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

Loving Vincent (DVD Review) – Van Gogh inspires the world’s first fully painted movie

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Irrespective of anything else, Loving Vincent is an impressive achievement. It’s the world’s first animated movie that’s ‘fully painted’. In practice that means that the entire thing was filmed with actors and the using that footage it was later animated by a team of over 100 artists using oil paintings for both the characters and the background – and all done in the style of Vincent Van Gogh.

The film is set a year after Van Gogh’s death. Vincent’s friend from Arles, Postman Joseph Roulin (Chris O’Dowd), forces his slacker son, Armand (Douglas Booth), to hand deliver the artist’s final letter to his brother, Theo. After Armand discovers Theo is also dead, he travels on to the place where Vincent spent his final days, Auvers-sur-Oise, to see whether he should give the letter to the man who was supposed to be looking after him at the time, Dr. Gachet (Jerome Flynn). [Read more…]

Raw (DVD Review) – A young, naive woman gets cannibalistic desires (& a gay roommate)

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Just occasionally I watch a movie and genuinely can’t decide whether it’s a case of the Emperor having no clothes. Raw is one of those films.

On its festival debut the Belgian movie was met with a lot off buzz, as well as talk of people walking out and fainting because of its intensity and levels of gore. It now has a 90% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty remarkable for a ‘horror’ movie, but I’m not completely sure whether it deserves it or not. [Read more…]

Utopians (US DVD Review) – An erotic look at gay self-discovery

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Filmmakers in mainland China still have issues with LGBT content, as official censors are often pretty squeamish about anything decidedly queer, and have even tried to prevent some gay-themed Chinese films from screening at festivals outside the country, as well as banning them in China. However, it seems things are a little more relaxed in Hong Kong, where Utopians is set, as the movie includes a lot of full frontal nudity – most of it male – and even a very explicit male masturbation scene that goes right the way through to completion.

The film follows Hins (Adonis He), a student at a university in Hong Kong. He has a girlfriend, but in his dreams he’s started to have thoughts about men. That side of himself finds a further outlet when he starts studying under the outspoken Professor Ming, whose class explores ideas such as homosexuality and the philosophical ideas about utopias. [Read more…]

Below Her Mouth (BFI Flare Review) – An all-female crew offers up a look at lesbian love

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Below Her Mouth has attracted interest partly because of the unfortunately unusual fact that it was made with an all-female crew.

Dallas (Erika Linder) has just split up with her girlfriend and moved out of their home. She sees the beautiful Jasmine (Natalie Krill) while working on a roof, and then decides to pursue her when they meet in a lesbian bar. However, Jasmine says she’s not a lesbian, she’s only in the bar because her friend dragged her. Jasmine is engaged to a man and known for being faithful. [Read more…]

Multiple Maniacs (Criterion Blu-ray Review) – John Waters’ insane early queer movie is back & as bizarre as ever

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Even 47 years on, it’s sometimes difficult to know what to write about John Water’s early work. While he later tempered some of his more depraved urges and found a wider audience with the likes of Hairspray, Serial Mom and Pecker – although all still with the unique Waters stamp – when he first started out he was blazing a trail unlike anyone else.

Multiple Maniacs was Waters’ first feature-length sound movie, made in Baltimore at the tail end of 1969 with a cast and crew composed largely of his friends. It opens with Mr. David (David Lochary) trying to entice people into a tent to see Lady Divine’s Cavalcade Of Perversions. The straight-laced punters aren’t impressed by the ‘real-life queers’, drug addicts, armpit lickers and naked pyramids they find in the tent, and are even less pleased when they discover it’s all been a ruse to kidnap, rob and possibly kill them. [Read more…]

Pitchfork (US VoD Review) – A gay guy & his friends try to escape a bloody killer

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Pitchfork is a movie that on one hand feels like it should be applauded and on the other that it needed a lot more work before it was made. It’s not the first gay-themed horror movie, but it is one of only a few films – and not just in the horror genre – that brings in a gay character/storyline, but their sexuality isn’t key to the plot. He’s just a gay guy who happens to be involved in some very bloody goings on.

Hunter (Brian Raetz) has just come out, and along with some young friends has gone back to the farm where he grew up, to talk to his family about the fact he’s gay. Before that though they plan to have a party in one of the barns. Things take an unexpected turn with the arrival of the titular Pitchfork – an insane, mute killer who wears a mask of animal fur and has a pitchfork attached to his arm. [Read more…]

Cafe Society (DVD Review)

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We’ve long reached the point when a new Woody Allen movie isn’t something to get excited about anymore, but it’s also certainly not something to dread either. This year he returns with Café Society, another Allen movie we can add to his recent list of his films that are decent enough, but nothing particularly special.

The director is not on-screen this time (although he does narrate), with Jesse Eisenberg stepping in to be Café Society’s 1930s Woody surrogate, a young Jewish New Yorker called Bobby, who’s a bit lost in life and so decides to head to LA. His Uncle Phil (Steve Carell) is a high-powered movie agent who Bobby hopes can help him get his start. Phil hires Bobby to do odd jobs, which brings him into the sphere of Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). [Read more…]

Jenny’s Wedding (DVD Review)

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Jenny (Katherine Heigl) has been with Kitty (Alexis Bledl) for five years, and now she wants to get married and start a family. However, she’s never told her family she’s gay. Now it’s time, but they’re a fairly conservative lot and when she tells her parents, both are shocked and ask her not to tell anyone else.

While neither of them totally reject their daughter, they don’t know how to react, with Jenny’s mother (Linda Emond) in particular not knowing what to do and feeling like she doesn’t really know her child at all, while her father (Tom Wilkinson) is nonplussed but seems willing to reach out – to a point. However, in trying not to let anyone know what’s really going on or to properly deal with it, they begin to create an increasingly tangled web, which comes unstuck when Jenny decides she is not going to hide any longer and won’t pussyfoot around her parents anymore. [Read more…]

Grey Gardens (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray Review)

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A lot of movies that have been given the ‘cult film’ label are really nothing of the sort, but Grey Gardens is almost the definition of a cult phenomenon. 90% of the population have no idea what it is, but when you find somebody who does, it’s almost like you’ve discovered someone else who’s part of a secret club. Now it’s got a new Blu-ray release as one of the first Criterion Collection Blu-rays to be released in the UK.

Criterion has taken a long time jumping across the pond, as it’s been going in the US since the era of laserdiscs in the 1980s. However, now hopefully Britain will be able to get a taste of the collection, which is known for its attention to detail, intricate restorations and remastering, and good special features. [Read more…]

Bill (DVD Review)

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I doubt that when the team that created the TV version of Horrible Histories were putting the show together they thought that what they were making would not only became one of the most popular children’s series in the UK, but would also have massive crossover appeal, with adults tuning in for the educational silliness. The same team then went on to create the puppety fantasy of Yonderland, and have now gone cinematic with Bill.

While Horrible Histories was careful to stick close enough to the truth of the past to ensure it could teach youngsters a few things, Bill features plenty of real historical figures but takes far more liberties with the truth. [Read more…]