THEGAYUK

Category: Film

  • FILM REVIEW | Tom At The Farm

    ★★★★ | Tom At The Farm

    Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan may be sick of being constantly described as a wunderkind, but when you are just 24 years old like he is and have already made four head-turning mind-blowing Award winning movies, then the description is more than apt. Not content with writing and directing each of them he usually loves to edit, design the costumes, create the music, and now in his latest one, a taut psychological thriller, he stars in it too.

    Tom is grieving the death of his boyfriend Guy (known to his family as Guillaume) and he travels to a rather bleak part of Northern Quebec to attend the funeral and share his loss with the family he has never even met. He quickly discovers from a very scary encounter with Francis, Guilliame’s older brother, that not only was he ‘not out’ to his mother, but that Francis had actually created an imaginary girlfriend so that she would never suspect. In the first of many threats, Francis menacingly insists that Tom stays and keeps quiet about being gay and also adds some credence to the existence of Guillaume’s ‘girlfriend’ before he then goes from the family farm for good, never to return.

    To avoid doing just this, immediately after the funeral Tom tries to leave to go back to the city but in his panic he forgets his luggage and turns the car around to head back to the Farm to retrieve it. In doing so he confronts Francis and so refuses to go along with the subterfuge, which results in first of the beatings he will get at the hands of this psychotic bully. It also soon becomes obvious that despite all the violence both men are attracted to each other…Tom to Francis despite all the vicious physical abuse… and Francis to Tom even though he is bitterly angry about his own repressed homosexuality.

    Tom settles into some sort of routine and looks almost set to stay at the Farm and when he actually arranges for the fake girlfriend to come visit to appease the mother, he refuses to leave even when it is obvious to her and Tom that he is in real danger if he stays there a moment longer with the mad sociopath brother. He claims that it’s because that Francis could not manage the Farm on the own, but it’s clear that he actually is drawn to Francis’s deranged behaviour.

    It is a superb fist-clenching piece with an atmosphere of real fear that never ever lets up. I am not sure what was worse, knowing what Francis was actually capable of (and there is much more that I haven’t even touched on) or the realisation of what a pliable and willing Tom would accept. In amongst all of this, there is one most glorious scene where the two men tango together in the barn where the intimacy will only give way to violence again. The high pitch tension never ever gives a clue as to how it will develop or end up.

    Mr. Dolan sporting tousled dirty blond hair turns in a convincingly effective performance as Tom, and it is matched by veteran Canadian actress Lise Roy playing the mother with such a defiant tone, and also Pierre Yves- Cardinal as a very intimidating latently gay Francis.

    I am unashamedly a big fan of Mr. Dolan’s work and have never subscribed to the notion sometimes proffered that he is always about style over substance… the reason I am passionate about the work is the fact that he combines both so very well. However with this movie you can sense a more mature quality, and I believe that Mr. Dolan really can quite rightly claim the crown of being an out queer Hitchcock.

    P.S. The only fact I have given this a less than perfect score is there were two strands of the plot that puzzled me. I couldn’t believe that the mother could have been so completely unaware of what was going on in either of her son’s life. And secondly would an urbane copy editor at a city ad agency really take to farming so eagerly as Tom did?

    It did however won the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and is a totally unmissable movie.

  • X MEN’S CALEB LANDRY JONES In Talks For Stonewall Film Role

    Stonewall the movie, looks to be shaping up nicely after Caleb Landry Jones is apparently in talks to join the cast for Roland Emmerich’s gay history epic.

    Caleb Landry Jones has apparently entered talks to join Jeremy Irvine in the gay historical drama Stonewall, which is to be directed by Independence Day director Roland Emmerich.

    Caleb, who is most notable for his role in X-Men: First Class, will be playing, according to Deadline, an eccentric gay street hustler named Ophan Annie.

    The Stonewall film will focus on a teenager, to be played by War Horse actor Jeremy Irvine, who moves to New York, and becomes politically awakened after the Stonewall riots, which happened as a bad lash against a police raid on the New York gay bar The Stonewall Inn, in June 1969.

    The Stonewall riots became known as a series of spontaneous protests, by the gay community, which often ended in violence. They are widely considered to be the beginning of the modern gay right’s movement.

  • FILM REVIEW | In The Name Of

    Father Adam is the pastor of a minute parish in the hinterlands of Poland where he has opened a centre for ‘difficult’ teenage ex-reformatory boys. In this bleak countryside he, and his lay helper Michel, have fashioned their small group of unruly charges into almost responsible young men.

    They play football, go swimming and work together but despite his firm control over them, there is always this underlying feeling that tempers could rail up over the slightest excuse at any time, and so there is always a veiled threat of potential violence.

    There is little to do in this remote hamlet and Michel’s bored and neglected wife puts the moves of a rather shaken Adam. When he rejects her advances, he does so by explaining it is because he is ‘already taken’, which we assume refers to his Catholic vow of celibacy, and it isn’t until the second part of the story we realise its because he is not attracted to woman at all.

    Adam is always focused on being in control, but when he rushes to the defence of Lukasz a local boy who does odd jobs at the Center on two different occasions, it starts becoming apparent that despite his intentions he has deeper feelings for him. Lukasz is a good-natured young man whose usual silence at first seems to indicate sullenness, but in fact it is he who shows the lonely Priest warmth and openness that green lights what is to follow.

    Before this can happen, Adam tries desperately to repress his feelings by resorting to his old habit of getting rip-roaring drunk on his own, and he turns up the some rock music very loud and dances around the kitchen clutching a picture of the Pope as a partner. If it wasn’t for the fact that he is such a deeply unhappy man, it would be a very funny scene indeed.

    Michel suspects something is amiss and tells the Bishop who lets slip that he had already had to forcibly transfer Adam from his last position. Despite the remarkable success that Adam has made of the Center, his position is considered untenable now, and this will mark the end for him. Or will it?

    This emotional charged drama has an overwhelming sense of such utter sadness for most of the story. The whole piece gels so well because Father Adam (superbly played by Andrzej Chyra) is an engaging, seriously devout priest, generous to a fault to his parishioners, but one who struggles with his human foibles. When he tries to share his secrets with another person… his sister… she wants to be in denial of the reality just like Michel and The Bishop, and it simply reinforces Adam’s feeling of abandonment and hopelessness.

    Lukasz, like the other boys, is a young adult so what we are dealing with here is not paedophilia but a consenting relationship between two man, albeit that one is considerably older. It is his Lukasz’s final resolve that makes him appear mature enough to be a match for the Priest.

    The movie quite rightly won the prestigous Teddy Award at Berlinale (the highest award for a LGBT film) for writer/director Malgoska Szumowska who is back in form after that rather odd ‘Elles’. A nod to her cinematographer Michal Englert (also co-screenwriter) for the stunning haunting feel he gave to the bleak outside landscapes in particular, and another to young Mateusz Kosciukiewicz who looked more than tad like Jesus and who played Lukasz.

    What sets this remarkable and unpredictable movie apart from others that have dealt with repressed Catholic priests dealing with their homosexuality is Szumowska’s very real understanding of Adam’s personal struggle and the very straightforward way she tells his tale. The fact that its set in the Polish Catholic Church makes it that much braver, and also controversial.

  • FILM REVIEW | Locke

    ★★★★★ | Locke

    Ivan Locke is on the eve of the biggest challenge of his career.

    Tomorrow sees the biggest concrete pour ever that will serve as the foundation for Europe’s largest building to date. As the foreman of the site he is considered not only the go-to expert but also a safe pair of hands to ensure that this mammoth operation will be done without a single hitch. However, that night he receives a phone call that will not only put the project in jeopardy, but will serve to unravel his job, family and his entire life.

    Several months earlier whilst on another ‘concrete pour’ away from home, Locke had a one-night stand with an older rather lonely woman. It was a brief fleeting moment that he had totally forgotten about until tonight when the woman, very scared and panicking, had suddenly phoned him out of the blue to tell his she was about to give birth to his baby at any moment. So after finishing work that day he jumps into his BMW and hot-foot it down the motorway from Birmingham to the hospital in London where the woman is having a difficult labour.

    In the course of the 3-hour drive Locke tries to manage the job and also his wife remotely by a series of very fraught phone conversations. Neither his flabbergasted boss nor his unsuspecting wife can accept Locke’s reasoning for abandoning them both on a whim like this and the phone calls get menacing and bitter as they threaten to destroy Locke if he persists with what they can only see as a foolhardy plan.

    Meanwhile in between all this rancor Locke is also balancing calls to his deputy Foreman who Locke has convinced can manage the task on his own, even though at this hour the man is already the worse the wear for drink. He also manages to deal with the police and council officials to ensure that the construction site has all the right permits for the task. On top of which Bethan, the now very distraught mother to be, is also bombarding Locke with hysterical demands as her deteriorating condition means that the hospital need to make decisions to try to save the baby.

    Throughout this all Locke is cool and collected and deals all the anger thrown at him is a quiet reasoned manner. Even though his boss fires him, Locke continues to brief his (ex) deputy as he is still convinced that he can supervise the job at a distance. He does however fail to calm his hysterical wife and she refuses to now take his calls and Locke is left communicating to her through his two teenage sons who are not interested in any family drama and much keener in relaying the play-by-play detail of the football match they had been hoping to watch with him on TV that night.

    The sons are obviously the real joy in Locke’s life but in the gaps between the phone calls we learn the real reason why his is insisting on undertaking this journey tonight and its to do with the fact his own father had deserted him at an early age, and so Locke will do anything to avoid repeating this, even though it may end up at a very steep cost. He has no intention at all of starting any sort of relationship with Bethan, but he wants to take responsibility for his new child regardless. Whatever his irate boss and his wife who has been blindsided by this one act of betrayal think of him, Locke is in fact a decent man who simply wants to do the best.

    Written and directed by Steven Knight, who picked up an Oscar Nomination for his screenplay for Stephen Frears ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ and is also known for writing ‘Eastern Promises’ for David Cronenberg. Knight wrote this piece for Tom Hardy and when he persuaded the actor to take the part, he was given just 2 weeks by the Actor’s agent to shoot the whole thing. It is a tour-de-force career defining performance by Hardy who is on screen in that car for the entire performance. He is nothing short of electrifying and I can totally appreciate why Knight insisted that the role was his alone.

    There is whole plethora of wonderful English talent who are the disembodied voices at the end of the phone that included Olivia Colman, Ben Daniels, Danny Webb, Andrew Scott and particularly Ruth Wilson as Locke’s distraught wife.

    Hands up too for Haris Zambarloukos the D.P. and Justine Wright the editor for helping make an entire movie short in car so compelling.

    This small indie movie was shown in the Spotlight Section at Sundance this year and is just about to have a limited theatrical release in the UK. I do so hope it becomes more widely available as the audience it so well deserves should see it.

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

  • FILM REVIEW | Diana

    ★★  | Diana

    Officially separated from her husband, Diana Princess of Wales is out to hook herself another new man, and the one she has chosen is Hasnet Khan a handsome heart surgeon who she looks up at with her big dewy eyes and blurts out ‘So hearts can’t really be broken then?’

    Full credit to actress Naomi Watts who, complete with prosthetic nose, is playing the worlds most famous woman, that she musters as much dignity as she can delivering such clichéd tosh as this straight out of a schoolgirls ‘True Romance’ story. This is from the new biopic that specifically deals with the two years of the doomed affair Diana and Khan had that ended just a year before her untimely death.

    The picture painted here is of a lonely and somewhat desperate woman trapped by the restraints of her fame and constantly waging war with her in-laws and the whole Buckingham Palace machinery. She is portrayed as an innocent here, and flirts to capture Khan as if he is the only man she has ever loved. (There is not even a hint to her long affair with James Hewitt etc). Khan is clearly smitten too and soon succumbs to her charms and her wily ways but by dating Diana he starts something he knows he cannot maintain as his devout Muslim family in Pakistan will eventually pressure him to take a traditional wife.

    Their two years together are an emotional roller coaster and the movie veers dramatically from showing Diana as this love struck immature girl one moment to the world crusader that she became. In the scenes of the latter, Director Oliver Hirschbiegel, just couldn’t resist in going just a tad too far in making her seem just a little too holy and self-righteous.

    Of course the trouble tackling any story on such a major icon like this is that everybody has a fiercely held view on their own. Hence some of the excessive vitriol that was heaped on the movie by the UK press. This may not be a good movie but it is hardly the train wreck that so many Brits (except this one) think it is.

    Based on book by journalist Kate Snell it is like, so much that was written about Diana, mainly unsubstantiated and comprised of suppositions and a lot of clever guesswork. What it seriously lacked was not necessarily more facts (god forbid) but a half decent script to replace the embarrassing drivel that newbie writer Stephen Jeffreys had penned. If only Peter Morgan (The Queen) had taken the job on!

    The fact however that it was still streaks ahead of a Lifetime for TV biopic was thanks to Miss Watts. She may have been 10 years older than Diana was when she died, and an Australian, and not really looking a lot like her, but she still did a great job.

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

  • FILM REVIEW | Yves Saint Laurent

    ★★★★ | Yves Saint Laurent

    Yves St Laurent was regarded as the most consistently celebrated and influential designer for twenty-five years. He is credited with both spurring Haute Couture’s rise from its 1960’s ashes and with finally rendering Ready-to-Wear reputable. He was unquestionably a genius and it’s no exaggeration at all to state that some of his ‘creations’ were stunning masterpieces.

    He was however, a very troubled and tormented soul. An aspect that this new biopic on M. St Laurent makes a point of labouring on. As a piece of fiction the story of how this timid gentle soul who, at the tender age of 21 took over from his mentor Christian Dior to head up the Couture House is totally compelling. The year is 1957 and his first Collection as Head Designer at Dior catapulted him to international stardom. A year later he met Pierre Bergé, an industrialist who became his lover, and later his business partner after Dior had sacked St Laurent. He and Bergé set up the House of Yves St Laurent together.

    The movie focuses on how St Laurent, who had always been a manic depressive, became heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs just to cope with his daily pressures. As he sought solace (and sex) in the arms of other young men, his exploits landed him in police stations and on newspaper front pages, and he was always being rescued by Bergé who saved the day yet again. The couple spilt up romantically in 1976, a fact that is not mentioned in the movie, but remained business partners until St Laurent’s death from brain cancer in 2008.

    It’s a real treat to see the scenes of St Laurent at work in his Salon watching him create unforgettable pieces that were greatly influenced by his love of non-European culture. Also some of the scenes of almost debauchery when he is out partying with close friends like Karl Lagerfeld and Loulou de la Falaise when he looks like he is actually enjoying himself for a change. However fact and fiction start to really cross wires, and whilst we are expected to believed that this was a man who refused to take responsibility for anything, it’s nigh on impossible to believe that Bergé was such a saintly figure who never ever even dreamed about sleeping around or sniffing a line of coke or anything remotely bad.

    The movie based on Laurence Benaim’s biography was made with with Bergé’s ‘approval’ who has always had a reputation as a control freak and in the same way he micro-managed YSL, he has obviously totally manipulated the way that both he and St Laurent are portrayed in this movie. It’s such a pity as I believe that the real truth of this remarkable and tempestuous relationship is a great story still waiting to be told.

    Maybe it will be in Bertrand Bonello’s new movie ‘Saint Laurent’ currently being made now without Berge’s approval.

    Fact or fiction, there were still two incredible performances from the lead actors Guillaume Gallienne as Bergé, and Pierre Niney who was completely pitch perfect as the vulnerable St. Laurent.

    There was one remarkable touching scene when St Laurent arrives home, the worse for wear after an all night bender and has collapsed in the bathroom. As Bergé helps him, St Laurent tearfully confesses that he loves his new boyfriend Jacques, but that Berge will always be the love of his life. And you really want to believe that this indeed really was the case.

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

  • FILM REVIEW | Any Day Now

    ★★★★★ | Any Day Now

    So, here’s the thing, I can be an old, hard cynical fart when I want to be – but occasionally, just occasionally along comes something that makes me weep like a baby.

    This film is one of those things.

    What starts out as a simple story of love and acceptance quickly turns into one of bigotry and spite – leading to an unexpected ending. Based on a true story, this is one emotional roller-coaster.

    The storyline is simple, boy meets boy, boy blows boy in front seat of car, Rudy (Alan Cumming) is a low rent drag queen/singer, Paul (Garret Dillahunt) is a closeted lawyer – and these are our two main characters. Set in Los Angeles in 1978, Rudy lives in a flea pit apartment block, and when his drug addicted neighbour is arrested and sent to jail, the twosome take in her teenage son Marco (Isaac Leyva) and become the family unit they all want and need.

    However, this is the late ’70s, and their family soon draw the wrong kind of attention, and then the prejudice kicks in. A biased legal system, people perceptions of gay life and children – a far cry from the current ads being run by several councils offering fostering with images of smiling gay or lesbian couples as images of happy families.

    It highlights a time when it was “in the child’s best interest” to be placed with a convicted drug addict, rather than a loving same sex couple. When a downs syndrome child may be better off incarcerated in an institution rather then even consider that a gay couple could give him the love and caring he needs.

    There are some lovely set pieces in the film, the loving couple Rudy and Paul portray, the stories Marco needs to sleep (always with a happy ending), his love of donuts and Isaac’s acting ability – the heart wrenching scene when he cries himself to sleep as he can’t go home.

    A strong cast and crew make this one of the best films of its kind in a long time with Travis Fine doing a great job as director, writer and producer.

    My advice, buy a big bag of Minstrels and an entire box of Kleenex before hitting play – enjoy the film, and the cry!

    BUY ON AMAZON | BUY ON ITUNES

     

  • Independence Day Director To Take Charge Of Gay Stonewall Film

    Film maker Roland Emmerich, whose CV boasts Independence Day and White House Down is to direct a brand new historical drama of the Stonewall movement.

    The Stonewall film will focus on a teenager, to be played by War Horse actor Jeremy Irvine, who moves to New York, and becomes politically awakened after the Stonewall riots, which happened as a bad lash against a police raid on the New York gay bar The Stonewall Inn, in June 1969.

    The Stonewall riots became known as a series of spontaneous protests, by the gay community, which often ended in violence. They are widely considered to be the beginning of the modern gay right’s movement.

    Raids on the Inn were very frequent and according to reports, house lights were turned on, customers were lined up and searched, and their ID cards checked. Those who did not have ID cards were arrested, so were men dressed in Drag.

    According to Deadline the gay, German film maker has been working towards the making of Stonewall for over a decade. Emmerich is a campaigner for equal rights.

    Emmerich is set to start production soon. Roland Emmerich is currently working on a sequel for Independence Day.

  • 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 | Age Of Consent

    ★★★★ | Age Of Consent

    Age of Consent, tells the story of The Hoist, one of London’s few remaining leather bars, which opened in 1996.

    It being the story of a sex club, we get to see plenty of sex, some of it quite graphic. Ultimately, though, it turns out to be not only a fascinating glimpse into London’s leather scene, but a history of gay sex since decriminalisation.

    Did you know, for instance, that there were more convictions for gross indecency in 1989 than there were in 1966, the year before homosexuality was made legal for “consenting men in private”?

    The “in private” part was something the police vigorously enforced it would seem, often using pretty policeman to entrap gay men and secure a conviction. Against a backdrop of leather men grunting and groaning with pleasure, Peter Tatchell talks eloquently, as ever, about the continuing battle for equality under the law; co-owners Kurt Striegler and Guy Irwin tell us all about how the club got started., and some of its regulars tell us what makes the club special for them.

    There are no doubt those amongst the gay community (like James Wharton who was only recently proposing the closure of all gay saunas) who will find the goings on in the club quite disgusting, but surely the point is that we should all have equality before the law, whatever our sexual preferences, a fact that was brought brilliantly home by this excellent documentary.

    I do hope it gets an official release.

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Rosie

    ★★★★  | Rosie

    Age and aging were some of the concerns of Rosie, a Swiss film, directed by Marcel Gisler, in which gay writer Lorenz and his sister Sophie squabble and ultimately reconcile about what to do with their aging alcoholic mother, Rosie, splendidly played by Sybille Brunner.

    Plenty of family skeletons fall out of the cupboard as Lorenz tries to get to the bottom of the rift that existed between his mother and father, a rift that coloured his and his sister’s childhood.

    A touching and eventually uplifting movie about family with a sly, gentle humour.