Category: Film
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FILM REVIEW | Hegwig And The Angry Inch
★★★★★ | Hedwig And The Angry Inch
I’ve got to say, I’m not a big fan of film musicals, but when I was introduced to Hegwig and the Angry Inch, this all changed.
I’m a huge fan of John Cameron Mitchell, who plays the lead: Hegwig, a transexual entertainer who changes sex in order to leave a segregated war torn Germany for a life of stardom (she hoped) in the USA.
The film follows Hegwig and her merry bunch of band mates following Tommy Gnosis, a world famous rock star, whom she wrote songs with, before he got famous. Gnosis, once famous, denies Hegwig’s existence.
The music is bitter sweet, with toe thumpers: Wig In A Box and thought provoking ballads, like The Origin Of Love.
At the core of this bright and brilliantly directed piece is a sad iconic transexual, whose hair (slightly resembling a late Farah Fawcett) is looking for recognition, both for her music and for her Angry Inch…
The soundtrack is a sound buy!
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Gay Movies On iTunes
Although the number of LGBT films available on the UK’s main digital retailer iTunes isn’t large, we have managed to find a few greats. Here’s our list of the best available gay films via iTunes.
1) Milk
Starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch and James Franco, from the writer: Dustin Lance Black. Available for rent or purchase, HD or normal. Read TheGayUK’s review here
2) Latter Days
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Steve Sandvoss
Summary: A young and promiscuous gay man sets his sights on seducing his Mormon missionary neighbor. The resulting affair changes both their lives.3)
3) Were The World Mine
Summary: A gay high school musical fantasy inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
4) Philadelphia
Starring: Tom Hanks, Antonio Banderas, Denzel Washington
Summary: Tom Hanks won his first Oscar playing a gay lawyer who comes down with AIDS and then takes his former law firm to court for firing him.
5 ) My Own Private Idaho
Starring: River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves
Summary: Two best friends living on the streets of Portland as hustlers embark on a journey of self discovery and find their relationship stumbling along the way.
6) The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Starring: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Richard O’Brien
Summary: The cult musical about a mad transvestite scientist and his dumb, beefy, gold hot pants wearing monster. Susan Sarandon plays “Janet.”
7) In And Out
Starring Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack Matt Dillon
Summary: Greenleaf teacher Howard is outed infront of an audience of millions during an Oscar’s telecast.
8) The Craft
Starring Neve Campbell
Summary: Lesbian undertones in this witchcraft fantasy film. 4 girls discover they have “The Craft” and they are going to use it.
9) Another Gay Movie
Starring Graham Norton
Summary: Camp, candy coloured film. Raunchy and un-PC. 4 lads looking to lose their virginity at the end of high school.
10) Adam and Steve
Starring Craig Chester, Malcolm Gets, Parker Posey, Chris Kattan
Summary: Adam and Steve is all about making love work – whatever the odds.
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FILM REVIEW | The Mudge Boy; Dark, Cruel and Unfinished
A dark, cruel story of fourteen-year-old Duncan Mudge.
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FILM REVIEW | Weekend; Quiet, unhurried and self assured
It’s the kind of movie that Hollywood would run a mile from, and that’s a good thing.
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FILM REVIEW | Shortbus
★★★★★ | Shortbus
You’ll never look at a splatter painting in the way away again.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to have you face stuffed into a film’s never regions, then Shortbus is the film for you to see. Stat.
Director John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig And The Angry Inch) bravely circumnavigates the world of sexuality in this stylist, almost uncomplicated observation of sexual dysfunction.
Shortbus is a New York club where the focus is sexual liberation with a heady blend of punters. Transgenders, aging homosexuals, hot young boys, a straight female sex therapist all looking to get their rocks off – a bit like Piccadilly on a Thursday night but more scintillating.
The creators and actors of Shortbus have genuinely created and sustained characters the viewer can befriend and have some feeling for. It’s almost as though you can see that the actual actors forged a real relationship with each other, which gathering from the DVD’s ‘extras’ they had to, as part of the film development process was having sexual relations with each other.
Shortbus did give me a tingling sensation. Not just because you get to see: self sucking, a blinding rim job, a 3 way, the national anthem sung into a sizable cock and Mr Cameron-Mitchell himself being sucked off by an extra (no really) but it caused me to think of my own sexuality and my relationship to it. If you’ve ever wondered how the standard British sexual sensibility is compared to an American one – go to New York, hook up with a bar tender and you might understand the discomfort that this film might create. Sex is ‘in your face.’ It is about sexual roles. It’s about ‘this moment, now’ Being British and naturally reserved such talk and this movie is better left after 2 bottles of Chablis and a handful of bar nuts.
Some fantastic performances and an introduction to one Jay Brannan – who I suggest you get yourself into – socially so to speak. He has a Facebook, twitter, albums and tours his music about regularly.
If you’re sexually revolutionize you might watch this and think, whats all the fuss about, but worth a punt anyway. You can pass it of as porn with a story line and real actors. No mention of rusty pipes than need a lube down.
If you’re a fan of the slightly psychedelic, smash colour, animatic world of John Cameron Mitchell you’ll like this movie. It isn’t one however to watch with your Mother. You get to see quite a bit of peen!
Available to buy / view on: Amazon
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FILM REVIEW | Brokeback Mountain
As a poignant and touching love story, Brokeback Mountain deserves to help revive an ailing genre..
After a short stint trying to re-craft the comic book blockbuster in his own image, Ang Lee returns, gloriously, to more familiar ground. Based on Annie Proulx’s celebrated short story, Brokeback Mountain is a grand epic, a heartbreaking love story of two Wyoming ranch hands who fall for each other.
It’s remarkable to see a movie about a gay romance told in such a determinedly straight fashion. In fact where most contemporary rom-coms perform all sorts of contrived narrative somersaults to keep its lovers apart, in Brokeback Mountain, the circumstances of a hostile society that conspire to separate Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist and Heath Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar are utterly believable and genuinely painful.
But it’s not just the boys you end up rooting for. One of the reasons that Ang Lee’s film come across as so incredibly human is his reluctance to introduce a villain into the piece. The female leads could easily have been two-dimensional obstacles to true love. Instead, they’re almost as tragic as the men; it is not, after all, their fault that they unwittingly married blokes who were secretly spoken for.
It will be interesting to see how these themes will play in the queer-fear conservative heartlands of America. There’s a very real possibility that the idea of gay cowboys will threaten the middle class majority; those who are more comfortable when gay people are safely stereotyped as queeny LA fashionistas.
As a poignant and touching love story, Brokeback Mountain deserves to help revive an ailing genre: studio wisdom has it that sweeping romances spanning 20 years are a dead idea. On this evidence, they really should think about doing it more often.
Anticipation: Some kind of Priscilla, Queen of the Ranch, right?
Enjoyment: By the end you’d sell your own grandmother if it would help make things alright for them.
In Retrospect: As soon as it ends you’ll want to watch it again. Even if it meant putting yourself once more through the emotional wringer.
Available to buy / view on: Amazon
Brokeback Mountain (text) by Catherine Wray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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FILM REVIEW | Dream Boy
Nathan is a quiet but different boy, who lives in a very quiet town in the USA.
Nathan falls for the boy next door, Roy – and their relationship blossoms into a gay adolescent love affair with an unhappy ending.
The story is based on a novel by Jim Grimsley and delves into a world of child abuse, rape and the coming of age. It’s a very slow paced movie – think Brokeback Mountain and then slow it down some.
Unfortunately for this film it lacks any of that Brokeback Hollywood treatment. No breath taking vistas, no Jake Gynenhall. Un-hyped and grassroots look at gay life for a teenager in Louisiana.
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FILM REVIEW | Milk
Powerful, heartfelt and a strong testament to a force with that was Harvey Milk, the first openly gay political powerhouse that ran for major in San Francisco in the late 70s.
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FILM REVIEW | Mysterious Skin
Starring one of our favourites Joseph Gordon-Levitt Mysterious Skin is a punch in the stomach film.
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FILM REVIEW | Telstar, The Joe Meek Story
You may not have heard of Joe Meek, but will certainly have heard his musical productions and songwriting.