THEGAYUK

Category: Film

  • Coming Out On Film

    Coming Out On Film

    It’s National Coming Out Day and we have found a couple of new films to celebrate.

    (c) The G-Word
    (c) The G-Word

     

    The first, The G-Word, is a two and a half minute short comedy looking at the difficulty there can be in coming-out to the parents and unexpected consequences that can arise from it. Written and performed by Carl Loughlin, this is certainly a short that has potential to be made into a running web series.

    The second feature film, Coming Out by a young NYC film maker Alden Peters, documents his own coming-out experiences as he captures the full conversations with friends, family and society. This often private moment in a person’s life is laid bare to show the various reactions from the painfully awkward to the hilariously honest. Out now on DVD and VOD.

  • The 60th BFI London Film Festival begins today with loads of gay films

    The 60th BFI London Film Festival begins today with loads of gay films

    This year’s London Film Festival looks to be the gayest one yet. There are about a dozen films with an LGBT theme, and some of them are in your face gay.

    king_cobra_01
    Here’s a preview of what to look for, and which films you need to do absolutely anything to get a ticket:

    King Cobra is definitely one of the most scandalous films to be shown at the festival probably ever! A young man travels to Los Angeles at the urging of a sleazy gay porn producer (Christian Slater) to be his next star. A parallel story has James Franco as another gay porn producer who is in a relationship with his young male star. There is lots of skin shown in this film which is based on the real life story of former gay porn star Brent Corrigan. And as a bonus James Franco’s character gets fcked and scked.  Do anything to get a ticket to this!

    A film that is getting a lot of attention from the mainstream press is the excellent Moonlight. It takes place in 19980’s Miami and focuses on one man’s journey through three stages of his life. He’s black and gay, and we witness key moments in his life that made him the man he is. Compelling, with excellent performances all around. Naomie Harris plays his crack-addicted mother. A must see.

    What would happen if a famous and well-known footballer was gay? Well, in The Pass, two aspiring Premier League footballers (Russell Tovey and Arinzé Kene) share a passionate night while sharing a hotel room right before a big game. That night profoundly impacts Tovey’s characters’ life. Hard-hitting stuff with great performances. And It’s worth the ticket price alone just to see Tovey lying on a bed, with his wide legs open, wearing tight white underwear. PHWOAR! If you miss this at the festival you can buy the DVD or streamline it on VOD next year as it’s unlikely this film will get a cinema release.

    Winner of the Queer Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, The Lives of Thérése documents Thérése Clerc’s death at the age of 88. She was very memorable in the documentary Les Invisibles who at the age of 40 divorced her husband to embrace a life of activism, which included fighting for homosexual rights.

    Lovesong is about a young woman who lives alone with her two-year-old daughter while her husband works away. One day a female childhood friend comes to visit and a romantic spark ignites. With Jena Malone and Riley Keough.

    Taekwondo is all testosterone and men who are in a country house near Buenos Aires where one of them brings along a friend who does not tell the rest of the group that he is gay. A are they or aren’t they a couple plot develops, which could possibly tear the close friends apart.

    Another Argentinian film is La Noche. A young man moves around Buenos Aires at night, picking up guys, going to clubs, scoring drugs and having lots of sex. I’ve not seen this one yet but by the look of the poster it looks hot!

    One of the most popular films at the Flare Film festival earlier this year, Who’s Gonna Love Me Now excellently tells the story of Sar, an Israeli who has been driven away from his family’s traditional values and starts a new life in London where he joins the Gay Men’s Chorus. It’s beautifully told and directed and is a must see film.

    Gay director Tom Ford presents his second film (the first was the well-received A Single Man) with Nocturnal Animals. One of the festival’s must-see films, it focuses on Susan (Amy Adams), a glamorous and accomplished Los Angeles gallery director whose current marriage appears to be unravelling, and who fuels her insomnia by reading the manuscript of a disturbing novel – written and sent to her by her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). Expect lots of lush scenery and fabulous costumes.

    The latest from gay director Francois Ozon, Frantz tells the story of a young woman who mourns the tragic death of her fiancé in the aftermath of WW1. She eventually finds solace with a stranger, a man she sees putting flowers on her dead husband’s grave. But who is he really? Typical Ozon melodramatic plot, but will it be another Ozon classic?

    Wunderkind and gay director Xavier Dolan (Lawrence Anyways) presents his latest film, It’s Only the End of the World. A terminally ill writer returns home to break the news of his debilitating condition to his estranged family. It’s lots of sadness and sorrow – typical of a Dolan movie. With Marion Cottilard.

    Stars so far confirmed to walk on the red carpet include: Oyelowo, Pike, Sigourney Weaver and Liam Neeson (A Monster Calls), Casey Affleck, Nyong’o, Renner, Kidman, Patel, Ford and Taylor-Johnson, and Cotillard. Too bad Franco is not showing up.

    There is so so so much more going on at the festival. Grab a program if you see one around town, or go to the website mentioned way below.

    The 60th BFI London Film Festival will screen a total of 193 fiction and 52 documentary features, including 18 World Premieres, 8 International Premieres, 39 European Premieres. There will also be screenings of 144 short films, including documentary, live action and animated works.

    Taking place over 12 days, the Festival’s screenings are at venues across the capital, from the West End cinemas – Vue West End and the iconic Odeon Leicester Square; central London venues – BFI Southbank, BFI IMAX, Picturehouse Central, the ICA, Curzon Mayfair, Curzon Soho, Haymarket, Prince Charles Cinema and Ciné Lumière; and local cinemas – the Ritzy in Brixton, Hackney Picturehouse and Curzon Chelsea. Festival visitors will be able to enjoy a brand new cinema experience with Competition and Strand Galas presented at the new Embankment Garden Cinema, in the beautiful Victoria Embankment Gardens.

    Festival Information & Ticket Booking:

    Telephone Bookings: 020 7928 3232 between 10:00 – 20:30
    Online: www.bfi.org.uk/lff

    In person: BFI Southbank Office: 11:00 – 20:30

    THE 60TH BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AMERICAN EXPRESS®

  • FILM REVIEW | DEEPWATER HORIZON

    FILM REVIEW | DEEPWATER HORIZON

    deepwater horizon review

     

    In what is the best action dramatic thriller you’ll see so far this year, Deepwater Horizon delivers on all levels. It’s also very inspirational and heartbreaking as we all know it’s a true story.

    On April 20th, 2010, eleven men were killed when their drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana exploded, creating the worst oil spill in history. Deepwater Horizon  tells the events leading up to the disaster, then the actual explosion, and it’s aftermath and impact on the lives of the people who survived, and is also a tribute to the men who lost their lives.

    Directed with much intensity by Peter Berg, a former actor turned director (2013’s Lone Survivor), and starring Mark Wahlberg as the real life Mike Williams – the Transocean chief electronics technician who worked for the company that owned the rig. Williams was the man who was overseeing the rig’s computers and electrical systems at the time of the explosion. ‘Deepwater Horizon’ shows, in detail, how family man Miller was in a race to save as many of the crew as possible, while putting his own life in danger. He also has a wife Felicia (Kate Hudson) and daughter back home he desperately wants to get back to.

    On that fateful day, the Deepwater Horizon, an ultra-deep-water, advanced oil rig owned by the Swiss company Transocean and leased by British Petroleum, was drilling deep in a well named Macondo about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. What’s ironic is that when the explosion occurred executives from British Petroleum (who chartered the rig) were present because the drilling for oil was 43 days and $50 million behind schedule. John Malkovich plays Donald Vidrine, a BP executive who was there to push the men to complete drilling the well as soon as possible. Against the wishes of Deepwater Horizon’s installation manager Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell, very effective and in one of his best performances ever), Vidrine orders the crew to perform negative pressure tests (an attempt to lower the pressure inside the well to ensure that the well can withstand that pressure without any leaks). These tests were the catalyst to what happens next; mud, oil and water starts seeping out of the drills, intensifying and then stabelising, but then tragedy strikes. And when it does, everyone is caught off guard, including Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez), the 23-year old woman who helped operate the rig’s navigation machinery. The BP executives are shell-shocked, and them and the crew scramble for lifeboats that would lead them to safety. These are harrowing scenes of explosions, fire, and survival.

    ‘Deepwater Horizon’ excels in the way the story is told and shown; we are witness to the emotional and physical impact of the explosion, but we also get to experience it with the flames and crackling of the metal, crashing down and hurting some of the workers, thanks to special effects (with the pulsating soundtrack which adds to the intensity) that doesn’t even look like special effects – they’re that real. The explosions and fire are so intense you can practically feel the heat come off the screen. And while some may blame the film for being about one man whose heroic efforts saved everyone (with Wahlberg in action star mode, perhaps maybe a bit too much), Mike Williams did save lots of lives and this is indeed his story, and this film is the chance to tell that story, and it does so extremely well. Berg’s human centred approach to the story brings us closer to the lives of the people who were caught up in the disaster – it’s the human element to the story that is the takeaway – the survivors as well as the dead.

  • Homophobia: Gay Men “the worst” in Hollywood – Ira Sachs

    Film director Ira Sachs has told THEGAYUK that homophobia is alive and kicking in Hollywood.

    CREDIT: Jeong Park

     

    Speaking before the general release of his new film Little Men (out today) award winning director and writer Ira Sachs told THEGAYUK.com that homophobia, and perhaps more worryingly internalised homophobia is alive and well in the film industry and that gay men were “the worst in Hollywood”.

    When asked about the film industry’s record on diversity and whether the industry suffered from internalised homophobia, he answered,

    “It certainly is”.

    He continued,

    “Gay men are some of the worst in Hollywood.

    “Well, for understandable reasons, people live by fear and they make choices based on fear.

    Ira Sach’s latest film, Little Men is a coming-of-age film following the story of two teenage boys whose relationship is put under pressure after their parents fall out over business terms.

    He went on to explain why he thought that internalised homophobia existed in the film industry, suggesting that economic fears and job stability could be to be blame.

     When the choice is about your job and your fear of what happens if you don’t succeed, if you take a risk that’s actually personal, so there’s a lot of reasons people choose to be safe.

    Read the full interview with Ira Sachs here

  • FILM REVIEW | Sausage Party

    FILM REVIEW | Sausage Party

    SAUSAGE PARTY – Very adult full length animation movie about life inside a supermarket for the foodstuffs; Think South Park with a lot more sex jokes and liberal use of the c word… and it is making a fortune.

    Courtesy of Sony Pictures - © 2016 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    Courtesy of Sony Pictures – © 2016 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.paul

    Nutshell – A sausage and his mates start to question that there future may not be all there beliefs and food gods tell them when they are eventually purchased and taken out of the supermarket. On top the desire of the lead character sausage to get inside a female soft bun is all encompassing. Think an 18 cert version of Family Guy or The Simpsons and it is one of the funniest films you will ever see.

    Running Time – 89 minutes; Certificate – 15.

    Tagline – ‘She’s Got Buns, Son” and “Check Out His Package”.

    The Gay UK Factor – Loads of dick jokes, f***ing jokes, used condoms and a load of swearing – you get a f*ck, motherf*cker and a ‘see you next Tuesday’ in the opening minute and it doesn’t let up. There is a Jewish guy and a Muslim guy who obviously hate each other until they start gay ass banging using hummus for lube that would be heard from both sides of the Israeli West Bank. This is 100% boys only humour and the last 10 minutes is a scream with the biggest sex orgy ever put on screen.

    Cast – (Voices) Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Salma Heyek, Paul Rudd, Michael Cera, Bill Hader, Edward Norton – now that is an awful lot of funny folk.

    Key Player – This is Seth Rogen’s baby and he is involved in all parts of it. If you like his type of humour or indeed any of the adult animated TV shows currently filling the airwaves then this treatise on atheism, religion and unbridled lust is for you.

    Budget – $19 Million, Already made 5 times its budget back and only released in one territory – a bona fide blockbusting hit. Hot Dog this is starting to look like the most profitable movie of the Year – who knew adults would flock to such a gross out cartoon.

    Best Bit – 0.75 mins; You will cheer when the foodstuffs finally turn on the shoppers, which leads to the bad guy’s ass being seriously douched on the way to that massive ginormous orgy.

    Worst Bit – 0.04 mins; There is an opening big number which is trying to be South Park and is not catchy or funny and with no other songs in the movie just seems out of place.

    Little Secret – This is the first CGI film in history to get an R Rating (The next rating is X which excludes it from many cinema chains)….Guess what, it has become the highest grossing R Rated animation in history beating the South Park Movie and it cost absolute peanuts. An average Pixar film like say Finding Nemo or Toy Story costs 100 million to make this came in at less than one fifth and is really busting blocks worldwide.

    Movie Mistake – All the characters are apparently aware of the concept of humans eating, and that they are foodstuffs themselves, yet act horrified when they discover that they are to be eaten later on… big plot hole.

    Further Viewing – Cross them off, Family Guy, American Dad, The Simpsons Movie, South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Meet The Feebles (Except the AIDS stuff), Team America: World Police, Watership Down and even Beavis & Butthead if you must.

    Any Good – Humour is the ultimate marmite. This really has split the reviewers and fans right down the middle. Hopefully, you like us will laugh until your sides hurt or will be wandering what all the fuss is about. Time to suck the sausage, test your gay reflex and see.

    Rating – 22%

  • FILM REVIEW | Set the Thames on Fire

    FILM REVIEW | Set the Thames on Fire

    ★★★★ | Set The Thames On Fire

    London is slowly being engulfed by water while two young men attempt to survive in a society that’s gone a bit loony in the new film Set the Thames on Fire.

    Set The Thames On Fire
    CREDIT: Multitudemedia

    Billed as ‘an agony in 3 acts,’ this dystopian fantasy slash black comedy is set in the future where the London we know of today is gone, and there’s water everywhere because the Thames has overflowed, with Monument almost covered half way up in water. There are two levels of society, the rich and the poor, and Art (Michael Winder) and Sal (Max Bennett) fall in the later category. They meet at a cocktail party for the rich – Art is hired to play the piano while Sal, who has just escaped from a psychiatric hospital, gets by on his very good looks.

    The men form a bond, and Art invites Sal to stay with him in his dilapidated flat. The landlord, Mrs. Hortense (Sadie Frost) wants the rent from Art but is satisfied when Sal pays her in sexual favors. The men dream of one day leaving for Egypt, escaping the cruel city that London has become, and even more so to escape the evil and ugly Impresario (Gerard McDermott) who now rules over the kingdom. But they encounter many eccentrics and weirdos in the pocket of the city in which they live; a fortune teller (Sally Phillips) who expresses disbelief in her daughter’s stupidity; a mad transvestite (the excellent and scary Noel Fielding) who is quite deranged and who expects both men to perform sexual acts on him; a magician (David Hoyle); and masked policemen who roam the city and kill on the spot – no questions asked.

    Set the Thames on Fire is a buddy movie where two young men try to survive, and attempt to leave, a city that’s pretty much no longer habitable, with the Thames rearing it’s ugly head. It’s first time director Ben Charles Edwards who brings us a film that’s both different yet compelling. Great turns by both leads and a great supporting cast make this film reminiscent of one of Terry Gilliam’s films (Brazil) where society is not what it is today.

    Set the Thames on Fire is in cinemas from 16 September, on demand from 19 September and on DVD from 26 September

     

  • Russell Tovey is HOT in the new trail for his gay football film, The Pass

    Russell Tovey is HOT in the new trail for his gay football film, The Pass

    Russell Tovey and co-star Arinze Kene looks HOT as hell in the brand THE PASS.

    Rusell Tovey The Pass Russell Tovey The Pass

    The Pass is the story of three very different nights over 10 years in the life of a Premier League Footballer. Jason (Russell Tovey) is at the beginning of his career, and on the night before his first big international match he and long-time friend and team-mate Ade (Arinze Kene) share a hotel room, trying to beat the inevitable pre-match tensions with locker-room banter and teenage high-jinks.

    Out of nowhere Jason kisses Ade. The emotional repercussions of this pass, and the decisions that follow on and off the pitch, have a major impact on every aspect of the public and private lives of both men across the next decade, in a sporting world where image is everything.

    The cast includes Hollyoaks heart-throb Nico Mirallegro and theatre and TV actress Lisa McGrillis. Tovey, McGrillis and Mirallegro all reprise the roles they originally performed on stage.

     

    https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/

  • Film Review | Theo & Hugo – sexually charged and romantic

    ★★★★ | Theo & Hugo

    Two men meet at one of Paris’ most popular, and notorious, gay sex clubs, and then embark on an evening with lots of twist and turns, in the new film Theo & Hugo.

    You might think you’re watching a gay porn film as the first 20 minutes of Theo & Hugo is full-on man-to-man action – erections and anal sex are all on full display, filmed at L’Impact – a naked gay sex club in the Marais district in Paris. Theo & Hugo, In French, with English subtitles, is shot in real-time, and it’s in that club where Theo and Hugo meet, at exactly 4:27 a.m., amongst the writhing and moaning group of men who are all enjoying each others’ company.

    While there, Theo and Hugo connect sexually, intimately, and emotionally. They then decide to leave the club together to carry on their night with each other. But what wasn’t discussed while they were having unsafe sex at the club was the use of a condom to prevent HIV transmission, as Hugo (Francois Nambot) tells Theo (Geoffrey Couët) that he is HIV+.

    What transpires after is a rollercoaster of a night for both of them, when Theo goes to the hospital to get PEP (Post-exposure prophylaxis), a medication that should kill any traces of the virus that might be in his system.

    Romantically, and responsibly, Hugo joins him there. They then wander the streets of Paris, on a night that could turn out to be either very romantic or very tragic, with the ramifications of HIV staring them right in the face, and the possibility that their encounter could be more than just an encounter.

    Is Theo & Hugo a porn film or is it a film with an important message? This is something that you will have to decide, but nonetheless, it’s guerrilla and gay filmmaking at its finest. And Kudos go to the actors for ‘baring it all’ in scenes that are relevant to the message of the film, and to writers and directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau for bravely, and successfully, having the balls to make this controversial, yet romantic and engaging film.

  • 11 totally gay moments from James Franco’s newest film GOAT

    11 totally gay moments from James Franco’s newest film GOAT

    So the trailer is out for GOAT, James Franco and Nick Jonas’s brand new hazing movie – and well judging by the trailer it’s going to be pretty homoerotic.

    Goat starring James Franco and Nick Jonas

    Just from the trailer, we’ve managed to determine at least eleven totally gay moments

    Enjoy

    Cold shower anyone?

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    Being whipped by tight white T-shirts, seemed pretty homoerotic to us

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    Lots of shouting topless men… gay

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    Doing the jerk off motion…

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    Then James Franco strips off and demands that some student hits him in the stomach…

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    He gets totally into it.

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    No really.

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    That’s actually spit. We need say no more.

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    FFS  there’s a dude locked in a cage there.

    Goat by James Franco and Nick Jonas

    Pretty sure we’ve seen this in an Andrew Christian video.

    Goat starring James Franco and Nick Jonas

     

     

  • Muriel’s Wedding To Be Made Into Stage Show

    Muriel’s Wedding To Be Made Into Stage Show

    That’s right folks, “You can’t stop progress” as Muriel’s Wedding is to be made into a new musical stage show adapted to stage by, “What a coincidence”, it’s the original film’s writer and director PJ Hogan.

    © Sydney Theatre Company / Global Creatures
    © Sydney Theatre Company / Global Creatures

     

    The show will feature all those much loved ABBA numbers whilst both the script and Muriel herself will be re-set in 2017. Will marriage be easier to find in this new world of social media and app dating?

    Speaking to AussieTheatre.com.au PJ Hogan said, “I’ve been asked many times to put Muriel’s Wedding on stage and I’ve always said no – mainly because the film seemed to do what I wanted it to do, and has somehow resisted the obscurity that time and changing fashions are apt to visit upon everything and everyone. So why tempt fate and invite Muriel (and a singing Muriel, at that) to cavort in 2017?

    “Back in 1994 Muriel had a problem that seemed peculiar to her… how do you become famous (that is loved/admired/envied by all) when you have no discernible talent, no achievements, and when no one believes in you except you? The new millennium has provided the tools for dreamers afflicted by obscurity: Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, You Tube, not to mention that Hogwarts for the irrelevant, Reality TV.

    “Muriel was born to be a Millennial. So a Millennial she has become. Who sings.”

    Sadly the tickets prices may be a little ‘sky-high’ for us Brits as the world premier takes place at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, Australia. Though fingers are crossed for a speedy export to the UK.

    If you are travelling out there next year from the 20th Nov – 30th Dec 2017, then you can pre-book tickets at: SydneyTheatre.com.au

  • FILM REVIEW | Mechanic Resurrection

    MECHANIC RESURRECTION – The sexiest man alive is back in the sequel to his 2011 actioner which itself came from the 1972 original- testosterone level turned up to 11.

    Nutshell – Jason Statham returns to one of his many movie franchises. Retired and in hiding (so far so Jason Bourne) he is forced to travel the world to commit three impossible assassinations to rescue the love of his life (shame it is not a guy – surely this guy must be in the closet). From Rio to Thailand to Sydney and beyond mayhem and incredible stunts is the the ultimate outcome.

    Running Time – 98 minutes; Certificate – 15.

    Tagline – “Four Continents, Three Kills; They Hired Him, They Betrayed Him, They Will Pay”.

    The Gay UK Factor – The Stath gets his shirt off in all his films but here he goes mad. Basically there are very few scenes here where he actually has his clothes on so not so much a movie for your wank bank as a movie that will entirely destroy your right arm. Jason turns up as a prisoner, security guard, repairman, soldier, in a suit, swimming trunks etc etc in a 2016 version of the Village People with added chest hair.

    Cast – Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Yeoh and a endless line of muscle hunks to get sweaty with in mano et mano action for the whole duration.

    Key Player – These movies are star vehicles, basically if Jason wasn’t in it then it would simply not be made and here he has one of his biggest budgets ever in a film which is wholly tailored to his strengths – number one of which is his huge schlong – clearly visible on the beach and in the underwater scenes – then of course there are the gratuitous lingering ass shots.

    Budget – $40 Million, These films never make their money back at cinemas but from DVD and TV and this bigger production than normal will be no different.

    Best Bit – 0.20 mins; Where you get the start of 15 straight minutes of the Sath’s nipples on a Phuket beach.

    Worst Bit – 1.32 mins; The big surprise twist or reveal at the end is pretty pathetic and a real let down – let’s just say this is no Usual Suspects or Sixth Sense knock out blow – he should have got his prick out instead now that would have been a closer.

    Little Secret – If you are ever in LA, Jason works out quietly and sweats like mad at the Gold’s Gym right by LAX airport so make sure you make that your gym of choice for your trip and join the queue to see him naked and soaped up in the open showers.

    Movie Mistake – The watch which is so key to the story is missing from Jason’s wrists in thousands of scenes throughout the film – very strange for such an important macguffin. Hey Ho this is his application for the part of Bond with two sequences even filmed in former Bond famous locations.

    Further Viewing – Seeing as Jason holds the world record for the most number of Movie franchises ever with eight you are spoiled for choice. Try Spy, The Transporter 2, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Expendables 3, Crank 2 and Fast & Furious 7 or any film with a number in it.

    Any Good – As Formulaic as ever with the only new thing here being the huge globetrotting going on (the location scout deserves a pay rise) and of course the increased Statham flesh count. A movie for straight guys to live out and hide their gay fantasies and for gay guys to freeze frame for years to come.

    Rating – 74%