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

Fourth Man Out (Iris Prize Festival Review)

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Winner Iris Prize Festival Best Feature 2015

Fourth Man out is the story of Adam and his group of bro-dude friends as they attempt to preserve their friendships after he comes out as gay.

Adam, a handsome and hunky mechanic (played note-perfectly by Parker Young), deals with coming out to his nearest and dearest, his feelings for his straight best friend and some cringeworthy forays into the world of gay dating. Meanwhile, his friends deal with the initial shock by doing their best to help him find someone to love in their masculine and often amusing way. [Read more…]

Scrum (Iris Prize Festival Review)

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Scrum is a documentary following the Sydney Convicts gay rugby team as they play in the Bingham Cup, named after an Australian rugby player who died in the 9/11 attacks while heroically trying to save the day.

What starts out as a seemingly bog-standard sports documentary develops into something much deeper, as Director Poppy Stockell skilfully uses the stories of individual teammates to illustrate the hypermasculine world of rugby in a way that is interesting to both sports fans and laymen alike. As the feature develops, it’s clear that the players themselves and their shared bonds of team-hood are what make this piece shine. [Read more…]

Bloody Knuckles (US DVD/VoD Review)

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Travis (Adam Boys) is a comic book writer who’s made his name with his no holds barred creations, where no topic is off limits and he doesn’t kowtow to those who feel you shouldn’t cause offense. That includes his most popular character, a gay S&M superhero vigilante, called Homo Dynamous.

Local crime-lord/businessman Leonard Fong is one person who doesn’t like Travis’ comics, which have specifically targeted him, and decides the artist needs to be taught a lesson – having his right hand cut off. However, the hand isn’t going to take that lying down and comes back to life as a five-fingered avenging angel – something it has trouble getting the now depressed Travis to understand and help out with.

And when things get dangerous, a man who takes his Homo Dynamous cosplay extremely seriously may also be around to aid them. [Read more…]

Jason & Shirley (US Cinema Review)

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I think it’s fair to say that a small, slightly experimental art film all about the making of another film that not many people have seen, is never going to find a huge audience, however for a very niche crowd there’s enough to keep their interest piqued – even if they probably won’t exactly like the film at the end.

The movie is a fictionalised recreation of the making of Shirley Clarke’s influential 1967 documentary, Portrait Of Jason, a movie which is extremely well-regarded in academic film circles, although not widely known outside that (partly due to it being difficult to find until a recent restoration). The original documentary was made over a single 12-hour period in Clarke’s apartment, where she interviewed gay, African-American hustler Jason Holliday, where he talks about himself and his life. As he gets more stoned and drunk, his happy, polished veneer begins to crack to reveal a darker, sadder life underneath. [Read more…]

That’s Not Us (Raindance Festival Review)

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For about the first 10 minutes of That’s Not Us I have to admit I allowed my preconceptions to get to me. I think it was the seemingly arbitrary artifice of the set-up that got to me – sticking one gay couple, one straight couple and one lesbian couple in a house together.

However, I quickly had to admit I’d prejudged the movie, as this is a film that’s more interested in these people as human beings than in comparing and contrasting their sexualities. That’s not to say their sexuality doesn’t play into the movie, just that it informs their interactions rather than leading them.

These three city couples come together for a getaway in a beachside house, where they hope to escape from their everyday issues, but almost inevitably it ends up bringing their problems to a head. James and Spencer are deeply in love and seem to be the perfect couple. However, Spencer has been accepted into university in Chicago, something neither are dealing with despite the fact it could separate them, putting it off by Spencer saying he doesn’t know whether he will go, and James simply saying how happy he is for his partner. [Read more…]

Seashore (US DVD Review)

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Two young friends, Martin (Mateus Almada) and Tomaz (Mauricio Barcellos), head off together from the city to a coastal town in Southern Brazil. It’s the place where Martin’s grandfather recently died, and where the relatives he hasn’t seen for years still live. Tomaz knows it will be a difficult time for Martin, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have fun too.

However, while the trip is mainly about Martin, Tomaz is keeping quiet about one part of himself, but as the two teens spend more time together, sexual tension grows to the point where they must confront whether there is only friendship between them. [Read more…]

Stuff (Outfest Review)

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Deb and Trish are a married couple with two young daughters. They’ve been together for a long time, but there are major cracks in their relationship. Trish has never gotten over the death of her father five years before, and seems utterly unwilling to move beyond the stasis she’s living in, even if it involves her missing out on some of the most important moments in her family’s life.

Deb meanwhile doesn’t know what to do about her relationship, but is perhaps a little too cautious and worried, overthinking everything about her life. Then she meets Jamie, who’s new to town and seems to offer something different, bringing back a sense of excitement and possibility. However, Jamie has problems of her own, not least a domineering, violent ex. [Read more…]

Beautiful Something (Outfest Review)

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One night, four men. Set in Philadelphia, Beautiful Something follows the lives of a quartet of gay guys as they search for what they truly desire and question what they have in their lives. Brian is a writer with one success under his belt, but who has a block about penning his follow-up and as a result is confronting whether his visions of himself as an artist are somewhat delusional and if he’ll have to give up the life he’s built and head back home. He seeks distraction in hook ups and then decides to lay out his feelings to his straight friend.

Drew meanwhile is a renowned sculptor working on a new piece, for which his young boyfriend Jim acts as his muse. However, this seemingly innocuous set-up unleashes Jim’s inner insecurities, causing him to wonder whether their relationship is real or just about Drew’s art. Finally there’s the older Bob, a wealthy talent agent who’s cruising the streets of the City Of Brotherly Love, although even he seems unsure what he’s searching for. He’s just hoping to stumble on a ‘beautiful something’. [Read more…]

Tab Hunter Confidential (Outfest Review)

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Some younger people may have never heard of Tab Hunter, but if you say the name to any straight woman or gay man who was young in the 1950s, you can often see their eyes glaze as they remember the teen heartthrob who was the biggest dreamboat crush of an entire generation. However, while he was setting millions of teenage hearts aflutter in the likes of Damn Yankees and Battle Cry, he was also hiding the fact that he was gay (with the help of the studio system).

Hunter only officially came out when he wrote his autobiography in 2006, on which this documentary is based. The film includes extensive interviews with Hunter, who still seems somewhat reticent to talk about his sexuality – an entire lifetime of not talking publicly about that side of his life hasn’t disappeared now he’s ‘outed’ himself – but even so he does open up about his career, his relationships with the likes of Psycho star Anthony Perkins, and the studio-mandated dates he went on with a string of young starlets. [Read more…]

Do I Sound Gay? (US Cinema Review)

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I’ve always been slightly fascinated by the idea of ‘sounding gay’ and where it comes from. Is it something innate in certain people, an affectation, or a way of bonding (perhaps a hangover from the feeling gay men had of their other-ness when they were more rejected by society and internalised the idea of homosexuality amongst men making them innately feminine)?

My interest stems from two experiences, the first when I was only about seven or eight and a young boy started at school who we all thought was like a girl – and for all I know, perhaps inside he was. He only ever wanted to play My Little Pony, begged his mother to pierce his ears (so he could wear faux-diamond studs) and spoke with a feminine quality. At the time we didn’t have the words to express what made him ‘different’, but looking back there is no doubt that even if he was only about five-years-old, he sounded gay and was rather camp. [Read more…]