The latest four-star film review from THEGAYUK.
★★★★
★★★★ | Rent Boys
For well over the past four decades, Berlin’s Zoo Railway Station has been the main stomping ground for the city’s rent boys.
Using archive footage from 1965 this fascinating documentary from gay activist filmmaker Rosa Van Praunheim paints the scene there as it has evolved until the present day. It is a desperately sad tale of the squalid and dangerous lives these boys lead in an occupation that at best leaves them scarred for life, and at worse cost them their lives.
In the early days, in particular, most of the boys that hustled sex for money were victims of sexual abuse themselves and were plying for trade in their very early teens, and some even younger. Their tales were particularly harrowing especially when they were continuously exploited by paedophiles, and were completely unaware of all the inherent dangers of life on the street.
Nowadays very few of the boys are German and are heterosexual immigrants from neighbouring ex-Eastern bloc countries who, discovering that they can make more money from one encounter with a ‘john’ than they could laborfor a month back home, are prepared to become ‘gay for pay’ for the financial rewards. They take the same risks, plus the possibility of being deported too.
Van Praunheim profiled a few of the boys who had been working Zoo Station and the environs for some years now, and despite all the risks, still appeared reluctant to give it up. He went to the hustler bars and talked to the barkeepers who related about the abuse, the violence, the crime and the drug taking in a resigned almost complacent manner. He also followed the workers of SUB/WAY a support group who try their best to help the boys particularly to prevent the spread of AIDS & HIV, and dedicated and hardworking as they are, seemed to be making little headway in getting them off the streets.
The boys’ stories are heart-rending and there isn’t one that has a happy ending. As they eventually drop out/leave fresher naive young boys take their places and the supply chain never seems to be broken. As Van Praunheim’s film shows, the price the pay for their seedy unhappy lives is far too high.
Fascinating, but extremely disturbing to watch.
Tubby French tractor salesman Armand is having some sort of mid-life crisis.
Openly gay with a penchant for mature married men that he picks up in a cruising area outside of the country town where he lives, his life takes a dramatic turn when he jumps to the defence of a teenage girl who is being attacked by four thugs. 16-year-old Curly is the daughter of Daniel one of Armand’s work rivals who is less than grateful for Armand’s bravery (in which he had paid the thugs rather than physically beating them off). Curly, however, is thrilled, and sees in Armand a knight in shining armour who she persuades to rescue her from her controlling father and an oppressive home life.
What happens next in this wonderfully bizarre oddball comedy is a fair stretch of the imagination but thanks to the collection of odd larger-than-life characters, you cannot fail to be charmed. Bored Armand is easily persuaded by an excitable and very sexy Curly that he should try batting for the other team. He does manage to lose his ‘straight cherry’ helped by some magical enhancing roots he digs up in the woods where most of the sex (and there is a lot of it) takes place. Before he does take off however despite the fact that Armand is really a lazy slob, he still manages to persuade his straight boss with a deadpan face to let him give him a blowjob.
When Daniel persuades the local police chief to put a tracking bracelet on Armand he retaliates by running off with the horny teenager with half of the local community in hot pursuit. However, when both the novelty and the effects of the chewing the roots wear off, Armand is very keen to dump his young new girlfriend and go back to his world of tractors and old men. There is a hilarious end to the story with a lot of the latter and all naked.
The movie made in 2009 by writer/director Alain Guiraudie has now been released on VOD/DVD following the phenomenal success last year of his award-winning very explicit and controversial Strangers By The Lake. The abundance of sex in this earlier movie, however, is played more for laughs and cannot be described even in slightest as being mildly erotic or sensual. What Guiraudie does succeed at so well is making his gay characters devoid of any of the usual clichés and has them simply blending in with all the other locals without anyone raising an eyebrow about their sexuality.
Be prepared to laugh a lot and also be shocked by all the nudity.
Since its release in 2012 in book form, the Fifty Shades trilogy has been destined to hit the big screen; and this Valentine’s Day the first finally did, starring the delicious Jamie Dornan and beautiful Dakota Johnson as the leads, and a supporting cast, including Eloise Mumford, Luke Grimes, and pop ‘singer’ Rita Ora. All in all, the film was great if you haven’t read the books. If you have, prepare to be (ever so slightly) disappointed!
The film, based on the novel of the same name, follows the story of Christian, a BDSM-made sex God played by Dornan, and Anastasia (“just Ana”) Steele, naive student of English Literature. from their first meeting at Grey’s workplace to Ana’s departure after being belted by the dreamy Christian Grey. Throughout the film, the relationships between the characters are explored; including Ana and roommate Kate, played by the radiant Eloise Mumford. The plot highly differs from the book, but still gets across a few key points.
Despite following a straight relationship, the film is still to be enjoyed by the LGBT+ community. Although we don’t see much of Dakota and Jamie’s bodies, what we do see is sure to not disappoint! For the ladies, we have Ana undressing constantly, desperately, showing her lady bits. For the men, we have Christian’s deliciously peachy bottom shown sporadically throughout the film. The film also inspires new things for the bedroom for all couples – ranging from the use of floggers, not spontaneous fumbles in your garden shed.
Most of the cast is pleasing, though. For me, Eloise Mumford’s portrayal of Kate Kavanagh is the best performance in the film. Luke Grimes does well in his brief appearances as Christian’s brother, Elliott – and also gives the film a sexy rugged feeling. On the down side, the casting of Rita Ora as his sister, Mia, is the most disappointing casting of the film. Her four lines would be missed if you moved.
The film, which isn’t as good as its paper counterpart, can be enjoyed by all, and has many pleasing qualities, although many down sides feature, especially the fact that neither Ana or Grey have gay fantasies. The film is set to be released on DVD and Bluray on May 8, 2015, and can still be seen in a few cinemas.
★★★★ | Straight Acting
To most ‘out’ gay men “straight acting” is a derogatory term that is the equivalent of self-loathing. This rather inspiring and enthusiastic wee documentary is one man’s journey coming out of the closet and seeking to define his own concept of being gay when he felt he didn’t fit in with any of the stereotypes that he had known to date.
Spencer Windes was the middle child of a middle-class Mormon family who always did what was expected of him, most of the time that is. At 19 he went off to be a Missionary as his church told him to do, and then he returned home to find a girl, get married and start his own family. Trouble was it didn’t turn out quite like that as Spencer Windes was a deeply closeted gay man and he just hoped that Jesus would sort him out. And we all know how well that usually works out!
At 31 years old, a deeply unhappy four times college drop out Spencer, now weighing some 300 lbs, was unemployed and still living at home. And then the planes crashed on that fateful day on 9/11 and this was the epiphany that changed his life. On the plane that crashed into the field in Pennsylvania one of the heroes who had tried to stop the terrorists was Mark Bingham. He was not only a big burly (handsome) man, but he was also openly gay. He was also a member of San Francisco FOG a new all openly gay Rugby Team, and that part blew Spencer away. To be out and gay was one thing, but to be able to play a rough contact sport like that was totally another.
It inspired him to start losing waiting and sign up to join the LA Ironsides even though he had never played rugby in his life before. Much more importantly it opened his eyes to what was a startling concept to him (and other gay men who live rural lives in particular) to all the alternative gay ‘lifestyles’ that now existed, and which became the subject of this movie.
He went to gay rodeos in the Mid West and met the riders, and to New York to meet gay hockey players and interviewed men who had also struggled with initially opening the closet door, but once they got a taste of what was the other side, came out fully. The universal message from them all was that they had found a gay lifestyle where they fitted in, and were now happy in the own skins at last.
He also followed the journey of the (eventual) success of his own rugby team as it flew to London to complete in the Gay Rugby World Cup poignantly named after Mark Bingham, and there is one very emotional scene where Mark’s mother makes a wee speech to the hoards of excited gay rugby players.
This is no dazzling or profound highly polished documentary but simply the highly personalised account of one very likeable young man’s journey of discovery that I think a lot of others struggling with their own identity would find both uplifting and touching. I really warmed to it, so much so that I can’t wait to start playing rugby! No really, I will.
When evangelicals try to forcibly make gay men straight.
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. Later that same year Love In Action was founded by an evangelical Christian ministry specifically ‘to restore those trapped in sexual and relational sin through the power of Jesus Christ’ i.e. to forcibly make gay men straight. As the oldest established ‘ex-gay’ organisation in the US, it based its whole creed on lumping pornography, sex addiction and homosexuality together but the latter was considered by far the worse sin of all.
In 2005 their Refuge Program specifically designed to ‘cure’ young teenagers of their ‘gay addiction’ hit the national headlines when 16-year-old Zach Stark’s heartfelt cry for help appeared on his MySpace Blog. Zach had ‘come out’ to his parents and in return, they sent him against his will to be an inmate at the Camp. His plea hit a real nerve and quickly became a rallying cry for a small group of other young people, both gay and straight, who’s regular protests outside the Campus started a snowball effect and very soon caught the attention of the national and local media.
On one hand, Pat Robertson was preaching his usual hate-ridden rhetoric, whilst on the other, more mainstream TV channels Zach ‘s story and the whole Love In Action oppressive authoritarian regime was covered by the likes of Diane Sawyer and Paula Zahn. Most of them quoted L.I.A. Executive Director John Smid, an ex-gay now married (to a woman). who bitterly defended his organisation tooth and nail not conceding to any of the real concern now being raised about these young men’s welfare.
Stark was released after 8 weeks and initially obeyed his parents’ instructions to delete his blog and make no public comments to further fuel the fire. But by the time this documentary was made, Stark was now 18 and ready to speak up and to confirm that despite all that he went through he is now a happy and reasonably adjusted gay young man.
In 2007 the Program was halted and not only did the Rev. Smid resign his post, but he actually took the unprecedented step of publishing a public apology to anyone who may have been harmed by the program.
Morgan Jon Fox’s film bears witness to this shameful time in recent history and is most compelling when the interviews are with ex-patients/inmates and you can see the real pain that they were forced to endure in what are essentially the most crucial years in their growing up. It’s a testimony to their strength that they survived the ordeal, and equally a credit to the determined band of protesters who proved that standing up to be counted on when one encounters an injustice, does really work. And it’s a witness to all those poor souls that the disbandment of this whole movement came too late for.
But will he remain one, if Lewis gets his own way?
It may be every gay man’s dream to sleep with a straight man and it’s even hotter when he happens to be your best friend too. Closeted Lewis has always had a secret crush on his best friend Cooper but has never ever let on until the night before Cooper is about to marry his girlfriend and the two-man have just drunk a wee too much at the stag party and their conversation turns to sex. All the other guys have left and as Lewis and Cooper start to clear up the hotel room where the party had been held, the talk gets dirty and personal. Well-endowed Lewis is keen and Cooper is curious and so the two end up in bed together after discovering that they both love blowjobs.
Next day Cooper gets up and goes and gets married and lives happily ever after with his wife. Until the same time next year that is, and the two men meet up back in the same hotel room and take up where they left off. This anniversary tryst becomes an annual date in their calendar and for one night a year Lewis, previously self-identified as bi-sexual, transitions into gay, and straight Cooper still refuses to accept that he is anything else even though he lets Lewis penetrate him as he insists that they never kiss.
What is clear though is over the next 12 years that they are both very much in love. With each other that is. One year Cooper tries to fight his feelings and refuses to show up for their date, claiming he doesn’t want to put his marriage at risk, and then in a later year when he has not only overcome his resistance, is imploring Lewis to f**k him as hard as he can. It just so happens that he may have left it too late as perpetual bachelor Lewis finally has a boyfriend and is anxious not to do anything that may jeopardise his new relationship.
In this very likeable boy-lit movie it is interesting that although this may have started out as Lewis’s crush, it is, in fact, Cooper who is living out his fantasy. As their relationship develops it makes both men question their feelings and emotions and they learn that they cannot be easily defined in a conventional way as they accept their love for each other. It’s helped with very convincing performances from the two handsome leads Scott Selland Mark Cirillo who look comfortable in and out of the clothes.
Be warned though before you get to the scenes of these two hunks thrashing around naked, you have to sit through the scary opening moments of the movie when the stag party stripper insists on pushing her mammoth naked breasts way to close to the camera. And I won’t even tell you about her party trick where she can pick a coin up by her … well, you can imagine.
This cute wee drama is entertaining and amusing, although trust me, Cooper really is anything but ‘the last straight man’.
by Roger Walker-Dack
★★★★ | The Rewrite
I have a confession to make – I’m a sucker for a good old-fashioned rom-com. Cary Grant? Yes please! Doris Day? Just my cup of tea! Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan? I’m in heaven!
Give me star-crossed lovers and a little “will they, won’t they” and I’m a happy bunny.
And this vehicle for Hugh Grant gives you just that. It’s not earth-shattering, it’s not life-changing, it doesn’t answer the meaning of life but it is funny, it is warm and it is actually a good story.
Hugh Grant plays a once successful Hollywood screenwriter, one who seemingly had it all, wife, son, glittering career, wit and charm to boot, but then, as these things will, they fade.
The career stalls, film work dries up, the wife moves on to someone more successful and takes the son with her, and the charm and wit only go so far when your fast approaching fifty and broke.
This is where his wise-cracking agent comes in, offering work at a small college on a screenwriting course, and off Hugh goes.
A little far fetched, but this is a Hollywood movie, not real life. Stick with it as we watch Hugh go through the ups and downs of campus life, and also through a student or two…
He finds his mojo for writing amongst his students, but learns quickly that the film industry is still as fickle and maybe, just maybe his future lies elsewhere.
Hugh Grant gives his usually good performance, where he basically plays himself, Marisa Tomei plays one of his older students and puts in a solid performance playing her elfin self, and Allison Janney gives a poker face performance as a gargoylesque Jane Austin fanatic faculty member.
I liked this film a lot, I didn’t love it and here’s why. There was something slightly creepy about a 50-year-old sleeping with students, and at times, you look at Hugh and think, is this it? What else can you do? He is starting to look out of place in this type of film, too old to be running after 18-year-olds.
But until something else comes along, I do still enjoy him in these roles, and can’t wait to see where he goes next as he has mentioned in interviews that he wants to direct – but none of this detracts from this film, I’d see it again, and give it 4 stars!
★★★★ | The Face of Love
You glance at the cast list and think that at last, Hollywood is acknowledging good actors who happen to be a little older than Channing Tatum. The 3 leads here are Annette Bening, Ed Harris and the late Robin Williams in a slightly left of centre love story.
It goes like this, Annette Bening plays Nikki, an LA housewife and mother, who loves her husband, architect Ed Harris. The first part of the film shows this love while it films them on vacation for their 30th anniversary in Mexico until tragedy strikes.
Widowed, Nikki does what you imagine anyone in that position does, they exist, get up, breathe, eat, sleep and try to form some kind of life without that special someone but without any meaning and this film shows that lack of purpose so well.
That is until, on a whim, she drops by her favourite art gallery in LA, an old haunt from her pre-widow days and she spots a doppleganger; the spitting image of her late husband and that’s where the film goes into uncharted territory.
I’ve read some online reviews of this movie and they aren’t kind, but I found it endearing and felt an empathy with Nikki and her web of lies as she’s negotiating a relationship with someone who looks like and to all intents and purposes is her late husband; but with a penchant for hats and less fake teeth (watch, you’ll understand)!
Robin plays the third wheel – a neighbour, who lost his wife and has a crush painful on Nikki – a crush that comes to the surface when he makes a move and is, politely, thwarted due to Nikki’s sudden involvement with her late husband’s double!
Her live away daughter’s reaction is a treat when she first, accidentally, meets her mother’s new lover – worth watching just for this.
This is a lovely, delicious, silly and far-fetched movie – a Saturday afternoon treat, make yourself some popcorn, pour a wine and indulge kind of thing.
Suspend disbelief as someone once said and enjoy.
Add American Sniper to the list of good Clint Eastwood movies.
While it’s not his best film ever (see Unforgiven and J. Edgar) nor his worst film (see the recently poorly received Jersey Boys), it’s a loyal and factual re-telling of the true story of Chris Kyle, a member of the elite Nave SEALS. He was the most lethal sniper in the history of the US Military, having 160 confirmed kills. He was also a husband and the father of two children, but being the best sniper and serving his country were the most important things in his life.
Kyle (played valiantly and accurately by Bradley Cooper) in the beginning of the film is a ranch hand in Texas. His life doesn’t amount to much, especially after he finds his girlfriend in bed with another man. But after injuring his arm, he decides to join the navy. His commitment for his country becomes embedded in him after the catastrophic events of 9/11. After months of gruelling training, he and his team are sent to Iraq to fight the enemy. And they are tasked with some of the most dangerous missions in the military. This includes heading directly into enemy territory and looking for a man called Shiekh Al-Obodi (Navid Negahban), one of the leaders of the Taliban.
Kyle serves four tours, in between each one going home to be with his family but getting the pull to serve again. He’s urged against it by his pretty wife Tanya (an amazing Sienna Miller). Even the birth of his two children doesn’t keep him home. He continues increasing his sniper kill tally, which includes women and children who threaten to kill US soldiers. Kyle is also determined to kill a man called Mustafa (played by Sammy Shiek). Mustafa is a Syrian shooter who had competed for his country in the Olympics. He’s also killing the insurgents (the Americans on the ground). Kyle is determined to kill him as he has killed one of his fellow soldiers. The film then becomes a cat and mouse story to dramatic effect, where Mustafa aims to shoot the soldiers but Kyle aims to shoot him. It all culminates in an amazing shootout between the US soldiers trapped on a rooftop in Sadr City while the enemy comes in from all sides, all in the midst of a massive sandstorm. It’s one of Eastwood’s best film sequences I’ve ever seen.
However, American Sniper doesn’t end there. Kyle, after getting shot in the massive shootout, returns home, but has a hard time rejoining society, and his wife has a hard time getting connected with him. He’s a changed man, but seems to slightly recover after he starts helping soldiers at a local veterans hospital and also helps to train them on weapons and combat tactics to lift their spirits. American Sniper would’ve had a better impact if the film ended after the shootout in Sadr City. This last bit of the film seems to be tacked on to tell the rest of Kyle’s story.
Cooper plays Kyle to great effect, however, he’s a bit too old to be playing Kyle in his younger years. But Cooper is believable as a soldier during the war, he holds his gun and interacts with his fellow (younger) soldiers very well. It’s a performance that has just won him a nomination for the Best Actor Oscar. Miller is the standout of the film, she’s excellent as Tanya – it’s the best performance of her career. And while American Sniper looks and feels like a good film, the last ten minutes don’t need to be there. American Sniper is adapted by the book of the same name by actor turned-screenwriter Jason Dean Hall. Kyle was shot and killed in Texas in 2013 by a 25-year old Marine Corps Veteran, a veteran he was trying to help.
In 1979 257 people perished in an Air New Zealand flight in which an aircraft slammed into Mount Erebus in Antarctic, becoming one of the world’s worst air disasters.
The flight was a sightseeing excursion that left Auckland in the morning and was expected to return that evening. Sightseeing tours were a new and exciting breakthrough in the world of air-based tourism. Passengers were treated to breath-taking views, being wined and dined as a sub-zero, frozen world passed seamlessly beneath them.
When the DC10 aircraft failed to return alarm bells started to go off and operation Overdue was mounted. Within hours the lives of thousands of people would be changed forever, in New Zealand’s worst aviation accident to date. The nation was in shock for 200 of its citizens that died. Countless families, friends and a nation mourned for those lost on the inhospitable mountain side.
In this film, the story focuses on eleven ordinary police officers who were called upon to retrieve the shattered bodies of those victims. Eleven ordinary men who faced an extraordinary harrowing and life-changing battle against the bleak, forbidding landscape that forms Mount Erbus experiencing mass death on a massive scale.
Operation Overdue was the New Zealand police operation to lead a recovery operation. The first of these officers left from Christchurch on the 29th November 1979. It included the Chief Air Accident Investigator, Ron Chippindale, who led the site investigation, and the New Zealand Police search and rescue coordinator, Inspector Robert (Bob) Mitchell, who led the recovery operation. Just 11 New Zealand Police officers were selected from squads that included members of the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team and Search and Rescue. Accompanying these men was a handful of mountaineers. By the 10th of December, their job of recovering, bagging and repatriated bodies was complete. The DVI managed to recover 114 intact bodies, 133 bags of human remains and countless personal belonging back to the victims’ families.
Using a mix of archive and re-enactment, Directors Peter Burger and Charlotte Purdy have created a powerful documentary that uncovers the power of the human spirit. That even against the greatest odds, courage can overcome fear.
Although short, this documentary film manages to capture the emotional rollercoaster faced by those directly involved with the disaster.