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

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (DVD Review) – An intimate look at the enigmatic icon

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Enigmatic is an overused word, but it’s one that seems to fit Grace Jones. She’s been famous since the 1970s, but quite what and who she is has always been elusive. She’s a model and a singer, she’s been a Bond girl and co-starred in Conan The Barbarian. Her shows could be viewed as Avant Garde performance art or as a use of striking visuals to cover for middling music. Just visually she is iconic – both an archetype of Amazonian warrior femininity (with the most astonishingly long legs), and yet completely androgynous.

Jones is also impressively ageless, looking pretty much the same now as she did in the 1980s.

She’s someone who seems like we view her through a veil and who isn’t quite on the same planet as the rest of us. To some she is a series of moments – singing while hula-hooping outside Buckingham Palace at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert, infamously slapping guest show host Russell Harty in the 1980s, or base-jumping off the Eiffel Tower in A View To A Kill. [Read more…]

American Made (Blu-ray Review) – Tom Cruise gets into the 1980s drug trade alongside the CIA

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Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) is working as a pilot for TWA in the late 70s when she’s spotted by CIA agent Monty ‘Schafer’ (Domhnall Gleeson). Schafer wants Barry to fly reconnaissance missions in Central America, where the Soviet Union is backing Communist militias. His success at that leads to missions where he acts of the CIA courier to General Noriega in Panama, as well as helping to arm the anti-Communist Nicaraguan Contras in Honduras.

All this leads him to some dodgy places, including into the sphere of the Medellin Cartel, who get Barry to help them smuggle drugs into the US on his return trips. The CIA turn a blind eye to his side job as long as he still gets results. However, not every US law enforcement agency is as keen to ignore Barry’s smuggling. [Read more…]

Tom Of Finland (DVD Review) – Inside the challenging gay life of the homoerotic artist

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For a couple of years duelling biopics of Tom Of Finland were in the works, but this is the one that finally made it to the screen. The life of Touko Laaksonen is certainly an interesting subject to take on, and there are many ways it could have been done. The route they’ve gone down is to make a fairly traditional, prestige biopic, which is perhaps an unexpected choice for a man who made his name for outsider homoerotic art that defied conventions of both sexuality and class.

The film follows the life of Laaksonen, picking up his tale just after he has been discharged from the Finnish Army following the Second World War (the movie rather bypasses Finland complicated position in the conflict, other than that it was hell for the soldiers and also helped set off Touko’s love of Nazi uniforms). While he had encounters with men in the Army, in post-War Finland, being gay is still about furtive and dark meetings in order to avoid society’s rampant homophobia. [Read more…]

Something Like Summer (Outfest Review) – Lovers become frenemies in the gay-themed, coming-of-age musical

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I’m still surprised there aren’t more gay-themed musicals, but we’ve got a new one with Something Like Summer. It’s not a typical musical, as rather than taking place in a hyper-real world, it tells a story of love and loss that occasionally jumps from the real world to a stage, where the main character breaks into song. It’s an unusual way of doing it, and the first couple of times it’s a little jarring, both because its slightly unexpected and because the musical sequences are quite spaced apart.

However, they’re catchy songs, sung well and after you get used to it, they add real charm to the movie.

Something Like Summer, based on Jay Bell’s popular novel, follows Ben (Grant Davis) over the course of 12 years. It starts when he’s an out gay high school student with a crush on popular jock Tim (Davi Santos). After they literally bump into one another, they start a fledgling relationship. However, Tim is still unsure of his sexuality and wants to stay in the closet, as he’s afraid of what will happen if anyone finds out. [Read more…]

The Founder (Blu-ray Review) – The rise of a fast food giant and the death of someone’s dream

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Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) is feeling slightly over-the-hill in his job selling milkshake machine to drive-in restaurants. Then he suddenly gets an order for six mixers – far more than he thinks any restaurant could possibly need. However, the order is correct, so Ray decides to visit this place out in San Bernadino California, where he discovers the McDonald’s hamburger stand.

The McDonald brother, Dick and Mac (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) have completely reinvented the concept of the diner-type restaurant. From getting people to come to the window to order and serving them food in waxed paper, to a carefully designed system to be able to complete an order in seconds, Ray has never seen anything like it. [Read more…]

Centre Of My World (BFI Flare Review) – First love & dark family secrets for a young gay man

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Based on Andreas Steinhöfel’s bestselling novel, Centre Of My World follows gay teenager Phil (Louis Hoffman), who returns from a summer camp to find that his unorthodox single mother, Glass (Sabine Timoteo) and twin sister Dianne (Ada Philine Stappenbeck), aren’t speaking to one another, but no one will tell him why.

When he returns to school, he meets new boy Nicholas (Jannik Schümann), who he immediately starts to fall for. Initially Phil just watches his new crush from afar, but then Nicholas decides to make a move, and the two begin both dating and having passionate sex. Phil’s best friend Kat (Svenja Jung) initially isn’t sure about this newcomer, but soon the three of them are fast friends. [Read more…]

Doctor Strange (Cinema Review)

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Here we are with the 14th film in the ever expanding and ultra-successful MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). This entry has been touted to be a turning point in the series, just as Thor (2011) introduced aliens and the nine realms; Doctor Strange introduces the Marvel multiverse – a key narrative trope of the comics which essentially means there are infinite versions of worlds and characters just ripe for the picking.

This long awaited entry tells the story of the brilliant but arrogant Doctor Stephen Strange (a well-cast Benedict Cumberbatch), who after a car accident suffers severe nerve damage in his hands. He goes on a journey to heal himself which leads to a temple in Nepal, where he meets The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), learns of the mystic arts and sorcery, and is put on a path to save the day from a being that threatens the entire planet. [Read more…]

Triple 9 (Blu-ray Review)

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As the cast came together for Triple 9, it couldn’t help but feel this was going to be one hell of a movie. With the director of The Road and Lawless behind the camera, and a cast including Casey Affleck, Aaron Paul Kate Winslet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Gal Gadot, Norman Reedus, Teresa Palmer, Clifton Collins Jr. and Woody Harrelson, it certainly has plenty of pedigree.

However, the result is a rather overstuffed movie, which, as with many of its forebears, confuses grimness with authenticity, and people being miserable and unpleasant to one another with reality. Indeed, there are moments when objectively it’s about as realistic as Lord Of The Rings, but has such a determined po-face that it might convince you otherwise. [Read more…]

The Gunman (Blu-ray Review)

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Until recently the prospect of Sean Penn starring in a movie meant that while the film was likely to be a little bit tedious, he would be extremely good in it and the movie would be worth a watch. However, with Gangster Squad, Walter Mitty and The Gunman, he seems to be trying his hand at more standard fare.

Unfortunately though, all the Gunman offers is more of what we’ve seen 1,000 times before. In fact, I almost wonder if in the pact actors make with Hollywood, it includes a clause that makes it compulsory for them to star in at least one movie about an assassin having an existential crisis. [Read more…]

Last Knights (DVD Review)

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I won’t waste your time too much with this review, as I can sum up my thoughts in two word – don’t bother. This is a Czech and South Korean co-production, loosely based on an old Japanese movie, and with a multi-national cast all speaking English in various random accents – it is therefore perhaps not surprising that it is a bit confused as to what the hell it’s all about.

Set somewhere that’s sort of a fusion of Medieval Europe and Asia, but also with fantasy undertones (it should come as no surprise that Last Knights feels a little like a misguided Game Of Throne fan film), Clive Owen is a knight who finds himself cast into the wilderness after the fall of his master (Morgan Freeman), and must band together with a group of other knights – 47 Ronin style – to regain their honour. [Read more…]