All the Queens Men (2001)

During World War II the British army is attempting to retrieve an Enigma machine from Germany. Having failed in previous attempts they decide to send four men undercover to the factory that makes the devices, located in Berlin. Unfortunately the factory is run entirely by women, and they only have men to send.

American army officer O'Rourke (Matt LeBlanc) leads a mismatched team of British Special Services in disguise as women to infiltrate the factory and bring back the decoding device that will end the war. O'Rourke joins British transvestite Tony Parker (Eddie Izzard), genius Johnno (David Birken) and the reluctant Archie (James Cosmo) to infiltrate the factory dressed as women. The team, with the exception of Tony who is a drag performer, must learn the basic skills for completing their mission--like walking in high heels and applying lipstick.

Dropped in the wrong area, the team must first try to find their bearings. Aided by Romy (Nicolette Krebitz), a sympathizer of their cause, they find their way to the factory. The American and his team stumble through the German factory in full drag, barely escaping the clutches of German soldiers, while attempting to complete their important mission. They manage to retrieve the Enigma machine, against the expectations of the British army. Arriving home they find that they were tricked. The British government already had the device but wanted to make the Germans think they were still after it.

This WWII spy movie can't seem to decide what it is. Is it a comedy, drama or espionage film? There's not much humor except for guys wearing dresses. It's like an extended sitcom that picks up nicely at the end and redeems itself a little. The story is fairly simple, with stereotypical wooden characters there to make a point. Matt LeBlanc in the leading role is disappointing, although the supporting cast props him up well, especially Eddie Izzard. Nicolette Krebitz is beautiful to look at and gives a good performance. The voice-over explanation before the film starts is useless, and there are no subtitles during the German language portions of the film. What's frustrating is there are many opportunities for sub-plots that would add to the story but they are not used much, except for the one involving Tony Parker's German male lover. There are some moments of cleverness but the film is quite static and somewhat boring. However, some viewers enjoy this movie. Jörn-Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, Robert Folk, and Michael Lloyd composed the music score. David Schneider wrote the screenplay from a story by Digby Wolfe, Joseph Manduke, and June Roberts. Stefan Ruzowitzky directed.

46億年の恋 (2006)

Jun Ariyoshi (Ryuhei Matsuda), who works at a gay bar, is sexually assulted by a customer, goes into a frenzy and kills the man. While being transported to a juvenile detention facility, Jun meets another young man Shiro Kazuki (Masanobu Ando), an impressive handsome youth with curious tattoos. The story follows the emotional homoerotic relationship between these two juvenile prisoners. Shiro displays his brute force from the beginning and the timid Jun is attracted to Shiro's intensity and strength. Jun is the only person Shiro opens up to as they accept each other for who they are.

Near the beginning of the film a guard witnesses a murder. One of the young men strangles another prisoner in a common area. As the victim takes his last breath, the assailant cries, "It's Jun". Tears flow down the face of the young man who turns to the guard. It is Jun. The man lying dead on the floor is Shiro. We realize that what seems to be an act of homicide is a consequence of a much more complex past, which is revealed in a story that meanders from the present to the past, and back, to possible futures. A series of flashbacks and fragments of Jun and Shiro's memories are mixed with their yearnings, anxieties and tensions in the world they are imprisoned in. In the end, two detectives solve the murder of Shiro, but the real resolution remains unspoken and hidden in Jun and Shiro's relationship.

Director Miike Takashi offers no easy way to understand his two protagonists, yet a few times he hints that child abuse may be the real crime to condemn. The prison, shown in a brownish yellow atmosphere, is literally the centre stage of this mystery, since many of the scenes strongly resemble a theater play. But the prison also offers a strong metaphor of our modern life, as Miike reminds us in the final scenes. Everyone is a prisoner of everyday life. Miike considers "Big Bang Love: A Juvenile Love Story of 4600 Million Years" his masterpiece, and it is certainly his most intellectually and aesthetically challenging film. Sexual tensions and explosive violence drive the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals. Masa Nakamura wrote the screenplay based on the novel "Shônen A erejî" by Ikki Kajiwara and Hisao Maki. "46-okunen no koi" translates as "The Love of 4600 Million Years". In Japanese with English subtitles. The English titles are "Big Bang Love, Juvenile A" and "4.6 Billion Years of Love".

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Set in Portland, Oregon in 1971, Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon) is a 26 year-old ringleader of a "family" of drug addicts who travel across the American Pacific Northwest supporting their habit by robbing pharmacies and hospital drug cabinets in search of Valium, Dilaudid and other narcotics to pop, shoot and snort. With his frustrated wife Dianne (Kelly Lynch), his loyal easygoing partner Rick (James Le Gros), and Rick's juvenile girlfriend Nadine (Heather Graham), Bob plots ingenious heists and spends the rest of his time sitting around the house getting high.

When the heat becomes too intense in Portland, the quartet hits the road for small-town drug stores and hospitals, but when their luck runs out it does so in grand fashion. A highlight of the film is an appearance by recovering addict Tom (William S. Burroughs), a defrocked priest who lectures Bob on the dangers of temptation, adding some penetrating social commentary towards the end. After a tragedy strikes the "family" Bob decides to try to "go straight," but finds that there is more to extricating himself from the drug user's lifestyle than just giving up drugs. His inner war with fear and dark forces eventually compels him to enter a methadone treatment program, then find a regular job, even though he knows it means breaking up the "family".

The movie definitely captures the 1970s era well with its acting, dialogue and wardrobe. Performances by Dillon and the others are very good. The mood of this crime drama is generally uncomfortable, however some comic relief is added throughout in the dialogue and trippy visual imagery. Some of the pranks they pull on detective Gentry (James Remar) whom they are eluding are quite humorous. Elliot Goldenthal composed the movie score. Gus Van Sant and Daniel Yost wrote the screenplay derived from James Fogle's book of the same title. Openly gay Gus Van Sant directed. It was his breakthrough picture, very well-received critically.

El Sacerdote (1978)

Padre Miguel (Simón Andreu) is a 36 year-old priest, handsome, athletic, expressive, sweet, and virile. His eyes express a certain shyness, and he is sad about his sexuality as he struggles against his own conscience. Daily he is reminded of his lustful needs, which range from a young boy to a married village beauty. The continuing presence in his confessional of Irene (Esperanza Roy), a woman about 30 years old, very beautiful, with an expression of meditation hiding her passionate nature undermines his faith and religious convictions. His continuing doubts and weaknesses along with memories of a difficult childhood lead to a torn and cruel inevitability.

"El Sacerdote" is very enlightening about the sexual conflicts which arise in an environment of imposed celibacy. It is obvious that the modern Catholic church includes many priests who do not remain celibate, and their sexuality if ignored or abused will cause serious problems for the community. Without getting to those dire consequences, Padre Miguel recognizes his own apparent obsession with sex, and turns to his superiors for help. The efforts to change him, to affirm the counter-instinctual ban on sex, lead through a tour of his childhood and the foundation of his life. Sexuality is normal for a man, and so it becomes a contest of mind over matter. The priest discovers that one cannot deny the body, home of desire, just as we do not deny mind, home of the spirit. His tragedy is a giant finger pointing at the church, accusing it of being forever stuck in the kindergarten of spirituality, deprived of the wisdom that would come from a sexually mature world view.

This controversial account of a priest experiencing mid-life depression from an obsession with sexual fantasies leads him to make a tough decision: should he renounce his calling or stay and battle the demons of the flesh that may destroy him? It's a touching film, with brief nude scenes and violent depictions of the torturous lengths a man will go to find peace with himself and his God. Director Eloy de la Iglesia said that he talks "about the world of which the majority of filmmakers do not care to speak, the marginal world...I am the one who always wants to make the films that are not supposed to be made. I'm the one interested in the subjects that everyone else has agreed not to talk about." Carmelo Bernaola composed the music score, and Enrique Barreiro wrote the screenplay. In Spanish with English subtitles. The English title is "The Priest".

The Garden (1990)

"The Garden" is a series of beautiful images depicting The Passion of Christ--substituting the life of Jesus with the modern plight of gay men for understanding. A gay couple (Johnny Mills and Kevin Collins) represents Jesus and through a series of surreal and absurd visuals, the condemnation of Christ is represented. There is no story told out loud, it's within the subconscious of the movie itself and that of the viewer. The Virgin Mary (Tilda Swinton) becomes a modern day celebrity harassed by media paparazzis and Mary Magdaline (Spencer Leigh) becomes a vilified drag queen. We are treated to the campy, weird and shocking imagery of two lovers tortured by a cop dressed as Santa Claus, a drag queen stoned by debutantes in slow motion, and Jesus (Roger Cook) walking by a nuclear power station. Sounds like Monty Python.

The god-like narration is a poem about the journey the film takes and the pain of loss associated with AIDS. As the narration states, this film "wants to share this loneliness with you" and it's non-narrative, experimental and home movie like quality takes you on a wonderful "journey without direction". The film takes the persecution of Christ and puts it in modern times, or an unknown time for that matter. There are two homosexual martyrs who are persecuted like Christ, by the church, and many strange visual delights, but not much dialogue except for poetic narration. Like Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain", it's full of bizarre religious images. The set pieces and costumes are very avant-garde and colorful. If you like weird art-house films with hallucinatory imagery, you'll probably enjoy "The Garden".

Filmed in the stark environment of director Derek Jarman's coastal home in the shadow of Dungeness power station, "The Garden" is a jazzed-up home movie very much a relic of its time, a powerful and moving series of allegorical dreamscapes. The narrative unfolds to find Jarman asleep at his desk, surrounded by Christian imagery. His dreams transpose New Testament events into a contemporary context, examining repressive attitudes towards homosexuality, the AIDS crisis and exploring Jarman's own feelings towards the Church. It's a collage movie, combining images, shot on super 8 film with a soundtrack by long time collaborator Simon Fisher Turner consisting of music, noises, soundcapes, and spoken words. Never has a "home movie" been so professionally done that is is suitable for a large movie theater. Yet it is a very personal cinematic confession. Like many of Jarman's films, it is quite esoteric--but you don't have to be gay to be moved by it's sheer passion and spiritual presence. People seem to love his work or despise it. He is definitely pretentious, and The Daily Mail commented that it is Jarman's "most silly film".

Gay USA (1978)

"Gay USA" is an American documentary released in1978 and directed by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. The film focuses on the burgeoning gay rights movement in the United States at a time when it was facing hostility from homophobic assholes. Comprised of footage shot at a number of Gay Pride events around the US in 1977, the film captures a time just as the gay rights movement began facing the first organized backlash in the form of Anita Bryant and her campaign to repeal anti-discrimination protection in Dade County, Florida. Gay participants as well as critical spectators are interviewed. Footage from Gay Pride marches around the country in 1977 are edited together in this documentary to give us a gay state of the nation in the late '70s. What is most interesting when viewing this film many years after it was made are the interviews with people talking about how far gay rights had come at the time.

Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (1943 - 1987) was an American filmmaker who produced gay pornography, gay-themed features, and documentaries. He died of an AIDS-related illness in NYC where he was born. Bressan directed 8 mainsteam films:

Buddies (1985)
Daddy Dearest (1984)
Juice (1984)
Abuse (1983)
Pleasure Beach (1983)
Gay USA (1978)
Forbidden Letters (1976)
Passing Strangers (1974)

He wrote most of his screenplays, edited "Space Rage" (1985), and was a cameraman for the Oscar-winning documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk" (1984). Tragically, most of his films are not available. They are gay films made by a gay man for a gay audience. But they are not available. Instead, gays are supposed to watch Hollywood crap like "Another Gay Movie". Furthermore, there is very little information available about Bressan and his films. Let's hope the situation improves.

Passing Strangers (1974)

Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Richard Locke

Robert (Robert Adams), a 28 year-old man places a personal ad in the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco. He uses Walt Whitman's "To a Stranger" poem as his message. It's answered by 18 year-old Tom (Richard Camagey), living at home with his parents. Parts of the film are narrated (Bob Middleton and Edward Guthman) by their correspondence until they finally meet. Robert becomes Tom's mentor. There are vintage lingering shots of "the scene" on Polk St. in the early 1970's, some great shots of Gay Freedom Day, a trippy hippie scene with a young Richard Locke in a bath house, and director Arthur J. Bressan Jr. has a non-sexual role early in the film as the projectionist. On Polk Street the actors are: Grant Ditxler, Patrick Lee, Leon McGraw, and Darrell Mascall. The bubble sequence features: David Dehr, Terry Hunter, Chuck Feil, John Thompson, Richard Klingerman, Ralph Osborn, and Wayne Woodcock. Richard Locke, Ralph Osborn, Wayne Woodcock, and Eddie Cadena appear in the bath house.

In Walt Whitman’s 1855 “The Leaves of Grass” there is a series of 45 poems called "Calamus", which celebrate and promote the theme of love. In “To a Stranger” Whitman expresses a general sense of longing directed at the world in general and he not only alludes to the love between a man and a woman but to the beautiful and sane affection between a man and a man. It reveals Whitman’s inner conflicts with his sexuality and his yearning to want to express his sexuality openly without restrictions imposed by society.

To a Stranger

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you--your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

"Passing Strangers" is completely unavailable. You cannot watch it, and I have not seen it, so I cannot evaluate its merits. But it did win first prize at San Francisco's Erotic Film Festival, and one reviewer regards it as a "great film". Jeffrey Olmstead composed the music score, and Arthur J. Bressan Jr. directed.

Colegas (1982)

"Colegas" is a candid study of contemporary teen friendships set in Spain, specifically the suburbs of Madrid. Antonio (Antonio Flores) and José (José Luis Manzano) have been best friends for most of their 18 years. They've drifted into a jobless lifestyle of the young, waiting for a future. Rosario (Rosario Flores) is Antonio's sister and José's girlfriend. The three are inseparable and all three face a tough job search. When Rosario discovers that she is pregnant by José, a chain of events is set in motion. While she's trying to decide her options of keeping the child, abortion, or adoption sale, the two best friends are forced into street hustling and an ever-expanding life of crime, drug running to raise money to pay for her decision. This is all balanced against their relationships with their respective families--mostly with José's brother's open sexuality and his parent's disapproval of his friends. As problems develop it seems that it will cost them much more than just money. José and Antonio decide to engage in prostitution in a gay bath house. The ending has a good and a tragic outcome for both friends.

This buddy film about lost teenagers in modern Madrid examines drug abuse, unplanned pregnacies, and awkward homosexual feelings in an unflinching and erotic style. Directed and co-authored by Spain's most outspoken filmmaker, the movie features fast pacing, sympathetic characters, harsh language, and abundant male nudity. Its believable, sympathetic, and draws parallels to American culture. Miguel Botafogo composed the music score. The screenplay was written by Gonzalo Goicoechea and Eloy de la Iglesia, who also directed. In Spanish with English subtitles. The English title is "Pals".

Я люблю тебя (2004)

In Moscow Timofei Pechorin (Evgenii Koriakovskii), a talented and upwardly mobile creator of advertising campaigns, begins a romance with Vera Kirillova (Lyubov Tolkalina), a TV news anchor with celebrity status. Their personal and professional successes are shown in the film with an artificial glossiness that suggests their happiness may be defined by their media work. Before they have time to work out their relationship, Timofei's well-ordered world is thrown into turmoil by the sudden arrival of the young Kalmyk Uloomji (Damir Badmaev), who falls on Timofei's moving car and is slightly injured. Timofei is forced to take in the unregistered migrant to avoid complications with the police. In a remarkably short time, the Asian youth uses his mysterious and mystical Eastern power to seduce his host, thus setting up an uncomfortable but inevitable ménage a trois. Vera struggles to comprehend their bond and her boyfriend's erratic behavior. She is dragged reluctantly into a bizarre love triangle. Before long, all three lives unravel, with a visit to a Buddhist healer, a three-way in the bathroom of a gay bar, a faked death, and a kidnapping.

"Ya lyublyu tebya" was more than five years in the making. It's a fable about an unusual love triangle, sweet, luscious, charming, delightful, and almost-psychedelic. The film is structured as a hodgepodge of contrasts and themes that do not seem to form any coherent artistic whole. It becomes more far-fetched with each twist of romantic fate. The artificiality of contemporary life in Moscow is juxtaposed with the more natural lifestyle of Uloomji, who seems to have a spiritual bond with the animal kingdom but can make no sense of an ATM machine. Particularly funny are two cabbies' sly references to "you know who," a certain someone high up in the government purported to be secretly gay. Overall, the film is well acted, has a good fast and choppy story, and is sometimes deliberately cheesy. Richardas Norvila composed the music score. Olga Stolpovskaja, Alisa Tanskaya, and Dmitry Troitsky wrote the screenplay. Olga Stolpovskaja and Dmitry Troitsky directed. In Russian with English subtitles. The English title is "You I Love".

Wittgenstein (1993)

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (Clancy Chassay) is shown as a boy living a repressive upbringing, with his family wearing Roman togas. When the grown-up Wittgenstein (Karl Johnson) leaves to study under Bertrand Russell (Michael Gough) at the University of Cambridge, he begins to investigate the nature and limits of language. Wittgenstein's homosexuality is depicted when, after World War I, he falls in love with a poor philosophy student, Johnny (Kevin Collins).

His friends Bertrand Russell and Lady Ottoline Morrell (Tilda Swinton) lounge in silly costumes as they discuss the correspondence of Wittgenstein (Karl Johnson). An alien dwarf (Nabil Shaban), painted green and decorated with antennae and a xylophone, engages Wittgenstein in debates that illustrate some of the philosopher's thinking. When the young Wittgenstein conducts experiments in aeronautics, he is seen wielding two lawn sprinklers and angelic white wings. Wittgenstein's love for movies in general and Carmen Miranda in particular is explained with the image of a young boy wearing 3-D glasses, sucking on sweet ices and staring at a projector's beam in an empty theater.

Although the film explains itself now and then, director Derek Jarman seems to presume his audience is familiar with the obscure philosopher's life and times. The filmmaker devotes far more to three of the principals carrying colored balls to illustrate the paths of the sun, moon and earth, than he does to delivering information more directly. Wittgenstein is portrayed in dynamic terms, engaging in stunts and conversations that define his thinking rather than serving as the subject of a portrait. Every so often the film's dark wit works, as when the dying Wittgenstein tells John Maynard Keynes (John Quentin), "I'd quite like to have composed a philosophical work that consisted only of jokes."
"Why didn't you do it?" Keynes inquires.
"Sadly, I had no sense of humor," Wittgenstein says.

The film is emotional only when it describes Wittgenstein's relationships with his male lovers, and it reverberates with echoes of the present. "Philosophy is a sickness of the mind," says the worried Wittgenstein, who at one point finds himself in a birdcage, accompanied by a caged parrot. "I shouldn't infect too many young men." At its conclusion, the film's playful and more heartfelt aspects are fused in morbidly beautiful imagery representing the philosopher's death. The dwarf has his place in the last moments of "Wittgenstein" too. Finally, Wittgenstein's death at an early age from prostate cancer is shown.

"Wittgenstein" is a humorous portrait and series of sketches of Austrian-born British philosopher Ludwig Josef Johan Wittgenstein (1889-1951), a homosexual, and an intuitive, eccentric, moody, proud, and perfectionist thinker generally regarded as a genius. This dramatization of a philosophical giant shows a fascinating personality of a gay man who was ashamed of his sexuality. It's not played out in a traditional setting, but against a black backdrop where the actors and props are placed, as if in a theater setting. The film is visually beautiful and surreal, stylish, with perfect lighting, wild colors, and elegant music. Terry Eagleton's original screenplay was heavily rewritten by director Derek Jarman, radically altering the style and structure, although retaining much of Eagleton's dialogue. Jan Latham-Koenig composed the music score. Ken Butler, Terry Eagleton, and Derek Jarman wrote the screenplay.