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

Inside Llewyn Davis (Blu-ray Review)

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It just goes to show how useful it is to have a ‘name’ in the film world. If most filmmakers had said they wanted to make a movie about a misanthropic 1960s folk singer who spends the first 25 minutes of the film trying to get a cat back to its owner, they’d have been laughed out of the room. However the Coen Brothers have the sort of clout that can get things done.

And while not one of their best, Inside Llewyn Davis is not a bad movie at all. [Read more…]

Willow Creek (DVD Review)

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To some people Bobcat Goldthwait is still the strange voiced guy from Police Academy, to others he’s a cult stand-up, and to some he’s become a bit of a fascinating director. His projects have ranged from the countercultural, such as God Bless America, to the mainstream, like World’s Greatest Dad, but few expected him to have a go at a found footage horror. [Read more…]

Orange Is The New Black – Season 1 (Blu-ray Review)

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When Netflix first announced it was going to make TV-style series, few people expected much. After all, most previous web content that stretched beyond a few minutes was absolutely dreadful. However the subscription-based internet upstart has proved they can equal or even better the US networks, with House Of Cards winning Golden Globes and Emmys, while Orange Is The New Black took TV Program Of The Year at the AFI Awards and received almost universal acclaim.

Loosely based on an acclaimed memoir, the 13 episodes of Season 1 follows Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), who’s been sentenced to a term in prison for transporting drug money and is just about to enter a US women’s federal penitentiary. That means leaving behind her nice, middle-class life and her fiancé (Jason Biggs) and going to a place she knows nothing about. [Read more…]

CSI: New York – Season 9 (DVD)

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After nine years CSI: New York comes to an end with the final 17 episodes. Thankfully though, while most shows simply get yanked off the air, they knew this would be the end for the Big Apple’s finest crime scene investigators, giving them time to wrap some things up and give the characters a proper send-off.

That’s particularly true for the show’s central character, Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise), who finds romance in Season 9 – which is certainly fitting considering the series started with Mac still reeling from his wife’s death on 9/11. [Read more…]

The Railway Man (Blu-ray)

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There is undoubtedly an incredible true story behind The Railway Man, but while this movie certainly lets you know that, as a film in its own right it’s rather spotty.

The movie follows two periods in the life of Eric Lomax. As a middle-aged man (Colin Firth) he meets and falls in love with Patti (Nicole Kidman), however their marital bliss is severely hampered by the fact he suffers severely from what would now be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. [Read more…]

Bad Neighbours (aka Neighbors) (Cinema)

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The title is the first clue. Any film with a duh title like that is clearly the product of the Hollywood sausage machine, and Bad Neighbours is a classic example. The script seems to be written on autopilot, or on a software programme that probably looks like settings>frat boy comedy>couple of stars>condom gags>90 minutes. It’s predictable, utterly unfunny, full of tiresome knob and beer gabs and a total waste of the talent involved. [Read more…]

American Hustle (Blu-ray)

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American Hustle recently joined a select band of movies to get 10 Oscar nominations but not win a single award (although The Turning Point and Color Purple still hold the record with 11 noms and no wins). However the fact a film like this got 10 nods is a pretty impressive achievement on its own.

Christian Bale is Irving Rosenfeld, a small time hustler who finds his con man empire growing when he teams up with the smart and beautiful Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams). However things look like they’re going south after the FBI’s Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) fingers them. [Read more…]

Kill Your Darlings (DVD)

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When reading the press surrounding Kill Your Darlings, you could have been forgiven for thinking it was a movie all about Harry Potter having bum sex. Half the questions Daniel Radcliffe and director John Krokidas were asked seemed to be about the sex scene. However that’s only a very small part of the movie, and while Radcliffe does indeed get bummed, it’s merely part of a montage rather than anything with a big fanfare.

The movie is actually about some of the Beat generation writers and their brethren before they became well known, following one of the infamous events that helped shape who they were. Radcliffe plays Allen Ginsberg, who would go on to be the openly gay man behind the wonderful Howl. He heads to Columbia University, where he immediately riles against the college’s old fashioned attitude to literature and poetry. [Read more…]

Tom At The Farm (Tom à la ferme) (Cinema/DVD)

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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.

All that’s true of Tom At The Farm, even if it is a bit of a sidestep from his earlier movies into the world of the psychosexual thriller. [Read more…]

Dom Hemingway (DVD)

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How you react to Dom Hemingway is completely reliant of how you react to the title character. It’s easy to imagine that some will quickly be on his side, seeing him as a funny and entertaining wide-boy, but there will be plenty of others who will never be able get past the fact Dom is often a complete asshole.  It essentially depends on if you find the fact Dom thinks he’s a legend but is actually a mess is oddly charming and empathetic, or whether it just makes him a dick. [Read more…]