Patrick has lost his hammer, and he’s also lost his clothes!
You see Patrick (Kevin Jannsens), in the new film simply called ‘Patrick,’ works at a nudist camp deep in the woods in a remote area in Belgium. It’s a nudist camp his father owns, and where, along with his mother, all share a home in the camp. His mother is blind and his father is getting a bit too old to run the camp. Then one day Patrick notices that one of his hammers is gone, so he spends the entire film in search of his hammer (yes, literally a hammer). Patrick goes from tent to tent in the hopes of finding his hammer – he so obsessed about it that when his father suddenly dies, Patrick still has only one thing on his mind – yes you guessed it – to find his hammer.
The nudist camp is full of characters, all naked all the time. After a bit, the nudity becomes a bit unnoticeable and the storyline gets quirkier and quirkier, including when a famous American musician takes up a spot in the camp who perhaps knows a thing to two about the hammer. Also about to be revealed is a secret his father had, and his mother’s knowledge about the secret. But Patrick is oblivious to the whole thing – he just wants his hammer back. From Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants, Patrick is quirky, a bit funny, and definitely different.
Linga Franca follows the story of an undocumented Filipina transwoman Olivia (Isabel Sandoval) in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach Russian neighbourhood.
Olivia is the live-in caregiver for elderly feeble Russian Olga (Lynn Cohen – remarkable). Olivia has yet to get her green card, and she’s vulnerable to getting kicked out of the country in Donald Trump’s fetish for kicking out illegal aliens – it’s his rhetoric and voice that permeates in the background of the film. Olivia’s best friend and fellow Filipina transgender friend Trixie (Ivory Aquino) has found happiness with a good-looking American man and is more or less guaranteed a green card.
One day Olga’s Grandson Alex (Eamon Farren) returns from being away for a year – he’s the black sheep of the family. He stays with Olga and Olivia in Olga’s house and gets a job in a meat factory owned by his uncle.
Sure enough you can guess what happens next. Alex is attracted to Olivia and perhaps all too suddenly they fall into each other’s arms and make love. But is this what Olivia really wants? She had just been dumped by a guy who promised her the world, and Olivia, who was at a loose end and desperate, should’ve welcomed this new man in her life, but she doesn’t. We never really get to understand what makes Olivia tick and what will indeed make her happy.
While Lingua Franca is a very sensual and provocative film, we never really get to the heart and soul of Olivia. And the love affair between Olivia and Alex is a bit too easy. And while the direction and writing by Sandoval herself are delicate and moving, she brings us into an already chartered territory (it’s hard to top 2017’s ‘A Fantastic Woman’).
Lingua Franca may frustrate you a bit but it’s saved by terrific acting – especially by Cohen (she played Miranda’s housekeeper in ‘Sex and the City‘), who unfortunately passed away earlier this week.
Trump built his Aberdeenshire, Scotland golf course in 2012, disturbing the land and making life hard for the people who didn’t want to sell their land to him. One of these people is 96-year-old Scottish widow Molly Forbes who the billionaire says reminds him of his own Scottish mother. She scoffs at this. She is no Trump lover, and neither is filmmaker Anthony Baxter. But Trump was cruel enough that he had her water supply cut off because the pipes to her water supply ran through his golf course property, so for five years Forbes, and her son and his wife who lived nearby, had no running water. In interviews with Trump himself and his son Donald Trump Jr., we see the Trumps pretend to care but in reality, they don’t, and actually lie to the cameras in true Trump style.
Filmmaker Anthony Baxter was arrested and thrown in jail when he first discovered the water supply to Molly and her family had been cut off by Donald Trump’s workers while constructing a luxury golf resort near Aberdeen. The charges were thrown out and the police forced to issue an apology. However Baxter is astounded to learn Molly and her son Michael – who Mr Trump branded ‘a pig’ – is still without a reliable water supply half a decade on.
However, when the film was completed, the Trump Organization threatened any cinema that showed it. The US distributor then pulled out – denying the film a proper theatrical release or broadcast. But now Journeyman Pictures is releasing the film worldwide.
You’ve Been Trump Too is a remarkable document of what we know about the man who runs America – he is a liar, crook and as Forbes, son Michael says – “full of bullshit.” It’s a film about the little people who stand no chance against the Trumps, especially against a man as evil and conniving as Trump.
You’ve Been Trump Too is the film Donald Trump doesn’t want you to see. Hopefully with the U.S. election coming up soon, the world will be rid of him.
An engaging but ultimately flawed twink flick that reinforces the idea that you can only be openly gay in the big city, rather than remaining in the provincial community in which you grew up.
Dating Amber – Amazon Prime’s latest LGBT+ offering to coincide with Pride season. And it’s a cute film, if you’re into soft and gentle twinks being goofy and finding themselves in a sea of prejudice and misunderstanding.
Irish actor Fionn O’Shea is undoubtedly the star here. We’ve seen him before in Handsome Devil (2016), where he played a similarly confused twink alongside the beautiful Nicholas Galitzine. The only difference is that Eddie in Dating Amber is a more rounded and complicated individual than Ned Roche in Handsome Devil, who spends most of the film crushing over his rugby twunk dorm mate, Connor.
In all fairness though, Dating Amber is about two closeted teenagers, not just one. Lola Petticrew gives a strong performance as Amber—a frustrated but determined closeted lesbian who runs a side business renting out one of her mother’s caravans for schoolmates to have romantic liaisons.
Side by side, Amber and Eddie struggle with their sexuality in a hostile school environment and if it weren’t for the fact that both actors are so engaging, this plot premise would make a predictable film into a very predictable and frankly dull-as-ditchwater one.
But somehow O’Shea and Petticrew manage to pull through as their characters start dating one another as a ruse to throw off the incessant crowing from their homophobic classmates.
Trips to Dublin, late-night drug-fuelled escapades, and lies lies lies follow as these two try to convince everyone else, including themselves, that they’re straight.
Eventually, of course, the truth comes out, and Eddie ultimately finds his way. To London, in fact, where the promise of a fulfilling life for this ‘baby gay’ beams into Eddie’s sunny face.
A predictable outcome
What I wanted, though, was a less predictable and ultimately less deceiving ending. We’ve seen it before. A provincial gay boy who is closeted because of his misunderstanding community and family can only find freedom by escaping to the big metropolis.
The consequence of this is that as viewers, and as gay people, in particular, we internalise the assumption that rural, provincial communities are no place for ‘an out gay man’, as Little Britain’s Daffyd Thomas (Only gay in the village) used to tell us repeatedly.
Now, I grew up in a provincial rural village, admittedly in the 2000s, a decade later than this film is set. But, while there weren’t nuns on every street corner signing themselves each time they saw the local bum boy walk into the Co-op, it wasn’t easy. Rural communities tend to be built around heterosexual families and their needs, and there is intense pressure to follow suit. And I felt it.
I went off to university, to the great metropoli of Exeter, Leeds, and Leicester, but have I been any more fulfilled? There are opportunities that big cities present to LGBTQ people which are undeniably advantageous and, ideally, it doesn’t have to be either / or.
Yet Dating Amber makes it precisely into an either/or decision. Either you stay here and this place will kill you, as Amber explains to Eddie, or you go out there, to the big city, and find yourself and be happy.
The result is that rural communities are drained of the kind of social diversity that makes for more tolerant neighbourhoods, and being gay itself becomes synonymous with a kind of metropolitan and urban lifestyle that those of us who are more rural at heart find hard to bear.
What we need, then, are LGBTQ films, like God’s Country, that wrestle hard with the realities of being ‘the only gay in the village’, and where communities themselves go through a process of slow adaptation so that they become welcoming places for all sorts of people.
The soapiest of gay soap operas arrives in the form of From Zero to I Love You.
Scott Bailey stars as Jack Dickinson, very handsome and successful, with a fun and lively and attractive wife Karla (Keili Lefkovitz), two adorable daughters, and of course a perfect job. But soon enough he realizes this is not who he is when he meets handsome Peter (Darryl Stephens), and this meeting turns Jacks life upside down. And while he knew he had a bit of a gay side to him, he didn’t really comprehend that this could eventually lead to him falling in love with another man. But Scott is not quite ready to leave his family, and Peter gets tired of waiting around, so they break up.
So Scott goes back to the straight life, his wife gets pregnant, and Peter lands quickly into another relationship that quickly leads to an engagement. But a chance (and very coincidental) meeting Karla has with Peter’s best friend who happens to tell Karla about the now finished affair. After this shock reveal Scott and Karla end their marriage while Peter gears up for his wedding. Scott is now a truly free gay and he’s left with meaningless one night stands while still pining for Peter. But of course there’s no surprise how this film ends once you get the soap out of your eyes.
Filmed over the course of four and a half years (it looks it) and giving us the old tried and true story of a ’straight’ man who turns gay is a plot we’ve seen quite a few times, and again in this super melodramatic film.
While the cast are all fine in their roles, and leading man Bailey is pleasant to look at, there is very little for us to take away from this film which has an ending that wraps things up all too neatly.
Enjoy t he shirtless scenes of Bailey – he’s sexy!
A film with a title Butt Boy and a tagline ‘assume the position’ surely has to be watched, no?
The title does have a sexual connotation but this is not what the film is about – in a way.
Butt Boy is actually a dramatic horror film where you’ll laugh because it’s just so ridiculous!
The story is about one man with a mundane job and a mundane family – he has no joy in life whatsoever! Then one day he goes to see his doctor for a physical where the doctor does the inevitable finger up the ass prostate exam. However our hero, former alcoholic Chip (Tyler Cornack – who also wrote and directed this plum role for himself – not), really enjoyed the prostate exam. He enjoyed it so much that when he gets home he starts to insert more items up his arse, including butt plugs. But these items go up and then inside him. Soon enough household items, his dog, and then people go up there. Yes, you read that right – his butt starts sucking up people.
At an AA meeting Chip is assigned to be the sponsor of new guy Russel (Tyler Rice), a police detective. After a child goes missing at Chip’s company on bring your child to work day, Russel is coincidentally assigned to the case. And while he doesn’t quite want to investigate Chip despite all evidence that seems to point to him, Russel goes missing too, and I don’t have to tell you where he winds up! It’s hard to believe plot that just keeps getting messier and messier until the penultimate final scene that’s truly explosive!
Critics have been harsh to this film, yes it’s bad. But it’s a film that’s not meant to be taken seriously (come on – with a title like that you can’t take it seriously). Good turns by Rice and Shelby Dash who plays Chip’s frustrated wife elevate the film a bit, but it’s ultimately a film that will definitely take your mind off real-world problems!
Available on Amazon and all good digital retailers.
Why spend your evening on a boring Zoom chat when you can watch a film that is thrilling, dramatic and sexy!
The film is The Host – and it is being released on April 17th on iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, Apple TV and all major VoD platforms.
London banker Robert Atkinson (Mike Beckingham) has a good job, good looks, good everything, but wants more. When an opportunity arises for him to come into a lot of cash, via a Chinese cartel, he grabs it, but this leaves to unintended consequences that take him to Amsterdam, where he winds up as a guest in a very large house that has more secrets than you can count.
The lady of the house, Vera (Maryam Hassouni), is mysterious yet alluring, domestic yet spidery, and she lures Robert into her web-like presence to a point of no return. Eventually, Robert’s brother Steve (Dougie Poynter) goes to Amsterdam to look for him, along with two detectives (Nigel Barber and Suan-Li Ong) who are investigating a crime they believe Robert is involved in. Mystery, drama and a good looking cast should be enough for an evening’s entertainment – yes?
And even Sir Derek Jacobi makes an appearance!
The Host is produced by Pearl Pictures Productions, who recently sponsored the Critics’ Circle Film Awards back in January (it feels like a long long time ago). Made by Pearl Pictures Productions, produced by Pearl’s Zachary Weckstein, and directed by Andrew Newberry, The Host was filmed in the heart of Amsterdam and London and has a great appearance by singer and actress Ruby Turner.
Hey, want to forget all that is happening in our world and go to a Rave? Well, perhaps the new film Ravers is for you.
Why attend an online rave on Zoom where all you see are faces when you can actually watch a real wave (digitally of course), a rave which combines all the right elements: excellent music, being illegal, millennials, drugs, and said millennials turning into zombies.
‘Ravers’ is the wave you crave but it’s also a film with an excellent soundtrack – for real! The story is basic. Poor Bucky (Georgia Hirst), a budding journalist who has not quite found a great great story to write about. And while she’s not the most social of butterflies amongst her circle of friends, she’s convinced to go to an illegal rave in an abandoned factory that used to produce energy drinks. Years ago there was an incident at the factory where one of the employees went on a killing spree. So no guess where this film is going as once the rave kicks in, a stash of the energy drink is found (which was contaminated) and is passed out to the ravers.
But the drink doesn’t give the ravers energy (there are all drugged up anyway), it turns them into flesh-eating killing zombies. So Becky and her friends who didn’t drink the substance are all trapped inside the factory (someone has blocked the only entrance) and there is no way out. As the music goes on (the D.J. is killed but one of the zombies – a wannabe DJ – takes over the turntables and pumps it up), the real people must run around the factory trying to save their lives while also trying to think of a way to quiet the zombies. Becky, meanwhile, tries to rescue her love interest Hannah (Manpreet Bambra) from zombiedom. Will they get out? Are they able to get the zombies to turn into normal loud obnoxious millennials again?
Ravers, with a tagline ‘party like there is no tomorrow’ pretty much sums up the situation we are all in. It’s a fun movie not to be taken too seriously, and while it’s not awful, the music in this film is awesome – much more enjoyable than the film itself! But at only 90 minutes it’s much more enjoyable than being part of an online rave.
However, attend at your own risk – and make sure there are no energy drinks or millennials around!
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.
LAST CHRISTMAS – Festive rom com based on the massive two million selling Christmas hit single by George Michael and Wham of the same name backed up by as many of his other hits as Emma Thompson who is in charge here both in front of and behind the camera can squeeze into the short running time. There are Christmas baubles in every single scene.
Nutshell – An accident prone singleton who is unlucky in love played by Game Of Thrones ‘Queen Of Dragons’ Emilia Clark works in a all year round Covent garden Christmas Grotto Store and she simply loves George Michael music. She meets a new man who has an element of mystery about him but her life really starts to change for the better with his on/off input leading towards a surprising denouement… that some will see coming a mile off.
Running Time – 103 Minutes – Cert PG-12A.
Tagline – ‘Sometimes You just gotta have Faith’
The Gay UK Factor – It is a very ‘straight’ romantic tale with the usual cinema ups and downs so the gay appeal besides the hot male lead Henry Golding all comes in the form of the soundtrack. GM is one of the most successful and popular gay singers of all time and his songs are much loved and hold up superbly well with time. It is great to hear them again largely in their original versions – their relevance to individual movie scenes is another matter all together though.
Cast – Emilia Clark, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thomson and a cast of star cameos including Patti Lapone, Rob Delaney, Sue Perkins and even Mr Richard Notting Hill/4 Weddings/Love Actually (which this film aims to be) Curtis… plus two big surprise appearances in the final scene.
Key Player – We would love to say the lovely talented actor/director Emma Thompson but tbh her input in both roles are not her career high points so it is back to Georgie boy again who gave Thompson his permission to use his songs before his untimely death. You get 13 of his most well known songs (some in their entirety) and the much publicised new unreleased song ‘This Is How (We want You To Get High)’ which is mid table GM probably at best… it sure ain’t no ‘Careless Whisper’ or ‘A Different Corner’ that’s for sure.
Budget – $25 Million which is as cheap as chips and it has already made $37 Million with 5 weeks to still go to the big guy in the red suit who like our editor only comes once a year turns up. Christmas films do tend to have long legs in the earning stakes becoming relevant Love Actually/It’s A Wonderful Life stylee every year on DVT/TV/Streaming etc so a potential good little earner and it won’t do George’s record sales any damage either which is great for many of his favoured charities.
Best Bit – 1.05 mins; The movie starts getting into its belated heart warming third act just at the right time as you are wandering where it is going with some fun busking and charity fund raising which fits as perfectly with all the snow and Xmas trees here as a cock in a tinseled glory hole.
Worst Bit – 0.44 mins; A staged bit of early romance on an ice rink is forced in like a set piece that seemed like a good idea on paper but it just doesn’t work and the GM track is a very poor fit which misses the hoped for emotional target by a few thousand candy canes… maybe Ace Of Spades, Anarchy in The UK , Gangnam Style or Baby Shark would have worked better.
Little Secret – George Michael wrote ‘Last Christmas’ one of the most famous festive songs in history when he was just 17 years old. Impressive but get this he had written ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’, ‘Freedom’, ‘Club Tropicana’, ‘Young Guns’, ‘Bad Boy’s and unbelievably ‘Careless Whisper’ before he was 18 when the rest of us were still learning how to jack off properly.
It was probably the most prolific bout of songwriting in History that even members of the Beatles would struggle to compete with. ‘Last Christmas’ was a double A-side with ‘Everything She Wants’ and famously is the biggest selling song in History to never make number one. It is the Third biggest selling Christmas song ever behind Band Aid and Boney M’s hummable ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ far outstripping Slade/Shaky/Mariah/Pogues/Wizard/Cliff/Bing et al.
It has been a hit on 16 separate occasions a world record and it has just reached 90 weeks on the chart which is phenomenal for a tune with not all year round appeal but for some reason it failed to make the Top 20 in the US.
Further Viewing – You can probably make this list yourself but start with About Time, It’s A Wonderful Life, Walking On Sunshine,Four Weddings, Ever After, Two Weeks Notice, Sleepless In Seattle, Notting Hill, The Wedding Singer, Muriel’s Wedding, the magnificent Pretty Woman and You’ve Got Mail which this is basically a carbon copy off this film but that was better.
Any Good – It is OK which most people will see as a disappointment as the idea and premise seems fool proof. It just does not deliver on the promise. The Christmas feel is great so you will feel in the holiday mood on leaving a screening but there are two fundamental flaws.
Firstly the movie just is not that funny and we expect you may laugh once every 30 minutes and that simply is not good enough.
Secondly and even more damaging is the songs with the exception of the headline song’s three appearances have no relevance to the scenes they are in, they seem crow barred in and could actually be swapped with any other GM song without anyone noticing…
Mamma Mia Here We Go Again / LaLa Land or Rocketman this is not.
