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

Beauty & The Beast (IMAX Review) – Is there something gay there that wasn’t there before?

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If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. That seems to have been the watchword with Beauty & The Beast. While there has been some tinkering around the edges of the 1991 animated classic to give everyone a bit more of a backstory, and to slightly soften some of the creepier Stockholm Syndrome elements, largely this live-action version is incredibly faithful. That goes as far as parts of the film being pretty much a shot-for-shot remake.

Inevitably, this will have some crying foul, seeing this as a cynical attempt by Disney to churn out another money-grabbing live-action take on one of their best films. Well, the fact is – yes, it is. But do you know what? I don’t care. [Read more…]

Mildred Pierce (Criterion Blu-ray Review) – The ultimate Joan Crawford film returns

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In the annals of film noir there’s nothing quite like Mildred Pierce, which manages not just to touch the bases of that particular brand of crime drama, but which is also a ‘women’s picture’, taking the issues of a working mother seriously. Even at the time it was made it was an unusual film, as evidenced by the original trailer, which presents Joan Crawford as a noir femme fatale full of malice, while in the actual movie she’s someone rather different.

Crawford is the titular Mildred, a housewife with two daughters and a rocky marriage. She’s keen to give her kids everything they want, especially the demanding Veda (Anny Blyth), who wants the best clothes, the most sophisticated life and plenty of money. After the total breakdown of Mildred’s marriage, she starts up a restaurant, hoping to give Veda the life she wants. [Read more…]

Kubo and the Two Strings (Blu-ray Review) – Into Laika’s incredible stop-motion Samurai world

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Kubo is a young boy, living secluded with his mother inside a mountain. Each day he goes to the nearby village and tells stories, using his magic to enact them to the villagers with moving origami figures. He tells the story of his heroic father, who was killed trying to save Kubo from his evil grandfather, the Moon King. Kubo lost an eye in the attack, but he and his mother managed to escape.

Kubo’s mother has told him there is one big rule – he must be home before darkness falls. However, while trying to honour his dead father the sun goes down and he comes under attack from his aunts. His mother uses the last magic to get Kubo to safety, telling him that his only way to protect himself is to find three magical pieces of armour that will make him nearly invulnerable. With his mother gone, Kubo’s only protection comes from Monkey, a charm that his mother brought to life as part of her final act, as well as Beetle, a man-size warrior bug they come across, who’s had his memory erased. [Read more…]

Eddie The Eagle (Blu-ray Review)

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Anyone British who was around in the 80s will probably remember Michael ‘Eddie’ Edwards, the unlikely figure who became an international sensation at the 1988 Winter Olympics, not due to the fact he was so good, but because he defied what you would normally think an Olympian would be when he took to the semi-suicidal slopes of the ski jump. Eddie The Eagle gives us a fictionalised take on that story.

Eddie (Taron Egerton) has long wanted to be an Olympian, but coming from a humble background he doesn’t have some of the advantages of others, and nor does the British Olympic Committee thinks he’s Olympic material – or at least that he’s not posh enough. His father (Keith Allen) thinks he should just give up and become a plasterer like him, but then Eddie has an idea – to become a ski jumper. Britain hasn’t sent a ski jumper to the Olympics since the 1920s, and under the rules in the 1980s, that means he should get an automatic place if he signs up to compete. [Read more…]

Bill (DVD Review)

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I doubt that when the team that created the TV version of Horrible Histories were putting the show together they thought that what they were making would not only became one of the most popular children’s series in the UK, but would also have massive crossover appeal, with adults tuning in for the educational silliness. The same team then went on to create the puppety fantasy of Yonderland, and have now gone cinematic with Bill.

While Horrible Histories was careful to stick close enough to the truth of the past to ensure it could teach youngsters a few things, Bill features plenty of real historical figures but takes far more liberties with the truth. [Read more…]

Mr. Holmes (DVD Review)

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You’d be forgiven for thinking that a movie about an aging Sherlock Holmes would be about the famed detective back on the case solving a murder and recapturing his glory days, but Mr. Holmes is something slightly different.

Holmes (Ian McKellen) is in his 90s, living in a remote cottage after leaving his illustrious career behind 35 years before. His main company is his cook/housekeeper, Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney), her son Roger (Milo Parker) and the bees that he keeps. He’s not trying to recapture his glory days, he just wants to be able to properly remember them, as creeping senility keeps making him to forget things, including what really happened on his final case.

He knows that the ending to the tale isn’t what Watson wrote in his successful books about Sherlock, but he’s having trouble remembering exactly what it was that led him to leave his former life behind. [Read more…]

Back To The Future 30th Anniversary Trilogy (Blu-ray Review)

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Every year the internet gets excited after someone photoshops an image from Back To The Future to suggest we’ve finally reached the date that Marty, Doc Brown and Jennifer go to when they travel into the future in Back To The Future Part II. However, it’s always been a hoax – until now, that is!

Yep, October 21st, 2015 is the date that fans have been waiting for, even if we’ve had to come to accept that flying cars, hover boards, self-lacing shoes and food rehydrators aren’t the commonplace items the movie suggested they would be.

It’s not too surprising then that a DVD and Blu-ray re-release has been put together to celebrate both 30 years since the original movie and the fact we’ve very nearly reached the future (as well as 60 years since the 1955 parts of the trilogy). [Read more…]

A Royal Night Out (Blu-ray Review)

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A Royal Night Out takes a small part of a true story and then spins it off into a fiction. The known truth is that on VE Day in 1945, the young British princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, left Buckingham Palace to mingle with the crowds outside who were rejoicing after years of War.

We know that happened, but I think it’s fair to say the rest of the movie was made up. Having gotten permission to go out incognito, Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) and Margaret (Bel Powley) discover their mother (Emily Watson) isn’t going to allow them to have the night of dancing and being normal that they’d hoped. Despite their mother’s desire to keep things dull and stuffy, the princesses give their military chaperones the slip and end up getting separated. [Read more…]

The Third Man (Blu-ray Review)

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As you might have guessed, a lot of my friends are film fans. However, I was genuinely surprised how few of them had seen The Third Man. Everyone had heard of it, knew Orson Welles was in it and quite a few knew cuckoo clocks were involved somehow, but hardly any had seen it all the way through.

That’s a shame, as it’s a great film. The wonderful Joseph Cotten (who should be considered one of the screen’s greatest actors but normally gets overlooked) plays pulp novelist Holly Martins, who arrives in Vienna to start a new job that’s been offered to him by his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). He finds a city that in the post-war era is still in crisis and where the black market is flourishing. [Read more…]

Paddington (Blu-ray Review)

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Paddington is proof, if it were needed, that in a world where filmmakers constantly seem to think they need to make their family films cool and hip, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel if you’re going to do it right.

I have to admit I was dubious about this take on Michael Bond’s classic children’s character, as after seeing the first image of the bear’s new live-action/CGI incarnation, he just didn’t look quite right to me. However after only a couple of minutes of the movie starting, I have to admit I was rather enchanted. [Read more…]