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

Screwed (Frameline Festival Review) – A gay summer romance gets complicated for two teen boys

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I haven’t seen too many movies from Finland. That’s a shame purely because it limits my opportunities to put on a movie and go, ‘Is it Finnish? No, it’s just started’. But enough of the Dad jokes and on to the Suomi teen dramedy, which had its World Premiere at the Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival on June 19th 2017.

Miku is in his late teens, and doesn’t seem to quite know where he stands in the world. Quiet and introverted, he allows his wild brother, Sebu, to talk him into organising a wild party just before his parents are due to go and stay at their holiday cottage for the summer. After his parents find out, it puts a strain between Miku and his rather difficult mother, who insists their son spend the whole summer with them. [Read more…]

Before The Fall (VoD Review) – Pride & Prejudice gets a modern gay retelling

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There have been a lot of adaptations of Pride & Prejudice, some of which have been faithful to Jane Austen’s original story and setting, while others have brought it to the modern day (the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries), transplanted the tale to India (Bride & Prejudice) and even added in the undead (Pride & Prejudice & Zombies). Now the story has been retold with a gay twist, and a few other alterations to make it feel more modern.

Elizabeth Bennett has become Ben Bennett, a gay man working as a respected attorney in rural Virginia. He first comes across Lee Darcy when the rough-hewn welder is accused of domestic assault – although neither Lee nor his girlfriend claim to know exactly how she fell and hit her head. Ben doesn’t initially seem impressed with this man, managing to accidentally insult him at the courthouse due to his rather arrogant attitudes and quickness to judge. [Read more…]

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…]

Dropping The Soap (VoD Review) – Jane Lynch & Paul Witten head into a campy soap opera world

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The web series Dropping The Soap has been in the works for several years, but it’s only now that it’s arriving on VoD platforms, including the LGBT-centric streaming service, Dekkoo.com. It’s a 10-episode series, taking us into the mad world of the (fictional) US soap opera, Collided Lives.

Julian Draker (Paul Witten) is the star of Collided Lives, an egotistical man, obsessed with getting enough close-ups, maintaining his soap star status and ensuring nobody else upstages him. However, he has stiff competition from co-star Kit Knockers (Kate Mines), who would like nothing more than to knock Julian off his perch and become Collided Lives’ main star. [Read more…]

Kiss Me, Kill Me (US DVD/VoD Review)

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A few years ago, gay-themed thrillers were something of a rarity. While they’re not exactly common now, we have had an increasing amount recently. Now we have another with Kiss Me Kill Me, from Casper Andreas, who heads in a different direction from previous efforts such as The Big Gay Musical, and Going Down in LA-LA Land.

The film is also noted for being the first queer project for Gale Harold (or as the film properly titles him, Gale M. Harold III) since the US version of Queer As Folk. Alongside him there’s Van Hansis (a four-time Emmy nominee for As The World Turns) along with his Eastsiders co-star Kit Williamson, Big Gay Love & Gayby’s Jonathan Lisecki, Queer Eye’s Jai Rodriguez, Devious Maid’s Brianna Brown, The Get Down’s Yolanda Ross, and LA-LA Land & Seek’s Matthew Ludwinski. It may not have the star power of Ocean’s 11, but there are certainly a lot more recognisable faces than your average gay-themed movie. [Read more…]

Margarita, With A Straw (US DVD Review)

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If you would like the heads to explode of those who voted for Brexit and who want to vote for Trump, just tell them about the concept for this movie. The idea of a film about a disabled, bisexual, Indian woman who becomes an immigrant should be enough to kill them. The shame is they won’t actually watch the movie, which is a sweet, sharply observed and often surprisingly funny movie about one woman finding herself and her independence.

Laila (Kalki Koechlin) has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. She’s in college and on the cusp of womanhood, but is becoming increasingly aware that due to her disability, people have difficulty seeing her as an adult, with her own sexual and emotional needs. After getting a scholarship to study in the US, she has the opportunity to discover a new culture, but also discovers something she wasn’t expecting about herself. [Read more…]

Liz In September (US DVD Review)

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Liz (played by supermodel Patricia Velasquez) is vivacious, womanising, party girl, who heads off for her annual trip to an idyllic Caribbean island, where she celebrates her birthday with her friends. However, she is hiding something from the others, as she is terminally ill. She doesn’t want their pity and just hopes to enjoy herself, even though her condition is getting worse by the day.

An outsider, Eva (Eloisa Maturén), arrives in their secluded retreat after her car breaks down. Straight women are an unusual presence at the guesthouse, and the women there aren’t initially sure they want one around, as this is supposed to be their opportunity to bond solely with other lesbians. However, they soon decide to accept Eva, while simultaneously daring Liz to seduce her. Liz soon discovers that Eva isn’t her usual conquest, and coming into contact with the emotionally wounded young woman causes both of them to reconsider their relationship with life, death and love. [Read more…]

First Period (US DVD Review)

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It’s initially difficult to know what to make of First Period, largely because it takes a while to get used to the fact the two main female characters are actually played by men. It’s certainly not the first time a film has done it, but there’s something about First Period that initially makes it feel particularly incongruous. I’m not sure what it is, but it may be because normally when it’s done, half the joke is the fact it’s a ‘man in a dress’, but that’s not true here, as it’s never even hinted that Cassie (Brandon Alexander III) and Maggie (Dudley Beene) are anything other than American teenage girls.

The film is a loving homage/send-up of 80s teen movies, with Cassie starting a new school and keen to be noticed and popular. However the moment she turns up the bitchy, popular clique are quick to ensure the slightly overweight girl knows she’s at the bottom of the social heap and that her dreams of popularity are laughable. She does however befriend Maggie, who’s about as unpopular as it’s possible to be, but has a good heart despite her occasional plans for murder. [Read more…]

The Day The Earth Caught Fire (Blu-ray Review)

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The BFI has been busy once more restoring a piece of cult cinema from Britain’s past, this time 1961’s slice of sci-fi, The Day The Earth Caught Fire, from Quatermass director Val Guest. Like the best of science fiction from that era, it’s a movie that’s not just about made-up nonsense, but takes on things such as the changes in sexual politics and most particularly fear of the nuclear bomb.

Like everyone else, Daily Express journalist Peter Stenning (Edward Judd) can’t help but notice that strange things are happening with the weather, such as an unexpected solar eclipse and weird, dense fog blanketing London. After getting off to a rocky start with civil servant Jeannie Craig (Janet Munro), they embark on a affair, and thanks to her Stenning gets a tip that the weather isn’t just an anomaly. The US and Russia simultaneously exploding nuclear bombs has knocked the planet off its axis and may also have sent it out of orbit and getting ever closer to the sun. [Read more…]

Pompeii (DVD Review)

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It becomes clear fairly early on that director Paul W.S. Anderson would like Pompeii to be his Titanic – creating a movie that spends the first half building romance and intrigue before throwing a massive disaster at it, and then hoping the audience will be suitably moved. Indeed there are moments where the parallels become slightly overbearing.

However what Anderson seems to have forgotten is that he’s the director of Alien Vs. Predator, Death Race, The Three Musketeers and Soldier, all of which have had great ambition and plenty of good ideas but got crushed under his rather cack-handed and condescending approach to filmmaking. [Read more…]