THEGAYUK

Category: Film

  • FILM REVIEW | My Old Lady

    ★★★★ | My Old Lady

    Mathias Gold thinks his luck has finally changed when he inherits an imposing apartment in the centre of Paris from his late father who he was estranged from for decades. Approaching his 60’s, Mathias is a recovering alcoholic and after three failed marriages and three unpublished novels, he hasn’t a cent in the bank, and had to scrape around to find the airfare to fly in from New York to claim his property. What he finds in the Marais is a large two-floor apartment with a private garden that is worth several million euros, but it comes with an unexpected catch.

    There amongst the once grand salons is a 92 year old Englishwoman Madame Girard who had sold the apartment to his father 40 years prior but under an archaic French property law as he paid less than the going rate, she not only gets to live there for the rest of her life, but also gets a monthly stipend too. Horrified and pleading poverty Mathias persuades Mde Girard agrees to let him stay in exchange for paying rent whilst he tries to think what to do next. A plan that doesn’t meet with the approval of Chloe her daughter who also lives in this rambling dilapidated house.

    As the story unfolds we learn that Mde Girard’s relationship with Mr Gold Snr was not confined to the property transaction as they were lovers too for some decades. As the plot thickens we get to appreciate that this frail looking ancient widow is a wily old bird who has a very full and happy past, something which seems to have completely eluded the icy unmarried Chloe or the bitter and self-loathing Mathias.

    As Mathias tries against the odds to scheme to take control of the apartment he falls off the waggon and starts rapidly working his way through Mde Girad’s impressive wine cellar, and at the same time Chloe is plotting to try and keep the status quo. They are both such unlikable characters that it’s impossible to have empathy for either of them even when they clumsily fall into a too convenient happy ending.

    The playwright Israel Horovitz adapted his own play for this his movie directing debut and has left some of the very speechy monologues in which actors so love. Kevin Kline giving a beautiful performance playing the unhappy Maurice makes the most of the rants he gets to give, whilst the sublime Kristin Scott Thomas as Chloe does well with the little that she is given to work with. The movie, of course, belongs to the old lady, as it should, as played so beautifully by Maggie Smith, the grand dame herself a mere 80 years in real life. It is one of her quietest and most understated performances for years but it is still so powerful and compelling. Her character is the only one who enjoys life and Dame Maggie subtlety ensures that we definitely know this.

    It’s this ‘A’ list acting and the location of Paris exquisitely shot in a dim dusky light that makes this otherwise ‘thin’ story jump on to a ‘must see’ list. Dame Maggie alone is worth the price of the movie ticket.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Circle, Der Kreis

    The Circle (Der Kreis) is a Swiss docudrama written and directed by Stefan Haupt. The film depicts the social scene that revolved around Der Kreis, a gay publication in Zurich in the 1940s and 1950s, which was used as a scapegoat for the murders of several gay men in the city. Der Kreis (The Circle) was a Swiss gay magazine that was published from 1932 to 1967 and distributed internationally. ★★★★

    CREDIT: The Circle
    CREDIT: The Circle

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  • FILM REVIEW | Southern Baptist Sissies

    ★★★★ | Southern Baptist Sissies

    Fourteen years ago writer Del Shores followed his gay cult classic play ‘Sordid Lives’ with another dramedy that takes a hefty swipe at the conservative Baptists stance on homosexuality.

    Since its premiere, it has been very successfully performed extensively in regional theatres throughout the USA, but unlike its predecessor it has never found its way on to the silver screen, either big or small. Until now that is. Last year rectified Shores this omission when he directed a theatrical production in LA which he filmed in front of a live audience to make Southern Baptist Sissies the movie.

    The action is set in Shores’s beloved Texas and it follows four ‘good Baptist’ boys from childhood to their early twenties as they all struggle with their sexuality in varying ways. Mark is the most outspoken (and acts as the narrator) and questions how their Church can preach love and forgiveness whilst passionately decrying homosexuality; Andrew was the first to embrace Jesus as his saviour and men as his potential partners and is the one who wrestles most with the conflicting pressures that they bring. Benny is the most open of the group and has not only fully embraced his gayness but has welcomed it with open arms as he develops his career as a drag queen entertainer. On the other hand T.J. a real jock is in complete denial of his deep attraction to Mark and would rather marry a woman than accept who he really is.

    There is a great deal of melodrama with each of the young men all getting more than a couple of moments in the spotlight to say their heartfelt pieces, some of which come off as preachy as one of their Pastor’s sermons. Shores certainly knows how to get his cast to use the Bible like Google where there is an answer for everything.

    Then asides from this there are a couple of hardened and embittered bar flies, an older gay man and his new best lady friend, both hardened drinkers and chain smokers, who humorously dissect their lives with a constant flow of funny stories and comments on the proceedings as they sit in a gay bar.

    It’s an odd mix of highly emotional soul-bearing and chest beating on the one hand which is blended in with some really gloriously funny passages. It’s not always 100% successful but its very talented young cast that play alongside several veteran actors who are regulars in Shores productions deserve credit for their impressive performances which make the piece gel as well as it does. They include actor/producer Emerson Collins (‘Sordid Lives: The Prequel’), William Belli (‘Rupaul’s Drag Race’) doing all his own singing as Benny, Luke Stratte-McClure (‘All Together Now’) as T.J. and Matthew Scott Montgomery (‘So Random’) as Andrew. However, even the combination of cute appeal and talent still couldn’t stop them all being upstaged by Leslie Jordan and Dale Dickey with their scene-stealing outrageous bar gossip routines.

    It was definitely a bold decision to film it as a staged play, and for the most part, it works very well indeed. With simple interlocking sets the action flows quite naturally but whereas a running time of 140 minutes works well in a theatre, it drags on the screen and could have comfortably lost at least 30 minutes with ease.

    It is essentially a wonderful play about coming-of-age that shows little sign of becoming dated with time as the situations these young men face are universal and just as relevant today as when they were first written. This especially includes Andrew’s final resolution which sadly is the same decision many troubled souls still reach today.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Third One

    ★★ | The Third One

    Argentinian director’s Rodrigo Guerrero’s second feature is a very slight and charming tale about a one night stand that may change a young man’s outlook on life and love.

    We first see 22-year-old near-naked Fede at his laptop on a chatline talking to Franco. The conversation soon gets very intimate and graphic and in case we don’t get where this is leading too, Guerrero has inserted some very short clips of gay porn films. Franco is in his early 40s and partnered and when all three men agree they like the look of how this hook-up is progressing they invite the young man over for dinner and more.

    There is no ambiguity to the invitation and over the course of the meal, the three men chat at length about their backgrounds, their families and their lives so far. It is all very innocent and so completely friendly in such a way that it actually seems like the couple are looking to adopt the younger man rather take him to their bed and sexually ravish him. But this is what happens once desert has been served but as the action is photographed mainly from the waist up it is sweeter and somewhat wholesome than salacious.

    There is a lot of grunting and groaning and smiling and then some penetration.

    Next morning with still no genitalia on view the men leave for work and the boy leaves for college after they all say their fond farewells and promise to repeat the night very soon. The closing credits roll as we see young grinning Fede day-dreaming in Class his mind still on the events on last night as if he had just lost his virginity. (Not true).

    Sweet film, very good acting, but it really only had the makings of a short, and certainly not a full-length feature to promote this overly optimistic idea that sometimes (!) online hook-ups can be like a fairy tale after all.

    Released by TLA on 8th December

  • FILM REVIEW | St. Vincent: Grinning From Ear To Ear

    ★★★ | | St. Vincent: Grinning From Ear To Ear

    Vincent with no visible regular means of support and with a not a single friend in the world other than Felix his rather mangy Persian cat, is a cantankerous old drunk. When Maggie a newly single mother and Oliver her 12-year-old son move into the house next door, things get off to bad start between them and him, and it looks like they will be added to the long list of people who Vincent loathes. Then one day when Oliver gets inadvertently locked out of his house when his mother is trapped at work, and Vincent becomes a reluctant babysitter.

    Always desperately short of cash, mainly due to his very unsuccessful gambling habit, when Vincent realises that looking after Oliver every night after school will actually earn him some money, he signs up for the job albeit begrudgingly. However unbeknown to Maggie, Vincent sees no reason to change his normal routines and drags the boy around all his regular seedy and totally inappropriate haunts. When he discovers that the boy is being picked on at school he teaches Oliver how to break the bully’s nose, which to everyone’s surprise he successfully puts into practice the very next day.

    There are two people in Vincent’s life that he actually likes. One is a pregnant Russian stripper called Daka, and the second is Sandy an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer’s who lives in a seniors centre. As the story unfolds it slowly becomes obvious why these women warrants special attention. Eventually, Vincent also starts to bond with his geeky charge and their relationship is really cemented when Oliver manages to change Vincent’s losing streak at the race track.

    Center strand to the story is that at the Catholic School Oliver attends each of the pupils is encouraged to nominate a person from their everyday lives to be a Saint. Despite his drinking, gambling and hanging out with hookers, Vincent is Oliver’s choice for canonization which seems an unrealistic fit with the Catholic Church, but this is the movies after all.

    This debut feature written and directed by newbie filmmaker Ted Melfi is purely a vehicle for the great comic actor Bill Murray who now specialises in playing old curmudgeons. He is unquestionably funnier than the movie itself, which although has some good comic moments, is just a little too sweet and syrupy which is not a good fit with Vincent’s grumpy personna.

    Melissa McCarthy has very little to do as Maggie, Naomi Watts as Daka seems as uncomfortable as we are listening to her silly Russian accent, and Chris O’Dowd is painfully unfunny as the school priest.

    However young Jaeden Lieberher playing Oliver puts in a fine performance and there was excellent chemistry between him and Mr Murray.

    It’s not the laugh-out loud comedy it sets out to be, but it will have you grinning from ear to ear some of the time.

  • FILM REVIEW | Big Gay Love

    ★ | Big Gay Love

    Ringo Le’s comic drama admirably tackles the concept that even in our physique obsessed culture, gay men who are socially inept and more than pleasantly plump can still get their chance at a big romance.

    The lonely soul in this instance is Bob, who is a chubby successful party caterer in LA who has made enough money to buy his first house but desperately sad as he has no-one to share it with. For some reason (insecurity?) his only friends are a couple of vapid vain gym rats who are as self-centered as his mother who was once a famous Pin Up Girl.

    When at one of his own parties, he meets Andy a handsome beefy accomplished chef & restaurant owner, and budding writer to boot, who actually fancies him, Bob’s low-self esteem kicks in big time. The trouble is for Bob… and for us too… that once Le sets up the scenario the initially promising story disintegrates through a series of convoluted and somewhat ridiculous plot twists and the whole mishmash becomes one annoying big pity party for Bob.

    The cast includes the talented Jonathan Lisecki (the writer/director/actor of ‘Gayby’) and handsome Nicholas Brendon (from ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’) but with zero chemistry between them and a very stilted script, both of them looked as uncomfortable as we felt by the time the final credits rolled. They would be lucky to find a small gay love at best!

    Big Gay Love = Big Gay Yawn.

  • FILM REVIEW | Hollywood To Dollywood

    ★★★★ | Hollywood To Dollywood

    One of the very first things you learn from this enchanting wee documentary is that when you are growing up gay in a Southern Baptist family in a small North Carolina town you worship both God and Dolly Parton in equal measure.

    Handsome identical twins Gary and Larry Lane, now in their mid 30’s, got as far away as they could from their childhood homes when their family struggled to come to terms with the fact that they are both gay. Now they are living the lives they always wanted in West Hollywood, these inseparable brothers are desperate to fulfil their long-held dream. They want to present Dolly Parton with a movie script they have written for her based on her life story, and they also want their families to finally accept them for who they are.

    This film then is of their road trip in an RV christened ‘Joleen’ right across the country to Pigeon Forge Tennessee where Dolly is scheduled to appear in person at her famous theme park and where they are planning to get the script into her hands. They also hope that once their family see the finished documentary it will help them appreciate the fullness of the rather wonderful lives they have shaped for themselves.

    Before the start of the journey they persuade a few of their LA celebrity friends to read through the script and give them advice and any tips. They include Oscar Winning Scriptwriter Dustin Lance Black, and actors Leslie Jordan, Chad Allen & Beth Grant. None of them is immune to the boy’s infectious charm and boundless good humour.

    On the road with Gary’s boyfriend Mike doing most of the driving, the twins spend a lot of time verbalising about how childhood and in particular the rejection by their mother when at aged 25 they finally came out to her. She would not believe them and tried to make them swear on the Bible that they were not gay, and when they refused, she fell apart. Even now none of the rest of the family or their neighbours knows. Such treatment would have devastated most people but not these good-natured resilient twins who are still determined to be accepted regardless how long it takes them.

    The rest of the trip seems to be spending time with other people who also worship at the shrine of ‘Saint’ Dolly and who are so excited to give testimony with such fervour on camera as to how she has enriched all their lives. And when the boys arrive at their destination actually manage to get a brief meeting with Dolly herself, she is so welcoming and graciously accepts the script, they feel like they have died and gone heaven.

    Whether the script was any good, and whether Dolly liked it at all is really irrelevant. What makes this film so endearing is the twins unshakable faith in themselves and the people they love. And Miss Dolly Parton, who I would chose over God any day.

  • FILM REVIEW | Life Itself, Totally Unmissable

    ★★★★★ There are very rare occasions when the somewhat jaded and skeptical Press and Movie Industry audience at the Sundance Film Festival are ever moved to tears.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Campaign Of Hate: Russia And Gay Propaganda

    ★★★★ | Campaign Of Hate: Russia And Gay Propaganda

    Uber gay porn king Michael Lucas has kept his clothes on in front of the camera for a second time with his new documentary about the plight of gay men and women in Russia. It is a vast improvement on his first attempt at getting serious with his ‘Undressing Israel’ movie where life for the stream of hot gay hunks he interviewed couldn’t have been any rosier. Here Russian-born Lucas (born Andrei Lvovich Treivas) was back in Moscow his birth city to discuss that being a homosexual during Putin’s regime can be a serious danger to your health.

    It’s hard to get past a culture where the first time young gay kids learn anything about their sexuality is when they open their Soviet Encyclopedia and turn to the letter H. There for homosexuality they read just three facts. 1: it’s a sickness, and 2: a harmful influence of the West, and 3: it;s a crime for which you can go to prison for. And it doesn’t get much better for when the boy turns into a young man he will not just be mocked and humiliated by society but gay bashed several times and quite severely.

    The personal accounts of the gay Russians trying to lead normal lives, albeit almost all of them in the closet, were grim and depressing. Given the fact that they have to deal with so much sheer undisguised hatred every working day, it is no wonder that all of them without exception would choose to leave and move anywhere else in the world to live if they could.

    One of the commentators that Lucas interviewed made several good observations about in this present tough economic climate in Russia, Putin needs to distract people’s attention from his main problems and focus them on other media grabbing agendas. The harassment of gay people is one such target especially as they are considered a soft option and will not fight back. It has eerie overtones of the old Bush campaign that stirred up the US conservative wing about gay marriage in such a way that they would be sure to turn out to vote on Polling Day and at the same time re-elect him. Coincidentally our economy was in ruins then, but somehow that was hidden from us at the time.

    The rhetoric spouting by one of the vehemently anti-gay legislators as he justified his unequivocal hatred of the LGBT community was barbaric and heinous and he refused to accept either reason or factual information. When Lucas informed him that there was data that showed that the largest single group of people who committed suicide in Russia where young gay teenagers, I thought the man would explode with rage.

    Some of the gay and lesbians that Lucas interviewed tried to put a brave spin on the situation saying that things were definitely improving and that LGBT was now becoming accepted as part of the general protest. The majority of the others, however, thought it was just getting worse.

    Lucas’s interesting film probably didn’t say anything new, and it avoided drawing its own conclusion as to what lie ahead for the gay community there. It does however quite rightly serve as a wake-up call for those of us that live in the relative freedom of the West, lest we should ever think that gay rights are the rights for everyone.

  • FILM REVIEW | In Their Room: London / Berlin / San Francisco

    US Filmmaker Travis Mathews is a professional voyeur.

    His documentary movies all focus on gay men and their intimacy and are very raw and explicit. His most successful project to date is ‘Interior Leather Bar’ where he, and a somewhat obsessed James Franco, pieced together what they thought maybe the content of the chunk of William Friedkin’s 1980 gay classic ‘Cruising’ that the Censors insisted on being deleted. Before this however, Mathews embarked on series of videos, that have now been released under the banner of ‘In Their Room’.

    The first ‘episode’, a 20 minute short, was filmed in Mathews hometown of San Francisco where armed with just a simple video camera he visits 8 men alone in their bedrooms. Some are clothed, some naked, some are silent or reticent to share, whilst others are happy to expose every intimate detail of their thoughts about love and sex. Although it is always mainly the latter.
    The second film, shot in 2011, continues to voyeuristically document what goes on in the minds and bedrooms of urban gays. Now in Berlin, Mathews lingers on the tension and circular nature between intimacy and loneliness by documenting a handful of gay men as they troll the web looking for hook-ups or love. It is the only film in which he actually features a coupled pair, and is probably the most explicit of the three films.

    The third and final film made last year focuses on 8 gay men in London. I’m not sure if it was deliberate on Mathew’s part, but the bed-sitting rooms of his subjects this time around look decidedly squalid. Again he manages to draw out the men’s most private thoughts and aspirations as they talk aimlessly as he films them doing the banalest daily tasks. It is also the one episode when the vulnerability and loneliness of urban gay men really starts to seep through.

    The work is an interesting experiment, which although shares nothing new with us, at least gives us a moment to reflect on parts of our lives that many gay men have difficulty discussing. The series is definitely not for everyone, but at least you don’t have to have a Masters Degree in Counselling Psychology (like Mathews has) to appreciate it.

    Out December 2015

  • FILM REVIEW | Human Capital, Morals May Be Loose But The Pace Is Fast

    On a snowy wintry night in a small town in the suburbs of Milan, after he has worked at an Awards Evening for the local school, a waiter jumps on his bike to make his way home. However before he can get there, he is run over by a hit-and-run driver who leaves him at the side of the road to die. This tragedy affects many more people than the ones involved in the accident, and this complicated multi-layered drama is the tale of a number of people from all walks of life who end up embroiled. ★★★★

    Director/screenwriter Paolo Virzì tells this story in three chapters through different sets of eyes, and each re-telling of the same events has its own particular focus.

    The first one is ‘Dino’ and it starts 6 months earlier when Dino is dropping off his teenage daughter Serana at her boyfriend’s family fancy villa. Massimiliano and she go to the same school together even though they come from totally opposite ends of the social scale.

    Massimiliano’s father Giovanni runs a major international hedge-fund, and Dino a small-time real estate broker is desperate to be allowed to invest in the fund. As it happens that particular day Giovanni is short of a tennis partner and so the anxious-to-please Dino wangles his way on the court and into the Fund. He mortgages his business and house to find the necessary minimum €500,000 investment without telling his new second wife who is expecting a child. You know its not going to end up well for him even then.

    The second chapter is named ‘Carla’ after Giovanni’s insecure socialite wife who is bored to tears as she is always left to her own devices by her neglectful wheeler-dealer husband. An ex-amateur actress, Carla persuades an indulgent Giovanni to save the local dilapidated theatre for the sake of the town’s culture, but he does it to make a quick buck on the property. She at least gets to have a one night stand with the theatre director as a way of compensation.

    The final chapter is the one on ‘Serena’ who has been keeping dumb to the police on who actually drove Massimilani’s car the night it hit the driver. This is where all the loose ends of the story get tied together and as the Fund fails both Dino and Giovanni’s wives act like they are both completely in shock at discovering their husband’s greed. Dino had believed the myth that easy money was just that, and it would bring him happiness too, whilst Giovanni used it as a tool simply to buy anything and anybody he wanted, including his son’s freedom.

    This very Italian tale was surprisingly adapted from an American best-selling novel in which the action had been set in Connecticut. Avarice is avarice wherever it is. Although the emphasis was on the menfolk, in this movie, it was the three women’s performances that were the attention grabbers: newbie Serena Ossola in her first screen role as Serena, Valeria Golino in the small but vital part of Roberta, Dino’s wife, and the stunning Valeria Bruni Tedeschi who picked up the Best Actress Award at Tribeca Film Festival for her excellent portrayal of the neurotic Carla.

    The morals may be loose but the pace is fast and consuming in this look at capitalism in crisis. It’s a sorry tale, but one that is told very well.

    Available From Amazon