If you thought the reviews for Burlesque were bad, check out the scathing notices for Colin Farrell’s new movie, London Boulevard.

Classic Brit gangster thriller The Long Good Friday was released 30 years ago, but part of the UK film industry refuses to move on, regularly going ‘sarf’ of the river and churning out slicker and slicker but increasingly vacuous knock-offs, through Guy Ritchie’s extended pop promos to this latest film, which also stars Ray Winstone as a violent and wise-cracking gay mob boss (hey, that hasn’t been done before!).

I particularly love the Metro’s description of Farrell’s character as “freshly discharged from [prison] with no dosh and no fixed accent”. And in reviewing Keira Knightley’s performance as a famous movie star, the paper notes that she “achieves the mean feat of playing herself unconvincingly”. Ouch!

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There’s a heartwarming piece on Australian news site ABC.net.au about a young, gay, urban couple who upped sticks from the city and moved to the dusty Australian Outback.

The move was prompted by doctor Vincent Cornelisse’s desire to leave the faceless city hospitals and move to a much smaller community where he could get to know his patients and watch their progress. So, along with his filmmaker boyfriend Jonathan Duffy he set up practice at a place called Mundubbera.

Vincent and Jonathan were understandably anxious about the reaction from this close-knit, rural community to their arrival, but their story has a happy ending: after locals, presumably, realised that these men don’t have forked tongues, spit acid and bite the heads off baby kangaroos they became an integral part of village life.

Jonathan particularly relished his newfound role as ‘the doctor’s wife,’ which is now the title of a documentary he’s been making about their journey from the bright lights of Brisbane to this little community. He hopes to show it at gay film festivals next year.

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For a film namechecking and set in UK’s gay capital, Brighton Rock is a surprisingly hetero affair.

This reworking of the Richard Attenborough classic has bumped Graham Greene’s bloody, gangland story into the Mods and Rockers filled ‘60s (so the filmmakers may have added some gay elements).

It stars Burberry model Sam Riley (who was excellent as Joy Division singer Ian Curtis in 2007’s Control) as Pinkie Brown, the brutally sadistic, teenage gang-leader and one of the very nastiest characters ever created.

The film also stars Helen Mirren and John Hurt and is due for release early next year. Empire magazine have some new set pics. Nice poster too.

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Some trailers for new movies with varying degrees of gay interest, including:

Undertow (released next Friday in New York and L.A.) because it’s been a big hit on this year’s gay film fest circuit…

…Every Day, because Liev Schreiber’s character has a gay, teenage son…

…Rabbit Hole, because it’s the latest movie from Shortbus director John Cameron Mitchell…

…and Green Lantern, because it has Ryan Reynolds in tighty whities (just don’t watch past 0:26 – warning you now).

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Furry Creek resident and Sarah Palin lookalike Deb Dyer wakes up on her 40th birthday all alone and no closer to finding a man. Depressed and loveless she fails at some ill-fated suicide attempts before ending up in the car, driving aimlessly and knocking white trash Sisi Sickles off her bike.

Sisi quickly spots a financial opportunity in kind, gullible Deb and her inherited lifestyle. After getting evicted from her apartment and losing her job Sisi turns up on Deb’s doorstep complaining about a bad back and “broken umbilical cord or two” and asking Deb for help. Cue much spoofery and trouble ahead.

The House Of Venus Show creator and gay filmmaker Mark Kenneth Woods has broken his first feature film, Deb And Sisi, down into a free, 10-part web series showing on YouTube.

Episodes 1 (watch above) and 2 (watch here) are already available and the next 8 parts will appear one at a time on consecutive mondays.

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