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

Grace & Frankie – Season 1 (DVD Review)

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When it was announced that Netflix was reuniting 9 to 5 co-stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin for a new online series, it was difficult to see how it could be anything but good. Indeed, the only downside was the lack of Dolly Parton. However, the series itself, Grace & Frankie, turned out to be better than we could have hoped, giving both Tomlin and Fonda plenty of space to show off their talents, while also telling a fun and timely story.

Grace (Fonda) and Frankie (Tomlin) are longtime frenemies, whose different outlooks on life – one a rather high-strung retired businesswoman the other a bit of an earth mother – have meant that the only thing that’s held them together is the fact their husbands (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston) are longtime friends and business partners. Or at least that’s what the women think, until their hubbies sit them down to explain that actually they’re gay and in love with each other, and plan to move out so they can be together. [Read more…]

Tootsie (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray Review)

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In the 21st Century films about ‘men in dresses’ can seem rather backward and awkward, especially if the vast majority of the humour is about the supposed hilarity or men doing things that are stereotypically ‘women’s’ jobs, and the ‘emasculation’ of putting on a skirt. However, Tootsie is slightly different and in some ways its take on gender roles seems even more relevant now than when it was made.

The film is surprisingly careful not to make the joke that it’s Dustin Hoffman pretending to be a woman, instead ensuring the humour comes from his character’s negotiation of his own assumptions about gender roles. While it is about a guy learning to be a better man by becoming a woman (and therefore the focus is on the male), its viewpoint is very much on the side of women and how society has marginalised them, often without actively thinking about what it’s doing. What he does is essentially to exploit womanhood, but in doing so he learns things about the world around him he’d never realised. [Read more…]

Like You Mean It (DVD Review)

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Oftentimes when someone writes and directs a movie and then cast themselves in the lead role, there’s a tendency to try to underplay the flaws of that character and make it seem like nothing is really their fault. It’s to Philipp Karner’s credit that he doesn’t smooth his character’s rough edges – indeed some will think the person he plays is often a bit of a dick – which allows this to be a much sharper movie than it might otherwise have been.

Like You Mean It is a character study, but the character isn’t so much a person as a relationship. Mark (Karner) and Jonah (Denver Milord) have been together for some time, and while Jonah is happy with the domestic normality and routine that their life has settled into, Mark isn’t so sure. Jonah is surprised to discover that not only does their relationship have problems, but it may be on the verge of ending. [Read more…]

What We Have (DVD Review)

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Quite often with indie films it’s easy to understand what the film is trying to do and applaud it for the effort, but the movie itself doesn’t actually achieve what it sets out to do. That’s the problem with What We Have, which works better in theory than practice.

Maurice is a Frenchman who has uprooted himself to a new life in a remote town in Northern Canada. He’s gone there to escape a past that haunts him, but despite his new surroundings, he finds it difficult to connect with the people he meets. He gets two jobs – one as an actor in French-language plays and the other tutoring a teenage boy who needs help with his foreign-languages. [Read more…]

Xenia (DVD Review)

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After the death of his mother, teenager Dany leaves Crete to visit his 17-year-old brother, Ody, in Athens. At first Ody isn’t happy to see his younger sibling, as he knows Dany has a penchant for causing trouble. He’s also dealing with the fact that as his mother was Albanian he’s not recognised as a Greek citizen and might be deported when he reaches 18.

That’s despite the fact they have a Greek father – who they refer to as ‘The Unspeakable’ – who ran out on them when they were little kids. Dany thinks this man may be the answer to their problems, as if they can find him they can prove they are half Greek (and therefore citizens) and perhaps get him to give them the money he should have been paying in child support. [Read more…]

Carol (Blu-ray Review)

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Todd Haynes 2002 movies Far From Heaven was a very deliberate homage to the ‘women’s films’ of the 1950s made by the likes of Douglas Sirk. As with his HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, Carol is set in decades past, but eschews the high gloss of Far From Heaven, instead being more interested in looking at how society was through the eyes of society today, but done in a style as if you really were there.

The film follows Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett), whose marriage is in the process of imploding when she meets charming shop assistant Therese (Rooney Mara) in a Department Store. They both sense a connection which slowly builds as they meet for lunch and then Carol invites Therese to spend the day with her in her country house. [Read more…]

Black Mass (Blu-ray Review)

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At the beginning of Black Mass I was worried that the whole thing was going to be spoiled by Johnny Depp’s makeup, or more particularly the ridiculously blue contact lenses he wears as part of his efforts to make himself look like the real James ‘Whitey’ Bulger. Thankfully, relatively quickly you get used to it, helped by the fact this is the best performance Depp has given in years.

The movie tells the real-life tale of Bulger, who grew up on the tough streets of South Boston before becoming a gangster and the leader of the vicious Winter Hill Gang. His childhood friend, John Connolly (Joes Edgerton), is now an FBI agent, who comes up with a plan he thinks can help the feds take down the Mafia and other parts of Boston’s organised crime. He wants to get Bulger to turn informant, in return for the FBI turning a blind eye to his gang’s activities. [Read more…]

Steve Jobs (DVD Review)

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I’m starting to think that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has decided he’s a complete prick, and so has set out to write things that suggest that being the best and being an ass go hand-in-hand. The likes of The Social Network, Steve Jobs and, to some extent, The Newsroom and Studio 60 On Sunset Strip have all forwarded this agenda. Rumours suggest Sorkin can be incredibly demanding and difficult to work with (stories of how tough it was in the writer’s room of The West Wing and how little he listened to other peoples’ ideas are legendary), and it’s oddly interesting how so many of his projects seem to be about his own issues with this.

What he never quite addresses though is something he puts in the mouth of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in Steven Jobs, who tells the demanding and difficult Steve that being talented and being a decent person are not mutually exclusive. However, in the world of Aaron Sorkin, it often feels like they are. [Read more…]

Mississippi Grind (DVD Review)

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There are undoubtedly some people who will watch Mississippi Grind and wonder what the point of it is, as not a vast amount happens other than two guys drifting around and gambling on various things. However, others will appreciate this look at two men leading lives on the periphery of society, who lack connection but may have found some sort of direction in each other.

Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) is an inveterate gambler who’s lost his wife and child, he’s massively in debt and has run out of time to pay it off. Then he meets Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), who also loves to bet, but still has life and verve – something Gerry is severely lacking. While he’s a drifter, he couches it in terms of being a free spirit who goes where life takes him. [Read more…]

The Program (Blu-ray Review)

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Over the years, numerous movies about Lance Armstrong have been in the works but never got made. Indeed, one was about to move forward just as he admitted he had doped for his entire career. It’s almost a shame we don’t have a movie from when he was almost universally admired as a hero, so we could compare it to the darker world of The Program.

At the start of the movie Lance (Ben Foster) is an okay but unexceptional cyclist, who few think will ever do anything special. After overcoming testicular cancer, he returns with a passion to win, and knowing the world of cycling is riddled with cheats taking performance-enhancing drugs, he decides he will do the same, enlisting the help of Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet) to allow him to set up a ‘Program’ that will help him win, as well as arranging to have a team built around him that will ensure a Tour de France victory. [Read more…]