofia agrees to help b

Issues 101

After reading not so positive reviews about this film online, I Wasn't particularly excited about watching this film but it turned out to be a decent flick. Even though the movie had very low production values, gave the impression of having been made off a camcorder, it still was decent enough and made a point about frat life in US in college. Joe is a college freshman who mistakes a initiation from a frat brother as hitting on him. BUt after things are clarified, the eventually joins the fraternity. Christian is assigned as his frat "elder brother". Things are fine until one night when Joe and Christian end up having sex while Christian is drunk. Christian keeps telling Joe that he is straight and did that because he was drunk. Ultimately later he accepts that he is straight but he has issues which he need to work on. A twisted lover triangle forms when the confused Christian turns a romantic weekend getaway with his girlfriend Kim into a double-date; inviting along his

Querelle

Why? Why? Why? Why did the director ever make this movie. Just about everything in this movie was bad. Poor performances, awful sets which look so fake, no storyline, poor cinematography. The saving grace in such films is usually good physical sex scenes but even that was not there in this movie. After a long time I had to fast forward and see a movie just because it was so damn boring. French sailor Querelle arrives in Brest and starts frequenting a strange whorehouse. He discovers that his brother Robert is the lover of the lady owner, Lysiane. Here, you can play dice with Nono, Lysiane's husband : if you win, you are allowed to make love with Lysiane, if you lose, you have to make love with Nono... Querelle loses on purpose. Sound interesting but believe me it was not. It was a bad bad film. Except for the lead main character, all the other men were so un attractive. The movie is supposedly based on some book. I wonder what kind of book was that. The acting is completely theatri

The Fruit Machine (UK)

What was this movie? A thriller, ode to friendship, love or about love for dolphins? I am still asking this question to myself. I mean its ok when people throw in multiple themes to a film but they are somehow inter-related but here the thriller and dolphins have nothing to do with each other. Eddie lives with his family and shares passion for romantic sagas like his mom. His father hates him for being sissy and acting like girls. He wants Eddie to be more manly. Eddie is best mate with Michael, a street lad. Both of them care a lot for each other, are just 16 and true friends. One day Eddie's father hits him and then on Michael's initiation, they both leave the town. Michael says he will take care of Eddie. Here begins their journey. They go to a transsexual bar called Fruit Machine. Both of them witness a murder of the owner and manage to escape. The murderer sees them too. ON their run, they meet a singer Vincent in a party which they are just gate crashing whom Eddie is big

Coffe Date

Ever since I read the synopsis of this movie in last year's gay film festival, I have been wanting to see this movie. After having waited so long for the DVD to release and watching it, do I feel it was worth it? Oh my God!! It was hilarious and amazing. Just about perfect movie (at least for me). Now this is the kind of movie that makes me just laugh my guts out and also feel romantic at the same time. Todd has been setup by his brother Barry for a man to man date with Kelly without Todd knowing the fact that Kelly is a guy and is gay. Todd who is straight shows up for the coffee date and after a while realizes what has happened. But by then both Kelly and Todd realize that they share same passion for movies and eventually end up becoming good friends. Just to freak out Barry, Todd brings Kelly home after the date and takes him to his bedroom. Barry completely freaks out and leaves Todd's place. Later Barry informs Todd that their mother is coming over because Barry told her a