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

Lee Pace To Star Alongside Ben Foster In Lance Armstrong Biopic

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Lee Pace

Lee Pace

Stephen Frears is already shooting his planned (but currently untitled) biopic of Lance Armstrong, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t time to fit in some new cast members. TheWrap reports that Lee Pace has signed up for the film, although there’s no news on exactly who he will play.

John Hodge (Trance, Trainspotting) wrote the screenplay, which covers the cyclist’s career from his testicular cancer comeback to winning seven Tour De France championships, through to his eventual admission that he used performance enhancing drugs during his record-breaking run.

It’s not the only Armstrong movie in the works. The main rival project comes from Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions. That one has Bradley Cooper attached to star and is based on Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by New York Times sports journalist Juliet Macur. Warner Bros. is also developing a Lance Armstrong biopic, securing the life rights of Tyler Hamilton, one of Lance Armstrong’s teammates on the United States Postal Service cycling team, and one of the first to testify under oath that his teammate was doping. Jay Roach is attached to direct that movie from a script by Scott Z. Burns.

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Philomena (Cinema)

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Peter Mullan’s 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters was a howl of outrage at the Catholic Church in Ireland; a coruscating, raw drama about the abuse of young girls basically held prisoner by sadistic nuns after falling pregnant.

Stephen Freers’ Philomena has basically the same theme but is, by comparison, a gentle, warm story, which seems too timid to unveil the same power as Mullan’s film. Dench and Coogan have rightly garnered strong reviews for their performances, but the film’s script seems too scared of going for the emotional knockout punch, despite the real power of the story. [Read more…]

Philomena Trailer – Steve Coogan teams up with Judi Dench

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Judi Dench and Steve Coogan play unlikely friends in Philomena, the moving, funny and at times shocking true story of one woman’s search for a lost son. Now the first trailer for the movie has arrived, which you can watch here.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Falling pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena was sent to the convent of Roscrea to be looked after as a “fallen woman”. When her baby was only a toddler, he was taken away by the nuns for adoption in America. Philomena spent the next fifty years searching for him but with no success.

‘Then she met Martin Sixsmith, a world-weary political journalist who happened to be intrigued by her story. Together they set off to America on a journey that would not only reveal the extraordinary story of Philomena’s son, but also create an unexpectedly close bond between Philomena and Martin.

‘The film is a compelling narrative of human love and loss that ultimately celebrates life, showing that there is laughter even in the darkest places.’

Directed by BAFTA winner Stephen Frears (The Queen), Philomena will open in the UK and Ireland on 1st November 2013. [Read more…]

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Ben Foster Set To Play Lance Armstrong For Director Stephen Frears

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ben-fosterAs soon as Lance Armstrong admitted he’d cheated during his cycling career, a couple of biopics about him were announced. We haven’t heard about them for a while, but now Stephen Frears has stepped up with yet another movie about Armstrong, with Deadline reporting that Ben Foster is in final negotiations to play Lance.

John Hodge (Trance, Trainspotting) wrote the screenplay, which covers the cyclist’s career from his testicular cancer comeback to winning seven Tour De France championships, through to his eventual admission that he used performance enhancing drugs during his record-breaking run.

Unsurprisingly, with other Armstrong projects in the works, they’re fast-tracking the project and hope to start shooting as early as this autumn, in the hope of getting a jump on the movie movies.

Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions are working on movie based on the book, Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by New York Times sports journalist Juliet Macur. Warner Bros. is also developing a Lance Armstrong biopic, securing the life rights of Tyler Hamilton, one of Lance Armstrong’s teammates on the United States Postal Service cycling team, and one of the first to testify under oath that his teammate was doping. Jay Roach is attached to direct that movie from a script by Scott Z. Burns.

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Judi Dench & Steve Coogan Take On Stephen Frears’ LGBT-themed Philomena

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Stephen Frears is one of the most eclectic director’s around, having taken on everything from Dangerous Liaisons and the Queen, to the likes of High Fidelity, Tamara Drewe and Accidental Hero. However he first made his name in the movie world with the 1985 gay-themed hit, My Beautiful Launderette. Now he’s lined up a new movie which also has LGBT-interest, Philomena, and Variety reports that Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan have signed up to star.

The movie is based on the Martin Sixsmith true story book, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a 50 Year Search. The plot follows Lee, who teams up with Sixsmith to try and find the illegitimate son that she was forced to give up while living in a Catholic home for unmarried mothers in Ireland. Meanshile, it turned out that her son had grown up as Michael Hess, and become a Republican politician and closeted homosexual who had been diagnosed with AIDS. With the knowledge that he was dying, he traveled to Ireland to try and get the nuns at the Catholic home to reveal his mother’s identity.

Coogan has been involved with the project for a long time and even co-wrote the film with Jeff Pope. He will play the Sixsmith, while Dench will be Lee. Coogan commented, “The film is a comic tragedy or a tragic comedy. It’s about two very different people, at different stages of their lives, who help each other and show that there is laughter even in the darkest places.”

Shooting starts next month in London, Northern Ireland and Washington, D.C.

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Lay The Favorite Trailer – Rebecca hall gets involved in betting

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Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall, Joshua Jackson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones star in Stephen Frears’ Lay The Favorite, as adaptation of Beth Raymer’s memoir about the strange world of sports betting. Early reviews have been mixed, but there’s promise in this tale of a thirtysomething woman who becomes involved with a group of geeky fiftyish men who have found a way to work the sportsbook system in Las Vegas to their advantage. Now the trailer is here, so take a look. It’s out in the UK on June 22nd.

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The Queen (Blu-ray)

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While the world of film loves to make royal biopics, nearly all of them are historic, with even something like The King’s Speech causing some to wonder whether its subject matter is too close to the present to make it suitable for a movie (seriously, some people complained about that). It’s very unusual therefore for a mainstream royal biopic to take on the current royal family, especially concerning events that are in the recent past. The Queen does though and does it very well, winning Helen Mirren an Oscar in the process. Now the film is making its first appearance on Blu-ray, just in time for the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee.

Following the death of Princess Diana, the Queen (Mirren) and royal family attempt to deal with what they believe should be a private matter between themselves and the Spencer family. However as attacks from the media and public begin to grow, and with new PM Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) advising her, the Monarch slowly comes to realise that her apparent inaction is becoming a threat to her position. [Read more…]

Stephen Frears Frontrunner For Freddie Mercury Biopic

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For quite a long time now Sacha Baron Cohen has been attached to star in a biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. The project is moving forward, with Variety reporting that Stephen Frears is the frontrunner to direct the film. He would seem good choice, having proven himself with biopics with The Queen, as well as showing his love of music in the likes of High Fidelity.

No deal is set yet and several other filmmakers are being considered, but at the moment Frears appears to have the inside track. The film would reunite Frears with The Queen screenwriter Peter Morgan, who’s been working on the script, with Stephen J. Revele and Christopher Wilkinson rewriting his drafts.

It’s previously been suggested that the film will deal with the star’s rise to fame, leading up to the classic performance at 1985’s Live Aid, and won’t cover his death from AIDS, which helped remove a lot of the stigma of the disease. It isn’t known how the film will deal with the singer’s sexuality, although presumably it will feature in the movie. The surviving members of Queen are all involved in the movie, ensuring the use of the band’s classic songs.

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Stephen Frears Remaking The Hit

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It’s not that often you hear of a director planning to remake their own movie (although it’s not unknown,  as people like Hitchcock and Joseph L. Mankiewicz did it). However Stephen Frears (Tamara Drewe, The Queen) wants to do just that, taking on a new version of his 1984 movie, The Hit.

Director Stephen Frears is reuniting with the screenwriter of the movie, Peter Prince, as well as producer Jeremy Thomas, so it really is a case of getting the old team back together. This British gangster crime thriller originally starred John Hurt and Tim Roth as incompetent hit men hired by the London mob to kidnap an informer played by Terence Stamp. The remake will move the action to Mexico and the United States, with Hollywood being used as a backdrop for the story.

This remake is in the early stages of development, so don’t expect to see it anytime soon. (Source: Variety)

General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser

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