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

Baby Driver (Blu-ray Review) – Kevin Spacey coerces a young man for director Edgar Wright

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The subheading about Kevin Spacey above may be a bit unfair, but I do wonder whether director Edgar Wright is wishing right now he’d picked someone else to play a powerful man coercing a much younger guy to do his bidding. There are also moments in the special features on the Blu-ray where they’re talking about how wonderful Spacey is and how good he is at ‘playing’ a manipulative asshole, where you know the distributors wish they’d had time to cut it out before the disc his shelves, but which certainly give things an unexpected subtext now.

Thankfully though, the presence of the disgraced actor doesn’t completely overshadow the movie, which got great reviews and word of mouth on its cinema release for reasons that had nothing to do with Spacey. [Read more…]

The Crying Game: 25th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray Review) – Neil Jordan’s classic returns

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Is 25 years long enough for something not to be considered a spoiler? Well, just in case, don’t read this review if you don’t want to know the ‘twist’ of The Crying Game. That said, I highly suspect that due to cultural changes in the last quarter of a century, it won’t be quite as much of a surprise as it was for most audience members in 1992.

The Crying Game opens with British soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker) getting kidnapped by the IRA in Northern Ireland. They demand that the UK government release one of their top men who’s recently been detained, in exchange for the soldier’s life.

However, one of the kidnappers, Fergus (Stephen Rea), unexpectedly starts to bond with his captive, even though he knows they may have to kill him. Jody tells Fergus about his lover, the beautiful Dil (Jaye Davidson), and asks him to check she’s alright if the worst comes to the worst. [Read more…]

99 Homes (Blu-ray Review)

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After he can’t get paid for a construction job and ends up unemployed, single father Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) gets behind on his mortgage and ends up being evicted by Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), a man for whom the human cost of taking people’s homes isn’t as important as the amount of money he can make. However, after an angry Nash goes to Carver’s company hoping to reclaim tools he believes have been stolen, he ends up getting employed by Rick.

Initially he thinks he’s just going to help with clearances after the people have been thrown out of their house, but as he gets deeper into Carver’s world, he becomes involved in a web of morally bankrupt real-estate scams and downright theft, taking advantage of both normal people and the government. Conflicted about what he’s doing he keeps his new role secret from his child and mother (Laura Dern), but he cannot keep it under wraps forever, especially once he starts evicting people who never had a chance to pay back their loans. [Read more…]

Stonehearst Asylum (Blu-ray Review)

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There’s certainly a great cast of British and Irish actors brought together for Stonehearst Asylum – virtually everyone in it you’ll recognise from something – so it’s a bit of a shame that they’ve gathered in service of a movie isn’t bad, but which never really takes off.

It’s 1899 and Young doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) arrives at the remote and isolated Stonehearst Asylum, a place where Europe’s finest families hide their relative who have issues that they feel mean they aren’t suitable for polite society. Newgate wishes to study the methods of the head of the institution, Silas Lamb (Ben Kingsley), who is apparently trying to create a utopian mental health facility, where instead of the harsh, tortuous methods of the past, the patients are treated with dignity and as much normality as possible. [Read more…]

Thor: The Dark World (Cinema)

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Thor – The Dark World is the 8th installment set in the Marvel’s Interconnected Universe, and this time the franchise has a new director, Alan Taylor, taking over from Kenneth Branagh, who did such a great job introducing Thor to the cinematic world.

So what do we need to know about Thor: The Dark World? Well, it delivers much the same as the original Thor – there are intergalactic baddies (Elves lead by Malekith – played by Christopher Ecclestone) trying to kill the residents of Asgard as well as the other nine realms. There are amazing backdrops to set the battles in, there are ridiculously over the top costumes, and massive body counts, rippling muscle and a good thread of humour running through the film. [Read more…]

Much Ado About Nothing (2013) (DVD)

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If you were in post-production on a movie that wasn’t just the biggest film of your career but one of the most ambitious franchise tie-ups ever attempted, you’d think you’d just concentrate on that. However while Joss Whedon was completing The Avengers, he also managed to find time to shoot a low-budget, black and white version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, set in modern-day California. The man sure likes to work. [Read more…]

The Sweeney (DVD)

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If the Metropolitan Police are hoping to get away from their image in some sectors as oppressive cowboys with a penchant for shooting people they don’t need to, The Sweeney isn’t going to help the cause. The film takes the stereotype of the old school, rulebook ignoring cop and ramps it up the nth degree. Indeed it’s more the cliché of the original 1970s TV series it’s based on than anything close to the series itself. [Read more…]

Pitch Perfect (Cinema)

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It films were marked purely on originality, Pitch Perfect wouldn’t do very well. It’s Bring It On meets Glee, with a plot that delves into pretty much every cliché of the underdog competition subgenre it can find. Thankfully though, Pitch Perfect has an excellent trump card, which is that it’s very, very funny.

Beca (Anna Kendrick) heads for college, but she doesn’t want to be there. She wants to go straight to LA and get into the music business, but her father has told her she has to get a degree first. He does eventually make one concession though – if she throws herself into university life and joins at least one club, he’ll support her move to LA after the first year if she still wants to go. [Read more…]

Joyful Noise (DVD)

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I don’t consider myself a particularly stereotypical gay man, but that all changes when it comes to Dolly Parton, who has the innate ability to bring out my inner screaming queen.

I’m oddly unashamed about my love for Dolly Parton. Therefore I’m more than a little excited about the fact that Joyful Noise brings her back to movie screens in a starring role for the first time since Straight Talk in 1992. It’s not a completely triumphant return but the film is quite fun. [Read more…]

Untouchable (Cinema)

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Untouchable hits the UK after having extraordinary success across the rest of the globe. It’s now by far the highest-grossing French-language movie ever, taking an extraordinary $365 million around the world (although only $8 million of that is from the US, which still remains particularly resistant to foreign-language fare). It’s particularly impressive as not only does the world generally ignore the output of the French film industry, but it’s about a subject that many would usually see as something to shy away from – as it’s about a man who’s completely paralysed below the neck. [Read more…]