Gay DVDs and Videos - Page 7

Second Skin (Unrated Version) (2000) Director: Gerardo Vera Purchase Links for this Gay Film DVD / Video - TLA Films USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA

Excellent acting elevates Second Skin to earnest heights of heartfelt melodrama in contemporary Madrid. It's a Spanish soap opera in the most intelligent sense, inviting comparison to the intimate passion plays of Pedro Almódovar and Eric Rohmer. Director Gerardo Vera's approach is more conventional, despite the fact that this modest tale of marital discord involves an unhappy wife, Elena (Ariadna Gil), whose suspicions are only slightly mistaken. Instead of another woman, her husband Alberto (Jordi Mollà) is having an affair with Diego (Javier Bardem, from Before Night Falls). He's tormented by his genuine love for his wife, child, and gay lover, and his inability to choose between them. Unfortunately, the screenplay decides for him, resorting to a last-minute twist of fate to resolve the dilemma that Alberto couldn't solve on his own. It's a cop-out solution, more suited to bad cable TV, weakening an otherwise honest and emotionally involving film. Recommended, with minor reservations. - Jeff Shannon (AMZN)

This is basically a filmed two character play that does a good job of bringing up and exploring common arguments and fears in the gay community. The two characters are engaged in pillow talk just after completing the key event in a one night stand. Both guys are credible and likeable, and the different perspectives they have on "gay identity", "gay politics", love, AIDS, and traditional families are well presented. Transitions between one conversational topic and the next sometimes seemed forced, but all in all this is a good flick. It could promote many fascinating conversations between friends.

To Play or To Die (1990) Rated: NR. Director: Frank Krom Purchase Links for this Gay Film DVD / Video - TLA Films USA All Regions DVD - Amazon USA

A beautiful movie which examines the emotions of Kees, an intellectual lonely teen who clearly falls in love with a more street wise class mate. His friend Charel does not have the intellectual acumen to see above the society he currently lives in, which is to obey the laws of the norm. As a consequence there is a clash of two different worlds and unrequited love. It is a sad end which many gay teens fear will happen to them and of course it does. It happened then as it does now.

Trick (1999) Starring: Christian Campbell, John Paul Pitoc - Director: Jim Fall Purchase Links for this Gay Film NTSC Video - Amazon USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA DVD / Video - TLA Films USA Region 2 DVD - Amazon UK

While most of the recent outpouring of gay cinema tries to coast on a smile and a little bit of charm, Trick provides some considerable filmmaking cojones to back up its good looks: a talented cast, a witty screenplay, and a sweet sense of romance. Unfolding as part stressed-out fever dream and part farce, Trick chronicles one tumultuous night in the life of aspiring Broadway songwriter Gabe (Christian Campbell), who's suffering from both a heterosexual roommate (who kicks him out when there's female companionship) and a bad case of writer's block. Making an impulsive side trip to a gay bar, he locks eyes with a hunky go-go boy (J.P. Pitoc), who magically appears later that night on the subway, with amorous intentions to boot. Hotfooting their way back to Gabe's apartment, they're interrupted in medias res by Gabe's roommate, girlfriend in tow. From there it's downhill fast, as the two unsuccessfully scramble to find a place to finish things up. On their nighttime odyssey, though, both discover that there's more than sex and heat to their interaction. And much like its premise, Trick evolves from what seems to be a quickie one-night stand to something more substantial, a film with heart and a very funny soul. Jason Schafer's screenplay puts the luckless couple into one bind after another, and furnishes them with incredibly entertaining dialogue; fortunately, both the leads are up to the challenge of bringing it to life. Campbell (Neve's older brother) has a sweet smile and gentle comic timing; the surprise, however, is Pitoc, whose chiseled physique belies both a wicked sense of humor and a sincere-without-being-gooey romantic streak. Both are aided and abetted by a finely tuned supporting cast, most notably Clinton Leupp as an acidic, motor-mouthed drag queen and Tori Spelling in a go-for-broke star turn as Campbell's best friend, a painfully bad singer-actress. By the end of the movie, you'll be entirely won over, and anxiously awaiting a second date and more from these actors and filmmakers. - Mark Englehart (Amazon.com)

Urbania (2000) Director: Jon Shear Purchase Links for this Gay Film NTSC Video - Amazon USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA DVD / Video - TLA Films USA

This film took my breath away. Rarely have I been able to laugh and cry while watching a film. This film is a complete original! Although it's ostensibly the story of a gay man trying to come to terms with a traumatic experience, it is ultimately the story of redemption and love that will touch everybody.

A Very Natural Thing (1974) Director: Christopher Larkin Purchase Links for this Gay Film NTSC Video - Amazon USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA DVD / Video - TLA Films USA

An extraordinary gay film - and not because it may well have been the first. Here is that rare gay film (and indeed, rare hetero film) with fully-realized, complex and realistic characters. The love story, at once timeless and of it's time, expertly shows the on-going, conflicted development of a gay relationship in a way no current gay film does. In fact, it makes most current efforts, such as "Trick," and television's "Will & Grace," look all too shallow and trite by comparison.

Entertaining but overlong adaptation of Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play about eight gay male acquaintances who spend countryside weekends at their host's dream Victorian home over three summer holidays. Too much of the text tiresomely depends on Backbiting! Pettiness! and Sniping!, though Glover (reprising his Tony Award-winning performance) is impressive in a dual role as twins of wildly differing dispositions.

This 1993 international hit by Ang Lee is a funny and poignant story of a gay, Taiwanese-American man who goes to some lengths to fool his visiting family that he's actually straight. The results are far more complicated and entertaining than anyone could have guessed. The film seems all the more rich now since Lee has become a major Hollywood director: that same sensitivity and mild bemusement he brought to such stories of manners as Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm in recent years are in full bloom in this earlier work. - Tom Keogh (Amazon.com)

When Love Comes (1998) Purchase Links for this Gay Film Region 1 DVD - TLA Films USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA

Six different friends. Three kinds of love. In this cutting-edge drama from award-winning New Zealand filmmaker Garth Maxwell (Jack Be Nimble), washed up singer Katie ("Once Were Warriors'" Rena Owen) struggles to create a new life for herself while coping with yearning admirer Eddie and living with her best friend, Stephen, who's in love with sexually confused ex-hustler Mark. Meanwhile uninhibited band members Fig and Sally yearn for success--and each other! Funny, touching, and insightful, this honest and sometimes twisted tale exposes the complication brought about by love, friendship, and desire--not necessarily in that order.

Wilde - Special Edition (1998) Starring: Stephen Fry, Jude Law, et al. Director: Brian Gilbert Purchase Links for this Gay Film NTSC Video - Amazon USA Region 1 DVD - Amazon USA PAL Video - Amazon UK Region 2 DVD - Amazon UK

Profile of playwright/author Oscar Wilde is much gamier (to its arguable detriment) than the two 1960 biopics. Begins choppily, drags at the end, but generally compels in a long midsection that deals with events leading up to Wilde's 1895 sodomy trial and conviction. Fry bears a striking resemblance to Wilde, while Wilkinson gives another in a string of rich performances as Wilde's chief adversary, the Marquis of Queensbury.

Mueller's directorial feature film debut is an engaging and poignant comedy-drama that has enjoyed strong popularity at gay and lesbian film festivals. The story focuses on the lives of two lovers: HIV-positive conceptual artist Mark (Matt Guidry), who is out to "save the world," and the carefree, trash-collecting Joey (Gregory G. Giles). Narrated by a dishy friend (Kraig Swartz), their tender relationship unfolds as we learn about them, their friends, their frustrations and work, and the one common need that unites them: the incessant search for the father they never had. The film's strong points are the witty dialogue, a bitchily catty narrator and the all-too-rare situation of two young men deeply in love with each other, while its weaker points lie with its increasingly maudlin story line. Marketed as a "Generation X Queer Comedy," World and Time Enough (filmed in Minneapolis and St. Paul) is a great example of the regional growth of gay and lesbian filmmaking.