THEGAYUK

Author: Roger Walker-Dack

  • FILM REVIEW | Cupcakes

    ★★★★ | Cupcakes

    The Eurovision Song Contest, which is the epitome of the true meaning of ‘eurotrash’, really owes its continuing success to the thousands of gay men throughout the world who slavishly watch the Broadcast every year with such glee.

    There are few programs on television these days that are camper than this outdated competition that seeks to find a winner from amongst some of the most innocuous pop songs ever written.

    When director Eytan Fox was visiting the Berlinale Film Festival a few years ago and was channel surfing in his hotel room he came across the show and something must of clicked. Hence the man who gave us intensely serious gay dramas such as The Bubble and Yossi & Jaegar decided that this should be the basis of his new fluffy confection of a movie about agroup of disparate friends trying to win what he dubbed as UniverSong.

    Six motley neighbors in an apartment building in Tel Aviv each with their own hangups or quirks who don’t actually want to go public, do just that when the song they write together almost by accident, goes viral on YouTube and they somehow get chosen to be the official entry for Israel.

    The oldest one is middle-aged Anat whose husband has just walked out on her and their bakery business; there is serious Dana who works an aide to a government minister just to please her orthodox father and who is paranoid at doing anything remotely frivolous. Yael was once a beauty queen and is now a lawyer and is also desperate to be taken seriously; there is painfully shy Karen who prefers to just share her life with her cybermates rather than step outside of her front door; and punky lesbian Efrat the alternative singer/songwriter who thinks such a frivolous undertaking as this competition is completely beneath her. It’s only kindergarten teacher Ofrat with a penchant for sequin drag who is really excited about accepting the invitation to compete, despite the pleas of his neurotic closeted boyfriend who’s family business actually sponsors the show.

    As in a typical show business fashion the professionals who decide that as they know best, they take over and create a monstrously big production routine for the group to perform. It is a total disaster as it takes out every single nuance of homespun charm, and at the same time, completely exasperates the patience of these bewildered amateurs.

    This is a fairy tale after all… literally… and they seize back the song and the competition in order for them all to win the prize, which is not actually the trophy, but mainly about them getting the lives they all really want. Even the Baker comes back. It is after all, that kind of story.

    I’m still shocked that this is the work of sober filmmaker Fox, but in this lightweight, pretty colored, camp romp he shows he can be as whimsical and entertaining as the next man. Maybe Pedro Almodovar even.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | The StandBys

    There cannot possibly be any other job in show (or any other) business where you need the patience of a Saint, be as tough old nails, and as resilient as a rubber band whilst possessing enough talent to substitute for a Broadway Star at the drop of a hat. This is of course the role of a Standby who spends their whole careers in the wings looking at the spotlights that may never ever shine on them.

    Stephanie Riggs’s moving and fascinating documentary follows the heartbreaking stories of three such performers who have made careers out of just waiting to go on. There is Merwin Foard, a good humored seasoned actor, with his amazing deep baritone voice, who gets his chance one afternoon to play Nathan Lane’s role in The Addams Family. He goes on stage to the customary groans from the audience when they realise they are not going to see the ‘star’, to wowing them all with his performance and earning a standing ovation by the end. Foard has been at this profession for 25 years now and has been in 14 Broadway productions, nearly always as the standby, but it has at least allowed him and his family to have a comfortable life. He considers himself one of the lucky ones.

    Young Ben Crawford was the standby for Brian d’Arcy James who had the title role in ‘Shrek the Musical.’ His Agent had procured him a Contract that gave him the right to take over when the Star eventually left, and that’s exactly what happened. Crawford got to wow audiences with his own take on the role and received some really good notices for his performance. He felt secure in the knowledge that he had finally ‘arrived’. Then as the show was set to close on Broadway, the producers of the national tour asked Crawford to audition for the role he had already played so well for months. They also asked his standby too, and in a cruel twist of fate, gave the role to the new man instead.

    The third actor was Aléna Watters whose roller coaster career was the hardest to witness. She got her big break appearing as one of the Harlettes who were the backing group for Bette Midler. After a short stint in Bette’s Show in Las Vegas, the producers called Aléna and without warning told her she would be replaced by one of the original Harlettes was returning. She was told that she could remain as ‘the Swing’ who would understudy for all the girls, which cushioned the bitter blow slightly. But then a month later and a second phone call, and she was laid off from that ‘due to budget restrictions’. She was devastated, as are we watching this all unfurl.

    All three performers were generous enough to allow Riggs and her cameras to follow them around for a couple of years and show all of their daily tribulations. She in turn does at least allow them a moment to showcase their talents with a song or two. As Bebe Neuwirth, herself once a standby said, that if it wasn’t for Broadway’s obsession with filling the stages with big celebrities these were the real performers who should be starring in these roles’.

    And it’s left to another ex standby David Hyde Pierce to sum it up so succinctly about when they actually get to go on… ‘for the audience it’s just yet another afternoon, but for that performer it could the highpoint of their entire life.’

    A must view for anyone who ever dreamt that they could or should have won a Tony or Olivier

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon

  • FILM REVIEW | Kill Your Darlings

    ★★★★ | Kill Your Darlings

    The cinematic fascination with The Beat Generation continues regardless, following on the heals of Walter Salles’ take on Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’, which the critics were quick to dismiss when it recently had a limited release in US theatres. We now have this new movie which, set in the mid 1940’s, is essentially a prequel to the movement that was about to begin. It’s Lucian Carr’s story, a central figure in Allen Ginsberg’s coming out, and the wittiest member of their clique at university, who ended up killing his obsessed older ex-lover David Kammerer who just wouldn’t leave him alone.

    It’s a heady period in these young men’s rite of passage into adulthood when despite the war going on in Europe they could indulge in whatever extreme pleasure they wanted too. For the wealthy William Burroughs it was an endless stream of drugs, and he coasted through it perpetually stoned. Ginsberg had shaken off his New Jersey roots, and now at Columbia University could finally shed the responsibility of the demands of his mentally ill mother, and nurture his writing and explore his sexuality. He was fixated with the charming, flamboyant and excitable Carr who incessantly quoted chunks of Yeats and Rimbaud but yet relied on Kammerer to actually write all the essays needed to keep him from being expelled from college. Carr’s past history was gradually exposed as the story developed, and he was revealed as possible the most confused of this very challenged bunch of friends.

    Through Carr, Ginsberg met many of the people that would remain in his life and play a significant part one way or another, including Jack Kerouac, one of Carr’s best friends. (Strangely enough another person that he met… again via Carr… was Neal Cassidy who he developed a major crush on, but there is no mention of him at all.)

    Whilst the movie is ostensibly about the murder and the subsequent trial, it is essentially much more about how this bunch of friends gelled together as a group and how that time really set them on course for what lay ahead and would eventual earn them the label the Beat Generation. Carr does get arrested for the murder of his ex lover, and pleads that it was an ‘honour slaying’ i.e. that he was straight and Kammerer was a predatory homosexual. Both Burroughs and Kerouac were also arrested as they helped dispose of the body resulting in Burroughs being forced to move back home, and Kerouac being forced to marry his girlfriend in return for her family bailing him out. But before this all happened, Ginsberg finally lost his virginity to Carr.

    Newbie director/co-writer John Krokidas worked on this movie for 10 years before he got it to its premiere at Sundance this January. It’s a refreshing look at the loss of innocence… Ginsberg’s and Carr’s in particular as it is hard to imagine that Burroughs ever had it to lose… and a much more palatable movie than ‘Howl’ the slightly inaccessible and tad pretentious vehicle in 2010 for James Franco to try his hand at playing Ginsberg. It may in fact end up being the best ever made of this clique, but maybe that’s too premature a statement as there are probably still many more to come.

    I’m still reeling from the fact that the unknown Krokidas could manage to recruit such a first rate coterie of actors for his first movie… The clue maybe in the fact that Christine Vachon of Killer Films (Boys Don’t Cry, Far From Heaven) is one of the producers. Daniel Radcliffe shakes off his Harry Potter mantle to show what a very impressive talent he really has. He also shakes off all his clothes to show that he can also make out with another man in a very convincing way. Ben Foster (The Messenger) was excellent as the very dry Burroughs, and equally wonderful was Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) as Kerouac, Michael C Hall (Dexter) as Kammerer and with a very small part, Elizabeth Olsen (Martha,Marcy,May & Marlene) as Eddie Parker, Kerouac’s girlfriend. There is an impressive list of supporting cast that included Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyra Sedgwick, David Rasche, John Cullum & David Cross.

    However it was young Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) playing the extrovert Carr with a career defining performance, stole every scene he was in.

    The movie will attract a great deal of attention because of the mere fact of seeing Mr. Radcliffe all grown up, but regardless of that, he is definitely worth watching even if like me you have never sat through a Harry Potter movie!

     

    Available on Apple or Amazon

  • FILM REVIEW | Floating Skyscapers

    ★★★★★ | Floating Skyscapers

    Polish writer/director Tomascz Wasilewski’s second feature film is a dark tragic love story that you immediately sense from the opening scenes that is doomed.

    Although it is Poland’s first ever gay movie, it is so much more a story about the search for one’s identity and about being accepted for one’s own true self and accepting others for who they are. Essentially it’s a movie about love. Love between a girl and a boy. Between boy and a boy. Between a mother and a son, and a father and a son. It is completely heartbreaking.

    Koba is a young man who has been training to be a champion swimmer for 15 years. He lives at home with his mother who makes somewhat unnatural and creepy demands on him, plus Sylwia his rather sullen girlfriend of two years. He is also in the closet and furtively seeks out brief sexual encounters with other male swimmers in the locker rooms after practice. And then one evening it all changes when one Sylwia drags him reluctantly along to an art opening and he meets Michel, and there is an immediate attraction between the two men.

    Michel is open about his sexuality although his wealthy family, with whom he still lives, are having difficulty with accepting it. The two men surreptitiously embark on a relationship which Sylwia suspects but will do nothing about beyond being hostile to Michel. Uncharacteristically Koba falls totally for his new lover and as a consequence much to the annoyance of all, he neglects both women in his life, and his training.

    When it finally reaches the point of no return and the men decide to leave the closet once and for all, Kuba is confronted by an embittered pregnant Sylwia, and the fervent demands of his mother that he abandons Michel completely and become a full time father and husband. This is however not the only tragedy that befalls them, and makes for such a bitterly sad ending.

    By using such austere and somewhat foreboding locations Wasilewski has heightened the darkness in this heavyhearted tale in a society that is still unceasingly hostile to most gay and lesbian people.

    Watching here in the US where the acceptance of LGBT rights is now racing along and is reflected in the recent Supreme Court rulings somehow makes this groundbreaking film seem even more poignant and pertinent.

    Recently I reviewed Out Loud the first ever film from Lebanon that dealt with gay issues, and also ‘In The Name of’ the 2nd ever-Polish gay movie (and this one won the coveted Teddy Award for Best Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year).

    Change is happening, and these excellent movies are both witnesses to the fact, but also more importantly, instruments of the change too.

    Unmissable.

    Floating Skyscapers is Out Now on Matchbox Films

    BUY ON AMAZON | BUY ON ITUNES

  • FILM REVIEW | Floating Skycrapers

    Polish writer/director Tomascz Wasilewski’s second feature film is a dark tragic love story that you immediately sense from the opening scenes that is doomed. ★★★★★

    Although it is Poland’s first ever gay movie, it is so much more a story about the search for one’s identity and about being accepted for one’s own true self and accepting others for who they are. Essentially it’s a movie about love. Love between a girl and a boy. Between boy and a boy. Between a mother and a son, and a father and a son. It is completely heartbreaking.

    Koba is a young man who has been training to be a champion swimmer for 15 years. He lives at home with his mother who makes somewhat unnatural and creepy demands on him, plus Sylwia his rather sullen girlfriend of two years. He is also in the closet and furtively seeks out brief sexual encounters with other male swimmers in the locker rooms after practice. And then one evening it all changes when one Sylwia drags him reluctantly along to an Art Opening and he meets Michel, and there is an immediate attraction between the two men.

    Michel is open about his sexuality although his wealthy family, with whom he still lives, are having difficulty with accepting it. The two men surreptitiously embark on a relationship which Sylwia suspects but will do nothing about beyond being hostile to Michel. Uncharacteristically Koba falls totally for his new lover and as a consequence much to the annoyance of all, he neglects both women in his life, and his training.

    When it finally reaches the point of no return and the men decide to leave the closet once and for all, Kuba is confronted by an embittered pregnant Sylwia, and the fervent demands of his mother that he abandons Michel completely and become a full-time father and husband. This is however not the only tragedy that befalls them, and makes for such a bitterly sad ending.

    By using such austere and somewhat foreboding locations Wasilewski has heightened the darkness in this heavyhearted tale in a society that is still unceasingly hostile to most gay and lesbian people.

    Watching here in the US where the acceptance of LGBT rights is now racing along and is reflected in the recent Supreme Court rulings somehow makes this groundbreaking film seem even more poignant and pertinent.

    Recently I reviewed ‘Out Loud’ the first ever film from Lebanon that dealt with gay issues, and also ‘In The Name of’ the 2nd ever-Polish gay movie (and this one won the coveted Teddy Award for Best Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year). Change is happening, and these excellent movies are both witnesses to the fact, but also more importantly, instruments of the change too.

    Unmissable.

    Buy Now on Amazon

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Grand Budapest Hotel

    Wes Anderson’s latest extravagant cornucopia of cinematic delight is a visual overload that as it’s multi-layers are unpeeled, bombards one with such glorious minute detail at a frenetic pace one that there are times when you cannot fail to be dizzy with glee.

    Partly inspired by the works of Stefan Zelig a Austrian Jew who was one of the world’s most famous writers in the 1930s but is now mostly forgotten. The author who serves as narrator of the movie is based on Zelig, but Anderson also claims that the central character of the exuberantly fastidious concierge M. Gustavo is in fact modeled on him too.

    The setting is the fictional mid-European country with a Cinderella-esq pink palace precariously perched on top of the Alps is The Grand Budapest Hotel. The story told in flashbacks is of that glorious carefree pre war period when unseemly luxury was the order of the day. This temple of excess where the wealthy landed gentry were indulged in every whim was overseen by the purple coated M. Gustavo. Adored by both staff and guests alike nothing was ever too much trouble for this dandified perfectionist, from religiously handing out his mots of wisdom to his team, to sleeping with any of the elderly dowager guests. Preferably the ones who were very rich and blond.

    When one such lucky recipient of his sexual prowess upped and died and M Gustavo travelled to his late lover’s Schloss to pay his respects, he discovered much to the chagrin of her evil son, that she had left M. Gustavo with a priceless painting. By now M. Gustavo had taken a paternal shine to Zero his latest Lobby Boy, and the two contrived to snatch the painting and make off with it before the son could stop him.

    What follows is a joyous frenzied romp that includes M. Gustavo being jailed, Zero and his confectioner girlfriend aiding and abetting his escape, with the local militia in hot pursuit. Packed with incidents which really are all about marking the passing of this old World of a more leisured era before the War would end all of this and all that The Grand Budapest Hotel represented. Now as all the goings on are related to the author decades later by the new elderly owner, the Hotel is a sorry remnant of its glorious past. As is the owner, who was once the newbie Lobby boy Zero.

    Mr Anderson as usually sets out to prove that there is no such thing as a ‘small part’ in his movies by packing his cast with a roster of major Hollywood players that they ensure that no character is anything less than a star turn. They include Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Kietel, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson plus Tilda Swinton in her totally scene stealing cameo as an 84 year old Dowager. Ralph Fiennes is superbly sublime as the cologne-reeking reckless Gustavo M., and full credit too the unknown Tony Revelon who held his own in this star studded piece with his captivating performance as young Zero.

    For me like most of Mr Anderson’s previous movies he has to share the well deserved applause with his production designer Oscar nominated Adam Stockhausen and his cinematographer Robert Yeoman who made it look simply stunning. There were times I was so immersed with the impeccably choreographed shots on this candy-box covered set that I practically ignored the story line itself.

    Anderson’s wicked sense of humor and the outrageous characters and the sheer joy he imbues in these near masterpieces of movies unwittingly make them some of the sophisticated campest spectacles in our cinemas today that rightly attract a large gay following worldwide.

    Don’t miss one. It’s a real treat

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | In Bloom

    ★★★★ | In Bloom

    This is the rather gritty story of a hip very young gay couple in Chicago’s ‘Boystown’ coming to terms with how tough one’s first love can be.

    Kurt is a small time drug dealer who supplies pot to his peers, whilst Paul his boyfriend of two years has a dead-end job in a local grocery store that he can barely tolerate. When the long summer starts, they are having fun and very much into each other and seem the perfect couple, but some seven months later they have separated and can barely talk to each other.

    Everything had been going well with them until one night one of Kurt’s good-looking customers puts the moves on him, and although he initially resists Kevin’s advances does it opens his mind to the possibility that there is more to life outside of his cosy relationship with Paul. Suddenly that starts to look painfully inadequate to him now, and in a fit of impulse he starts a ‘break-up’ that he will only regret when it is far too late.

    If that is not bad enough, the real world outside is even scarier than usual right now as there is a serial killer on the prowl whose victims have all been young gay man from the area. With Kurt making late night deliveries to hip parties all over he is probably more at risk than most.

    This look at contemporary edgy youth culture is the work of a 22 year newbie filmmaker Chris Michael Birkmeier who based this work of fiction on his own story of when he broke up with his first ever boyfriend. The plot is steeped in innocence and naivete and full of well-meaning intentions. It’s a remarkable debut feature and as such one can overlook the slow-moving story line that almost grinds to a halt at times.

    Credit too for the great wee cast full of untried talent, and very good photography too.

    The comparisons between Mr Birkmeier and the French/Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan who picked up Awards at Cannes for his first movie at the tender age of 19, are natural. Especially when Birkmeier makes no bones of the fact that he is a big Dolan fan. But there is very little similarity in their work and this movie is of a much simpler construction and far more straightforward. The two young filmmaker’s works complement each other, rather than complete.

    No doubt at all that C M Birkmeier (as he bills himself) is one to watch in new queer cinema, and I for one cannot wait to see how he follows this fascinating first movie.

  • FILM REVIEW | Stranger By The Lake

    ★★★★ | Stranger By The Lake

    Alain Guiraudie’s intriguing new thriller is about as homoerotic as can be without crossing the divide into soft porn. It’s set on a tranquil isolated lake in a beautiful corner of the French countryside where the beach front is sparsely occupied by a handful of men sunbathing in the buff. Behind them lies a small wood which is a busy cruising area for gay men.

    Young Franck is a regular visitor to the lake each summer, and as he is currently unemployed now hangs out there most afternoons. He befriends Henri a sad overweight man who is more interested in just chatting and sitting on the rocks rather than getting his rocks off. Franck is however obsessed with a handsome hunk called Michel who with his Tom Selleck bushy mustache is another element that insinuates a distinctive 1980’s look to the whole movie.

    Michel however already has a young man in tow who he takes off to he woods at regular intervals.Then at dusk one evening as Franck is leaving the woods after a quick hook up with another man, he turns to look at the lake and is horrified to witness Michel drowning his date before swimming back to shore.

    Instead of being put off by the fact that the object of his affections is a killer, Franck actually uses the absence of he young man to make his moves on Michel. It gets hot and steamy and although this excites both of them, the mysterious Michel refuses to continue when it’s time to leave the lake or even give Franck as much as a hint to what his real life is actually about. The fact that the dead boy’s clothes are still lying on the beach and his car is in the car park doesn’t seem to concern anyone at all until his body resurfaces and a police Inspector comes around asking questions.

    The policeman is shocked at the callous indifference he encounters and when Franck is even unable to name the man he was having sex with to support his alibi, the Inspector comments ‘you have a funny way of loving each other’. Franck prefers to keep silent so that Michel will keep having sex with him. However Franck’s love is only Michel’s lust and when the older man suspects that Franck knows what happened that fatal night, things start to look decidedly dangerous for the younger man.

    Asides from the cold-blooded murder, Guiraudie’s story is as much about carnal desire and as such he doesn’t shirk from portraying that with some very explicit sex scenes. There is no effort here to disguise the fact that these very blatant hook-ups are purely sexual and an escapism from the reality of the men’s lives. What the men will do for some momentary passion is very obvious here, but why it spurs Michel into becoming a killer is left to our imagination.

    This is a wonderful erotic thriller, well-written and beautifully photographed in a way that belies the fact that this idyllic looking spot hides such violent and deadly deeds. The story places passion before danger and proves that it is not always a wise choice.

    Winner of both the prestigious ‘Queer Palm Award’ and ‘Un Certain Regard Best Director ‘ at The Cannes Film Festival. Highly recommended.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | GBF

    ★★★ | GBF

    When Tanner is accidentally outed in school, whilst the other boys in his class may resort to taunting and bullying him, the girls start to seriously compete for his attention.

    Three of the most popular teen girls in particular believe that if Tanner would be their G (ay) B (est) F(riend), which their favorite fashion mags say is ‘the’ must-have accessory of the season, then this would seal their election to become the next Prom Queen. There is Fawcett a very pretty buxom blond, ‘Shley the slightly serious good-time Mormon girl, and Caprese the African/American drama queen.

    Whilst Tanner glows in his new-found popularity as the girls fall over themselves to capture him for themselves, his best friend Brent who is still stuck in the closet, is so jealous of all the attention that so starts to plot Tanner’s downfall.

    This rather charming ‘boy-lit’ high school comedy is peppered with some very good performances by a very professional young cast who have cut their teeth on TV :Michael Willet as Tanner (The United States of Tara), Paul Iacono as Brent (The Hard Times of RJ Berger),Xosha Roquemore as Caprese (The Mindy Project),Sasha Pieterse as Fawcett (Pretty Little Liars) andAndrea Bowen as ‘Shley (Desperate Housewives).

    It is however the adults that inadvertently steal all their scenes particularly Jonathan Silverman and Rebecca Gayheart who play Tanner’s supportive parents. However even they are trumped by a wonderfully funny turn by the ever delightful Megan Mullally (‘Karen from Will & Grace’) who is hysterically funny trying to drag her son out of the closet. The two of them watching the ‘Brokeback Mountain’ movie on TV together is unquestionably the best scene in the entire film.

    It’s all very cute, has a few really good one-liner’s like the one on Mormon’s ‘they smile to your face, then Prop 8 you in the back,’ but it is a squeaky clean teen-movie that is meant to be for the young… or at least the young at heart.

    P.S. Don’t miss the ‘bloopers’ at the end!

    BUY FROM iTunes | Amazon

  • FILM REVIEW | A Most Violent Year, Playing it straight can work – Sometimes

    Abel Morales wants to pursue the ‘American dream’ the right way. However, his pushy wife Anna thinks otherwise. She is the daughter of the Brooklyn mobster who sold his small Heating Oil business to Morales in the first place, and Anna is well aware that if they are to be successful they will first have to effectively deal with thugs who run competitive businesses by far means and foul. Mainly the latter.

    It’s obvious from the start of the movie when yet another of Morales’s tankers are hijacked and the driver is badly beaten that whoever is behind these incidents means to put the Morales out of business. As Anna keeps nagging to remind him, they are effectively at war. The trouble is they are not quite sure who with.

    It’s the 1980s and in a crime-ridden New York City it is tough for a business like Morales not to have to resort to play dirty tricks to survive. He has signed the biggest deal of his career to date when he agrees to buy an Oil Terminal from a group of savvy Hassidic Jews, and if fails to complete the purchase on time he stands to lose everything, including the oversized ‘macmansion’ he has just bought in the suburbs. When news of the deal goes public, then the campaign of terror against him is stepped up to try and ensure that he will not have enough funds to close the deal.

    If that is not enough trouble, the Assistant D.A. is out to make a name for himself and be seen to be cleaning up the ‘dirty’ oil industry and is looking to charge Morales with multiple offences. This includes fraud and cooking the books, the latter being one of Anna’s more accomplished talents.

    This taut multi-layered tale of corruption and treachery is the third feature from writer/director J.C. Chandor who made such a splash with his debut movie Margin Call in 2010 that became a sleeper hit. Chandor keeps the tension packed until the final credits roll when Morales, determined to keep to the moral ground, realises he has to be tougher than both the thugs out to ruin him but also his wife who has no problem at all resorting to whatever it takes to keep her family together and the business in tact.

    With a really compelling performance from Oscar Isaac looking more like a new George Clooney matinee idol in every movie he stars in, who with his heavy Brooklyn accent is perfectly cast as Morales. He has such a commanding presence and its clear to see how he has jumped up into leading man status since his breakthrough performance in Inside Llewyn Davies. Plus Jessica Chastain forsaking her copper tresses and going bossy blond, is splendid as the matter-of-fact tough cookie Anna.

  • FILM REVIEW | Dallas Buyers Club

    ★★★★★ | DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

    The very scary fact thing about watching Dallas Buyers Club is always knowing that this is sadly a very true story.

    Not that we have anything except unfettered admiration for Ron Woodroof and his wild unorthodox schemes, but it is the reminder of the sheer number of countless deaths that could have been avoided if it hadn’t been for the complicity of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration Agency with the greed of the Pharmaceutical Companies that still rankles even now.

    Woodroof was a working-class Texan hedonist living in a Trailer, hanging out at Rodeos and partying very hard indeed. He was also a serial homophobe. When he collapses one day and is rushed to the ER the Doctors discover he is HIV + and with such a minute T cell count, they tell him that he has no more than 30 days to live. The year is 1985 and there is very little hope for anyone that gets full blown AIDS.

    At first he is in total denial and continues his life of drugs, drink and unprotected sex with hookers until his body starts to give up. When he finally accepts the truth, he also sharpens his resolve to beat this rap. He drags himself to the library and consumes all the information that is in the public domain at the time, which is very little. It is however enough to know that there is about to be a trial of AZT a new anti-retroviral drug …. the first if its kind … and because of the rapid explosion of AIDS, the FDA have agreed to fast-track it without its usual safeguards and checks.

    Woodroof pleads with the Doctors at his local hospital to be allowed some of this new wonder drug, but he is rejected on the grounds that he doesn’t qualify, so he seeks out an Orderly and bribes him to steal a supply. When this dries up, the Orderly recommends that he tries a Doctor in Mexico who may be able to help.

    He checks into Dr. Vass’s rundown Clinic over the Border and it is there that he first learns the enormous potential harm that unchecked toxic drugs such as AZT cause. At the supposition that they may stop the virus expanding, they also do such harm to the body that they expose them to countless opportunistic diseases. Vass’s solution is proteins and vitamins that will actively improve the general health of a person with AIDS making them in better position to be able to deal with the virus.

    When Woodroof learns that none of these are available in the USA, he starts an import business to supply them to other patients back in Dallas. He partners with Rayon a Trans person with HIV who he met in Clinic once as she can introduce him to all the people who would want to get their hands on these new drugs.

    At every step of the way, he is aggressively pursued by the FDA as even though none of the drugs/proteins he sells are illegal, they have not been officially approved and the FDA, egged on by the Drug Companies who fund them, want to keep total control of every aspect. One of the ways to get around the Law is not to actually sell the drugs themselves, but sell memberships to his Club (for $400 a month) and this entitles each member to have whatever drugs they want.

    As supplies get tougher to obtain, and new drugs come on the market, Woodroof widens his search worldwide to anyone and everyone who would sell to him. And the FDA would use every legal loophole and obscure law on the Statute Books to seize all his supplies and issue countless fines. Meanwhile at the local hospital it is getting very obvious that patients on the AZT trial are doing much worse than other AIDS patients, but the Authorities anxious to keep receiving the much need Payments from the Drug Companies are happy to suppress all the official reports that confirm this, and the one Doctor that dares to question her Bosses’s ethics is fired.

    Woodroof unquestionably started this venture purely to keep himself alive and to make money. He succeed with his first aim and lived 6 years after his initial diagnosis of just 30 days, and as he gradually got less paranoid of the gay community, he started allowing some people to have the drugs even though they couldn’t afford the Fee. It wast as much that he was any less of a homophobe, but as his own friends totally rejected him out of sheer fear, he started to be able to relate to being an ‘outcast’ like his fellow AIDS sufferers.

    This film has been a long time coming. Scriptwrters Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack based it on the hundreds of interviews they had with Woodroof, and then waited 20 years for the movie to finally get made. Several directors and stars were attached to it until it ended up in the hands of Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee who’s claim to fame (so far) is C.R.A Z.Y. a very neat gay coming of age so far. His two principal stars lost a ton of weight for the parts Jared Leto as Rayon dropped 30 lbs and Matthew McConaughey a scary 50 lbs. They both gave powerful dazzling performances which will has got them several acting awards including Oscar Nominations for them both. It was definitely a stunning change in direction for McConaughey in particular who has established his career so far mainly in rom-coms, but for my two cents (!) it was Leto’s heart-breaking turn as the drug-addicted Rayon that totally bowled me over. It makes one appreciate that Leto has been off our screens far too long (5 years whilst he was touring with his Band)

    These Clubs like Woodroof’s (there were others in other cities) played an important role alongside the wonderful ACT-UP movement to continually put the FDA on notice, and without their unceasing pressure, demands and activism so many of the drugs that would eventually help with people with AIDS would never have been made available in time.

    It’s a compelling story told with such passion and authority that both disturbs and delights. Unmissable.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes