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

Only Lovers Left Alive (Blu-ray Review)

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Like many Jim Jarmusch movies, Only Lovers Left Alive is the sort of film where one chunk of the audience will be wondering what sort of tedium they’ve just had to sit through and another chunk will be hailing it as a masterpiece. He is as impressively idiosyncratic director and his films determinedly refuse to be boxed. Many have described him as a cinematic poet, and it’s a very good description. What he’s great at is creating mood, feeling and thought, where narrative isn’t the driving force, it’s merely the thread that pulls the fabric together.

Tom Hiddleston is Adam, who’s living in Detroit making music but keen that nobody bothers him. That’s partly because he’s a vampire and hundreds of years old. He’s also depressed and filled with weariness at the direction mankind has taken and how it treats the promise it has, to the point whether he’s wondering if there’s any point living on to see the future. [Read more…]

Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas (DVD Review)

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Drifting in LA, Bruno (Miles Szanto) meets the slightly older Earlene (Ashleigh Summer) and almost in spite of themselves they begin to bond, connecting over the fact they’re both outsiders. After deciding to get away from the City Of Angels, they head off into the desert with plans to get to the bright lights of Las Vegas.

It’s not a straightforward trip though, and along the way they come across a sexually uncertain outlaw, a pair of Scottish former strippers and the inhabitants of a desert ghost town. Although to the outside this collection of huts and ramshackle houses looks like a tenuous community, Bruno begins to feel that he might have finally found a place that is prepared to accept you no matter how atypical you are, while the alcoholic Earlene isn’t as sure she should even be allowed to find a home. [Read more…]

Bones – Season 9 (DVD Review)

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Most shows that have made it to Season 9 are long past their prime and are pretty much coasting until the day they get cancelled, while everyone involved makes as much cash as they can in the meantime. However that’s not true for Bones, which is still fun, entertaining and slick, with a great cast and a good mix of crime-solving and humour.

Season 8 left things on a bit of a cliffhanger, with fiendish serial killer Christopher Pelant forcing FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) to break off his engagement to forensic anthropologist Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan (Emily Deschanel), without even allowing him to tell her why. It certainly adds a lot of angst to the early part of the season, although it does become a little annoying and over the top. [Read more…]

Concussion (DVD Review)

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A film about a lesbian who decides to become an escort and then sleep with a variety of woman may sound like a sleazy straight-man’s wet dream, but Stacie Passon’s Concussion is actually a far rarer beast – a movie that takes women and their sexuality seriously as its central subject.

Abby (Robin Wiegert) is a women living what ought to be the perfect modern gay life, with a wife, beautiful children, a home in the suburbs and plenty of friends. However like many others Abby’s found the reality of suburbia isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be, especially as the life has gone out of parts of her relationship. [Read more…]

Frank (DVD Review)

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Michael Fassbender is a top actor who can have his choice of roles, so it initially seemed bizarre that he wanted to make a movie where he spends the vast majority of the runtime with a giant papier-mâché head covering his face. However as I watched more of the movie, I began to realise what an interesting role it must have seemed from his perspective.

For a start it means he has to create a performance and a character with just his body and voice, something he does an extremely good job of. It’s also gives him a chance to play a surprisingly interesting person as it begins to reveal more and more about the man inside the head. [Read more…]

Pride (2014) (Cinema Review)

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Pride opens at the London Gay Rights March in 1984, with openly gay men and women walking down the street with banners protesting their rights to love who they want. They’re suddenly joined by a young, fresh faced Joe (George MacKay), who’s quickly nicknamed Bromley, who nervously joins them in their crusade for equal rights.

There he meets Mark (Ben Schnetzer), a man who’s always keen to support a cause. Mark has the brainwave that the miners, who are striking and facing massive oppression from the government, have many goals that mirror those of LGBT. He decides that they should start fundraising for the miners, and to do it out and proud as the newly formed group, LGSM (Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners). [Read more…]

A Man, His Mother And His Lover (DVD Review)

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Lorenz (Fabian Krüger) is a successful writer who’s made a name with his gay-themed literature. He’s called back from Berlin to his small Swiss hometown after his mother, Rosie (Sibylle Brunner), has a stroke. While she’s determined to get back to normal, with her health declining and her refusal to stop drinking too much, she may have to go into a home.

While dealing with Rosie, Lorenz also bumps into Mario (Sebastian Ledesman), a young man he knew when he was a kid but who is now all grown up and gay himself. Mario seems interested in Lorenz, but after spending the night together Lorenz starts to push Mario away, even if he isn’t sure himself why he’s so intent on backing away from this possible romance. [Read more…]

Locke (Blu-ray Review)

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Locke is the sort of film that was always in danger of seeming gimmicky. It is after all an entire movie where the only visuals are a single man, Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy), in a car driving along a motorway, with the ‘action’ playing out in real-time.

However thanks to a truly impressive performance from Hardy and the strong hold of writer/director Steven Knight it’s surprisingly gripping, smart and entertaining. [Read more…]

Mindscape (DVD Review)

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With a largely British cast, a Spanish director and a mix of American and European money, it’s fair to say that Mindscape (released as Anna in the US) is a pretty international production. It follows John (Mark Strong), a memory detective who is able to use technology to go into other people’s minds and see their memories. However following the death of his wife and then suffering illness, he’s no longer at the top of his game.

To help him out he’s given what should be a relatively easy assignment – to go into the mind of 16-year-old Anna (Taissa Farmiga) to find the psychological root of her refusal to eat. Her father seems certain his daughter is dangerous and needs to be locked up, but very quickly from what he sees in her mind, John begins to suspect there might be something else going on. [Read more…]

Tom At The Farm (DVD Review)

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This is Xavier Dolan’s fourth film as a director, and he’s still only 25. It’s difficult to know whether to be impressed or whether to dislike him on principle. Indeed that’s true of much about Dolan – he has a supreme confidence that is simultaneously exciting and a little exasperating, his grasp of plot and theme is both engrossing and frustratingly underdeveloped, and he manages to imbue his films with a hipster vibe that is too pleased with itself and yet gives his films an unexpected vibrancy.