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All Good Things (DVD)

February 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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We’ve had to wait a while for All Good Things. Shot in 2008 it was slated for US release in 2009, but various issues with the distribution meant it didn’t actually hit American cinemas until late 2010 (and even then it only got a small release). It’s take another two full years for it to arrive in the UK, despite the presence of Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst.

Based on a true story, Gosling plays David Marks, who in the early 1980s is the heir to a mega-rich empire. However he massively dislikes his father (Frank Langella) and would prefer to have little to do with the family business. He meets and marries the lower-middle class Katie (Kirsten Dunst), fleeing the city to a place in rural Vermont. However they’re lured back to New York by David’s father. [Read more...]

Filed Under: DVD REVIEWS

Keep the Lights On (DVD)

January 28, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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Keep the Lights On tells the story of a Danish filmmaker, Erik (Thure Lindhardt), who’s working on a new documentary and living in New York City. He enters a loving yet complicated relationship with Paul (Zachary Booth), a struggling drug and sex addict. The film takes a rare and honest look at the complications that impact on most relationships and the negative effects addiction can cause for yourself and a partner, all put together in a way that makes you not think of this as a ‘gay film’. [Read more...]

Filed Under: GAY FILM REVIEWS

Glengarry Glen Ross (Blu-ray/DVD)

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Glengarry Glen Ross is proof of what can happen when you put a great script in the hands of an ensemble of dynamite actors. In many ways Glengarry Glen Ross shouldn’t work. It’s largely about people sitting around talking, has minimal plot, and never fully escapes the stage that David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play was originally presented on.

However, what in many films would be seen as shortcomings are here the movie’s greatest strengths, as it allows the film to concentrate on the electric dynamism of Mamet’s dialogue in the hands of one of the best groups of actors ever assembled for a film (even Jack Lemmon said it was the best cast he’d ever been involved with, which is saying something). After all, it contains four Oscar-winners and two more Oscar nominees, which is certainly an impressive line-up, especially as likes of Kevin Spacey weren’t that well known when it was made. [Read more...]

Filed Under: BLU-RAY REVIEWS

Beauty (Skoonheid) (DVD)

October 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Beauty is an interesting yet eerily creepy South African film that takes a look at how the sexual repression and frustration of someone in a homophobic environment can impact and severely mentally scar a person.

The film centres on Francois (Deon Lotz), an openly racist and homophobic married South African man in his forties, who, after indulging in sexual activity with men in private, becomes obsessed with the son of friend. As the film moves along and develops, we see Francois’ repressed homosexual feelings gradually sending his mental health into decline, and the attraction he feels towards Christian (Charlie Keegan), his friend’s son, turn into a loathing which culminates in a horrific and unpleasant encounter that will leave most viewers uneasy. [Read more...]

Filed Under: DVD REVIEWS, GAY FILM REVIEWS

Lesbian Vampire Warriors (DVD)

June 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Lesbian Vampire Warriors would more accurately be titles Vampire Warriors Including Some Of Indeterminate Sexuality, but that would be quite tough to fit on the DVD box. Ar is a vampire hunter, dedicated to taking down the worst bloodsucking scum around – of which there isn’t a lack. However things are slightly complicated by the fact she hangs around with a bunch of ‘vegetarian’ vampires, who don’t drink human blood, and so instead survive on animals.

Events take a serious turn when an ancient, evil vampire called Mung arrives in town who is a cannibal, intent on killing other vamps, sucking the life out of them and stealing their power. With her friend’s life under threat, Ar must make the ultimate decision – is the only way to defeat Mung for her to become a vampire herself? [Read more...]

Filed Under: DVD REVIEWS, GAY FILM REVIEWS

The Vow (DVD)

June 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Inspired by a true story, Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum play Paige and Leo, a young married couple who are desperately in love and living a slightly bohemian life in the big city. However their romantic idyll is shattered when a truck rear-ends their car, sending Paige through the windscreen. She’s left with amnesia, meaning that while she can remember her early life, she has no memory of Leo or their marriage. Indeed, the last she can remember, she was engaged to another man (Scott Speedman). She also can’t understand why she’s supposedly estranged from her wealthy parents, or why she’s now an artist when the last she knew she was in law school. [Read more...]

Filed Under: DVD REVIEWS

Mysterious Skin (2004)

May 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Gregg Araki made a name for himself with gay-themed, rather anarchic generation-X flicks like The Doom Generation and Nowhere, but 2005’s Mysterious Skin sees him in a more controlled mood. It’s definitely a good thing and it’s probably no coincidence this film is his only novel adaptation, something that helps keep his more random ideas in check.

As a boy, Neil was abused by his little league coach, leaving him rather confused about boundaries and what’s suitable behaviour. Now in his late teens (and grown into the form of Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Neil is defiantly gay and working as a hustler in the small Kansas town he grew up in. However he has dreams of making it in the big city, which will hopefully also allow him to forget what happened to him as a child. [Read more...]

Filed Under: GAY FILM REVIEWS

eCupid (DVD)

May 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Writer/director JC Calciano follows up his popular Is It Just Me? with eCupid, a rom-com looking at the gay seven year itch. Marshall (Houston Rhines) is about to turn 30, has been with his boyfriend for years, is stuck in a dead-end advertising job and feels like life has lost excitement. He’s yearning for a bit of fun and hotter guys in his life, especially as his boyfriend is so busy with his struggling business that it feels like they never have sex.

While surfing the web one night, Marshall finds a site called eCupid, but little does he know that agreeing to its terms and conditions will result in it completely taking over his life. Before he knows it, his boyfriend has moved out and eCupid is providing a succession of guys who are perhaps a bit more than Marshall can handle. Soon he begins to realise that the grass on the other side may be filled with hot guys and endless parties, but he may have been completely ignoring the joys of what he had already. [Read more...]

Filed Under: DVD REVIEWS, FEATURED SLIDESHOW, GAY FILM REVIEWS

Shame (Blu-ray)

May 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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A man is on a subway train and notices a beautiful woman sitting opposite. Their eyes meet, and each smiles at the other. When the train gets to her stop, she stands up. The man stands too, coming up behind her where their hands brush and a jolt of electricity passes between them. He follows her off the train but in the jumble of people loses her. In most films this would be the start of a great love story – two lost souls destined to find each other again. However even in the first few minutes it’s clear Shame will not be that kind of story, signalling right at the beginning that the Hollywood idea of sex and romance isn’t real. [Read more...]

Filed Under: BLU-RAY REVIEWS, GAY FILM REVIEWS

ID:A (DVD)

May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Thanks to the likes of The Killing and Borgen, Scandinavian thrillers are the in thing at the moment. However these bursts in popularity for particular bits of world entertainment mean an awful lot of stuff gets released hoping to cash-in on the phenomenon, whether it’s top quality stuff or not. ID:A definitely feels like it come from the second rank of Scandinavian thrillers, despite the presence of Oscar winning director Christian E. Christiansen and Lars Von Trier’s Zentropa producing.

The movie opens with a woman waking up in a French river, with a scar on her stomach but no memory of who she is or how she got there. Adopting the name Aliena, she tries to work out who she is and soon becomes aware that mysterious heavies are looking for someone with her description. When she works out she could be Danish, she heads north, finding a clue on the way when she recognises the voice of famous opera cinema Just Ore. [Read more...]

Filed Under: DVD REVIEWS, GAY FILM REVIEWS