April 2nd Archives - Big Gay Picture Show

Four Horsemen (DVD)

April 15, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Noam Chomsky, Gillian Tett, Max Keiser
Director: Ross Ashcroft
Running Time: 98 mins
Certificate: E
Release Date: April 2nd, 2012

It’s very rare that something actually makes me angry, but Four Horsemen did. The documentary tries to deflect criticism by saying during the voiceover that some will dismiss it as socialist when it isn’t, but my problem with it wasn’t with its viewpoint, but that as an argument it’s absolutely hideously constructed and an altogether frustrating experience.

Made in the wake of the banking collapse and economic crisis, Four Horsemen attempts to explain what happened, why we haven’t learned any lessons from it, and why western society is on the brink of collapse and unable to come to terms with the fact its version of civilisation may have peaked. Much of it is stuff many will have heard before, especially as the economic collapse has been picked apart in detail by numerous different voices. It doesn’t help that Four Horsemen has little new to add, and most of what it does have to say has been said better by others – the wonderful The Shock Doctrine and Inside Job spring to mind. [Read more…]

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

April 3, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Giustino Durano
Director: Roberto Benigni
Running Time: 116 mins
Certificate: PG
Release Date: April 2nd, 2012

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)

April 3, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Martin Freeman, Mandy Moore, Melissa George, Angus Deayton, Jonathan Silverman
Director: Jonathan Newman
Running Time: 85 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: April 2nd, 2012

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)

April 3, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Dave Bautista, Amy Smart, Dominic Purcell, Danny Trejo
Director: Brian A. Miller
Running Time: 85 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: April 2nd, 2012

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)

April 2, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Christopher Plummer, James Mason, David Hemmings, Anthony Quayle, Susan Clark
Director: Bob Clark
Running Time: 100 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: April 2nd, 2012

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…]