Gay DVDs and Videos - Page 3

Flawless (1999) Starring: Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, et al. Director: Joel Schumacher Purchase Links for this Gay Film NTSC Video - Amazon USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA PAL Video - Amazon UK Region 2 DVD - Amazon UK DVD / Video - TLA Films USA

Who could possibly be the target audience for Flawless? Walter (Robert De Niro) is a homophobic policeman who suffers a stroke while responding to gunshots in his own apartment building; for speech therapy, he starts taking singing lessons from his neighbor Rusty (Philip Seymour Hoffman of Magnolia, Boogie Nights, and Happiness), a gay drag queen who's saving up money for a sex-change operation. However, there's another story line that takes up at least as much time as that one, about a drug dealer and his goons trying to find money that was stolen from them, brutally beating up everyone in their path. Furthermore, the local gay community (in New York City) seems to consist entirely of drag queens and Log Cabin Republicans, and one of Walter's cop buddies goggles at drag queens as if he's just arrived from the middle of Iowa. All the characters--including various prostitutes, drug dealers, a hotel clerk who's a weaselly mama's boy, as well as the aforementioned drag queens and cops--are horrific stereotypes. De Niro and Hoffman, both extremely talented actors, do all they can to overcome their cliché-studded dialogue, but they never seem to be in the same movie. Written and directed by Joel Schumacher, whose eclectic career includes Batman & Robin, A Time to Kill, Flatliners, and St. Elmo's Fire. - Bret Fetzer (Amazon.com)

There are 3 short films here, though the last film "Looking for Langston" doesn't feel like one. It's the odd man out in this collection, mainly because the first 2 are so good. "Langston" is artful, but rather too much so. This one should have been shorter.
Genet's film, however, is a true cult classic, with a gay love story so brimming with passion that it has never been surpassed to this day. It was meant to be shown only to close friends and "the initiated", but without his knowledge it was sold and distributed outside France. Not long after that it was banned in most countries, only to reappear in the early 70'ies. Meanwhile, "Flames of passion", though tame in comparison, is a cute, warm and brilliantly edited gay take on the David Lean classic, "Brief encounter" (which, if I may say so, is the best tearjerker ever. So there) The music is incredibly atmospheric, as well. Great film to hold hands by.
A very good buy for anyone interested in gay shorts, the Genet film alone would make this essential.

Get Real (1999) Starring: Ben Silverstone, Brad Gorton, et al. Director: Simon Shore Purchase Links for this Gay Film NTSC Video - Amazon USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA PAL Video - Amazon UK DVD / Video - TLA Films USA Buy The CD Soundtrack from TLA Films USA

Get Real begins with a couple of hedgehogs having sex, and deals with a topic just as prickly: gay love in adolescence. Steve (Ben Silverstone) is a student at a British school where everyone wears classy uniforms, knows he's gay, and is pretty comfortable being so. John (Brad Gorton), a top athlete and all-around admired guy, is just getting an inkling and isn't sure how he feels about it. This, cleverly, is how the movie manages to explore coming-out issues and be over them at the same time. In fact, the whole movie is pretty clever--witty dialogue, deft direction, nimble pacing, and clean editing--in exploring the seriousness of adolescent life without taking it too seriously. The key is in Silverstone's performance; he's a completely convincing mixture of hesitation and recklessness, all the conflicts of high school in one sweet-faced package. As the movie follows Steve and John's relationship--their evasions at school, getting picked up by the police in a park, goofing around in a heated swimming pool, grappling with coming out to the world at large--it lays out a bit of contrast with Steve's best friend Linda (Charlotte Brittain), who's as unapologetically fat as Steve is gay, and who's having an affair with her driving instructor. Excellent performances all around, funny, sexy, charming--if only straight teen comedies were half this good. Get Real even demonstrates the proper etiquette when soliciting sex in public restrooms; what more can you ask for? - Bret Fetzer (Amazon.com)

An endearing and sincere drama that chronicles the ten-year life of a gay relationship. Back in 1978, everything seemed possible for several young men. For Philip and Guy, there was the thrill and exhilaration of first love. For their friends Devon, Jerry and Todd, life was still an open book with so many pages yet to be filled. But ten years later, all are gone except for Philip who is left alone, wondering what the hell happened. He tries to make sense of the joys and the sorrows as well as to chart a new direction for the future. Writer/director Natale's feature film debut depicts the lives of five friends in conflict with themselves and each other yet ultimately, the insightful tale is about love and survival. The title is drawn from events around the sale of a shirt which brought each of them together. "A totally refreshing and romantic (even sexy) drama, true to the crises many have endured without being pedantic, mature without losing its vitality. A powerful piece about the force that tear people apart and ultimately keeps them together." Outfest

Canadian writer-director Thom Fitzgerald won awards for this unusual memory piece about a gay man (Chris Leavins) who returns home to his sister's wedding and the garden where he may or may not have made a tragic decision as an unhappy teen. Fitzgerald alters reality and indulges in quirks without any comment: past and present mingle, the eyes of statues move, and the whole thing drips with rain, portent, and an unpredictable sense of humor. His film will frustrate anyone wanting easy answers (or, in some cases, any answers at all) and it is, perhaps, aggressively unconventional. But its raw edges have a freshness to them, and Fitzgerald's people and events feel unusually alive (Kerry Fox is particularly fine as the brassy sibling). He doesn't view his characters in one dimension, seeing them instead as ever-blooming creatures of history, dreams, superstition, and regret. - Steve Wiecking (Amazon.com)

Happy Together (1997) Starring: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, et al. Director: Kar-wai Wong Purchase Links for this Gay Film NTSC Video - Amazon USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA PAL Video - Amazon UK DVD / Video - TLA Films USA

The expressionistic, stylized visual brilliance (courtesy of Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle) of Happy Together is so breathtaking and enveloping it nearly detracts from this startling, queasy, despairing glimpse at a gay relationship gone amok. Director Wong Kar-Wai (Chungking Express, Fallen Angels) won the Best Director Prize at Cannes in 1997--surprising many--but on viewing the film it's easy to see why. The subject matter may not be the easiest to swallow--any relationship on the rocks sometimes gets dirty and pathetically disturbing--but there is a universality to Happy Together that rings true and real and less like an edition of The Honeymooners than isolation tinged with the embarrassment of intimacy. Ho (Leslie Cheung) and Lai (Tony Leung) have left Hong Kong for Buenos Aires. The journey is another in Ho's attempts to "start over." But their initial optimism is short-lived, and once they become dislocated strangers in this strange land it only further thrusts the two into their already codependent, caretaking dark love affair. But like all crazy love, the trip through masochistic hell--from violence to apathy--leads to self-enlightenment, and Wong Kar-Wai's gorgeous, grasping film is true, tricky, difficult, and emotionally wrought, aided by Hong Kong superstars Cheung and Leung, who contribute greatly to creating a work that is exceptional--and lump-in-throat brutal--in image, story, and performance. - Paula Nechak (Amazon.com)

Doctor Donovan, who is divorced, senses that his young son is being abused by his ex-wife's live-in boyfriend. He decides to petition for custody, but knows his concern for his son's safety will be obscured by the fact that he is gay. Intensely dramatic, extremely well-acted psychological drama works on two levels: as a top-notch suspense thriller and a no-holds-barred indictment of homophobia.

High camp and not a small dose of surrealism characterize this comedic romp through the backrooms of a gay club and the frontrooms of two ex-girlfriends all set in a fictitious neighborhood populated by queers. Lea Delaria is a pink triangle cab driver who is close chums with Malcolm (Quentin Crisp), who plays the retired queen of the divas. Malcolm feels smothered by his keeper, Maria (The Donna) Callous (Sorrentino), his former protégé and current owner of the hottest gay nightclub in the world so he develops a plan to escape her evil clutches. While Delaria works to help Malcolm get out from under The Donna's thumb; she is also trapped in a farcically forlorn love triangle with her ex-girlfriend, Stella, and her ex's current. Drag queen mobsters, queer newspaper reporters, turkey basters and Toto from Kansas all play a role in the mixed up scene.

This, the third opus from Canadian bad-boy director LaBruce, delves into the world of L.A. male prostitutes and gleefully criss-crosses the lines between daring and boring; porn and art; and avant-garde satire and obnoxious gross-out. Jurgen Anger (LaBruce) is a prissy German writer who falls hard for Monti Ward (Tony Ward), a street hustler thug.
Offering half-hearted homages to such films as Sunset Boulevard and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, the action jerks from this brief outline of a plot to a series of disconnected sexual encounters, whose only commonality is that the sex involves everything except the loving kind. There are cigarette burns, skin-head mummification, razors slashing flesh, and a gang bang by a roomful of black men on a compliant blond. There’s also occasional humor and appearances by some familiar faces (performance artist Ron Athey, porn star Kevin Kramer).
But overall, the film has a curious lifeless quality, like we’re watching a film made by a director who doesn’t give a fuck, featuring actors only awkwardly enacting out what they are instructed to do and a plot more interested in simple shock value. But any film which infuriates a gay male audience and prompts furious walkouts (most noticeable during a sex scene involving an amputee and his plunging stump of a leg) can’t be all bad. It’s bad LaBruce but still infuriating watchable.

The screwball "who will marry who" antics of The Philadelphia Story are given a gay update in this deliriously romantic and sexy comedy. Bob (Arquette) and Brendan (the hunky Christian Maelen) are college roommates whose close friendship (and Bob’s mad crush) is chilled after a hopeful but awkward pass by Bob is rejected by Brendan. Now five years later, they, and their college chums all reunite for the marriage of one of their former classmates. Among those in attendance is Brendan, his college girlfriend Sarah (Corman), and Bob, who brings along soap opera star Sterling (Watkins), his handsome but ever so dull boyfriend. As everyone parties and consumes just enough booze, libidos are raised and inhibitions lowered. Is the bedroom-eyed Brendan really out and longing for Bob? Will Sarah get her wish and bed Brendan, if only for old times sake? Will Sterling marry Bob and get his hoped-for themed wedding? Will Bob ever wake up and smell the yearning? The disastrous possibilities make for great, hilarious comedy! Leave your anxieties, problems and concerns at the door and simply enjoy this perfect queer summer movie from Brian Sloan (director of the charming 1993 short Pool Days, from the Boys Life Collection)