THEGAYUK

Category: Entertainment

  • Sir Ian McKellen Tackles Sherlock

    Sir Ian McKellen reunites with director Bill Condon (Gods & Monsters) to star as the world’s greatest detective in Mr Holmes.

    The movie is a new twist on this famous private eye and is set when 1947, an ageing Sherlock Holmes returns from a journey to Japan, where, in search of a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities, he has witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare. Now, in his remote seaside farmhouse, Holmes faces the end of his days tending to his bees, with only the company of his housekeeper and her young son, Roger. Grappling with the diminishing powers of his mind, Holmes comes to rely upon the boy as he revisits the circumstances of the unsolved case that forced him into retirement and searches for answers to the mysteries of life and love – before it’s too late.

    The move will reach UK cinemas in June, and in US movie theatres a month later, and as a preview Miramax and Roadside Attractions have released this brand new preview at what looks like could be a real summer blockbuster.

  • REVIEW | Simon Amstell Takes The P

    If you’ve a penchant for vulnerable, neurotic funny men – Simon Amstell’s current standup tour ‘to be free’ should be on your to-do list. You hardcore Beliebers out there might take offence by Simon implying he wants to make Justin cry by penetrating his bottom. Mr Amstell did harp on about his new-ish boyf so of course, he’s only kidding

    Simon’s tour pitched up in Bath last Friday (13th March). The City of Bath perfectly characterises Englishness, much like Simon Amstell’s awkward and clumsy persona. Bath’s Komedia is caked in the traditional theatre covings and mouldings. It’s intimate and foolproof venue for a standup with a nervous disposition.

    A dorky Norwegian chap called Daniel Simonsen kick started the diaphragm contractions and respiratory howls. Daniel belittles himself and frets his way through observational comedy poker-faced with a Norwegian accent. It works.

    The same sharp wit as Never Mind the Buzzcocks and self-deprecated style as Grandma’s House is rife throughout Mr Amstell’s performance. He’s like watching a humorous, nervy overgrown-chihuahua with a tight perm.

    The timid pooch eased into the act nervously laughing at his own jokes. Closely followed by roars from the audience. The art of timing is apparent unlike Elton brandishing a Dolce and Gabbana shopping bag in LA. The crowd’s laughter-pipes were put through a gruelling workout.

    Amstell twitched through an array of subjects – love, sex, anguish. One of the best lines of the night, “If I was autistic I could lick the world”. Controversy and Amstell go together like Romans and hot-tubs.

    The quips trickled from him seamlessly apart from when a member of the audience needed a tinkle. They then became his prey. Funny at first, but painful after the fifth attack.

    On stage Amstell looks uncomfortable in his own flesh, he relentlessly fiddled with his granddad-shirt and elasticated trousers. His anxious high-pitched guffaws are adorable tho. Perhaps all these are the traits of a teetotal comedian.

    You can’t help but love this eccentric word-wizard. You’ll no doubt be posting your application for the Simon Amstell fan club special delivery after seeing the show.

    Four stars for Simon.

    You can still catch ‘to be free’ 28th June Regents Park Open Air Theatre – tickets on sale now.

  • FILM REVIEW| Born To Fly: Elizabeth Streb Vs. Gravity

    Elizabeth Streb is an American performer, teacher and celebrated modern dance choreographer who is never happy until she pushes everybody beyond the edge and way out of their comfort zone. ★★★★★

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  • THEATRE REVIEW | Playing For Time

    ★★★ | Playing For Time

    Amongst the horrors and inhumanity of Auschwitz, a small group of women are pressured to play in a rag-tag band, used for both entertaining the higher ranks of their captors and to march their fellow inmates into the fields to work and into the gas chambers to die.

    Playing for Time explores the emotional toll on the women as they quite literally play for their lives whilst struggling with the ethics and morals of pandering to the theatrical whims of the murders around them as their fellow detainees are being massacred around them.

    Based on the autobiography of Parisian cabaret sensation, Fania Fénelon, the opening scenes of her and her fellow Jews crammed into a cattle truck effectively conveyed the confusion, fear and false optimism of the passengers, followed quickly by a powerful, jolting and brutal arrival at Auschwitz which was genuinely unnerving to watch. But the play swiftly switches from the brutality of the camp to an examination of the inner conflict between an individual’s desire to survive and their desire to remain human. The internal struggles and external quarrels about the dehumanisation of the women in the band and the divide between their loyalties to those around them and their own selfish and primal instinct of survival are the focus of the wordy script. The dimly lit and smoke-filled auditorium provided an air of somberness and oppression, and the almost monochrome presentation of the piece (the black and grey sunken set penetrated by crisp, defined white beams of light) seemed to be a visual representation of the stark choices that go towards life and death in such a place, whilst the constant rumbles, cries, whistles and gunfire of the excellent sound design by Melanie Wilson constantly reminded the audience of the inescapable confines of the concentration camp.

    Arthur Miller’s seldom-performed play is a touch overlong, with a slightly uneven pacing and a group of central characters, performed by the predominantly female cast, which was not easy to connect with, although this could be as a result of the characters intentional or unintentional self-serving motivations.

    The sound of Sian Phillip’s Piaf-esque voice accompanied by the accordion, harmonica or a gentle piano was convincing in terms of 1940’s cabaret and reminded you of how recent in European history the events you are watching actually were. The performance of Un bel dì (One Fine Day) from Madame Butterfly was inspired, and its delivery in the context of the surroundings was not lost on the audience. The poignancy of the aria’s lyrics describing “that thin thread of smoke rising over the horizon” beautifully reflected both the optimism and hopefulness of the original context of the aria and the hopelessness of life in the concentration camp. Perfectly timed to coincide with Arthur Miller’s centenary and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Playing for Time is more of an exploration of human emotion than a narrative piece of theatre and one with a technically impressive presentation.

    Playing for Time is currently on stage at The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield until 5th April 2015. For further details and tickets visit www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk

  • WATCH: They Had It Coming, Cell Block Tango Goes Gay

    As part of its annual Broadway Backwards event benefitting Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS, director Robert Bartley transformed Chicago’s famed “Cell Block Tango” with six really hot male dancers.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Heartbeats

    ★★★★★ | Heartbeats

    If you have ever had an unrequited love, especially one in your (distant) youth then this wonderfully witty tongue-in-cheek movie from the remarkable multi-talented filmmaker Xavier Dolan will really appeal to you.

    The story is of a love triangle. Twenty-year-old best friends Marie and Francis spot Nicolas, a stunning Adonis, at a dinner party, and they both fall for him big time. Nicolas adores attention so encourages them to the point where they destroy their close friendship and become bitter rivals to win his heart. Nicolas is very self-absorbed and affected and it is impossible to tell if his androgynous personification will eventually reveal whether he is gay or straight. The three of them have sleepovers in Francis’s bed but nothing at all happens, and then one day they ago away to the country for the weekend, and after this life, for them, all will never be the same.

    As the story progresses Mr Dolan edits in some hilarious anecdotes in interview form from strangers whose love lives also fell part. The man definitely has a way with words.

    There is something totally entrancing about this second feature from Canada’s wunderkind filmmaker and as much as one can pick holes with annoying (and almost clichéd) touches like some of the slow motion scenes, you really sense that this is no ordinary movie from any ordinary director. Mr Dolan’s first movie I Killed My Mother a totally stunning and hilarious semi-autobiographic piece won 3 Awards at the Cannes Film Festival (and another 23 other Awards around the World) in 2009 when he was a mere 19-years-old.

    Sadly the US Distributor went into financial difficulties and the movie, trapped in legal no-mans-land, has never been seen beyond the Festival Circuit to date. Now at the ripe old age of 22, he has written, directed, starred, co-produced, edited, and designed the sets and the costumes for Heartbeats, which also picked up an Award at Cannes last year. He is an enormous precocious talent and I think this, his early work, shows that he is going to be one of THE most important filmmakers of the future.

    You would be a fool to miss this one.

  • FILM REVIEW | Mommy

    ★★★★★ | Mommy

    When Diana ‘Die’ Despres reacts quite violently after she crashes her car on the way to collect Steve her troubled teenage son from the special care facility after he set fire to the cafeteria, it’s initially not clear who is the craziest one out of the pair of them. However, life with Steve will be no picnic for his widowed mother after the two of them traipses back on the bus to the latest rental apartment in the suburbs that they now call home.

    Steve may look like an angel with his blond hair and blue eyes but he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which gives him extreme mood swings. They include many violent angry outbursts which then, without warning, suddenly change into some almost inappropriate ‘kiss and makeup’ sessions with his mother. Die seems to spend most of her time pleading and cajoling with her son who she is obviously very afraid of, but then again she too can be pretty frightening in her own right. Despite their traumatic daily life together she clings to her son even though she craves her freedom and so when a neighbour flirts with her she is reluctant to take it one step further in case it antagonises Steve more.

    They do however let someone else into their lives in the shape of their rather mousy neighbour Kyle. She has plenty of her own issues to deal, with most of which manifest in her rather mysterious stutter that greatly inhibits her ability to express herself. Kyle, an ex-school teacher, takes on the thankless task of trying to tutor Steve, and both he and his mother are desperate to make her their only friend which at first is something that she seems to welcome too.

    With one unpredictable scene after another, it soon becomes clear that no matter how strong and fiercely independent Die is, she is simply overwhelmed with trying to deal with this petulant head-strong unbalanced teenager. Love is just simply not enough.

    This remarkable and deeply disturbing film is the fifth from 25-year-old Canadian Wunderkind filmmaker Xavier Dolan and in a way he is revisiting a theme of his debut movie I Killed My Mother. This time however instead of it being about a son who felt completely misunderstood by his mother, the lack of misunderstanding seems to go both ways. It’s extremely raw, very heartbreaking, completely original and deeply personal as it simply has to be another of Dolan’s semi-autobiographical stories. What is especially effective is that despite all the melodrama he infuses it with some brilliant touches of humour which don’t just lighten the pace but make it really quite funny at times.

    It reunites him with his movie mother the dynamic Canadian actress Anne Dorval who, as the lynch pin for this intense drama, is manically mesmerising. She like Suzanne Clement who plays Kyle are stellar regulars of Dolan’s films and their performances (like the movies themselves) keep getting better every time around. Young Antoine-Olivier Pilon inhabits the often uncomfortable skin of the deeply disturbed Steve quite brilliantly too.

    The consummate Dolan’s hands, as usual, are not just restricted to writing and directing but are all over the movie from the editing to the soundtrack. He truly is a renaissance filmmaker and one that is seemingly maturing along with his movies which frankly get better and better. Multi-award winners … this one picked up a Jury Award at The Cannes Film Festival and then a César Award (French Oscar) for Best Foreign Film, but despite all this acclaim, Dolan’s movies have yet to make any significant breakthrough at the Box Office. This, however, may just be the one to give him the success that his movies so deserve.

  • FILM REVIEW | Dior And I

    ★★★★★ | Dior And I

    Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LMVH took a year to decide on whom to appoint as the new Creative Director of DIOR after the unceremonious firing of John Galliano for his alleged very public display of anti-Semitism.

    The interim in-house designer’s collection had been very poorly received so Arnault knew that he had to think outside of the box to save the reputation of the House. His unexpected choice was the Belgian Designer Raf Simons who had made a name for himself with his sublime minimalist collections for the Jil Sander label. Even though Simons had never designed an Haute Couture collection, Arnault threw him into deep end making this his first task and giving him just two short months to do it.

    The company also gave filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng what initially seemed like carte blanche to film the whole process from the time that Simons was first introduced to his new team right through to the Runway Show itself. Tcheng was a wise choice as he had been part of the team who had made the Diane Vreeland documentary The Eye Must Travel and the equally excellent ‘Valentino The Last Emperor’. This time, however, he was to be the sole director.

    Simons is a quiet reserved man which is the total opposite of his predecessor and relies completely on his right hand man Pieter Muller, who is more open and approachable, to execute a great deal of the work. Simons, who insists on doing away with the traditional formality of the House and been called Raf by one and all, creates in a very democratic manner. A very visual man who never actually sketches, he compiles extensive ‘mood boards’ of the ‘looks’ that he wants to constitute his debut collection that has to be good enough to lift Dior out of its current doldrums.

    He is not only fortunate enough to have a design team who are both eager and very capable of interpreting his concepts into reality, he has two workrooms who have for decades been lovingly hand-making all the couture clothes up in the attic floors of the building. Managed by two Ateliers (one for tailoring, the other for dresses) they are staffed by a dedicated bunch of seamstresses who at times seemed to show far more passion about the actual collection than their new Creative Director.

    Simons can, and does get anything he wants to help make this collection even if it means his fabric buyer must beg and plead with her printers, or if the seamstresses work into the early hours of the morning. Tcheng gives us a fascinating fly-on-the-wall look at how it all comes together, but apart from one incident when an Atelier is in New York doing a fitting for a customer ratter than toiling away upstairs in the Workroom, the whole process is presented as being totally drama free which is so completely unrealistic. There is one very real and funny moment when Simons wants a new white jacket made in black, and so to see what it would like, Muller just takes a can of spray paint and the offending white is covered over.

    Tcheng gets full marks for the innovative way that he incorporates part of the legacy of Mr Dior himself by imagery and narrating parts of the Couturier’s own biography. Simons is also aware of what he has inherited by stepping into the legendary Designers shoes (although he is the 7th one to date to have done so). Whilst he looks through the House’s archives as part of his research, he makes a point of stating ‘the past is not romantic to me: it’s the future that is romantic.’

    For a venue for the Show itself they find an empty very grand house in the centre of Paris and whilst walking around its many floors with his team, Simons says that what he would like to do is take the concept of Jeff Koon’s Puppy (outside Guggenheim in Bilbao) and cover the interior with walls of flowers. What Simons wants Simons gets, although when Arnault comes in to see a test run of the walls he takes the PR Director away from the prying camera when he asks ‘how much is this going to cost?’ Whatever the answer was he still stumps up for it and come show day and Simons is walking Anna Wintour into the venue to face this stunning beautiful sight, she takes off her dark glasses for one quick moment to mutter “No budget restrictions then?” with a smirk on her face.

    When the show begins in front of a star-studded audience and seemingly the entire world’s press, we finally get to see in full what we have only glimpsed at in part up to now i.e. the clothes themselves. They are nothing short of stunning, something that will be born out by the clamour of congratulatory hugging afterwards, and to be followed by rave reviews in the media the next day. But now as the skinny models glide from room to room whilst everyone is looking in awe, we finally see the emotional side of Simons as breaks down and quietly weeps and has to be comforted by Muller.

    The lack of real drama was not the only surprise it was the fact that Belgian Simons couldn’t speak French that was quite a shocker, which was hardly something that Tcheng could change. What however he was responsible was the total absence of Galliano’s name at all as if he never ever existed. Despite this unforgivable omission I was still completely enamoured by this otherwise enchanting record of this very talented man and his team creating these works of art that would be admired by so many and worn by so few.

  • FILM REVIEW | 54, The Director’s Cut

    ★★★★★ | 54, The Director’s Cut

    The movie opens with a very hunky bare-chested young man in a New York street late at night trying to cover up and keep warm. You can hear him start to explain. “I’m not going to bulls*** you, it was the greatest party in the history of the world. My boss said the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Maybe it did. One thing for sure it was the ultimate escape from a f***ed up city in a f***ed up time. But like any great escape, it never lasts”

    He’s talking of course about the infamous Studio 54 which was THE dance club in Manhattan, that for a few short years in the late 1970s was where all the celebrities hung out and partied whilst all the desperate would-be’s were kept outside behind the velvet ropes begging Steve Rubell the co-owner and ringmaster to be let in. Their efforts were all in vain as you had to have either a certain look or a gorgeous body for him to relent and admit you in to mingle with the stars. Shane a rather gormless New Jersey boy who was as cute as hell was in the latter group. This is his story, which started off when Rubell told him to remove his shirt and after he stripped to his waist he got invited into more than just the Club, and he stayed until the party ended.

    What naïve Shane encounters inside the Club quickly blows his mind. Hedonistic excess and debauchery with people openly having sex whilst bare-chested glitter-painted waiters nimbly passed around the packed dance floor with silver trays carrying drinks laced with phials of coke. There are bodies everywhere and all of them behaving badly. Hesitant at first he soon joins in and as he discovers that he loves being the centre of attention he learns to parlay that into getting what he wants. He is very soon a regular fixture and asking a somewhat besotted Rubell for a job. He starts at the bottom as a lowly barboy but literally f***s his way to becoming the next new hottest bartender which is one of the most coveted jobs in the place.

    Rubell’s self-indulgent rapacious greedy lust for money and power knows no bounds and the seemingly unstoppable raging success of the club means endless drug-fuelled sleepless days and nights as he lures Shane and his other young staff into satisfying his sexual needs with the promise of promotion or a handful of cash. His creepy persona (a startlingly wonderful dramatic performance from Mike Myers) influences the once innocent straight Shane who readily now jumps in bed with older celebrities of both sexes as he earns a reputation of being able to literally screw them unconscious. His now insatiable appetite has him also making passes at both his married best friends who are also his roommates.

    For Shane, it’s simply a case of rags to riches story and when the IRS finally takes heed of Rubell’s public boasting of tax-avoidance and raids the Club, it’s back to rags again. He’s had his trip to the dark side and now it’s time get back into a light that is not just from the reflection of a disco glitter ball.

    Written and directed by Mark Christopher, this new Director’s Cut fulfils an ambition he has held since the original movie was released some 17 years ago. He’s added some 36 sparkling minutes, which makes a great deal more sense of Shane’s story, and it also reinstates all the sex and the morally ambivalent characters that frightened the distributors way back then. All’s well that ends well and Christopher’s love letter to the heady days of the New York disco scene is now a sheer joy.

    With the exception of Myers, the cast was relatively unknown. Newcomer Ryan Philippe, whose experience prior to this had been playing a gay teenager on Days Of Our Life (the first gay character on US daytime TV), played Shane so passionately. He not only looks the part … be prepared to swoon like Rubell when he first takes off his shirt to reveal THAT chest … but he imbues his role so perfectly with such convincing innocence. Playing alongside him were a very young Salma Hayek, Neve Campbell, and almost totally un spottable in his very first movie role Mark Ruffalo. Christopher has scattered quite a few celebrities playing themselves as regular habitués of the Club, some of whom you may not even recognise until the credits role at the end.

    As Shane so adroitly summed up the whole scene “one moment it is all around you and the next it’s gone forever”. Very true, but now thanks to this excellent entertaining movie we can relieve part of it again for at least 90 minutes.

  • FILM REVIEW | Kissing Darkness

    ★★ | Kissing Darkness

    New gay film Kissing Darkness can be summed up as summer camp meets the Twilight movies.

    Five college boys decide to skip the gay pride festivities in their hometown of Los Angeles to spend the weekend in a cabin in the woods. They are young, cute, sexy and believe it or not one of them is straight Vlad (the very hot Nick Airus). He’s vile, unhappy, homophobic and luckily for us spends more of the film with his shirt off. Why he would want to go on a camping trip with four other gay men is beyond me. Of course, all of other men fancy him, but Vlad’s nipples aren’t the only things lurking around. There’s also Malice Valeria, a local woman (ghost?) who, after catching her boyfriend in bed with another man decides to bite Vlad (and the rest of boys one by one) to turn them into her slaves.

    In between all of this we see the men in the house in various states of undress, it’s pleasing to the eye and takes away from a story that’s pretty bad. Unfortunately, it’s all Kissing Darkness has going for it – the eye candy (did I mention how hot Airus is)?

    The plot is quite ridiculous, the acting mediocre, and luckily for us it’s only 87 minutes. Gay Director and writer James Townsend, who plays one of the boy’s lover in the film (he shows up near the end), has put together a film that’s so bad that it’s not even good. Hey, but at least there are lots of young male bodies to look at.

    The tagline of the film is ‘Love Has Never Been so Cruel’ – that pretty much says it all!

  • Mr Leather UK Is Back And Looking For A Winner

    CALLING ALL UK LEATHER MEN WHO WILL STEP UP TO BE MR LEATHER UK 2015?

    MSC London is seeking keen leather men, from around the UK to take part in this year’s Mr Leather UK. If you like being the centre of attention and want to be a key ambassador for the UK Leather Community it’s time to enter and get involved with your community. Each entrant will receive a free leather jock, membership of MSC London/ECMC, over £500 worth of leather gear, photo shoot and access to a travel fund.

    Mr Leather UK will be hosted at London’s premier fetish gear shop Expectations on Friday, 20th March 2015 from 7:30 until 11 pm with the competition taking place at 9 pm. The MC for the evening will be Leather Daddy, LGBT activist and finalist in the 2015 Hookies as best International Masseur, Greg Mitchell. DJ, Brent Nicholls will be spinning the hottest tunes, free bar served by hunks in jocks n boots and lots of special surprises and a whopping 15% off if you choose to buy any gear on the night.

    Entrants must be 21 or over on the date of the competition and a keen leatherman, the completion will be in two rounds the first round will be an opportunity to show off your best leather gear, followed my jock and pec’s round, each competitor will have an opportunity to talk about why they should be awarded the title of Mr Leather UK 2015.

    The judging panel will consist of the following men from the leather fetish world:

    1. Mr Chris Dixon – Manger of Expectations
    2. Arnold – Mr European Leather 2014
    3. Mr Paul Turner – President, MSC London

    The leatherman selected as Mr Leather UK has no required duties. He is a free agent to do with his title as he chooses. The winner is in a position where he can use his title productively and as one of the community’s perceived spokespersons; he may pursue his predecessors in achieving a goal. The 2014 Mr Leather UK, Avi Angel went on to take part in International Mr Leather, reaching the top 12 in the leather men in the world. He also joined the family of European Title Holders at Europe’s biggest Leather event, Folsom Europe in Berlin, as well as leading hundreds of leather men carrying a 33ft leather flag in London Pride Parade. Invites for the new Mr Leather UK to attend European events are already flooding in so 2015 could be a busy year for them meeting thousands of leather men!

    If you are interested in taking part in the Mr Leather UK 2014 competition you can download an entry form from www.msclondon.co.uk or email info@msclondon.co.uk – each entrant will receive a complimentary leather jock from Expectations and the chance to represent the leather community.