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

Speechless (DVD)

By 1 Comment

Starring: , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Set in southern China, a western man (Pierre-Matthieu Vital) is found naked by the side of a river. The police pick him up, but he doesn’t say anything – although it’s not clear whether he can’t or if he’s simply refusing. The doctors can’t work out what’s wrong with him and so decide to transfer him to a mental hospital.

A male nurse takes pity on him though, feeling this man isn’t ‘mad’ and so helps to liberate him from the hospital. Slowly we learn how the man ended up on the riverbank and the dramatic events that took place during his relationship with a young Chinese man. [Read more…]

Les Invisibles (Cinema)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Les Invisibles is an award winning French documentary about 11 gay men and women living in France, whose common link is their homosexuality and advancing ages. Each of the subjects talks about their experiences of being gay in less hospitable times, when anything homosexual was normally met with disdain, mistrust and violence. The film is basically an insight into their life journeys, and how society’s attitudes and the political landscape have changed. [Read more…]

Stud Life (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

There aren’t that many movies about British black lesbians, so this film has an underserved and worthwhile subject going for it to start with. The film follows JJ (T’Nia Miller), a self-described ‘butch dyke’ who’s trying to find love and happiness in London.

She spends much of her time hanging around with gay best friend Seb (Kyle Treslove), who also acts as her assistant in her wedding photography business. JJ starts to date the more lipstick lesbian Elle (Robyn Kerr), although the road to true love certainly doesn’t run smooth. Elle is rather temperamental, takes umbrage at JJ’s friendship with Seb and has a few secrets about what she does for a living. [Read more…]

Broken (Blu-ray)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Broken won Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards and got much praise on its cinema release. However I couldn’t help feeling it’s one of those movies where grittiness and being a bit of a downer is taken for it being ‘real’ and worthy. It’s certainly dramatic and very, very well-acted, but it’s still pretty contrived and looked at objectively, the events are fairly soap opera-ish. [Read more…]

Out in the Dark (Cinema)

By 1 Comment

Starring: , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Nimr (Nicholas Jacob), a Palestinian psychology student, has been granted permission to study in Israel.  While on a night out in Tel Aviv he meets a charming Israeli lawyer called Roy (Michael Aloni) and the two fall in love.  It seems things are going well for Nimr,  but when Israeli secret police threaten to expose his sexuality to his deeply conservative family, should he refuse to supply information on his dissident brother? Nimr finds his world falling apart and his life in danger.  Roy is the only hope Nimr has, but will the secret truth about his brother’s extremism come between them? [Read more…]

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Alex Gibney has made his name with often angry, slightly polemical documentaries such as Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room (about the corruption behind the then biggest bankruptcy in US history), Taxi To The Dark Side (about torture practices at Guantanamo) and the upcoming We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (which you won’t be surprised to hear is about Julian Assange and his website).

With Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God he sets his sights on the Catholic Church and their response to decades of allegations concerning priests molesting children. It does this by focussing on the St. John School for the Deaf in the Milwaukee and Father Laurence Murphy, who taught there from 1950 to 1974. Eventually it was determined that he molested at least 200 boys in that time. [Read more…]

The Parade (Parada) (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Radmilo (Milos Samolov) and Mirko (Goran Jevtic) are a gay couple living in the very homophobic surroundings of Belgrade, Serbia. Mirko is trying to organise a gay pride parade against the backdrop of massive public resentment and the constant threat of attack by skinheads.

Into their life comes solider turned gangster Limun (Nikola Kojo), who initially holds vet Radmilo at gunpoint and demands he treat his dog. He then comes across Mirko, who’s supposed to be organising his wedding to Biserka (Hristina Popovic). When Limun realises that Radmilo and Mirko are a couple he is furious at being confronted by gays and ends up assaulting Mirko. [Read more…]

Dream On (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Set in the 1980s, Paul (Bradley Cross) is a 16-year-old, shy, Rochdale lad who heads with his mum on holiday to a camp site in Wales. There he meets Londoner George (Joe Gosling), who’s far brasher than Paul and also unafraid to skirt the law, such as shoplifting and drinking. They strike up a friendship, which by the end of the holiday has developed into something more.

The lads agree to meet at the camp the following year, at which time they plan to run away together to Australia. Paul spends the next 12 months saving and waiting for the day he’ll be reunited with George, but will his boyfriend turn up? [Read more…]

Men To Kiss (Männer zum Knutschen) (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Men To Kiss is a bit of an odd movie. It’s entertaining even while a lot of it is complete nonsense, and it’s fun even when it’s difficult not to feel the wrong thing is happening.

Ernst (Frank Christian Marx) and Tobi (Udo Lutz) are a couple who may be ready to take the next step in their relationship. However Ernst is starting to feel out of place, as he doesn’t know many people in Berlin, so his only friends are Tobi’s. He’s therefore pleased to see his old mate Uta (Alexandra Starnitzky), even if she is rather pretentious, biting and rude to those she sees as being beneath her – which is pretty much everybody. [Read more…]

Come As You Are (Cinema)

By Leave a Comment

While there still aren’t a huge amount of films about disability, there are certainly more than there used to be. Just in the last year we’ve had the likes of Untouchable and The Sessions, and now a Belgian entry reaches British shores in the form of Come As You Are (Hasta La Vista).

The film follows young men Philip (Robrecht Vanden Thoren), who’s paralysed below the neck; Lars (Gilles De Schryver), whose brain tumour has resulted in him using a wheelchair; and the partially sighted Jozef (Tom Audenaert). While most of their lives consists of their families looking after and worrying about them, they decide to attempt a bit of independence and organise a secret holiday together. There’s one specific plan for this trip, to visit a Spanish brothel and lose their virginities. [Read more…]