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

Life Is Beautiful – 15th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray)

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Even now, 15 years on, it seems almost impossible that Roberto Benigni managed to pull off Life Is Beautiful. Setting what is essentially a slapstick farce in a concentration camp is one hell of a gambit and could have gone horribly wrong. Indeed, the most interesting part of the new, hour-long documentary included on this Blu-ray edition is the discussion about what is a suitable depiction of the Holocaust and what isn’t, and the fears many involved had before they made the movie that the film not only couldn’t work, but could even end up being cheered by Holocaust deniers.

Benigni managed it though, using humour to highlight and contrast against the horrors the characters face. Indeed part of the movie’s power is that nothing about the concentration camp is funny – it never jokes about that – and it’s the place’s very grimness that Guido is trying to hide his son from. It is humour in the face of tragedy, and comedy that’s a testament to the human spirit. [Read more…]

Swinging With The Finkels (DVD)

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Sometimes a movie comes across as trying so hard to hit the buttons of popular success that it has all the charm and fun sucked right out of it. Meet Swinging With The Finkels. With a multi-national cast, sex and relationships as a subject, lowest common denominator jokes and an utterly predictable plot, it’s like someone sat down and made a checklist of everything that’s worked in Brit-coms in the past 20 years and then tried to distil it into a single film, and in doing so created something utterly anaemic.

Alvin and Ellie Finkel (Martin Freeman & Mandy Moore) have been married for years and are feeling bored with one another. The romance is gone, neither can be bothered with sex and their whole relationship is feeling stale. After talking about the various options to spice things up, they decide to try a bit of wife swapping. Will it work, or will it just highlight the cracks in their marriage they’re trying to paper over? [Read more…]

House Of The Rising Sun (DVD)

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Ex-con Ray (Bautista) is working as a doorman when a group of armed men force their way into the club where he’s working and open fire, killing the owner’s son. While Ray has been trying to go straight, he finds himself being blamed by his boss for letting the men into the club and told he must find the robbers. As he digs digger, he starts to realise the police are as dirty as the mob that surrounds him, and his own criminal past makes him a prime suspect in the case. Ray struggles to solve the crime and to clear his own name, while also attempting to protect a beautiful young woman (Amy Smart). [Read more…]

Murder By Decree (DVD)

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Sherlock Holmes is famously the most adapted literary character of all time, appearing in more different film and TV incarnations than anyone else. Nowadays we have Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch representing two different but rather 21st Century Sherlocks (whether set in the modern day or not), but in 1979 Christopher Plummer donned the deerstalker, with James Mason as his Watson.

Rather than being based on any of Arthur Conan Doyle#s original stories, Murder By Decree tries to raise some extra interest by getting Sherlock involved in the Jack the Ripper killings. When the gruesome Whitechapel murders begin, Holmes expects to be called in by the police, but they’re rather deliberately keeping him at arms-length. [Read more…]

Eating Out: The Open Weekend (DVD)

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The Eating Out films are a bit of an achievement, as I can’t think of any film series made with an almost exclusively gay audience in mind that’s managed to reach five instalments. After last year’s extremely fun and breezy Drama Camp, the guys are now back for The Open Weekend.

Zack (Chris Salvatore) and his new boyfriend Benji (Aaron Milo) head for a gay resort in Palm Springs for a weekend getaway. Benji has managed to get Zack to agree to having an open relationship while they’re away, even though Zack’s not keen and only said yes to keep his new beau happy. Also at the resort is Zack’s ex, Casey, who ends up pretending he has a new boyfriend, who’s actually an old friend he’s only just met up with again. [Read more…]

Wuthering Heights (Blu-ray)

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When this new version of Wuthering Heights was announced, it seemed like it was going to be a relatively straightforward period drama. Natalie Portman, Abbie Cornish and Gemma Arterton were cast as Cathy at various points, while Michael Fassbender and Ed Westwick could have been Heathcliff. However the comparatively traditional directors John Maybury (The Edge Of Love) and Peter Webber (Girl With A Pearl Earring) came and went from the production, and from the moment Andrea Arnold was hired following their departure, it was clear this was going to be something rather different to what had been expected. [Read more…]

The Erotic Films Of Peter De Rome (DVD)

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It’s an age old debate – where is the edge between pornography and art? It’s an almost impossible question to answer. In 1964 US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart came up with the famous description, ‘I know it when I see it’, due to his and many other’s inability to say exactly where the line between art and porn is. Since then few people have come up with a better definition. The Erotic Films Of Pete De Rome is a particularly interesting challenge to this blurred line as it’s undeniably both, but the more interesting question is whether it was ‘art’ when it was made, or if it’s become that in the time since? [Read more…]

Encounters: Four Ground-breaking Classics Of Gay Cinema (DVD)

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Before the 1980s, depictions of gay life onscreen were rare things, so that anything from the 70s or before is unusual, intriguing and worth seeking out. With Encounters, the BFI has drawn together four short films on gay subjects made between 1965 and 1971, giving us a rare look at homosexuality during that time (and not as it was remembered afterwards, which is our usual view of gay history). Making any sort of film on a gay subject back then was a bit of an achievement and a fairly subversive act, so while there’s not a vast amount of pre-80s gay films, we’re privileged to have what we’ve got. [Read more…]

The Gospel According To St. Matthew (Blu-ray)

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It’s rather odd that one of the most acclaimed religious films ever was made by Pier Paolo Pasolini, an affirmed atheist who was also responsible some of the most controversial movies ever, such as Salo Or The  120 Days Days Of Sodom. The Gospel According To St. Matthew came about 10 years before Salo, but still shows a unique filmmaker not afraid to let his voice be known.

The film is one of the few biblical movies that the Vatican has given its seal of approval, largely because it’s rather beautiful, poetic and sticks very close to the text of the book it’s based on, with most of the dialogue taken directly from the Bible. However Pasolini concentrates on the political side of Jesus, with Christ coming across a very intense, single-minded, rather humourless figure, whose ideas come across as surprisingly Marxist. [Read more…]

Puss In Boots (DVD)

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You have to wonder whether the fact the Shrek franchise is Dreamworks Animation’s goose that laid the golden egg was going through the minds of the powers that be when they were coming up with the story for Puss In Boots. While we were promised Shrek Forever After would be the last movie about the green ogre, it’s little surprise the studio wanted to carry on with a spin-off, and Puss In Boots is certainly a good character to do it with, allowing for a film that feels familiar but is different enough not to seem as if it’s merely rehashing the Shrek movies.

Set before Puss met his ogrish pals, the film sees the well-shod feline as an outlaw who discovers the dastardly Jack & Jill have the magic beans he’s been looking for most of his life. When he tries to steal them, he’s interrupted by another cat who on the outside of the law, Kitty Softpaws, who turns out to be allied to Puss’ old pal Humpty Dumpty. However Puss and Humpty have long been estranged, as despite growing up together in an orphanage, Puss blames Humpty for making him an outlaw when he got him involved in a robbery he knew nothing about. [Read more…]