Balthazar

A short note linked to my earlier Constantine comments.

While the forces of good are represented by the oddly androgynous Gabriel played by Tilda Swinton, the bad boys are dressed to kill in the style of the Godfather. What can I say, evil has never looked so good in the form of the deliciously wicked Gavin Rossdale who makes his debut as Balthazar, one of hell's numerous minions. Glossy and slicked up in hair gel and Italian suits, he makes really sweet male eye candy as he struts across the screen causing havoc in men's lives.



As Balthazar approaches the stoic John Constantine and pronounces him 'finger-lickin' good', I can't help but wonder how anyone could possibly resist such sinful temptation :) The bad boys always have it so good.

Crazy Valentine

The term metrosexual disgusts me... for no other reason than the fact that it's playing havoc with my life right now. It's one of the reasons I'm spending Valentine's on my lonesome at home - instead of one of the trendy restaurants in town with my other single pals, commiserating over cups of latte about our lack of committed partners.

One of my dearest friends, who shall remain unnamed since she unlike my ISO ( insignificant other ) actually does read blogs and might inadvertently stumble on mine ... let's call her Grace, posed a serious question the other day that shook me to the core. For some time, I have had some small suspicion that her feelings for me have been more than platonic - since for some odd reason, the fact that I'm a raving homosexual seems to have escaped her notice. During one of our biweekly dinners, she asked me what I was looking for in a partner. As usual, I listed them out... a great sense of humour, intelligence, independence, beautiful eyes, a nice ass.... but obviously I left out the fact that I wanted someone with a hairy chest since she immediately asked me why I've never looked at her in that way. She might as well have brought a sledgehammer to my head.

It was at the tip of my tongue to blurt out my secret but the cute waiter walked into view and I was sidetracked by the way his ass filled out his pants. Later, I was left wondering what had gone wrong. Had I repressed myself to such an extent that my pheromones had gone all awry and had started influencing the fairer sex? I'd spend my time trying to catch the eye of the sexy, broad shouldered hunk in tight jeans and I'd get a wink from a foxy lady instead. Years back, she'd see my snazzy clothes, my great hair, my obsession with shopping, the fact that I ogle great looking guys as they walk by - as a huge sign labelling my homosexuality. Nowadays, she'd call me the enlightened metrosexual.

Odd, the problems I get into. Trying to appease her as she got into a litany of the problems faced by the overachieving singleton, I somehow got into a Julia Roberts/Dermot Mulroney pact to get married at the age of 30. Still have two years before that so someone get me out of this please! :)



Someone who isn't gonna be termed a metrosexual has to be our boy Clive here. Someone asked me what he looked like so here's a pic of him... In the movie Closer, he's raw, crude and more than a lil brutish - just the way we likes em.

Since I had all that free time last week, also added two new stories on my website at Bedtime Stories.

Constantine

As usual for this time of the year which is the Chinese New Year, my cousins and I - all kids of the same generation, we all pack ourselves into a few cars and travel onwards to the nearest cinema to cacth the latest flick. No matter how far we've come, no matter how busy we are, no matter how much we all argue all year round, we make this almost compulsory.

It's a tradition of sorts for us. Kinda like hollies and turkey for Christmas, red packets and oranges for New Year. A new tradition we've been making for ourselves actually since some of them have only just earned their driving licenses. Horrifying to imagine that some of these kids used to be in diapers when I was in school! And now they're driving!

This year, I made the choice of Constantine. And thank God, I made the right choice. Like every other Hellblazer fan, I didn't fancy having our hard-biting, sarcastic thoroughly English mage turned into some slick Americanized version. I didn't like the fact that he wasn't blond and that he wasn't wearing a beat-up tan-coloured trenchcoat. Nor did I like the idea that Chas Chandler, his faithful taxi-driving friend had been turned into some kid sidekick.

The movie deals with John Constantine just as he's dealing with the spectre of terminal lung cancer - a usre one way ticket to hell especially with his previous attempted suicide. At the same time, a police detective Angela Dodson played by Rachel Weisz, seeks his help in solving the mystery of her psychic twin's sudden suicide.

But all that didn't spoil my enjoyment of the show. I admit parts of the movie dragged on a bit, I certainly could have hoped for a more fast-paced adaptation but overall I think the directors managed to stay quite close to the spirit of the character. It was great seeing John Constantine ( albeit looking a little darker and more American ) looking bleary and tired, flicking up his lighter for another cigarette.

Not only did it rekindle my interest in Hellblazer, it also made me take a closer look at one of my earliest crushes again. What can I say... it would take a stronger man than me not to feel weak in the knees. Keanu Reeves.. those defined washboard abs. That amazing bubble butt :) Not really a great surprise that Hell wants a piece of him.

Another movie that I took a quick look at was Closer. A really unusual movie about four personalities, all quite well-to-do, reasonably intelligent and yet all unable to maintain a committed relationship without hurting the other. Watch this intriguing drama to see a fascinating scene where Clive Owen has cybersex with Jude Law in a case of mistaken identities.

Yeah, Clive Owen and Jude Law together. I can just see the delicious possibilities.

Coming out

It takes some time to come out to everyone - and by that I mean, coming out of the proverbial closet. For every gay man, it means coming out to someone almost every other day and I doubt the process ever actually ends. Societal conventions rule that heterosexuality's the norm which makes being gay an aberration of sorts.

And that goes double for times like these. With the Chinese New Year coming by ( and probably with every other occasion which calls for an unprecedented family gathering ), a reasonably intelligent, attractive, successful man would be expected to be relentlessly pelted with numerous probing questions on his impending marriage. Being single and eligible for a man of his late twenties seems odd and unusual - which brings about the usual questions on his state of matrimony. No doubt this happens in the lives of any gay man with a leg partially in the closet.

Deciding to fly in the face of convention, I decided to come clean with some of my childhood friends this year - just prior to the New Year celebrations. The question of my sexuality was never broached in school since the spectre of homosexuality in a missionary all-boys school was something to be whispered about and derided at that time. Years back, I was still wrestling with the very thought of admitting it to myself, much less admitting it to anyone else. By the time I was in med school, I had pretty much knocked out all the demons in my head - and most of my colleagues in med school had a very good idea where the wind blows in regards to my sexuality.

These were the friends of my childhood, the guys I'd played tag and monopoly with, the guys I'd fought and given black eyes to and yet remained as close as ever. Ties and briefcases didn't change the fact that we'd seen each other at our worst - and our grubbiest. Broaching the topic to my childhood friends and coming out to them was a step not to be taken lightly but over a dish of yee sang, I just blurted it out to everyone. To say they were appalled would be an understatement. Think stunned disbelief. For a moment, I felt like calling for a crash trolley to perform a resuscitation. There were no uncivilized brawls and angry accusations, a horrific ending that my overwrought imagination had earlier dreamt up. There weren't as many questions as I'd imagined, seems that the years away from school had brought about a degree of tolerance that I hadn't expected.

As usual, there were the odd embarassing questions as one relatively good-looking friend wondered whether I'd had a crush on him which I could happily and truthfully deny. I can't imagine what he'd have done if I'd confessed to carrying a torch for him. Probably would have tossed the bowl of raw salmon at me and run like hell.

Bedtime Movies

Finally took the time to review some of the DVDs I have stacked up on my desk. It's been a while since I've taken a break long enough to catch up on my gay movie viewing - and the titles have certainly piled up since then. There were the usual depressing tragedies of course - meaning boy meets, boy falls in love with boy, boy undergoes trials and tribulations to finally end up with boy, boy dies of some unforeseen malady, a disastrous, ill-contrived accident... etc. There were also the flesh-baring porn scenes masquerading as a moving drama with an intricate plot - but hell, we all enjoy that, don't we?



Of course that wasn't the way all the movies ended. One movie that caught my attention was Merchant Ivory's Maurice. Really ancient, I'm sure to some of the other purveyors of gay cinema out there but it's new to me. Sure, I read the book written by E. M. Forster a while ago but I never really got to watch the movie till now. Hell, the DVD's been sitting on my desk for months.

What surprised me was the fact that I enjoyed the movie - isn't it the well known adage that a real-life movie never comes to life as perfectly as the imagined movie in your head? But I like Maurice. For those not in the know, Maurice tells the tale of an intelligent, sensitive Englishman in the beginning of the last century, wrestling with his sexual identity. A role wonderfully played by a fresh, almost innocent looking James Wilby. Ever since I first read the book, I've always tried to imagine the image of Scudder ( played by a belligerent Rupert Graves ) coming into Maurice's bedroom... and I don't think it has ever come out as well.

A movie made from a book inspired by a touch on the buttocks. Isn't life swell?