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

The Misandrists (DVD Review) – Bruce LaBruce takes us into a rather gay world without men

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Bruce LaBruce has long been a provocateur, making the sort of movies that seem designed to push buttons and get people talking. Often they’re so busy pressing thosee buttons that there seems little point to the film other than to get people out of their comfort zone – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. He’s mixed explicit gay sex and Nazi skinheads in Skin Gang, gay porn and zombies in Otto, and even when he went comparatively ‘mainstream’ with Gerontophilia (and I use the word mainstream advisedly, as it’s merely mainstream for LaBruce), it’s about a relationship between a teen and an octogenarian.

With The Misandrists LaBruce keeps pressing buttons but focuses on something that hasn’t played a huge part in his career so far – women. The film is set in a dystopian world where the FLA – the Female Liberation Army – has holed itself up isolated in the woods as it plots its revolutionary take on a world without men. Unsurprisingly no men are allowed inside the building, but when new recruit Isolde spots an injured young man who she knows is also being persecuted by the authorities like they are, she decides to hide him in the FLA’s stronghold. [Read more…]

Cas (DVD Review) – A triple helping of gay threesomes

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Dutch couple Sjors and Pepijn invite the younger student Cas to stay on their couch for a couple of days until he finds a place of his own. Pepijn is initially uncertain about this arrangement, especially when he discovers his boyfriend of seven years has already met up with the young man a few times before and hasn’t mentioned him. However, the tension soon begins to develop into something else as both men start to fall for Cas’s charms. As the barriers come down and the couple moves towards becoming a throuple, it could either destroy Sjors and Pepijn’s relationship or take it to places neither expected.

Although relatively short at 50 minutes long, Cas is an interesting and at times a rather sexy movie about three good-looking guys who aren’t afraid of wandering around in their underwear or hopping into bed with one another. It’s also a smart look at one of the issues that seems to be becoming more pressing in modern gay culture, of whether the tendency to separate sex from relationships and to be more open to bringing in a third (or more) person – either for the night or for longer – has consequences and issues that need to be looked at. It may seem like a good idea, or even a desirable political statement, but is there more to it than that? [Read more…]

Queerama (DVD Review) – A cornucopia look at decades of gay British life on screen

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Director Daisy Asquith’s mixture of archive footage and music is the sort of film that is likely to beguile and entrance some viewers while leaving others perplexed and a bit bored. That’s essentially the nature of the beast though, as there’s no traditional voiceover or simplistic signposting (barring a few title cards) in this journey through decades of queer footage from the BFI (British Film Institute). It’s done somewhat chronologically and somewhat thematically (more the latter than the former), with the whole thing held together by the music of John Grant, Goldfrapp, and Hercules And Love Affair.

At first it feels a little random, taking its time to get the audience accustomed to the way it cuts between its multiple sources, sometimes showing chunks of historic TV documentaries interspersed with footage of queer lives from films and shorts, or using music or a particular interview to thematically anchor what you’re seeing on screen. Through this it starts to build something surprisingly powerful, paying testament to both LGBTQ lives in Britain over the past century and celebrating (and sometimes reproaching) the way queer lives have been depicted on screen. [Read more…]

mother! (Blu-ray Review) – Is the Jennifer Lawrence movie audaciously impressive or completely crazy?

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There’s rarely been as big a divide between critics and audiences as there was with mother!. While it’s got a decent 69% from critics on RottenTomatoes, on its US release it got a rare ‘F’ CinemaScore, based on audience reaction. Only 19 films have ever been given such a low rating. Watching the film you can understand why, because audience members who typically just watch typical Hollywood fare almost certainly had no idea what they were getting into, and probably ended up very confused about what they’d just seen.

This is not your typical multiplex movie, but it was given a wide release and marketing that suggested it was a relatively mainstream-style horror flick. What it really is though is an auteur-fuelled, rather experimental arthouse movie, filled with allegory and surreal, Bunuel-esque touches, but done on a big budget and starring the biggest actress in the world right now. [Read more…]

French Kisses (DVD Review) – A collection of Galllic gay short films gets a release

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Many of the most interesting gay-themed films are shorts – not least because the lower budgets often allow them to explore themes and ideas that longer movies would be afraid to try in case it hurt their economic potential. French Kisses brings together six Gallic shorts, which vary quite a bit in quality. But are they worthwhile as a whole? Can a look below to see what we thought about each film.

Apollo
A young man is going swimming, but is worried that he doesn’t stack up ‘down below’ compared to the other guys. In his head everyone else’s package seems bigger and their body looks better. After an attempt to stuff his Speedos goes awry – and eating endless bananas doesn’t work either – he begins to despair about ever being ‘virile’ enough… until something unexpected happens. Quite short and a little odd, Apollo nevertheless has worthwhile points to make about the negative side of masculinity. It’s keen to point out that it’s not just women who feel the need to live up to unattainable standards. It’s also quite fun.
3 out of 5 [Read more…]

American Assassin (Blu-ray Review) – Dylan O’Brien takes on the terrorists

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Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) is just a normal guy until his world is turned upside down when terrorists storm a beach he’s on, shooting him and kill his fiancée. After that he becomes obsessed with hunting down the bad guys and making them pay. Initially he tries to do this by himself, until he’s pulled into a CIA programme and trained by Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton) to be able to go into the field and take the terrorists down.

He gets pulled into something deeper and potentially even deadly when an investigation into some seemingly random attacks leads them to a mysterious operative. Even worse, that operative may have a nuclear bomb. [Read more…]

Boys On Film 17: Love Is A Drug (DVD Review) – Get your fill of gay short films

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There are far worse ways to say goodbye to an old year and hello to a new one than with a brand-new Boys On Film release. The DVD/VoD series is the most successful short film collection in the world – not just gay short films, that’s any short films at all. The series is now on its 17th instalment, once more bringing us a mix of sweet, sexy and thought-provoking gay-themed tales, adding up to over two-hours of entertainment.

So does this one match-up to the great Boys On Film releases that have gone before? Take a look at what we thought of the shorts below.

And if you want to check out our reviews of earlier Boys On Film releases, click here. [Read more…]

Beach Rats (Cinema Review) – A teen struggles with masculinity & sexuality in the gay-themed movie

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With Call Me By Your Name, God’s Own Country and Beach Rats, 2017 may have been strongest year ever for gay-themed films at the Sundance Film Festival. The last of those, Beach Rats, took the Best Director (Dramatic) Award for director Eliza HIttman, and it’s also just been nominated for a couple of Independent Spirit Awards. The result is that it arrives in UK cinemas with quite a reputation. But does it deserve it?

The short answer is – yes.

It’s summer and Brooklyn teenager Frankie (Harris Dickinson) has nothing to do but hang out with his friends, heading down to the beach to flirt with girls, play ball and try to pass the time. However, away from his somewhat delinquent mates, he’s started going online and looking for guys. Initially he’s uncertain about what he’s doing or whether it means anything beyond being a way to pass the time, but he soon starts meeting men for sex. [Read more…]

Desert Hearts (Criterion Blu-ray Review) – A landmark lesbian movie gets a well-deserved prestige release

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Watching Desert Hearts it’s difficult not to feel a little frustrated. That’s not because of anything in the movie itself. It’s because even 32 year later it still feels so exceptional. A film with a female director and screenwriter – and based on a novel by a woman – is still an unusual thing. A film that’s about the lives of women and not just how they relate to men, is still an unusual thing. A movie that treats lesbian love as a serious thing and isn’t framed by tragedy, is still an unusual thing.

It shouldn’t be that way, but Desert Hearts retains a very special position as one of those incredibly rare movies by women, that doesn’t feel like it’s been co-opted either by the influence of men, or by a need to please the male viewer. [Read more…]

Tom Of Finland (DVD Review) – Inside the challenging gay life of the homoerotic artist

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For a couple of years duelling biopics of Tom Of Finland were in the works, but this is the one that finally made it to the screen. The life of Touko Laaksonen is certainly an interesting subject to take on, and there are many ways it could have been done. The route they’ve gone down is to make a fairly traditional, prestige biopic, which is perhaps an unexpected choice for a man who made his name for outsider homoerotic art that defied conventions of both sexuality and class.

The film follows the life of Laaksonen, picking up his tale just after he has been discharged from the Finnish Army following the Second World War (the movie rather bypasses Finland complicated position in the conflict, other than that it was hell for the soldiers and also helped set off Touko’s love of Nazi uniforms). While he had encounters with men in the Army, in post-War Finland, being gay is still about furtive and dark meetings in order to avoid society’s rampant homophobia. [Read more…]