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eCupid (2011)
A message we all need to hear
eCupid follows the life of Marshall, a professional gay man whose been in a committed relationship for 7 years, feels like he's in a rut in all areas of his life and is about to experience gay death. He's turning 30. After hearing an add from a company called Divinity he downloads an app called eCupid, looking to get out of his rut. Then all hell breaks loose. His boyfriend moves out, his job is on the line and all these guys he thought he wanted start throwing themselves at him. eCupid shows us what we all need to hear. If something needs changing in your life you have to be willing to change yourself. You can take the a person and put them in entirely different circumstances but if they aren't willing to change it will just feel the same. The production value is kind of low, and the acting is sometimes a little forced but over all the movie is pretty good and worth watching. I don't know if waiting to see it for a year made it not as good as it would have been if I'd just happened upon it. Usually the more anticipation I have for a movie the worse it is. Still I enjoyed it.
The Wolves of Kromer (1998)
Metaphor for gay culture
Loved Wolves of Kromer. Of course I have to say I watched it because of Lee Williams, who is always beautiful and a delight. This movie has the feel of a made for TV movie or after school special. Set in a small village in Great Britain, that is plagued by wolves. Now the wolves aren't really werewolves, or the 4 legged kind of wolves, they are people with claw-like finger nails, fangish teeth, and tails. Really the wolves are supposed to be gay people. The pretty young boys who want nothing but to sing, dance and romp with each other, harming no one, but are blamed for everything wrong in the town. a Metaphor for "somethings wrong and I don't want to look at us. So, of course, it's them!" My favorite relationship besides that of Seth (Williams) and fellow wolf Gabrielle (James Layton) is the relationship between the priest and a young boy. (No not in that way) The priest who acts like a closeted wolf himself, tries to convince the boy that wolves are evil, sent by Satan, and must be killed. The boy is always asking questions like, if the wolves must be killed why aren't they mentioned in the bible, and why can't we just leave them alone. To which, the priest just responds with non-logical rhetoric, while all the while looking more obsessive and more bent.
All You Need is Love: Meine Schwiegertochter ist ein Mann (2009)
Practically Perfect in every way
I like the characters especially and the fact that they look and remind you of real people you might actually have known at one point in your life. The gay couple are good looking but still guys you might know. The movie made me laugh it's witty and a bit sarcastic. (You'll notice it right off the bat when the guy wearing the shirt that says "Brain Power" get's his new bong in the mail) The plot is great you can actually see it happening, "Hey Mom, I'm getting married, to a doctor, oops forgot to mention I'm gay and he's is too". The movie happens in a wonderful little town that time forgot in the middle of the German Alps. The sound track is modern and eclectic (starts off with Valerie by Amy Winehouse and even has Lily Allen doing "Don't get me wrong" a Pretenders cover she nails). There is even a very satisfying punch.
Love and Human Remains (1993)
Ahead of it's time
I first watched this movie in a hotel room with my then boyfriend. I looked all over to own a copy of it, and only found it at 1 BB video store in the early 2000s. So I rented it and told them I lost it. I love this movie. I'd really seen nothing like it before. Most of the gay cinema I'd seen was very trite, pretty boys, lots of nudity, bad acting and little plot. The plot of this movie happens while a serial killer is killing off random women. Usually the serial killer would walk into frame and I would say "that's him" or "that's her" but it didn't even occur to me. It isn't that the mystery is so intricate it's that the plot is going off in so many directions that are interesting while also being slightly distracting. It follows a main character but also his friends, who I actually cared about. They aren't 2 dimensional. There is even a young love interest, a 16 y/o boy who's the main characters biggest fan ever, I won't tell you if they get together or not but the thing is, you really don't care. That's how good the movie is. Usually when watching gay cinema everyone who watches including me wants the main character to find love. I didn't care if he did. He had an interesting journey and took me with him and that was satisfying enough.
Love and Other Disasters (2006)
Loved it!
Yes, Brittany Murphy has a horrible accent in this movie. That however is explained half way into the movie when she reveals she was born in England, her parents died, she was shipped off to family that lived in the US, then returned to England. So she really doesn't have an English accent more of just a formal way of speaking. Yes the accents were horrible, but I love this movie though. Funny though that Matthew Rhys who was born in Wales and spoke Welsh for a good part of his life, does an American accent better than a London accent but just saying London accent is like saying an apple. If you've met 2 people from London you know none of them talk exactly alike.
Poking fun at the romantic comedy genre, every character in this movie is an emotional mess. Brittany's character breaks up with her boyfriend, only to continue dating him and having sex with him, but insisting they've broken up. The one guy she has a true emotional connection with in the movie besides Matthew Rhys' character, Paulo is because she thinks he's gay and she doesn't stand a chance. Matthew Rhys character is gay and falls in love with men until he actually gets to know them, then finds some flaw in them and sneaks out the back door. He spends most of the movie, trying not to be set up with the man of his dreams, only to find out he got the guys name wrong, actually goes out with the man of his dreams only to find himself bored to tears. Catherine Tate's character is an emotional train wreck with Sybil at the switch, and I absolutely love Stephanie Beacham as her mother.
This movie might not win any awards but it got some good laughs from me, kept my interest, and I wasn't bored.
A Lower Power (2009)
Eh
I'd like to start off with some praise for this movie. Gimme a minute it's going to be hard. Okay, so the main character is cute and engaging. There is also one scene that's pretty much every gay man's wet dream (Thibodeaux get's to do his girl chasing besty).
That's really about it. This movie has so much that doesn't make sense or is obviously written by some gay nerd living out his fantasies. First the cinematography is very indie, which is expected. The acting is very forced and the actors don't really listen to each other, they just sort of bark out their lines. (bad boom mike?) That coupled with the fact that some of the dialog most have gotten ruined and re-shooting wasn't an option for some reason, because the dubbing over to fix certain parts is not only apparent but extremely unnatural. Most of the scene were with Tib and his main love interest and said interest all of a sudden seems to be speaking with a large stick inserted in his rectum. ("Just shout the lines into my iPhone and I'll insert it later!")
Then we have certain parts in the movie you don't know why they weren't cut. Like, for instance, Thibodeaux' parents, we already get the fact that they are free with their sexuality, even around their son, to the point of extreme, we didn't need the part where Tib (later called Do, yeah I'll get to the nicknames later), and his friend Steve walk into his parents apartment and Tib's mother is the OGBYN position on the kitchen table while Tib's father pleasures her with vegetables. It wasn't funny, and wasn't relevant. It was just creepy. We already get why Tib would want to leave home in the first scene where they accidentally put an amateur pron movie they made with friends in the VCR, and upon realizing their mistake invite Tib to watch it with them. After all he was conceived during the making of the film. ("Mom, Dad, I don't want to see myself being born, I want to see myself being conceived!") Bleh!
Then we have certain scenes like Tib on his skateboard a few times that seem to have nothing to do with the story but were important enough to leave in. Then the opposite, with a home movie used as a plot device, to skip through a whole summer.
Also we have things like Tib being very well endowed. I don't get it's relevance as he only uses his endowment once in the movie so what's the point of bringing it up all the time. This is one of these places where I think the movie was written by some socially stunted, emotionally stunted nerdy gay man who is trying to live out his fantasies in a movie and his fantasies are very juvenile. Now I said I would get to the nicknames. Thibodeaux starts off as Tib to his friends, goes off to college and becomes Do (yes like a female deer, they even say that in the movie). His friend Thomas' nickname is Mas, and yeah it continues from there. Everyone's nicknames are shorten version of their real name (very creative). I was surprised that Steven wasn't shortened to Even instead of Steve.
We also have a subplot, at least I think that's what it was. Thibodeaux goes and sees a movie with a school mate and Thibodeaux (a virgin who claims to never want to have sex) has a few Margaritas and blows said school mate in the bathroom. The schoolmate rides off on his motorcycle and into a traffic accident. He shows up later preaching the gospel because obviously God did it to him because he got blown by a guy in a bathroom. Couldn't have been because he'd had a few beers. (insert face-palm here.) Except for all the sex surrounding a guy who doesn't like sex cause his parents have always been free with sex around him, I'd swear this was written by a twelve year-old girl.
The overall theme of the movie is definitely a good one. Unfortunately the execution is far worse than lack of a budget or technical skills could explain.