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

Teenage Kicks (DVD Review) – Tragedy changes a young man’s life in the gay-themed Aussie film

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Back in 2009, director Craig Boreham made the acclaimed short film Drowning, starring Miles Szanto and Xavier Samuel (who went on to appear in the likes of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Fury). Teenage Kicks is the long-gestating feature-length version of that short, which despite the passage of eight years brings back Szanto in the central role. It continues Australia’s recent run of strong, sometimes raw, gay-themed films.

Mik (Szanto) is a young, second generation immigrant, who’s keen to get away from his family and head off somewhere new with his best friend Dan (Dan Webber). Things change however when Mik’s brother dies in an accident – a collision Mik witnessed but pretends that he didn’t. [Read more…]

Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas (DVD Review)

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Drifting in LA, Bruno (Miles Szanto) meets the slightly older Earlene (Ashleigh Summer) and almost in spite of themselves they begin to bond, connecting over the fact they’re both outsiders. After deciding to get away from the City Of Angels, they head off into the desert with plans to get to the bright lights of Las Vegas.

It’s not a straightforward trip though, and along the way they come across a sexually uncertain outlaw, a pair of Scottish former strippers and the inhabitants of a desert ghost town. Although to the outside this collection of huts and ramshackle houses looks like a tenuous community, Bruno begins to feel that he might have finally found a place that is prepared to accept you no matter how atypical you are, while the alcoholic Earlene isn’t as sure she should even be allowed to find a home. [Read more…]

Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas Trailer – Take a fresh look at the LGBT-themed road movie

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Bruno-and-Earlene-Go-To-Vegas-new-slideWhen we saw Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas at last year’s Iris Prize festival, we loved it, as you can tell from our review of the movie. It’s not long now until the movie will get to a wider audience, as it’s getting its UK DVD release via Peccadillo Pictures on September 15th.

Ahead of that comes the new trailer below, where you can get a taste for the hot guys and solid entertainment of this queer road movie tale.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Headstrong Earlene (And Then Came Lola star, Ashleigh Sumner) meets the handsome and mysterious Bruno (Boys on Film star, Miles Szanto) at Venice Beach. These outsiders quickly become friends and when Bruno’s latest scam goes wrong, it forces them to go on the run.

‘On their journey, they meet a sexually confused carjacker, a pair of Scottish ex-strippers and a tap-dancing drag queen, all of whom settle into a little place deep within the Nevada desert. This gaggle of runaways and rebels teach Bruno and Earlene that it is not about the destination, but the getting there that counts.

‘An exciting debut feature from queer filmmaker Simon Savory, Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas is a road movie like never before.’

And just in case you’re still wondering just how hot the guys of Bruno & Earlene are, take a look at this post and get ready to swoon. [Read more…]

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Craig Boreham’s Gay-Themed Film Teenage Kicks Starts Production, With Miles Szanto Starring

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teenage-kicksThere are a lot of gay-themed projects out there looking for funding, so when we cover one it’s great to here that it’s got the cash it needs and is moving forward. Just over a year ago Teenage Kicks was looking for money, and now we’ve had word that the movie has gone into production.

Teenage Kicks is the feature version of the successful short Drowning, which screened around the world at film festival and featured on the short film collection, Boys On Film 6: Pacific Rim. It’s take a few years to get it from short to movie, but it will now shoort over the next five weeks in Sydney’s Inner West and south-eastern suburbs.

Drowning’s writer/director, Craig Boreham, is once more at the helm, and one of the short’s stars, Miles Szanto is set to reprise his role. Since starring in Drowning, Szanto has gone onto plenty of success, including scoring the lead role in the LGBT-themed film, Bruno & Earlene Go to Vegas. Another of Drowning’s stars, Xavier Samuel, has also gone into great things, such as appearing in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Adores. He won’t return for Teenage Kicks, but Daniel Webber (The Combination, K9, Sleeping Beauty), Charlotte Best (Home and Away, Puberty Blues), Shari Sebbans (The Sapphires, Redfern Now), Ian Roberts (Little Fish, Superman Returns, Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities) and Anni Finsterer (The Boys are Back, Sleeping Beauty, Prime Mover, Accidents Happen) are all onboard.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘In the final moments of his seventeenth year, Miklós Varga’s (Szanto) world has come crumbling down. His plans to run away and escape the hold of his migrant family have been brutally undone by family disaster. Only Mik knows the events that led to this tragedy and as far as he can see there is only one person to blame: himself.

Mik is suddenly torn between his desire to head north and start a new life with his best friend Dan, and the obligation to his broken family. Can he fill the shoes of his adored sibling or is he toxic, destined to bring ruin upon everyone he loves?

“We are really exploring that ‘in-between’ phase that we all go through. That cusp moment between teen and adult when the world can turn on its head every single day and you are still trying to find where you fit in the scheme of things,” says Craig Boreham. “Teenage Kicks is an in-your-face, raw look at that time and the issues and struggles these young characters go through when they come crashing toward adulthood. It’s an evocative, sexually charged story that I think most people can relate to.”

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Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas – Iris Prize 2013 Review

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After running away from a situation she cannot handle, Earlene finds herself at Venice Beach where she meets and soon becomes close to Bruno, a lost and wandering intersex skater. Together, they head into the desert to find themselves. Their search brings them to a sexually confused thief, a tap-dancing drag queen, a Scottish boyband and many other kindred souls, all drawn to a place where they can escape the world that seemingly has no place for them. [Read more…]

Crush Of The Day: The Guys Of Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas

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One of the upcoming LGBTQI movies we’ve been following is Bruno & Earlene Goes To Vegas, which not too long ago finished shooting and released a teaser trailer. The hope is it’ll be ready for festivals this summer, but to get people excited, a new interview with Scottish actors Ross William Wild & Antony Cherrie has been released (which you can see above – we’re pretty sure we’re the first place to get it!), and as you may have noticed, they’re quite the hotties!

The movie may not be finished yet, but Ross, Antony and their co-stars, Miles Szanto and Barrett Crake, certainly qualify to be a BGPS Crush Of The Day. If you need any convincing, take a look at the shots of them below.

And if you’re wracking your brain trying to work out where you’ve seen Ross William Wild before, it may have been in the gay short film Downing, or showing off his singing skills on the first series of The Voice UK (he also played Kenickie in a recent UK tour of Grease).

Antony Cherrie meanwhile is from electro pop act Johnny Lazer. In the movie he and Ross play a pair of ex-strippers who run away from their stripping troupe, ‘The Hot Toddies’, to find fame in a rock band, only to wind up in a dusty hamlet deep in the Nevada desert.

The blond Barrett Crake is Billy, ‘a sexually confused carjacker on the lookout for love’, while Aussie actor Miles Szanto is the titular Bruno, a mysterious, wandering intersex teenager who teams up with Earlene (Ashleigh Sumner) and heads off with her into the American desert, meeting a variety of unexpected people along the way.

Director Simon Savory told us, “It has a rich ‘Americana’ vibe to it, infused with a ballsy LGBTQI subtext and characters. There are no coming outs or sad stories about being gay. It’s positive but with a hefty dose of drama and humour that I hope audiences will find refreshing. I suppose you could say its main influences are ‘Thelma & Louise’, ‘Priscilla Queen Of The Desert’ and ‘Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid’ – I am a big fan of those movies. It’s a slice of the US of A shot by a bunch of Brits, basically, so I’m hoping that will prove it has that little something ‘different’ about it.”

Enjoy the interview above and click on the pics below for larger versions. Oh, and while most of the images come from Bruno And Earlene, we couldn’t resist including a shot of Ross William Wild’s butt, which he tweeted a few months ago.

You can follow Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas on Tumblr, Twitter or Facebook. [Read more…]

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Best of Iris Prize 2012 Short Films – Final Round-up

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Click here to read the best of Day 2

Ostia: La Finale Notte: Delving into the events leading up to the savage killing of activist and director Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ostia: La Finale Notte grips you from the very first scene. A young man, Pino, is on the telephone, scared and clearly desperate. We are unsure of his role, but sense ill intent. As he meets and leads Paolo on, what Pino has in store for the artist is slowly unveiled. [Read more…]

Boys On Film 6: Pacific Rim (DVD)

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Read our reviews of the other Boys On Film short film collections here.

The Boys On Film DVD series of gay short film compilations heads to the opposite side of the world for an octet of movies from Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, South Korea and Hawaii. Perhaps a little less gay exclusive than previous releases, it’s a very eclectic bunch of films.

We’re reviewing all the Boys On Film discs ahead of the release of Boys On Film: Cruel Britannia on May 28th, so let’s take a look at the Pacific Rim shorts: [Read more…]