Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster (2002)

Based on a 1960s Dutch television series, this delightful musical comedy chronicles the lives of a group of tenants in a guesthouse filled with eccentrics. The movie's plot involves at least three romances, a threatened eviction, a series of robberies, and a pill that change personalities from bad to good. One romantic interlude includes a muscular thief in his underwear singing on the rooftop to his pet pigeons. All the inhabitants of the guesthouse are very cheerful and good-hearted people whose open communal lifestyle is contrasted with the life of the nasty and complaining neighbour Mr. Boordevool (Paul Kooij). He has spent ages looking for a way to close the guesthouse. One day a girl from the the guesthouse meets young hunky Gerrit (Waldemar Torenstra), a bleached-blond burglar with a heart of gold. Sister Klivia (Loes Luca) lets Gerrit stay even though he is a thief. Mr. Boordevool thinks this is his chance to have his neighbours evicted. When a flamboyantly gay hairdresser opens up a shop across the street, the plot takes a number of queer twists as both Boordevool and the neighborhood begin to change. The gay plot may be small, but the gay sensibility is overwhelming in this campy motion picture.

"Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster" is a colorful 1960s movie world where the streets are filled with singing and dancing, carnivals come to town, and everyone's problem is the mean old nasty neighbor. It's hilarious camp fun and unusual in that it doesn't take itself seriously. Raymund van Santen composed the original music. Harry Bannink, Frank Houtappels, and Pieter Kramer wrote the screenplay from the story by Annie M. G. Schmidt. Pieter Kramer directed. The English title is "Yes Nurse, No Nurse". In Dutch, with English subtitles.

Jerker (1991)

In 1985 young gay Bert (Tom Wagner) in San Francisco receives a call from a complete stranger in the middle of the night who engages in explicit sex talk. The men have phone sex over the next few months with Bert never knowing who the caller is. He calls himself J. R. (Joseph Stachura) and is a partially paralyzed Vietnam veteran who saw Bert at a party and was attracted to him, then found his phone number. “Jerker” unfolds in a series of 20 phone calls. At first the men only engage in sex game playing, but after several months Bert becomes serious when he discovers that a lover and frequent sexual partner is dying of AIDS. The phone relationship suddenly becomes deeper and more intense, developing into a profound if isolated intimacy. It soon becomes apparent that Bert also has the disease. Before going on a business trip to New York, J. R. talks with Bert and becomes concerned with how he sounds. After returning from the trip J. R. calls for several weeks, then he realizes that Bert has died.

This hard to find film of a play by Robert Chesley uses strong graphic sexual language at first, then shifts to intensely emotional dialogue when the specter of AIDS suddenly comes into their lives. Tom Wagner as the attractive, sexually promiscuous Bert, and Joseph Stachura as the calm, assured J. R. give very fine performances in this filmed play. It is intelligently staged and produced, but it's very low budget and home videoish. Mark Thompson, senior editor of the Advocate wrote, "Robert Chesley was one of the most significant gay playwrights of his time. ‘Jerker’ remains to this day one of the most important pieces of gay theater ever created." Film critic Dan Sullivan wrote: "I’ve never seen a play that went from the near-pornographic to the tragic, but ‘Jerker’ achieves it." What does "Jerker" mean? It has the sexual connotation of masturbation, but it is also quite deliberately a tear-jerker. Music was composed by Michael Angelo. The screenplay was written by Hugh Harrison, and he also directed

Lie Down with Dogs (1995)

Recent college graduate Tommie (Wally White) is a young gay in NYC with a dead-end job handing out fliers in Times Square. At the beginning of a fateful summer he has a chance encounter with a friend who tells him that he's headed to Provincetown, Massachusetts for a long weekend. Tommie makes his own trek to Provincetown, where he goes on a long quest for Mr. Right, even though he has no money and holds his breath each time he uses his American Express card. Over the course of the summer, Tommie looks for a work as a house boy at various inns, works several jobs, benefits from the kindness of a stranger, and gets involved with a series of men.

Working as a houseboy, Tommy encounters many characters as he navigates the carefree gay community, betrayed by employers and friends alike, and always coming up short in friendship and in love. He does find lots of casual sex, but is devastated when his favorite dream guy dumps him after a one-night-stand. Tom (Randy Becker) is a con artist who takes advantage of the good-natured Tommy, and Ben (Darren Dryden) is the superficial and unattainable object of Tommy's affection. Tommy takes a bike tour through the nature trails with Ben. One of his new best friends is an alcoholic who does not help him when he is sick, Tom is a dangerous combination of beauty and stupidity, and we are supposed to root for shallow, self-centered Tommy at the end when Ben starts a relationship with another man.

This independent feature film is surprisingly well made for a low-budget effort. It's an offbeat diversion and a slice of life not often seen on the screen, notable for its whimsical lack of substance, its self-effacing sense of humor, and choppy editing. Some viewers enjoy "the fresh and wickedly funny humor", whereas many viewers dislike it. One wrote, "This is gay filmmaking at it's shabbiest and most incompetent. Every moment of this film is a nightmare of mind and nerves." Another wrote, "This film is not an honest portrayal of Provincetown...the movie is a slanderous portrayal of gay life." Wally White must take full responsibility. He not only stars in this film, but he wrote, produced, and directed it. He frequently pauses throughout the film to address the audience directly. Douglas J. Cuomo composed the music.

The Line of Beauty (2006)

Set during the 1980s, this is a story of love, class, sex and money. Young gay Nick Guest (Dan Stevens) an Oxford University graduate student moves in with the rich conservative family of his best straight friend Tobias "Toby" Fedden (Oliver Coleman). He becomes part of the family and also part of the gay scene. Nick has his first romance with black council worker Leo Charles (Don Gilet), and a later relationship with Wani Ouradi (Alex Wyndham), the son of a rich Lebanese businessman. There is an unbelievable party scene at the Feddens where Nick persuades Margaret Thatcher to dance with him, much to the delight of the crowds. The film shows Nick's euphoria of falling in love to the tragedy of AIDS. Framed by the two general elections which returned Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative government to power, the film unfurls through four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. The ending is abrupt.

This three-part mini-series for BBC Two was broadcast in 2006. It's a sophisticated social analysis, not a funny, typical gay story. Sex and drugs mix, love ends by social pressure and ignorance and everything begins to be overshadowed by HIV. It is sad to watch and most of the characters are unsympathic and unlikeable. Nothing that seems perfect in the beginning stays that way, rather the reverse. "The Line of Beauty" is a 2004 Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. It was adapted by Hollinghurst and Andrew Davies. Original music was composed by Martin Phipps. Saul Dibb directed. The title has many meanings, ranging from Nick's company name Ogee taken from the sinuous double curve cited by Hogarth, to a line of cocaine, to a man's lower back.

La Ley del deseo (1987)

Pablo Quintero (Eusebio Poncela) is a gay filmmaker whose erotic films become something of an obsession for youthful Antonio Benítez (Antonio Banderas). They meet at a party after the premiere of his latest movie, go home together and Antonio experiences gay sex for the first time. Pablo is considering ending an affair with his boyfriend Juan Bermúdez ( Miguel Molina), who has left Madrid to return to his home village in southern Spain. Meanwhile, Pablo’s sister Tina (Carmen Maura), an aspiring actress, is outraged when she learns that the director has used her real-life experiences as the basis of his next film. Tina is a transsexual, angry at men, raising niece Ada (Manuela Velasco), and trying to make it as an actress. She isn't the only one to have the knives out for Pablo.

When Antonio learns that his new-found lover still has feelings for Juan, he becomes very jealous. Antonio tracks down Juan, tries to rape him and throws him off a cliff. The death leads to Pablo's grief and a temporary loss of memory. When his memory returns, he learns that Antonio has taken up with Tina. The police suspect both Tina and Pablo for the murder--only a sympathetic doctor keeps them at bay. Tina decides to reveal to Pablo why she is a transexual, and announces Antonio is now her lover. Antonio holds Tina and Ada hostage in order to demand an hour alone with Pablo. A stunned and limping Pablo agrees, and experiences some tender moments with Antonio before Antonio suddenly kills himself.

This is a tragic love story of Antonio's obsession for Pablo. The mix of romantic intrigue, suspense thriller, and black comedy works very well, making it an entertaining and unpredictable film. It features direct and honest portrayals of gay relationships and stylishly homoerotic love scenes, with bizarre twists in a complex love triangle. But by today’s standards, the portrayal of gay men, lesbians, and transsexuals looks somewhat dated, with some of the characters coming across as caricatures. Bernardo Bonezzi composed the music, and Pedro Almodóvar wrote the screenplay and directed. The English title is "Law of Desire". In Spanish with no subtitles.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

In Albuquerque, chain-smoking housewife Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette) brings her suicidal brother Frank Ginsberg (Steve Carell) into her dysfunctional and bankrupt family. Frank is a gay professor, an expert on Proust, and tried to commit suicide when he was rejected by his graduate student boyfriend who was in love with another man. Sheryl's husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a motivational speaker trying to sell his self-improvement technique using nine steps to reach success, but he is actually a complete loser. Her son Dwayne (Paul Dano) is a rebel and follower of Nietzsche who has vowed not to speak until he gets into the Air Force. It has been 9 months since he's talked. Dwayne's grandfather Edwin (Alan Arkin) is addicted to heroin and was sent away from "Sunset Manor", an old folks home. When her seven years old daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) has a chance to enter the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant in Redondo Beach, California, the whole family travels together in their Volkswagen van in an amusing journey of hope to make Olive's dream come true.

The film begins with Olive watching a taped beauty pageant, where the winner is shocked to hear that she won. Olive mimics the winner's shocked expression. The Hoovers drive off for California and have many adventures. Grandpa dies, but they take his corpse along in the van. Olive gets to meet Miss California, who autographs a picture of herself. At the pageant Olive does a hilarious striptease dance to the song "Superfreak", which outrages many in attendance, especially Pageant Official Jenkins (Beth Grant). Olive is forever banned from entering beauty pageants in California. Even though she was disqualified and didn't win the "Little Miss Sunshine" contest, her family congratulates her on her performance. They drive off towards the security gate, where Jenkins is waiting to pass through the security bar. The Hoovers exit through the wrong way, driving through the security bar while Jenkins looks at them shocked.

This dark comedy about a quirky, dysfunctional family is quite funny. These people drive each other crazy, don't communicate very well, but they do love each other. Music was composed by Mychael Dana and DeVotchka. Michael Arndt wrote the screenplay, and the film was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

The Lost Language of Cranes (1991)

Young gay Philip Benjamin (Angus Macfadyen) comes out of the closet because he is madly in love with American graphic artist Elliott (Corey Parker). His friends support him, but when he comes out to his parents, he stirs up hidden feelings and secrets in their relationship. His book editor mother Rose (Eileen Atkins) believes that "keeping certain secrets secret is essential to the general balance of life," but Philip's honesty precipitates a crisis that threatens to tear the family apart. This is because Philip's academic father Owen (Brian Cox) leads a secret life, hiding his own homosexuality from Rose while spending his Sundays in porn cinemas. Owen has been crippled emotionally by years of deceit, and he is incapable of having an honest relationship with his wife, his son, or any of the men whom he meets. When he learns that Philip is gay an emotional dam breaks, years of self-loathing pour out, and he decides to tell the truth. Philip and Owen find freedom when they come out, but in many ways Rose's dilemma is the key to this film. Philip's revelation helps her to understand that she has known all along about her husband's homosexuality, and that keeping secrets is far more damaging than revealing them. Yet she is left feeling "like the punch line of some terrible joke" even as her husband and son are set free.

"The Lost Language of Cranes" is a compelling examination of the consequences of honesty, both good and bad. Acting is top-notch in this BBC made for TV movie. The film was censored in the US for both its PBS airing and its VHS release. PBS was coming under fire by conservative groups in the early 1990's for presenting programming showing homosexuality and nudity. Original music was composed by Julian Wastall. Sean Mathias wrote the screenplay from David Leavitt's acclaimed novel. The book is set in NYC with American characters, but the film takes place in London with most of the characters British. Nigel Finch directed.

Love Is the Devil (1998)

In the 1960s, British artist Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi) surprises a burglar and makes a proposition: if the robber comes to bed with him, he can have anything he wants. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer (Daniel Craig), 30 years Bacon's junior, accepts. The next thing you know, they're a couple. In their sex life, Dyer dominates and Bacon is the masochist. Bacon craves being totally dominated by other men, but outside the bedroom Bacon is in complete control of his lover, who falls to pieces. Bacon refers to Dyer as his ''odd job man", and locks him out of the house when he's entertaining other sexual partners. When Dyer tells Bacon he loves him, the artist wonders out loud what bad television show those lines came from. Bacon finds Dyer's amorality and innocence attractive, and introduces him to his Soho friends. Dyer's bouts with depression, his drinking, pill popping, and his nightmares strain the relationship, as does his pain with Bacon's casual infidelities. Bacon paints, talks with wit, and as Dyer spins out of control, begins to find him tiresome. The arrogant Bacon says, ''Champagne for my real friends. Real pain for my sham friends." When a young painter who idolizes Bacon begs him to come see his work, Bacon replies that the young man's taste in neckties is proof he couldn't possibly have any talent.

This movie about painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) at the height of his fame in the 1960s, is one of the nastiest and most truthful portraits of the artist as monster ever filmed. The story of a self-absorbed painter and his self-destructive younger lover makes a fascinating cult film. Using twisted dialogue with creative and strange camera angles, it captures the distorted viewpoint of Bacon and how he perceived his grim surroundings. Made for TV by the BBC, it doesn't show any of Bacon's work, although the look of the entire movie resembles a Bacon painting. Ryuichi Sakamoto composed the original music. It was written and directed by John Maybury. The film draws heavily on the authorised biography of Bacon, "The Guilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon" by Daniel Farson, and is dedicated to him.

Loggerheads (2005)

Mark Austin (Kip Padue), a soft-spoken drifter in his 20s, travels to a small coastal town near Wilmington, North Carolina in order to save the endangered Loggerhead turtles that nest on the beach in the summer. Mark's journey brings us into contact with three other characters, each at the crossroads of their lives. George (Michael Kelly) is a local motel owner who has avoided dealing with his emotions. Grace Bellamy (Bonnie Hunt), a middle-aged airport car-rental agent recovering from a breakdown, has returned to her hometown in the mountains near Asheville to stay with her mother Sheridan (Michael Learned). Plagued by the desire to fill an emotional void, Grace embarks on a search for the child (Mark) she secretly gave up for adoption when she was a teenager. Elizabeth Austin (Tess Harper) has lived a fishbowl existence as the wife of minister Robert (Chris Sarandon) for 25 years in the small town of Eden. The Austins are the adoptive parents of Mark, but he ran away when they punished him for kissing a boy. Neighbor Rachel (Robin Weigert) says she knows his whereabouts, perhaps allowing for a chance of reconciliation for Elizabeth.

George, who is mourning the loss of a male partner who drowned, offers free lodging to Mark, who confesses that he is HIV-positive. Marc and George develop a romantic bond that is haunted by the tragedy of their pasts. As they become closer, Mark's spirit hovers over the lives of Elizabeth and Grace. Caught between maternal love and religious dogma, Elizabeth misses her only son terribly. She can't accept the fact that her son is gone, yet his homosexuality sits too uncomfortably with her husband. When two men and a little boy move into the house across the street, Elizabeth speculates that their new neighbors might be same sex lovers with an adopted son. Grace feels incomplete and has years of pent-up shame. She aches to reconnect with her long-lost son, and must fend off the judgment of her mother who would prefer her to forget it all and just move on.

Inspired by a true story, and set in three different geographical regions of North Carolina, the movie unfolds in three carefully layered separate storylines. The tale involves adoption, conservative Christianity, homosexuality, AIDS, intolerance, and the different layers of maternal guilt and grief. The script jumps around but eventually comes together in a kind-hearted melancholy way. It's slow, and the final ten minutes leads to a denouement that never takes place. It ends with unanswered questions. Filmed on location primarily in Wilmington, North Carolina in May, 2004. Mark Geary wrote the original score as well as two songs for the film. Tim Kirkman wrote the screenplay from Caitlin Dixon's story, and also directed.

Madagascar Skin (1995)

Surrounded by muscle boys at the gay disco, Harry (John Hannah) is alone. The large birthmark on his face sees to that. In the dark room he enjoys the touch of other men but once the lights come on, he is alone again. Depressed to the point of madness, Harry contemplates suicide. He drives to England's north shore and breaks down, both physically and mentally. One day, while walking along the beach he comes across an overturned bucket. When he kicks it he discovers that beneath it is a head! Buried to his neck and comatose is Flint (Bernard Hill), a strange enigmatic man whom Harry nurses back to health. Flint has felt the pains of time and lives on the beach eating spiders and mice. He is heterosexual and the two are wary of each other to begin with. But they set up house together in a little clay cottage by the sea. Flint is older and crusty and his background is mysterious. Harry is attracted to Flint but is in fear of rejection. Slowly mutual affection rules and the way it happens is both touching and believable. They realize that they are outcasts in an unfeeling society. There always remains the threat of outside forces ripping apart their idealistic life. These two men begin an odd yet rewarding relationship that proves that all of us can find someone we can trust, need, and love. The movie focuses on how their relationship is transformed from distrust, through respect, and ultimately to attraction.

Harry has a birthmark in the shape of Madagascar across much of the left side of his face, hence the title. The photography is beautiful, the plot is good, and the acting is well done. But it tends to be artsy, using a lot of symbolism and stilted dialogue. Sarah Hopkins, Thurlow Lieurance, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Patrick Prins composed the songs on the soundtrack. Chris Newby wrote the screenplay and directed.