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

Kite (Blu-ray Review)

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Some films manage to take a low budget and use it to their advantage, finding interesting and innovative ways to get around the fact they don’t have much cash and still deliver a full and complete film experience. Sadly Kite is not one of those films. It thinks it is, but it really isn’t.

The movie follows young Sawa (India Eisley) who lives in a scummy, corrupt post-apocalyptic future where she ruthlessly tries to hunt down the people who killed her parents, helped by her father’s ex-partner, Karl (Samuel L. Jackson). Things begin to change when she meets someone she knew as a child – although she can’t remember him due to the fact that the drugs she takes to help her be a single-minded and very successful killer blur her memory of the past. [Read more…]

Beauty (Skoonheid) (DVD)

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Beauty is an interesting yet eerily creepy South African film that takes a look at how the sexual repression and frustration of someone in a homophobic environment can impact and severely mentally scar a person.

The film centres on Francois (Deon Lotz), an openly racist and homophobic married South African man in his forties, who, after indulging in sexual activity with men in private, becomes obsessed with the son of friend. As the film moves along and develops, we see Francois’ repressed homosexual feelings gradually sending his mental health into decline, and the attraction he feels towards Christian (Charlie Keegan), his friend’s son, turn into a loathing which culminates in a horrific and unpleasant encounter that will leave most viewers uneasy. [Read more…]

Beauty (Skoonheid) (Cinema)

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Winner of the Queer Palm at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Beauty is one of those films on queer themes which stretches beyond just a gay audience. It’s a thought-provoking film full of tension, which will stay in your head long after the credits role.

Francois (Deon Lotz) is a middle-aged man living in South Africa. On the surface everything seems perfectly fine, although his marriage seems utterly devoid of any sign of affection. However his life is actually a morass of contradictions, so that he hates gay people, but goes off to retreats to have sex with others men (although actual gays and blacks are banned from these occasions). He seems to have everything pretty much under control though until he meets Christian (Charlie Keegan), the son of a long-lost friend. [Read more…]

Beauty (Skoonheid) Trailer – Winner of the Queer Palm at Cannes

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Winner of the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival 2011 and officially selected for 55th BFI London Film Festival, Oliver Hermanus’ provocative Beauty is due to be released in UK by Peccadillo Pictures on 20th April, but to prepare us, the trailer has now dropped.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Francois (Deon Lotz) lives a skillfully controlled, well managed life, in Bloemfontein, South Africa’s so-called ‘City of Roses’. He’s a devoted husband and father, but constantly battling with his repressed desires. However, when he meets Christian (Charlie Keegan), the engaging, handsome son of a long-lost friend, his obsessions become irrepressible and threaten to rip apart his long-maintained respectability.
‘BEAUTY contains powerful scenes that recall A Ma Soeur, Mysterious Skin and the cinema of Michael Haneke, the challenging the viewer with its unflinching exploration of social taboos in the conservative environment of contemporary South Africa that also have universal resonance.’
Hmmm, certainly sounds like one to look out for when it arrives in UK cinemas in April.
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