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 Revival (US DVD Review) – A preacher falls for a handsome gay drifter

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In Arkansas a married Southern Baptist preacher, Eli (David Rysdahl), is frustrated that he’s having difficulty getting people into the pews, as they want something fancier and simpler than his more nuanced take on God. It doesn’t help that the church was started by his father, and he’s constantly being compared to him.

He comes across young, homeless, drifter, Daniel (Zachary Booth), and decides the Christian thing to do is to help him out by finding him a place to stay. However, that leads to an affair between the two men, which challenges the preacher’s faith and could destroy both his church and his marriage. [Read more…]

After Louie Trailer – Alan Cumming gets an unexpected younger lover in the gay-themed movie

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We really liked After Louie when we caught it a few months ago at the BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival. Now a trailer for the movie has arrived, so you can get a better taste for the film.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘After Louie follows Sam (Alan Cumming), an artist and activist from ACT UP who lived through the early years of HIV/AIDS — a man scarred and still struggling with survivor’s guilt. Cemented into an oppressive past, he is bewildered by a younger generation of carefree gay men with their uninhibited use of social media, sexting, and seeming political indifference. But when he meets the seductive young Braeden (Zachary Booth) at a bar late one night, their pants quickly come down and, eventually, so does Sam’s ossified guard. As the pair become increasingly intimate, an intergenerational relationship blossoms between them-one capable of reawakening Sam’s artistic soul and reviving his wilted heart.’

You can read our full review of After Louie here. Take a look at the trailer below.  [Read more…]

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After Louie (BFI Flare Review) – AIDS, generational changes, gay life & Alan Cumming

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After Louie is one of the higher profile titles at this year’s BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival – largely because it stars Alan Cumming. He plays Sam, an artist working on a documentary about his friend, William, who died during the AIDS crisis. However, he discovers that few people are that interested in his project.

He meets the much younger Braeden (Zachary Booth), initially assuming the young man must be a rent boy, and so pays him for sex. Braeden also has a boyfriend, but starts to see more of Sam. They start to challenge each other’s assumption, with Sam angry that the younger generation don’t seem to care about the AIDS crisis and the battle against heteronormative culture he and his friends engaged in. Braeden meanwhile shows him that his generation have a very different experience of the world – and HIV – and that while Sam’s generation’s battles helped pave the way for that, it’s impossible for younger people to truly comprehend what it was like to watch so many people die amidst a society that didn’t care and in many cases attacked them. [Read more…]

Alan Cumming to Star in New LGBT Film, After Louie, Which Is Looking For Your Help

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alan-cummingIt’s been announced that bisexual actor and Tony winner Alan Cumming is attached to star in a new LGBT-themed movie from lifelong activist and artist, Vincent Gagliostro, who has been sited by New York Magazine as one of the six most influential players in the gay community during the 80s and 90s AIDS crisis.

However, to get it to the screen it needs your help, as a Kickstarter is now running through June 2nd, in the hope of raising $72,500. After Louie explores the contradictions of modern gay life and history through Sam (Cumming), a man desperate to understand how he and his community got to where they are today. The movie also Justin Vivian Bond (Shortbus, Kiki and Herb: Live at the Knitting Factory), Zachary Booth (Damages, Keep The Lights On), David Drake (The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me), and NYC icon, Joey Arias.

Many important figure-heads in the NYC artistic community are speaking up for the film, including author and playwright, Larry Kramer who says, “this move needs to be made.” Pulitzer Prize-Winning author Michael Cunningham comments, “Vincent Gagliostro is not only enormously gifted, he’s also been a radical, fearless and compassionate voice for decades, speaking for countless people whose stories would otherwise go undeard.”

Here’s the synopsis: ‘After Louie explores the contradictions of modern gay life and history through Sam (ALAN CUMMING), a man desperate to understand how he and his community got to where they are today. As an AIDS activist and member of ACT UP in the 1980s and 90s, Sam witnessed the deaths of too many friends and lovers. Battle-wounded and struggling with survivor’s guilt, Sam now resents the complacency of his former comrades and derides what he sees as the younger generation’s indifference to the politics of sex, and of death.

‘An unexpected intimacy with a much younger man, Braeden (ZACHARY BOOTH), challenges Sam’s understanding of contemporary gay life. Through this unconventional romance, he is forced to deal with the trauma that so informs his past, their present, and an unknown future.’

Vincent Gagliostro comments, “My film After Louie is a portrait of what happened to us — the generation who endured the AIDS epidemic, a generation whose shared history continues to haunt us. In confronting the end of a traumatic era and provoking a conversation between generations, I dare us to dream of a new and vibrant future, again. After Louie will be a testament to the joys of the fully lived life and the inseparability of art and living.”

If you want to help get the movie made, watch the crowdfunding video below and then head over to Kickstarter. [Read more…]

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Keep the Lights On (DVD)

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Keep the Lights On tells the story of a Danish filmmaker, Erik (Thure Lindhardt), who’s working on a new documentary and living in New York City. He enters a loving yet complicated relationship with Paul (Zachary Booth), a struggling drug and sex addict. The film takes a rare and honest look at the complications that impact on most relationships and the negative effects addiction can cause for yourself and a partner, all put together in a way that makes you not think of this as a ‘gay film’. [Read more…]

Crush Of The Day: Keep The Lights On’s Zachary Booth

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29-year-old Zachary Booth has been turning a lot of heads this year in the gay hit Keep The Lights On, playing Paul, the drug-addicted boyfriend of the film’s central character, Erik. It wasn’t his first time playing gay though, as he was also queer teen Ethan in the short-lived 2007 TeenNick series, What Goes On.

He’s also been busy being handsome in various other things over the last few years, and is probably best known for playing Glenn Close’s son in the TV series Damages.

Booth has popped up in movies such as of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and The Beaver, as well as having a small but very naked role in Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. In the future, he’s got quite a few things in the works, including the movies Big Words, Never and Last Weekend.

With Keep The Lights On now in UK cinemas, we thought it was a good time to admire Zach with a few cute pics of him. You can click on the images below for larger versions, and you can check him out in action in his actor’s reel (including a scene from Keep the Lights On) underneath that. [Read more…]

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Chatting With Keep The Lights On Director Ira Sachs

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Ira Sach’s Keep The Lights On has been getting massive amounts of praise on the festival circuit, with rave reviews and adoring audiences. It even won the Teddy award for the best gay-themed film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The movie, about a relationship between two men which faces huge difficulties over the course of a decade, has now reached UK cinemas (you can read our review here). Director Ira Sachs was in the UK last month for the movie’s screenings at the London Film Festival, so we took the opportunity to catch up with him.

You’re in the UK for the London Film Festival. I believe there was a screening of Keep The Lights On last night. How did the audience react?
I think the audience was really engaged with the film, and they had lots of good questions. It always sort of sparks the viewer’s introspection, I think. [Read more…]

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Keep The Lights On (Cinema)

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Keep The Lights On comes to the UK after an incredibly well-received run on the festival circuit and very strong reviews for its US release. So does it live up to the hype that’s suggested this is the gay-themed film of the year? It pretty much does.

There’s been a lot of comparisons between last year’s Brit flick Weekend and Keep The Lights On. There are indeed quite a few similarities between the movies, even if one takes place over two days and the other 10 years. They share a similar tone and style, so that rather than a traditional narrative it’s like peeping in on two gay people’s lives, almost documentary style. They also share the fact that while for years most gay-themed films have centred on issues of identity, both Weekend and Keep The Lights on are about living a gay life once those questions have largely been settled. [Read more…]

Keep The Lights On UK Poster Debuts

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Keep The Lights On is undoubtedly the most buzzed about LGBT-themed movie of the year. It arrives in the UK on November 2nd, following screenings at the upcoming London Film Festival (we’ve seen it and it’s well worth watching, but you’ll have to wait for our full review for all our thoughts). Now Peccadillo Pictures has released the UK quad poster for the movie, which you can see above.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘It’s 1997 and New York City is in a state of intense flux when documentary filmmaker Erik Rothman (Thure Lindhardt) first meets Paul Lucy (Zachary Booth), a handsome but closeted lawyer in the publishing field. What begins as a highly charged first encounter soon becomes something much more, and a relationship quickly develops. As the two men start building a home and life together, each continues to privately battle their own compulsions and addictions. A film about sex, friendship, intimacy and most of all, love, Keep the Lights On takes an honest look at the nature of relationships in our times.’

And if you’d like to see more, click here for the trailer.

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