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

Fifty Shades Darker – Unmasked Edition (Blu-ray Review) – Just how boring is it possible for kinky sex to be?

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Oh, dear God. How do you manage to make a film that’s supposedly about kinky sex be this boring?

At the end of Fifty Shades Of Grey, the timid Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and her S&M-obsessed billionaire paramour, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), had parted company. However, it doesn’t take long until they’re back together, with Christian promising he loves Ana enough that he wants to be her partner rather than her master. She isn’t sure, but they start dating again, and are soon negotiating a different kind of contract than the last movie. It’s a more unspoken one where they attempt to create a more equal relationship, despite Christian’s issues and ‘boundaries’ (which handily you can literally paint on him in lipstick).

It’s not going to be all smooth sailing though, as there are various figures out to cause them trouble, including the previously unseen ‘Mrs. Robinson’ character, Elena (Kim Basinger), who inducted Christian into kinkiness and isn’t quite ready to let him go. There’s also Leila (Bella Heathcote), one of Christian’s earlier submissives, and Anastasia’s boss, Jack Hyde, who may be looking to make a different sort of sexual powerplay. [Read more…]

Legend (Blu-ray Review)

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There are quite a few people who don’t like the glamorisation (almost fetishisation) or The Krays and London’s East End gangsters of the 1960s, feeling these were nasty, vicious men and should be treated as such. If they were hoping this new biopic of the Kray twins would burst their legend, the title should have given them a hint that it wouldn’t (although it does also suggest the film knows it’s helping cement a fantasy of their lives).

Tom Hardy plays both Ronnie and Reggie Kray, with the movie picking up after the twins have already started making their name as gangsters, running nightclubs and operating an expanding protection racket. The film follows their continuing rise and fall, framed by Reggie’s romance and marriage to Frances O’Shea (Emily Browning). While their growing notoriety and the edge of glamour ensures they have the sort of high connections that gives them a certain amount of protection – and perhaps a sense of invulnerability – it also makes them bigger targets for those who would like to bring them down. [Read more…]

Fast & Furious 7 (DVD Review)

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If you’d told me a year ago that one of the Fast & Furious movies would make $1.5 billion at the box office and become the fifth highest grossing movie of all time, I would have laughed directly in your face. However, I’d be eating humble pie now, as that’s just what Fast & Furious 7 has done, helped by a record-breaking run in China.

I still have no idea why it did so well – not because it’s a dreadful movie, but simply because there’s it’s tough to understand why it was so stunningly successful. But then, I suppose it’s like McDonald’s – nobody would class it as genuinely great food, but it’s incredibly popular because it’s tasty and you know exactly what you’re going to get. [Read more…]

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (Cinema Review)

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It seems hard to believe that we are now on the fifth instalment in this franchise, and after 19 years it thankfully shows no signs of stopping. I should state that for me this is a hard film to review as I am a fan of the previous entries, and the latest plays it safe by sticking to the tried and tested formula of its predecessors.

Some reviewers are calling it the best entry in the franchise (which I can’t disagree with) and others have slated it for not adding anything new (which I also can’t disagree with). But for me the most important thing I want from any film is to be entertaining and fun, and this film definitely ticks both those boxes.

In Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and crew have to take down the Syndicate, an elite and ungoverned ‘anti IMF (Impossible Missions Force)’ that has set out to change the world through global attacks and assassinations. [Read more…]

The Book Thief (Blu-ray Review)

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, while an awful lot of films have been made about the Second World War, not that many have looked at the German side from a sympathetic perspective. However millions of ordinary people had to live under Nazi rule whether they agreed with Hitler’s policies or not, and while a lot purely submitted to the evil whims of the regime, others did what they could to oppose.

The Book Thief, based on Marcus Zusak’s novel, takes us back to this time and the life of young Liesel (Sophie Elisse), who is separated from her communist mother and sent to live with an ordinary couple, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and the stern Rosa (Emily Watson). Initially she is illiterate and despite the difficult situation she has come from, relatively oblivious to the world around her. [Read more…]

X-Men: Days Of Future Past (Cinema Review)

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The latest instalment in the X-Men franchise; Days of Future Past does not disappointment. Not only does it have the original X-Men stars, including the wonderful Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen (and a lot more), but it also features the hot new stars such as James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. Of course there’s also the ultimate X-Men veteran who has appeared in ALL of the X-men films, Hugh Jackman.

And  if you’re a big fan of Jackman, you get to see a whole lot of him. Yes, there are nude shots. [Read more…]

Pacific Rim (Blu-ray)

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There’s a saying in Hollywood that if a film is bad critics blame the screenwriter, but if it’s good, it’s the director who gets the credit. There’s a certain amount of truth in that, and it’s something that would be easy to do with Pacific Rim. The action scenes are terrific, it looks amazing and the world building is impressive, but the characters feel a bit like action figures.

The problem is that the film tries to create archetypes more than people – the hero with something to overcome, the damaged love interest, the grizzled commander, the arrogant  colleague who’s convinced the hero with fail. It’s a common tactic with big tentpole films, and writers Guillermo Del Toro and Travis Beachman have certainly been thumbing through their copies of Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces to try and understand the archetypes they need to fulfil the hero’s journey – from being reluctantly called to action, to a flirtation with resurrection – however the result is characters that don’t feel quite real. [Read more…]

Star Trek Into Darkness (Blu-ray)

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While JJ Abrams’ reinvention of Star Trek has proven very popular with audiences, there are quite a few uber-fans of the TV incarnations who pretty much seem to think Abrams is the anti-Christ. If they’d been hoping that Star Trek Into Darkness would be an olive branch, taking things back to exactly how they’d been before, they were sadly mistaken. Instead the movie forges forward with its parallel reality, doing things that will ensure classic Trek fans who didn’t like the first film will be absolutely spitting feathers at its twisting of earlier stories, while others will love the way it cleverly renews things. [Read more…]

Battleship (Cinema)

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Just picture it – writer goes to see producer and says I have an idea for a movie, “Let’s base it on a game, say Battleship. We’ll make the enemy Aliens (Transformers style), set it in Pearl Harbor – with our allies being the Japanese, of all people – and let’s debut the worlds biggest pop star in her movie debut! You can think of it as Top Gun meets Independence Day!” Producer proceeds to mentally count the cash he thinks he’ll make.

This is basically the premise of one of the most anticipated films of the year – which to be honest isn’t a great state of affairs, if this is all Hollywood can deliver. That said, with an estimated budget of over $200M, you have to hope it’ll do better than last years’ two alien invasion efforts, Skyline and Battle Los Angeles. [Read more…]

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