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

DVD and BLU-RAY REVIEWS

The latest reviews from the world of home entertainment

Creed (Blu-ray Review)

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A few years ago, pretty much everyone thought the Rocky franchise was dead, and that any attempt to resurrect it would be a pointless, awful cash-in. However, 2006’s Rocky Balboa proved there might be a little life left, and now Creed is cashing in on that promise.

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) is the illegitimate offspring of Apollo Creed, who’s been trapped in foster homes and juvenile detention until he’s given a chance by Apollo’s widow (Phylicia Rashad), who decides to take him in. She also points him towards someone else from her husband’s past, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), who reluctantly agrees to help train the young man and turn him into a boxer. [Read more…]

Grace & Frankie – Season 1 (DVD Review)

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When it was announced that Netflix was reuniting 9 to 5 co-stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin for a new online series, it was difficult to see how it could be anything but good. Indeed, the only downside was the lack of Dolly Parton. However, the series itself, Grace & Frankie, turned out to be better than we could have hoped, giving both Tomlin and Fonda plenty of space to show off their talents, while also telling a fun and timely story.

Grace (Fonda) and Frankie (Tomlin) are longtime frenemies, whose different outlooks on life – one a rather high-strung retired businesswoman the other a bit of an earth mother – have meant that the only thing that’s held them together is the fact their husbands (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston) are longtime friends and business partners. Or at least that’s what the women think, until their hubbies sit them down to explain that actually they’re gay and in love with each other, and plan to move out so they can be together. [Read more…]

Tootsie (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray Review)

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In the 21st Century films about ‘men in dresses’ can seem rather backward and awkward, especially if the vast majority of the humour is about the supposed hilarity or men doing things that are stereotypically ‘women’s’ jobs, and the ‘emasculation’ of putting on a skirt. However, Tootsie is slightly different and in some ways its take on gender roles seems even more relevant now than when it was made.

The film is surprisingly careful not to make the joke that it’s Dustin Hoffman pretending to be a woman, instead ensuring the humour comes from his character’s negotiation of his own assumptions about gender roles. While it is about a guy learning to be a better man by becoming a woman (and therefore the focus is on the male), its viewpoint is very much on the side of women and how society has marginalised them, often without actively thinking about what it’s doing. What he does is essentially to exploit womanhood, but in doing so he learns things about the world around him he’d never realised. [Read more…]

Grey Gardens (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray Review)

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A lot of movies that have been given the ‘cult film’ label are really nothing of the sort, but Grey Gardens is almost the definition of a cult phenomenon. 90% of the population have no idea what it is, but when you find somebody who does, it’s almost like you’ve discovered someone else who’s part of a secret club. Now it’s got a new Blu-ray release as one of the first Criterion Collection Blu-rays to be released in the UK.

Criterion has taken a long time jumping across the pond, as it’s been going in the US since the era of laserdiscs in the 1980s. However, now hopefully Britain will be able to get a taste of the collection, which is known for its attention to detail, intricate restorations and remastering, and good special features. [Read more…]

Carol (Blu-ray Review)

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Todd Haynes 2002 movies Far From Heaven was a very deliberate homage to the ‘women’s films’ of the 1950s made by the likes of Douglas Sirk. As with his HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, Carol is set in decades past, but eschews the high gloss of Far From Heaven, instead being more interested in looking at how society was through the eyes of society today, but done in a style as if you really were there.

The film follows Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett), whose marriage is in the process of imploding when she meets charming shop assistant Therese (Rooney Mara) in a Department Store. They both sense a connection which slowly builds as they meet for lunch and then Carol invites Therese to spend the day with her in her country house. [Read more…]

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (Blu-ray Review)

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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 was an entertaining movie but there’s no doubt that it largely felt like it was laying the groundwork and building us up for Part 2. Now that film is coming to Blu-ray, so that those who didn’t catch it in cinemas can find out how the struggle between the Districts and the Capitol ends.

Panem is now in full-scale Civil War, with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) having been enrolled as the Mockingjay, a figurehead that District 13 President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) wants to use for propaganda purposes. However, all Katniss really wants is to kill President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in the hope it will bring everything to an end. She also becomes increasingly suspicious of Coin, concerned that if she takes control after the Capitol collapses, they could be simply replacing one despot with another. [Read more…]

Black Mass (Blu-ray Review)

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At the beginning of Black Mass I was worried that the whole thing was going to be spoiled by Johnny Depp’s makeup, or more particularly the ridiculously blue contact lenses he wears as part of his efforts to make himself look like the real James ‘Whitey’ Bulger. Thankfully, relatively quickly you get used to it, helped by the fact this is the best performance Depp has given in years.

The movie tells the real-life tale of Bulger, who grew up on the tough streets of South Boston before becoming a gangster and the leader of the vicious Winter Hill Gang. His childhood friend, John Connolly (Joes Edgerton), is now an FBI agent, who comes up with a plan he thinks can help the feds take down the Mafia and other parts of Boston’s organised crime. He wants to get Bulger to turn informant, in return for the FBI turning a blind eye to his gang’s activities. [Read more…]

Steve Jobs (DVD Review)

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I’m starting to think that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has decided he’s a complete prick, and so has set out to write things that suggest that being the best and being an ass go hand-in-hand. The likes of The Social Network, Steve Jobs and, to some extent, The Newsroom and Studio 60 On Sunset Strip have all forwarded this agenda. Rumours suggest Sorkin can be incredibly demanding and difficult to work with (stories of how tough it was in the writer’s room of The West Wing and how little he listened to other peoples’ ideas are legendary), and it’s oddly interesting how so many of his projects seem to be about his own issues with this.

What he never quite addresses though is something he puts in the mouth of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in Steven Jobs, who tells the demanding and difficult Steve that being talented and being a decent person are not mutually exclusive. However, in the world of Aaron Sorkin, it often feels like they are. [Read more…]

Mississippi Grind (DVD Review)

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There are undoubtedly some people who will watch Mississippi Grind and wonder what the point of it is, as not a vast amount happens other than two guys drifting around and gambling on various things. However, others will appreciate this look at two men leading lives on the periphery of society, who lack connection but may have found some sort of direction in each other.

Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) is an inveterate gambler who’s lost his wife and child, he’s massively in debt and has run out of time to pay it off. Then he meets Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), who also loves to bet, but still has life and verve – something Gerry is severely lacking. While he’s a drifter, he couches it in terms of being a free spirit who goes where life takes him. [Read more…]

Brooklyn (Blu-ray Review)

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If you want Oscar nominations, you need to put Domhnall Gleeson in your movie. He was in four films released in 2015 that got multiple nominations. Brooklyn was one of those movies (alongside Star Wars, The Revenant and Ex Machina), although he doesn’t show up until the second half.

Based on Colm Toibin’s book, Brooklyn is about young Irish woman Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), whose sister Rose and a priest have organised for her to have a new life in New York, where they believe she will have more opportunities. After a difficult crossing, Eilis starts a new job at a department store while living at a boarding house in Brooklyn, and begins training to be a bookkeeper. [Read more…]