DVD and BLU-RAY REVIEWS

The latest reviews from the world of home entertainment

Make The Yuletide Gay (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Keith Jordan, Adamo Ruggiero, Hallee Hirsh, Derek Long, Kelly Keaton
Director: Rob Williams
Running Time: 89 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: November 9th, 2009

Olaf ‘Gunn’ Gunnunderson (Keith Jordan) is an out and proud student at university, but hasn’t told his parents he’s gay. Although he doesn’t have any plans to tell them when he goes back home for Christmas (just in case they react badly), his situation gets more complicated when his boyfriend, Nathan (Adamo Ruggiero), turns up. Nathan doesn’t know Gunn isn’t out at home, and so has to pose as his boyfriend’s roommate, while Gunn’s parents encourage their son to get together with his old school friend, Abby. Nathan gets rather annoyed with this, especially as he can’t see Gunn’s problem with telling his parents the truth, which puts pressure on him to come out. [Read more…]

Little Ashes (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Javier Beltran, Matthew McNulty, Marina Gatell
Director: Paul Morrison
Running Time: 107 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: July 13th, 2009

I have a new theory. If you want to become really famous, you need to make a period movie where you’re a bit gay for a while but then decide that you’re actually straight, and if you’re playing some kind of artist, all the better. It’s worked for Hugh Grant with Maurice, Leonardo DiCaprio with Total Eclipse and now Robert Pattinson with Little Ashes. I’m not quite sure how the mechanism works exactly, especially as both Little Ashes and Total Eclipse were made before but released after the star’s breakout hit, but there definitely seems to be something going on. [Read more…]

I Dreamt Under The Water (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Hubert Benhamdine, Caroline Ducey
Director: Hormoz
Running Time: 103 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: October 6th, 2008

I know the world can be a dark place, but some filmmakers and artists seem to believe that just because a story is unrelentingly bleak, it’s good or realistic. I Dreamt Under The Water suffers terribly from this. Angel’s lover dies in his arms from a drug overdose, and after that he descends into a hell of intoxication, public gay sex and life as a rent boy.

I’m sure if your lover died it’d be terrible, but here it just becomes tedious, mainly because the film is more interested in making you think the world is a terrible place than telling a story with momentum that actually seems rooted in the real world. Unfortunately, it’s difficult not to wonder whether the film got a release more because it includes brief hardcore gay sex shots, rather than the merits of the film itself.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Third Man Out (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Chad Allen, Sebastian Spence, Jack Wetherall, Woody Jeffreys
Director: Ron Oliver
Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: 4th February, 2008

Private eye Donald Strachey is asked to look into an attack on a man called John Rutka, who’s famed for outing powerful people as gay. While Strachey and Rutka’s ideas on gay politics differ dramatically, the PI gets pulled into the case after his boyfriend is attacked and Rutka is killed. [Read more…]

Touch Of Pink (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Jimi Mistry, Suleka Mathew, Kristen Holden-Ried, Kyle McLachlan
Director: Ian Iqbal Rashid
Running Time: 88 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: 11th February, 2008

Gay, Canadian, Muslim Alim is living in London with his boyfriend, happy to be far away from the expectations of his Islami mother and family. When mum Nuru comes to visit, Alim tries to hide his relationship, but that proves tougher than he thought.

Gay movies are a strange breed, largely because they often try so hard to be resolutely ‘GAY’, that the end result is that nobody, gay or straight, can identify with what they’re seeing (it’s also true that a lot are made by people who shouldn’t have progressed beyond shooting holiday videos). [Read more…]

Saved! (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin
Director: Brian Dannelly
Release Date: 15

Mary is a religiously devoted student at American Eagle High School, who decides that the only way to save her gay boyfriend from the fires of hell is to sleep with him (she reckons Jesus won’t mind if she does it to save his soul). However this leaves her pregnant and questioning whether the religious strictures that she believes can really be true. [Read more…]

Queer Duck: The Movie (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: JM J. Bullock, Tim Curry, David Duchovny, Estelle Harris, Billy West
Director: Xeth Feinberg
Running Time: 69 mins
Certificate: 15

Seymour Duckstein, aka Queer Duck, leaves his lover, Openly Gator, and attempts to become straight with the help of a Christian fundamentalist preacher horse, becoming entangled with the Norma Desmond-esque Ms. Buzzard in the process. [Read more…]

Cruising (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox
Director: William Friedkin
Running Time: 102 mins
Certificate: 18

A serial killer is on the loose, murdering people involved in New York’s gay S&M scene. Det. Steve Burns is sent undercover into the world of leather bars and bondage to try and find the killer, but discovers that immersing himself in the gay subculture effects him more than he expected. [Read more…]

Brokeback Mountain (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams
Director: Ang Lee
Running Time: 128 mins
Certificate: 15

In the 1960s, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist get a job shepherding on Wyoming’s Brokeback Mountain. Slowly they fall in love, starting a 30-year relationship that endures through their marriages and attempts to stay apart. Jack wants to be with Ennis full time, but the taciturn cowboy is too scared of that, which only allows them brief ‘fishing’ holidays in the wilderness. Even so, they just can’t quit each other. [Read more…]

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (DVD)

November 2, 2011 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Kevin James, Adam Sandler, Jessica Biel, Dan Aykroyd, Ving Rhames
Director: Dennis Dugan
Running Time: 110 mins
Certificate: 15

When red tape prevents firefighter Larry from naming his kids as his pension beneficiaries, he asks friend and colleague Chuck to pretend to be his domestic partner in order to get around the bureaucracy. However their charade gets increasingly complicated.

I’ve got a high horse and I’m going to get on it. Universal may have screened I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry to GLAAD (the Gay And Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and other gay groups to try and prove it wasn’t homophobic, but you can’t get around the fact that it trades on every homosexual stereotype imaginable. [Read more…]