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

American Pie: Reunion (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

It’s nine years since we last caught up with the original American Pie gang. Since then we’ve had four straight-to-DVD titles that threatened to make the Pie name as dodgy as National Lampoon’s has become in the last couple of decades. However now they’ve managed to get pretty much all of the main Pie actors back, as well as most of the minor ones, with the likes of the Sherminator popping up for cameos.

While the gang have gone their separate ways, they all head back to East Great Falls for a reunion. Getting back together causes everyone to take stock of their lives and reminisce on the differences between who they’ve become and who they thought they’d be. Jim (Jason Biggs) is still married to Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) and they have a young kid together, but are having difficulty finding time to make love. [Read more…]

Safe (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

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

I’m starting to think I ought to write a template for Jason Statham films and when a new one comes along, simply fill in the blanks. That might seem to imply criticism, but it’s not meant to, as the Stath is one of the few actors around who’s been able to consistently produce films that have been entertaining and action-packed. Few of them may rise above being decent fun, but you know what you’re getting and he consistently delivers movies you know won’t be a waste of a rental.

Statham has been teamed up with various people in his movies, but a small Chinese girl is definitely a different kind of on-screen partner. She (Catherine Chan) has an amazing ability to remember numbers and locked away in her noggin is a code that turns out to be much in demand when she’s targeted by both the triads and Russian Mafia. Statham meanwhile is a former fighter who’s been forced into a life on the edge of society after he failed to throw a bout. [Read more…]

Alphas – Season 1 (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever watched a SyFy original movie, you might expect any TV show made for them would be cheap, dumb and rather cheesy. However the series that they’ve premiered in the US are a lot better than their films, with the likes of A Town Called Eureka, Sanctuary and Warehouse 13 all welcome additions to the sci-fi landscape – and Alphas certainly adds to that. In Alphas, X-Files meets The Avengers meets the police procedural with Davis Strathairn as Dr. Lee Rosen, a man who’s spent his life researching the titular Alphas.

These are people whose brains have evolved beyond those of normal people, giving them incredible abilities. Dr. Rosen has brought together a team of these superpowered folks to investigate and get to the bottom of cases involving other Alphas. It’s a task complicated by the fact the government and other federal agencies are suspicious of the Alphas and want to keep them secret, while many of those with incredible power believe in a more violent way (whether deliberate or accidental) of dealing with their problems. [Read more…]

Leave It On The Floor (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

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

I’ve always thought it was odd there weren’t more explicitly gay musicals, but that’s probably because they’re surprisingly tough to put together and shoot. As a result it’s difficult to get one to the screen on with type of budget that most gay-themed entertainment has to play with. But Leave It On The Floor isn’t just a rare gay musical, it also deals with queer people of colour (or QPOC as it’s sometimes termed), and a whole spectrum of gender and self-expression that’s often avoided or side-lined in gay movies.

Brad (Ephraim Sykes) is a young man who gets thrown out by his mother after she discovers he’s gay. He finds a new home in the world of ball culture, an underground scene in which different ‘houses’, largely made up of gay and transgendered black people, compete on a catwalk/dancefloor to see who is the most vibrant, stylish, fierce and fabulous. Brad is befriended by Princess (Phillip Evelyn), who takes him to a house run by Queef Latina (Miss Barbie-Q), who isn’t initially impressed by this interloper into her domain. However as Brad begins to find acceptance and perhaps a love interest in the tricky Carter (Andre Myers), tragedy is around the corner. [Read more…]

Spud (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

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

For the last decade or so, John Cleese has given the distinct impression that he’s not really that interested in doing anything more than get his cheque and pay off his ex-wives, rather than really putting any effort in. It’s nice then that with Spud he gives us a reminder that he’s a genuinely talented chap, and not just with comedy.

Based on a book by John van de Ruit, Spud follows young John Milton (Troye Sivan), who’s about to start at the rather posh South African boarding school, Michaelhouse, just as Nelson Mandela is being freed from prison (although the political changes in South Africa play a perhaps surprisingly small role in the movie). It doesn’t take long for him to feel like an outsider, not least because he’s smaller than most of the other boys and gets the nickname Spud when they see the size of his genitals (needless to say, it’s not a compliment). [Read more…]

Albert Nobbs (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Glenn Close spent 30 years trying to get Albert Nobbs to the big screen, ever since she played the title role in the stage version off-Broadway in 1982. Finally she’s gotten her wish. She doesn’t just star in the movie, she’s also produced, co-adapted the script and even wrote the lyrics for the Sinead O’Connor song that plays over the end credits.

She is excellent as Albert, a waiter/butler in a late-19th Century Irish hotel who, despite being born a woman, has spent the last 30 years living as a man – a secret he has kept from absolutely everybody. He thinks the truth may get out after he’s forced to share his bed for the night with a painter called Hubert Page. [Read more…]

The Hunger Games – The Unseen Version (Blu-ray)

By Leave a Comment

In the early days of DVD, studios went to great trouble putting together really good packages, with feature-length documentaries, plenty of featurettes and various other bits and pieces to please film fans. These releases are becoming increasingly rare, with even major mega-budget blockbusters often getting paltry extras that are only there because they’re expected and give the marketers something to write on the back of the box. It’s nice then that The Hunger Games gets a two-disc Blu-ray release with around three hours of features, including an extremely good 122 minute ‘making of’ documentary. [Read more…]

The Aggression Scale (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

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

Steven C. Miller seems to be on a mission to mash up the family films of his youth with the wince-inducing violence of the horrors and thrillers of that era – the 1980s. Earlier this week we posted a review of Miller’s Frightfest movie Under The Bed, which we described as a ‘mix of Amblin-esque horror and bloody monster movie’. The Aggression Scale meanwhile is Home Alone meets Rambo. (And Miller’s a busy boy, as he’s also made Silent Night this year, which continues his love of the 80s as it’s a remake of Silent Night Deadly Night).

Bellavance (Ray Wise) is a crook who’s going to be sent to jail unless he can get $500,000 of his bent cash back so he can skip the country. However the money has been stolen by a former associate. He sends four armed and very dangerous heavies off to get the money. [Read more…]

Circumstance (Cinema)

By Leave a Comment

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

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had better now watch Circumstance, as he’s apparently convinced there are no gay people in Iran (although the fact his regime has arrested and even executed quite a few would rather undermine that position). Although if he does watch the film, he can probably unfairly claim it’s all down to Western influence and young people wanting that pesky thing called freedom.

Atafeh and Shireen are two teenage Iranian girls whose friendship extends into a romance and sexual relationship. They secretly frequent underground parties, flirt, drink and dream about being able to go somewhere they can do all these things openly and without censure. The first half of the film delves into this side of Iranian culture and young people straining against the confines of a system that wants to supress them, particularly if you’re a woman and/or gay. [Read more…]

The Imposter (Cinema)

By Leave a Comment

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

Many have said that you should go into the docu-drama The Imposter not knowing anything, but the fact is not that many people about are going to pick a film at the cinema they literally know nothing about. So if you do fancy watching it completely cold, I’ll say you’re in for a fascinating ride but stop reading now, although if you do want to know a little more, then read on. However I’m not about to be a complete spoiler asshole, as I won’t tell you much more than you’ll discover in the first five minutes of the movie.

In 1994 in San Pedro, Texas, 14-year-old Nicholas Barclay went off to play basketball with his friends, but somewhere on his way home he went missing. Three and a half years later his mother receives a phone-call telling her that beyond all expectations, Nicholas has been found terrified and disoriented in a phone box in Spain, apparently after escaping from a child sex ring. [Read more…]