THEGAYUK

Tag: Film Review

All the latest film reviews for LGBT themed films and others.

  • FILM REVIEW | Suffragette

    ★★★★ Suffagette | The plight of the British women who fought for the right to vote is beautifully told in the excellent film ‘Suffragette.’

    Suffragette’ is told through the eyes Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) in London, 1912. She works in a local factory, the Glass House Laundry in Bethnal Green, is married to fellow factory worker Sonny Watts (Ben Whishaw) and they have a young son. Watts has actually been a part of the factory since she was very young: her mother worked in the same factory and would strap her to her back when she went to work. Her mother died when she was four and Maud started working part-time there at the age of 7. At the age of 12, she started working full-time. She’s now a lead washer where she makes 13 schillings a week (compared to the salary a man is paid for the same job – 19 schillings a week). Watts has also been sexually molested by the hard core boss Norman Taylor (Geoff Bell).

    One day Watts is asked to accompany another women who’s to speak at Parliament about women’s working conditions and a bill to give women the right to vote. Watts wasn’t supposed to speak, but the other woman, Mrs. Violet Miller (Anne-Marie Duff) had been beaten up and didn’t look presentable, so Watts is thrust into giving the preprepared speech. Watts speaks from her heart, and from her experience, ignoring the script that was written. This lights something within Watts and turns her into an activist. She gets more more disgusted at the lack of women’s rights, and even more so when she sees young factory worker Maggie Miller (Grace Stotter), Violet’s daughter, being groped by Taylor in his office. Taylor is a sexual predator who believe women have no rights, and he tells Watts to ‘leave the vote to us.’

    But Watts’ pleas to Parliament are not enough. They say that there is not enough evidence to support the bill. The women rebel in front of the Houses of Parliament; many are thrown to the ground by the police with little regard for the women’s safety. Some, including Watts, and fellow protestor Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter), are sent to jail, where they are humiliatingly stripped naked. But this doesn’t deter them, and this leads to Watts becoming a member of the ever increasing suffragettes – a group of women working full-time to advance the rights of women.

    The Suffragettes are led by Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) – a woman who has given up her life to further the cause. She’s also in hiding for fear of getting arrested for leading the movement (during those times women had very little rights).

    Determined police inspector Arthur Steed (Brendan Gleeson) puts the women under surveillance – he won’t let them carry on with their protesting and letter box bombings – he wants them all arrested, especially Pankhurst, and calls the women the “East London ladies.” But Pankhurst rallies the women – she tells them at a gathering in a speech from a balcony “We would rather be lawmakers, not lawbreakers.” The women continue their protesting, even resorting to bombing an M.P.’s house, just to get their message across. But Watts eventually loses more than what she bargained for, but she’s more determined than ever to fight for the cause.

    ‘Suffragette’ tracks the foot soldiers of the early UK feminist movement, working class women who were forced to go into hiding to pursue equality. They were willing to risk, in their fight, their jobs, homes, families, and for some of them, their lives. And it’s a great movie. The film lies heavily on the shoulders of Mulligan’s portrayal of her character, a fictional character but someone who we route for every step of the way. It’s an unflawed performance that hopefully will see Mulligan receive an Academy Award nomination. Streep, who shares top billing, is only in the film for less than five minutes, but her character’s presence is felt all throughout the movie. Carter is perfectly cast as the local pharmacist and fellow activist, with a husband who supports her every step of the way. Carter is actually the great-granddaughter of Herbert Asquith – the Prime Minister during the time this movie takes place. Director Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane), working from a script by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady), successfully and beautifully blends in actual footage of the real protestors into the film, in a film that effectively uses dark lighting and unglamorous costumes to set the mood of the times. And while the plot may be familiar (the recent Made in Dagenham follows a similar plotline), ‘Suffragette’ is an important film to highlight what women did to get equal rights. And we have to be reminded that they are still fighting, and in some countries around the world (Saudi Arabia), women still have very little or no rights.

  • FILM REVIEW | Wasp, Sexual tension in Provence

    A gay couple and a jilted woman spend a weekend together in a house in Provence. It’s a triangle that becomes messy, in the new film ‘Wasp.’ ★★★★

    Olivier (Simon Haycock) and James (Hugo Bolton) have been together for a year. Caroline (Elly Condron), a college friend of James, has just been dumped by her French boyfriend of 3 years. So James invites Caroline to spend the week with him and Olivier in a house that belongs to Olivier’s family. It’s a beautiful house, typical French Chateau, with an outdoor pool, a trampoline in the backyard, and amazing views of the valley. Olivier is a privileged man; he’s 30, handsome, has a great job, and comes from a well-off family. And he’s got a younger good looking trophy boyfriend in James. He also used to sleep with woman.
    So the tension, not just sexual but all sorts, builds up as the week progresses. Caroline hears Olivier and James having sex upstairs, yet she’s vulnerable and feels a bit left out.
    Olivier starts noticing Caroline more and more. He steals glances at her from across the pool, and Caroline notices. She plays it up, teases Olivier, until James realises what is happening right in front of him. And the relationship between all three of them may never be the same again.
    Director/Writer Phillippe Audi-Dor makes an auspicious debut film. His style of long shots of various places and objects (wasps being one of them) brings out the beauty of the locale, as well as helps to build up and sustain tension between the three characters. Audi-Dor begin filming Wasp just four months after graduating from film school, and what an impressive debut it is. And while the films winds down with a very melodramatic ending, Wasp is an impressive filmmaking debut with a just as impressive cast.

  • FILM REVIEW | 45 Years

    Tom Courtenay is Geoff, while Charlotte Rampling is Kate, both giving superb performances. ★★★★★

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  • FILM REVIEW | LIFE: There Is No Life in Life

    There’s a famous photograph of James Dean in Times Square taken by Dennis Stock. It is now a movie called ‘Life.’ ★★

    The photo, taken in 1955, shows James Dean, cigarette in his mouth, head tilted towards the ground, the billboards of Times Square in the background, dark clouds overhead, made the cover of Life Magazine. It also made Stock’s career.
    So ‘Life’ the movie is all about that photograph, and the events leading up to, and after, that photograph was taken. It’s also a buddy movie: one man on the cusp of celebrity, another man trying to capture him while struggling to make it as a photographer and to also spend time with his young son, with an un-cooperative ex-wife. Stock (Robert Pattison) is tasked with an assignment: to do a photo essay on an unknown actor. So he’s introduced to James Dean (Dane DeHaan) at a party, where he’s also introduced to a young Natalie Wood (Lauren Gallagher). Dean in on the cusp of fame – his first film – East of Eden – was yet to be released. So Dean agrees to have Stock follow him around to get some shots. The first are rejected by his editor – who wants to see hazy shots of an unknown actor boozing it up in a club with Eartha Kitt (Kelly McCreary)? Stock thinks about taking another job, this one in Japan, but he decides to stay in New York and gets back together again with Dean, and on the spur of the moment that famous Times Square photograph is taken. Not to end there, ‘Life’ takes us with Dean and Stock to Dean’s hometown in Indiana.
    There is where Dean feels most at home, and comfortable; with family, aunt and uncle and Grandma and nephew (his mother died when he was nine and his father sent him to Indiana to live with them). More famous photographs are taken there; Dean with his nephew, Dean on the farm, Dean in the kitchen; these photos would become part of the Life Magazine photo essay. And that’s the movie.
    As you can second guess, there’s not much of a story to build on. ‘Life’ is not only about the photographs, it’s also about the relationship between these two men and especially the trust Stock builds with Dean. But ‘Life’ is boring, with stale dialogue, and with acting that is quite lifeless. Pattison is fine as Stock, but DeHaan, even though he has hair that looks identical to Dean’s, just doesn’t bring the right energy and sparkle that we can presume Dean had. Ben Kingsley, however, is excellent as Jack Warner – the man who guided Dean’s career. And while the period details (clothes, cars, hairstyles) are fine, it’s the story that is not a very exciting one and is not enough to warrant a 110-minute film.
    Director Anton Corbijn just doesn’t bring any ‘Life’ to this movie.

  • FILM REVIEW | Irrational Man

    Irrational Man | ★★★

    Woody Allen’s 47th film, ‘Irrational Man’, sticks to several themes he’s already explored in a few of his previous films, and is not one of his best.

    An older man being pursued by a younger woman is a plot device that Allen has presented to us many times before (Magic in the Moonlight and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger). In Irrational Man, Joaquin Phoenix plays pot-bellied depressed middle age philosophy professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix).

    He’s the newest teacher at a small town college in Rhode Island. He’s single and doesn’t seem to have much going for him. However, two women vie for his attention; unhappily married fellow teacher Rita (Parker Posey) who fantasises them running away together to Spain, and student Jill (Emma Stone). Jill is in Abe’s philosophy class, and she is mesmerized by his teachings and his stance on life. They start to spend lots of time together outside of the classroom, much to the dismay of Jill’s perfect boyfriend Roy (Jamie Blackley). Abe tries and tries to resist the urge to sleep with Jill, though he has no trouble having sex with Rita.

    However, Abe’s relationship with Jill is becoming stronger and stronger, until he can no longer resist her, and they eventually sleep together. Jill is so smitten with Abe that she breaks the news to her boyfriend Roy that she wants to break up. The plot then takes a turn: one day at a diner Abe and Jill overhear a woman talking about a local judge who has ruled against her in a divorce proceeding and has awarded custody of her kids to her husband. She also tells the people she is with how the judge has destroyed her life. At this point Abe decides he’s going to do something about this woman’s problem. His decision rejuvenates him, it transforms him from someone who is aimless and depressed to someone who is full of life and energetic. And he actually does go through with his plan. Of course his actions are irrational, but to him they are rational. But does he think he’s pulled off the perfect crime?

    There’s not much more to the film’s plot which is probably why it’s only 95 minutes. But Allen does get more from his actors than what the script provides. Phoenix is perfectly cast as the loner professor who struggles with his identity but is lucky enough to have two attractive women vying for his attention. Stone overdoes it a bit as Jill, the student who has a good thing going with Roy but sees something attractive in Abe that we don’t see. Stone played a similar role in Allen’s last film – Magic in the Moonlight – falling for Colin Firth’s much older character. Posey is a delight as Rita, fantasising about a life with Lucas in Europe.

    But Allen’s script doesn’t provide much magic, it’s humdrum at the very best in a film that can be categorized as not one of his best. It also won’t have much box office appeal here in the UK- in the U.S. the film has made a measly $3.7 million – a far cry fromMagic in the Moonlight’s total gross of $32 million. At age 79, we’re sure there’s lots more films in Woody Allen’s repertoire to redeem himself from this one.

  • FILM REVIEW: Everest: Breathtaking Epic Adventure

    In 1996, dozens of people tried to get to the top of Mount Everest. Some succeeded, and some died trying. The gripping and realistic ‘Everest’ recounts, in dramatic fashion, this event. ★★★★

    There were quite a few expeditions on Mount Everest in May 1996, and they all had one goal, to get themselves, and their clients (who each paid $65,000), to the top of Mount Everest, and it was up to the expedition leaders to make this happen. Rob Hall was the leader for Adventure Consultants, and he happened to have Jon Krakauer on his team (journalist Krakauer, who was on an assignment for Outside magazine, would go on to write ‘Into Thin Air’ – a book about the disastrous events that took place on the mountain during this climb ). Hall was also responsible for 7 other clients. The Mountain Madness expedition was led by Scott Fischer, who also had 8 clients, including Sandy Hill Pittman, a very wealthy New York Socialite who was, at the time, the wife of Robert Pittman, the founder of MTV. In addition to the clients, several sherpas (local people who are hired by the expedition companies to carry up the mountain supplies and food, to fix the ropes and ladders to make it easier and quicker for the clients to get up – getting everything in place) were part of the teams as well. Of course most of Hall’s and Fischer’s clients were not professional mountain climbers, they climbed mountains as more of a hobby, and expected to reach the top of Mount Everest because of the huge amount of money they paid. One of Hall’s clients was a postman (Doug Hansen). Another was a doctor from Texas (Beck Weathers). Also on Hall’s team was Yasuko Namba, a Japanese woman who had climbed six of the Seven Summits. And Hall and Fischer knew that it’s good for their businesses to have their clients actually make it to the top. So along with these two expeditions groups, other groups of people trying to climb the mountain at the same time were from South Africa, France, Tibet, and 13 members of a Taiwanese team.

    But the weather gods were not smiling on Hall and Fischer and their clients during this climb. And this is the story that ‘Everest’ the film successfully and gloomily brings to life. We are introduced to the teams six weeks prior to the start of their expedition. Hall (played by Jason Clarke) is from New Zealand who leaves his pregnant wife (Keira Knightley) behind to go to work. Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) says goodbye to his wife (Robin Wright) in Texas to try to accomplish the almost impossible task of getting to the top of Mount Everest. Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) meets up with the gang in Nepal, as does Sandy Hill Pittman (Vanessa Kirby), which is the starting point for all expeditions. It is in Nepal where the teams get to know each other and bond, but it’s when they get to base camp that the adventure, and danger, begins. Base Camp is already at such a high altitude (17,600 feet), that climbers need to be acclimatized so their bodies can get used to the high altitude. It’s also where the operations for the expeditions take place, led by Helen Wilton (Emily Watson). ‘Everest’ takes us on the journey of these team climbing the mountain. But first they need to navigate the Khumbu ice fall, soaring ice towers and crevasses so deep that there really is no bottom. Camp I and Camp II are where the teams stop and rest and basically take their time. But it’s Lhotse Face that is one of the most challenging bits on the mountain. It’s a 3,600 foot wall of ice that they have to climb to reach Camp III, where most climbers need to use bottled oxygen to breath. But it’s above 26,000, right below Camp IV, which is where the climbers use as the final stop before their ascent, called the ‘Death Zone’ because it’s where humans cannot survive for long. If climbers have survived as high up as Camp IV, then it’s full throttle ahead to reach the summit, usually at midnight so that the teams can reach it before noon, that if they survive the heavy gusts of wind and the Hillary Step, a 40-foot tower of ice and rock on an exposed part of the mountain that becomes a human traffic jam for people getting to the top, as well as coming back down. But it’s the climb back down that is hardest. The climbers are exhausted, some suffering from high altitude conditions, but it’s the lucky ones who are in ok shape, and it’s these people who have to decide whether to save the almost dead or to leave them behind to save their own lives. As recounted in ‘Everest’, Hall and Fischer’s teams encountered a major storm on their way down, but it was not the only mistake that took place on that climb. Besides too many people on the mountain, Hall took Hansen up to top, way past the agreed time. And the search for them cost another climber his life. Fischer was not in the best of shape as he was climbing to the top, and had a much harder time going down. And a storm overtook the climbers, which turned out to be unexpected and deathly. And it’s reenacted in ‘Everest’ to extreme detail; high winds, blowing snow, climbers struggling just to survive, dead bodies littered here and there, and almost blacked-outconditions. ‘Everest’ also recounts Weather’s struggle for survival, Hall’s loyalty to his client, and the operations team realizing that there is nothing they can do for the people trapped on the mountain.

    ‘Everest’ successfully, and grippingly, tells the story of the people who survived the mountain that fateful year. And while there have been a few books and one television movie made about this event, ‘Everest’ is based on the book by Weathers ( Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest (2000)), recollections from some of the survivors, as well as satellite phone conversations between the climbers, their families, and base camp. And the actors who portray the real life characters are superb. Josh Brolin has his best role in years as Weathers, a man who amazingly was left for dead on the mountain but somehow survived. Jason Clarke as Rob Hall is excellent – he’s determined to get his clients to the top and at the same time determined to get back home to see the birth of his first baby. Emily Watson as Wilton, the base camp operations coordinator, is concerned, and then doomed, after she realizes that a few lives have been lost on the mountain. And John Hawkes as postman Hansen gives us a portrait of a man who wants to be there but is not experienced in any way to climb the mountain. Luckily Knightley is relegated to a role not on the mountain, she plays Hall’s wife back at home, and there’s nothing she can do to help him. Gyllenhaal’s role as Fischer is relegated to a few scenes, mostly up on the mountain – he’s far from being the star of the movie. Director Baltasar Kormakur (2 Guns, Contraband), working from a script by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy, takes us with the teams on their journey, and it looks all too realistic. While there are lots of characters to keep track of (the all important Sherpas are virtually ignored), especially when they are all wrapped up, ‘Everest’ brings to the big screen the real life 1996 Mount Everest disaster. Eight people eventually died during this expedition. ‘Everest’ was shot at high elevation on the trek to Everest in Nepal, in the Italian Alps and at Cinecitta Studios in Rome, and Pinewood Studios in the UK. It can be experienced in IMAX 3D as well as standard 3D and 2D. ‘Everest’ is an epic adventure that will take your breathe away.

     

     

  • FILM REVIEW: Faults

    A down on his luck cult expert is hired by a couple to deprogram their daughter in the new online film Faults.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Pasolini, Controversial film about the late Gay Italian Film Director

    Director Abel Ferrera brings us the few days in the life of gay Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini in his new film simply titled ‘Pasolini.’ ★★★★

    Ferrera, who last year gave us the gripping, scandalous, controversial and excellent film Welcome to New York (which was inspired by the case of Dominique Strauss-Khan (DSK), the former chairman of the IMF), presents us a film where Ferrara imagines and then reconstructs the last days in the life of Pasolini.

    Pasolini was an extremely controversial film director. His films combined themes of religion and sex, his own personal views on topics such as abortion, displaying in your face bacchanals that left little to the imagination. His last film – titled Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom – depicted children subjected to violence, sexual depravity, and horrific murder – making Pasolini an extremely hated, or genius, figure. In Pasolini, Willem Dafoe doesn’t so much imitate or play Pasolini in the film, but he inhabits the actions and thoughts of him. And Ferrara, in putting this film together, spoke to Pasolini’s relatives and friends to gather the memories and thoughts of a man who would wind up being killed by a rent boy at the age of 53 in Italy.

    Pasolini is not so much an actual biography of the last days of Pasolini’s life, it’s more of a combination of the actual events that took place coupled with scenes from an unmade Pasolini film, a film that he was actually working on when he died. So we have Ferrara inhabiting the shoes of Pasolini and bringing to life scenes from the film that Pasolini never made – Porno-Teo-Kolossai – coupled with the events from the last days of his life which included meetings to discuss his new film, in his home with his mom and assistant and various friends, and to finally, his pickup of a male rent boy that would result in his death. It’s a very realistic film. Ferrara uses the actual locations of the real life events and also uses Pasolini’s personal objects and clothes in the film. This, coupled with Dafoe’s performance, gives us a documentary style production that is rich in it’s storytelling. Dafoe gives a fantastic performance inhabiting Pasolini’s world, right down to the language (some of this film is in Italian, and not every part of it has subtitles), to the glasses that he wears, to the clothing, to the way he carries himself. Like Gerard Depardieu who perfectly inhabited the role of DSK, Dafoe convincingly inhabits the role here. Even down to the final scene in the film, where Pasolini has sex with the rent boy and ends up being badly beaten, and run over by his own car. It’s a brutal death for a man who didn’t deserve to die that way. His murder on a beach on the outskirts of Rome on November 2, 1972 is still an open case despite the conviction of the rentboy that he picked up that night. It would be bit more fascinating if a filmmaker can make a film about Pasolini’s life – that would be a much more well-deserved tribute.

     

    Available to buy on AMAZON

    by Tim Baros

  • FILM REVIEW | Monsters, Dark Continent, Beautifully Chilling

    The highly successful 2010 film ‘Monsters’ saw the arrival of giant tentacled monsters to Earth. It’s sequel ‘Monsters: Dark Continent’ has five army men in a Middle East war zone who are attempting to deal with an insurgency, and dealing with these monsters as well. It’s explosive and shattering.

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  • FILM REVIEW | American Ultra

    Take a bit of a James Bond movie, another part from Cheech & Chong, and mix it up with elements of the recent film ‘Spy’ and out comes the new movie ‘American Ultra.’

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  • FILM REVIEW | Ang Lee Trilogy

    Ang Lee is perhaps best known in the LGBT community as the director of Brokeback Mountain, for which he won the Best Director Oscar back in 2005.

    10 years later comes the DVD release of his first three films, known as “The Father Knows Best” trilogy, which share several cast members and explores tensions between old and young, between east and west and between the family and the individual.

    The trilogy picked up two Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and contain the same emotional maturity and depth as his notable subsequent films (Sense and Sensibility; The Ice Storm; Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; and The Life of Pi). The three films that make up the trilogy are “Pushing Hands”, “The Wedding Banquet” and “Eat Drink Man Woman”.

    Each start out with the same premise: parents struggling to cope with modernity whilst maintaining their traditional beliefs and their children trying to both appease their parents and embrace modern lives filled with opportunity. However, each has a unique heart capable of breaking yours.

    The best of the bunch is “The Wedding Banquet” which is a culture clash coming-out comedy. “Eat Drink Man Woman” explores the role that food has in Chinese culture – where the art of cooking demonstrates love rather than the easy words “I love you”. And “Pushing Hands” is Ang Lee’s debut feature with the outlines of themes that dominate the remaining films in the trilogy. That said, they are not po-faced dramas.

    There are moments of great humour along with a sprinkling of Confucian quotes. This trilogy will resonate with those from an immigrant background or those who struggle against traditional beliefs or those who have difficulty communicating with their loved ones or those who are parents or those who have been children. In essence, it will resonate with all of us.

    THE ANG LEE TRILOGY is available to own in a 3-disc set on 24 August 2015, RRP £34.99.