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

Esteros (DVD Review) – Gay love interrupted for two young men

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Esteros follows two men at two different points in their lives, interweaving what happened in their teenage years with their lives 10 years later. In their mid-teens, Jeronimo and Matias are friends who enjoy play during the long, hot summer days. However, on the cusp of manhood their relationship begins to move past just friendship as they realise their feelings for one and develop something deeper and more physical.

10 years late they are estranged, but one of them returns to their hometown for carnival, which causes them to reconnect. Jeronimo is now a proudly gay – but single – man. Matias meanwhile is engaged to a woman. Initially unsure how to communicate with one another, when they start revisiting the places and activities that brought them together as teens, they begin to reconnect. Matias in particular must decide whether what they once had was just a youthful fling, or something deeper. [Read more…]

Remembering The Man (DVD/VoD Review) – Gay love and AIDS revisited in a new look at the story behind Holding The Man

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If you’ve read Timothy Conigrave’s 1995 memoir, Holding The Man, or seen the more recent film version (or indeed the play), you’ll know a bit about the relationship between Conigrave and John Caleo. This documentary retells the tale, focused around taped interviews Conigrave did with an AIDS oral history project before his death, as well as with interviews with the couple’s friends.

The documentary recounts how Timothy and John met as students at a Catholic High School in Australia and started to date one another. Despite a bit of tumult, break-ups and Timothy moving away to become an actor, the connection between the two remained and they developed an abiding love for one another. [Read more…]

Chemsex (UK Cinema Review)

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If you go onto Grindr it’s not unusual to see someone’s headline including something like ‘PNP’, ‘Chem’, ‘T’, ‘Tina’ or similar. Indeed, for quite a while I didn’t have a clue what these meant, and was quite surprised when I discovered it involves an entire subculture of gay men. However, as the documentary Chemsex shows, for some mixing drugs and sex is far more than just an occasional aberration. It can go far enough that it almost becomes a way of life, no matter the repercussions or whether they are in control of it.

Directors William Fairman and Max Gogarty explore what they term a gay healthy emergency in London (and it’s undoubtedly true you see a lot more ads from ‘chem-friendly’ guys in the UK capital than most other places), spending a year talking to men who are part of the Chemsex world, from those just starting and see it as an adjunct of the BDSM they’re interested in, to those who are so far down the rabbit hole they’re in the grip of drug-induced psychosis. [Read more…]

Seashore (US DVD Review)

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Two young friends, Martin (Mateus Almada) and Tomaz (Mauricio Barcellos), head off together from the city to a coastal town in Southern Brazil. It’s the place where Martin’s grandfather recently died, and where the relatives he hasn’t seen for years still live. Tomaz knows it will be a difficult time for Martin, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have fun too.

However, while the trip is mainly about Martin, Tomaz is keeping quiet about one part of himself, but as the two teens spend more time together, sexual tension grows to the point where they must confront whether there is only friendship between them. [Read more…]

Out To Kill (US DVD Review)

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I have to admit that for about 20-minutes I didn’t hold out any hope for Out To Kill. It starts out following Justin (singer/songwriter/actor Tom Goss), who lives in an apartment complex full of gay people and believes he’s just about the best thing that’s ever happened to the planet. He’s the type of guy who thinks looking good is all that matters, treats nearly everyone else with disdain, and just about everything he says is a sexual come-on.

It appears he’s going to be the lead character – and an intensely annoying one he’d be as well. Therefore it almost comes as a relief when he’s found dead in the communal swimming pool (that sounds like I’m being nasty, but if you watch the movie you’ll know what I mean). The police are quick to blame the death on a drug overdose, but Justin’s friend, Gene (Rob Moretti), thinks it was murder. He hires new resident and private eye Jim (Scott Sell) to investigate. [Read more…]

Helicopter Mom (Iris Prize 2014 Review)

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Maggie, a single mother in the US, is terrified of losing her only son Lloyd when he graduates and moves away to college, and so does her best to control his life as much as possible before he goes. Lloyd, played to nonplussed and eventually exasperated perfection by Jason Dolley, pushes back as she hangs on tighter, and when she realises the only way her beloved son can afford to attend college is with a minority scholarship, she outs him as gay to the whole school in order to apply. The only problem being that Lloyd doesn’t really know whether he’s gay or not, and of course his mother won’t listen.

The term ‘Helicopter Mom’ comes from the behaviour of certain parents who are always hovering over their children, never letting them find their own way without being told what to do. Cue a dozen cringe moments along the lines of the hit American pie series, without the gross-out factor. (The closest this movie gets to gross-out are the overly-tight outfits and youthful hair on Nia Vardalos as she gives a delightfully manic performance as Maggie.) [Read more…]

Who’s Afraid Of Vagina Wolf? (DVD Review)

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Anna (Anna Margarita Albelo) has just turned 40 and is having a bit of an early midlife crisis. After leaving college she had dreams of finding love and having a glittering filmmaking career, eventually deciding she would sacrifice the former for the latter.

However she’s now finds herself with neither, she’s living in someone’s garage, and she can’t even organise herself enough to put in a grant funding application on time. Her film career – while initially promising – has come down to her dancing around in a vagina costume. [Read more…]

The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi et l’Oisieu) (DVD)

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You could easily be forgiven for having never heard of the 1980 animated French movie The King and the Mockingbird. However it’s had a profound effect, not least that Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have said it helped show them what animation could be, with the lessons they learned from it helping fuel the creation of Studio Ghibli.

Director Paul Grimault and screenwriter/poet Jacques Prevert started work on the film in 1947, when it was planned it as France’s first animated movie. However production was stopped partway through due to a dispute (an unfinished version that wasn’t approved by the director or writer was released at the time). After endless funding and rights battles it took another 30 years to finish it in the way Grimault and Prevert envisioned it. However it was worth the wait. [Read more…]

Five Dances (DVD)

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I had a film studies teacher at university who insisted that Michelle Pfeiffer taking off a glove in Martin Scorsese’s The Age Of Innocence was the sexiest moment in cinema. At the time I assumed this must be someone who’d only heard about having sex the previous Tuesday and therefore couldn’t actually tell what was sexy (or who had some sort of major glove fetish). However Five Dances makes a good argument that watching dance on screen can be a lot sexier than most movie sex scenes (even though the film also has a decent one of those). [Read more…]

Black Rock (DVD)

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Sarah (Kate Bosworth) tricks her quarrelling friends, Abby (Katie Aselton) and Lou (Lake Bell), into heading off for a bonding weekend on Black Rock – an isolated island where they spent time when they were younger. While they believe they’ll be alone, they’re surprised when three hunters, who are not too long back from Afghanistan, stumble across them. [Read more…]