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

Horns (DVD Review)

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Horns is a certainly a bit of an odd film, not least because it can’t quite decide what it is – comedy, horror, fable, fantasy, thriller, murder mystery, drama – flitting between them all with little sense of consistency. It’s probably this difficulty in pigeonholing the movie that has limited its audience so far, but in many ways that’s a shame, as while very uneven it is oddly entertaining and just a little beguiling.

Daniel Radcliffe is Ig Perrish, whose girlfriend (Juno Temple) has been murdered and everyone in his small town has decided he’s the killer, despite there not being enough evidence to charge him with anything. Things get a little bizarre when he wakes up one morning to discover he’s grown horns out of his forehead, and that he now has the power to get people to admit to all the things they’d normally keep hidden away (he discovers a lot of these things involve what they’d really like to do to him, as they believe he’s gotten away with murder). [Read more…]

Escape Plan (Blu-ray)

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If this was 1987, Escape Plan would have been just about the most exciting prospect any popcorn flick fan had ever heard of, but Schwarzenegger and Stallone aren’t quite the box office titans they once were. So if they’re going to make a movie together they need something worthwhile around them and unfortunately Escape Plan doesn’t quite stack up.

Stallone is Ray Breslin a security expert whose job is to get inserted into maximum security prisons and then test their security by trying to break out. He’s asked to do the same for a secret facility where the government keeps the most dangerous people on the planet, who essentially need to be disappeared. However Ray won’t be allowed the back-up of his usual team. [Read more…]

Les Invisibles (Cinema)

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Les Invisibles is an award winning French documentary about 11 gay men and women living in France, whose common link is their homosexuality and advancing ages. Each of the subjects talks about their experiences of being gay in less hospitable times, when anything homosexual was normally met with disdain, mistrust and violence. The film is basically an insight into their life journeys, and how society’s attitudes and the political landscape have changed. [Read more…]

The Parade (Parada) (DVD)

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Radmilo (Milos Samolov) and Mirko (Goran Jevtic) are a gay couple living in the very homophobic surroundings of Belgrade, Serbia. Mirko is trying to organise a gay pride parade against the backdrop of massive public resentment and the constant threat of attack by skinheads.

Into their life comes solider turned gangster Limun (Nikola Kojo), who initially holds vet Radmilo at gunpoint and demands he treat his dog. He then comes across Mirko, who’s supposed to be organising his wedding to Biserka (Hristina Popovic). When Limun realises that Radmilo and Mirko are a couple he is furious at being confronted by gays and ends up assaulting Mirko. [Read more…]

Come As You Are (Cinema)

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While there still aren’t a huge amount of films about disability, there are certainly more than there used to be. Just in the last year we’ve had the likes of Untouchable and The Sessions, and now a Belgian entry reaches British shores in the form of Come As You Are (Hasta La Vista).

The film follows young men Philip (Robrecht Vanden Thoren), who’s paralysed below the neck; Lars (Gilles De Schryver), whose brain tumour has resulted in him using a wheelchair; and the partially sighted Jozef (Tom Audenaert). While most of their lives consists of their families looking after and worrying about them, they decide to attempt a bit of independence and organise a secret holiday together. There’s one specific plan for this trip, to visit a Spanish brothel and lose their virginities. [Read more…]

The Skin I Live In (2011)

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Pedro Almodovar rarely makes a bad movie and The Skin I Live In is no exception. Antonio Banderas plays a doctor called Robert Legrand, who’s known for his advances in artificial skin and sex change operations. However he hides a secret, because locked away at home is a woman (Elena Anaya) he’s been doing surgical experiments on. She wants to get out, but Robert has a sophisticated security system and a dedicated mother (Marisa Parades) to keep her in. But is he keeping her in because what he’s been doing is illegal, or is there more going on?

The Skin I Live In is the sort of film where I don’t want to say too much about the plot or it’ll spoil the film’s slow reveal, but suffice to say things are not as they appears, and it all has to do with former tragedies in the doctor’s life and the destruction of his family. And it’s no coincidence the woman looks like Robert’s deceased wife. [Read more…]

Snowtown (DVD)

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Snowtown comes to DVD with a reputation for violence, intensity and people walking out of the cinema because they couldn’t stomach it. However if you’re expecting this to be gruesome, gory and basically the latest successor to Saw, you’ll be disappointed, as the strong reactions people have had to Snowtown are more to do with its psychological intensity and moral complexity than the on-screen violence – although it does have its moments.

Based on a true story and with a largely first-time cast and crew, Snowtown tells the story of teenager Jamie (Lucas Pittaway), living in a poor, deprived neighbourhood just outside Adelaide in Australia. It’s a place where abuse seems commonplace, with Jamie dealing with it not only from his mother’s boyfriend but also his own family. [Read more…]