Pride (I) (2014)

Pride (I) (2014)



Director: Matthew Warchus
Writer: Stephen Beresford
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Language: English, Welsh
Duration: 120 min
Year: 2014




Stars: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West

Kada je u martu 1984. godine vlada Margaret Tacher zaprijetila zatvaranjem 20 rudnika ugljena u Velikoj Britaniji rudari su stupili u štrajk koji je trajao skoro godinu dana.
U ranim danima štrajka Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer), mladi gej aktivist u Londonu nagovara nekolicinu svojih gay prijatelja da daju podršku rudarima.
Nakon što su prikupili malo novaca skupina od sedam gej muškaraca i jedna lezbijka u malom narandžastom kombiju dolaze u rudarsko mjesto Onllwyn kako bi se pridružili rudarima koji su u štrajku.
Film je rađen po istinitom događaju i na jedan komičan način prikazuje odnos i upoznavanje ljudi sa potpuno različitim načinom života. Srdačnost, neprijateljstvo, strah i nijemo čuđenje koje je dočekalo skupinu gejeva u malom mjestu nije zasmetalo da se postavi pitanje o prihvatanju solidarnosti pa makar dolazilo i od potpuno različitih ljudi.

Iako i jedni i drugi nose različite životne priče ujedinjuje ih borba protiv nepravde i želja da se izbore za svoje mjesto pod suncem.

Film je prepun komičnih scena koje upečatljivo odslikavaju nepoznavanje različitosti. Tako je jedna starija žena u razgovoru sa lezbijkom utvrdila da su gejevi vegetarijanci, dok su drugi oprezno pristupali upoznavanju.
Na kraju krajeva kada se savlada početni strah od nepoznatog dolazimo do činjenice da smo svi ipak samo ljudi sa emocijama, stahovima i nadanjima za bolji život.

Pride is a 2014 British LGBT-related historical comedy-drama film written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus. It was screened as part of the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Queer Palm award. Writer Stephen Beresford said a stage musical adaptation involving director Matthew Warchus was being planned.
Based on a true story, the film depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British miners' strike in 1984, at the outset of what would become the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign. The National Union of Mineworkers was reluctant to accept the group's support due to the union's public relations' worries about being openly associated with a gay group, so the activists instead decided to take their donations directly to Onllwyn, a small mining village in Wales, resulting in an alliance between the two communities. The alliance was unlike any seen before but was successful.

“Pride” is brilliantly entertaining just as it is, so I trust that no one connected with the film will be insulted if I say that, despite the existence of shows with similarly stirring themes, like “Billy Elliot” and “Kinky Boots,” the story would make a terrific musical. In truth, the movie is halfway there already. Beresford and the director, Matthew Warchus, bracket the tale with gay-pride marches in London in 1984 and 1985, but, in general, the picture is short on politics and historical context (there’s almost nothing about the strike itself) and long on comedy, sentiment, and music. As the Londoners imagine entering a mining town, they joke about what they might say to the inhabitants. “May I inquire about your communal baths?” is one gambit. But they sober up when they meet the strikers, who are defiant but very much in need of help. These early meetings have the wariness of two species confronting each other in a marsh. Some of the younger miners, disgusted, want nothing to do with the gays. An elderly woman with a soft face musters her courage and says to a lesbian, “That can’t be true, can it? You’re all . . . vegetarians?” The Londoners are smart, self-deprecating, ironic, and sometimes furious about their own wounds; the miners and their wives and widows can be hearty, even cheery, but, just below the surface, they carry a lifelong bitterness. The two groups are fused by anger and divided by virtually everything else. -  DAVID DENBY in The New Yorker

The Skeleton Twins (2014)

The Skeleton Twins (2014)




Director: Craig Johnson
Writers: Craig Johnson, Mark Heyman
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Language: English
Duration: 93 min





Stars: Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Luke Wilson

The Skeleton Twins je odlična i drama i komedija koja će vas iskreno i nasmijati i ratužiti.
Maggie Dean (Kristen Wiig) dobija poziv iz bolnice u San Francisku da je njen brat Milo (Bill Hader) pokušao samoubistvo, ali da je dobro. Odlazi po njega i nagovara ga da jedno vrijeme provedu zajedno kod nje u NY city, gdje živi sa mužem.

Milo odlazi kod nje i polako upoznaje sestrin život koji spolja izgleda prelijepo ali suština je da se njen život vrti u gomili laži i prevara prema mužu.
Milo, koji je gay, glumac u pokušaju koji je pokušao samoubistvo zbog nezadovoljstva svojim životom, neuspjehom da se afirmiše kao glumac i uzaludnom potragom za srodnom dušom uviđa da se njegova sestra blizankinja vrti u krug tražeći sebe u braku koji pokušava da održi i njene strasti za nekim novim kurcem koje pronalazi kod raznih instruktora ronjenja, kuvanja itd. Uporedo sa svojim seksualnim izletima muža drži u uvjerenju da sa njim želi djecu i sretan porodičan život.
Nasuprot tome Milo želi da rasčisti ostatke iz prošlosti i sastaje sa profesorom koji mu je uzeo nevinost kada je imao 15 godina, ali i dalje glumi str8 porodičnog čovjeka.

Kako su Maggie i Milo emocionalno jako povezani njih dvoje mogu iskreno da pričaju o životu, nadanjima i željama, pa i o onim stvarima koje ne mogu da podjele sa drugima.

Film je za svaku preporuku i ostavlja nas da razmišljamo  da li živimo onako kako bi željeli ili samo glumimo.

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

 As “The Skeleton Twins” deftly glides between drama and comedy, it peels away layers of personal history in the lives of its troubled main characters, twin siblings estranged for a decade who share an eerie emotional synchronicity. At the very moment Maggie Dean (Kristen Wiig), a dental hygienist in upstate New York, is about to gulp a lethal fistful of sleeping pills, she receives a call informing her that her brother, Milo (Bill Hader), a failed actor in Hollywood, is in the hospital after slashing his wrists.
Suicidal tendencies may run in the Dean family; their father killed himself when they were teenagers. Their mother (Joanna Gleason, in a brief, amusing cameo) is a grandiose New Age-spouting narcissist with impenetrable emotional armor.
Maggie, a dutiful sister, reluctantly makes a place for Milo in the home she shares with her husband, Lance (Luke Wilson), a happy-go-lucky jock. And the peeling begins.
The movie, directed by Craig Johnson (the tiny indie “True Adolescents”) from a screenplay he wrote with Mark Heyman (a writer on “Black Swan”), is keenly attuned to the bonds of siblings, especially twins. If countless movies about brothers and sisters reveal common family traits, “The Skeleton Twins” is subtler than most in evoking a mutual sympathy that might be called a cellular understanding.
Being so completely simpatico has its good and bad sides because the person who best understands you can also inflict the most painful emotional wounds. After working closely together on “Saturday Night Live,” Ms. Wiig and Mr. Hader suggest that kind of intuitive connection, even when their characters here are at loggerheads.

Lance, an unflappably optimistic and confident outsider, is aware of Maggie’s instability, which he takes in stride, cheerfully referring to her moods as “land mines” that he has no problem navigating. The three make an appealingly oddball little family once Milo, who is gay, lonely and not entirely comfortable with his sexuality, settles in.
“The Skeleton Twins” is a well-written and acted movie about contemporary life that doesn’t strain for melodrama and is largely devoid of weepy soap opera theatrics. A small, precise, character-driven vignette, it has no pretensions to make any kind of grand statement about The Way We Live Now.

That’s all the more admirable, considering that the wedge between Maggie and Milo involves a loaded subject, Milo’s former inappropriate relationship with a high school English teacher, Rich (Ty Burrell of “Modern Family”), who now lives with a girlfriend and has a son. “The Skeleton Twins” takes no stand on the affair, which haunts Milo to the degree that he seems obsessed with the still-closeted Rich, whom he looks up almost as soon as he arrives in town. Their too-brief scenes are fraught with tension and ambiguity and suggest that Milo was exploited, though he denies it.
Maggie has her own fraught sexual issues. Not in love with Lance or even strongly attracted to him, she is fair game for her Australian scuba-diving teacher (Boyd Holbrook). Secretive and weighed down by a deep sense of shame, she seems mired in a permanent funk.

What throws the glumness into sharp and welcome relief are inspired comic scenes in which Milo and Maggie regress and play together like children. Milo, who displays a streak of zany sarcasm, jokes about being “a tragic gay cliché.” When Lance announces that he and Maggie are planning to have children, Milo chimes in that he can’t wait to be “the creepy gay uncle.”

The movie transcends its mopey tendencies when the twins dress up hilariously for Halloween. And when Milo lip-syncs and cavorts to the Starship’s ’80s rock anthem “Nothing’s Gonna to Stop Us Now,” “The Skeleton Twins” soars deliriously into comic orbit.

The Itch (2011)

The Itch (2011)
Director: Nora TennessenWriter: Nora Tennessen
Genre: Short movieCountry: USALanguage: English
Stars: Vanessa Hardy, Aaron Harris, Brandon Collins

Ovaj simpatični film me je podsjetio na neko davno vrijeme kada sam se intezivno druzio sa tada najboljim prijateljem i ljubavnikom. Jednom je otišao na neki seminar u Dubrovnik i nekoliko dana nakon što se vratio mi kaže da se skinem. Uzeo čovjek lupu i gleda me dolje. Nakon nekoliko minuta mi kaže da sam od njega dobio vaške. Ja uzeo lupu pa gledam i kada sam vidio da se nešto miče samo što se nisam onesvjestio.
Nisam htio da govorim sa njim danima zbog toga. Priznao mi je da je bio sa nekom koleginicom na seminaru i da je vjerovatno to dobio od nje.
Ušasnog li iskustva i kada god se sjetim tih dana počešem se. Inače lako se to istrijebi ali moram priznati da izaziva onaj majmunski osjećaj uz neprestano češanje.

The Itch from nora tennessen on Vimeo.
Robin and Orlando have a great first date, but paranoia -- and a certain communicable itch -- threaten to drive them apart.

officially selected by
FRAMELINE, the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival 2011
Atlanta OUTFEST 2011
Milwaukee LGBT Film Festival 2011

In The Itch, Robin (Aaron Harris) and Orlando (Brandon Collins) have a great first date, but things get weird the next day when Robin gets an itch he can’t stop scratching and he blames Orlando. Robin talks it over with his flatmate Suzie (Vanessa Hardy), also fresh from a hot hook-up, but eventually Robin confronts Orlando as the one he believes gave him scabies. Cute, but not as infectious as its subject. The writing is rather clumsy, especially in the too-good-to-be-true character of Orlando, who seems to be filling up his resumé for an application for sainthood.

The Consul of Sodom (2009)

The Consul of Sodom (2009) "El cónsul de Sodoma" (original title)


Director: Sigfrid Monleón
Writers: Miguel Dalmau (collaboration), Miguel Dalmau (novel), Miguel Ángel Fernández, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Joaquín Górriz, Sigfrid MonleónGenres: Biography, DramaCountry: SpainLanguage: Spanish, Tagalog, English, CatalanDuration: 110 min


Stars: Jordi Molla, Bimba Bosé, Alex Brendemühl, Josep Linuesa, Isaac de los Reyes, Marc Martínez








The lechery, loves and literature of Spanish scribe Jaime Gil de Biedma receive pleasingly offbeat treatment in "The Consul of Sodom."

Source: VARIETY.com

The lechery, loves and literature of Spanish scribe Jaime Gil de Biedma receive pleasingly offbeat treatment in “The Consul of Sodom,” a biopic that depends on a compelling performance by Jordi Molla. Following its protag from the ’60s until his death from AIDS in 1990, the pic is an intriguing ride through the Barcelona arts scene of 30 years ago, but its bed-to-book-to-boardroom dynamic palls, leaving it short on dramatic clout. Still, this gorgeous-looking, sexually explicit and rarely dull “Consul” has a cultish appeal that could stimulate fest interest. Initial B.O. for the Jan. 8 release was solid but unspectacular.

Steamy early scenes take place in 1959 Manila, where the impeccable, white-jacketed Jaime (Molla), presented as an incorrigible seducer, takes full advantage of the local boys. Back in Barcelona, his father, Don Luis (Juli Mira), is concerned about the impact of Jaime’s lifestyle on the reputation of the family’s tobacco empire, particularly since Franco’s police are on the trail of commie sympathizers. Much is made of the conflict between family duties and fleshly urges, conformity and transgression.
Jaime’s literary cronies are publisher Carlos Barral (Josep Linuesa) and the refreshingly down-to earth Juan Marse (Alex Brendemuhl). Ironically, Jaime is refused membership in the Communist Party because he’s openly gay; he falls in with Bel (newcomer Bimba Bose, sometimes out of her depth), who becomes his muse and lover.

The script does well to bring something unique to each of the multiple relationships it portrays. And the period is portrayed with loving attention to detail, if too often suffused with the warm nostalgia of melodrama. Though the decor is often sumptuous, the focus is always on character rather than setting.

Molla, who has a tendency to overact, plays to his strengths by showing Jaime as a man of devilish aspect who sees his life in theatrical terms. The result is his finest perf in years, growing stronger as the pic proceeds and his character ages. Though the poet is aloof, fastidious, sexually avaricious and often downright unpleasant, Molla never lets us lose sight of his insecurities.

Inevitably for an item about arty types, the dialogue is sometimes of the overwrought “you’re in love with pain” variety. Extracts from the poems are judiciously used to comment on the action, but more time is spent on Jaime’s sex life (with multiple full-frontals) than inside his head.

Pic’s approach has caused a stir in Spain, with the real-life Marse, now a revered novelist, expressing his strong indignation in the national press.
- Jonathan Holland

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