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

The Guilt Trip (DVD)

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Barbra Streisand hasn’t taken a lead role in a movie since The Mirror Has Two Faces in 1996, so there was a fair amount of anticipation for The Guilt Trip. Unfortunately though, she should probably have spent a bit more time picking through scripts, as this certainly isn’t a triumphant return.

Seth Rogen plays Andy Brewster, an inventor who’s come up with a revolutionary cleaning product. He’s on a trip around the country trying to sell it to retailers, but nobody seems that interested, largely because his pitch is dreadful. He stops off to see his mom, Joyce (Streisand), and after she tells him a story about her first love, he decides to invite her along on the trip with the idea of secretly reuniting her with that old boyfriend. [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…]

Quartet (Blu-ray)

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A couple of years ago, if you’d put a bet on Dustin Hoffman’s first movie as a director being about a bunch of musicians in a British old folks home, you would have been very rich when Quartet opened. It’s a surprising choice for the veteran actor, especially as it’s such a quintessentially British movie, but he has a steady hand behind the camera, and also ensured he had some pretty powerful acting talent in front of the camera. [Read more…]

Les Miserables (Blu-ray)

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The shortest acting performance ever to win an Oscar is Beatrice Straight in Network, who picked up the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award despite only being on-screen for five minutes and forty seconds. Anne Hathaway can’t beat that, as her Fantine gets a comparatively lengthy 15 minutes of screen time in Les Miserables. However I’d argue she won the Best Supporting Actress gong purely for the 277 seconds she spends singing I Dreamed A Dream. [Read more…]

Suits – Season 2 (DVD)

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I’m finding is difficult to write a review of Suits, because much of what I want to say about it sounds like an insult, but I don’t really mean it like that.

Okay, imagine you’re one of the contestants on The Apprentice. You know, the ones who think they’re god’s gift to business and that they crap genius – and whose favourite activity is telling everyone else how brilliant they are. [Read more…]

Billy Liar – 50th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray)

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The fact 1963’s Billy Liar is classed as one of British cinemas ‘kitchen sink dramas’ makes it sound as if it’s going to be a dull, slice of ‘it’s grim up north’ verité, but it’s actually far more charming and funny than that. Indeed, while the way it’s shot and its working class roots are rather British New Wave, it as much hints towards the groovy cinema of the late 60s as it fits with the ‘angry young men’ cinema it’s often grouped with. Either way, it’s a great movie that’s been given a remarkably sharp brush-up for its 50th anniversary. [Read more…]

You’re Human Like The Rest Of Them – The Films Of B.S. Johnson (DVD/Blu-ray)

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The BFI is very good at delving into its archive to bring out things that feel like it’s a very good thing that they’re out there for the public to find, even if it’s difficult to imagine any more than a very tiny segment of that public ever caring to seek them out. That’s very true of You’re Human Like The Rest Of Them, which I think it’s safe to say won’t be reaching the top of the DVD/Blu-ray sales chart, but gives an outlet to the work of an intriguing artist who has a bit of a cult following in certain circles. [Read more…]

Derren Brown: Svengali (DVD)

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Derren Brown won an Olivier Award for his live show, Svengali, which as we’ve come to expect from the mentalist is a mix of magic, humour and showmanship, designed to confound and amaze. It’s a show that’s fun, entertaining and at times somewhat creepy, especially when the automaton that gives the show its name comes on stage.

It’s certainly a show that would have been great to see live, with Derren interacting with the audience, guessing which of them made an anonymous confession, getting them up on stage to think of a famous face the illusionist then paints and various other things. Although it’s inevitable a show like this is going to lose something in the transition to the small screen, it’s still a very good watch. [Read more…]

So Undercover (DVD)

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Am I the only one who thinks Miley Cyrus is actually a pretty good actress, and not just singing-Disney-poppet-Bill-Ray-spawn? However, while I think she’s pretty good, there’s something a little disingenuous about So Undercover, as after years as Hannah Montana and making her name out of plastic bubblegum pop culture, she’s now slightly thumbing her nose at the sort of cheesy fashion and fame ethos that made her famous.

She plays Molly, a street-wise young woman who’s been a private eye working with her dad (Mike O’Malley) ever since he was fired from the police. Molly is approached by an FBI Agent (Jeremy Piven), who wants her to go undercover in a university sorority to investigate a case involving one of the girls and a group of mobsters. Molly is a fish out of water amongst the snooty, high maintenance, materialistic college girls. Suddenly she’s dealing with bitchy sorority sisters who don’t appreciate Molly threatening their position, having to attend university classes and also finding romance with a dashing young co-ed called Nicholas (Joshua Bowman). [Read more…]

Great Expectations (2012) (DVD)

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The BBC must like Great Expectations an awful lot, as within 12 months they produced a TV version starring Douglas Booth, Gillian Anderson and Ray Winstone, and backed this movie version from director Mike Newell (Prince Of Persia). They should probably have stuck with the very well received former, as while handsomely mounted and well-acted, Newell’s movie is a little flat. [Read more…]