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

Heartland (US DVD/VoD Review) – The possibility of a lesbian affair threatens an Oklahoman family

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

I have to admit to being a tiny bit suspicious of Heartland before watching it. I was worried it was going to another entry in the subgenre of gay movies that (often inadvertently) suggest that the best way for someone in a straight relationship to sort out their problems is to have a same sex affair. After all, that’s not really cheating, is it?

Thankfully though, Heartland isn’t quite that (although it gets a little close at times).

Lauren (co-writer Velinda Godfrey) has just buried her long-term girlfriend after nursing her during a long illness. She’s a bit of a mess and so heads home to see her family in Oklahoma. That includes her mother, Crystal (gay film stalwart Beth Grant), who’s never quite embraced her daughter’s sexuality. There’s also her brother, Justin (Aaron Leddick), who’s trying to properly get his wine business going. That means he only has a little time for his girlfriend, Carrie (Bones and Big Bang Theory’s Laura Spencer), a woman who’s long been involved in wine– hailing from Napa Valley in California – whether she wants to or not. [Read more…]

The Freedom To Marry (VoD Review) – Evan Wolfson & the long, gay march to Obergefell v. Hodges

By 1 Comment

History is written by the winners. That’s true, but in the modern age it can also be about who’s best at getting their story out there – in numerous cases the full facts haven’t stood in the way of a particular narrative of how things happened gaining traction. In the past few years there have been several documentaries about the fight for same sex marriage in the US, each with a slightly different focus, a different cast of characters and a different take on how it got to the Supreme Court.

As with many things nowadays, there’s been an element in these documentaries (and other media), of people staking their place in the dominant narrative. I’m sure it’s not quite as contrived and cutthroat as that, but I must admit that early on in this documentary, part of my brain wondered whether that was what was happening in this documentary, not because the facts it was presenting were wrong but because of how it threatened to become a fawning hagiography of attorney and gay rights advocate Evan Wolfson and the Freedom To Marry organisation. [Read more…]

Political Animals (US DVD/VoD Review) – Taking a look at the first four gay California state representatives

By Leave a Comment

Alongside the ‘great men’ theory of history, we also have a tendency to think in ‘great events’, and that the things that have changed society fell out of the sky fully formed. That’s certainly been true of gay rights, where you could be forgiven for thinking no one had considered there should be more equality until Stonewall in 1969, or that the whirlwind of gay marriage in the US was a couple of overtures (the legalisation in Massachusetts in 2004, and Prop. 8 in California) before the Supreme Court decision in 2015. However, there was a lot more to it than that, laying the political groundwork for what was to come.

Political Animals is a look at the first four openly gay people to be elected to the California state legislature, all of them women (although there were previous gay elected officials in California – not least Harvey Milk – they’d operated on a more local level, rather than state-wide). However, as well as looking at the women themselves, the film is keen to show the work they did promoting gay rights in California, particularly in terms of legislation that helped pave the way for gay marriage. [Read more…]