THEGAYUK

Tag: Four Star Film Review

The latest four-star film review from THEGAYUK.

  • FILM REVIEW | Yves Saint Laurent

    ★★★★ | Yves Saint Laurent

    Yves St Laurent was regarded as the most consistently celebrated and influential designer for twenty-five years. He is credited with both spurring Haute Couture’s rise from its 1960’s ashes and with finally rendering Ready-to-Wear reputable. He was unquestionably a genius and it’s no exaggeration at all to state that some of his ‘creations’ were stunning masterpieces.

    He was however, a very troubled and tormented soul. An aspect that this new biopic on M. St Laurent makes a point of labouring on. As a piece of fiction the story of how this timid gentle soul who, at the tender age of 21 took over from his mentor Christian Dior to head up the Couture House is totally compelling. The year is 1957 and his first Collection as Head Designer at Dior catapulted him to international stardom. A year later he met Pierre Bergé, an industrialist who became his lover, and later his business partner after Dior had sacked St Laurent. He and Bergé set up the House of Yves St Laurent together.

    The movie focuses on how St Laurent, who had always been a manic depressive, became heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs just to cope with his daily pressures. As he sought solace (and sex) in the arms of other young men, his exploits landed him in police stations and on newspaper front pages, and he was always being rescued by Bergé who saved the day yet again. The couple spilt up romantically in 1976, a fact that is not mentioned in the movie, but remained business partners until St Laurent’s death from brain cancer in 2008.

    It’s a real treat to see the scenes of St Laurent at work in his Salon watching him create unforgettable pieces that were greatly influenced by his love of non-European culture. Also some of the scenes of almost debauchery when he is out partying with close friends like Karl Lagerfeld and Loulou de la Falaise when he looks like he is actually enjoying himself for a change. However fact and fiction start to really cross wires, and whilst we are expected to believed that this was a man who refused to take responsibility for anything, it’s nigh on impossible to believe that Bergé was such a saintly figure who never ever even dreamed about sleeping around or sniffing a line of coke or anything remotely bad.

    The movie based on Laurence Benaim’s biography was made with with Bergé’s ‘approval’ who has always had a reputation as a control freak and in the same way he micro-managed YSL, he has obviously totally manipulated the way that both he and St Laurent are portrayed in this movie. It’s such a pity as I believe that the real truth of this remarkable and tempestuous relationship is a great story still waiting to be told.

    Maybe it will be in Bertrand Bonello’s new movie ‘Saint Laurent’ currently being made now without Berge’s approval.

    Fact or fiction, there were still two incredible performances from the lead actors Guillaume Gallienne as Bergé, and Pierre Niney who was completely pitch perfect as the vulnerable St. Laurent.

    There was one remarkable touching scene when St Laurent arrives home, the worse for wear after an all night bender and has collapsed in the bathroom. As Bergé helps him, St Laurent tearfully confesses that he loves his new boyfriend Jacques, but that Berge will always be the love of his life. And you really want to believe that this indeed really was the case.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | Cupcakes

    ★★★★ | Cupcakes

    The Eurovision Song Contest, which is the epitome of the true meaning of ‘eurotrash’, really owes its continuing success to the thousands of gay men throughout the world who slavishly watch the Broadcast every year with such glee.

    There are few programs on television these days that are camper than this outdated competition that seeks to find a winner from amongst some of the most innocuous pop songs ever written.

    When director Eytan Fox was visiting the Berlinale Film Festival a few years ago and was channel surfing in his hotel room he came across the show and something must of clicked. Hence the man who gave us intensely serious gay dramas such as The Bubble and Yossi & Jaegar decided that this should be the basis of his new fluffy confection of a movie about agroup of disparate friends trying to win what he dubbed as UniverSong.

    Six motley neighbors in an apartment building in Tel Aviv each with their own hangups or quirks who don’t actually want to go public, do just that when the song they write together almost by accident, goes viral on YouTube and they somehow get chosen to be the official entry for Israel.

    The oldest one is middle-aged Anat whose husband has just walked out on her and their bakery business; there is serious Dana who works an aide to a government minister just to please her orthodox father and who is paranoid at doing anything remotely frivolous. Yael was once a beauty queen and is now a lawyer and is also desperate to be taken seriously; there is painfully shy Karen who prefers to just share her life with her cybermates rather than step outside of her front door; and punky lesbian Efrat the alternative singer/songwriter who thinks such a frivolous undertaking as this competition is completely beneath her. It’s only kindergarten teacher Ofrat with a penchant for sequin drag who is really excited about accepting the invitation to compete, despite the pleas of his neurotic closeted boyfriend who’s family business actually sponsors the show.

    As in a typical show business fashion the professionals who decide that as they know best, they take over and create a monstrously big production routine for the group to perform. It is a total disaster as it takes out every single nuance of homespun charm, and at the same time, completely exasperates the patience of these bewildered amateurs.

    This is a fairy tale after all… literally… and they seize back the song and the competition in order for them all to win the prize, which is not actually the trophy, but mainly about them getting the lives they all really want. Even the Baker comes back. It is after all, that kind of story.

    I’m still shocked that this is the work of sober filmmaker Fox, but in this lightweight, pretty colored, camp romp he shows he can be as whimsical and entertaining as the next man. Maybe Pedro Almodovar even.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | Age Of Consent

    ★★★★ | Age Of Consent

    Age of Consent, tells the story of The Hoist, one of London’s few remaining leather bars, which opened in 1996.

    It being the story of a sex club, we get to see plenty of sex, some of it quite graphic. Ultimately, though, it turns out to be not only a fascinating glimpse into London’s leather scene, but a history of gay sex since decriminalisation.

    Did you know, for instance, that there were more convictions for gross indecency in 1989 than there were in 1966, the year before homosexuality was made legal for “consenting men in private”?

    The “in private” part was something the police vigorously enforced it would seem, often using pretty policeman to entrap gay men and secure a conviction. Against a backdrop of leather men grunting and groaning with pleasure, Peter Tatchell talks eloquently, as ever, about the continuing battle for equality under the law; co-owners Kurt Striegler and Guy Irwin tell us all about how the club got started., and some of its regulars tell us what makes the club special for them.

    There are no doubt those amongst the gay community (like James Wharton who was only recently proposing the closure of all gay saunas) who will find the goings on in the club quite disgusting, but surely the point is that we should all have equality before the law, whatever our sexual preferences, a fact that was brought brilliantly home by this excellent documentary.

    I do hope it gets an official release.

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Rosie

    ★★★★  | Rosie

    Age and aging were some of the concerns of Rosie, a Swiss film, directed by Marcel Gisler, in which gay writer Lorenz and his sister Sophie squabble and ultimately reconcile about what to do with their aging alcoholic mother, Rosie, splendidly played by Sybille Brunner.

    Plenty of family skeletons fall out of the cupboard as Lorenz tries to get to the bottom of the rift that existed between his mother and father, a rift that coloured his and his sister’s childhood.

    A touching and eventually uplifting movie about family with a sly, gentle humour.

     

  • FILM REVIEW | In Bloom

    ★★★★ | In Bloom

    This is the rather gritty story of a hip very young gay couple in Chicago’s ‘Boystown’ coming to terms with how tough one’s first love can be.

    Kurt is a small time drug dealer who supplies pot to his peers, whilst Paul his boyfriend of two years has a dead-end job in a local grocery store that he can barely tolerate. When the long summer starts, they are having fun and very much into each other and seem the perfect couple, but some seven months later they have separated and can barely talk to each other.

    Everything had been going well with them until one night one of Kurt’s good-looking customers puts the moves on him, and although he initially resists Kevin’s advances does it opens his mind to the possibility that there is more to life outside of his cosy relationship with Paul. Suddenly that starts to look painfully inadequate to him now, and in a fit of impulse he starts a ‘break-up’ that he will only regret when it is far too late.

    If that is not bad enough, the real world outside is even scarier than usual right now as there is a serial killer on the prowl whose victims have all been young gay man from the area. With Kurt making late night deliveries to hip parties all over he is probably more at risk than most.

    This look at contemporary edgy youth culture is the work of a 22 year newbie filmmaker Chris Michael Birkmeier who based this work of fiction on his own story of when he broke up with his first ever boyfriend. The plot is steeped in innocence and naivete and full of well-meaning intentions. It’s a remarkable debut feature and as such one can overlook the slow-moving story line that almost grinds to a halt at times.

    Credit too for the great wee cast full of untried talent, and very good photography too.

    The comparisons between Mr Birkmeier and the French/Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan who picked up Awards at Cannes for his first movie at the tender age of 19, are natural. Especially when Birkmeier makes no bones of the fact that he is a big Dolan fan. But there is very little similarity in their work and this movie is of a much simpler construction and far more straightforward. The two young filmmaker’s works complement each other, rather than complete.

    No doubt at all that C M Birkmeier (as he bills himself) is one to watch in new queer cinema, and I for one cannot wait to see how he follows this fascinating first movie.

  • FILM REVIEW | Stranger By The Lake

    ★★★★ | Stranger By The Lake

    Alain Guiraudie’s intriguing new thriller is about as homoerotic as can be without crossing the divide into soft porn. It’s set on a tranquil isolated lake in a beautiful corner of the French countryside where the beach front is sparsely occupied by a handful of men sunbathing in the buff. Behind them lies a small wood which is a busy cruising area for gay men.

    Young Franck is a regular visitor to the lake each summer, and as he is currently unemployed now hangs out there most afternoons. He befriends Henri a sad overweight man who is more interested in just chatting and sitting on the rocks rather than getting his rocks off. Franck is however obsessed with a handsome hunk called Michel who with his Tom Selleck bushy mustache is another element that insinuates a distinctive 1980’s look to the whole movie.

    Michel however already has a young man in tow who he takes off to he woods at regular intervals.Then at dusk one evening as Franck is leaving the woods after a quick hook up with another man, he turns to look at the lake and is horrified to witness Michel drowning his date before swimming back to shore.

    Instead of being put off by the fact that the object of his affections is a killer, Franck actually uses the absence of he young man to make his moves on Michel. It gets hot and steamy and although this excites both of them, the mysterious Michel refuses to continue when it’s time to leave the lake or even give Franck as much as a hint to what his real life is actually about. The fact that the dead boy’s clothes are still lying on the beach and his car is in the car park doesn’t seem to concern anyone at all until his body resurfaces and a police Inspector comes around asking questions.

    The policeman is shocked at the callous indifference he encounters and when Franck is even unable to name the man he was having sex with to support his alibi, the Inspector comments ‘you have a funny way of loving each other’. Franck prefers to keep silent so that Michel will keep having sex with him. However Franck’s love is only Michel’s lust and when the older man suspects that Franck knows what happened that fatal night, things start to look decidedly dangerous for the younger man.

    Asides from the cold-blooded murder, Guiraudie’s story is as much about carnal desire and as such he doesn’t shirk from portraying that with some very explicit sex scenes. There is no effort here to disguise the fact that these very blatant hook-ups are purely sexual and an escapism from the reality of the men’s lives. What the men will do for some momentary passion is very obvious here, but why it spurs Michel into becoming a killer is left to our imagination.

    This is a wonderful erotic thriller, well-written and beautifully photographed in a way that belies the fact that this idyllic looking spot hides such violent and deadly deeds. The story places passion before danger and proves that it is not always a wise choice.

    Winner of both the prestigious ‘Queer Palm Award’ and ‘Un Certain Regard Best Director ‘ at The Cannes Film Festival. Highly recommended.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | Free Fall / Freier Fall

    Free Fall (or Freier Fall, to give it its German title) is an award-winning drama from director Stephen Lacant. It has been branded a sort of German Brokeback Mountain, and indeed there are parallels between the two movies, but in some ways Free Fall is more gritty, more rooted in the present day.

    Marc would seem to have his life sorted out. He’s doing well in the police force, his girlfriend is having a baby, and they have just moved into a house, next door to Marc’s parents. He is happy (or he thinks he is) and everything is going well for him. He meets Kay at a training camp and the two men become attracted to each other. Though Marc tries hard to fight his feelings, he later starts a relationship with Kay and subsequently finds his life spiralling out of control.

    I suppose the basic storyline has a certain resemblance to Brokeback Mountain, but there the similarities end. Whereas in Brokeback much of the romance is played out against the magnificent scenery of Wyoming, this relationship is much more claustrophobic, harder to hide as so much of their life is in plain view; not much chance for the men to get away from their colleagues and Marc’s family.

    Ultimately the movie is not just about Marc’s coming to terms with his homosexuality, it is more about whether he will allow himself the freedom to walk away from the life that has been set out for him by his parents, his colleagues and his girlfriend. Marc finds it impossible to choose between Bettina and Kay because he can’t decide between the two lives they represent, between comfortable domesticity on the one hand, and freedom, with all the danger and unpredictability that suggests, on the other.

    Ultimately that choice is made for him, and though we do not know how life will pan out for Marc, there is a suggestion that he will eventually break free.

    With superb performances from the two central actors,Hanno Koffler as Marc and Max Riemelt as Kay, not to mention Katharina Schuttler as Marc’s girlfriend Bettina, it is an engaging and involving movie beautifully filmed and subtly played out. Lacant directs with a sure hand which is honest and true.

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Inside Llewyn Davis

    ★★★★ | Inside Llewyn Davis

    Poor Llewyn is both a loser and a user. Nothing is safe in his hands as his life careers from disaster to disaster whilst he goes from crashing on couch to couch in his long-suffering friend’s New York apartments. He even manages to lose one of his host’s cat that he lets escape into the streets.

    Inside Llewyn Davies is the Coen Brother’s wonderful take on the early 1960’s folk music scene in Greenwich Village that focuses on good-looking 30-something year old Llewyn whose songs are as bleak as his very messy life. He treats everyone so shabbily that it is a complete surprise that anyone puts up with him at all. There’s Jean, who sings with her husband Jim when she is not sleeping with Llewyn and half of the folk club circuit. She blames Llewyn for her pregnancy and although he unquestioningly accepts responsibility for paying for an abortion, in reality it may not even be his child.

    There’s Joy his resentful sister who allows Llewyn to crash in the Long Island house that had once been their childhood home just so that she can nag him to give up singing and go back to being a merchant seaman. And in uptown Manhattan, there are the Columbus scholars the Gorfiens whose cat he loses, but it also turns out that they were the parents of Llewyn’s late singing partner who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.

    Everybody on the folk club circuit is enjoying more success than Llewyn even though he think he has much more talent, but he fails miserably to earn their respect or worthwhile gigs or even a decent Agent.

    Why such a depressing tale should be so watchable is totally down to the Coen’s obsessive attention to detail. It’s a glorious period piece shot in smoky hues that makes it feel like a black & white movie that has been hand tinted with some color. The acting from this incredible ensemble is top-notch but the production design and cinematography deserves star billing too. The fact that we get so engaged in watching the story of a loser is because he is played by a remarkable relatively unknown actor Oscar Isaac (and local Miami boy) who was nothing less than sensational in this his first ever lead role.

    Rounding out the cast were the superb Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake as Jean and Jim, Garret Hedlund as Johnny Five, and John Goodman playing the obnoxious loud-mouthed Roland Turner.

    My initial reaction after viewing this, was one of stunned silence as I had simply not been prepared for what a downer the actual story was. Now on reflection, and I am wallowing in the memory of the sheer pleasure of what a powerful character study of such a flawed character it was in such a magnificent set piece. And lest I should forget there was all that music too that had been ex-produced by none other than T Bone Burnett.

    It won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and is unmissable, as it could even be the best Coen Brothers yet. And that is really saying something.

     

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | The Wolf Of Wall Street

    ★★★★ | The Wolf Of Wall Street

    Leonardo DiCapro Shines in his latest offering The Wolf Of Wall Street.

    Despite its 3 hour run time, The Wolf Of Wall Street managed to entertain – with only one glance to the watch to check on the time.

    Following the true story of Jordan Belfort, the film documents the rise and the rise and the eventual fall (but not so hard) of a man who sells penny stocks for over inflated prices – and getting rich, very rich in the process.

    Drug fuelled, sex driven and money mad Belfort – slams from Pillar to Post, whipping up a moneyed frenzy in his wake. If you ever want to hear on how to sell anything to anyone, The Wolf Of Wall Street offers an insight into the inner machinations of Wall Street and Stock markets.

    Some are saying that the film is glorifying Wall Street and some of its seedier tradings – and I would have to agree, but ultimately, as Belfort says ‘Everyone wants to get rich…’

    There are some real comic genius moments – if you’re a fan of Absolutely Fabulous – DiCaprio pulls off a comedy fall from a helicopter into bushes and then into a pool, that Joanna Lumley’s (who also stars) and Jennifer Saunders’ Eddy and Pats would be proud of.

    Ultimately a great performance from DiCaprio, who takes on the role with an unshakable prowess.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | Unbroken

    ★★★★ | Unbroken

    For the third time in the last couple of months, THEGAYUK reviews another film starring the remarkably talented young British actor JACK O’CONNELL. We can tell you now that Hollywood now agrees with us; Mr O’CONNELL is going to be a MAJOR STAR. Remember you read it here first.

    For her third time behind the camera actress/ superstar, UN Special Ambassador, Honorary Dame of the British Empire, and mother of countless children, Angelina Jolie plumped for a rather old-fashioned WW2 drama. With a script from Oscar winners Ethan and Joel Cohen (who rarely write for other directors) adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s best-selling biography, ‘Unbroken’ is the inspiring story of the Italian/American Olympic Athlete Louis Zamperini who became a War Hero.

    Jolie starts her overly long movie with an exciting aerial gun battle somewhere in the Far East with Zamperini as the Bombardier helping to get his crew’s partially destroyed plane safely back to base after they have successfully bombed their target.The next time they are flying on a mission, they are not so lucky and end up floating in the middle of the ocean after their plane totally disintegrates.

    In a series of flashbacks Jolie fills in Zamperini’s young life up to that point, where as a troubled teenager constantly picked on for being an immigrant in small town California, and so his older brother persuades him to join him in his school’s track team. Zamperini shows such real talent at running that he is soon winning enough races to actually qualify to represent the USA in the 1936 Olympics in Munich. The next Olympics however in 1940 were due to be held in Tokyo, but little did Zamperini know at the time he would end up being in that city then, but for entirely different reasons.

    Zamperini and two other men, include Phil the pilot, survive the crash and floating aimlessly on a life raft have to deal with hunger, the relentless heat, dehydration, sharks and the occasional storm for 47 days adrift in the middle of the ocean. Zamperini who never stops praying, vows that if he ever gets home again he will devote his life to God.

    He and Phil are the only two survivors who are eventually picked up by the Japanese and held prisoner in the most horrific conditions and forced into hard labour. When they are transferred to a larger camp the two of them get separated and Zamperini gets singled out regularly for unprovoked and merciless beatings by a young sadistic Japanese guard nicknamed ‘The Bird’ who appears to have some fixation with breaking this American soldier who he obviously somehow feels threatened by.

    When the war looks like it is ending, the Japanese retreat taking all the Allied prisoners with them to an even more remote island, and the men fear that they will all be killed before they can rescued. The impending defeat encourages ‘The Bird’ to even increase his brutality of Zamperini to the point where he has the beaten young soldier holding up a heavy railway sleeper over his head which eerily looks like a cross at a crucifixion.

    The movie ends with the war and with Zamperoni being hailed as a hero as he finally arrives back home to his family in California. In real life he evidently became a Born Again Christian and tutored by the evangelist Billy Graham, he went back to Japan to spread the Gospel and forgive his captors. He died at the age of 91 years old earlier in 2014.

    Just like in the current ‘The Imitation Game’ Ms. Jolie and Roger Deakins her multi Oscar nominated her cinematographer makes her wartime setting a tad too picturesque a la Hollywood (Australia was used for locations). Despite the very detailed graphic scenes of the horrific violence that we expect these days, it was hard not to escape the notion that I expected Clark Gable or Errol Flynn or any other 40’s heartthrob to burst onto the screen at any moment. If I could pinpoint a particular reason why this very entertaining movie was not nearly as good as the hype, it would be the fact that Ms. Jolie allowed the Coen Brothers to spend too much time on the historical facts of Zamperini’s true story than focusing more on the characters that are a vital part of it.

    However there is one element that raises this movie to a much higher level, and it is the presence of its leading man Jack O’Connell. The camera simply loves this exceptionally talented young English actor who, with his matinee idol looks, is proving to be the most exciting new actor that the movies … and now Hollywood… have discovered this year. In ‘Unbroken’ we feel every moment of his pain in this raw and very natural performance that is nothing less than a sheer joy to watch. Having seen him in action three times in as many months (his second movie ’71 is still to be released in the US) I can only keep repeating my earlier claims that O’Connell is deservedly destined for major stardom.

    The movie itself may have been a tad disappointing, but O’Connell is anything but that.

  • FILM REVIEW | Mr Angel

    ★★★★ | Mr Angel

    Buck Angel is a brawny muscular red-headed good-looking bearded hunk. With his heavily tattooed body, his twinkling eyes and his infectious smile, he is in fact one very hot man. In our label-fixated society Buck is actually transgender, or as he loves to describe himself so succinctly, he is ‘a man with a pussy’.

    What strikes you immediately in this extraordinary wonderful documentary by Dan Hunt, is that before you start to try to get your head around all the gender-transitioning is how remarkably charismatic and engaging Buck truly is. He is full of charm, totally fearless with such a strong sense of purpose which we soon discover is something he achieved only after battling so many demons in his past.

    Buck has always identified himself as a male – even when he grew up – he was a rather stunning looking woman who carved a career out of fashion modeling. That in turn led to cocaine and then a rapid spiral downwards where he ended up turning tricks, more suicide attempts and then literally ending up in the gutter.

    Life eventually changed for him for the better after taking hormones and testosterone and he had a double mastectomy and ‘Buck’ was born. Not content with just being a male, he worked out aggressively and once he achieved a really great physique he launched into a career in porn. Here he carved out a unique niche for himself because as he kept saying ‘he never had bottom’ surgery.

    As we follow him making personal appearances at Sex Industry Trade Shows he is unabashedly proud about his career and although he repeatedly insists that he is not a sexual oddity, he definitely is challenging the accepted terms and classifications we are currently used too. For examples he shoots videos with gay men for the gay market, but as his partners are penetrating his vagina, doesn’t that make it ‘straight’ sex? And when he does another scene with a MTF person who still has a penis, isn’t that also heterosexual sex?

    I have to say that regardless of the technicalities of the actual penetration that takes considerable mind-blowing, you are firmly persuaded by a combination of Buck’s words, demeanor, attitude and spirit that he is very much a man.

    The documentary made over 6 years sees Buck now happily married to Elayne, a piercing expert, and they are living in Mexico with countless dogs. Buck is now re-positioning himself from sex-worker to sex educator as he undertakes a series of speaking engagements and advocacy about gender-roles in particular. I would normally be skeptical about how anyone can switch sides like this and be either accepted or respected, but it’s hard not to be swept away by the combination of Buck’s enthusiasm and the belief in has in himself.

    One of the biggest hurdles Buck had to overcome was helping his parents and siblings come to terms with his new persona. It’s not just the gender altering but it is also the porn career, which is hard for all of them to get their heads around. It is a remarkable journey that they all take together, and I defy anyone not to reach for the tissues when his father breaks down.

    This is not a film for everyone… Some of the imagery is very graphic. I do hope it gets the biggest audience it deserves.

    Full credit to Mr. Hunt for not only helping to start de-mystifying some of these questions, but more essentially for the respect that he accorded both Buck and his story.

    Available on Amazon