Big Gay Picture Show

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema and more

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema & more

The Limehouse Golem (DVD Review) – Bill Nighy investigates possibly LGBT Victorian murders

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A murderer is stalking the streets of Limehouse in Victorian London, killing viciously and spreading panic. The killer has become known as the Limehouse Golem; named after the medieval Jewish monster made of clay. Police Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy) is brought in to investigate, soon coming to wonder whether the killer is the recently deceased John Cree (Sam Reid).

This line of questioning introduces him to Cree’s wife, Lizzie (Olivia Cooke), as well as the world of the music hall theatre she used to work at, which is led by cross-dressing comedy star Dan Leno (Douglas Booth). The number of potential suspects continues to grow – at one point even leading Kildare to the door of Karl Marx – especially after the discovery of a book that may be the murderer’s diary. But who wrote it and why? [Read more…]

Against The Law (DVD Review) – A look back at one of Britain’s most infamous gay sex scandals

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Against the Law was the opening night film of this year’s BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival and one of the centrepieces of the BBC’s Gay Britannia series. It’s easy to see why a film about Peter Wildeblood seemed apt this year. He was one of the key figures in what happened in the run up to the Wolfenden Report, which recommenced that gay male sex in England and Wales should be decriminalised. Although it took 10 years for the government to act, eventually gay sex was partly made legal 50 years ago in 1967.

The events were previously turned into a very good 2007 docudrama by Channel 4 in the form of A Very British Sex Scandal (the 50th Anniversary of the Wolfenden report). However, while A Very British Sex Scandal was mostly interested in the beginning of the story, Against The Law focuses its thematic energies on what happened next. It also includes documentary elements, with a collection of older gentlemen offering their remembrances of what life was like when being gay was illegal. It’s a style reminiscent of Switzerland’s excellent gay movie, The Circle (Der Kreis), which was also a proper film, but included contributions from real people involved in the world it was talking about. [Read more…]

BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival To Open With Timely World Premiere Of Against The Law

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2017 marks the the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised homosexual acts in England and Wales between adult males, in private. It’s very fitting then that this year’s BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival will open with the the world premiere of Against The Law, about one of the cases that helped lead to the partial decriminalisation of gay sex in England and Wales.

Directed by Fergus O’Brien and starring Daniel Mays, Mark Gatiss, Richard Gadd and Charlie Creed-Miles. Set in the 1950s, the film is based on Peter Wildeblood’s bestseller which tells the story of his affair with a handsome serviceman he met in Piccadilly and the devastating consequences of their relationship. Wildeblood (Daniel Mays) had been a celebrated and well-connected journalist on the Daily Express, with a range of acquaintances that included Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. The movie charts his journey from Fleet Street via public vilification to his imprisonment under the same legislation that sent Oscar Wilde to Reading Gaol. Mark Gatiss gives a chilling performance as a prison doctor charged with administering therapeutic measures to homosexuals acquiescing to the idea that they can be ‘changed’.

The importance of Peter Wildeblood’s case (jointly brought against him, Lord Montagu and Michael Pitt-Rivers) is that it brought the debate about homosexuality into the public domain. It led the way to the creation of the Wolfenden Committee on sexual law reform that eventually resulted in the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which changed the lives of thousands of gay men with its partial decriminalisation of homosexual acts.

Director Fergus O’Brien comments: “Making this film for the BBC not only allowed us to tell a powerful and important story in the evolution of LGBT rights in this country but also to capture for posterity the voices of some of the men who lived through these dark days in gay history. Their story, and the story of Peter Wildeblood, are timely reminders of the difficult journey it took to arrive at the rights enjoyed by gay people today and why it’s so important that we safeguard them. I’m delighted and honoured that the film will be the Opening Night of BFI Flare”.

The film will also screen on BBC2 later this year.

As well as at the BFI Flare festival, the BFI will be marking the 50th Anniversary with a new season of screenings and events. This summer Gross Indecency will explore the pioneering – and sometimes problematic – depictions of LGBT life in British film and TV in the years immediately before and after the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.

 

The rest of the BFI Flare lineup will be announced next week. The festival runs 16th-26th March at BFI Southbank in London.

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Byzantium (DVD)

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Neil Jordan has always been interested in the supernatural, from the werewolves of The Company Of Wolves to the mermaids of Ondine. He also had great success with bloodsuckers in Interview With The Vampire. Now he returns to vamps for a very different movie, Byzantium.

Clara (Gemma Arterton) and her younger sister, Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan), are constantly moving around, and this time end up in a run-down English seaside town, where they are taken in by the gentle Noel (Daniel Mays). Clara is soon back to her old tricks of setting herself up as a brothel madam, while Eleanor attempts to once more settle into a new environment. [Read more…]