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

Kingdom Of Blood – Legend Of The Red Eagle (DVD)

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The Spanish TV show Aguila Rosa has been an absolutely gargantuan hit all across the Spanish speaking world, entrancing audiences with its 17th century tales of derring-do. Indeed it’s been so successful that it spawned this feature length spin-off.

While the movie has several interweaving plots, it swirls around Gonzalo de Montalvo, who is secretly the hero ‘Red Eagle’. When his son is blinded after an assassination attempt, Red Eagle sets out for revenge against the corrupt Cardinal Mendoza. Soon Gonzalo is mixed up in the political machinations at the top of Spanish society, as the evil Mendoza is in league with England, Portugal and France to overthrow the Spanish king and destroy the country. [Read more…]

The Lost Colony (DVD)

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The Lost Colony of Roanoke has been intriguing people for centuries. One of the first attempts to create a permanent European settlement in North America, a group of Brits established a colony in Virginia in 1585. The new governor then headed back to England to get supplies, and when he returned three years later (having been delayed by war) the settlement was abandoned and there was no sign of what had happened to the people.

There have been all sorts of suggestions as to what happened at Roanoke in the 1580s, from the Europeans integrating with the local Indians to the Spanish killing everyone to hardship causing the settlers to try and sail back to England, but sinking on the way. However The Lost Colony has a new idea – they were attacked by wraiths that are trapped between this world and the next, and who want baby Virginia Dare, the first white person known to have been born in the Americas. [Read more…]

Suits – Season 1 (DVD)

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I’m torn between loving and loathing Suits. It’s a legal series that undoubtedly has charm and an easy wit, but the main characters are so smug it’s sometimes almost painful to watch. It’s also true that in an age of austerity, this celebration of wealth and conspicuous consumption feels slightly out of touch. But it’s one of the odd things about American TV – it loves rich people, and smugness is almost treated as the right of those who’ve succeeded. To me Suits is occasionally insufferable, but the strong writing elsewhere and the pairing of Gabriel Macht and Patrick J. Adams just about pull it through. [Read more…]

Space: Above & Beyond – The Complete Series (DVD)

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In the year 2063, humanity has started to spread out into the stars. After 150 years exploring space it appears we’re alone in the universe. At least that’s until an advanced alien civilisation attacks two outposts on distant worlds, including Earth’s first colony on another planet, not only making us aware of their presence but declaring war.

The series focuses on a group of young recruits to the United States Marine Corps Space Aviator Calvary as they head out to battle the aliens – who become known as Chigs – facing their fears as they take on the threat. Space: Above & Below also deals with mankind’s own prejudices, in this case towards in vitroes, who are artificially gestated humans that face intense prejudice from normal people [Read more…]

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (DVD)

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Tom Cruise hasn’t had a great run recently. Mission: Impossible II in 2006 was his last bona fide hit, so it’s not surprising that he was keen to return to the franchise in the hope of keeping his star shining. What’s perhaps more surprising is that it works, as this well be the best Mission yet.

Ethan Hunt is called up for a new job – breaking into the heavily fortified Kremlin in order to retrieve some information. However after having failed to get what he went in there for, the building is destroyed in a devastating explosion. The agent quickly realises that he’s been set-up so that someone else could steal sensitive info from the Russians, destroy the building and then having everything blamed on Hunt and his team. The frame job has worked though, as the IMF is being shut down and Hunt and his crew disavowed. [Read more…]

Twice Round The Daffodils (DVD)

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Gerald Thomas is definitely best known for directing the Carry On… movies, with a dedication to the series that took him from 1958’s Carry On Sergeant right through to 1992’s Carry On Columbus. However while most of his career was taken up with those films, he did sometimes find time for movies outside the series, such as Twice Round The Daffodils.

The comedy, which comes to DVD for the first time, is sometimes considered an unofficial Carry On film. On the surface you can understand why. After all, it features several of the Carry On actors (Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims etc.), has Thomas directing, Peter Rogers producing and Norman Hudis writing. However it has a rather different tone. For a start Hudis adapted it from a play by Jack Beale and Patrick Cargill. The comedy is gentler and less obvious, and there’s more of a bittersweet feel to the whole thing. [Read more…]

Alyce (DVD)

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Call me a traditionalist, but I think when you make a film you should just make one, not three different ones of completely different tone, all pretending to be a single movie. Alyce starts off as an indie drama, turns into a trippy psychological thriller before becoming almost absurdist horror by the end.

Alyce and her best friend Carroll are out for a night of fun, where they drink, take drugs and flirt outrageously. However, it all goes wrong when Alyce accidentally knocks her friend off the roof of her apartment building. If that weren’t enough, she then lies to the police, saying it had nothing to do with her. The fib get more complicated when it turns out Carroll isn’t dead and will be able to say what really happened when she recovers enough. [Read more…]

The Iron Lady (DVD)

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If you read a variety of the reviews of The Iron Lady when it came out at cinemas, it really is like they were talking about completely different films. Everyone agrees Meryl Streep is ace, but to some it’s an apologia for a tyrant, to others a left wing fantasy, there are those who feel its concentration on her old age is schadenfreude taking pleasure in her mental problems, while a few believe it is a suitably reverential, right wing look at a great woman and will make people with a liberal philosophy take stock.

The problem with making a movie about Margaret Thatcher is that she’s such a divisive figure that people come to anything about her incapable of viewing it through anything but the prism of their own prejudices. The film is actually quite agnostic on whether she was a hero or villain, which makes it even easier to paint your own thoughts onto the movie. [Read more…]