Alien Nation Podcast & More Movies

Today I released episode 31 of my Alien Nation podcast, were my brother and I cover the second part of the fourth TV movie The Enemy Within. My brother and I are still having a fantastic time recording these podcasts. We got one more TV movie and then the actual film they series is based on before we move to comic book and novels.

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I continued my watch of Netflix "Gay" Themed movies... first I watch "East is East". George Khan, proud Pakistani and chip shop owner -- Ghengis to his kids -- rules his family with a rod of iron. He thinks he's raising his seven children to be respectable Pakistanis. But this is Salford in the North of England, in 1971. Much as George's English wife, Ella, loves and tries to honor her husband, she also wants her kids to be happy. The children, caught between bell-bottoms and arranged marriages, simply want to be citizens of the modern world.

 

This was labeled on Netflix as a Gay Comedy... well it's neither gay themed or a comedy. It wasn't a bad movie and one of the kids winds up being gay but it's not the focus of the movie. This a super dramatic movie, this father hits his kids and wife. He's horrible to his family and so set in his ways that he almost tears his family apart. I also wasn't happy with ending as his battered wife takes him back and they act like nothing happened.. back to their happy life in England. I give East is East a C, I enjoyed the movie until the end when I feel like it just wimped out and took the easy route.

 

The next movie I watched was called "In The Name Of...". Adam, a Roman Catholic priest in rural Poland, knows that he desires men and his embrace of the priesthood has been a flight from his sexuality. When he meets a particular young man, self-imposed abstinence becomes a heavy burden. 

 

I knew when I started this film that it was going to be heavy and it was. It's a Polish film and subtitled in English. I found this movie a bit odd as there wasn't really much dialogue, just these long scenes of people doing things. They would say something and then the camera would stay on them for a good extra 30 seconds and then move on. The acting was great, especially the main guy. Towards the end of the film he breaks down to his sister over Skype (about being gay and liking the young men.. but she's just horrible to him). He's so distraught that it looked as if he killed himself. They even open up the next scene with what looks like a funeral procession, but soon you find out it's some sort of church ceremony and the priest is at the end of the procession. I enjoyed the film, it's not a happy one but not all of them can be. I give In The Name Of... a pretty solid B