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

Alaska Is A Drag (BFI Flare Review) – A young gay man finds escape through drag & boxing

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Leo (Martin L. Washington Jr.) is a young man living in a tough part of Alaska. He and his twin sister, Tristen (Maya Washington), were abandoned by their mother when they were young and re now trapped between a desire for escape and fear that this will mean their mother will never be able to find them. To make matters worse, Tristen is battling cancer. [Read more…]

The Wall (Blu-ray Review) – Aaron Taylor-Johnson gets trapped by a sniper

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It’s 2007 and two American soldiers – Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Matthews (John Cena) – have been sent in after a group of people working on a pipeline in Iraq are gunned down. Convinced the gunmen have left, they head down to the bodies, only to come under fire from a sniper. Mathews is hit in the gut and collapses in the open. Isaac meanwhile is shot in the knee but manages to take shelter behind a ramshackle stone wall.

Losing blood and with no long-range radio, Isaac is trapped – unable to move away from the small wall without getting shot. Things get even more complicated when the sniper comes onto the short-range radio, demanding Isaac talk to him and threatening to shoot Mathews in the face if he doesn’t. [Read more…]

Lady Macbeth (DVD Review) – Descending into darkness in 19th Century England

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If you’re worried that you’re just not miserable and depressed enough, Lady Macbeth could be the movie for you! It’s safe to say this is not a jolly film, although it is one that some will find pretty powerful, while others will feel it’s oddly pointless (despite its feminist undertones) and nihilistic.

In mid-19th Century England, Katherine (Florence Pugh) is literally sold into marriage to a country gentleman, but soon discovers her husband has no interest in her (in fact seems to despise her), and he father-in-law is cruel and has no issues degrading women. [Read more…]

Kept Boy (DVD Review) – A gay man isn’t sure what to do when he loses his boy toy status

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Is this a knockabout romantic comedy or a soulful, sexual drama? The reason I ask is because if you looked at the cover of the US DVD release, you’d probably expect the former, while the UK version goes for the latter. It’s not too often you see covers that look like they’re for such completely different movies.

The truth is that Kept Boy is somewhere in the middle between comedy and melodrama, as while it certainly has the structure and feel of a rom com, it’s also interested in the more dramatic possibilities of its storyline. [Read more…]

The Hippopotamus (DVD Review) – Stephen Fry’s novel makes it to the screen

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Stephen Fry’s debut novel, The Hippopotamus, has gained a lot of fans since its debut in 1994. It would seem like a good candidate for a film version. Sadly though, what we’ve got is rather limp.

Ted Wallace (Roger Allam) is a famous poet who hasn’t written anything for years, and whose very vocal cynicism causes him to lose his main means of support – as a theatre critic. In order to make money he agrees to go to the grand house of his former friend, Michael Logan (Matthew Modine), under the guise of visiting his godson, David (Tommy Knight). [Read more…]

Smurfs: The Lost Village (Cinema Review) – The little blue creatures are back and totally animated

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After a couple of part live-action outings, Sony has decided that a bit of a reboot and a fully animated adventure is the direction they want to take The Smurfs. They’d have probably done better to have gone this root from the beginning, as the little blue creatures never seemed like they fit in the real world, and this fully animated adventure allows it to be closer to the tales of Peyo and the early 80s Hannah-Barbera cartoon.

As well as the fact there’s no Neil Patrick Harris or Hank Azaria, the voices of most of the Smurfs have changed too. Not that kids will care though, and quite frankly why they decided they needed names like Demi Lovato, Joe Manganiello and Julia Roberts involved is a mystery, as it’s not like anyone is going to buy a ticket because of it. [Read more…]

Blair Witch (Blu-ray Review) – Back into the supernatural Black Hills woods for more found footage

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When it was announced at Comic Con that Adam Wingard’s The Woods (which already had a bit of hype about it even though no one knew much about it) was actually a sequel to The Blair Witch Project, it seemed a bit of a masterstroke of marketing. Immediately a movie that might otherwise have elicited shrugs and accusations of cashing in on a dead franchise, instead jumped to the top of horror fanboys interest lists.

Now though it’s starting to seem like it might have worked a little too well, as it raised the hype level so high that unless the actual movie turned out to be a surprising and zeitgeist-capturing as the original 1999 film, it was bound to be seen as disappointing. And that’s just what happened when it was released in cinemas, with most people seeing it as more of remake than a sequel – and it was actually outgrossed by the almost universally derided earlier follow-up, Book Of Shadows. [Read more…]

Sausage Party (Blu-ray Review) – Seth Rogen leads some rude, crude, animated food

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Ever since it was first announced, Sausage Party sounded like a completely insane movie, and now it’s here, that judgement has been proven correct. It may also one of the most in-your-face Hollywood releases ever on gay/bisexual front – even if that LGB content does involve animated food.

Frank (Seth Rogen) is a sausage, who’s spent his life in his package in a supermarket, waiting to be picked by the ‘gods’ (aka humans), and taken to The Great Beyond. Every day all the food in the market sing about the joys of The Great Beyond, and how nothing bad could possibly happen to them there. The sausages are also excited because getting picked will finally get them out of their wrappers and sliding into the sexy buns they’ve long flirted with but barely been able to touch. [Read more…]

Daddy (DVD Review)

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Gerald McCullouch is best known to many as Roger in the BearCity movies (although some will remember him as lab tech Bobby in CSI, or in various appearances in other popular TV shows), but here he turns director, as well as taking the lead role. Initially you might think his Colin in Daddy isn’t too far from Roger, as he’s a gay man in a relationship with a much younger guy, but it’s there that the comparisons end.

Colin is a good-looking middle-aged man who has little difficulty picking up younger guys. He’s also got a great job in TV and a devoted best friend, Stew (Dan Via), although he’s starting to think perhaps he’s missing out due to his lack of a long-term relationship. Then into his life comes young intern Tee (Jaime Cepero), who seems incredibly excited to be working alongside Colin. [Read more…]

What We Have (DVD Review)

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Quite often with indie films it’s easy to understand what the film is trying to do and applaud it for the effort, but the movie itself doesn’t actually achieve what it sets out to do. That’s the problem with What We Have, which works better in theory than practice.

Maurice is a Frenchman who has uprooted himself to a new life in a remote town in Northern Canada. He’s gone there to escape a past that haunts him, but despite his new surroundings, he finds it difficult to connect with the people he meets. He gets two jobs – one as an actor in French-language plays and the other tutoring a teenage boy who needs help with his foreign-languages. [Read more…]