The Affairs of Lidia (2022) Poster

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1/10
Stepping Backwards
augovie11 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Without going into tons of specific details, this film does something dangerous. The film portrays things that's very disheartening and that can be very dangerous to the gay community.

And the gay community has had to fight for decades to be able to freely represent them selves purely as homosexuals. They've had to endure the constant rhetoric that their lifestyle and their sexuality is fake and can be swayed. Too many times they've heard that being gay is a choice. That's simply false and incorrect and yet this film glorifies this exact thing.

The danger that lives in this film is the harsh and blatant tones of conversion therapy. The female can sway the homosexual men to engage in heterosexual sex with them. That it's a game and can be played strategically. The females portray women who know that they can get these gay men to change in their sexuality. Quite frankly it's pathetic.

The Director Bruce LaBruce has gone out of his way on a mission to use conversion as the main subject. Not only is it depicted in the film but it's been blatantly said by the director himself on his social media accounts. Drew Dixon had previously stated that he was a "gold star" gay. Meaning that he had never participated in any form of heterosexual activity. He went on to say that he would never do so in the future due to not being attracted to females. A few months later and he participated in this film. He engaged in oral and vaginal sex with both females multiple times. He then went on to say that it was his best project ever and that he was the most proud of this project. Not giving any of his homosexual activity in films any merit. His response to criticism from his gay following was more reprehensible than anything else. He chose to block and criticize those who felt a sense of the betrayal from his actions.

Markus Kage was lackluster and lost in many parts of the film. Sean Ford's portrayal of a flamboyant gay man was overdone and overly stereotypical. Drew Dixon was extremely forgettable at best. This film does nothing more than put the gay community several steps backwards and feeds into the narrative that naysayers have tried their best to proclaim for decades which is simple...gays can be manipulated and swayed. False indeed.
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Amiable sex comedy, but no breakthrough
lor_13 June 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This project, bringing director Bruce LaBruce to progressive "positive-porn" producer Erika Lust struck me on paper as a prime prospect for various cross-overs. Not just porn meeting Mainstream filmmaking, but mixing mainstream porn with Gay porn. Add a trans-female performer in a major role (Pascal Trevillon receives third billing) and you have the makings of, as the Pythons liked to say, something completely different.

Alas, what emerges is a stylish, highly sophisticated drawing room comedy (plus XXX sex), campy in tone and occasionally amusing. No breakthroughs. And the sex is almost entirely hetero, with the sexual performances not naturalistic but strictly adhering to porn performance and tropes, right through to the inevitable cum shots, and even corny pornspeak. That's because all five actors in the sex scenes are porn veterans.

Skye Blue, a talented performer (whose name unfortunately is lifted from an all-time great porn director and fetish artiste, their careers overlapping in time) in both boy/girl and girl/girl roles, has a field day as the highly affected and vengeful heroine, a blonde, curvacious model married to a Bear of a muscleman (Gay Porn star Markus Kage). She surveils his activities (comically spying using opera glasses) and finds his lover is a fashion photographer (Gay porn star Dean Dixon). Scheming overtime she first befriends Dixon's tres gay lover (Gay porn star Sean Ford) who is an effeminate fashion designer, through whom she arranges for Dixon to photograph her in Ford's fashions.

Clever plot twists have Skye seducing first Dixon and later surprisngly Ford as well, even though Ford is a self-proclaimed "Platinum Gay" (a term of true blue-ness akin to a "Gold Star Lesbian"). Of course, filmmaker LaBruce is out to demolish all such categories and distinctions, especially in the movie's main theme of the pernicious nature of monogamy (and its leading to destructive jealousy) leading to a "long live polyamory" group sex conclusion. LaBruce in the BTS short subject cites Paul Mazursky's classic comedy "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" for inspiration, and it shows.

With fine compositions and photography by Isabelle Hamon, LaBruce's high style and wit save the day, making the movie easy to watch and definitely entertaining. However, application of '60s-style split screen gimmickry is overused here, and the movie's overweaning Gay sensibility gets old in a hurry. Especially because in the porn department Bruce exercises extreme timidity, tilting the balance way over to the heterosexual end of the spectrum. One effective touch is having the characters via invisible editing make constant costume changes during a scene, almost fantasy-like, and the outre fashions are very impressive. Also eye-catching is Skye's photo session with Dixon, turning into a Jackson Pollock-styled splash! Body painting that leads to sex.

Hetero XXX content runs about five or so minutes per scene, way below contemporary audiences' craving for gonzo 1/2-hour plus XXX vignettes. Fellatio-only Gay sex is presented fleetingly, about a minute or two of running time. And the statuesque trans Pascale ends up in a NonSex role, not even disrobing. Fortunately, she gets the movie's best line, declaring: "I'm completely cissed out" as she makes a dramatic exit from a confrontational dinner party thrown by vengeful Skye, when all is revealed about who's been cheating on whom, and poor Pascale's character hasn't been getting any.

Many other humorous moments include the sign on Ford's boutique displaying "CLOSED" on one side and "WOKE" on the other; and an archly funny parlor game played at the big dinner titled "F*ck F*ck Marry Kill", name-dropping endlessly folks from the world of fashion and what one would like to do to them.

Also in the cast is the beautiful porn star redhead Vanna Bardot, trading barbs with her best friend Skye and acquitting herself well in her "Blow-Up" styled sex scene with shutterbug Dixon, as well as the climactic 5-some where the cast has sex with each other. Here the guys suck cock and hump the ladies (no anal sex occurs in the movie), and each has a money shot on Skye's body. Yet another point is made by the auteur in having both ladies Skye and Vanna then achieving orgasm strictly by masturbation. Acting is very fine except for that of monotone Markus Kage, who in the BTS interview expresses his interest in trying his hand at acting a la mainstream, but does a very poor job at comedy here.

In 2019 Lust produced an excellent crossover porn feature "All About Hope" starring 50-something porn lady Andi James, which didn't pull any punches in mixing full Gay porn content (Dante Colle humping Brandon Wilde) with mainstream hetero porn (Andi's sex scenes with Colle and her husband Marcus London), as written and directed by pioneer in all genres Nica Noelle. LaBruce failed to live up to the promise of that true breakthrough.
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1/10
The plot of the Movie is Homophobic Conversion Therapy
joelmoneymets20 July 2022
The Director is an unimaginative Homophobe who for years has had a fetish of Gay Men having Straight Sex. The Director claims to be Gay but is suspicious at best. The acting is atrocious. Drew Dixon who not even a Year ago claimed to be Proudly Gay and would never do a Crossover Porn has been called out but blocks people in Many different social media profiles. Nothing of worth was made. Drew Dixon has actually hurt his standing in Gay Porn as many fans have realized he is a homophobic bisexual. Btw Drew Dixon is wearing a Wig.
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10/10
Not to be missed - Markus Kage TOP
skullsgarden6 August 2022
A film definitely out of the usual cliches and even if I will be biased, because I am definitely biased, the presence of the actor Markus Kage, the god, has definitely brought the film to a higher level, for professionalism, physical and scenic beauty, therefore ten stars is the least that can be given, word of Emmanu. Hell ;)
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