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

The Stranger In Us (DVD)

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Small town guy Anthony (Raphael Barker) arrives in San Francisco to live with his new boyfriend Stephen (Scott Cox). However domestic bliss soon turns sour when Stephen turns out to be demanding, controlling, abusive, manipulative and volatile.

The film jumps between Anthony in the midst of the tempestuous relationship and afterwards, when he find himself alone and isolated in the big city, before striking up a friendship with a young, runaway hustler, Gavin (Ada Perez). In between one night stands, trying drugs and desperately attempting to put his life back on track, Anthony finds himself drawn to Gavin, and together they find a connection in the anonymous, impersonal world of the big city. [Read more…]

The Three Musketeers (3D Blu-ray)

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I’ve said before that I think Paul W.S. Anderson is the best bad director there is, and he proves that again here, delivering a load of very good action set-pieces and individual scenes, but overall creating a movie that verges on the incoherent.

Logan Lerman plays D’Artagnan, a country boy who heads for Paris with the hope of being a musketeer like his father before him. However he’s arrived too late, as the legendary Porthos (Ray Stevenson), Athos (Matthew MacFadyen) and Aramis (Luke Evans) are out of favour and the musketeers are no more. [Read more…]

Jack Goes Boating (DVD)

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Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his directorial debut with a movie version of Robert Glaudini’s play, which he originally helped develop and starred in with his New York theatre company. As well as directing he plays Jack, a rather awkward middle-aged man who gets set up by his friend Clyde (John Ortiz) with his wife’s work colleague, Connie (Amy Ryan).

Connie is a rather neurotic woman, but there seems to be something between her and Jack. Very slowly the two socially maladroit people start to get closer to one another, while the problems between Clyde and his wife Lucy grow. [Read more…]

We Need To Talk About Kevin (Blu-ray)

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Lynne Ramsay became a true darling of the British indie film scene with Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar. While I found things to admire in both those movies, I remained undecided about Ramsay as a filmmaker, as I personally found that overall both movie felt lacking. However, I do think her third film, We Need To Talk About Kevin, based on the bestselling book by Lionel Shriver, is very good, although perhaps not for exactly the same reasons Ramsay and the actors do.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is a movie that’s possible to take two completely different ways. It could be a mother trying to deal with a son who was simply born evil, or alternately it could be about a son who ends up bad because his mother never felt the bond parents are supposed to, or perhaps somewhere in between. In the cast and crew interviews that make up the special features, the actors suggest they believe it’s more about the mother not feeling the expected bond with her son and the incredibly smart Kevin reacting to it, but when I watched it, I saw the exact opposite. [Read more…]

Sleeping Beauty (DVD)

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Sleeping Beauty is not an easy film, I’m not even sure it’s a good one, but it does suggest Julia Leigh is a filmmaker to look out for in the future, even if her debut effort is more a series of effective moments than a truly successful complete film.

Emily Browning stars as Lucy, a rather disconnected young woman doing everything she can to make ends meet while also trying to study. However she doesn’t seem that interested in her life or those around her. She answers an advert for a very well paid job, starting off as a sexy silver service waitress at events for old horny men. However the job turns into something else, with Lucy agreeing to be a Sleeping Beauty, where she is drugged, falls asleep and is then visited by men. When she wakes up, she can’t remember what has happened, although the woman who arranges it all promises her ‘vagina is sacred’ and will not be penetrated. [Read more…]