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

McQueen (Blu-ray Review) – An exhilarating look into the life of the gay fashion legend

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I’ve often thought that if I ever had enough money that I could spend it on high end fashion, the first place I’d head is for Alexander McQueen. While in this documentary the fashion label’s namesake and founder, Lee Alexander McQueen, says in an archive interview that he can’t see the brand going on without him as the driving force, following his untimely death it has continued to find success and present the unique McQueen style thanks to the creative direction of his right hand person, Sarah Burton.

The documentary itself focuses on Lee, following his story from working class East End London lad through his apprenticeship in Savile Row, MA at Central St. Martin’s, founding his own fashion label in his early 20s, his appointment as Creative Director at Givenchy and on through the growth of the Alexander McQueen brand thanks to a partnership with Gucci. It does this via extensive archive footage as well as interviews with those closest to him, including his sister and nephew, along with the circle of friends and colleagues who worked alongside him over the years. [Read more…]

Rift (Rökkur) (BFI Flare Review) – Gay horror gets strange in Iceland

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For a nation with a population of just under 350,000 people, Iceland punches above its weight in the world of film. However, it’s always tended to be – as Rift director Erlingur Thoroddsen said in the Q&A following the BFI Flare Film Festival screening of his movie – straight, white Icelandic dudes making the films. Thankfully that looks likes it’s starting to change to include queer voices, with the recent coming-of-age movie, Heartstone, and now the horror-thriller, Rift.

Gunni has recently split it off with his long-term boyfriend, Einar, and has started seeing someone new. He receives a strange phone call in the middle of the night from a seemingly unstable Einar, who says he’s at his parents’ holiday property called Rökkur (Twilight). Afraid Einar is going to do something drastic, Gunni heads off to the remote house to make sure his former lover is okay. [Read more…]

American Assassin (Blu-ray Review) – Dylan O’Brien takes on the terrorists

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Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) is just a normal guy until his world is turned upside down when terrorists storm a beach he’s on, shooting him and kill his fiancée. After that he becomes obsessed with hunting down the bad guys and making them pay. Initially he tries to do this by himself, until he’s pulled into a CIA programme and trained by Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton) to be able to go into the field and take the terrorists down.

He gets pulled into something deeper and potentially even deadly when an investigation into some seemingly random attacks leads them to a mysterious operative. Even worse, that operative may have a nuclear bomb. [Read more…]

Mildred Pierce (Criterion Blu-ray Review) – The ultimate Joan Crawford film returns

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In the annals of film noir there’s nothing quite like Mildred Pierce, which manages not just to touch the bases of that particular brand of crime drama, but which is also a ‘women’s picture’, taking the issues of a working mother seriously. Even at the time it was made it was an unusual film, as evidenced by the original trailer, which presents Joan Crawford as a noir femme fatale full of malice, while in the actual movie she’s someone rather different.

Crawford is the titular Mildred, a housewife with two daughters and a rocky marriage. She’s keen to give her kids everything they want, especially the demanding Veda (Anny Blyth), who wants the best clothes, the most sophisticated life and plenty of money. After the total breakdown of Mildred’s marriage, she starts up a restaurant, hoping to give Veda the life she wants. [Read more…]

Moonlight (Cinema Review) – The gay-themed multi-Oscar nominee finally reaches the UK

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Oftentimes it’s not too far into the year when you can see which movies are likely to be lining up for the Oscar race. However, Moonlight seemingly came out of nowhere, became far more successful at the US box office than most expected (setting records along the way) and immediately had people suggesting it ought to be up for loads of awards. Even so, many wondered whether it would miss out, simply because it was a small film released by a US distributor that doesn’t have the money for the sort of massive Oscar campaign a studio can mount.

Thankfully it defied the odds, scoring eight Oscar nominations. It’s taken a while, but now the movie is arriving in the UK, and it’s been worth the wait. [Read more…]

Brooklyn (Blu-ray Review)

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If you want Oscar nominations, you need to put Domhnall Gleeson in your movie. He was in four films released in 2015 that got multiple nominations. Brooklyn was one of those movies (alongside Star Wars, The Revenant and Ex Machina), although he doesn’t show up until the second half.

Based on Colm Toibin’s book, Brooklyn is about young Irish woman Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), whose sister Rose and a priest have organised for her to have a new life in New York, where they believe she will have more opportunities. After a difficult crossing, Eilis starts a new job at a department store while living at a boarding house in Brooklyn, and begins training to be a bookkeeper. [Read more…]

World War Z (DVD)

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After a troubled production history, many thought World War Z would be the flop of the summer. However it became a pretty decent hit, grossing over $540 million around the world. That’s pretty impressive for a film that had to have its entire final act scrapped and a brand new one shot to replace it.

Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, who gets in his car one morning with his family and heads off into the city. Suddenly all hell breaks loose, as out of nowhere zombies start ravaging the streets, attacking everyone they can find and turning them into one of them. Gerry and his family manage to escape and soon learn the zombie plague has spread across the world. [Read more…]

Les Invisibles (DVD)

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Director Sebastien Lifshitz made his name with modern gay classics such as Presque Rien. In Les Invisibles he moves from fiction to fact with a documentary about older gay people and their experiences. As the title suggests, the film sees these people as ‘the invisible’, whose lives are often sidelined and ignored, despite the fact they lived through a period when being gay was marginalised, discriminated against and life was far more difficult than it is today. [Read more…]

Safe Haven (DVD)

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A young woman (Julianne Hough) is on the run, evading a Boston policeman and heading off across the US. She stops in a small town where she decides to hole up for a while under the name Katie. She wants to lay low and avoid forming any attachments, especially as she knows the cop will still be after her.

Despite her best efforts to keep people away, she starts to develop a connection with a local widower, Alex (Josh Duhamel) and his kids, as well as her new neighbour, Jo (Cobie Smulders). As she falls deeper for Alex, Katie begins to think maybe she’s found a future. However with a nationwide manhunt out saying she’s wanted for murder and a policeman determined to find her no matter where she is, the secrets of her past inevitably begin to emerge. [Read more…]