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

Dance Hall (DVD)

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In the pantheon of Ealing films, Dance Hall is one of the ones that normally gets ignored. That’s partly because when it was released it was dismissed by male critics who looked at is as rather irrelevant, due to the fact it was about working class women. However in recent years it’s had a bit of a reappraisal, not because it’s actually an overlooked masterpiece, but because it’s one of the few movies made not long after the Second World War that does concentrate on the lives of normal women. [Read more…]

Cheerful Weather For The Wedding (DVD)

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Based on Julia Strachey’s 1932 novella that was championed into print by Virginia Woolf, Cheerful Weather For The Wedding is set on the morning of the marriage of Dolly Thatcham (Felicity Jones) to Owen Bigham. While the family prepares and Dolly’s rather fussy and sharp mother (Elizabeth McGovern) fusses and tries to control her brood, a fly in the ointment arrives in the form of Joseph (Luke Treadaway). [Read more…]

Wizards Vs. Aliens – Series 1 (DVD)

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When Russell T. Davies left Doctor Who in 2009 it seemed the world was his oyster. However following the middling reception of Torchwood: Miracle Day, we haven’t seen much from him, largely due to the fact his partner was diagnosed with a brain tumour and so he moved back to the UK from California to look after him. The return to Britain also gave him time to team up with The Sarah Jane Adventures writer Phil Ford to create the CBBC show, Wizards Vs. Aliens. Now the 12-part first series has reached DVD and Blu-ray. [Read more…]

Life Of Pi (Cinema)

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Normally when a book is deemed unfilmable, it’s because it’s thought that the plot and the way it’s told would be tough to successfully transfer to the big screen. With Life Of Pi it was more due to business considerations. It’s largely a story about an Indian boy alone at sea with only a tiger for company, so any adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize winning book was bound to cost a lot to make, not least in special effects. With little room for big stars or traditional action – and just one human character for most of the running time – it was a gamble most believed no studio would take. [Read more…]

Step Up 4: Miami Heat (3D Blu-ray)

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While the Step Up franchise looked like it was on its last legs after only two instalments, the re-emergence of 3D gave the things a bit of a kick up the ass, with Step Up 3-D taking $160 million around the world and ensuring it was worth making a part four. Now that new sequel arrives on 3D Blu-ray.

If you’ve seen any of the previous Step Up movies, you’ll know not to expect much from the plot, and indeed this one barely even tries. There are two basic plots for dance films – one is a streetwise poor kid with funky moves falling for a rich girl whose rigid classical dance training needs shaking up, and the other is corporate types trying to bulldoze something, and for some reason only dancing can stop them.  Step Up: Miami Heat crashes both those plots together, with rich, ballet dancing Emily meeting and starting to fall for working class Sean, who’s one of the leaders of ‘The Mob’, a group that stages intricately choreographed streetdance flashmobs around Miami. [Read more…]

Battleship Potemkin & Drifters (Blu-ray/DVD)

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While a lot of people will have heard of Battleship Potemkin (although relatively few have actually seen it), there are far fewer who know anything about Drifters. And even if you have heard of it, you might still be wondering what a Soviet propaganda movie about a 1905 mutiny and a documentary-style film about herring fishing are doing together on the same disc.

What this unexpected yet rather cleverly thought out DVD & Blu-ray dual-format release from the BFI does is recreate what’s been described as ‘the most celebrated double-bill in film history’, when these two movies screened at the Tivoli cinema on London’s Strand, on November 10th, 1929. [Read more…]

Foster (DVD)

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Foster is one of those films that could have been utterly wonderful, but sadly falls short. While it has charm, it doesn’t feel genuine enough to really hit home in the heart-warming, rather sentimental way it’s trying to.

Zooey (Toni Collette) and Alec (Ioan Gruffudd) are a couple who’d like another child, but for psychosomatic reason, she is unable to conceive. They decide to try and foster a kid, but things go a little faster than they expected when seven-year-old Eli (Maurice Cole) simply turns up on their doorstep and announces he’s been sent to live with them. They take him in while the records are checked as to whether he’s really meant to be there. The couple soon discover that despite his size, Eli’s got a surprisingly adult attitude, including an interest in the recession and watching CNN. [Read more…]

Joyful Noise (DVD)

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I don’t consider myself a particularly stereotypical gay man, but that all changes when it comes to Dolly Parton, who has the innate ability to bring out my inner screaming queen.

I’m oddly unashamed about my love for Dolly Parton. Therefore I’m more than a little excited about the fact that Joyful Noise brings her back to movie screens in a starring role for the first time since Straight Talk in 1992. It’s not a completely triumphant return but the film is quite fun. [Read more…]

The Uninvited (1944) (DVD)

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The Uninvited makes a welcome appearance on DVD – not the remake of the excellent Tale Of Two Sisters, but the stunning but much forgotten classic 1944 ghost story starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey.

The Uninvited is a spooky tale set in Cornwall. Roderick Fitzgerald (Milland) and his sister Pamela (Hussey) stumble across a deserted mansion on a clifftop that they immediately fall in love with it, although they have an odd sense about one of the rooms. They hunt down the owners and buy it for £1200 (if only we could buy them at that price now!!). After this, things start to go bump in the night, gradually building up momentum as the daughter of a  woman who died at the house starts visiting the mansion. [Read more…]

Sing Your Song (DVD)

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Nowadays when celebrities take up causes, they’re just as likely to be pilloried as praised. However in the 1950s and 1960s, many African-American actors, singers and other artists were at the forefront of the Civil Rights struggle. Admittedly, it was rather different for them as there very existence was political, whether they wanted it to be or not.

Sing Your Song looks at singer and actor Harry Belafonte, a man who this documentary suggests should be as lauded for his activism as his voice. He grew up poor, but it was the Second World War that really highlighted to him the evils of racism. There was segregation in the army, and then when he and other blacks soldiers returned home from fighting for their country, they found they were still treated as second class citizens despite their brave actions. [Read more…]