Were the World Mine (2008) - Gay Movie Review

Rating - 9 / 10

The Quick & Nasty - A visually sumptuous and quite refreshing coming-of-age movie (with surprisingly good music). An update of 'A Midsummer's Night Dream'. Tanner Cohen is spectacular in this movie.

Review (spoilers ahead)

I had the good fortune of catching the film during the opening of Glamfest 2009 - when the world of gay boys singing in high schools wasn't a terrible, terrible cliche (oh how you've ruined this, Glee). But when you realise this gay high-school movie musical pre-dates Glee, a few things happen: (1) you wonder how Ryan Murphy could've neglected to utilise the phenomenal Tanner Cohen in his show. He would've danced rings around the current actor playing Kurt Hummel - and dammit, I would've loved seeing him make out with Darren Criss; (2) you get the sense of how novel this movie was when it came out - and an appreciation of how it has won so many audience awards; and (3) you wonder if it would be ruined with a sequel (yes, please! This time using 'Macbeth'! - can you imagine Lady MacBeth's 'unsex me' monologue? goosebumps I tell ya).

I know for the few who are still clinging on to the last season of Glee (or is it the second-last season of Glee?), the idea of a gay high-school musical movie may be all the reason you need to watch this. But for the rest of us, fear not - you won't be hit over the head with stilted dialogue and a rabidly performed song every five minutes. It's just a solid dose of moonshine that should be played at your Friday movie-night session with your gay posse before y'all head out, sloppily I might add, and somewhat giddily to your next destination. And you'll be surprised by how easily your cynicism gets dismantled.

Tanner Cohen dancing to Mika's "relax" is exactly how everyone should aspire to be every friggin' second of the year. In fact, it's almost as if Mika inspired the movie, from the blue sunbeam used on the promotional material for the film, to the long, lanky lead with dark hair. And then there's the music and the ultra-camp choreography... LOVED IT. (And you don't even need to like Shakespeare to get inoculated by its happy-clappy-ness!) It's not a movie you want to walk in with a whole load of expectations, but come on: a movie where the lead character, a boy taller than the whole football team who gets picked on for being gay... who then finds a love potion and uses it to turn the whole town gay.... COME ON! WHO wouldn't love it? The singing's not bad either. Oh wait, I'll just put the trailer here. WATCH IT:




Yum. Take two:

Make it stop

Of course, it's an institution of higher learning in Sydney, Australia that's decided to announce that we've attained 'Peak Beard'  - i.e. in the coming years, we'll see a lot of hirsute men trading in their unkempt mouth-pubes for a more sophisticated appearance.

My one main problem with this medusa-esque approach to facial hair is simple: if it's bushy above, is it bushy below? - and do we want this? And if it's bushy above and NOT bushy below... well... erm, next please. I'll say this about the research by the University of New South Wales - I bet if we are flooded with images of men who manscape, there will not be a similar phenomenon of the bush becoming sexy. I don't know about you, but here's one situation where the principle of 'negative frequency-dependent selection' will not apply.

[photo from the first link in post]

Free Fall (Freier Fall) 2013 - Gay Movie Review

Rating - 8.5 / 10

The Quick & Nasty - Brilliant acting. Watch it for the incredible onscreen chemistry between the two main characters, Kay (Max Riemelt) and Marc (Hanno Koffler).

Review (spoilers ahead)
So there's this part of the movie where the two main characters are on the balcony again - and instead of the beautiful sun-kissed moments we had earlier (see my favourite part of the show below), it's overcast, one of them's been beaten up, and he turns to the other and says, 'you know how it is'.

And beyond their incredible onscreen chemistry (to rival even the likes of David and Fer from 'Fisica o Quimica') I think that statement was what tipped me over into a real appreciation of the film. I ended up at the end of the movie with this sense of familiar agony - haven't we watched this movie in a myriad of ways already? you know how it is. It's the the sexual awakening of a man coming to terms with this crushing attraction to another man while negotiating the preexisting relationships that crowd his life. So why then was I left mourning the end of the film, wishing that they'd thrown in one last glimpse of Max Riemelts incredible gaze as he dismantled Koffler's defences?