With the launch of the brand-new TLAgay.com, the Gay Cinema Video On Demand experience we have been offering for a long, long time was upgraded and improved. We have expanded (and continue to expand) our selection of new and old gay-themed movies available for your viewing pleasure. Here’s just five of our current favorites, from various years, that you may have missed – ALL available to watch INSTANTLY! These aren’t our TOP 5, by any means – just a handful of flicks we want to highlight.
Aya Arcos © TLA Releasing
2014, Brazil
Writer-director Maximilian Moll’s first feature film, Aya Arcos, roams with its two unequal heroes around a never-cooling Rio de Janeiro, a city in which beauty and melancholy, life’s ease and its difficulty, often go side by side. Fabio (Daniel Passi) is a 21-year-old hustler working the heady streets of Rio when he meets Edu (Cesar Augusto), a successful author. They soon embark on a passionate and wild relationship. But whilse Fabio is sexually adventurous and carefree, Edu is far more protective. With several demons from his past that he has yet to face, Edu finds emotional connections difficult to maintain. The pair must try to navigate a path together – can they really live for the moment, or will the realities of life crush them completely? An official selection at the Montreal World Film Festival and the Torino Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Aya Arcos infuses its troubled May-December relationship with serious sexual intensity.
The Casserole Club © Breaking Glass Pictures
2011, United States
Based in 1969, writer/director Steve Balderson‘s The Casserole Club follows a group of childless suburban couples who start getting together for dinner parties on a weekly basis. As the group becomes collectively more intoxicated during the first party, they start fooling around with one another and acting out fantasies they had previously kept hidden. What begins as an exciting weekly respite from the strict boundaries of married life soon takes an emotionally destructive turn when the men begin inviting newcomers and jealousies bubble to the surface. One undeniably sexy exchange concerns a lusty, half-closeted married man who seduces a slightly younger, seemingly straight stud… who gives in to his harmless curiosity.
Night Scene © Water Bearer Films
2005, China
Night Scene is a rare docudrama about male sex workers in Beijing. Descending on parks, nightclubs and other public spaces to interview both real-life “rent boys” and actors posing as prostitutes, director Zi’en Cui (Withered in a Blooming Season, The Old Testament, My Fair Son) breaks and restructures the styles of drama, documentary, and subject interviews to provide an intimate look at a largely hidden subculture. Candid confessions provide a peek into the world of Beijing’s street hustlers, touching on common themes like gay rights, class disparities, family tension and the pursuit of real romance.
Role/Play © Guest House Films
2010, United States
When hunky soap opera star Graham Windsor (Steve Callahan) is outed as the result of a gay sex tape scandal, he seeks refuge at an exclusive Palm Springs resort. But quiet anonymity eludes him when handsome marriage-equality activist Trey Reed (Matthew Montgomery) checks in to escape the fallout from his own bitter divorce. As an undeniable passion begins to sizzle between Graham and Trey, they force each other to confront their professional downfalls – and the firestorm each has created in the gay press. Lushly photographed at an actual Palm Springs resort, Role/Play was the fifth feature film from writer/director Rob Williams, the same man behind Shared Rooms, Make the Yuletide Gay and the upcoming Happiness Adjacent.
Seed Money (c) Breaking Glass Pictures
2015, United States
Seed Money tells the the fascinating and largely unknown story of Chuck Holmes, the San Francisco pornographer who founded Falcon Studios. As a major contributor to gay advocacy groups, Holmes helped create and shape gay identity in the 20th century, only to find out that while his money was welcome in philanthropic circles, he sometimes was not. Funny, candid and completely eye-opening (in more ways than one), this feature-length documentary is packed with mind-blowing (and often load-blowing) archival footage as well as interviews with notable figures, including Chi Chi LaRue, Jeff Stryker, Scissor Sisters front-man Jake Shears and John Waters. Learn all about one of the gay communities most unheralded hero – seems like it’s the least we can do for him!
