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

My Straight Son (DVD Review)

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Diego is a photographer in Venezuela, living a nice life where he can go out to clubs and restaurants, and spend time with his doctor boyfriend, Fabrizio. However his life takes an abrupt right turn when his teenage son, Armando, arrives from Spain to visit and quickly realises that his dad is gay – something the young man isn’t that impressed about. Around the same time Fabrizio is beaten into a coma, leaving Diego reeling.

Diego’s friends become an unconventional family while he tries to deal with what happened to his boyfriend and also attempts to reconnect with his son. [Read more…]

Sabotage (Blu-ray Review)

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There’s a tendency that even film reviewers fall into, which is to think that we always treat each individual film on its own merits. However sometimes it’s often not true. There can be a big problem when people go into a movie thinking it’s going to be one thing when actually it’s something else. As a result they judge it against their expectations not against the film itself.

I couldn’t help thinking about that while watching Sabotage, as many of the truly horrendous reviews the film have received are essentially bemoaning the fact they thought they were getting a ‘typical’ Arnie movie. However it’s not that, but the reviews still seem to view it through the lens of 80s Schwarzenegger. [Read more…]

Only Lovers Left Alive (Blu-ray Review)

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Like many Jim Jarmusch movies, Only Lovers Left Alive is the sort of film where one chunk of the audience will be wondering what sort of tedium they’ve just had to sit through and another chunk will be hailing it as a masterpiece. He is as impressively idiosyncratic director and his films determinedly refuse to be boxed. Many have described him as a cinematic poet, and it’s a very good description. What he’s great at is creating mood, feeling and thought, where narrative isn’t the driving force, it’s merely the thread that pulls the fabric together.

Tom Hiddleston is Adam, who’s living in Detroit making music but keen that nobody bothers him. That’s partly because he’s a vampire and hundreds of years old. He’s also depressed and filled with weariness at the direction mankind has taken and how it treats the promise it has, to the point whether he’s wondering if there’s any point living on to see the future. [Read more…]

Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas (DVD Review)

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Drifting in LA, Bruno (Miles Szanto) meets the slightly older Earlene (Ashleigh Summer) and almost in spite of themselves they begin to bond, connecting over the fact they’re both outsiders. After deciding to get away from the City Of Angels, they head off into the desert with plans to get to the bright lights of Las Vegas.

It’s not a straightforward trip though, and along the way they come across a sexually uncertain outlaw, a pair of Scottish former strippers and the inhabitants of a desert ghost town. Although to the outside this collection of huts and ramshackle houses looks like a tenuous community, Bruno begins to feel that he might have finally found a place that is prepared to accept you no matter how atypical you are, while the alcoholic Earlene isn’t as sure she should even be allowed to find a home. [Read more…]

Pompeii (DVD Review)

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It becomes clear fairly early on that director Paul W.S. Anderson would like Pompeii to be his Titanic – creating a movie that spends the first half building romance and intrigue before throwing a massive disaster at it, and then hoping the audience will be suitably moved. Indeed there are moments where the parallels become slightly overbearing.

However what Anderson seems to have forgotten is that he’s the director of Alien Vs. Predator, Death Race, The Three Musketeers and Soldier, all of which have had great ambition and plenty of good ideas but got crushed under his rather cack-handed and condescending approach to filmmaking. [Read more…]

Bones – Season 9 (DVD Review)

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Most shows that have made it to Season 9 are long past their prime and are pretty much coasting until the day they get cancelled, while everyone involved makes as much cash as they can in the meantime. However that’s not true for Bones, which is still fun, entertaining and slick, with a great cast and a good mix of crime-solving and humour.

Season 8 left things on a bit of a cliffhanger, with fiendish serial killer Christopher Pelant forcing FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) to break off his engagement to forensic anthropologist Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan (Emily Deschanel), without even allowing him to tell her why. It certainly adds a lot of angst to the early part of the season, although it does become a little annoying and over the top. [Read more…]

Frank (DVD Review)

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Michael Fassbender is a top actor who can have his choice of roles, so it initially seemed bizarre that he wanted to make a movie where he spends the vast majority of the runtime with a giant papier-mâché head covering his face. However as I watched more of the movie, I began to realise what an interesting role it must have seemed from his perspective.

For a start it means he has to create a performance and a character with just his body and voice, something he does an extremely good job of. It’s also gives him a chance to play a surprisingly interesting person as it begins to reveal more and more about the man inside the head. [Read more…]