A Brilliant Conflict

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Unlike some other reviewers, I watch movies for the quality of the entertainment, not for the quality of the preaching. If I want to learn about AIDS, about the history or symptoms or progression or politics of the disease, I'll look it up - I won't watch a movie. I watch movies ONLY to be entertained, never to be educated.The big problem with this movie is that it's stupid, boring and totally, totally unbelievable. It starts out like a farce, with cartoon good kids and cartoon bullies and cartoon bad parents all interacting frenetically; and the thirtysomething high school kid pumping his thing behind his unlocked door right when Mom and Dad and Little Sis noisily come home - but does he hear them before they barge in and catch him full-handed? Of course not! Or even like a high school musical (the painfully contrived, amateur Fame-esque dance that bursts out of nowhere on the high school steps as the opening credits roll?) Or God only knows what - except that it turns into a maudlin, preachy, soapy tragedy long before the end.This is a TERRIBLE movie, in which Luxembourgers talk like Cockneys and the Dutch talk like Americans and everybody always looks like they just stepped out of the shower... and it's all just a crazy, mixed-up, phony mess that's as annoying as gnats swarming around your face. I hated it.

I liked this film a lot. Admittedly there were some questionable parts, but overall this film does what it sets out to; reel you in with many bare torsos and shove reality in your face with a hard knock, amid a love story that ultimately has you caring about it by the end.Layke Anderson is wonderful in this. I haven't seen him in anything else, but he's fantastic as the rebellious party-boy who finds his own heart. It's a shame he finds it with Benn Northover (whom I haven't seen in anything else either), who pales in comparison to pretty much every other performer in this film. He seems an odd choice next to Anderson, and his character is lost among the other, more colourful ones.Udo Kier and Stephen Webb are good for the laughs, which are few, but effective.House of Boys pulls no punches in depicting disease and the effects it can cause; this may be unsettling for some, but you'll be glad you sat through it. It's not life-changing, but see it for Anderson's performance, and Udo Kier in drag. Obviously.

This movie surprised me, but not in a very positive way. I know they intended to recreate the atmosphere of the eighties, but I could hardly believe that I was watching a movie that was made as recently as in 2009! The script is close to melodramatic, the acting was (with a few exceptions) awkward and the settings looked cheap and fake. I'm convinced of the good intentions of the makers, that is: to serve the important cause of keeping up the awareness of the world in regard to AIDS, but this cause would have been better served with a little bit more of a balance between the grave message and the way to deliver it.The storyline was okay. Somewhere in the eighties Frank, a young gay party-animal travels to Amsterdam to submerge himself in the party-circuit, and in search of a roof over his head he's offered refuge in a boys club annex cabaret annex brothel, where he finds work and warmth among the "family" of boys and the proprietor Madame (Udo Kier). Frank falls in love with one of the dancers (Jake). After some misunderstandings this love is reciprocated, but then fate comes down like an axe and Jake is diagnosed with this new terrible disease, the "gay cancer" AIDS. The rest of the movie we watch Jake slowly dying.This premise can hardly be called original. Many movies already have pictured the early days of AIDS, with it's dramatic consequences. So you have to come up with something pretty good to make a difference. Unfortunately that's not the case here.For starters: the script is way too dramatic, on the brink of larmoyancy. The last half hour of the movie all the actors gather around their dying friend, perpetually crying and sobbing in each other's arms, screaming to heaven out of sheer frustration, etc. etc. The slow decay of Jake is pictured in a very realistic and extreme way, which may be intended to make an important point (like: see how terrible AIDS is), but this more or less overshadows the realism that's necessary to the dramatic storyline. We hardly get time to grow some sympathy for both lovers, who in the beginning of the movie both are extremely egotistical and opportunist; then they suddenly turn into lovers and wham: there's the disease to spoil it all. This made it very hard for me to feel for either of them, in spite of the buckets of shed tears.Then I had some reservations about the settings. Why Amsterdam (apart from it's notorious sex-image)!? They never show us anything of the real Amsterdam, and to my knowledge there never was such a sophisticated gay cabaret in town (if only!). Furthermore everyone talks fluently and accent-free English. In Holland?? It's as if there's not one Dutch person in town. Even the good doctor has an English name (in a Dutch hospital??). In the club we see a few erotic dance-acts, and there's also some gay making-out between lovers, but for a 2009-movie with the specific subject of an erotic venue/brothel, it's all filmed very discreet and almost prudish.Layke Anderson as Frank at least has an interesting screen-presence, and it's clear to see that he is willing and enthusiastic, but the direction and script made his character so one-dimensional that he failed to move me. His acting consists of bursts of emotion: extreme mirth, sudden anger, total devastation, etc. Again it's probably the direction that's to blame. Benn Northover as Jake looks like he was barely going through the required motions and didn't much believe in the whole project anyway. There was no chemistry between the two whatsoever. Veteran Udo Kier of course gave his usual professional performance, but he doesn't really get enough chance to make something more of his role as "Madame", the brothel proprietor, than a stereotype, he's too much busy with being haughty and snubby and ad-libbing one-liners. His drag-act though is absolutely great!! Stephen Fry is okay but his only task is to be extremely friendly and understanding and look wise. Not much to put your teeth in. But I did like Eleanor Davis as good Samaritan Emma and I especially liked Steven Webb as Angelo (later: Angela): beautiful, funny, sexy and with a very easy and natural way of acting, even in the unnatural queery attitude he had to play, and that's a real accomplishment! To end positive, there were a few scenes that seemed to be from a totally different movie and that were surprisingly beautiful. They were flash-backs of Jake's childhood in some Mid-West-like forlorn part of America, where Jake as a boy lost his mother, had to endure his father's (sexual) abuse and at last decided to elope from. It sounds like a bit much, but they comprised all of this in a handful of very short but poignant scenes, in an exquisite photography. It's a shame that the rest of the movie couldn't have been in this same vein.

I saw this nice little movie in Luxembourg one week or so after it's premier here. Basically it's a story of two teenage boys who leave home for different reasons and meet up within a Gay show club in Amsterdam. After falling in love, one ends up sick with AIDS. Stephen Fry plays a sympathetic doctor but basically helpless with the knowledge of the disease back in the 80s. All the cast act great. I was impressed. Apart from a few short porno scenes, it is a neat little gay drama with some nice music and film direction. There are also some scenes filmed in Luxembourg and Morocco.If the movie doesn't come to your town, buy it on DVD when released!