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

You And The Night (DVD Review)

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You And The Night is one of those movies where viewers are likely to have extremely different reactions to it. I can easily imagine that some will absolutely adore it and it’ll become one of their favourite movies, other will find the whole thing too strange, pretentious and perhaps even boring, while some will appreciate it while also being slightly nonplussed. I fit into the latter camp.

A couple, Matthias (Niels Schneider) and Ali (Kate Moran), along with their transvestite maid Udo (Nicolas Maury), are getting ready for a night of debauchery. They have invited guests who go by unusual names such as The Slut, The Star, The Stud and The Teen. However it doesn’t turn out to be the orgy that was expected, as each person arrives with their own story, secrets and desires which they tell to the others and which we see in stylised flashback. [Read more…]

Blue Jasmine (Blu-ray)

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A couple of weeks ago Cate Blanchett looked like a shoe-in for the Best Actress Oscar, although that’s been thrown in the air in the fallout from Dylan Farrow’s renewed accusations against Woody Allen, which specifically called out Blanchett for working with him. However while the Allen issues are troubling, Cate’s performance is magnificent and deserving of an Academy Award.

She is the Jasmine of the title (who’s actually Jeanette, but has renamed herself) who is newly arrived in San Francisco to stay with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins). She’s not there because she wants to be, but because following her husband’s (Alex Baldwin) imprisonment for fraud and subsequent suicide, the government has taken every penny she had. [Read more…]

Gravity (Cinema)

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Gravity comes to the UK having taken an impressive $200+M dollars at the US box office on a budget estimated at only $100M. So why has this movie been such a huge success, rocketing its way to the the big box office earners of 2013?

Gravity has great pedigree of talent, namely Oscar winners Sandra Bullock (Ryan Stone), George Clooney (Matt Kowalski) and Ed Harris (the voice of Mission control) as well as its Oscar nominated director, Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children Of Men). [Read more…]

Philomena (Cinema)

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Peter Mullan’s 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters was a howl of outrage at the Catholic Church in Ireland; a coruscating, raw drama about the abuse of young girls basically held prisoner by sadistic nuns after falling pregnant.

Stephen Freers’ Philomena has basically the same theme but is, by comparison, a gentle, warm story, which seems too timid to unveil the same power as Mullan’s film. Dench and Coogan have rightly garnered strong reviews for their performances, but the film’s script seems too scared of going for the emotional knockout punch, despite the real power of the story. [Read more…]

Triple Crossed (DVD)

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Once upon a time Sean Paul Lockhart was Brent Corrigan, who got a massive following in gay porn due to his cute boy-next-door face and the fact that what he has between his legs was able to generate fans of its own. However he gave up porn several years ago and has become an actor, appearing in several gay-themed movies. Now he’s moved behind the camera with Triple Crossed, as well as giving himself a plum co-lead role. [Read more…]

Epic (Blu-ray)

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I have to admit that the trailers for Epic left me cold. The title seemed random, the story silly and the whole thing felt like an attempt to cash in on Avatar for the family audience. Well, there is a little of the eco theme and visual style of Avatar in there, but I have to say how surprised I was by the film, which is far more entertaining than I’d expected (even if it is a bit silly).

In the film the forests are full of two-inch tall creatures, split between the good, peace loving Treemen and their allies, and the evil Boggans, who want to destroy everything and turn the forest into rot. An eccentric human scientist believes in these creatures, but his singular obsession has left him without a wife and estranged from his daughter, M.K. (Amanda Seyfried). [Read more…]

Beyond The Walls (DVD)

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Sometimes when I watch a movie, I can’t help but wonder if the effect it has on the viewer (or at least me) is intentional or not. Sometimes that’s because it’s done something that’s totally undermined the entire movie, but other times it’s because it’s more interesting and intriguing than it might actually have intended to be. The latter is true of Beyond The Walls, although as it went on I became more convinced it was intentional. [Read more…]

Phantom (Blu-ray)

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The words ‘inspired by a true story’ are worth less and less in the world of film as movies drift further and further from the true story and more towards the inspired by. With Phantom we’ve got to the point where they tell you more about the true story in the special features, and it’s actually massively more interesting than the actual movie.

In Phantom, Ed Harris plays a Russian nuclear submarine in the 1960s, who’s about to retire – not least because he’s been having seizures and hallucinations – but is forced to go on one more sub mission. However once out to sea, things go horribly wrong when a radical faction emerges and tries to take control of the vessel. They have a horrifying plan that could alter the course of the Cold War and change the world forever. Only the Captain and the remaining loyal members of the crew can stop them. [Read more…]

Warm Bodies (DVD)

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The zombie apocalypse has left the humans fighting against a horde of shambling corpses. R (Nicholas Hoult) is one of those zombies, except he’s beginning to wonder if there’s more to life than stumbling about groaning. When he ‘meets’ Julie (Teresa Palmer), a beautiful human survivor, R falls in love. He sets about trying to charm her, as best a rotting corpse can, and soon finds he’s undergoing more than just a change of heart.

The first zombie films had a message to deliver, the same is true here. But on top of this, Warm Bodies is refreshing, original, and one of the wittiest films you’ll find. [Read more…]

Mixed Kebab (DVD)

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Mixed Kebab is an apt title for this film as it has a bit of everything, from rom-com moments and immigrant drama, to coming out difficulties and the issues surrounding potential Islamic radicalisation. It’s a diverse range of tones and subjects – so that there are moments that play out as farce and others that present tense, nasty violence, and even one scene that looks like it’s fallen out of The Godfather. You’d think that would be a mess, but writer/director Guy Lee Thys manages to pull it all together to create an entertaining and surprisingly smart movie. [Read more…]