Two men get tricked by two very attractive women and it’s a ‘Double Date’ from hell!
Jim (Danny Morgan) and Alex (Michael Socha) are typical 20-something men. All they want to do is drink and get laid, however, there’s one problem. Jim, fast approaching 30, is a virgin. Yes, he’s never gotten laid. He’s not all that bad. He’s nice and all, but good-looking Alex gets most of the attention and the girls. But when two women coincidentally seek out Jim by making an easy play for him, not all is what it seems. You see, these two women Lulu (Georgia Groome) and Kitty (Kelly Wenham), who happen to be sisters, are looking for a male virgin as a sacrificial lamb for their sick father (boy is he sick – and skeletal!), and Jim has stupidly posted his profile on a virgin dating site. It’s not too long before the girls lure the men into their home (a huge mansion) where they reveal their dark and sinister sides, and the boys will definitely not be getting laid on this double date!
Double date is an amusing enough movie that doesn’t really take itself too seriously. The cast are all in good, scary and bloody form, and Morgan brings a bit of warmth and cuteness to his role (especially when he takes Kitty to his parents’ house for a brief birthday party). It’s all in good fun, and properly executed thanks to director Benjamin Barfoot. And while some of the fighting scenes forge on the unbelievable, at 90 minutes it’s not much of an investment in your time. And why yes, it’s the perfect double date movie!
KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE – The camp as Christmas Jason Bourne/James Bond piss take is back for number two with big laughs, endless extreme bloodshed and more anal sex jokes again.
Nutshell – Eggsy and the sexy as fu*k Merlin (The shaggable Mark Strong) go on the run after Julianne Moore and her henchmen totally destroy the Kingsman spy organisation. So it’s off to Kentucky in the USA to meet the even bigger and better Statesmen organisation of great looking spies like Channing Tatum and Halle Berry, cue car chases galore, gadgets, robo attack dogs and the kidnap of Elton John via Glastonbury, The Alps and Cambodia in the sequel twice as explosive as the first.
Running Time – 141 minutes;
Certificate – 15.
Tagline – ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated
The Gay UK Factor – Taron Egerton – fit, Mark Strong – masculine, Pedro Pascal – Hairy Latin stud, Channing Tatum – Uber fit and loads of other thugs and good guys that no-one would kick out of bed – this is a true wank fest.
Cast – Egerton, Strong, Pascal and Tatum are backed up by Colin Firth (didn’t he die in the first one?), Keith Allen, Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Michael Gambon, Jeff Bridges and Elton John with a real major part so plenty here to keep you occupied – how big will the cast be in part three and will Bennie and Jet the Robodogs be back?
Key Player – Matthew Vaughan the director and man behind Kick-Ass, The X-men, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Eddie The Eagle etc is a master at mixing light content with bouts of extreme gore and action and he has the perfect vehicle here. He also writes the film here alongside Jane Goldman (Mrs Jonathon Ross) and their endless invention is here for all to see and boy is it giving the fans what they want.
Budget – $104 Million way up on the first film and its cash registers are ringing like crazy making that back in just 5 days so it is off into the land of mega profit from now. This is a big hit and some.
Best Bit – 1.31 mins; A breathtaking assault on an Alpine mountaintop stronghold climaxing in a truly stunning cable car sequence one of the best action beats of the year and it even beats the opening London Taxi fight/chase which is as good as any sequence of the Summer but the film just gets better as it goes on .
Worst Bit – 0.21 mins; Julianne Moore as the bad guy who has a thing for Grease style 1950’s Americana and her HQ is a Fonzie/Happy Days style diner is just not nasty enough even though she does have a mean trick of putting her enemies through a burger mincer – she is a bit like a fourth division Bond villain when we needed a nasty as f*ck Blofeld type.
Little Secret – There just having fun here but this movie stars a mega five Oscar winners in Firth, Berry, Moore, Bridges and Elton the latter for The Lion King. The original film length was over 3 hours 40 minutes which would have made it the longest blockbuster of the Millenium and beating Titanic/Avatar & any Lord Of The Rings film until the Studio insisted on cuts. This is Elton’s 21st acting credit and by far his biggest, he has starred in everything from SpiceWorld, Tommy and Bob The Builder in the past but here he gets to kick butt instead of shagging it.
Further Viewing – Kingsman 1, James Bond circa Roger Moore, Spy, Austin Powers, The Bourne Identity, Kick-Ass, Carry On Spying and The Johnny English films.
Any Good – Matthew Vaughn said if you didn’t like the first one you are gonna really hate this one and likewise we believe the converse is just as correct. More of the same just bigger and brasher all in all not as good as the number one but isn’t that normal with sequels.
1980 was the year that Swede Bjorn Borg competed against American John McEnroe for the Wimbledon men’s championship, and what a game it was. The new film “Borg vs McEnroe” totally captures this exciting match.
Not only does the film capture, in very good detail, the match to end all matches, it also goes deep into the lives of both men, their upbringing, their careers as the world’s top tennis players, as well as their relationships with others. However, this being a Swedish production, the film mostly focuses on Borg (played by a practical look-a-like in Sverrir Gudnason). McEnroe, played by Shia LaBeouf, is also very good as the bad boy of tennis which almost mirrors LaBeouf’s offscreen behaviour.
We see Bjorg as young man (played by his own son Leo) in the city where he grew up and started playing tennis against a wall near his home; we see him as a successful tennis player, living the life of luxury, high atop a luxurious apartment building in Monaco which he shares with his partner Marianna (Tuva Novotny). She stands by his side and allows him to stay focused on his games, even if that means him being very obsessed with the preparation of each match, and the torment by his parents who have taught him never to be second best. Borg’s relationship with his coach Lennart (an excellent Stellan Skarsgard) is a volatile one, but it’s also like father and son. Meanwhile, McEnroe has demons of his own – his reputation precedes him, and it’s going to be a duel to the finish at the Wimbledon championships as to who’s going to come out the winner.
Borg vs McEnroe, a multilingual film, ends with the play by play of the 1980 men’s championship final. And if you don’t remember who won, it’s a nail-biting 20 minutes that will keep you on the edge of your seat. And it’s this finale that makes Borg vs McEnroe one of the best sports films since 2013’s racing car film “Rush.” Danish Director Janus Metz keeps the suspense and drama very much alive while writer Ronnie Sandahl expertly crafts the 110-minute movie to include aspects of both champions lives as well as their tennis successes.
IT – The big horror movie of the year is here as we welcome back Stephen King‘s homicidal shapeshifting sewer dwelling killer clown so what does this mean for the larger world of scary movies?
Nutshell – From the original 80’s blockbuster book through the very popular two-part TV series in 1990, our favourite grinning red helium balloon fan is once again crawling out of the gutter to terrorise a new raft of dysfunctional kids. Set in classic small-town Stephen King’s Ville, this hugely anticipated thrill-fest sees the youngsters slowly work out why their town is the world’s hotspot for missing kids and decide that Pennywise needs to have that fu*king smile wiped off his smug face once and for all.
Running Time – 135 minutes; That is the longest butt-numbing horror film we can ever remember.
Certificate – 15
Tagline – ‘You’ll Float Too” & “It Comes In Many Forms” is the best they could come up with really?
THEGAYUK Factor – All the heroes are kids and the villain is a murdering bugger so unless you jerk off to clowns playing with balloons then save the man gravy for the muscle studs in the upcoming Kingsman, Thor, Jumanji and Bladerunner.
Cast –Bill Skarsgard plays Pennywise and his most famous appearance to date is in the unsuccessful Atomic Blonde. Everyone else are newbies – this is not a star vehicle as the book and concept take that role, that will change with the adult sequels.
Key Player – Stephen King probably the world’s most famous writer, whose books have been turned into classics like The Shining, The Green Mile and Stand By Me but just as many right wank rags such as The Mangler and The Dark Tower which make us shudder for all the wrong reasons.
Budget – $35 Million and so far it has made back a whopping $189 Million and climbing, parts 2 and 3 are already in the works expect that budget to start going way up and returns to fall as severe disappointment kicks in.
Best Bit – 0.07 mins; The keynote scene of a young lad losing a toy boat down a large water drain and coming face to face with the never-blinking clown of everyone’s nightmares and then it gets really nasty.
Worst Bit – 1.45 mins; Basically anything in the last third is not brilliant and sometimes laughable. Nothing is quite as scary as that opening scene and as the CGI takes over and the baddie turns up everywhere and in every shape, this becomes as realistic as a steroided muscle mary’s stuffed jockstrap – this could have been so much better.
Little Secret – Bill Skarsgard was on set for the whole 32 week schedule but did not go in front of the cameras until the 18th week. Yes the clown is in it that little! This is the original story where the kids’ “The Losers Club” face Pennywise for the first time, they then have to face him again as adults hence the first sequel due 2019. Jessica Chastain is up for one of the parts and they also want sex gods Chris Pratt and Jake Gyllenhaal too.
Further Viewing –The Shining, Thinner, The Green Mile, Pet Semetaries 1 & 2, The Stand,Carrie, Christine, Children Of The Corn,The Mist, The Running Man; basically any of the 43 King adaptations you can find but maybe not that last Arnie one.
Any Good – This is so similar to the original film and book that the first question is why bother and no Tim Curry this time. Its problem is that it is just not scary and so very very long. It was truly anticipated and the box office should lead to a wealth of new big-budget horrors next year and beyond and not just the cheapie Saw, Purge, Paranormal & killer dolls we have had to suffer lately. Just expect huge diminishing returns and disappointment to this franchise.
In 2005 there was Brokeback Mountain, and in 2017 there is now God’s Own Country.
Being referred to as a West Yorkshire Brokeback Mountain, God’s Own Country tells the story of a young farmer who works on the family farm and has casual sex with some of the local boys. But when a Romanian migrant worker shows up to help him out on the farm, their working relationship turns into more than just work, changing both their lives. Shot against the beautiful backdrop that is Yorkshire, God’s Own Country is definitely this year’s hottest and most mainstream gay film. Director and writer Francis Lee, in his feature length directorial debut (he has acting credits that go back to 1994), has crafted a gay romance set on a farm, a romance that, when it gets lit, is explosive.
Josh O’Connor is fantastic as Johnny Saxby, a young man who thinks he has only one purpose in life – the farm. He lives in a house on top of a hill with his grandmother (Gemma Jones) and sick father (Ian Hart). But as his father is unable to participate in the hard daily chores, a Romanian immigrant, and ruggedly handsome, Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) arrives, and with his arrival comes the romance that we know is going to happen.
God’s Own Country is not the perfect film, Johnny and Gheorghe’s first stab at having sex, outdoors, right in the middle of the farm, was a bit unbelievable (and it looked cold). And Johnny’s habit of taking presumably straight men into his local pub toilets for sex (that would be every gay man’s fantasy – no?) is far-fetched. But God’s Own Country is beautiful, complex and engaging, and it doesn’t hurt that we get to see both O’Connor and Secareanu naked.
God’s Own Country has already won several awards, including Best Film at both the Berlin and Edinburgh International Film Festivals as well as the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance. And it’s gotten rave reviews, with some critics calling it “The British Brokeback Mountain,” but better.
Can a white overweight girl from New Jersey become a rap star? You bet – and her name is “Patti Cake$”.
Danielle Macdonald plays Patricia Dombrowski, an unemployed 23-year-old who has been given the nickname ‘dumbo’ by her contemporaries.
There’s very little opportunity for her; she’s been fired from her most recent job, her mum is an alcoholic, her grandmother is confined to a wheelchair, and she’s a dreamer about hitting the big time. But when she gets together with her friends, including pharmacist Jheri (Siddarth Dhananjay), she’s no longer just plain Patricia, she’s Patti Cake$.
When an opportunity arises for them to enter a rap contest, Patti has doubts, not only because the competition will be fierce, but also because she lacks the confidence which she never got from her own mother (Bridget Everett), who is always trying to show her up. But where there’s a will there’s a way, and Patti and her gang (now called PBNJ) must prove that they’ve got what it takes. And this makes Patti Cake$ a sweet and engrossing tale of a misfit girl who can and will make it.
Australian Danielle Macdonald is superb as Patti Cake$. She nails it as the rough around the edges but very soft to the core Patti who will have the audience in her corner. Everett also has a showy role as Patti’s mother, always trying to look good for potential male suitors. New Jersey native and music video director Geremy Jasper showcases the real New Jersey in this film and brings us a sweet tale of a girl who has larger than life dreams and tries to make them happen.
The man who gave us Sex, Lies and Videotape, Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Magic Mike, and the Ocean’s Trilogy (Steven Soderbergh) has returned with a film that, while it’s not groundbreaking, is littered with excellent performances but its a case of been there seen that.
So alike Logan Lucky is with Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen that it could as well have been Ocean’s fourteen but set in the Confederate state of Virginia. Logan Lucky is the story of a bank robbery, a bank robbery that’s so cleverly planned and executed that it’s a bit unrealistic and unbelievable.
Channing Tatum is down on his luck Jimmy Logan who can’t seem to get a break and keep a job due to his permanent limp. His daughter, Sadie (a memorable and amazing little Farrah MacKenzie) is a beauty pageant winner wanna be, and she’s in the care of his ex-wife Bobbie Jo (a very good Katie Holmes). His one-armed brother Clyde (a good as usual Adam Driver) owns a bar called Duck Tape, and they have a sister Mellie (Riley Keough). Jimmy, after talking to brothers Sam (Brian Gleason) and Fish (Jack Quaid), who have mentioned that their other brother Joe (Daniel Craig, at his best ever, better than his James Bond character), who happens to be incarcerated, can and will break out of jail and can help the gang break into the underground cash-handling system at the Charlotte Motor Speedway during one of the it’s busiest days of the year – the Coca Cola 600 race. Did I mention that the plot is a bit far-fetched?
Clyde (who got himself arrested just for the sole purpose of helping Joe escape jail for the day) and Joe successfully, in another ridiculous moment, escape jail. And it’s then a dream team attempting to steal money from a stadium chock-a-block full of people yet there is absolutely no one guarding the underground area where the money is dropped in via a tube system. Absolutely no one, not a security guard, employees, garbage collectors, no one at all. And all seems to go according to plan, thus lacking in any suspense whatsoever.
It’s in the performances where Logan Lucky is saved, barely. Craig is fantastic as the seasoned thief, Driver is good (as always) as the one-armed brother. Holmes surpasses expectations as Jimmy’s ex-wife who is now married to a wealthy man (more of her in the future please), while Seth MacFarlane is unrecognizable and fantastic as an arrogant personality famous for who knows what. The script, by Rebecca Blunt, has some very good moments but Logan Lucky is basically “Ocean’s 14” but with a better cast and a cool and quirky Southern vibe. Perhaps Soderberg’s next film will be an original, this one certainly wasn’t. But he’s putting together “Ocean’s Eight” at the moment, so it will be more of the same.
We all know who Tom of Finland was, but not many people know the real life story of the man behind the sexy images – Touko Laaksonen. The new movie ‘Tom of Finland,’ tells us about his fascinating, and interesting life.
But it’s a bit of a shame because the film is not very exciting. It should have been given that this man is most famous for his drawings of muscular and very well-endowed men in various incriminating sexual positions, but this aspect of the film takes a bit of a backseat to the more biographical nature of his life. Laaksonen, (ably played by Finish actor Pekka Strang), was a decorated officer in WWII and fought in battles against the Nazis where he was face to face with the enemy, and which makes an indelible impression on him for life. After the war, he returns home to live with his homophobic sister Kaijia (Jessica Grabowsky) and leads a very unexciting life working at an advertising agency. It’s only when he starts drawing men is when he starts feeling alive, more so because he starts to explore his sexuality in a place where it was illegal. Laaksonen then falls in love with the young lodger Veli (Lauri Tilkanen) he and his sister take in. This relationship instils confidence in Laaksonen and this is when his artistic talent starts to blossom.
Instead of getting sexier and more erotic, Tom of Finland the film maintains its understated and muted tone. As Laaksonen’s work (who by now goes by the name Tom of Finland given to him by his publisher) becomes more well known around the world, he goes to Berlin and then is whisked away to Los Angeles at the behest of a rich gay patron (played by Seumas Sargent) where we get glances of men frolicking in a swimming pool but it’s not enough to warrant any sort of excitement in a film that should be releasing hormones right and left. Some of the supporting characters start getting sick but there’s no real mention of the words HIV or AIDS in the film and it’s this disease that hits his community hard, at a time when no one really knew how the virus was contracted. And with no timeline mentioned in the film, it’s a bit difficult to know when these events took place to put the story into some sort of context.
Directed by Finnish Director Dome Karukoski and written by Aleksi Bardy, Tom of Finland has, of course, a very Finnish feel to it (definitely foreign and a bit dull and grey), which may or may not have impacted the film’s lack of excitement and dramatic possibilities. But the cast are all very believable and Strang does a very good job of playing Laaksonen’s life over a span of 50 years (!!). But Laaksonen deserves a more fitting tribute. He was a seminal figure in gay culture, one of the most influential and celebrated figures of twentieth-century gay culture, and ‘Tom of Finland’ the movie is not quite what I’d hoped it would be.
If you want real excitement, there is the Tom of Finland Organic Vodka to try – launched in the UK last month. Made in Finland from a blend of the finest organic wheat and rye with no added sugar, the vodka pays tribute to Tom of Finland through its smooth, spicy taste and flavour and it’s sexy packaging. The vodka was launched to coincide with the release of Tom of Finland.
The vodka is available now from select retailers including Gerry’s Wines and Spirits in Soho, London for an RRP of £32.50/50cl. I’ve tried it and it is superb.
An unusual romance blossoms between a Muslim comedian and a white American woman in the new light-hearted comedy The Big Sick.
The not funny title is completely intentional because halfway through the film Emily (Zoe Kazan) gets really sick and falls into a coma. But before this, we see the beginnings of a romance (and the breakup) between her and aspiring comedian Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani). Even though they come from two totally different backgrounds, they fall head over heels with each other after Zoe heckles him at one of his shows. But it’s when Zoe is diagnosed with a mystery illness, and after they break up, that Kumail decides that he really wants to be with Zoe, but he’s got to share her hospital room with her parents (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano, who are both excellent). Meeting her parents for the first time in the hospital tests him and his love for Zoe, but it’s also her parents who have to do some soul searching themselves because they are not quite yet able to accept a Muslim man as their only daughter’s boyfriend. And to make matters worse for Kumail, his family insists he marry a Muslim girl with his mom constantly inviting single Muslim women over for dinner and tells Kumail that ’they happen to be in the neighbourhood.’ Kumail has lots of dilemmas in his life.
The Big Sick is the true life story of Kumail and his real life wife (Emily V. Gordon), who had become very sick when they were dating, and this is where the story of this film comes from (they co-wrote the script together). Directed by Michael Shwalter, The Big Sick is a very funny and light hearted comedy that will tug at your heartstrings. And it’s Nanjiani (from television’s Silicon Valley) who lays his heart out and lets us in on his real life relationship that has now been turned into a very good romantic comedy.
A cheeky children’s series of novels has now been turned into a gleeful and silly animated film. It’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.
Yes, in case you weren’t aware of this popular children’s book series by Dav Pilkey, it has our superhero fighting crime wearing a cape and his white underpants – Y fronts. But he’s actually the creation (and from the imagination) of George (voiced by Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch), 4th-grade friends and next door neighbours. They are king of the pranks at their elementary school so it’s no surprise that when principal Benjamin Krupp (Ed Helms) threatens to separate them, they, through their self-created comic book, and after one unfortunate prank that goes wrong, turns Mr Krupp into Captain Underpants! But the boys want to keep Mr Krupp in his superhero kit so he doesn’t turn back into the mean principal who is going to separate them. But they can’t keep him wandering around town in his underpants all the time. They also have to deal with the nerd inventor prodigy Melvin (Jordan Peele) as well as the new mad science teacher Professor Poopypants (Nick Kroll), who is up to his own evil plans.
For the little boy in you (and that would be boys who will surely find this animated film funny, as it’s pretty much that kind of humour), but the rest of us will shake our heads at the silliness of it all.
If this is the first (as per the name of the movie) in a series of more Captain Underpants movies, I’m not too sure it’s going to be a good thing.
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES – The third and final part of the revamped ape apocalypse trilogy and this time the humans are definitely the bad guys in an all out battle royale for dominance of the position at the top of the food chain and planetary dominance.
Nutshell – The story of Caeser who we have followed from domesticated scientific experiment to the leader of the ape population in the forests above San Francisco and beyond. After a skirmish where the apes bear insufferable losses they decide on a massive exodus to safer climes. Unfortunately, the humans want the ape threat destroyed for good and a huge new baddie in the burly shape of Woody Harrelson’s The Colonel is in their way leading to the ultimate showdown as the two species go for World War Three.
Running Time – A bum numbing 140 minutes; Certificate – 12A.
Tagline – ‘For Freedom, For Family, For The Planet’
The Gay UK Factor – Unless you are into bestiality or have a thing for bears over at XXL or BRUT hairy men’s clubs then it is down to the humans and luckily there is loads of them and everyone is in uniform. There is a lot of muscle here and it is all sweating and grunting a lot, our top three military men were Chad Rook, Dean Redman and Steve Baran – drop and give us twenty as we will be lying underneath.
Cast – Woody Harrelson is the main human draw and all the other main actors are green screen/motion capture monkey performers all covered in lycra golf ball suits and digitised out. Lead by Andy Serkis, Tony Kebbell and animal character specialist Steve Zahn.
Key Player – These are Andy Serkis’s movies and he is almost in every scene here. You start to forget he is a human on a sound stage and get drawn into the incredible emotional arc he goes through here from extreme grief, through anger, leadership, cunning, despair and a trilogy climax that will leave you emotionally wrought.
Budget – $150 Million the priciest ape film of all time and clearly it has been money well spent judging by its strong Box Office. This title will probably continue somehow in a new direction to keep reaping the cash in.
Best Bit – 0.15 mins; A great nighttime waterfall fight scene which sets up the events of the whole movie and establishes exactly how much of a total bastard and probably hard shagging top the Colonel is.
Worst Bit – 0.57mins; The introduction of the biggest new monkey character ‘Bad Ape’ largely for comedy purposes than any plot development is annoying in a poor man’s Gollum sort of way.
Little Secret – The entire film seems to form a bridge between its obvious predecessors and the original Charlton Heston series of movies from 50 years ago. Names of characters, references to the atomic bomb, production values, the introduction or a de-evolving disease in humans etc all have a purpose in this and pay special attention to the Orang Utang who seems to be the biggest link of all. The attacking soldiers in the big battle here are fully covered from head to toe and the director has indicated that this may be because they are apes which will blow everyone’s concepts apart.
Further Viewing – There are 8 other ape movies (And a great cartoon TV series) to enjoy or endure depending on which you pick ranging from the superb original in 1968 or alternatively beneath, conquest, dawn, battle, rise or escape basically any verb you choose to put in front of the ‘Planet Of The Apes’ monicker but avoid the Mark Wahlberg one at all costs.
Any Good – The modern trilogy has been consistently good and this is probably the best yet and the perfect closer to this set of films. We know there will be more probably spin off’s or further tales of other groups but this story is done and Serkis has left the franchise… but as he was a digital character all bets might be off on that.
