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 Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (DVD)

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Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Dev Patel, Ronald Pickup – if you assemble a cast like that, you could get them to read the phone book and it would be entertaining. It would be tough to get them to make something that wasn’t at least worth a look, and thankfully although The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a relatively slight tale, it’s never less than charming.

Dench, Smith, Nighty, Wilkinson, Imrie, Wilton and Pickup play a group of aging Brits, who for one reason and another respond to an advert for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The ad promises an Indian idyll where retirees can live out their days in luxury that brings to mind the days of the Raj. After a rather problematic journey to the hotel, the reality turns out to be rather different than what was promised, with the hotel falling to bits and little of the advertised luxury. [Read more…]

The Vow (DVD)

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Inspired by a true story, Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum play Paige and Leo, a young married couple who are desperately in love and living a slightly bohemian life in the big city. However their romantic idyll is shattered when a truck rear-ends their car, sending Paige through the windscreen. She’s left with amnesia, meaning that while she can remember her early life, she has no memory of Leo or their marriage. Indeed, the last she can remember, she was engaged to another man (Scott Speedman). She also can’t understand why she’s supposedly estranged from her wealthy parents, or why she’s now an artist when the last she knew she was in law school. [Read more…]

Covert Affairs – Season 1 (DVD)

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I think there must be a picture of Piper Perabo mouldering away in an attic somewhere, as she doesn’t look any older now than she did back in 2000 when she starred in Coyote Ugly. The 35-year-old make a perky and entertaining presence at the heart of the Doug Liman produced TV show, Covert Affairs.

She plays Annie Walker, who’s coming to the end of her training to work for the CIA when she’s called into international intelligence agency’s headquarters for a job that can use her language skills (and the fact she could plausibly pass as a hooker!). That’s just the start of her adventures, which take her around the world as she works to prevent the US’ overseas enemies from going through with their nefarious plans, as well as getting caught up in the murky morality of the world of spies she’s gotten herself into. [Read more…]

The Woman In Black (DVD)

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It’s surprising it’s taken 30 years to turn The Woman In Black into a movie. Susan Hill’s novel has sold millions of copies, and a stage version has been running in the West End since 1989, becoming the second longest-running non-musical production ever. Now Hammer has finally managed to get it onto the screen, with Eden Lake’s James Watkins directing and Daniel Radcliffe starring.

Radcliffe plays young lawyer Arthur Kipps, a man still reeling from the death of his wife during childbirth. Having rather neglected his work, he’s given one final chance by his firm, which involves going to the remote Eel Marsh House to sort through the papers of the recently deceased owner. When he arrives in the nearby village, the locals seem singularly unwelcoming and don’t appear to want him to go to the house. [Read more…]

One For The Money (DVD)

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Katherine Heigl’s name is becoming increasingly synonymous with slightly underpar movies. It’s a great shame as she’s actually a very good actress. Her work in Grey’s Anatomy was incredibly strong, winning her an Emmy, and it was due to this and Knocked Up that it looked like she’d have a strong movie career. However the likes of The Ugly Truth, Killers and now One For The Money suggest she’s either not very good at picking projects, or she’s only being offered second string flicks.

To be honest, you can understand why she’d think One For The Money would be a good idea. It’s based on Janet Evanovich’s incredibly popular Stephanie Plum novels and was obviously set up in the hope of creating a franchise. Unfortunately the end result is limp, rather silly and while not actively bad, doesn’t have much that’s truly good about it. [Read more…]

Fastest (Blu-ray)

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This is one for motorbike fans if ever there was one, although it also attempts to sell the excitement of MotoGP to those who may not have thought about watching people on two-wheeled machines whizzing around a track. Director Mark Neale got exclusive access to both the races and drivers in 2010 and 2011, getting incredible footage both on the track and off.

While I have to admit I not really a petrol-head, Neale’s documentary is pretty absorbing and does a great job of showing what an exciting and potentially dangerous sport MotoGP can be. The drivers seem to spend half their time sliding across the tarmac and gravel when their bike falls for one reason or another, and it’s a miracle there are so few injuries. [Read more…]

Like Crazy (DVD)

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Ah, young love. Like Crazy is the sort of film that will either have you reach for the sick bucket, or get you blubbing in the first 10 minutes due to the aching love on display. Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are Jacob and Anna, who meet at an LA university while the British Anna is in the US on a student visa.

Falling deeply in love, Anna overstays the limit of her Visa and discovers that after she pops back to the UK for a short visit, she’s now banned from going back to the States. Their passion still burns, but with both of them building lives for themselves in different parts of the world and Jacob unable or unwilling to move to Britain, keeping their relationship going becomes increasingly difficult. They eventually try to take decisive action to get her into the US, but will it work? [Read more…]

The Queen (Blu-ray)

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While the world of film loves to make royal biopics, nearly all of them are historic, with even something like The King’s Speech causing some to wonder whether its subject matter is too close to the present to make it suitable for a movie (seriously, some people complained about that). It’s very unusual therefore for a mainstream royal biopic to take on the current royal family, especially concerning events that are in the recent past. The Queen does though and does it very well, winning Helen Mirren an Oscar in the process. Now the film is making its first appearance on Blu-ray, just in time for the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee.

Following the death of Princess Diana, the Queen (Mirren) and royal family attempt to deal with what they believe should be a private matter between themselves and the Spencer family. However as attacks from the media and public begin to grow, and with new PM Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) advising her, the Monarch slowly comes to realise that her apparent inaction is becoming a threat to her position. [Read more…]

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows (Blu-ray)

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All the way through 2010’s Sherlock Holmes, a shadowy figure lurked in the background who seemed to have a finger in every pie and used the mayhem Sherlock was involved with to his own ends.  In A Game Of Shadows that figure steps forward, with Jared Harris as Professor James Moriarty, who is Sherlock’s intellectual equal, even if he uses his brains for very different ends.

A series of explosions is rocking Europe and threaten to destabilise the already tenuous peace between the nations, with war a very real possibility. As you’d expect, Sherlock is soon deep in this conspiracy and has very quickly worked out that Moriarty is involved. However it’s not enough to know who’s behind it, as there’s no tangible evidence. As a result Holmes must investigate and work out Moriarty’s end game in order to stop the villain. [Read more…]

Suits – Season 1 (DVD)

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I’m torn between loving and loathing Suits. It’s a legal series that undoubtedly has charm and an easy wit, but the main characters are so smug it’s sometimes almost painful to watch. It’s also true that in an age of austerity, this celebration of wealth and conspicuous consumption feels slightly out of touch. But it’s one of the odd things about American TV – it loves rich people, and smugness is almost treated as the right of those who’ve succeeded. To me Suits is occasionally insufferable, but the strong writing elsewhere and the pairing of Gabriel Macht and Patrick J. Adams just about pull it through. [Read more…]