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

The Future (DVD)

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It’s rare that I’ve been so intrigued by a film and wanted to punch the screen so much at the same. Writer/director/star Miranda July has a dedication to quirkiness that will be adored by some and infuriate others, but in The Future it’s the rather unlikable lead characters who prove most divisive.

Personally I loved the voiceovers by cats, random time stoppages, conversations with the moon, crawling t-shirts, and children digging foxholes, which have completely ruined the film for some – it was everything I thought was potentially problematic. The basic plot sees a pair of hipsters in their mid-30s, Sophie & Jason (July and Hamish Linklater), deciding to adopt a cat – although they have to wait a month until Paw-Paw can be released from the animal hospital. This sets off a bit of an early midlife crisis for the pair. The cat is their first actual commitment, and it suddenly makes them think about The Future. [Read more…]

Puss In Boots (DVD)

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You have to wonder whether the fact the Shrek franchise is Dreamworks Animation’s goose that laid the golden egg was going through the minds of the powers that be when they were coming up with the story for Puss In Boots. While we were promised Shrek Forever After would be the last movie about the green ogre, it’s little surprise the studio wanted to carry on with a spin-off, and Puss In Boots is certainly a good character to do it with, allowing for a film that feels familiar but is different enough not to seem as if it’s merely rehashing the Shrek movies.

Set before Puss met his ogrish pals, the film sees the well-shod feline as an outlaw who discovers the dastardly Jack & Jill have the magic beans he’s been looking for most of his life. When he tries to steal them, he’s interrupted by another cat who on the outside of the law, Kitty Softpaws, who turns out to be allied to Puss’ old pal Humpty Dumpty. However Puss and Humpty have long been estranged, as despite growing up together in an orphanage, Puss blames Humpty for making him an outlaw when he got him involved in a robbery he knew nothing about. [Read more…]

La Cage Aux Folles (1978)

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The 1978 movie La Cage Aux Folles (itself based on a stage play) has had quite a life, getting two sequels, being remade as the hit 1996 Hollywood hit The Birdcage and also ending up as a massively successful Broadway musical, which gave us the song, I Am What I Am. The film that started all this off is fun but relatively small, but it stands loud and proud as one of the first movies that put gay characters front and centre, making them the heroes. Although there are several things that seem slightly old-fashioned about its attitudes to homosexuality, compared to nearly every other gay-themed movie of the era, it’s astonishingly progressive and fun. [Read more…]

Shock To The System

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The second of four Donald Strachey movies starring Chad Allen (following Third Man Out) sees the gay actor back as the gay detective, this time delving into the exceedingly dodgy world of ex-gay therapy. Strachey is hired by a young man, Paul Hale, who almost immediately afterwards turns up dead, after apparently killing himself. While Donald isn’t sure exactly why he was hired, he starts to investigate the death, which leads him to the door of the Phoenix Foundation and its director Dr. Trevor Cornell, who practices controversial techniques that attempt to turn gay people straight. [Read more…]