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

Kelly + Victor (DVD)

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20-somethings Kelly and Victor are living rather dead-end lives in Liverpool when they meet at a club one night. They head back to her place, take a few drugs and end up having incredibly passionate sex. This starts a relationship between the two that  gets increasingly intense as they introduce autoerotic asphyxiation, a little S&M and cutting into their sexual encounters.

The film comes to DVD fresh from garnering a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Kieran Evans. Coming from the world of documentaries Evans shows a lot of promise with Kelly + Victor, although it would probably help if he could be a little less precious about things. [Read more…]

Jimmy Carr – Laughing & Joking (DVD)

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It doesn’t matter how many times I watch a new Jimmy Carr DVD, it still always comes as a surprise at how rude he is – something he seems to take as a personal challenge, as he always appears to be looking for the joke that will offend absolutely everyone. But that’s the thing with Carr, he comes across and so affable and polite that it allows him to get away with jokes that would have most comedians escorted off the stage. It also helps that rather than telling anecdotes he tends to tell a series of discrete jokes, which makes it far more difficult to for anyone to take even the crudest thing he says seriously. [Read more…]

G.B.F. – Iris Prize 2013 Review

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An American high school’s three popular girls vie with one another to win the most fashionable prize of all – the Gay Best Friend. This is much to the chagrin of newly-outed Tanner, who becomes the school’s ‘official’ gay guy, and finds himself and the relationships of those closest to him tested by the new-found power and status thrust upon him.

Described as ‘Mean Girls meets Clueless’ G.B.F isn’t short of style, or the usual collection of high school movie tropes, all brought together in a slick and sweetly sexy coming-of-age movie. [Read more…]

Speechless (DVD)

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Set in southern China, a western man (Pierre-Matthieu Vital) is found naked by the side of a river. The police pick him up, but he doesn’t say anything – although it’s not clear whether he can’t or if he’s simply refusing. The doctors can’t work out what’s wrong with him and so decide to transfer him to a mental hospital.

A male nurse takes pity on him though, feeling this man isn’t ‘mad’ and so helps to liberate him from the hospital. Slowly we learn how the man ended up on the riverbank and the dramatic events that took place during his relationship with a young Chinese man. [Read more…]

Bullet To The Head (DVD)

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When his partner is killed, Jimmy Bobo (Stallone), a Louisiana hitman, joins up with a by-the-book police officer Taylor Kwon (Kang) who is investigating the death of his own partner. Together they set out for vengeance, uncovering police corruption and hunting down a ruthless mercenary (Momoa) who’s out to kill them both.

Considering the action pedigree of Bullet to the Head — Sylvester Stallone looking great at 66, Walter Hill (Deadwood, The Warriors) at the wheel and producer Joel Silver (Commando, The Matrix) riding shotgun — the audience can expect a little more from this action film than a mindless gun slinger. The opening sequence promises as much: a stylish grunginess greets the audience. Throughout the film there’s a satisfying grimy-New Orleans feel with an icy-cool soundtrack that you’d find happily playing in a bar deep in Louisiana swamp-land. [Read more…]

Elliot Loves (DVD)

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Elliot Loves explores the turbulent love life of Elliot throughout two pivotal parts of his life, as an inquisitive 10-year-old dealing with his loving yet seemingly unhappy mother and as a naive 21-year-old looking for love in all the wrong places in New York.

The initial concept of the film intrigued me I must admit, especially as I was wondering how they would mirror the two separate parts of his life. The way it was executed by cutting segments into what appeared to be chapters and by mirroring similar and important parts of his life as a child and young adult were done effectively and allow the audience to see how the character was the way he is. [Read more…]

Orlando (Blu-ray)

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If you like films to be literal and make logical sense, then Orlando is not the movie for you. However if you enjoy something idiosyncratic that stands alone as a unique bit of independent cinema, and which certainly make you think, Sally Potter’s 1992 movie is well worth a look.

Based on Virginia Woolf’s classic novel, the film follows young nobleman Orlando (Tilda Swinton), who is ordered by Queen Elizabeth I to stay young forever. Miraculously he does, with the film charting Orlando’s life over four centuries. Over time he courts a young Russian woman, becomes patron to a poet, and then heads for Constantinople to represent the Crown. Once there another miraculous things happens (well, miraculous to us, but seemingly not to Orlando), as he changes from a man to a woman. While she retains the same mind and personality, she finds the world is rather different for a lady, not least that she can’t own property as a woman. [Read more…]

The Reverend (Cinema/DVD)

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The Reverend hits UK cinemas on August 3rd and DVD on August 6th.

You certainly can’t knock The Reverend for ambition, even if it gets a few marks taken off for execution. It’s a semi-retelling of the biblical Book Of Job, set in modern day Britain and taking in elements of horror, revenge movies, graphic novels, vampire films, urban thrillers and superhero origin tales. That’s a lot to fit into 92 minutes and so it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s a little unwieldy and sometimes can’t match the scale of its ideas to the quality of its dialogue.

The film starts out with Rutger Hauer and Italian horror legend Giovanni Lombardo Radice (both of whom appear for just a single scene) as Satan and God-like figures who agree to a pact over one man’s soul, with Satan saying he can take a good man, challenge him and have him cursing God’s name. [Read more…]

Griff The Invisible (DVD)

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Superheroes in the real world are quite popular at the moment, with Griff The Invisible being Australia’s entry. True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten stars as Griff, a meek, quiet man trapped in a dull office job by day, but by night he hits the streets as a costumed hero.

Griff is fascinated by the possibility of becoming invisible (literally rather than just metaphorically, which is how he is for most of his life), and is hard at work on a suit he hopes will make him completely see-through. [Read more…]

Repo Man (Blu-ray)

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Repo Man is one of the cultiest of cult movies and has been ever since the day it was made. As director Alex Cox explains in the newly filmed introduction, Universal was initially intent on burying the movie (partially because some seemed to think the film was pro-Communist), but after the soundtrack started selling well, it got a wider release, found its audience and gained enough fans to keep it alive nearly 30 years on.

The film tells the story of Otto (Emilio Estevez), who quits/gets fired from his supermarket job and almost inadvertently ends up working as a repo man after a run in with an experienced repossessor called Bud (Harry Dean Stanton). That leads him into an increasingly bizarre world involving a car that disintegrates anyone who looks into the trunk, people looking for the body of a dead alien, blond-haired men in black and Otto’s punk friends/thieves. [Read more…]