September 29th 2014 (UK) Archives - Big Gay Picture Show

Lilting (DVD Review)

October 6, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Ben Whishaw, Cheng Pei Pei, Andrew Leung, Peter Bowles, Naomi Christie
Director: Hong Khaou
Running Time: 91 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: September 29th 2014 (UK)

An aging Cambodian-Chinese woman (Cheng Pei Pei) talks to her son, Kai (Andrew Leung) in a nursing home. However he’s not really there. It’s her remembrance of the last time she saw him a few weeks before, the day before he died. Now she is left alone, living in Britain but unable to speak English.

Her son’s partner, Richard (Ben Whishaw), wants to help her, even though he’s going through his own grief, something that’s complicated not just by the language barrier but also because Junn didn’t know her child was gay (or perhaps she did know but was in denial). Richard’s remembrance of his lover revolves around his gentle coaxing of him to come out, so that perhaps Junn can come and live with them, something he hopes will assuage the guilt he knows Kai feels. Now he still wants to help Junn, but she’s not sure she wants his help, partly because she always disliked him and doesn’t trust him. [Read more…]

Fading Gigolo (DVD Review)

September 30, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: John Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara, Vanessa Paradis
Director: John Turturro
Running Time: 90 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: September 29th 2014 (UK)

Fioravante (John Turturro) is a florist whose life – and career – takes a surprising turn when his friend, Murray (Woody Allen), talks him into becoming a male escort. Murray’s dermatologist (Sharon Stone) has always dreamed on having a threesome and will pay handsomely for first having an individual session and afterwards bringing in her friend (Sofia Vergara).

Then Murray decides to expand the ‘business’, by hiring Fioravante as a ‘healer’ to the widowed Avigal (Vanessa Paradis), whose been living a hidden, buttoned down Orthodox Jewish life, kept in check by the overzealous neighbourhood patrol. To his own surprise, Fioravante start to have feelings for her. [Read more…]

300: Rise Of An Empire (Blu-ray Review)

September 29, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Rodrigo Santoro, Jack O'Connell, Lena Headey
Director: Noam Murro
Running Time: 102 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: September 29th 2014 (UK)

Ever since 300 became a surprise blockbuster they’ve been talking about a sequel. However it kept getting put back due to the fact comic creator Frank Miller hadn’t finished the graphic novel it was supposed to be based on. Eventually they decided to go ahead anyway, and so we have 300: Rise Of An Empire.

The movie is a sidequel to the earlier film, following the men of Athens before, during and after what happened to Gerard Butler and his Spartans (and in case you’re wondering, the shirtlessness and six pack abs are back, although the Athenians aren’t quite as hulking as the Spartans). [Read more…]

The Wind Rises (Blu-ray Review)

September 29, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Martin Short, Stanley Tucci
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Running Time: 126 mins
Certificate: PG
Release Date: September 29th 2014 (UK)

While Japanese anime that covers weirdly sexual sci-fi, giant robots and horror has found its place in the West, what still seems like an anomaly to us are animated movies for grown-ups that don’t go that far into the fantastical. In fact for several reasons, and despite how good it is, it’s difficult to imagine The Wind Rises ever getting a release over here if it weren’t directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki (and it’s probably his last film).

The movie is a biopic of one of Miyazaki’s heroes, Jirô Horikoshi, starting with his youth as a young boy in the 1920s who dreams of being able to fly, but knowing that due to his bad eyesight he can never be a pilot. Once grown he heads off to university to become an engineer before getting a job helping to design planes. [Read more…]

Postman Pat: The Movie (DVD Review)

September 29, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Steven Mangan, Ronan Keating, David Tennant, Rupert Grint, Jim Broadbent
Director: Mike Disa
Running Time: 88 mins
Certificate: U
Release Date: September 29th 2014 (UK)

It’s surprising how many films get made where the moral of the movie is completely contradicted by the film itself, but nobody involved in making it seems to have realised that. And that’s the problem with Postman Pat: The Movie, a film where the central character has to remember to appreciate the small things in life that the original 80s TV show handled so well – where the most pressing issue was a lost sheep – but then sets it within a movie that’s noisy and bombastic, and has little to do with the gentleness of the series it’s based on. [Read more…]

Who’s Afraid Of Vagina Wolf? (DVD Review)

September 28, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Anna Margarita Albelo, Guinevere Turner, Janina Gavankar, Agnes Olech, Carrie Preston
Director: Anna Margarita Albelo
Running Time: 83 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: September 29th 2014 (UK)

Anna (Anna Margarita Albelo) has just turned 40 and is having a bit of an early midlife crisis. After leaving college she had dreams of finding love and having a glittering filmmaking career, eventually deciding she would sacrifice the former for the latter.

However she’s now finds herself with neither, she’s living in someone’s garage, and she can’t even organise herself enough to put in a grant funding application on time. Her film career – while initially promising – has come down to her dancing around in a vagina costume. [Read more…]