>Hugz<

Geography Club is an American coming-of-an-age queer cinema, which was released in 2013. It portrays young gay lovers, one of them is try to put his step forward by joining a support group and the other is try to remain closeted to sustain his status as captain in his soccer team. 'Geography Club' is actually a support group for lgbt teens, and they use that name because they expect the name itself could protect them form unwanted attention, because geography club sounds so boring. This movie is based on the book with the same title.

Lose Your Head is a German movie, which reminds me of Stranger by the Lake . Both of them were released in 2013. The main characters of both movies arrive at a new place(one to Berlin, the other to a deserted lake) to find a mysterious man with secrets. Even though both of them suspect that the mysterious man might be responsible for serious crime, each of them falls in love with him. And both of them put themselves in the same spot with the precedent victims. I am a type who cannot enjoy a movie fully, when the main character is not reasonable. I don't know why but even when I was still a student I could not enjoy any movie when the main character is not reasonable. For example, in the " Dancer in the Dark ", why doesn't Bjork turn to police or other authorities when her money was stolen??? Women are not born to be reasonable or what??? Is that what the directer, Lars von Trie wanted to say??? For the same reason, I felt uncomfortable when I watched ...

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Just like The Catcher in the Rye , the lead character moves around without any specific aims at all, throughout the movie. Actually I didn't recall why the narrator of the novel left his home or dorm in the first place. I read it more than a decade ago. Not like the novel, in this movie, the main character is gay played by a gay actor, Jonathan Groff(Kristoff in Frozen ). The IMDB describes the main character as "cocky." But I don't buy that. He was just hurt (maybe when he came out to his mother, her reaction was not what he had expected) and left everything he had and tried anything seemingly different. But things kept on being complicated when he didn't face his own sexuality and just turned away every time. In a sense, I cannot blame him for that.

G.B.F. is an American film on a high school boy, Tanner. He was outed and out of sudden, targeted by three prom-queen-wannabees who want gay best friends to secure their throne. In some ways, this movie reminds me of  Mean Girls . But still I think this is hilarius and the script is quite good, even if not the best.

There have been movies dealing with the early 1980's when AIDS did not have its name. And the Band Played on , Longtime companion , and so on. The Normal Heart is another queer movie dealing with that era, based on the play of the same title. It has not been released in the theater yet. I look forward to watching it soon.

Date and Switch is an American queer movie. Two main characters, one in yellow polo shirts and the other one with hooded sweatshirt- are long-time friends and they promised to help each other lose virginity before their prom. And Matty, the one in yellow, came out to Michael, the one with hooded sweatshirt. Michael got confused even if he made up his mind to accept Matty as he is. And the way these two deal with the situation is the main story of this movie. It is funny that in usual queer movies, Michael is supposed to be gay but the movie is about how Michael reacts to and accept Matty's coming out. Michael and Matty made mistakes but they learned to deal with Matty's sexuality.

Los Amantes Pasajeros is latest Almodovar film. A couple of months ago, I watched the trailer of this movie, in which 3 male flight attendants dance and lip-sync to dance music like queens. After that I longed to watch this film for months. The movie was run last year in many countries and even the title was released as DVD. But there is no sign of releasing in Korea.

I visit Seoul LGBT Film Festival almost annually. This year I visited for a film on the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, Love Free or Die . I found him very familiar not knowing why. Couples of days later, I watched another documentary on Christianity and sexual minorities, For the Bible Tells Me So , to find that Robinson is one of the main characters.  I watched the latter years ago, which is why I found Robinson familiar but didn't remember where I had seen him. 

Two short queer movies from the director of 'No Regret'. The first one is named after one of the oldest gay-themed movie(although the gay character was not shown, nor he is referred as gay). It's about a student and his teacher. The student met his teacher in a gay bar and followed him around and threatened him to go a short boat trip. What could happen afterwards? The second one is about an affair between soldiers. The one finished his time and left army. The other thought that there something left between themselves and contacted  the former in the last vacation before the end of his time in army. What would happen on their way back to the base? The director, Hee-il Lee-song, seems to like to portray very intensive love affairs, like the characters think that their love is the only thing that has left to them.

The movie is based on true story. The mother of Bobby didn't embrace the fact that her son is gay. Bobby suffered from the alienation from his family, especially from his mother. After Bobby took his own life, the mother tries to make it all right, visits church where people have different opinion on what the Bible tells and finally becomes a figure of PFLAG . I almost cried watching this movie. This blog is mostly dedicated to non-english source or at least materials published in Korea. But sometimes, I'll be posting things like this.

Taken at the Taipei Main Station.

Recently, I had a chance to visit Taiwan. During the stay, I came across the movie posters of this movie at many places. I could detect that there must be something gay-themed in this movie. The title itself and the poster said there's something between two male lead characters.  But I didn't have the chance to watch the movie. After some research on the net, I came to know that my guess was right. In the trailer, the male characters even kissed each other.  In Korea, the movie seems to be premiered at the Busan International Film Festival(BIFF, former PIFF).

Documentary on four gay men in 2000s. One film directer. One activist. One chef. And one salaryman. They're leading extradordinary lives in their own ways; making queer movies, acting as a gay activist; being a member of a gay chorus; partnered with a man with HIV+. There were laughters and tears, even a death to my surprise. I got so relieved that I had the chance to see this movie at LGBT film festival.

Sweet Sixties (2004) deals with elder people's romance. And one of the characters faces an unwanted blind date. In fact he is gay and lives with his elder brother. On the d-day he stands up his date and visits a gay bar. Good to see that he's not typical gay like in many other queer movies.

A film by famous Spanish director, Almodovar. In a Catholic boarding school, there were two boys who had feelings for each other. One of the boy was an altar boy and because of his looks and angelic voice he caught the eyes of one father and was abused sexually and made to part with the other boy. Many years later, the other boy has become a renowned film director. And the former altar boys visits him with a script based on their experiences at the school and asks for the role of "himself" in the movie. The film director was charmed by the script and starts to shoot the movie but soon he finds that the friend of his was hiding a big secret. I watched the movie for the second time, last night. But I was wowed by the film once again.

Most of the part of this film was filmed with a hand-held camera. There are two men who's been a couple several years. But one of them is getting married and the other is letting him go. They recorded their last time together in a motel, out in the beach, etc. Many Korean gays could relate to these subjects, marriage, long-term relationships and so on, I suppose. But even if I could relate to their situations, I couldn't relate to the way they responded to the seperation.

You know it or not, Korea is divided into two different country, South Korea and North Korea. The movie, Stateless Things , shows two minorities in South Korea who are starting a bond between each other. The one is a refugee from North Korea, who finds it hard to ignore the injustice in South Korea (One of the co-worker, who is also a refugee from N. Korea, suffers from sexual harassment at the factory). The other is (maybe) disowned and making living by, sort-of, selling his body(though, he doesn't live on on the street..). I haven't had the chance to watch the movie. But I'm looking forward to watching it.

One of my all-time favorite movies! I watched this movie with Korean sub some ten years ago. Before this title is released locally, I only had a dvd with English subtitles. So it was only second time that I watched this movie with Korean subtitles. Some of the lines I misunderstood. Other lines, the translator of this dvd got it wrong. Mask was used for some scenes because of frontal nudity. Though I felt a little disappointed at the translation, I'm glad this title is released atn the local market at last.

Just Friends is the 2nd film by Kwang-su Kim-jo, the director of "Boy meets a boy" and producer of "No Regret". His 1st film "Boy meets a boy" deals with the love between teenagers. The director says that he was frequentely asked if he was doing the sequel to it. "Just Friends" could be one in a way that it deals with love between friends in their 20's. In Korean, the title of this movie is "Chin-gu-sa-i". It's also the name of a famous LGBT organization of Korea. The name also express the status of Korean minorities who cannot fully express their relationship with their same-sex partner. Instead of saying "We're lovers", they tend to answer "Us? We're just friends" if asked. Back to the movie, In Korea, most men in their 20s has to serve in the army for 2 years. It can be hard for anyone, but it can be harder for gays and trans-gendereds. The movie starts with a man who visits his love...