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

NEWS

All the news from film and the world of the gays

Edgar Wright Completes Ant-Man Test Reel

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Ant-Man is one of those films that seems to be constantly talked about but never seems to actually move forward. Edgar Wright has been attached to direct for years and he always suggests it’s just over the horizon – but this time it appears that might actually be true, as THR reports Wright has just completed a test-footage reel for the movie.

Based on the Marvel Comic, Ant-Man is about Hank Pym, a scientist who devises a way to shrink his size and control an army of ants with a special helmet he’s constructed. Last month, Wright said he hopes to shoot this superhero movie sometime next year, after he wraps on The World’s End with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The filmmaker co-wrote the Ant-Man screenplay with Joe Cornish (Attack the Block).

These early reels are often used to gauge a response from the studio about a filmmaker’s style or the overall look of a particular project. Directors such as Zack Snyder (300), Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles), and Guillermo del Toro (At the Mountains of Madness) made similar reels to help their projects get the green light.

We’ll have to wait and see if Edgar Wright’s reel will lead to the new Ant-Man feature. It’s also led to speculation that if Marvel likes the footage, it could be shown at Comic Con.

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Shailene Woodley Takes The Lead In Gregg Araki’s White Bird

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Gregg Araki’s movies  – which have tended to be of major gay interest – have ranged from the wonderful to the incredibly messy, but they’re never less than interesting. Now he’s plotting a new one, White Bird, and according to Variety he’s cast Descendants star Shailene Woodley in the lead role.

There’s now a vast amount of info on the plot, although Araki’s film will be told through the perspective of Woodley’s character, a ‘troubled young woman whose life is upended following the mysterious disappearance of her mother.’

Araki has a loyal following on the indie and gay cinema circuits with the likes of Kaboom! and The Doom Generation, but only Mysterious Skin has found a wider audience (and even then not a huge one). It’s unclear whether casting Woodley is an attempt to embrace the mainstream, or if the actress is simply interested in going into the director’s weird world.

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Tommy Lee Jones Up For Luc Besson’s Malavita

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It’s never a bad idea to cast Tommy Lee Jones in a movie, and Luc Besson obviously agress, he’s now got the action in talks to join his crime drama Malavita, according to Variety. Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer are already attached to star.

The story follows a notorious organised crime family that needs to be relocated to France under a witness protection program. They find themselves giving in to old habits and falling back into the ‘family’ way. Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer play husband and wife in the drama. Tommy Lee Jones meanwhile will be a FBI agent who looks after the family and helps them blend into their new environment.

Luc Besson adapted the screenplay from a book by author Tonino Benacquista, titled Badfellas. Shooting begins in July with the studio shooting for a 2013 release.

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Disney Plans Big Hero 6 Animated Movie

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When Disney bought Marvel back in 2009, most fans thought it would only be a matter of time before the studio made an animated feature based off the huge stable of superhero characters that came with the acquisition. Now, it seems that time may have come, as Disney is developing an animated movie based on the rather obscure Marvel comic book Big Hero 6.

Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau created the title in 1998, which is about a superhero team comprised of Silver Samurai, Sunfire, GoGo Tomago, Honey Lemon, Hiro Takachiho and Baymax, who are brought together by the Japanese government to do their bidding.

Don Hall (Winnie the Pooh) is attached to direct, after pitching the idea to Disney Animation chief John Lasseter. The studio is currently looking for writers to tackle this comic book adaptation. It is believed that Disney is eyeing a 2014 release date, with the movie leading into the release of The Avengers 2. (Source: Blue Sky Disney)

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Leave It On The Floor UK Trailer – A great gay musical full of dance

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The ball-busting, in-your-face and very gay musical Leave It On The Floor hits UK cinemas on August 2nd and then comes to DVD on September 24th, Peccadillo Pictures has now released the UK trailer for the movie, which busts a move and shows off the film’s insatiable energy.

If you’d like to know a bit more about the film, you can read our interview with director Sheldon Larry, who we chatted to when the film screened at the London Lesbian & Day Film Festival.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘High flying and low down, LEAVE IT ON THE FLOOR is a one of a kind celebration – a gay African-American musical about finding your true family.

‘In the spirit of PARIS IS BURNING, Sheldon Larry’s audacious, raunchy and big-hearted musical — with songs by BEYONCE’s  music director Kim Burse and choreography by BEYONCE’s dance master Frank Gatson Jr. – takes us into the fabulously funky world of vogueing. Here the setting is contemporary downtown L.A.  Our hunky, homeless hero Brad, discarded by his homophobic mother, falls in with the members of the ‘House of Eminence’, a troupe of wild and unforgiving dancers and artists ruled by the stern diva Queef Latina, who keeps a careful, loving watch over her makeshift family of runaways and throwaways. When two of her crew fall for Brad, the Queef is royally un-amused, and with a dance-off showdown fast approaching, things are going to get seriously heated.  STEP UP and STREETDANCE move aside, there’s a new beat in town…’

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Chuck Norris Says Obama Is Trying To Make Boy Scouts Gay!

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He may have a reputation for being cool and one of the hardest men on the planets, but when it comes to gay rights issues, Chuck Norris is, well, an ass. His latest assault on equality is a column he wrote on the TownHall website, in which the conspiracy minded, avowedly conservative Republican argues that President Obama is trying to force the Boy Scouts Of America to be gay.

The BSA currently has a ban on openly gay people serving in leadership positions, or indeed been Scouts themselves, but has recently agreed to review this proscription – just review it, as it hasn’t said it’ll overturn it. Norris is a bit up in arms about this and blames connections he sees between Obama and business executive James Turley, a member of the Boy Scout’s national board, who has pledged to try to end the ban on gay scouts and leaders.

Norris asks, “Is Turley working on his own initiative, or has the White House prodded him with perks and favors?” Perhaps unsurprisingly Chuck can’t answer that question in his scaremongering piece, which poses a series of unanswered, “Is it a coincidence?” questions.

However, Chuck doesn’t bother to offer a reason why it would be so terrible if Obama were pushing for a pro-Gay scouts, or why the current ban is reasonable (other than spouting on about first amendment rights). It is perhaps the most insidious homophobia when someone doesn’t even argue why something is bad, simply assuming people will agree that the word ‘gay’ makes it so, and indeed that you can smear Obama by trying to attaching him to it.

Since his post GLAAD has pointed out that “Norris ignored the fact, however, that Republican candidate Mitt Romney spoke out in favor of allowing gay Americans to participate in the Boy Scouts of America in a 1994 debate when he stated: ‘I believe that the Boy Scouts of America does a wonderful service for this country. I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue. I feel that all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.'”

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Glee’s Harry Shum Jr. Going Gay In White Frog

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While Glee has more than its fair share of gay characters, Mike Chang, played by Harry Shum Jr., is one of the straight ones. However he’s getting his gay on in the indie flick White Frog, which is due to play at Outfest in LA on July 21st.

He’s been talking to Frontiers Magazine about the movie and says, ‘This is actually my first independent film. It was a great experience. They are two different beasts. You have Glee and the pace is constantly moving and on to the next thing as quick as you can—it’s so hectic. Independent films you don’t have a big budget. But what’s fun is you can play around more and develop the character. That was an interesting experience for me. I loved playing a different character.’

Shum plays Mike, a young gay man who isn’t out, but is extremely popular. When he dies, his brother Nick (Booboo Stewart) struggles to carry on. While Chaz’s parents (B.D. Wong and Joan Chen) have their own problems coping with the loss, they all have to come to terms with his secret life.

When talking about equality, Shum says, ‘You start to realize we have more similarities than differences. In my eyes, life is simple; people make it complicated. I never looked at the differences too much. I grew up in Costa Rica where I was the only Chinese kid in a Latin country, then I moved to San Francisco where I only knew Spanish and lived with Chinese kids. I was in a different world.’

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Hit And Run Red Band Trailer – Dax Shepard & Bradley Cooper go on the road

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Hit and Run is the story of Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard), a former getaway driver who busts out of the Witness Protection Program to drive his girlfriend (Kristen Bell) to Los Angeles so she can land her dream job. Their road trip grows awkwardly complicated, when they are chased by the feds (led by Tom Arnold), and increasingly dangerous, when Charlie’s former gang of criminals (led by Bradley Cooper) enter the fray. Although Shepard has a variable track record in lead roles, it’s a great cast. The trailer does skirt on the edge of racism and seems slightly obsessed with Bradley Cooper having been raped in prison, but hopefully in the context of the movie it doesn’t come across a homophobic.

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Red Hook Summer Trailer – Spike Lee heads back to Brooklyn

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Other than his documentaries, Spike Lee has been relatively commercial for the past few years, but now he’s going in an indie direction and back to Brooklyn for Red hook Summer. The film tells the story of Flik Royale (Jules Brown), a young boy who travels from Atlanta to stay with his bishop grandfather, Enoch Rouse (Clarke Peters), in Brooklyn for the summer. For a while it seems as though it’s going to be a hellish couple of months, as Enoch keeps trying to show Flik the way of Jesus, but then he meets a young girl named Chazz Morningstar (Toni Lysaith), who begins to show him the other side of the city. The film also stars Nate Parker, James Ransone, and Thomas Jefferson Byrd. No UK release date is currently set.

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Darren Lemke Writing Carmen Sandiego

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Darren Lemke has become one of the go-to guys for family friendly movies, having worked on Shrek Forever After, The Nutcracker and Bryan Singer’s upcoming Jack the Giant Killer. Now he’s been hired to write the script for Walden Media’s movie based on Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?

J-Lo is still attached to star as ACME agency’s greatest detective, Carmen Sandiego, who becomes the world’s greatest thief. It’s up to her former partner to follow her clues and track her down. Their cat and mouse game leads the partner to confront a greater mystery: is Carmen really a thief or a hero? Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? The franchise started off as an educational video game before it spawned an animated TV series.

There’s no news on when it might shoot, but it’s a decent enough set-up for a movie.

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