No Regret (2006)

A low class orphan boy, now man, struggles to make a living in Seoul. Eventually he turns to being a high-end rent boy. The protagonist is good enough looking. But they should have found a significantly less unattractive supporting actor for the love interest. Was he somehow a friend of the director? Or a well known straight actor? Sure, a more attractive love interest might have changed the script, but it would have also made a lot more sense within the existing framework.

Love of Siam (2007)

A longish Thai film with traces of a soap opera in the script, but I enjoyed much of it. Mario Maurer, probably 18 years old when the movie was made, plays one of the boys and is astoundingly pretty. Overall the film is very gay friendly. Even the straight boys are affectionate. One tongue kisses a friend during CPR drill and says he was just curious. Still it is a modern and realistic portrayal with homophobia still serving as a source of conflict.

# # # Spoiler

I was temporarily miffed at the non-Hollywood ending, but actually it made me think. Maurice was the story with an unequivocally positive ending which made watching gay movies finally worthwhile. With so many gay themed movies out there, I'm again ready for the less positive endings.

Fashion Victims (2007)

Florian Bartholomäi who plays the gay son is just cute enough to make this gay tilted comedy worth seeing. Apparently, he was in The Reader playing the older brother to the Michael Berg character though I don't remember that clearly. The script has some funny twists and conflict, but nothing really noteworthy. There is a very low key coming out scene. There is a slightly unsympathetic lesbian story line as well. Oh yeah, the movie is in German.

Intelligence and How to Get It by Richard Nisbett

Most interesting are the chapters on Asians and Jews. Nisbett goes out of his way to say that Asians don't have higher IQs than Europeans/European Americans. (Thanks, dude!) But Asians just work harder and the importance of family rather than individual results in increased motivation to success. Nisbett then tries to explain how Jews disproportionately obtain Nobel prizes.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

I had low expectations for this anthology of New Yorker pieces by Gladwell. Well, I mean because usually such a conglomeration of stuff seems not very timely and jumbled. A surprising number of the chapters were quite interesting. And in fact, I felt the same way afterwards as when I normally read a Gladwell book: which is like I'm not sure what I've learned after reading it, except for some random interesting facts. A book of this style is uniquely suited for reading piecemeal.

(500) Days of Summer [2009]

I always liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt from his 3rd Rock days, though I had a thought that he wouldn't look so great grown up. In this film, he's got a mysterious attraction, despite the longish hair, angular face, and impossibly slim physique. I'm going to say something annoying here that girls say so often, but myself almost never: it's the eyes -- I think. Anyway, I really liked this film. The acting is great. I think it's said in other reviews, but it was a bit like falling in love as vicariously as that can be in watching a film. The way it ends is perhaps not a surprise, but the how and why are strangely intense. And the music is excellent.

# # # Major spoilers

After some discussion with friends, apparently the blue theme of the post-coital celebration apparently represents something. Except for in that scene, the female character is the only character in the film to wear blue (I never noticed this). And in a way, that color blue indicates something about the behavior of that character. She is not a typical female. In fact, she acts almost like a male in a female's body which leads to the gay interest tag here. How come I never noticed that she was always wearing blue? First of all, because I'm a male and I don't notice those sorts of things. Second, I'm gay and I never really looked carefully at the girl.

Avatar (2009)

Sam Worthington is my new favorite actor. He looks great in 3-D, too.

Okay now a few words about the movie. The story is quite good, keeps you riveted despite the length (2:42), in a way similar to Titanic but with significantly less love story and more Al Gore story, but in a good way. Versus Titanic, Avatar has even more incredible eye candy.

As everyone says, the 3-D starts a bit gimmicky but soon becomes more subtle and very pleasing. The world is beautiful. I couldn't suppress any of my gasps and murmured 'wow's in several scenes. Avatar is one of the few movies that I would go to see again in the theater. I don't know how or whether the 3D can be done well on DVD, but I kept the glasses just in case.

I did notice that at points the 3-D imaging with some particular camera lenses resulted in strange sizing effects with things looking out of proportion. Some people in the center of the frame looking much bigger than those at the edges. Hopefully this can be fixed in future 3-D films.

Outing Riley (2004)

After the film, I thought Pete Jones, the actor playing the protagonist (as well as writer and director) must be gay, but it turns out he has a wife and kids. I suppose he must have some great gay friends because the film turned out well. I'd read some criticism on imdb of the film that it wasn't gay enough. But actually I thought it was pretty well spot on and rang pretty well true.