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Reviews
Birthright (1938)
Availability limited for this movie but excerpts are available
This film, from what I know and have seen of it, really is exceptional, quite well filmed and cast for its time. It recounts the uphill struggle that even a well educated black man faced (the handsome protagonist educated at Harvard University, at that!). Alas, its availability is quite limited. Even if there were earlier versions and remakes, silent as well as sound movies, this one deserves wider rediscovery.
For some fairly extended scenes sampled from the film, there are bits of it included on the 2008 DVD anthology, "Jammin', Jumpin', and Jivin': All Black Cast Classics. vol. 2" (Something Weird Video. available on its own WWW site).
La rage de l'ange (2006)
Good Actors and Much Imagination Make This Film Outstanding
I had not planned to write any comments about this excellent and poetic film, but J.M.'s review, good so far as it goes, dwells too much on Dan Bigras' direction alone. J.M.'s assessment of the dialog seems misconceived, too. Something should be said, too, about the actors, especially two of the young males.
The young street kids in the film, especially Francis (portrayed by Alexandre Castonguay) and Éric (acted by Patrick Martin) are not entirely kids who grew up in the slums of Montréal. Francis, for his part, has run away from a solid, quasi-middle class working man's home, rebelling against his oppressive father; Éric is a precociously artistic boy, whose innate talents go to accomplishing much more than the typical slum kid type spray-painting on street walls (although his character does just that, too). It is natural for them to speak in a more cultivated manner than many of the other street kids in the movie who are from more disadvantaged backgrounds.
The actors playing those two roles both Québécois (as are the other actors) are exceedingly pretty young men. Alexandre Castonguay, whose character, Francis, is ambiguously bisexual, is angelically gorgeous, rugged enough also to thrash his father credibly, something well suiting him to the film's moniker, which resonates with his title part. (Castonguay has aged physically a lot by the time that he made his subsequent films, although he remains a young man of more raffishly appealing physical allure.) Patrick Martin also is very good-looking, in a more fragile but appealing way, well suiting the vulnerable gay youth whom he depicts. Both are part of a street gang and pair up as "brothers" therein, Éric being useful to the gang for his talent as a graffiti artist. The other cast members all have looks which reflect their respective personalities and roles.
There is a scene of such haunting beauty that it simply cries out for separate mention. Pierre Lebeau plays the part of a sort of aging beatnik poet, who likes to wear worn-out episcopal vestments and to recite poetry at a low-life bar. (The others refer to him as "Notre Pape", a pontiff of the slums, as it were.) He intones a beautiful poem to shimmering, lovely percussion accompaniment (visibly played in the film) that is one of the most intensely poetic scenes that ever I have seen in a motion picture for mass audience consumption. It would be worth seeing the film (which is available on DVD) if it were only for this striking moment during it!
Le règne de la beauté (2014)
Lively Sex as Well as Sports in This Young Architect's Life!
I intend to see this film again, to follow its action and dialog (with subtitles) more closely than I could at the cinema house, if and when it comes out on DVD. That DVD incarnation of this film is quite likely, given the fame and popularity of Denis Arcand's films; this one is still in the theaters here in Québec, director Denis Arcand's home province. The movie is essentially a pastoral, by turns urban, by turns rural pastoral, in the life of a promising young male architect. There are lots of sports that feature in the life that he and his woman, the latter a gym teacher, anyway, lead. She has a lesbian dalliance, and he takes up with a woman from Toronto (who later in the film comes to take a position in Quebec City).
Do not let all that yuppie quality and comfort of lifestyle deter you. Éric Bruneau is a stunningly handsome, slender but very appealingly and tautly muscled young man (with a nice face, too). Women and gay men will "flip" at his numerous scenes shirtless and buck-nakedly nude. It is worth seeing the film if only to gawk at this extraordinarily beautiful young actor; there even are moments, fleeting ones, admittedly, of full frontal nudity. The women are attractive, too. I hope eventually to have a better idea of what the various goings-on really add up to. (I am very fluent in French, having lived and worked in Québec for many years, but my hearing is beginning to deteriorate as I age, so subtitles help more and more. The magnificent Québec scenery, too, is gorgeous and very skillfully filmed.
The Pretty Boys (2011)
Superbly Sensitive Film, the Best of Its Director Thus Far
I won't bother here to write a full-length review about this excellent film, since I wrote what I really wanted to say about it in my review for Amazon's WWW sites and I don't have to plaster the Internet with what I have to say. However, the 3.5 average rating on this site that has accrued so far simply is injustice beyond conception! Perhaps some who detest all things gay resulted in such an absurdly low rating.
"The Pretty Boys", just on the musical level, is exceedingly good; as a gay film, it ranks among the very top contenders, in my book. The male actors are beautiful men who know how to act and to perform musically and cinematically. See it, get the DVD, judge for yourselves. (And read my Amazon review!)