Sergio Tovar Velarde weaves together four short films covering the major phases of the lives of gay men in Mexico City in his second feature, Four Moons. With so many unconnected stories, it feels more like a condensed TV drama than a film.
Rating
Category Archives: By Genre
Tell No One (Italy: 2012): Coming Out, Italian Style
A classic Italian-style comedy, Ivan Silvestrini’s Tell No One focuses on contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality through one man’s attempt to either come out to his family on his last night in Rome or risk having his lover do it for him. While it is consistently funny, there isn’t enough new to the story to push the film out of the average zone.
Rating
Silent Youth (Germany: 2012): The start of something big, or just a bad date?
Martin Bruchmann and Josef Mattes
What would happen if two people started a journey of discovery and just didn’t want to ever talk to each other? As far as “first encounter” movies go, Silent Youth is very low key, but audacious in its own way, creating awkward silences where we normally expect bonding.
Rating
Kundo: Age of the Rampant (Korea: 2014)
Jung-woo Ha: the clear-eyed, incorruptible, horse-hung butcher for justice.
Jung-woo Ha and Dong-won Kang shine in this period-action film about a clash of two men cast aside by Joeseon society. Director Jong-bin Yoon pulls Kundo together from a mix of styles, heavy on the Spaghetti western, but true to contempory Korean martial arts action. Overall, the film stays light and fun, but the slow exposition over the 137 minute run time keeps this good film from greatness.
Rating
Kingsman: The Secret Service (USA: 2015): Guess who wins the tournament? Yeah, it’s the hero.
Colin Firth and Taron Egerton
Matthew Vaughn returns to familiar territory with Kingsman. With violence and a sexual reference guaranteed to earn an R-rating, but a story clearly aimed a teens, one wonders if the whole project was worth the effort.
Rating
What we do in the Shadows: (New Zealand: 2014): Five Vampires and a Guy Named Stu
Winner of the People’s Choice Award at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s Vampire mockumentary, What We Do in the Shadows, is finally making the rounds in the US. It answers some pressing questions we’ve had about the prospects for the undead since terrorizing peasants from haunted castles is no longer in fashion. Surprisingly, they are doing just fine in Wellington, New Zealand, repairing their love lives and arguing about household chores.
Rating
In Bloom (USA: 2013): Summer breakup film for the cold winter evening.
Tanner Rittenhouse & Kyle Wigent
Youth really does seem wasted on the young in CM Birkmeier’s drama about the end of a two year relationship. In Bloom starts slowly, but gets more lively after the separation. It makes me wish they’d ended it earlier and had some fun moving on.
Rating
No Night is Too Long (UK: 2002): Forgettable mystery involving a lad who no one can forget (apparently)
Lee Williams and Marc Warren: Blink and you’ll miss the acting
The whole effort is blandly acted and forgettable. Need proof? I had forgotten I had watched it before.
Rating
Jongens (Boys) (Netherlands: 2014): Pleasant summertime love for a cold winter evening
Ko Zandvliet and Gijs Blom
What Jongens lacks in tension, leads Gijs Blom and Ko Zandvliet make up for in charm in this enchanting story of first love.
Rating
Brazil (UK: 1985): A Review at 30
An entry in a periodic series of reviews of films celebrating milestones in 2015
Brief Review: Terrorism, state torture, the ease at which our humanity can be manipulated away and clinging to the hope that escaping into dreams of love can break us free. I wish I could say its themes are dated. Brazil is still visually stunning. There may be a handful of better dystopian films, and certainly ones that pack more thrills, but since the root social problems that the movie explores are still with us, Brazil remains a vital expression of our fears of the present.
Rating
Release Date: February 22, 1985
Peale's BL Perspectives 