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

Desert Hearts (Criterion Blu-ray Review) – A landmark lesbian movie gets a well-deserved prestige release

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Watching Desert Hearts it’s difficult not to feel a little frustrated. That’s not because of anything in the movie itself. It’s because even 32 year later it still feels so exceptional. A film with a female director and screenwriter – and based on a novel by a woman – is still an unusual thing. A film that’s about the lives of women and not just how they relate to men, is still an unusual thing. A movie that treats lesbian love as a serious thing and isn’t framed by tragedy, is still an unusual thing.

It shouldn’t be that way, but Desert Hearts retains a very special position as one of those incredibly rare movies by women, that doesn’t feel like it’s been co-opted either by the influence of men, or by a need to please the male viewer. [Read more…]

Princess Cyd (US Cinema Review) – Life opens & changes for a teenage girl in the lesbian-themed film

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Stephen Cone has been building a pretty strong reputation as a writer/director with contemplative LGBT-themed films such as Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party and The Wise Kids. Indeed, New York’s prestigious Museum Of The Moving Image has just finished the ‘Talk About the Passion: Stephen Cone’s First Act’ season, which featured a selection of his film, including his latest, Princess Cyd.

The titular Cyd (Jessie Pinnick) is a 16-year-old who lives with her depressed single father. For the summer she goes to visit her novelist aunt, Miranda (Rebecca Spence), which will both get her away from her dad for a few weeks, and allow her to catch up with her mom’s side of the family, who she hasn’t had a lot of contact with since her mother’s death. [Read more…]

Prom King, 2010 (Iris Prize Best Feature Winner Review) – Will a young man find Hollywood love or just feel like a gay imposter?

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Charlie (Christopher Schaap) is a young gay man in college. He has grown up watching classic Hollywood movies, which have filled his head with the idea that love should feel like it’s in slow motion and in Technicolor hyper-reality. However, as he negotiates romance, friendship and the realities of being gay in the 21st Century, he soon discovers things aren’t going to be as simple as they are in an old black and white romances.

Over the course of his college career Charlie looks for love, getting very close to it with some guys, but spectacularly failing with others. As he discovers, hot waiters who take your anal virginity, or friends you might have feelings for don’t offer ‘happily ever after’ just because it would be neat if they did. It may not just be his need for a fully symphonic Hollywood love story that’s the problem though, as it can be tough just to find your place in a gay world that you don’t quite feel like you belong to. [Read more…]

Going In Style (Blu-ray Review) – Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman & Alan Arkin are going bank robbing

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As a feature film director, Scrubs star Zach Braff has previously helmed the quirky indie comedies Garden State and Wish I Were Here. He’s gone far more mainstream with Going In Style, a movie that could have perhaps benefitted from a quirkier spirit.

The movie is a remake of a 1979 film that starred George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg, who have here been replaced by Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin. The three men are lifelong friends whose old age is being put in jeopardy by shady corporate goings-on that are set to rob them of their pensions. [Read more…]

A Very Sordid Wedding (US Cinema Review) – Back into the mad lives of the residents of Winters, Texas

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Del Shores’ Sordid Lives has had quite a life. It started out a play, before becoming a movie in 2000. The film quickly developed a cult following and spawned a prequel TV series in 2008. Now it’s gotten a sequel. While the likes of Olivia Newton John, Beth Grant and Beau Bridges from the original film don’t return, Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan, Lorna Scott, Rosemary Alexander and others all return for this new visit to Winters, Texas, where the people are still a little nuts, even if some of them have softened over time.

It’s 2015, and Ty (Kirk Geiger), who was coming to terms with his sexuality in the first film, is now legally married to a man. His mother, Latrelle (Bedelia), is still living in Winters, but isn’t quite as difficult a person as she once was, although she’s still got an edge when pushed. However, when she discovers she’s going to become a grandmother, she realises perhaps she’s still got a bit of a journey to go on to really open up her heart. [Read more…]

Fire Song (US DVD Review)

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Not many movies look at the experience of First Nations people, and even fewer that look at the experience of LGBT people in those communities. Adam Garnet Jones takes on these subjects, using a mix of new and veteran performers, including quite a few young people who had never previously acted professionally, but grew up in the same Ontario area Jones comes from, with the film shot on a real reservation.

The movie follows Anishnaabe youth Shane (Andrew Martin), who’s nearing the end of high school and hoping to escape the dead-end community he grew up in and head to university in the big city. However, his sister recently committed suicide, leaving him with an almost catatonic mother who he needs to support. While he has a girlfriend, he’s also been seeing David, the closeted grandson of a tribal elder, with both of them knowing that ‘two-spirited’ people aren’t always accepted. [Read more…]

Burning Blue (VoD Review)

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It’s the early 1990s and Daniel (Trent Ford) is a Navy fighter pilot, following in his admiral father’s footsteps. He’s made a pact with his friend, Will (Morgan Spector), that they will do whatever it takes to get on the programme to be astronauts, even though there are questions about Will’s night vision, which may have caused an almost fatal jet crash.

Into their tight-knit group arrives Matthew. Daniel starts to have feelings for Matthew that go far beyond friendship, even though he has a longterm girlfriend and Matthew is married. It seems Matthew may feel the same way, especially after a night in New York involving shirtless dancing, two women and a hotel room. [Read more…]

Uncle Howard (NYFF Review)

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A couple of months ago we reviewed Howard Brookner’s acclaimed 1983 documentary, Burroughs: The Movie, and now we have a film about the man who made it. The movie comes from Howard Brookner’s nephew, Aaron, looking at Howard’s life, and how Aaron tracked down his uncle’s archive, hidden away in William Burroughs’ legendary bunker.

Howard first started making his documentary about Burroughs when he was a student, directing the film with future indie film luminaries Jim Jarmusch and Tom DiCillo as his crew. The film helped him get his name on the map, which he followed by another well received documentary in 1987, Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, before he made his fiction debut with Bloodhounds Of Broadway, starring the likes of Matt Dillon, Jennifer Grey and Madonna. [Read more…]

Peter de Rome (DVD Review)

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Back in 2012 the British Film Institute released what is undoubtedly one of the most explicit DVDs ever given an 18 certificate in the UK – The Erotic Films Of Peter De Rome. It was a collection of what are essentially hardcore gay porn short films, which isn’t the sort of thing you’d normally think the BFI would be involved with. They were a bit special though, as they were the work of Peter de Rome, who made them in the 1960s and 70s, at a time before there was such a thing as a gay porn industry. They are extremely rare looks at how gay life – and more particularly gay sex – was back then, as well as being influential in the direction gay erotica took.

The documentary Peter de Rome takes a look at the man’s life, putting his films in the context both of what the filmmaker was trying to do, and the world in which he created them. The film features plenty of interviews with de Rome – in fact he essentially acts as a tour guide to his own life. After serving in the Air Force during the Second World War, de Rome was Involved on the side of the film industry and led a transatlantic existence for most of his life, spending part of his time in the UK and the rest in New York. [Read more…]

We Are Your Friends (Blu-ray Review)

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Cole (Zac Efron) is a young man living in LA’s San Fernando Valley with his friends, who has dreams of making it big as a DJ. In the meantime, he and his mates are scraping by promoting at clubs and Cole DJ-ing for free. Then he meets producer James (Wes Bentley), who takes Cole under his wing and may be able to show him the way to the big time. However, things are complicated by Cole’s feelings for James’ assistant/girlfriend Emily (Emily Ratajkowski), the difficulties Cole and his friends find themselves in – including getting a job that may be more ethically murky that the low grade drug dealing they are also involved in – and the darker side of the electronic music scene. [Read more…]