THEGAYUK

Tag: Movie Genre Biopic

  • FILM REVIEW | Hockney : A Wonderful Gush-Free Tribute

    ★★★★ | Hockney : A Wonderful Gush-Free Tribute

    David Hockney, O.M. C.H. R.A. is possibly the greatest living English artist and is considered a ‘national treasure’.

    A painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer he has been a major presence on the art scene since he first caught the public’s eye when taking part of Young Contemporaries Exhibition at the Royal College of Art in 1962 (who subsequently initially refused to let him graduate). His move from his dull northern hometown of Bradford to the bright sunshine of L.A. just two years later was a major turning point and where this quiet Englishman found happiness and his metier. It was also where he found the first of many bottles of peroxide for his hair.

    Hockney’s life has been examined many times previously but this new documentary by filmmaker Randall Wright, whose previous subjects have included Lucien Freud and the ubiquitous Sister Wendy, is probably by far the most definitive. Helped by the fact that Hockney gave him unfettered access to his vast personal treasure trove of archives which included some great footage of home videos and a seemingly less collection of photographs, it gives such a full picture of the great man and his life.

    The charismatic Hockney made great friends of other famous artists on so many levels and those still living gave a fascinating insight into their friend and peer. Particularly touching was an interview with Don Bacardy who spoke of the time that a very young Hockney turned up on his doorstep of the Hollywood home that he shared with his lover Christopher Isherwood. Hockney had been openly gay since his Royal College days even though homosexuality was still illegal in the UK, but this was the first time he had met a partnered couple and it was quite a shock for him.

    Hockney’s sexuality was an important element of both his life and his work as the public first discovered with his acclaimed ‘Bigger Splash’ series of pictures that featured his young naked lover Peter Schlesinger that started making waves in and out of his pool. An obviously highly emotional man, a fact that is nowhere more apparent than his moving account of the impact of AIDS in the ’80s which so decimated his circle of friends and acquaintances.

    Wright expertly weaves his film back and forth from Hockney’s childhood in a post-war Britain still rationing its food, to his current sojourn in his beloved Santa Monica home where at the age of 77 although painfully deaf, he is still working on new pieces of art. The ‘journey’ in between shows a man obsessed with his art and bent on continually exploring new techniques and ideas that are very uniquely his own. His famous ‘polaroid’ pictures of the ’80’s have progressed into a whole new wave of art he now makes on his iPad.

    It is undoubtedly a wonderful gush-free tribute to this iconic artist and quintessential Englishman who up to a couple of years ago was still living part of his year in the bracing seaside town of Bridlington. What it lacks, however, is any mention of Hockney’s personal life after his tempestuous relationship with Schlesinger decades ago. All mention of Hockney’s later relationships, including one with John Fitzherbert that lasted over two decades, were completely omitted which seems odd given the importance that Hockney places on his close friendships.

    (*C.H. = Companion of Honour, and O.M. = Order of Merit both extremely high honours that are awarded by The Queen)

  • FILM REVIEW | Life Itself, Totally Unmissable

    ★★★★★ There are very rare occasions when the somewhat jaded and skeptical Press and Movie Industry audience at the Sundance Film Festival are ever moved to tears.

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  • FILM REVIEW | The Circle, aka Des Kreis

    ★★★★★ | The Circle, aka Des Kreis

    Even though he led a very closeted life, Ernst Ostertag went out in public to a gay ball held by The Circle Magazine and met and fell in love with Robi Rapp, a drag act who was performing there that night, who would later become his life partner. The year was 1956, and the city was Zurich, and although homosexuality was not illegal in Switzerland, gay men were not only just ostracised by society but also lived in real fear of losing their jobs and being shunned by their families.

    This hybrid of a movie: part documentary & part fiction is the true story of how this chance encounter would survive all the pressures of an intolerant and bigoted public, and the harassment of the police and authorities, to become 60 years later, the first ever same-sex couple to have a Domestic Partnership registered in Switzerland.

    Back then Ostertag was a young and somewhat naive French Language teacher at a Girls School who risked the wrath of the Principal by wanting to introduce his pupils to avant-garde work by Albert Camus. Off-duty he discovered the existence of The Circle, a gay erotic art and poetry bi-monthly magazine that was the first if it’s kind in Europe when it was founded in 1942. The magazine was sold by subscription only and the membership list was heavily guarded at The Circle’s office, but occasionally the publishers organised get-togethers, like the Ball that Ostertag met his man.

    The murder of one of their number served as a thinly disguised excuse for a campaign of persecution by the Police whose biggest weapon was exposing the men publicly for being gay. It was enough to cause Ostertag’s School Principal, a married man with two children, to take his own life.

    This is a fascinating glimpse into a post War War 2 mixed fortunes of a gay community in Europe before the onslaught of freedom that was about to occur with the swinging 1960’s (although maybe not quite in Switzerland). Rupi’s mother was very theatrical and not only acknowledged her son’s sexuality but also welcomed his lover into the family with open arms, whereas Ostertag’s conservative parents were so very formal and cold, that he never came out of the closet to his sister until he was 70 years old.

    The movie which so excellently portrays all the emotional stress on these young men who struggled to come to terms with their own sexuality, works best with the dramatised flashbacks thanks to some masterly performances, particular by the two lead actors playing the lovers Matthias Hungerbuehler and Sven Schelker. The interviews with the present day Ostertag and Rupi, now in their 80s, are extremely touching, but really add little to the narrative itself.

    ‘The Circle’ aka Des Kreis won both the prestigious Teddy for Best LGBT Documentary at the Berlin Film Festival, where it also picked up a coveted Panorama Audience Award too. I think it is surely set to become a firm audience favourite too when it does the Film Festival rounds now.

    Highly recommended.

  • FILM REVIEW | Pulp: A film about life, death and supermarkets

    ★★★★ | Pulp: A film about life, death and supermarkets

    Gangly geek Jarvis Cocker is the most unlikely looking rock-star ever, but seeing the front man of the British indie-pop group PULP ignite frenzied crowds of a packed stadium, you realise that he is, in fact, one of the very best.

    His quintessentially English band enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success in the late 1990s before calling it a day at the height of their fame in 2002. Cocker then went on to establish a new career as a solo artist and combined this with a weekly radio show and some filmmaking too.

    Much to their many fans delight the band reformed in 2011/2012 for one more major tour of the US and the UK. The final performance was in their hometown of Sheffield, a working class industrial city well known for its droll Northern humor and where they have long been regarded as local heroes. This mutual love affair was clearly evident with Cocker and all the band members relishing with pride at being considered as such a major part of their community’s culture, as equally was the gushing praise from their diehard fans.

    This documentary from German-born New Zealander Florian Habicht which he made with Cocker, is an affectionate look at both this last Concert and the city and its people who are such an integral part of the Pulp phenomenon. Habicht infuses the concert footage with some quirky talking-head pieces from some colourful and eccentric locals and even includes a middle-aged ladies choir belting out Pulp’s most famous hit ‘Uncommon People’ which is considered an anthem in this area. Cocker himself comes over as an extremely likeable funny man which is somewhat of a surprise given the rather dark lyrics of the songs that he pens and performs. In fact, his acute observations of everyday life, and also those of sexual frustration, account for a great deal of the band’s popularity.

    This joyous wee tribute to this disarmingly charming man will totally delight not just his fans but also anyone who has any passion for British indie-rock. Although why Habicht insisting in calling it ‘A Film about Life, Death and Supermarkets’ is beyond me.

  • FILM REVIEW | Finding Vivian Maier

    ★★★★★ | Finding Vivian Maier

    A young graduate working on a history project bought a suitcase full of photographic negatives in a Chicago auction hoping that one or two them maybe useful in his research. However what John Maloof discovered that day in 2007 was a treasure trove of what is undoubtedly one on the finest collection of street photography ever made. They all turned out to be the work of one person a Vivian Maier, someone so totally unknown there wasn’t a single mention of her on Google or any other Internet search engine.

    A curious Maloof turned detective and his painstaking research helped him very gradually put together a picture of this mystery genius and at the same time discover and purchase even more of her work. Vivian Maier had been born in New York in 1929 and had then spent much of her childhood in France before returning to Chicago where she worked for almost 40 years as a Nanny. Every new discovery Maloof made about the unknown Maier was a shocking revelation as very few of the people she had worked for had any sense that this extremely odd woman they had hired to look after their offspring was a prolific obsessed photographer with such a remarkable eye. It seems most of her young charges knew as Nanny Maier dragged them through the seamier rough spots of the city clutching her camera looking for subjects as part of their daily constitutional.

    As Maloof pieced together Maier’s story like a jigsaw what emerged was a picture of a very eccentric loner and a compulsive hoarder who was an immensely private person. It’s only when he traces her steps in France does he discover that Maier knew that she was talented but apart from a brief correspondence with one printer did she ever talk about letting people see her work. The fact that news of the discovery of the 100000 plus negatives and the 700 plus undeveloped rolls of film had gone viral, there were still doubters from the people who knew Maier that she would have ever wanted this worldwide fame and recognition.

    This new documentary that Maloof wrote and directed, along with writer/producer Charlie Siskel, is exceptional for two distinct reasons. Firstly the very human story about this rather bizarre woman who was described as being ‘so awesomely unique’ and ‘a very closed cold person’ and who ended up losing one job with the mother explaining to her child ‘Vivian has got a little too crazy even for us’. The reminisces of the people who knew her are riveting and poignant. And then there is this whole superb body of work which is so exceptionally wonderful it stuns you into silence at times. Howard Greenberg a leading NY Gallerist who holds exhibitions of her work claims that no other photographer’s work has ever generated this much interest in his time.

    Credit to Maloof on several counts. Not only for recognising the significance of his find, and for his sheer doggedness and determination to ‘finding’ Vivian Maier, but also for the impressive way he put this all together in this, his first ever movie.

    There are so many components of this story that will keep you wondering and wanting to know more. Like why would this aggressively shy person produce so many ingenious portraits of herself that she could have been credited as being the creator of the ubiquitous selfie?

    Unmissable: and you will want to see it at least twice.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Imitation Game

    ★★★★★ | The Imitation Game

    Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, The Imitation Game portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain’s top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

    Via a series of flashbacks, the film spans the key periods of Turing’s life, from his unhappy teenage years at boarding school and the triumph of his secret wartime work on the revolutionary electro-mechanical ‘Bombe’, which was capable of breaking 3,000 Enigma-generated naval codes a day, to the tragedy of his post-war decline, following his horrific and shocking conviction and subsequent enforced chemical castration just for having gay sex. Finally pardoned in 2013 by the Queen, for the ‘crime’ of carrying out homosexual acts that he was tried for in 1951, Alan Turing’s role was pivotal in winning the Second World War.

    With such a fascinating story and a stellar cast (Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance) this is a film that is destined to be a major success. Already garnering critical acclaim, it’s not hard to see why. The script, period detail and performances are all exemplary. Cumberbatch is pitch perfect in his portrayal as Turing, portraying the strengths and vulnerabilities of a man with little social skills who is driven by his passion for his work and his intellect. He’s ably supported by Keira Knightley as the feisty Joan Clarke; a woman of great intellect who has to fight to the constraints of a society that devalues and oppresses women. Mark Strong as a particularly dashing MI6 agent and Matthew Goode as a fellow code-breaker, are equally strong.

    The script is actually very funny as well as being poignant and thrilling. This is a must see film of this autumn/winter.

    The Imitation Game is in cinemas from the 14th of November 2014

  • FILM REVIEW | Ida

    ★★★★★ | Ida

    It’s hard to decide exactly what period this new cinematic masterpiece from Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is set in with its austere dramatic settings that look like they have remained unchanged for centuries. This unforgiving bleak countryside that seems to have escaped any attempt at modernization is in fact 1962 but you have this sinking feeling that this part of rural post-war Poland is probably still exactly the same today.

    Ida is an 18-year-old Novice at a large decaying rather remote Convent and is just about to take her final Vows. The Convent has been her home since she had been abandoned as an orphaned baby, but now the Mother Superior tells her that she does, in fact, have one living relative, an Aunt who she should go visit before she makes her ultimate commitment to God.

    She has two major shocks awaiting her at the end of her long bus journey when she finally meets her Aunt. Not only does she discover that she is Jewish by birth, but she also quickly realises that her Aunt, is a former high-ranking Communist Party Public Prosecutor who has transgressed into an alcoholic chain-smoking woman who seems to bed every man she meets. The sheltered young nun-to-be, however, seems to take it all in her stride and announces that she wants to go back to her home village just once and visit her parents grave.

    An initially reluctant Aunt agrees to drive her there, as she needs to prepare Ida for the harsh reality of the situation. The parents had been slaughtered in the Pogrom in the War and even now the local anti-Semitic Communist population are in denial of their complicity as in many cases they then stole the lands left by the murdered Jews. This was the case of her own parents and it took the fearless tenacity of the Aunt to uncover the actual facts.

    Along with their road-trip, they give a lift to a handsome young saxophonist who is en route to play at a Ball in the next town. Ida doesn’t realise at the time that he will turn out to be one of the reasons that she questions her vocation and her ‘calling’ to serve God.

    The tense melodramatic story is as uncompromisingly bleak as the landscape it is set in, and it’s twisting plot lines as both women’s lives unfold in front of our eyes makes for compelling viewing. The reason for their sadness is understandable and the outcome is, therefore, inevitable as neither of them can really carry on as before with the knowledge that they have unleashed.

    It is unquestionable one of the most powerfully moving films of the year to date. Completely stunning on so many levels but even so, it is the superb black & white cinematography that so carefully framed each single shot that took this movie to a whole another level. Faultless award-worthy acting by two sublime actors Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza who had great chemistry as the two completely different woman who really had so much in common.

    Completely unmissable.

    P.S. The rather surprising detail about this movie that will undoubtedly go down in the annals of Polish cinema as a national masterpiece, is that it’s director and co-writer Pawel Pawlikowskin was born there but has actually lived and worked in the UK and France most of his life. Interesting then seeing the country, as he must remember it from his own childhood.

  • FILM REVIEW | Reaching For The Moon

    ★★★★★ Reaching For The Moon | Elizabeth Bishop was something of a self-absorbed cold fish. When she finished her tenure as US Poet Laureate in 1950, she was 40 years old, alone in N.Y., and suffering with ‘writers block’. At the suggestion of her friend and fellow poet Robert Lowell she decides to go to South America for a long vacation.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Pride

    ★★★★★ | Pride

    A film that includes Wales, miners, politics, gays and an ’80’s soundtrack, ticks all my boxes! Pride is one of those films that will do well, a mix of topics, a “people” film, part tear-jerker, part bio-pic (based on true events, with real characters), part comedy, think Billie Elliot, Kinky Boots or Calendar Girls.

    The story is simple, set in 1984 in the midst of the Miner’s strike, the Unions versus Thatcher’s government and its hard stance, and a politicised London gay boy suddenly gets the idea to raise funds for the miners, having heard how they are being intimidated back to work.

    He forms the Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners Group (LGSM) and starts fund-raising for them. However, after their first round of bucket rattling, it becomes apparent that the Unions aren’t keen on taking their money. So they go direct, and find a South Wales mining community who will take their cash and donations. And this is the start of the bonding of two disparate communities.

    The majority of the film deals with how the two communities grow to know each other, how the London group gets to grips with a small community and its prejudices (or in some cases, lack of them) and the Welsh group and their education in to the world of “the gays”!

    The film provides so much repeatable fodder, I guarantee that you will be quoting this film next month! My favourite is still Imelda’s line from the preview: ‘We’re off to Swansea now for a missive lez off!’

    My recommendation, go see it, go get your cockles warmed, sing-along-a-bronski-beat and watch some of the smoothest disco moves on the silver screen courtesy of the amazing Dominic West!

    The cast is incredible, including the lovely Andrew Scott (Moriarty from Sherlock) gives a hell of a performance as part of the “older” gay couple paired with Dominic West as his partner, Imelda Staunton as the kind of Welsh matriarch I know and love, Bill Nighy gives one of his best subtlest performances, but it’s the ones I’m not that familiar with that really set the stage for this film. George MacKay is amazing as a then underage closeted young man on a journey, Joseph Gilgun gives a great performance as one half of a platonic political couple with Ben Schnetzer who plays Mark, the driving force and sometimes eloquent spokesperson behind the LGSM. Watch out for a cameo from the lovely Russell Tovey too.

    Matthew Warchus and Stephen Beresford have given us a true slice of early ’80’s nostalgia, wrapped up in a slice of political and social history and some of the most comic scenes you’ll ever see.

    I’d give this film 6 stars out of 5 is I could, but I’ll make do with 5 for now!

    In Cinemas 12th September

  • FILM PREVIEW | Pride

    PRIDE tells the true story of how a group of lesbian and gay activists joined forces with a small Welsh mining community in 1984, supporting them during their darkest hour.

    Despite the subject matter, it is deliciously funny. Starring an ensemble cast including Dominic West, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Andrew Scott and Paddy Considine, PRIDE received a standing ovation at Cannes this year and is being heralded as the British feel good movie of the year. PRIDE opens nation-wide on 12th September.

    Here is a link to the first trailer that has just been released;-

  • FILM REVIEW | Blood Brother

    ★★★★★ | Blood Brother

    This is one of those real life stories that you come across now and again that re-affirm your faith in the goodness of (some) human beings. Rocky Braat’s story is especially moving and relates how one very ordinary and regular young American man, who is exceptionally unselfish and wonderfully generous, made a real difference to the lives of many children that society would like to forget.

    Rocky grew up in Pittsburgh with a drug addict mother who had a whole string of abusive boyfriends and as he struggled academically at school they put him in special ed classes. He is however far from stupid and graduated from design college, and got a good job on a magazine. After a while he got the travel bug and quit his job and went off to see the world and ‘find himself’.

    His chosen destination was India, and one day on a whim he went to see an AIDS orphanage in Chennai. He thought that the visit would be tough seeing the kids suffering, and it was indeed and he found himself crying a lot, but he still felt compelled to stay there for one whole month. When he resumed his journey he couldn’t get the kids out of his mind, because despite all their troubles, they found such joy in living, so he immediately turned around and went back.

    He stayed the rest of the summer, and when it was time to go back to the US, he promised the kids he would return in one year, and he did.

    This movie, shot by Steve Hoover, Rocky’s childhood friend tells of the next few years of how this remarkable man with no real qualifications at all, and with no official paid position lives there in the orphanage and became an amateur dentist, teacher, clown, carer, friend and father to all these abandoned children who absolutely adored him. He lives in a rat infested hovel, exists on a daily diet of rice, and has to keep leaving the country because of visa problems.

    It is a highly emotional story (there wasn’t a dry eye in the house even with the cynical Sundance audience I watched it with) as we live through all the many traumas the kids and Rocky endure. Kids get very sick and some die as they can only have access to the very basic of AIDS drugs, and Rocky Anna (as the kids call him) is there every inch of the way. What is so endearing that Rocky, unlike a professional AIDS worker, is never ever detached from any of the happenings and gets totally distraught and frustrated at times and often cries.

    The fact that he is there and chosen to remain with the kids is simply explained as that’s what he wants to do. There are no lofty claims that he is doing God’s calling (or anyone else’s for that matter) or for any religious conviction or any other profound reason. This is where he wants to be, and he certainly is making an enormous difference to all these children’s lives.

    I am totally in awe of the man, and it was interesting too that as Steve Hoover witnessed and filmed Rocky insitu over the years he grew to understand and appreciate why his friend is so committed to the kids and the country itself. However, there is a lighter note to the story too, because just as Rocky ‘finds himself’, he also finds a beautiful Indian bride to marry.