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

Fire Song (US DVD Review)

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Not many movies look at the experience of First Nations people, and even fewer that look at the experience of LGBT people in those communities. Adam Garnet Jones takes on these subjects, using a mix of new and veteran performers, including quite a few young people who had never previously acted professionally, but grew up in the same Ontario area Jones comes from, with the film shot on a real reservation.

The movie follows Anishnaabe youth Shane (Andrew Martin), who’s nearing the end of high school and hoping to escape the dead-end community he grew up in and head to university in the big city. However, his sister recently committed suicide, leaving him with an almost catatonic mother who he needs to support. While he has a girlfriend, he’s also been seeing David, the closeted grandson of a tribal elder, with both of them knowing that ‘two-spirited’ people aren’t always accepted. [Read more…]

The David Dance (US Cinema Review)

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David (Don Scime) is a gay man who’s spent much of his life shying away from confronting his own issues and who rarely dates. However, as the host of the radio show, Gay Talk, he’s almost a different man – confident, unashamed and ready to tackle big issues.

His sister, Kate, meanwhile, has made a major decision – she’s going to adopt a child from Brazil and wants David to help her. David agrees, even if he isn’t actually sure what to do, or if the child should know he’s gay. [Read more…]

Who’s Gonna Love Me Now? (UK Jewish Film Festival Review)

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This documentary is about Saar, who was born in Israel but has spent the last 17 years living in London. He’s gay, HIV+ and a member of the London Gay Men’s Chorus. He also has a rather complicated relationship with his family, who didn’t react well to finding out he was gay, or that he was HIV+. While they have been improved over the years, there are still lots of issues to deal with.

The film follows him as he deals with some of those issues, including when first his mother and then his father come to visit, and he returns to see them and his six siblings in Israel. It reveals a complex portrait and a rather sad one, of a man who seems to feel rather dislocated from everything he grew up and has created his own family in London, but still feels like something is missing in his life. [Read more…]

A Queer Country (UK Jewish Film Festival Review)

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Israel is a complicated country – and that’s a bit of an understatement. Looking at it from the outside, it’s difficult not to see the divisions and intractable conflicts, the secular butting up against very conservative religion, and also that against that backdrop, Tel Aviv holds one of the biggest gay pride parades on the planet.

British filmmaker Lisa Morgenthau’s documentary, A Queer Country, looks at Israel from an LGBT perspective. Initially it feels like it’s going to be an advert for the Tel Aviv Tourist Board, much like Michael Lucas’ Undressing Israel a couple of years ago. However, thankfully it then starts engaging with some of the more interesting and thought-provoking issues queer people in Israel face. For example, the film contrasts the largely secular and open Tel Aviv with the more buttoned down Jerusalem, where gay issues are far more political and difference less tolerated. [Read more…]

BearCity 3 (Iris Prize Festival Review)

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It’s back into the world of gay bears and their admirers in BearCity 3, which had its international premiere at this year’s Iris Prize Festival in Cardiff. Things have moved on from the last instalment, with Michael’s (Gregory Gunter) boyfriend having died. He’s trying to get his life back together with a new boyfriend, Dalton (Garikayi Mutambirwa), who loves him. However, Michael is having trouble letting go of the past and fully committing himself to this new future, which isn’t made easier when Dalton’s distrustful daughter arrives in the picture.

Fred (Brian Keane) and Brent (Stephen Guarino) meanwhile are preparing to have a baby – with Fred’s sister as the surrogate – but Fred’s worried Brent is too obsessed with finishing his Beartopia documentary and isn’t taking it seriously, while Brent thinks Fred is being too uptight and fearful. There’s also Roger (Gerald McCullouch), who’s finished with his boyfriend and feeling a bit lost, and so sets out to find the ex he still has feelings for. However, the young ex, Tyler (Joe Conti), has issues of his own, as his fireman boyfriend Jay (Tom Hooper) is hiding the fact he’s gay, afraid of what his colleagues will say. [Read more…]

Feral – Season 1 (VoD Review)

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Released exclusively on the LGBT streaming service Dekkoo.com, Feral is an eight-part, gay-themed web series, set in the Bible Belt of America. It mainly follows young roommates Billy and Daniel, both of whom are gay and both trying to express their artistic sides. However, there aren’t too many opportunities in Memphis, which leads Daniel to wonder whether to wonder whether it might be time to get out and explore the world with a six-month education programme in Berlin.

Daniel meanwhile is making a film, which we learn as the series progresses is an attempt to work through some major demons from his past. Inbetween their artistic endeavours, they’re trying to find out who they are, and work out what they want from life. Daniel isn’t sure what he wants from love, mistreating his boyfriend, while Billy needs to find a way to allow himself to love again. [Read more…]

Uncle Howard (NYFF Review)

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A couple of months ago we reviewed Howard Brookner’s acclaimed 1983 documentary, Burroughs: The Movie, and now we have a film about the man who made it. The movie comes from Howard Brookner’s nephew, Aaron, looking at Howard’s life, and how Aaron tracked down his uncle’s archive, hidden away in William Burroughs’ legendary bunker.

Howard first started making his documentary about Burroughs when he was a student, directing the film with future indie film luminaries Jim Jarmusch and Tom DiCillo as his crew. The film helped him get his name on the map, which he followed by another well received documentary in 1987, Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, before he made his fiction debut with Bloodhounds Of Broadway, starring the likes of Matt Dillon, Jennifer Grey and Madonna. [Read more…]

Coming Out (DVD Review)

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It’s rare for me to get scared, even by a horror movie, but the documentary Coming Out made me nervous. That’s not because it’s deliberately trying to creep anyone out, but because many gay viewers will be taken back to the fear and trepidation of their own initial coming out process.

In the film, young filmmaker Alden Peters decides it’s time to come out as gay after being affected by the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a young man who killed himself after his roommate secretly filmed him having sex with a guy and then posted it online. Rather unusually, Alden decides to get out his camera and document the entire thing. That involves telling friends, parents and siblings, as well as the wider diaspora of those he knows, while filming everything as he goes. He then goes on to look at what happens next, coming to realise that telling others is only the first part of truly becoming comfortable with being a gay man. [Read more…]

The Royal Road (US DVD Review)

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A cinematic essay by queer film historian Jenni Olson, The Royal Road is a mixture of 16mm footage of California, and Olson’s voiceover musings. Vaguely themed around the titular Royal Road – aka El Camino Real – a historic highway connecting California’s 21 religious missions, Olson’s narration takes in her thoughts about growing up a ‘gender dysphoric tomboy’ and her deep desires for a series of women, as well as her ideas about California’s history – most notably the collective US blind spot surrounding the Mexican-America War – and her need for nostalgia. There’s also thoughts about classic cinema – from Sunset Boulevard to Vertigo – as well as various other things.

The Royal Road is a film that some will find oddly mesmeric, while others will think the whole thing is dull and self-indulgent. Unfortunately, I came down more on the latter side. There’s a stream of consciousness quality to the piece, where it jumps from subject to subject in an often seemingly random fashion. There’s an attempt to bring it together thematically – how personal history and world history merge, and how the urban environment and individual emotion come together – but the overall sensation is one of random thoughts that are less coherent that the film might hope. [Read more…]

A Young Man’s Future (VoD Review)

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Jeremy is a young man at college who thinks his life is on track, until his live-in boyfriend announces they’re too young for anything too serious and ends up moving out. Thinks look up when Jeremy meets Scott, with their flirtation developing into a full blown love affair.

Their happiness takes an unexpected turn when Scott starts exhibiting unusual, paranoid behaviour and slacking off on his studies. Jeremy initially doesn’t know what’s going on, until Scott is hospitalised and diagnosed with schizophrenia. The love between them is strong, but with both Jeremy and Scott’s parents questioning whether they should continue their relationship, and Jeremy coming to understand the difficulties of dealing with certain mental illnesses and the choices that need to be made for those who cannot fully make them for themselves, it’s far from certain their connection can survive or that they will be able to regain some form of normality. [Read more…]