Gay Themed Movies

It was always very difficult to find gay themed movies in Malaysia but in recent years, such GTM had become more common and one can pick them up at the DVD store. My local friendly DVD store do stock them but it is more on a hit-or-miss affair.

As one says, if there is a niche, someone is going to fill in that niche - right, for gay themed movies, there is a local gay-owned DVD centre and there are hundred of GTM titles in their catalogues for one to review and choose from. This is one place we visited regularly!

So I was at my local friendly DVD store yesterday and I saw beautifully boxed sets of the gay (soft-porn) series "Dante's Cove" for Seasons 1 and 2. I wondered how many actually watch it for the storyline :-) However, there seemed to be a fair number of people who actually watch this series ..... these boxed sets were snapped up like hot cakes. My other half snapped up one set as well :-) much to my surprise - he's usually the one going for serious GTM movies and not those with lots of skin and beef!!

Not to be outdone, I went for the boxed set of Pier Pasolini's films - many of which I first saw in the 70's in the UK. This boxed sets included the full uncensored versions of most of his films - including the more notorious :

THE DECAMERON
THE CANTERBURY TALES
ARABIAN NIGHTS
SALO OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM

The last one was banned in most countries.

This is a gem of a boxed set as I had been looking for his films for many years and it was indeed a rare find to get them all in a single set!

I always like light-hearted gay themed movies and, that afternoon, was pleased to find "Wedding Wars" which was a 2006 TV movie about gay people in the US going on strike to protest a governor's support of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.

It was a fluffy movie, with some nice tongue-in-cheek humour and some real corny bits but it is a nice feel good movie for a couple staying in on a late Saturday evening :-)

Watch it :-)

Buddhist Culture & Arts Festival ( 6-10 June 2007)

We went to the Buddhist Culture & Arts Festival ( 6-10 June 2007) which was held at the Mines. It was pretty crowded on a Saturday.

It was a really interesting exhibition.

There was a pictoral trail that replicated the travels, in the 7th Century, of the monk, Xuanzang. His journey from China, through Central Asia, Pakistan and India were recorded in his book, "Western Pilgrimage". The popular fairy tale version is, of course, the "Journey to the West" featuring SunWuKung, the Great Monkey King. Walking along the pictoral trail, it showed presently destroyed states, cities and communities that, in the 7th century AD, were powerful countries, rich cities and vibrant communites. It was particlularly sad to see the photograph of the now empty grottoes of the Bamiyam Buddhas that Xuanzang had visited nearly 1300 years ago. The photographs seen in this pictoral trail were from an expediton that retraced Master Xuanzang's Western Pilgrimage. This photographic records of this modern journey were published in the book "Dust in the Wind". I could not resist it despite the hefty price tag of RM288!!

Walking around, the Tibetan section was of particular interest to me. Just take a look at this sand Mandala done by the Tibetan monks!

It was a very intricate and detailed work of devotional art .. one of the monk actually destroyed it at the end of the exhibition with a swipe of his hand to demonstrate how all the things in the universe were temporal; that all things were just fleeting illusions.

I loved the butter figurines made from what looked like pasticine but actually was a mix of butter and flour(?).

The close up image showed how the monks who made them paid close attention to the fine details ...

There were lots more things to see ...

However, I skipped all the Buddhist relics since I was not particularly keen on viewing pieces of bones :-)

There were dozen of vegetarian food stalls and we had a great time trying out all the goodies - all home-made by the members of the various Buddhist Associations or Fellowhips and sold to raise money for various charities.

We had to rush through the rest of the exhibition ....got too tired by then :-) but had a great time though.

It's has been a while .....

It has indeed been quite a while since I updated this blog - just too many small niggardly things, both at home and at work, conspired to keep me from doing it.

Anyway, I plan to get this moving again ....... :-)