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

Three Veils (DVD)

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Three Veils features three interlinked tales about young Arab-American women in Los Angeles, dealing with being products of both modern US culture and the mores and traditions of the countries their parents come from.

The first story follows Leila, who is preparing for her arranged marriage, putting aside her wilder impulses and respecting the traditions of the culture she comes from. However her father begins to suspect she isn’t really happy about what’s happening, and her prospective husband reveals himself to be increasingly controlling. Next up is Leila’s study partner Amira, who’s had lesbian feelings since a young age, but after her mother realised this she got Amira to dedicate herself to The Koran and is determined her daughter will put her same-sex feeling aside. However the arrival of Nikki in Amira’s life stirs things up, and makes her realise that maybe she cannot be happy in the life her mother is pushing her towards. [Read more…]

Magic Mike (Cinema)

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When I first saw the advert I thought, ‘Oh no, it’s Showgirls meets The Full Monty’, however I was perplexed somewhat that Oscar winning director Stephen Soderbegh was at the helm. He’s delivered some brilliant films over the years, including Traffic, Erin Brockovich and Solaris, although his work of recent has not been as impressive, namely Haywire and Contagion.

However, with Magic Mike, he has given us is a crowd pleasing, energetic, realistic behind-the-scenes look at the glamorous but shady lives of the stripping community, in a tight, well scripted gem of a movie. [Read more…]

Safe House (DVD)

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Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a young CIA operative feeling trapped by his dull posting as the keeper of a safe house in Cape Town. His rather tedious existence is suddenly blown apart by the arrival of Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a former secret agent accused of selling out his country and who’s been on the run for several years.

The team who’ve captured him immediately start using aggressive techniques to get info out of him, but are interrupted by armed men storming in, shooting up the place while looking for Tobin. Matt is forced to go on the run with Frost in tow. He’s determined to get captured fugitive safely into CIA hands, but the former agent isn’t planning to go quietly, especially as there’s more to him than meets the eye and an ever growing conspiracy around him. [Read more…]

Fastest (Blu-ray)

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This is one for motorbike fans if ever there was one, although it also attempts to sell the excitement of MotoGP to those who may not have thought about watching people on two-wheeled machines whizzing around a track. Director Mark Neale got exclusive access to both the races and drivers in 2010 and 2011, getting incredible footage both on the track and off.

While I have to admit I not really a petrol-head, Neale’s documentary is pretty absorbing and does a great job of showing what an exciting and potentially dangerous sport MotoGP can be. The drivers seem to spend half their time sliding across the tarmac and gravel when their bike falls for one reason or another, and it’s a miracle there are so few injuries. [Read more…]

The Three Musketeers (3D Blu-ray)

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I’ve said before that I think Paul W.S. Anderson is the best bad director there is, and he proves that again here, delivering a load of very good action set-pieces and individual scenes, but overall creating a movie that verges on the incoherent.

Logan Lerman plays D’Artagnan, a country boy who heads for Paris with the hope of being a musketeer like his father before him. However he’s arrived too late, as the legendary Porthos (Ray Stevenson), Athos (Matthew MacFadyen) and Aramis (Luke Evans) are out of favour and the musketeers are no more. [Read more…]

Whisper Of The Heart (Blu-ray)

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When most British people think of Japanese animation (if they think anything about it), it’s either family fantasies such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle or the mad and violent world of adult anime. However there’s a lot more to it than that, with one vein being animation made specifically for teenage girls. Although not typical of the genre (there tends to be more of a fantasy element to most Japanese animation aimed at women), it’s into this field that Whisper Of The Heart fits.

Normally this movie would either never have seen the light of day in the UK or have gotten a tiny little niche DVD release. That’s not because it’s bad, but because traditional thinking would say there’s not market for it. However thanks to the fact it’s made by Studio Ghibli – the company behind the aforementioned Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle – and has a screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki, the 1995 movie is getting a Blu-ray release. [Read more…]

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (DVD)

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When red tape prevents firefighter Larry from naming his kids as his pension beneficiaries, he asks friend and colleague Chuck to pretend to be his domestic partner in order to get around the bureaucracy. However their charade gets increasingly complicated.

I’ve got a high horse and I’m going to get on it. Universal may have screened I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry to GLAAD (the Gay And Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and other gay groups to try and prove it wasn’t homophobic, but you can’t get around the fact that it trades on every homosexual stereotype imaginable. [Read more…]

Tru Loved (DVD)

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While a lot of the time in the world of no-budget gay movies it wouldn’t make much difference if there’d been more cash to give a film a bit more polish, with Tru Loved it’s a real shame as its lack of panache (particularly it’s audio problems) is likely to limit its audience more than it should.

Tru (Townsend) has just moved from San Francisco with her two moms to a much smaller community. There she meet Lodell (Thompson), the high school quarterback. [Read more…]