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Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema and more

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema & more

GAY INTEREST MOVIE REVIEWS

The latest gay interest film reviews from BGPS

F.A.M.I.L.Y. (F.A.M.I.L.L.E) (BFI Flare Review) – Looking at gay parenting by artificial insemination

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Director Jessica Champeaux looks into the world of lesbian parenting via artificial insemination in Belgium. This is mainly done via interviews with medical professionals, women who’ve decided to have children that way, and adults whose gay parents had them by artificial insemination.

It’s the last of those that’s the most interesting. Both the doctors and the parents largely let us know exactly what we’d expect to hear (at times parroting a party line that perhaps needs to be challenged a little more). However, the adult children are the voice that offers something new, expressing their confusion at the homophobia they experienced growing up because of their parents. They also talk about how they experience an oppression that is unique to them and can be quite acute – it’s not merely homophobia once removed as many would like to believe. [Read more…]

The Wound (Inxeba) (BFI Flare Review) – A gay relationship challenges a traditional manhood initiation ritual

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The Wound has proven intensely controversial in its native South Africa. Some among the country’s Xhosa people (including the ‘King’) objected to its portrayal of their manhood initiation ceremony, which they said was taboo to talk about (others said their objection was really about trying to quash the idea that there are gay Xhosa people). That resulted in the movie being banned. After a public outcry it was swiftly unbanned, but with a certificate that was usually reserved for pornography.

The film certainly isn’t porn, but the controversy has meant it’s remained in the public consciousness over there far longer than it probably would have otherwise. It’s one of the latest examples of the so-called Barbra Streisand effect, where calling attention to something in the hope of making it disappear has the unintended side effect of amplifying it, in this case internationally. That leaves the difficult job on the part of the reviewer of trying to extricate themselves from the cause celebre the movie has become from the movie itself – luckily in the case of The Wound the movie stands up on its own. [Read more…]

Uncle David 2 (BFI Flare Review) – David Hoyle’s back on the Isle Of Sheppey with a new ‘nephew’

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Back in 2010 we got the movie Uncle David, about a middle-aged man – the David (David Hoyle) of the title – going to the Isle Of Sheppey with his younger lover/protégé. Now we have the sequel, which has a similar set-up with David back in his Sheppey caravan with a different young person – the genderqueer Michelle. Again David is pontificating about what he sees as the social ills of the world, although as those who’ve seen the first film will know, he’s got his own secrets and may be more dangerous than he first appears.

Into the mix come the almost feral Max and his sister, who are struggling for survival. The sister takes an interest in David and Michelle, but Max is wary of them. That doesn’t stop him taking an interest in Michelle though. [Read more…]

Cherry Grove Stories (BFI Flare Review) – The gay history of the Fire Island community unravelled

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Fire Island, located just off Long Island, New York, is a legendary part of gay history. It’s a place bound up in ideas of hedonism, sexual freedom/liberation and, some would say, debauchery, but perhaps more importantly its seen as a place where LGBT people have long been able to themselves in ways it was (particularly in the past) difficult to be anywhere else. It’s reached the status that for people who’ve never been there it’s almost mythic. Cherry Grove Stories is a documentary that helps to bring this spit of land back to earth, focussing on the Cherry Grove community and showing what it really was and is. [Read more…]

The Carmilla Movie (BFI Flare Review) – The popular lesbian vampire web series hits the big screen

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I have to admit Carmilla passed me by. There have been three seasons of the web series about a 330-year-old lesbian vampire woman who falls for a mortal and ends up fighting evil, but it wasn’t a show I’d ever heard of. However, the screening of The Carmilla Movie at BFI Flare showed me quite how remiss I’ve been, as the National Film Theatre was packed with ‘Cream Puffs’ (which is what fans of the show call themselves) who were rabidly excited for the movie, and went into true fangirling mode when Carmilla herself – aka actress Natasha Negovanlis – stepped onto the stage.

By the end of the film I was beginning to understand how Carmilla has managed to transcend its web series roots, build a loyal fanbase around the world and get turned into a movie. [Read more…]

Rift (Rökkur) (BFI Flare Review) – Gay horror gets strange in Iceland

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For a nation with a population of just under 350,000 people, Iceland punches above its weight in the world of film. However, it’s always tended to be – as Rift director Erlingur Thoroddsen said in the Q&A following the BFI Flare Film Festival screening of his movie – straight, white Icelandic dudes making the films. Thankfully that looks likes it’s starting to change to include queer voices, with the recent coming-of-age movie, Heartstone, and now the horror-thriller, Rift.

Gunni has recently split it off with his long-term boyfriend, Einar, and has started seeing someone new. He receives a strange phone call in the middle of the night from a seemingly unstable Einar, who says he’s at his parents’ holiday property called Rökkur (Twilight). Afraid Einar is going to do something drastic, Gunni heads off to the remote house to make sure his former lover is okay. [Read more…]

Queerama (DVD Review) – A cornucopia look at decades of gay British life on screen

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Director Daisy Asquith’s mixture of archive footage and music is the sort of film that is likely to beguile and entrance some viewers while leaving others perplexed and a bit bored. That’s essentially the nature of the beast though, as there’s no traditional voiceover or simplistic signposting (barring a few title cards) in this journey through decades of queer footage from the BFI (British Film Institute). It’s done somewhat chronologically and somewhat thematically (more the latter than the former), with the whole thing held together by the music of John Grant, Goldfrapp, and Hercules And Love Affair.

At first it feels a little random, taking its time to get the audience accustomed to the way it cuts between its multiple sources, sometimes showing chunks of historic TV documentaries interspersed with footage of queer lives from films and shorts, or using music or a particular interview to thematically anchor what you’re seeing on screen. Through this it starts to build something surprisingly powerful, paying testament to both LGBTQ lives in Britain over the past century and celebrating (and sometimes reproaching) the way queer lives have been depicted on screen. [Read more…]

Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool (Blu-ray Review) – They’re also only a little bit bi, apparently

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In the late 1940s and 1950s Gloria Grahame was a big name Hollywood actress, known for the likes of The Big Heat (1953) and Oklahoma! (1955), as well as winning an Oscar for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). However, her star power soon faltered.

Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool picks up her story in the 1970s, by which time Grahame (Annette Bening) is appearing in theatre in Britain. The older star meets the much younger Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), with a May-December romance developing. Grahame is flattered by the attentions of the younger man, while Turner is impressed by his beau’s celebrity – something that’s beguiling and exotic for a working-class Liverpudlian lad. [Read more…]

Professor Marston And The Wonder Women (DVD Review) – A bisexual polyamorous relationship births a comic book icon

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It must have seemed like the perfect time for this movie. Coming just after the huge success of the Wonder Woman movie, Professor Marston And The Wonder Women explores the birth of the character. However, despite some decent reviews it didn’t make much of a dent at the box office and got none of the award love it was probably hoping for.

The Professor Marston of the title is William Moulton Marston, a psychology lecturer at Harvard in the early 1940s, whose theories include trying to promote better equality between the sexes. His smart and forceful wife, Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) is well aware of the era’s gender issues, as Harvard won’t give her a doctorate because she’s a woman. [Read more…]

Thelma (DVD Review) – Lesbian sexuality awakens & so do supernatural powers

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Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his much-praised movie, Louder Than Bombs, has found much acclaim. It’s the sort of intriguing film that builds tension by living in a moral grey area and maintaining an enigmatic, sexual air.

Thelma (Eili Harboe) is a young woman who’s led an incredibly sheltered life. Her strongly religious parents have completely controlled her existence, but now she’s getting her first taste of freedom by going away to university. As she settles into college life – which still includes the need to contact her parents everyday so they can keep an eye on her – she starts to have feelings for one of her female friends. [Read more…]

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