It seems as if we've had it too good this past month,
boys and girls.

We've had three highly acclaimed films by gay writer-directors Bill Condon (Kinsey), Alejandro Amenabar (The Sea Inside) and Pedro Almodovar (Bad Education).

Tonnes of Golden Globe winners and Oscar nominees (Hotel Rwanda, The Aviator, Finding Neverland).

Gay supporting characters in just about anything from slasher flicks (Seed Of Chucky) to period dramas (Being Julia).

And so, it is now time to come down from on high.

This week's crop of new films are somewhat mediocre, so we suggest you spend your time curled up with a good book — or your favourite sleeping partner — instead.

The first Bayside Shakedown film was a huge hit in Japan way back in 1998. It was a cop show, but unlike your typical Hollywood cop blockbuster featuring big guns and explosions, Bayside depicted small-time police officers dealing with minor cases of theft and misbehaviour, while struggling with the massive paperwork and bureaucracy of typical Japanese organisations.

Don't ask us why the film did so well at the box-office. Presumably, huge populations of Japanese salarymen who work 9-to-5 could identify with the down-to-earth characters — just as they could with the bored office worker in that other 1990s Japanese hit, Shall We Dance?.

This Bayside sequel returns Yuji Oda and Eri Fukatsu to their roles as low-ranking detectives trying to solve a series of murders. For some reason, despite the film's obsessive attention to procedural details, it is not as dull as it sounds. Its understated human drama, small comic moments and realistic dialogue keep it watchable.

Nope, this ain't a Chinese film. Rather, it's set in the Philippines where Joy (played by Kris Aquino, daughter of the country's former president Corazon Aquino) finds a bagua, a mirror used in Chinese geomancy, on a bus seat.

While the bagua seems to bring good luck to her and her family, anyone else who catches sight of it meets with an untimely death. Clearly, there is a price to be paid for the streak of fortune Joy and her loved ones are enjoying.

The film isn't all that scary, and the theme of feng shui isn't explored as fully as its title might suggest. But the primary spook (an old woman with bound feet) might raise the hairs on your back a couple of times.

Many gay men have a long-standing crush on Dennis Quaid, who seems to be ageing better than any other Hollywood actor we know. Still very handsome at the age of 50, he plays a pilot who saves an oil company crew in the middle of the desert.

But on the flight home, the planes runs into a sandstorm and crashes. Without a working radio, the pilot and the survivors are stranded in the middle of nowhere — until they decide to try and build a new plane out of the wreckage of the old.

While there are some nice special effects (the sandstorm, the spectacular crash — the usual things that Hollywood excels at), the film follows a very predictable storyline.

Still, Dennis looks hot — as far as we are concerned, he could get any engine going with his sexy smile, and we don't mind being stranded anywhere with him.

It is oh-so-hard to describe what Bad Education is all about. But let it be known this latest offering from the world's best gay director Pedro Almodovar boasts an extraordinary story that glides, twists and tumbles for all of 109 minutes, throwing up plenty of surprises along the way.

The story begins with filmmaker Enrique (Fele Martinez) meeting a man (Gael Garcia Bernal) who claims to be his old schoolmate. The latter gives Enrique a short story which he wrote, based on their shared past. The film then goes into an enactment of the short story, as well as other stories wrapped within stories — giving you a stream of tales that will intrigue and amuse you.

READ Fridae Lifestyle movie review.

Almost every gay man suffers from the Peter Pan Syndrome, which is the need to feel and look forever young, never admitting that age will catch up with him someday. And who better embodies the attributes of Peter Pan than the age-defying man-child actor Johnny Depp?

In this charming and ultimately heartbreaking biopic, Johnny plays the real-life creator of Peter Pan, J M Barrie, who is inspired by a very ill widow (Kate Winslet), and her sons to write the classic play and novel Peter Pan. Both Johnny and Kate give heart-wrenching performances.

This stars Yang Dong-kun as the legendary Korean fighter Bae-dal, a real-life character who has been immortalised in countless contemporary comic books.

Bae-dal was a Korean boxer who went to Japan during World War II to work as a kamikaze pilot. But when his martial arts teacher was murdered by the Japanese yakuza, he retreated into the mountains to train himself and become the best fighter that ever lived.

During the 1994 Rwanda massacres which pit the Hutu tribe against the Tutsi tribe, and which resulted in more than a million dead, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) was a quiet Hutu hotel manager who saved the lives of more than a thousand innocent Tutsis by hiding them in his hotel — when the Tutsis were supposed to be his enemy.

Playing like an African Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda is gritty, honest and clear-eyed in portraying the bloodletting during this awful slice of human history. But its real trump card is the performances of both Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo, who plays his brave and beautiful wife.

If you can see just one movie this month, let it be Kinsey. This extraordinary film looks at the life of Alfred Kinsey, the scientist who pioneered the study of sexual behaviour and caused a sensation when he published Sexual Behavior In The Human Male and Sexual Behaviour In The Human Female in the 1940s and 50s.

His scientific studies showed that homosexuality was more common than the world had thought, that many straight men had had gay experiences, and that even married women had felt strong erotic emotions for other women.

All we lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trannies have a lot to thank Dr Kinsey for, because he changed the way the world viewed us then and now. But even more significantly, he changed the way we view ourselves.

Sweeping all the major awards at the recently-concluded Golden Globe Awards, include Best Picture (Drama), The Aviator stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, a real-life American eccentric who not only created the fastest planes on earth then, but also bedded legendary actresses Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner.

Legendary director Martin Scorsese has made the film so entertaining, that it's not hard to stay wide awake during the 3-hour film — and whaddaya know, there are no hobbits in sight!

We are not sure if we should recommend this film to all you gay boys. On the one hand, this shot-on-digital video experimental film is really not very good. On the other hand, it has some of sexiest and drool-inducing scenes of any movie opening this week, with its lengthy locker room scenes of very hot young jocks in white underwear.

Boasting five short stories that examine an array of issues from sex, pregnancy, gay rape, straight rape, class, gender and race, this film could have been a truly brilliant analysis of the state of sex and sexuality among young people today. Instead, it feels like a Molotov cocktail that won't ignite.

Strictly speaking, the only people who may like this movie are dykes who love Jennifer Garner (of Alias fame) and want to see her in a red-hot superhero costume.

Based on the Marvel Comic character, Jennifer plays Elektra, the martial-arts specialist and contract killer who has been hired to murder the handsome Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic of ER fame) and his daughter. A flash of conscience stops Elektra from carrying out the deed. Subsequently she changes alliances and wants to protect the family instead.

READ Fridae Lifestyle movie review.

If you're looking for a light, sweet and relaxing — albeit predictable — romantic comedy, catch the mildly amusing Shall We Dance?.

A remake of the 1996 Japanese hit film (which played in Singapore), it stars Richard Gere as a bored 9-to-5 office drone who has a caring famuily and a nice home, but still longs for some spark in his life.

Enter Jennifer Lopez, a hubba-hubba dance instructor whom he sees occasionally on his train ride home. On a whim, he signs up for a dance course at her school, and soons find his way tripping the light fantastic on the dancefloors of Chicago.

For superficial but very stylish entertainment, catch the utterly fun Alfie. It stars the rakishly handsome Jude Law as Alfie, a horny chauffeur in New York who just can't keep his hands off women.

Enter the beautiful women — the very attractive Sienna Miller (who's now Jude's real-life girlfriend), the equally fetching Nia Long, the shapely Jane Krakowski (Ally MacBeal's secretary), as well as two actresses who have always impressed us, Susan Sarandon and Marisa Tomei.

Alfie gets romantically involved with all these hot babe, but he eventually gets his just desserts.

Yes, we love to see gay and lesbian characters in movies. But this is outright ridiculous:

Billy Boyd (who played the cute hobbit Pippin in The Lord Of The Rings movies) has lent his voice for the character of Glen-Glenda, a sexually-confused plastic doll who kills human beings.

In this sequel to 2002's Meet The Parents, an engaged couple have arranged for their parents to meet. His parents are the free-spirited, happy-go-lucky Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) and Roz Focker (Barbra Streisand). Her parents are the no-nonsense Jack (Robert) and Dina Byrnes (Blythe Danner).

Barbra is absolutely hilarious in her silver screen comeback, gliding about sensuously as the sex therapist Mum always eager to dispense her sex advice. Yes, the jokes are somewhat cheap, but it is Barbra, Dustin and Robert who make them memorably funny.

For art film lovers, we also recommend you watch Hirokazu Kore-eda's powerful and heart-wrenching drama, Nobody Knows.

It tells the story of an impoverished 12-year-old boy Akira (Yuya Yagira) who is left to look after his younger siblings in a spare apartment, while his irresponsible mother goes off with various boyfriends. Portraying the gradual and painful loss of childhood innocence, Yuya won the award for Best Actor at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

You're always guaranteed of a rollicking good time with Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow. Kung Fu Hustle combines slapstick humour, computer-generated images (CGI) and martial arts to give you pure and breezy entertainment.

Stephen plays a wannabe gangster in 1940s China who unwittingly sparks off a full-out war between the villagers of Pig Sty and the notorious Axe Gang. Don't miss this.