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

Room 237 (DVD)

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I bet you’re one of those crazy people who think Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is just a movie about a guy who goes nuts in a hotel one winter and tries to kill his family. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong, as this documentary is here to tell us it’s about the destruction of the Native Americans, the Nazis, numerology and various other things, all encoded in the shape of the hotel, the patterns Danny traces as he trundles around on his tricycle and what the Torrances’ watch on TV. [Read more…]

Silver Linings Playbook (Blu-ray)

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It took many by surprise when Silver Linings Playbook picked up eight Oscar nominations, as while it got decent reviews, few thought it was a serious Academy Award contender. However, as the ceremony approached it picked up momentum to the point where many thought there was a decent possibility of it taking the Best Picture prize. In the end its only gong was a much deserved Bst Actress award for Jennifer Lawrence, but you can certainly see why it became a bit of a sleeper awards contender. [Read more…]

Frankie Go Boom (DVD)

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Farce is a tough thing to get right even if you follow all the rules. Frankie Go Boom gets very close to being great – the actors are good (and appear to be having a lot of fun) and many of the scenes are very funny. However it ultimately falls foul of the problem that causes many farces to come a cropper – it’s actively nonsensical, which is rather frustrating.

Frankie (Charlie Hunnam) is used to being made a laughing stock by his older brother, Bruce (Chris O’Dowd). For example, Bruce put Frankie’s wedding video on the web, even though it featured Frankie discovering his wife-to-be was cheating on him, before he punches and then vomits on her. Unsurprisingly it was a viral sensation. [Read more…]

The Hunt (DVD)

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Winner of Best Actor and a couple of other prizes at Cannes, The Hunt comes to DVD with a great pedigree behind it. It would have probably got a Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination too, except that Denmark decided to submit A Royal Affair (also starring Mads Mikkelsen) instead, and each country is only allowed one film in the race.

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg (Festen), the film is about Lucas (Mikkelsen), who works at a local nursery school. He’s involved in a custody fight with his son, but things look up when it appears his kid will be coming to live with him. [Read more…]

Thale (DVD)

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After Troll Hunter comes Thale, another movie about Nordic mythology, although this one’s about something few people outside Scandinavia will have heard of, Huldra. These are female-like creatures, said to hum a tune that’s so irresistible that it can lure men from their villages, never to return.

Leo (Jon Sigve Skard) and Elvis (Erlend Nervold) head to an out of the way house for a crime scene clean up, after a very grisly dead body has been found. Newbie Elvis is having enough trouble dealing with the gore when he discovers a basement, full of strange bottles and tapes. While it appears empty, a woman then erupts out a milky bath. [Read more…]

End Of Watch (Blu-ray)

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David Ayer has made a career writing and/or directing movies about gangs and the police, such as Training Day, S.W.A.T, Street Kings, Harsh Times and now End Of Watch. The movie is an attempt to bring a bit of mockumentary-style realism to the cop flick, although as viewers will soon realise, it’s actually a mix of mockumentary and extreme shaky cam (either that or Jake Gyllenhaal’s character doesn’t mind getting a friend to videotape him having sex with Anna Kendrick). [Read more…]

My Brother The Devil (DVD)

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I often find it difficult to work out my feelings about the seemingly endless parade of British urban dramas. To me these supposedly gritty, realistic looks at urban youth are often rather unconvincing. They seem like a fantasy based on reality – a version of inner city life that’s been mashed through gangster film cliché and social realist poverty porn to create something that’s miserable enough that people think it feel true, even though it isn’t. However I’m also aware that growing up on a farm limits my knowledge of the realities of destitute, gangland, housing estate life. [Read more…]

V For Vendetta (2007)

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Too often, gay characters and storylines are relegated to comedies and dramas only – trying to think of a 3Dimensional LGBT character in a western, horror or sci-fi is a difficult exercise for most audiences. This does however make it all the more poignant when a character does appear outside of their heteronormative genre. [Read more…]

But I’m A Cheerleader (1999)

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There is nothing that seems so strange and insidious to British viewers of American culture as summer camps.  They are a phenomenon that would not be tolerated by British youth – yet the Americans seem to love them and they are commonly seen in American films and television.

But I’m a Cheerleader tells the story of Megan (Natasha Lyonne), a naïve teenager who is sent to a gay rehabilitation camp due to her seemingly deviant behavior – the joke being that she thinks that due to her being a cheerleader, she can’t be anything but ‘normal’.  However her friends and family all read the signs and decide that she’s a lesbian who needs help to be straightened out. [Read more…]

Comedown (DVD)

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For a long time it seemed the only mainstream movies Britain ever made were rom-coms and gangster movies. In the last couple of years we’ve added urban thrillers to the mix, which have increasingly tended towards the horror end of the spectrum.

Comedown fits squarely in that bracket. Lloyd (Jacob Anderson) is fresh out of prison and his determination to go straight doesn’t last too long when he teams up with a group of other young people to set up a pirate radio station aerial on a deserted tower block. However the block isn’t as deserted as it appears. [Read more…]