April 28th 2014 Archives - Big Gay Picture Show

American Hustle (Blu-ray)

April 27, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner
Director: David O. Russell
Running Time: 139 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: April 28th 2014

American Hustle recently joined a select band of movies to get 10 Oscar nominations but not win a single award (although The Turning Point and Color Purple still hold the record with 11 noms and no wins). However the fact a film like this got 10 nods is a pretty impressive achievement on its own.

Christian Bale is Irving Rosenfeld, a small time hustler who finds his con man empire growing when he teams up with the smart and beautiful Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams). However things look like they’re going south after the FBI’s Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) fingers them. [Read more…]

Nymphomaniac – Volumes 1&2 (DVD)

April 27, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Shia Labeouf, Jamie Bell, Mia Goth
Director: Lars Von Trier
Running Time: 232 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: April 28th 2014

This is the Gone With The Wind of movies with ‘real’ sex in them, at least in terms of the fact that Nymphomaniac has roughly the same running time.

As you may have guessed though, in most ways they’re very different movies – in Gone With The Wind Scarlett O’Hara vows never to hungry again, while in Nymphomaniac Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) vows never to go without sex again. [Read more…]

All Is Lost (DVD)

April 27, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Robert Redford
Director: J.C. Chandor
Running Time: 106 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: April 28th 2014

All Is Lost is a movie where you can imagine two people sitting down to watch it, with one deciding it’s a transcendent masterpiece, while the other thinks it’s a pointless, crushing bore.

These days Robert Redford makes comparatively few movies, but here the 77-year-old doesn’t just take centre-stage, he’s the only person who appears on-screen throughout the running time. Not only that, but he has virtually no dialogue either.

Hell, he doesn’t even have a name. [Read more…]

The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi et l’Oisieu) (DVD)

April 27, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Jean Martin, Pascal Mazzotti, Raymond Bussieres
Director: Paul Grimault
Running Time: 83 mins
Certificate: U
Release Date: April 28th 2014

You could easily be forgiven for having never heard of the 1980 animated French movie The King and the Mockingbird. However it’s had a profound effect, not least that Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have said it helped show them what animation could be, with the lessons they learned from it helping fuel the creation of Studio Ghibli.

Director Paul Grimault and screenwriter/poet Jacques Prevert started work on the film in 1947, when it was planned it as France’s first animated movie. However production was stopped partway through due to a dispute (an unfinished version that wasn’t approved by the director or writer was released at the time). After endless funding and rights battles it took another 30 years to finish it in the way Grimault and Prevert envisioned it. However it was worth the wait. [Read more…]