I Recommend Priest. It Will Move You!

I wanted to recommend a movie to everyone. It's not a new movie; it's a 1994 British drama film directed by Antonia Bird. The screenplay by Jimmy McGovern focuses on a Roman Catholic priest as he struggles with two issues that precipitate a crisis of faith. 

The first is incest as he gets involved in the life of a young tortured girl from his church who has become the victim of sexual molestation and incest at the hands of her own father. The second is homosexuality as the priest himself, a closeted gay man, struggles with temptation, love and his commitment to the Church.

I recommend it highly. It's not Titanic but it is a fast moving drama that I guarantee will move you. The story is quite good, regardless of whether you are straight, bi or gay. Plus, the Priest, played by Linus Roache, is very easy-on-the-eyes. Available on Netflix streaming video and disk rental. Let me know how you like it.

"Weekend" Is The Best Movie I've Seen In Years!

Last night I watched "Weekend". I read about it online. It sounded good, a gay movie that didn't really look like the typical gay movie and since I hadn't watched a movie in a while, I thought I'd give it a try. Luckily, Netflix had it available on streaming video. The movie was great!! Trust me on this please! It was one of those rare movies, at least for me, that I didn't want to end. I related to so much in this movie, especially to Russell. I think I also learned a lot about myself from this film. Well, maybe I didn't learn anything about me that I didn't already know - but perhaps this movie brought those things about me that I've kept hidden deep inside and forced me to accept and confront them. I've been confronting them all day!

"Weekend" presents 48 hours in the lives of two gay men who are almost immediately attracted to each other, then have to figure out what that means in the complex tapestry of their individual situations.

Written, directed and edited by Britain's Andrew Haigh, "Weekend" is a moving and empathetic look at how relationships develop, at how people fall in love and what that does and doesn't do to their lives. It's an observational film that offers generous satisfactions, but there are challenges along the way.

It's Russell (Tom Cullen) we meet first in the out of the way city of Nottingham, going to a potluck dinner with a group of straight friends and looking like the quiet, soulful man we soon find him to be.

On the way home, Russell impulsively stops at a gay bar and locks eyes for a brief moment with the intense Glen (Chris New). When the next day begins, they are together in Russell's bed, dealing with the morning-after awkwardness of people who have had sex but barely know each other.

More involving than the sexual candor is the way these two men end up exposing themselves to each other emotionally. Even in the brief period of time they have together, we can see them opening up to each other and learning from the experience, which is as rare on screen as it is in life.

Not surprisingly, Russell and Glen have different ideas about living in a predominantly straight world. Russell believes in enduring relationships and seems to be relatively content, while Glen, who says he doesn't do boyfriends, bristles with articulate rage about, among many other things, straight people who "like us as long as we don't shove it down their throats."

Because it is intent on being honest, "Weekend" refuses to tip its hand as to how this relationship will end. But what is clear is that they were falling in love and that no matter what happens, the influence these men have on each other will last considerably longer than a weekend.

In my opinion, "Weekend" is for anyone, gay or straight, who has ever been in love... or who has never been in love but wanted to be. It reminds me of that wonderful, exciting, heart-pounding, scary time when you meet someone new and begin to fall in love. Be prepared to cry!

Jake Gyllenhaal And Some Thoughts On My New Friend Jake

What a rainy Friday it was today! It was humid, dreary, rainy and pretty all around depressing out there. But the sky will clear and the sun will eventually come out, so I won't let this awful day get me down for too long; there are more important things to worry about.

So, I saw a movie last night that a friend recommended that I watch. It was Love & Other Drugs. The movie is a 2010 romantic comedy film co-written and directed by Edward Zwick and based on the non-fiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy. The movie stars hunky Jake Gyllenhaal and pretty but sometimes toothy, Anne Hathaway. This was their second film together following Brokeback Mountain in 2005.

The plot is about a woman suffering from Parkinson's (Hathaway) befriends a drug rep (Gyllenhaal) working for Pfizer against 1990s Pittsburgh backdrop. Incidentally, my friend, who actually is a married father of two (how weird is it that his name is also Jake? Especially since I am writing here about Jake Gyllenhaal! I've blogged about my friend Jake in my last few posts) who is struggling with his marriage and his strong inner yearning to be the gay man that he is and has been for most of his life. Wow, the story about my new friend Jake and his sorted life is most definitely much more interesting then this movie. But, the point of my blog tonight was to discuss this dumb-ass movie... so I forge on. Jake (my friend) told me that I had to rent this movie because Gyllenhaal is fucking drop-dead gorgeous. As far as I'm concerned he is a real good-looking guy but he isn't on the top of my list of drop-dead gorgeous celebs. By the way, the movie was so dull that during it, I actually took the time to Google Gyllenhaal and did you know that he is only 30 years old?  Shit! Seems like he has been around forever since he got fucked by Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain or was it the other way around. Well, who cares -- I continue.

The movie started out as really boring and so damn hectic! What I mean is that the two stars were all over the place with hyper conversations, hyper sex, hyper this, hyper that, hyper acting, hyper everything. It was driving me fucking insane! I had to actually turn the movie off and walk away from it two times. But I always came back and turned it on again; I guess I had to see Gyllenhaal's "amazing ass," (according to my friend) which he told me would be shown a bunch of times. So I sat through it. Finally his ass!!! Well, his ass was nice but I think I'm jaded because I've seen some really crazy hot ass's. The end of the movie actually got a bit better and it actually had something to say -- a point to make. It was touching, sad, even downright depressing. Here is what a review I read on Google (yes, I Google alot) said about the movie. Amazing how it was right-on with what I thought about it. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a negative review. He stated, "The energy is far too great -- manic even -- at the beginning but calms down for a while to focus on the highly competitive but not always ethical arena of drug sales, then gets distracted by unusually bold sex scenes for a studio picture only to wander off into the cultural phenomenon of Viagra before the movie decides it's a romance after all and so concludes in a highly conventional final embrace." Another reviewer found the film to be a "run-of-the-mill Hollywood love story."

That being said, what the fuck -- rent it and let me know how you like it. Tonight's blog contains a few pictures of Gyllenhaal's body (couldn't really find any ass shots) to help you decide whether to see the movie or not. Ha-ha, funny how my movie review revolves around Gyllenhaal, his body and more specifically, his ass. Oh Hathaway has a damn fine, sexy body as well. Okay, enough said... enjoy!

Hey! By the way; I see that My Big Itch (that's my blog in case you forgot) gets plenty of hits on a daily basis. Okay, so I'm not Perez Hilton, but still I get sometimes 200 to 300, or even more hits per day. I agree, I have no clue as to how I get that many hits; maybe because I'm linked to the Internet and certain words used in search bring up my blog. I have no clue. I've actually made sure that my hit-counter only records individual unique users once. So, if you come and go twenty times on my blog here, it records you as one hit on the hit-counter. Go figure! But, my big question is how come I don't get any new Followers? I still only have 31 Followers (i'm not complaining -- I love you 31 guys! But....dammit, that makes me feel bad. Please everyone... if you are new to my blog, or if you have been reading me for a while, please add yourself as a Follower. I would love to know that you guys are out there.

Like always, thanks everyone again for reading. Many of you have been with me on some of those really painful and difficult days.  God only knows, that I still have some of those same days but they are spaced apart further then they used to be.

I appreciate each and every one of you! Until I write again... be safe everyone!

Saw The Movie Beginners. You Will Like It But Not Love It. And You Will Tear Up!

Last night I didn't go to the "sleazy bar". Instead, I met with Marco #1, grabbed a quick dinner and went to see a movie. We discussed what to see and decided on the "Beginners". An interesting movie with an interesting premise. The following paragraph does not ruin or give away the movie as what I am writing is revealed in the first few minutes of the movie as well as in the trailer.

Christopher Plummer plays Hal, father to Ewan McGregor's character Oliver. After Oliver's mother dies, Hal, at age 75, comes out of the closet and energetically pursues the gay life he had denied himself for three quarters of a century. At almost the same time, Hal is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

It was a pretty decent movie but very sad. It's one of the few movies this year to have significant gay content and Ewan McGregor can at certain times be very sexy. At other times he just looks real good. Anyway, I went to see this with Marco #1 at the Chelsea Cinema in NYC's gay Chelsea part of town. I think 80% of the audience was gay and out on either dates or with their significant other. It was interesting to say the least.

Is this movie great? No. Will this movie will any awards? Probably not. Should you see this movie? Yes. Gay or straight, it leaves you with a good message, albeit sad. By the way, some funny scenes with the cute dog.

I thought about Jess a lot during this movie. I hope he sees it.

Saw The Movie "The Box" Tonight.

Saw this movie at my friends place tonight.  Started out decent, but it was too long, too much bullshit going on, and eventually was somewhat boring.  It was late, so maybe that didn't help.  The end was interesting, but for the most part, I don't recommend it.  Cameron Diaz did an okay job but played the character of Norma Lewis with a strange southern accent.  Her husband, Arthur, played by James Marsden, was totally hot!

THE BOX (2009) - Official Trailer