The late Oliver Sacks was a very fascinating man. Learn more about him in the upcoming documentary Oliver Sacks: His Own Life.
Sacks was not just a scientist and neurologist, he also wrote dozens and dozens of books including best sellers, was a master in his field, greatly respected, became a celebrity later in life, and he was also gay.
Sacks grew up in an upper-middle-class family in Cricklewood, London. Both his parents were doctors – so it was almost a natural that he’d be a doctor. But it wasn’t until his older brother Michael was diagnosed schizophrenic, an illness that affected the whole family but Oliver more so, that Sacks future was sealed. Going to medical school in Oxford, then to America where he took up residency in San Francisco is when his true self came out – a man with a motorbike dressed in head to toe leather. But while he was taking care of patients with severe neurological issues (stunning footage shows him with patients with neurological diseases and oddities) – Sacks never really found love or romance. His mother vehemently objected to his homosexuality but she also turned into a champion of his while he spent a summer writing a book at his childhood home. But her death affected him greatly, and after he turned 40 he remained celibate for the next 35 years.
Quite a bit of footage of Sacks is of him in his West Village apartment surrounded by staff, friends, etc. His personality comes through in these moments like a bright red sunset – with his charming laugh, unique British accent and sparkle in his eye that will win you over. He won Bill Hayes over – at age 75 Sacks and Hayes (20 years younger) remained together until Sacks death in 2015 at the age of 83. It’s a happy relationship to the end of an amazing life led by a man who changed medical science and at the same time opened our eyes to it. Director Ric Burns really captures the life and times of Sacks, especially of his final years of being with Hayes.
An Australian singer, with a young daughter in tow, arrives in 1996 New York to make it as a singer. The woman’s name was Helen Reddy.
Yes, Helen Reddy the legend who sang such hits as “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”, “Delta Dawn” and “Angie Baby” and the iconic “I am Woman” started her career in NYC as a singer in a bar lounge. Thus begins the story of one of music’s greatest superstars in the new film I Am Woman.
Yes, she was sure a woman. And Reddy, who just recently passed away in September in Los Angeles, had it rough when she moved to NYC after winning a singing competition in Australia where the prize was a ticket to NYC and a recording contract. But with a suitcase and only $230 in her pocket, and with no recording contract, she was determined, and desperate, to make it on her own.
Besides hanging out with rock journalist Lillian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald), she also meets Jeff Wald (a fantastic Evan Peters who steals the movie), a young aspiring talent manager who becomes her agent and eventually husband, and he helps her get to the top. After their move to Los Angeles, Reddy’s singing career began, and continued to hit new peaks, where she became the first Australian singer to top the US charts, and even winning a Grammy award in 1973. But Wald had a cocaine habit, which eventually got worse and worse, and with Reddy not home a lot due to a Las Vegas singing residency, and with a new son to take care of, their relationship started to crumble, and eventually ended when Reddy found out Wald had made bad investments with her money.
However, I am Woman is the story of a woman, against all adversity, who was determined to make her dream come true. Reddy not only became the most successful female recording artist of her time, but she also broke stereotypes and led the way during the most crucial period of the women’s liberation movement. And she became a role model for what all women could achieve.
It’s an incredible story, made all the more real by director Unjoo Moon, who has very little experience in the directing world, and by Tilda Cobham-Hervey, who effectively plays Reddy, but unfortunately, it’s not an award-winning performance. It’s Peters’ performance who steals the film as her husband. But it’s also Reddy’s life and legacy that will most stick with you. What she had to do and what she accomplished, in a time when women’s rights were just a passing hope, and how perhaps her message through song and her voice really did help propel the feminist movement in helping to pass the equal rights bills across America.
IN CINEMAS AND ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS FRIDAY 9TH OCTOBER
It’s 1981 South Africa, a time when the country was still at the height of apartheid, and blacks were not the only class of people who were discriminated against, homosexuals didn’t have it easy either.
In the new amazing film ‘Moffie’ – based on an autobiographical novel by Andre Carl van der Merwe – beautifully tells the story of a young man called Nicholas (Kai Luke Brummer – wonderful), a teenager, who, with no choice, is sent to complete his compulsory military service. But Nicholas is not your boy next door – he’s gay, and not at all out of the closet. So he has to endure two years of military service in a system that spits up and chews out young men and turns them into hardened soldiers, hardened men. It’s a culture full of testosterone and machismo. And while Nicholas doesn’t let his secret out, he falls in love with another young soldier Dylan (Ryan de Villiers). In fact, it was Dylan who initiates, and Nicholas, while a bit nervous during their first encounter, soon finds being with Nicholas very natural. But some soldiers do no adjust very well to army life (one soldier shoots himself in the head), while Dylan is sent away for unknown reasons, leaving Nicholas to endure his remaining time in the service, while still pining for Dylan, and still a moffie (faggot in the Afrikaans language).
‘Moffie’ – which was called a masterpiece by Variety Magazine – is indeed an excellent film. Director Oliver Hermanus hits all the right notes, from Nicholas’ family life prior to going into the army (his father gives him a stack of straight porno magazines), to the daily brutality he and his fellow recruits get from their Major, to the barracks scenes where the tension is palpable and tense, which is what you have when a couple dozen young men are all bunking down in the same room. But the scene when Nicholas, as a young boy, is with his parents at a public swimming pool, and he looks longingly at an older boy in the showers but is then exposed and scolded by an adult shower attendant in one amazing long shot will have you holding your breathe – it’s quite a very dramatic scene and excellently done. And at 104 minutes, ‘Moffie’ is quite a movie. Don’t miss it.
Going into this film I expected a story of the lovable Mister Rogers – the man who, for decades hosted the US children’s television show Mister Rogers Neighborhood, but it’s not a story about him.
It’s the story of writer Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) doing a magazine article about Mister Rogers.
Of course, Mister Rogers hypothetically stands in for Vogel’s father, a man he never got along with and was never able to please (played a bit over the top by Chris Cooper).
Hanks is superb as Rogers but after leaving the cinema I felt a bit ripped off as I didn’t get the film that was advertised.
The FBI investigation of actress Jean Seberg is told in the new film Seberg.
Kristen Stewart, who plays Seberg, is fine in this film of Seberg’s life which was filled with glamour and controversy. Director
Benedict Andrews, who directs with little enthusiasm, and the writers focus on the years in Seberg’s life when she was being investigated for her ties to the Black Panther party in the 1960’s. This is told through the fictional eyes of FBI investigator Jack Solomon (a very good Jack O’connell). Seberg, an American born in 1938, was most famous for her performance in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film Breathless which immortalized her as an icon of French New Wave cinema, donated lots of money and time to the Black Panther Party. She also had an extramarital affair with Black activist Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), which led to a baby being born prematurely, due, according to Seberg, the stress of the FBI investigation, and her rocky marriage to her husband Romain Gary (Yvan Attal).
Solomon, ever increasingly, gets more involved in the case, taking him away from his frustrated wife Linette (Margaret Qualley). Vincent Vaughan plays his partner, who knows not to get too close to the case. But we really don’t get to understand why Seberg wanted to support the Black Panthers. She was sympathetic and wanted them to have opportunities? And if so why?
Seberg died at the age of 40 in Paris, with police ruling her death a probable suicide, after having disappeared for ten days. Her life was anything but boring, yet Seberg doesn’t quite get to the heart of who she was and why she was involved.
Her life was fascinating and glamorous, but her story needs to be told again.
Renee Zelwegger is electric as the late, great Judy Garland in the new film Judy.
Judy is a semi-biographical account of her time in London in winter 1968 where she performed a five-week sold-out show at the venue that was called ‘Talk of the Town.’ The film also traces her life when she became very famous for the film Wizard of Oz, and how it affected not only her career, but also her well-being, her relationships with men, and her overall sanity.
It’s 1968, and it appears Garland doesn’t have two pennies to rub together (hard to believe a woman of her calibre and celebrity would be in such a position), with two children in tow (the father of the children is Sydney Luft, while Liza Minnelli was a bit older and already on her own), and not a place to call home.
So Garland is asked to go to London to perform, and it’s an opportunity to make some real money so she can get a home for her and her children, which would put some stability in theirs, and her, lives. But Judy is, to put it mildly, a mess.
She’s drinks a lot, take pills a lot, and is practically frightened to get on that stage. But when she puts her mind to it, and leaves all the demons behind, she is a tour de force. But she is not consistent and it’s a mystery as to which Judy will appear each day.
Judy shows us a Judy who was struggling and still looking for a little bit of hope, love and sanity in her final year of life (she died in 1969 of an accidental drug overdose in London).
Zelwegger perfectly captures Garland’s look, body and voice (yes, it’s actually Zelwegger singing). Zelwegger lost weight for the role, and it’s her best performance to date which could net her an Oscar. The rest of the cast don’t fare as well. While Finn Wittrock is good as her 5th (and last) husband Mickey Deans, Rufus Sewell is a bit dry and boring as Sydney Luft, while Jessie Buckley has a thankless role, and task, as her London minder.
And while the performances of Zellweger singing are captivating, the scenes of her as a young girl on film sets just don’t seem to ring true (bullying by the studio head – Louis B. Mayer and her minders – are a bit exaggerated). Director Rupert Goold doesn’t quite capture the entire essence of Judy’s life, and time, in London and in her younger years. With this being his second directorial effort, I feel that he just wasn’t quite qualified to take on a film of a woman with so much stardom, of such legendary status, and unfortunately heartbreak.
A gay water polo team struggles to compete amidst personal dramas on their way to the Gay Games in the fun, camp and hilarious film The Shiny Shrimps.
In French with English subtitles, and directed by co-directors and co-authors Cédric Le Gallo (a real-life Shrimp) and Maxime Govare, ‘The Shiny Shrimps is a cross between Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Pride, with a road trip film interspersed with lots of melodrama!
When straight world champion swimmer Matthias Le Goff (Nicolas Gob) makes a homophobic remark on television, he tries to redeem himself, at the direction of the swimming federation, by being tasked to train The Shiny Shrimps – a Parisian gay water polo team (and purely not athletes) who are in the sport purely for the social aspect of it as well as to be able to perform dance routines and dress up in competitions. So Goff has a huge task ahead of him. all the meanwhile trying to impress his young daughter.
Other men on the team have their own issues; Cédric is married with two kids and his partner says the water polo team is taking him away from his family, while Jean has health issues he’s yet to divulge to the team, and another team member is newly out and is about to have the time of his life. We are too when the Shrimps travel, by bus, to the Gay Games in Croatia.
It’s a road trip like no other; they camp it up to the extreme while love, and sadly homophobia, comes into play. And once they get to the games they’ll attempt to make their mark in any way they can.
The Shiny Shrimps is so much fun to watch it’ll make you want to join some sort of sports team to experience what you’ve just seen in the film. And the cast are having lots of fun, with each actor perfectly suited for in roles. The Shiny Shrimps is une joie.
Taron Egerton as Elton John in Rocketman from Paramount Pictures.
The story of Elton John, Is it a musical definitely, is it a biopic partly is it sanitised? No damn way – 25 years of his life from 17-42 years-old, warts and all with added chems and gay relationships.
Nutshell – Not really a chronological life story nor with chronological music but a celebration of our favourite ivory tickler with the many up’s and just as many down’s. The songs are not sung by Elton but by Taron and the cast which makes it a bit more interesting than the straight Queen lip-syncing in Bo Rhap for example. We get his early none fame days, his breakthrough worldwide and all the drugs, rock n roll and gay sex you could want largely featuring the long relationship with Manager John Reid plus his straight marriage. The story goes up until he finally checks in to rehab in the early ’90s and gets clean for life so no Lion King, David Furnish, Billy Elliott, Princess Di or AIDS campaigning.
Running Time – 121 Minutes – Cert 15.
The Gay UK Factor – The costumes, the endless music with many songs turned into ready for the stage musical versions and not skimping on his voyage of sexual discovery including gay kissing so a huge gay appeal indeed. The legendary two bare man ass sex scene has not made the final cut though fingers crossed for the extended or outtake DVDs for fans of Egerton and Madden’s asses. Maybe just as well as the kissing and hugging are enough to get the movie banned in some backward thinking countries alone. Taron Egerton is one great looking guy for anyone’s wank bank and he is fully supported here by the lush Richard Madden and a Jamie Bell looking much hotter than we have ever seen before. A new gay icon has arrived and it is Billy Elliott himself all grown up and as masculine and f**kable as a striking coal miner.
Cast – Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas-Howard, Gemma Jones, Stephen Graham fresh from a good throat slitting in Line Of Duty and even unbelievably a low key Keith lemon himself.
Key Player – A three-way split between the director Dexter Fletcher fresh from his three week stint saving the Oscar sponge Bohemian Rhapsody and doing a better job here. Taron is sensational and he has a great singing voice and most importantly he does his own thing than rather doing an impersonation which was Elton’s request. Finally of course Sir Elton himself whose endless superb songbook could fill four movies and some. There are many favourites here but just as many missing and it truly helps the movie fly by surely demanding repeated viewings.
Budget – $40 Million – Yet this has already made six figures and is heading for 200K fast. Maybe it won’t make the 800K that the Queen film made last year (and this is the better film) but it is a bona fide hit and Taron’s stock has gone up as fast as Elton’s greatest hits sales have. So get ready for the George Michael film, the Bon Jovi biopic, the Steps & Vengaboys films, How the Weather Girls became big, the biopic of Shakin Stevens and the Chesney Hawks story probably all being green lit as we speak.
Best Bit – 0.44 mins; When Elt makes his big American breakthrough at the Troubadour club in LA, the singer, band and the entire audience all levitate to ‘Crocodile Rock’ as someone’s star goes stratospheric in one short night and things will never quite be the same again along the ‘Yellow Brick Road’.
Worst Bit – 1.39 mins; There is nothing that out of step here but ‘Bennie And The Jets’ as a live performance is the weakest link in a very strong chain… maybe because we don’t really like that song in Europe (A number 1 in the US though). ‘Border Song’ goes nowhere but not helped by coming after an incredible version of ‘I want Love’ and do we really need ‘Tiny Dancer’ again when there are so many other hits that could jump straight in (Although frustratingly it’s lyric fits the movie like a glove).
Little Secret – Over the years in development James McAvoy, Daniel Ratcliffe and Tom Hardy were to play Elton, the singer himself was originally very keen on Justin Trousersnake until he met Taron Egerton. Besides there filming together in the Kingsman sequel Taron also did a lengthy version of ‘I’m Still standing’ in the hit cartoon animal film ‘Sing’ as a giant Gorilla! The film suggests that Elton Hercules John took his first name from a band mate and the last name from John Lennon, in fact, it was inspired by the other sixties singer Long John Baldry… He took the name Hercules from Steptoe And Son’s rag and bone cart horse.
Further Viewing – Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star Is Born, The Greatest Showman, Mamma Mia’s 1 & 2,Moulin Rouge, Mary Poppins Returns (with a few more ‘fks’ here’), Les Mis, Walk the Line and all Elton’s movie appearances from Pinball Wizard in Tommy through to him co-starring with a certain sexy as fk suited and booted Taron Egerton in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Any Good – Yes, if you are not an Elton fan (what’s wrong with you!) and YESSSS if you like the John Lewis ad botherer from Pinner like a true gay music aficionado. This is great fun and it flies by as you count the hits off and wait in anticipation for ‘Your Song’ the title track or ‘I’m Still Standing’. You will learn a lot about the great man and really enjoy his and Bernie’s company for two happy hours.
There could even be a sequel in our view there are enough quality tunes that is for sure. In the meanwhile let’s have the soundtrack, the sing-a-long cinema and DVD version and most importantly the hit stage show as this is ready to go with or without Ben Elton’s interference. Of course we all have fave Elton John tracks that we would love to have seen included ours would be ‘Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds’, ‘Sacrifice’ and ‘Nikita’ but there are 25 hits to be going on with here including a brand new song over the end credits which is as good as anything he has done.
A great night out at the movies with what feels like an old friend – kudos to all involved.
Famous Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta plays himself in a beautiful drama/documentary about his life as a ballet star as well as his life growing up poor in Cuba.
‘Yuli’ – the nickname given to him by his father Pedro – is very unique in its storytelling. It not only goes into detail about his struggle to become a ballet dancer, but the film also deals with his relationship with his family, his home country of Cuba, as well as the troubled relationship he had with his father. Scenes of the adult Acosta are interspersed with scenes of his childhood, with Edilson Manuel Olbera more than ably playing Acosta as a young boy in a poor area of Havana with his family and separated parents who still live together.
Cuba is also a star of the film. There are beautiful shots of the Malecon (a broad road esplanade hugging the coastline in Havana), old yet beautiful architecture in Havana, long shots of the city streets, and a stunning finale shot of the famous Great Theatre of Havana, where a young Acosta learned ballet.
Members of Acosta’s family ended up fleeing Cuba for the United States. Yet Yuli’s parents continued to urge him to dance, and they, along with ballet teachers, saw something special in him. He gets chances to go to the best ballet schools, ending up in both the U.S. and then in London, where he became a permanent member of The Royal Ballet for 17 years. Keyvin Martinez plays Acosta as a young man, a man who misses home and almost decides to give it up all just so he can return to his beloved Cuba (and mom).
There are lots and lots of beautiful dance scenes that impact the viewer on what a beautiful, stunning and amazing are that ballet is. The dance scenes are transitional – these dance scenes guide us from one scene to the next, and this works beautifully. And Acosta, as an actor, is very good at playing himself.
Yuli is such a beautiful film – it’s an event film that is beautifully directed by Icíar Bollaín, but this is Acosta’s film.What Yuli doesn’t do is to convey how famous Acosta was during his heyday. Sure he is world-renowned for his dance work, but the film doesn’t really convey this, nor does it show much of Acosta interacting socially with fellow dancers, most of whom are gay (Acosta is straight). But these are just minor blips. ‘Yuli’ is a film that can be enjoyed whether you love ballet or not.
In 2004, at the age of 19, American Garrard Conley was sent by his parents to a conversion therapy program to rid him of his homosexual feelings. This true story is now a film called Boy Erased.
The amazing Lucas Hedges (Lady Bird,Manchester by the Sea) plays Garrard. He is a young man growing up in a small bible belt community in Arkansas. His father Marshall (Russell Crowe) is a respected pastor in the local church while his mother Nancy (Nicole Kidman) believes in everything her husband says. But Garrard is given a choice by his parents when he tells them he is gay: either agree to attend the church-support conversion therapy program where he will have to go to a camp with similar young adults or risk losing his family, a family that he is quite close to. Garrard has no choice but to go through therapy. Garrard is happy being gay – even entering into a relationship with a fellow student at college – but it is his religious upbringing (and a stern father) which helps him make the decision to go to therapy.
Once he is at the Love in Action gay conversion therapy assessment program, he meets fellow young men like himself (including director and actor Xavier Dolan, and Joe Alwyn – at the time of this writing Taylor Swift’s boyfriend). They all struggle to not come to terms with the way they are, meanwhile all the time guided by the chief therapist Victor Sykes (writer and director of the film Joel Edgerton). But of course, Garrard has urges that he can’t control, while his parents feel that for him to lead a happy life is to lead the life of a straight man.
The real Garrard Conley, of course, luckily survived his time in the therapy program to write the book which is now this film, and it’s a very good film. Hedges, as always, is fantastic. One never knows what he’s thinking because of his inquisitive facial expressions, and he steals the movie from the two heavyweight actors who are playing his parents. Crowe is excellent as the self-righteous father but Kidman is both warm and tender as the mother who loves her husband but perhaps loves her son a bit more. Boy Erased is at times heartbreaking, but for the most part, it’s triumphant.
Based on the life of book author, and Lesbian, Lee Israel, and fluidly directed by Marielle Heller, Can You Ever Forgive Me? based on the late Israel’s memoir, tells about the misadventures of Israel’s life. She was a Manhattanite who didn’t have much money to rub together, so she starts forging signatures of famous people and then sells them to collectors, raking in big money.
Questions start arising about her charade, and soon enough she has to pull back, and then enlists her gay best friend Jack (Richard E. Grant – in his best performance ever) to take over her sales duties to pawn more fakes to the collectors. It’s early 1990’s New York City, and one gets the feeling that anything can happen then (‘if you can make it there you can make it anywhere’), and that Israel will rise above it all, but in the end, we know what is coming. But before, director Heller (working from a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty) perfectly sets the mood and vibe of New York, with bookshops almost at every corner (long gone now no thanks to the internet) and quite a few of the scenes in the film were shot in the West Village’s classic gay bar Julius.
Can We Ever Forgive Israel? Yes, we can definitely forgive Israel for what she’s done because it has brought us this fine movie. McCarthy and Grant have been nominated for Oscars, let’s hope that if anyone of them wins, it will be Grant. He is just superb in his role, debonair, chilled, and like a fine wine, getting better with age.
