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

Boys on Film 14: Worlds Collide (UK DVD Review)

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The world’s most successful short film collection is back once more, offering another selection of bite-sized, gay-themed movies for us to enjoy. But is this collection as good as earlier offerings? Take a look below to see our breakdown.

And you can see what we think of other Boys On Film releases here. [Read more…]

Macbeth (Blu-ray Review)

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A rebellion is underway against Scottish King Duncan (David Thewlis), and it looks like it may be the end for his reign, until Thane Of Glamis, Macbeth (Michael Fassbender), scores an unexpected battlefield victory. However, before he can go back to Duncan, Macbeth and his friend Banquo (Paddy Considine) are visited by three witches, who tell the former that he will be King, but that it is the latter’s children who will reign in the future.

Goaded on by his ambitious wife, Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard), Macbeth kills Duncan and seizes the throne. However, his greed and aspirations begin to slowly consume him, as he attempts to consolidate his power and ensure that the witches’ prophecy about Banquo’s children will not come true and that his own line will rule Scotland. After the supernatural ladies have a few more things to say, Macbeth makes a decision that could spell disaster for everyone. [Read more…]

Spotlight (Cinema Review)

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For many, All the President’s Men is the ultimate 70s paranoia movie, the film which inspired a generation of investigative journalists. Now, all these years later, comes a film which in every way is its equal. Spotlight is angry, unbearably tense, brilliantly written and performed, and of course based on a real life scandal, arguably one of the biggest scandals to hit America since the 1970s.

The newsroom in question is the Boston Globe, specifically its special investigations section called Spotlight. Its leader is Michael Keaton, who immediately comes under pressure to deliver a story by new editor Live Schreiber, a peculiar, possibly autistic man but one who is thorough in his job and sees potential in a story about a child abuse case. Keaton agrees to pursue the story with his crack team, including the driven Mark Ruffalo and the sensitive Rachel McAdams. They slowly reveal several cases of abuse of children in the 1970s by Catholic priests, and try to get the victims, now very fragile adults, to reveal their stories. [Read more…]

Aya Arcos (DVD Review)

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Middle-aged writer Edu has been seeing much younger hustler Fabio but is getting concerned due to the fact that while it’s fun, they’re having unprotected sex and he’s worried about STDs. However, soon it’s not just the possibility of HIV that he’s thinking about, as he starts to fall for the young man, something Fabio initially appears to reciprocate.

Inevitably though, the age difference, concerns about Fabio’s profession and the very different lives that they lead, begins to cause tension and ensures this will not be a simple love. And anyway, is Fabio just playing a role to get more money and gifts? [Read more…]

99 Homes (Blu-ray Review)

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After he can’t get paid for a construction job and ends up unemployed, single father Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) gets behind on his mortgage and ends up being evicted by Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), a man for whom the human cost of taking people’s homes isn’t as important as the amount of money he can make. However, after an angry Nash goes to Carver’s company hoping to reclaim tools he believes have been stolen, he ends up getting employed by Rick.

Initially he thinks he’s just going to help with clearances after the people have been thrown out of their house, but as he gets deeper into Carver’s world, he becomes involved in a web of morally bankrupt real-estate scams and downright theft, taking advantage of both normal people and the government. Conflicted about what he’s doing he keeps his new role secret from his child and mother (Laura Dern), but he cannot keep it under wraps forever, especially once he starts evicting people who never had a chance to pay back their loans. [Read more…]

Legend (Blu-ray Review)

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There are quite a few people who don’t like the glamorisation (almost fetishisation) or The Krays and London’s East End gangsters of the 1960s, feeling these were nasty, vicious men and should be treated as such. If they were hoping this new biopic of the Kray twins would burst their legend, the title should have given them a hint that it wouldn’t (although it does also suggest the film knows it’s helping cement a fantasy of their lives).

Tom Hardy plays both Ronnie and Reggie Kray, with the movie picking up after the twins have already started making their name as gangsters, running nightclubs and operating an expanding protection racket. The film follows their continuing rise and fall, framed by Reggie’s romance and marriage to Frances O’Shea (Emily Browning). While their growing notoriety and the edge of glamour ensures they have the sort of high connections that gives them a certain amount of protection – and perhaps a sense of invulnerability – it also makes them bigger targets for those who would like to bring them down. [Read more…]

Bad Bromance (The D-Train) (DVD Review)

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When Bad Bromance (under its original title, The D-Train) first debuted at film festivals, it was met with surprise largely for a single scene, which it appears no one watching was expecting. Indeed, it is perhaps the playing down of that scene that’s contributed to the film making little impact.

Jack Black plays Dan, who’s living a dead-end life in the same town he grew up in. He has no real friends – people actively avoid hanging out with him – and very little to get excited about. He is however the chair of the 20th Anniversary High School reunion committee, but he’s having difficulty getting anyone to attend.

Then he hits on an idea – talking Oliver Lawless (James Marsden) into coming. Oliver left the town behind for LA and now stars in a national TV commercial. Dan is convinced getting him to attend would ensure plenty of others would also turn up. To put his plan into action, Dan concocts a fake business trip to Los Angeles to woo Oliver. [Read more…]

The Visit (Blu-ray Review)

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After a strong start with the likes of The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan has certainly had an up and down career. With his latest, The Visit, he’s stripped things back to the basics, with a relatively little known cast, low budget and ‘found footage’ premise. However, this being Shyamalan he still has a go at trying to surprise the audience and keep them guessing.

In order for their mother to be able to get away for a much needed break, Becca and her little brother Tyler are sent off to stay with their grandparents for a week – despite the fact they’ve been estranged from their daughter for many years. Becca is an aspiring filmmaker and so plans to document the entire trip on her camera, hopefully finding out what happened between her mother and grandparents along the way. [Read more…]

The Revenant (Cinema Review)

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2016 should be the year that Leonardo DiCaprio bags his first Oscar, while Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu picks his second for Best Director and Best Picture (following last year’s Birdman). As in the title of the film, DiCaprio is a revenant – a person who has returned supposedly from the dead.

Based on a true story, the premise of the film is one of revenge set against the backdrop of the bleak wilderness of America around 1820. Glass (played by DiCaprio) and his half-Indian son are fur trappers, whose party is attacked by a group of Indians intent on stealing their fur so that they can trade it with the French. The decimated party then struggle against the elements to make their way back to their base, whilst trying to shake off the Indians, who are intent on killing them and stealing the furs. [Read more…]

Holiday (Feriado) (DVD Review)

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Set around the turn on the millennium in Ecuador, in Holiday the country is on the precipice of turmoil as corruption threatens to cause a chain reaction that will implode the banking system. Rich teenager Juampi (Juan Arregui) heads off for a holiday with his extended family, but soon finds the problems engulfing the country aren’t that far away.

When he sees a group of people taking the law into their own hands and beating a small-time criminal, he ends up escaping with the young man called Juano, who comes from a poor Andean family. Juampi is introduced to a world he’s never properly seen before, where small-time criminality is virtually the only way to eke out something more than mere existence, but amidst the poverty is real life. As their friendship develops, Juampi begins to have feelings for Juano, but there may be limits beyond which one of them won’t take this stab at first love. [Read more…]