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

CSI – Season 14 (DVD Review)

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It’s just been announced that CSI, once the most popular TV show in the world, will be coming to end with a two-hour TV movie due to air in the US this autumn. However, those following the show on DVD still have more crime scene shenanigans to look forward to, as Season 14 is now coming to DVD, and Season 15 is still to arrive (and that’s not to mention the TV movie).

By now it’s unlikely that you won’t know what you’re getting with CSI. Set in Las Vegas, the series follows the city’s crime scene investigators as they use forensics and science to track down the bad guys. While original leads William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger are gone (although Helgenberger has a cameo in Episode 5 of Season 14), they’ve been replaced by the extremely capable Ted Danson and Elisabeth Shue, alongside series stalwarts George Eads, Eric Szmanda and Jorja Fox. [Read more…]

Trash (Blu-ray Review)

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I’d like to think that when putting Trash together the people behind it weren’t sitting there purely trying to think what would be most likely to win them lots of Oscars, but it does slightly come across like that at times. You’ve got a setting that is Slumdog Millionaire meets City of God, a plot that’s somewhat gritty but also a bit of a fairytale, a director who’s already got three Best Director Oscar nominations under his belt (Stephen Daldry), a script from Richard ‘Four Weddings’ Curtis and the lead roles given to sweet, non-professional Brazilian kids.

If they were hoping for Oscars, they failed, but the movie isn’t bad at all, using its semi-fairytale story to create something that is sort of a family/young adult film, but one that wants viewers young and old to know that the slums can be a dark and dangerous place, and that children aren’t immune from that. [Read more…]

Ex_Machina (Blu-ray Review)

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Young programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a competition to meet the legendary but very reclusive Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the owner of the company Caleb works for, on his secluded, private estate. Once there Caleb discovers this isn’t just a holiday, but that he’s expected to take part in an experiment to see whether Nathan has broken through the barrier to create an artificial intelligence that can truly think for itself, and which is indistinguishable from human behaviour.

Caleb is introduced to Ava (Alicia Vikander), an AI housed in a very human looking body. Soon Caleb is thrown into a quandary. He is extremely taken by Ava, but knows there’s always the possibility that rather than truly thinking, Ava is simply using her programming to ‘fool’ him into thinking she’s more ‘real’ than she is. With Nathan possibly switching Ava off if she fails – something Ava seems to be afraid of – and Caleb increasingly wondering how he knows whether anything is real, the situation starts to grow dangerous. [Read more…]

Masters Of Sex – Season 2 (DVD Review)

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It’s back to the repressed 1950s in Masters Of Sex – Season 2, where Bill Master (Michael Sheen) is still dealing with the fact the world is less ready for his study into the body’s physiological response to sex than even he expected. He’s been let go from the hospital and is finding it tough to find somewhere to resume his work. Even when he finds a new hospital, it may not be the perfect fit he was hoping.

Things are complicated by his new baby, especially as he is aware the child probably isn’t biologically his. That also puts pressure on his relationship with his wife, as does his increasingly complicated relationship with the co-author of the study, Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan). Their sexual dynamic has stretched beyond their scientific experimentation, but they still wish to maintain a strong working relationship. [Read more…]

Whiplash (DVD Review)

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It’s not too surprising that most of the posters for Whiplash, and indeed the DVD cover, is covered in quotes and star ratings from reviews. After all, it was always going to be a tough sell at the cinema to get your average moviegoer to give it a chance, as few people will go ‘Do you fancy seeing the one about the young drummer who gets shouted at a lot?’ – unless you give them a damn good reason, that is. JK Simmons deservedly winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar didn’t hurt either.

It’s actually not too bad a plot synopsis that this is a film about a young drummer who gets shouted at a lot. It’s about a lot more than that too, not least what it takes to make someone truly great at something, rather than just being good. [Read more…]

American Sniper (DVD Review)

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Often when an actor has a passion project it turns out to be something that should never have been attempted and ends up as a very expensive way to massage their ego. However, while Bradley Cooper was one of the major driving forces behind American Sniper, it was always clear he was onto something interesting. Indeed, at one point Steven Spielberg even signed on to direct, before the gig went to Clint Eastwood.

While Clint may be known as a bit of a hard man actor, he really brings the emotion out of what could have been a rather stereotypical war story in other hands.

The film is about Chris Kyle (Cooper), who found ‘fame’ of sorts when he became the Navy SEAL sniper with the most verified kills in US history. However, the movie isn’t just about his time on the battlefield but also its effects – both how he deals with what he’s doing while on tour (which for a sniper is oddly personal, as it involves very deliberately finding a single person and snuffing out their life) and also when he arrives back home and is suddenly supposed to jump into ‘normal’ life again. [Read more…]

Stretch (Blu-ray Review)

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Stretch is a bit of a crazy film. Indeed it’s so crazy that despite a cast full of well-known actors the studio behind it didn’t know quite what to do with it and cancelled its US cinema release just a couple of months before it was due to hit cinemas, before trying to sell it to another distributor. However, that’s a shame as while it is nuts and sometimes incredibly messy, it’s also oddly entertaining, even if you can see the studio’s point that it’s a tough film to properly market.

Patrick Wilson plays an LA limo driver whose life hasn’t turned out as he wanted – he planned to be an actor but never made it, he’s lost the love of his life and now he’s got a massive gambling debt and no time to pay it off. In the hope of getting a massive tip he takes a job driving an extremely eccentric passenger (Chris Pine), but soon finds him caught up in a situation involving foreign gangsters, the FBI, a suitcase full of cash, an asshole version of Ray Liotta (playing himself) and a psychotic tow truck driver. [Read more…]

Seek (DVD Review)

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Evan (Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski) is an aspiring writer who thinks he may have landed a major break when he’s hired by a large newspaper to write a feature piece. He decides the best subject is the world of those who create Toronto’s hippest and most popular club nights, so he follows successful promoter Hunter (Ryan Fisher) around to find out more about his life.

However while his career seems to be going in the right direction, Evan’s own life is rather stuck. Haunted by the face of a beautiful man (Matthew Ludwinski), he spends his days finding out about all sorts of different people – from a straight couple who are perfectly fine with the fact one of them is a transvestite, to a gay couple with a football fetish – but his own private life is seemingly stuck in stasis. [Read more…]

Testament Of Youth (Blu-ray Review)

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It’s almost surprising the world of film didn’t make a few more movies to tie into the centenary of the start of the First World War. However Testament Of Youth is an apt tale to make a new version of at this time, as rather than being a gung-ho war story, it is more about grief and the wiping out of swathes of young lives.

Based on Vera Brittain’s memoir, the movie follows Vera (Alicia Vikander) as a free thinking young woman determined that her path in life will not just to be a wife and mother. She heads off to Oxford (after a little resistance from her father) and almost surprises herself when she falls for a handsome young man called Roland (Kit Harington). However their seemingly idyllic youth, along with that of her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) and their friends, is disrupted by the War. [Read more…]

Orange Is The New Black – Season 2 (Blu-ray Review)

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When Season 1 of Orange Is The New Black debuted on Netflix it proved that House Of Cards wasn’t a fluke and that the streaming service could compete with the US TV networks in terms of quality. However it was noticeable that while it was entertaining, it sometimes felt like its best characters were given short shrift, while the less interesting ones got all the screen time.

They seem to have realised that as with Season 2 the show manages to far better integrate the likes of the majestic Laverne Cox’s Sophia (although she’s still not in it enough), and Uzo Aduba’s ‘Crazy Eyes’. Indeed the show gives Uzo so much room to showcase her talents that she won an Emmy. It’s great that in a rare show that’s peopled almost completely by women, Orange Is The New Black has grown the confidence to realise that it has enough great characters that any of them can carry the story. [Read more…]