The Princess of Montpensier (2010), rating: 7/10

French movie about a love triangle (quadrangle arguably) takes place during the period of 17th century France when Catholics and Protestants warred.  A wealthy heiress's marriage is arranged counter to her desires for her childhood sweetheart.  Her jealous (but IMO better looking) husband reacts with the typical mate guarding behaviors.  Nevertheless, the old flame stays alive.

Making Sense of People by Samuel Barondes, rating: 9/10

The subtitle is Decoding the Mysteries of Personality.  It is actually a fairly technical modern psychology book, but puts it all in layman's terms.  It talks about some ten of the troublesome personality patterns, including types like: histrionic, dependent or compulsive.  These were terms I'd heard about before, but never until now got a full understanding of.  The book isn't very long, a significant plus.

And now for a surprise...

Victim (1961) rating: 9/10

While homosexuality was a crime in England, gay men cowered when blackmailed with pictures taken with a telephoto lens.  But one stands up to take the blackmailers on.

Surprisingly well done argument for repealing of the law against homosexuality wrapped in a kind of action film.  Pretty astounding for a film of 1961.

Brideshead Revisited (1981) rating: 8/10

The first half of this mini-series is amazingly about a pair of platonic gay best friends. That part is fun, but also very disappointing in a way that a 1980s mini-series about platonic gay people probably had to be.

The second half is much much less interesting. Plus, the protagonist, Charles Ryder, switches teams. What a mother f**ker! The protagonist is actually not a good person in my opinion. Among other faults, he's a poor example of a non-believer and he really doesn't back his friend properly. A traitor really.

[One might reason that Charles was just romanced by the wealth of the family, not by any of them.  If Charles is heterosexual, when it was clear Sebastian liked boys (one day in), the right honorable thing should have been to stay away and not lead him on.  If Charles is bisexual, then I'm not sure what I would say.  Maybe, make up your mind, dude!]

Throughout there is a surprising focus on religion, (Catholicism) especially in the second half, which I personally found quite boring and uninteresting. That a dying old man who never went to church in 

Take Me Home Tonight (2011) rating: 6/10

Topher Grace is the lead in this film flashback to the '80s. I really like Topher, but I'll try not let it color my review here. The movie is not very funny, though there are a few good moments in the script. The presentation of the hackneyed lesson of not wasting your life as a spectator is a little obvious. Seeing Topher shirtless makes up for the movie's shortcomings somewhat.

One confusing thing is Topher wears his watch on his right arm, but eats with his right. As an almost pure lefty, I find that weird. But maybe it makes sense, like just putting on a watch is easier for his left hand.

Limitless (2011) rating: 7/10

What if there were a pill to make you smart? What if not only the smart effects went away when you stopped, but actually made you rather more stupid and even physically frail. If the story sounds a little familiar, it is a bit like Flowers for Algernon, but only a bit.

It's actually interesting how this film sort of worships being smart in all its forms, and especially not the hard working kind of studious smart, but really the easy as pie learn through osmosis street smart where it seems there is a solution to everything if only you are smart enough.

Has good action sequences, too.

Soundless Wind Chime (2009) rating: 7/10

So confusing that I had to re-watch it to understand the plot. Half of the movie is in flashback, but no explanation is really given for the non-flashback portion until way later (which is why going back to see it again is helpful). But I still have no idea why the movie is called what it is.

Two gay guys (Chinese and Swiss) become friends and seemingly nothing more despite living together.

Permanent Residence (2009) rating: 8/10

Could a straight guy ever love a gay friend enough to be his boyfriend? Obviously impossible, but that doesn't keep this movie from contriving to make it happen.

Set in Hong Kong with fairly attractive actors, the movie is well shot, and yes, there's a lot of male nakedness.