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

Unfaithful (Infidèles) (DVD)

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And the award for French-est film of the year goes to…

With a decidedly arty attitude, nudity, real gay sex and people talking in the type of introspective philosophical way that only French people can master (I used to think this slightly existentialist way of speaking was a French film affectation that didn’t reflect how anybody actually spoke – but then I met some middle-class Parisians and realised it’s how many of them actually are). The only thing Unfaithful is lacking is croissant and berets to make it even French-er. I don’t mean this as a criticism, but the film is undoubtedly impressively French. [Read more…]

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (DVD)

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Starting high school can be tough for anyone, but Charlie (Logan Lerman) has more on his plate than most. He’s recently out of the hospital after suffering from mental health problems, he’s still reeling from his best friend’s suicide and when he turns up at school, even the few people he does know ignore him.

Despite being quiet and generally keeping to himself, he manages to befriend seniors Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), who introduce him to their group of friends. Charlie starts to open up, has his first relationship and begins to fall for Sam, allowing him to put his issues to one side. However as teen traumas inevitably arise and his friends get closer to leaving school, he faces losing the support network he’s built and may have to actually deal with his problems. [Read more…]

Darling Companion (DVD)

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Darling Companion ought to have been really good. It’s the first film in seven years from Lawrence Kasdan, writer of Raider Of The Lost Ark and Empire Strikes Back, and director of The Big Chill and Wyatt Earp. It also has a cast to die for, including Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Dianne Wiest, Richard Jenkins, Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass.

However it’s about a dog that goes missing and then they all look for it – and that’s about it. Well, technically they realise there that they can’t ignore the problems in their relationships and they have to work on mending it, but mainly it’s about the dog. [Read more…]

Hitchcock (Cinema)

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Anthony Hopkins gave some amazing performances in the 1980s and 1990s, but for the last decade or so it’s seemed like he’s simply turned up for his paycheque. However it turns that to get him to give a real performance you’ve got to give him a role where he doesn’t have much choice but to act. After all, Alfred Hitchcock is far too well known for Hopkins just to have coasted it. Thankfully he doesn’t, not just doing a dead-on impersonations of the master director, but creating a fully realised character in a way Toby Jones couldn’t quite manage in the recent, The Girl. [Read more…]

Shadow Dancer (DVD)

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Shadow dancer is a good solid drama set in the early 1990s. Colette McVeigh is an active member of the IRA and is on a mission to commit an act of terrorism in London. Due to unknown reasons, she has last minute thoughts about the carnage she is about to cause, places the incendiary device in the place least likely to cause harm and to arouse the least suspicion from her IRA colleagues. She is subsequently caught and interrogated by MI5 and sent back to Ireland as a mole, using her son as collateral.

The ensuing drama that unfolds relates to relationships between Colette (played brilliantly by rising star Andrea Riseborough) and her MI5 agent Mac (played solidly by Clive Owen) and the friction between her, her family and other members of the IRA cell, as suspicions start to arise and questions are asked. There’s also double dealing with and distrust within MI5

This bleak drama is set in the often rainy backdrop of damp Belfast, which sets the mood for most of the scenes. One of the most interesting and accurate facts about the film is the technology the agents were using in the 1990s, with large, clumsy PCs taking up half the desk, which also reminds us how recent the volatile peace treaty was signed.

Where the film works is in the often fraught relationships between all the characters, where mistrust of everyone is apparent, as the IRA try to find their mole, tensions rise as does the relationship between Colette and Mac, as well as with Mac and his colleagues

The star of the film is Andrea Riseborough, it is not the dialogue that drives her performance but the angst and frustration shown by her very movements in every scene. The supporting cast are all excellent in their roles too including the ever reliable Gillian Anderson.

Wild Bill (Blu-ray)

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The word on upon its cinema release Wild Bill was very positive, and reviews were certainly of fairly enthusiastic nature. So Dexter Fletcher’s directorial debut is a welcome release on DVD and Blu Ray.

Fletcher has had a very long career in both film and TV, starting off in Bugsy Malone in 1978, and so he’s brought this wealth of experience to his first feature, both as writer and director. The movie is set in the London Borough of Newham, against the backdrop of the Olympic site. Whilst magnificent structures loom in the background, we concentrate on the characters involved in the shady goings on on an estate. [Read more…]

My Babysitter’s A Vampire: The Movie (DVD)

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If Wizards Of Waverly Place was kids TV’s answer to Harry Potter, My Babysitter’s A Vampire’s is the same for Twilight (let’s ignore CBBC’s rather dismal Young Dracula). In fact it’s a rather self-knowingly comic attempt to capitalise in the interest in all thing vampiric, as it even includes a Twilight-esque movie-within-a-movie called Dusk.

My Babysitter’s A Vampire actually hails from Canada, but the TV series has found success on the Disney Channel in both the US and UK. This is the film that spawned the TV series and gives a bit of an origin tale for fans of the show. Ethan (Matthew Knight) is a geeky high school student who’s horrified when his parents demand they bring in a babysitter. It’s his own fault though, as Ethan’s attempt to look after his little sister ended up with her outside the house at night by herself. [Read more…]

Beauty (Skoonheid) (Cinema)

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Winner of the Queer Palm at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Beauty is one of those films on queer themes which stretches beyond just a gay audience. It’s a thought-provoking film full of tension, which will stay in your head long after the credits role.

Francois (Deon Lotz) is a middle-aged man living in South Africa. On the surface everything seems perfectly fine, although his marriage seems utterly devoid of any sign of affection. However his life is actually a morass of contradictions, so that he hates gay people, but goes off to retreats to have sex with others men (although actual gays and blacks are banned from these occasions). He seems to have everything pretty much under control though until he meets Christian (Charlie Keegan), the son of a long-lost friend. [Read more…]

Four Horsemen (DVD)

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It’s very rare that something actually makes me angry, but Four Horsemen did. The documentary tries to deflect criticism by saying during the voiceover that some will dismiss it as socialist when it isn’t, but my problem with it wasn’t with its viewpoint, but that as an argument it’s absolutely hideously constructed and an altogether frustrating experience.

Made in the wake of the banking collapse and economic crisis, Four Horsemen attempts to explain what happened, why we haven’t learned any lessons from it, and why western society is on the brink of collapse and unable to come to terms with the fact its version of civilisation may have peaked. Much of it is stuff many will have heard before, especially as the economic collapse has been picked apart in detail by numerous different voices. It doesn’t help that Four Horsemen has little new to add, and most of what it does have to say has been said better by others – the wonderful The Shock Doctrine and Inside Job spring to mind. [Read more…]

Plan B (2009)

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When Bruno sees his ex-girlfriend Ana with her new boyfriend, Pablo, he decides he wants her back, even though she only seems interested in occasional sex sessions. Realising the usual tactics won’t work to convince her – he comes up with a Plan B. He’s heard Pablo has had liaisons with guys, so Bruno determines that he’ll befriend Pablo without letting him know who he is, and then make him fall in love with him. Then, after this causes Pablo and Ana to break up, he can swoop in and be her knight in shining armour when she’s sad and lonely.

Admittedly it is the sort of plan that could go hideously wrong at any moment, but he manages to meet and get in with Pablo, convincing him that he’s not the guy Ana has a picture of on her wall. However while Bruno is convinced he’s being devious and clever, something happens that he never expected; he starts having genuine feelings for Pablo. [Read more…]