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 Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (Blu-ray)

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It’s become almost de rigueur to slag off the Twilight movies, with the usual tack being to criticise the films for not fitting into the horror/action/thriller tropes that fanboys feel movies about vampires ought to fulfil. Behind that is a rather unpleasant sense that the anger at the franchise stems from fury that someone has dared make a fantasy movie that isn’t designed for the geeks who like to should loudly on the internet. Perhaps worst of all is that these angry young men don’t even seem to appreciate that 90% of the major movies are made for them, so the vitriol they pour at Twilight, simply because it’s popular but not for them, is actually quite ridiculous. [Read more…]

From Prada To Nada (DVD)

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Over the years, Jane Austen’s tales have been adapted and moulded into all sorts of forms by the world of film and TV, but one we’ve haven’t had until now is Sense & Sensibility brought into the 21st Century and given a Latina spin! And let’s just ignore they called it From Prada To Nada, which is a spectacularly awful title.

Alexa Vega and Camilla Belle play sisters Mary and Nora Dominguez, who’ve grown up rich and pampered in the best bits of LA. However when their father kicks the bucket, they discover he was essentially bankrupt, which necessitates a move to the much poorer environs of their aunt’s house in East LA. The pampered princesses must learn a few lessons about living without endless supplies of cash, as well as that love isn’t just about finding a rich match, while reconnecting with their Latino roots. [Read more…]

The Three Musketeers (3D Blu-ray)

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I’ve said before that I think Paul W.S. Anderson is the best bad director there is, and he proves that again here, delivering a load of very good action set-pieces and individual scenes, but overall creating a movie that verges on the incoherent.

Logan Lerman plays D’Artagnan, a country boy who heads for Paris with the hope of being a musketeer like his father before him. However he’s arrived too late, as the legendary Porthos (Ray Stevenson), Athos (Matthew MacFadyen) and Aramis (Luke Evans) are out of favour and the musketeers are no more. [Read more…]

Real Steel (Blu-ray)

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I’m not a big fan of the people who like to say everything about modern Hollywood is rubbish and films were better in the past (largely because if you look at it objectively, it’s nonsense), but one thing a lot of big Hollywood flicks do seem to have lost in the last few years is real heart. It’s as if a fear of being labelled sentimental or phoney has ended up with films that don’t even try to tug on your heartstrings or really engage you emotionally. It’s nice then when a film comes along that wears its heart of its sleeve and isn’t afraid to be a full-on, feel-good, heartwarmer. [Read more…]

The Well Digger’s Daughter (DVD)

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Daniel Auteil has been one of France’s top stars for decades, and perhaps got his biggest international exposure playing Ugolin in Jean De Florette and Manon Des Sources in the mis-80s. Those films were both adapted from novels by Marcel Pagnol, and Auteil has chosen a 1940 film by the same man to remake as his feature-film directorial debut. Indeed Auteil must feel a true affinity with Pagnol, as he’s currently writing, directing and starring in three films under the title La Trilogie Marseillaise, based on stories by the author.

The Well Digger’s Daughter in set in France just before the First World War and follows Patricia (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), who is the titular offspring of a well digger, whose father places her on a pedestal. [Read more…]

Abduction (DVD)

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Will Taylor Lautner be a big star outside the Twilight franchise? Abduction was supposed to be the movie that showed us if he could succeed without turning into a wolf, but to be honest it’s still impossible to tell. That’s not because Taylor does anything wrong, but because Abduction is so busy getting from A to B to C that it doesn’t really give its star time to show off more than he’s quite god at fighting and stunts.

The young actor plays Nathan, who’s happily living his suburban teenage life when he and friend Karen (Lily Collins) come across what appears to be a picture of him on a missing person’s website. Suspecting his parents may have abducted him as a child, Nathan’s life really goes haywire when armed men suddenly invade the family home and kill the people he believed were his mum and dad. [Read more…]

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (DVD)

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Harry Potter has undoubtedly been one of the greatest phenomenons in movie history. It’s managed eight films without a dud, grossed more cash than any other franchise in history, and perhaps most impressively has kept nearly all the same actors throughout its run. It’s been a part of many people’s lives for a full decade, especially those who’ve grown up alongside Harry and co. Indeed, when I saw Deathly Hallows Part 2 in the cinemas I was sat behind a university-aged young man who announced as the end credits began to roll, “Well, that’s my childhood over.” [Read more…]

Were The World Mine (DVD)

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Given how the musical is known for being popular with gay people, it’s surprising there aren’t more film musicals made with a gay bent. There have been a few, such as the superb Hedwig And The Angry Inch, but not as many as you might expect. Were The World Mine follows gay teenager Timothy, who’s routinely castigated for being a ‘fag’ by the rugby players at his school, even though he secretly lusts after one of them.

After being cast as Puck in the school’s musical production of ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream’, Timothy discovers a way to make the plot of Shakespeare’s fantasy come true, spraying people from a flower so that they fall in love with the first person they see afterwards. Timothy soon manages to make his crush besotted with him, before spreading gayness around his small town  to give the small-minded townsfolk a taste of what it’s like to live in his shoes. [Read more…]

Make The Yuletide Gay (DVD)

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Olaf ‘Gunn’ Gunnunderson (Keith Jordan) is an out and proud student at university, but hasn’t told his parents he’s gay. Although he doesn’t have any plans to tell them when he goes back home for Christmas (just in case they react badly), his situation gets more complicated when his boyfriend, Nathan (Adamo Ruggiero), turns up. Nathan doesn’t know Gunn isn’t out at home, and so has to pose as his boyfriend’s roommate, while Gunn’s parents encourage their son to get together with his old school friend, Abby. Nathan gets rather annoyed with this, especially as he can’t see Gunn’s problem with telling his parents the truth, which puts pressure on him to come out. [Read more…]

Touch Of Pink (DVD)

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Gay, Canadian, Muslim Alim is living in London with his boyfriend, happy to be far away from the expectations of his Islami mother and family. When mum Nuru comes to visit, Alim tries to hide his relationship, but that proves tougher than he thought.

Gay movies are a strange breed, largely because they often try so hard to be resolutely ‘GAY’, that the end result is that nobody, gay or straight, can identify with what they’re seeing (it’s also true that a lot are made by people who shouldn’t have progressed beyond shooting holiday videos). [Read more…]