Gay Belfast Best Gay Films

Set in Thatcher's Britain in the 1980s, A.K.A. is the story of Dean (Matthew Leitch - Band of Brothers), a shy, working-class lad from Romford who has been kicked out of home by his abusive father. He heads for London and meets up with gallery owner and society hostess Lady Gryffoyn (Diana Quick - Brideshead Revisited). He soon embarks on a new life of deception and dduplicity. Rent boys, toffs, artists, champagne and coke flow free and fast - but as Dean sets off for Europe and spends more of the upper classes' money, the Fraud Squadd closes in on him. This elegant, priceless and wholly original modern-day Pygmalion is a mesmerising study of the British class system. A masterpiece. Buy AKA from Amazon.

AMERICAN PIE is given a distinct gay flavour in ANOTHER GAY MOVIE when four teenage buddies agree to loose their virginities before the end of the summer. The gags come thick and fast in this outrageous sex comedy. OK it's crass, juvenile, full of stereotypes and a shamefully ripped-off plot, foul language, frequent nudity and endless jokes about butt plugs and anal sex. Why can't more movies be like this?! Director Todd Stephens (Edge of Seventeen) has thrown political correctness out of the nearest window and made one of the funniest, most enjoyable films I've seen in a long time. What a relief to watch a film where the gay characters aren't victims, struggling with their identity, rejected by their family, shunned by society or dealing with 'issues'. The boys in this movie have only one agenda: to get laid. Yes, it's a gay American Pie - the same jokes are here, but they're just that little bit more obscene. The webcam scene features Graham Norton as you've never seen him before (or would want to see again), and the infamous pastry-humping scene is still here, but all the more hilarious for the character's drag-queen 50s housewife mom's reaction (she's more worried about the crumbs!). This is Porky's remade by John Waters. The perfect film to watch with a bunch of friends. Just be careful not to let your mum see it! Graham Norton's fab cameo suggests a new career in Hollywood films. Buy Another Gay Movie from Amazon.

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. Buy Trick from Amazon.

Big Eden has won the audience awards at just about every gay and lesbian film festival there is. Henry (Arye Gross) is an artist living in New York but still carrying a torch for the guy he had a crush on in high school. When his grandfather has a stroke, Henry returns to his Montana hometown, Big Eden, where he rediscovers friends he hasn't seen in years. His high school crush has since married, had children, and divorced--and seems ready to take some very different steps with his life. Big Eden is one of those implausibly tolerant towns where lesbians kiss each other in public and old coots in cowboy hats try to play matchmaker with bashful gay folk. Still, it's this sweet warmth in Big Eden that has made it a festival crowd-pleaser. Buy Big Eden from Amazon.

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? Buy Get Real from Amazon

Beautiful Thing is a heartwarming story of two young men coming to grips with their sexuality and the effect it has on the people in their lives. Beautiful Thing focuses on three neighbors, Jamie (Glen Berry), Ste (Scott Neal) and Leah (Tameka Empson) on Thamesmead Estate in south-east London. In the middle flat, Jamie lives with his pub manager mum, Sandra (Linda Henry). Jamie is going through a few problems at school, much to the chagrin of his gutsy mother who is too busy trying to hold down a relationship with a dippy younger man, Tony (Ben Daniels). Next door lives Ste, sporty and good looking, with his brother and alcoholic father. The atmosphere is tense at the best of times. On the other side live Leah and her mum. Leah has been kicked out of school and passes her time listening to old records. Leah has become obsessed with the music of the Mamas and the Papas and particularly with Mama Cass. Life drifts along until one night Ste is beaten up by his brother and is taken into the safety of Sandra's flat. Sleeping embarrassed head-to-toe, Jamie realizes that he is in love with Ste. As the bullying continues, Ste spends more and more time with Jamie. With Jamie, Ste finds a tenderness he has so far missed out on in life. He finds himself drawn more and more to Jamie. But it is not as straightforward as that. How can you be gay on this tough estate? As Ste and Jamie are sorting things out in their heads, Sandra discovers the truth. She knows she cannot kick Jamie out. Her love for him is too strong, and she decides to try and understand. It is clear now that things will forever be different for Jamie and his mother, but Ste can never tell his family the truth. The film ends on an optimistic note with Jamie and Ste slow dancing in the sunshine, and Leah and Sandra, usually at each other's throats, reconciling their differences and slow dancing alongside them. The music of Mama Cass plays throughout the film and provides it with an awesome soundtrack. Buy Beautiful Thing from Amazon

A french "Get Real" staring the very hunky Julien Baumgartner as Vincent who finds himself a victim of an outing in his high school, he must accept to live with the drastic changes it provokes, and redefine his relationships with his friends and family. Although the film feels a little too pat, contrived and melodramatic at times - kind of like an After School Special with subtitles and occasional flashes of nudity - "You'll Get Over It" wins us over with the delicacy, insight and compassion it brings to its subject. It shows us the myriad and sometimes surprising reactions from the people in Vincent's life - his parents, his "girlfriend," his best friend, his team mates, his swim coach and his teachers. The amount of outright persecution Vincent has to endure from his fellow students shows that even France - so often thought of as being in the forefront of all things sexual - has a long way to go in accepting gays. The movie also deals with Vincent's own conflicting feelings about being gay, as he contemplates a future filled with what he imagines to be loneliness and unhappiness. Like many gay people, Vincent lives in as much of a state of denial at times as the people around him. For the most part, "You'll Get Over It" has a nice, naturalistic feel to it. Director Fabrice Cazeneuve keeps his camera largely hand-held and close to the actors, which heightens the sense of realism and intimacy this type of story needs to be effective. Also stars the french James Dean Jirimie Elkaom from Presque rien (Almost Nothing). Buy You'll Get Over It from Amazon

A summer romance begins between Mathieu - holidaying with his aunt, sister and depressed invalid mother - and Cedric, a dropout working at the local resort. Mathieu is introspective and shy, where Cedric is aggressive and sensual, and director Lifshitz confidently takes us through the stages of their relationship, from its fiercely sexual beginning to grown-up considerations of how they are going to live together, through to a wintry and ambiguous "aftermath". Lifshitz gets strong performances from his two principals, Jirimie Elkaom and Stiphane Rideau, particularly in showing the difficult, emotional relationship with their respective families. One of the best gay movies ever made. Buy Presque Rien from Amazon

Surprisingly lighthearted and witty, Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey (based on his off-Broadway play) was one of the first films to tackle the AIDS crisis without patting itself on the back or offering everything up in a sobering movie-of-the-week scenario. The titular Jeffrey (Steven Weber) is a happy-go-lucky gay man who suddenly comes face to face with the fact that AIDS has turned sex into something "radioactive." Paranoid in the extreme, he vows to become celibate--at just about the same time that hunky Steve (The Pretender's Michael T. Weiss) saunters into his life, eyes twinkling and hormones raging. The only problem is that Steve, for all his muscles and charm, is HIV-positive, thus setting Jeffrey's deepest fears into motion. When it was written in 1995, Jeffrey struck a nerve in mining the fear that a number of gay men felt during the height of the AIDS crisis. Even just a few years later, though, Jeffrey's paranoia (what, he's never heard of condoms?) seems dated, and his behavior more self-damaging than self-aware--basically, he needs a slap upside the head as opposed to therapy. Still, Rudnick (who went on to pen the more mainstream In and Out) is never one to pass up a witty one-liner or an opportunity to poke fun at anyone, and Jeffrey now stands as a hilarious, sometimes poignant portrait of gay single life and the perils of dating in a paranoid time. Weber's Jeffrey is simultaneously open to the possibilities of life and fearful to embrace them, and Weiss is, well... gorgeous and funny and sexy beyond belief. Still, it's Patrick Stewart, as Jeffrey's interior decorator best friend, who effortlessly steals the film with his cutting wit; in his mouth, Rudnick's lines are priceless gems. With a host of amazing cameos, including Sigourney Weaver as a conceited New Age maven, Kathy Najimy as her sad-sack follower, Christine Baranski as a high-society hostess for a roundup-themed charity dinner, and a top-form Nathan Lane as a gay priest who seems to have discovered the meaning of life--literally. Buy Jeffrey from Amazon.

Terrence McNally adapted his Broadway farce for this wild, headlong comedy set in one of the gay bathhouses that were once a staple of New York culture. Jack Weston plays a guy who makes the mistake of crossing his gangster brother-in-law. Fearing for his life, he hides in the gay baths and the door-slamming chaos begins. Directed by Richard Lester, the comedy is adept and well handled, with Weston watching his back while trying to pass as a regular customer. It's hard to tell which is funnier: Treat Williams as an undercover cop with a falsetto voice or Rita Moreno as the baths' supremely untalented--and even more supremely self-confident--singer, Googie Gomez. Her performances alone make this movie worth watching.

Jon Shear's film, one of the overlooked gems of 2000, simmers under a tense, disturbing air of inevitability. Charlie (Dan Futterman) wanders the nighttime streets of the city, a mournful lost soul determinedly pursuing a mysterious stranger whom he is convinced holds the key to his redemption. He encounters chatty bartenders, pompous pickups, and dying friends (including a biting Alan Cumming), and before long you are treated to that rare, great surprise of realizing that you have no idea where any of it is headed. Some of Shear and Daniel Reitz's play-based dialogue is stagy, but the mercurial Futterman, both subtly sympathetic and unstable, is superlative. The film surrounds him with loopy urban legends (the poodle in the microwave, the AIDS-infected one-night-stand, etc.), then cunningly lifts the veil on such stories to reveal the fear motivating them. Uncertainty and isolation create the need for fantastic terrors. Shear hauntingly suggests here how much more horrifying and heartbreaking real life can be. Buy Urbania from Amazon.

A remarkable movie. L.I.E. centers on Howie, a 15-year-old boy whose mother recently died in a car accident on the Long Island Expressway. Neglected by his father, an unscrupulous contractor who's constantly having sex with his new girlfriend, Howie falls in with a group of boys who break into houses for kicks. After one break-in Howie is caught by Big John (Brian Cox, the original Hannibal Lecter from Manhunter), a former Marine with a taste for young boys. But the relationship that develops between Howie and Big John surprises them both. L.I.E. captures male adolescence more genuinely than any other film in recent memory; the realism of the relationships, particularly between Howie and his father, is completely compelling. Amazing performances, vivid direction, smartly written, superb all around. Buy L.I.E. from Amazon.

1994 Australian comedy is anchored by Terence Stamp as a transsexual who, in the company of two drag queens, travels to a remote desert location to put on a lipsynch performance to the amazement of the locals. Getting there on a pink bus named Priscilla, the trio stop and play for people all over the Outback, getting the same homophobic, bewildered responses. The most fun comes whenever the three are performing; fans of Abba will be particularly pleased. Buy The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert from Amazon.

Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer's "The Fluffer" is an earnest, honest and humane attempt at exposing the Gay Porno scene through the eyes of a young gay man Sean (Michael Cunio), new to Hollywood who falls in love with a gay porno star after he rents a movie he thinks is "Citizen Kane" that turns out to be a gay porno starring Johnny Rebel (Scott Gurney). Sean proceeds to apply and get a job at Janus Films, maker of all of Johnny Rebel's films,as a cameraman and thus sets the film and his infatuation in full motion. "The Fluffer," shows a real sense of style, grace and directorial know-how; especially difficult with the obvious constaints of a small budget. Look for these two to do great things in the future. Buy The Fluffer from Amazon.

I'm 28 years old and all I'm good at is being gay," complains Marshall (Justin Theroux), one of the gay friends who hang out together in "The Broken Hearts Club." Life centers on the Broken Hearts, a restaurant run by the fatherly Jack (John Mahoney), who also sponsors a softball team. Many of the characters are members of the team, and there's a funny scene where the handsome Cole (Dean Cain, of Superman fame) steps up to the plate and gets the phone number of the opposing catcher (Kerr Smith) between strikes. Mostly, though, dates don't come that easily, and Patrick (Ben Weber) complains, "Gay men in L.A. are 10s looking for an 11. On a good night, and if the other guy's drunk enough, I'm a six." What's striking about the movie is the ordinariness of its characters and what they talk about. This is a rare gay-themed movie that relaxes. Historically, many movies about gay people have had a buried level of, I dunno, call it muted hysteria, anxiety, impending doom. It's the "Kiss of the Spider Woman" syndrome, with characters dramatizing what they see as their own current or impending tragedies. "The Broken Hearts Club" is not about neurosis, resentment, AIDS or secrecy, and the humour can be described as sarcastic rather than bitchy.

The lighthearted tone is set right at the beginning, as a group of friends plays a game to see who can act the straightest the longest before one reveals an OGT (Obviously Gay Trait). We are introduced to the definition of "meanwhile," which is a word introduced into any conversation when an interesting sex object walks by. One of the characters lands a date with a handsome J. Crew model, then drops him because he doesn't like the Carpenters. There's a debate: "Who would you kick out of bed? Morley Safer or Mike Wallace?" This is exactly the way straight guys talk, except they substitute Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez. (Answer: "I'd kick them both out of bed for Ed Bradley, circa 1980.") All of course is not banter. There's tension between Patrick and Leslie (Nia Long), the girlfriend of his sister (Mary McCormack). There's bitterness about "gym bunnies," and their obsessions with "sex and protein shakes." There are moments of truth, involving a romance threatened by roving eye syndrome, and the movie is so eager to get to an obligatory funeral scene that we can diagnose the doomed character almost from his entrance. The writer-director, Greg Berlanti, one of the creators of "Dawson's Creek," has mastered his screenplay workshops and knows just when to introduce the false crisis, the false dawn, the real crisis and the real dawn.

But the movie is so likable, we go with it on its chosen level. It's almost the point of "The Broken Hearts Club" that it doesn't crank up the emotion. It insists on the ordinariness of its characters, on their everyday problems, on the relaxed and chatty ways they pass their time. The movie's buried message celebrates the arrival of gays into the mainstream. That key line ("I'm 28 years old and all I'm good at is being gay") is like an announcement liberating gay movies from an exclusive preoccupation with sexuality. "The Broken Hearts Club" is good at things other than being a gay movie. Review by Roger Ebert. Buy The Broken Hearts Club from Amazon.

Blake Edwards's delightful Victor/Victoria may be one of the last of the great, old-style movie musical comedies--it is so good, it was turned into a hit Broadway stage musical that has yet to find its way to Belfast. And both versions starred Edwards's wife Julie Andrews (the former Mary Poppins) in the title role--as Victor and Victoria. She's a down-and-out singer who hooks up with a flamboyantly gay theatrical veteran (Robert Preston), and together they become the toast of 1934 Paris by dreaming up a provocative nightclub act in which Victoria assumes the identity of a man in drag. So, in other words, Andrews plays a woman playing a man playing a woman ... and that's only the beginning of the sexual identity confusions that provide the fuel for this splendidly classy slapstick musical farce. (Yes, it's all those things.) James Garner, as a Chicago club owner, finds himself strangely besotted with this stylish, androgynous creature--even though he thinks Victor/Victoria is a man. Legendary Hollywood composer Henry Mancini (a longtime collaborator with Edwards) won his last Oscar for the score; Andrews, Preston, and Lesley Ann Warren, as Garner's cheeky girlfriend, were also nominated. Musical highlights include Victor/Victoria's sizzling "Le Jazz Hot" (in which Andrews shows off her incredible vocal range); another showstopper for Victor/Victoria, "The Shady Dame from Seville"; Preston's witty ode to "Gay Paree"; Warren's hilarious burlesque number, "King's Can-Can"; and a charmingly casual yet elegant side-by-side number, "You and Me," done in a small club by Preston and Andrews in tuxedos. Buy Victor Victoria from Amazon.

Etienne (Jimmy Tavares) is given a digital camera on his 16th. He starts to film events in Rouen, his entourage, and so we, through him, see his "real life" through the distilling lens of a camera. Etienne begins by filming his mother (wonderfully acted by Ariane Ascaride), grandmother, and others, in particular his best friend Ludovic, his secret love interest. He films incessantly: Laurent, his geography teacher, who eventually gets together with his mother, but to whom Etienne also finds himself attracted; his ice skating friends, (also secretly in the cloakrooms while they undress); even himself. But in all this he prefers being behind the camera, choosing to reveal all of himself through his voyage of discovery. Choosing to make a film about the life of a gay teenager, Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (who also made "Jeanne et le garçon formidable" and the wonderfully refreshing "Drôle de Felix) decided to film digitally, putting the camera at the heart of the story as a character in its own right. This gives the film its great personal attraction. We are all peeping Toms through the eyes of Etienne. The original method of narration thus employed has its advantages, and some defects. Having Etienne hold the camera allows a cunning freshness and a naivety, but like anybody with a new toy, he films anything and everything, not always worrying about how interesting we may find what he's recording. But that's part of the Gallic charm... "Ma vrai vie a Rouen" is a cinematographic experiment in self-discovery; a story in which many will find a piece of themselves. Both, modest and touching, the film manages to show us where his and our desire hides - something his friends and relatives have so much difficulty seeing - finding a real life of love that fulfills desires. Buy Ma Vie from Amazon.

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