Uncategorized

FAQs, directed by Everett Lewis, is a low-budget effort to deal with homophobia. At the beginning, while the title FAQs morphs into FAGs and back again, there is an extended quote from the homophobic 2004 Texas Republican Party platform. Next, India (played by Joe Lia) is lying on bed awaiting someone to join him in […]

Freedomland, directed by Joe Roth, is a combination of Crash (2005) and The Forgotten (2004) in which racial tensions erupt while a mother is suffering from posttraumatic stress over the loss of her child. The two themes, however, are credible only up to a point. First, single mom Brenda Martin (played by Julianne Moore) is walking to a hospital

Dreamgirls, directed by Bill Condon, is a film of a 1981 Broadway musical that roughly seeks to portray the rise of pop music within the African American community in Detroit, though with entirely original music. The story, loosely based on the rise of the Supremes, shows the seamier side of the music business. When the

The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese, is a cops-and-robbers story about organized crime in Boston. An elite unit, commanded by Captain Ellerby (played by Alec Baldwin), has a new recruit, Colin Sullivan (played by Matt Damon), who plays a key role in the unit but is a mole reporting to crime boss Frank Costello (played

Release of The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard, has been preceded by a lot of hype. The plot, which is based on Dan Brown’s silly best seller, has prompted the Vatican to protest far too loudly. Scribbling on Leonardo’s painting The Last Supper, detected with blacklights, leads the principals Professor Robert Langdon (played by

Edmond, directed by Stuart Gordon, is based on a play by David Mamet that was first performed in the early 1980s. The plot centers on an Everyman named Edmond Burke (played by William H. Macy, the Everyman in Focus (2001) who defied public prejudices to stand up for decency). Edmond‘s Everyman, who has been politically correct during his

Changing Times (Les temps qui changent), directed by André Téchiné, is a French film about unrequited romances. Some thirty years earlier, Antoine Lavau (played by Gérard Depardieu) and Cécile (played by Catherine Deneuve) fell in love, enjoyed each other sexually, but somehow did not marry. Antoine went on to become a successful builder, whereas Cécile’s

Bobby, directed by Emilio Estevez, is a biopic about Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy, focusing on the day in June 1968 when he was assassinated. The movie features a lot of film footage from that day, when he won the California presidential preferential primary, and concludes with a montage of photos accompanying Bobby’s equivalent of the

The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros), directed by Aureaus Solito, is a coming-of-age film about twelve-year-old Maximo Oliveros (played by Nathan Lopez). His mother is dead, his father Paco (played by Soliman Cruz) is a gangster, and his two older brothers, Boy (played by Neil Ryan Sese) and Bogs (played by

Another Gay Movie, directed and written by Todd Stephens, focuses on four San Torum High School gays in Southern California (actually Culver City High, though the fictional school’s name clearly refers to the homophobic Pennsylvania senator) who are virgins but pledge to get laid before college starts in the fall. The film, in short, takes