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

Straight Outta Compton – Director’s Cut (Blu-ray Review)

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Oftentimes having the subject of a biopic involved in the production ends up watering it down to the point it’s completely neutered. However, we should have probably guessed that wouldn’t have been too much of a problem for the members of NWA, who made their name by being honest about their lives and the world that they came from.

Even so, it’s taken a long time to get the project off the ground, and even just before it arrived, some wondered whether the subject matter would have genuinely wide appeal. However, with a great critical reaction and a gross of $160 million just in the US, it certainly defied expectations. It undoubtedly helped as well that the film arrived just at the right moment too, as the Black Lives Matter movement was rising and distrust of US law enforcement made the message of songs like ‘Fuck tha Police’ seem as timely as when they were first written. [Read more…]

45 Years (Blu-ray Review)

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Following the indie success of Weekend and helping to produce/direct HBO’s Looking, Andrew Haigh shows he isn’t simply be a ‘gay director’ with the tender 45 Years. The film introduces us to Kate and Geoff Mercer (Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay), who are soon to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.

Geoff gets unexpected news when he receives a letter informing him that the frozen body of his old girlfriend, who died in an accident decades before, has been discovered in the Swiss Alps. Initially Kate thinks this is surprising and upsetting news for her husband, but not something that will greatly affect either of them. However, as Geoff talks more about this woman he knew before he met Kate, she starts to feel that perhaps their marriage has been haunted by her, and Geoff’s feelings about an entirely different life that he might have led if fate hadn’t intervened. [Read more…]

We Are Your Friends (Blu-ray Review)

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Cole (Zac Efron) is a young man living in LA’s San Fernando Valley with his friends, who has dreams of making it big as a DJ. In the meantime, he and his mates are scraping by promoting at clubs and Cole DJ-ing for free. Then he meets producer James (Wes Bentley), who takes Cole under his wing and may be able to show him the way to the big time. However, things are complicated by Cole’s feelings for James’ assistant/girlfriend Emily (Emily Ratajkowski), the difficulties Cole and his friends find themselves in – including getting a job that may be more ethically murky that the low grade drug dealing they are also involved in – and the darker side of the electronic music scene. [Read more…]

The Cobbler (DVD Review)

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The Cobbler is not Adam Sandler in zany mood, but he’s not being 100% serious either. He certainly pulls things back from his usual performances and enters mumbling mode, which is admittedly more watchable than he often is. He is Max, a cobbler who is forced to use an old shoemaking machine when his newer one breaks. He discovers that the machine has magical properties, as he now has the ability to put on somebody else’s shoes and literally become them.

At first Max thinks he’s going to be able to have some fun with his powers (including a creepily rapey sequence involving a cameo from Dan Stevens and a woman in a shower), but he soon gets caught up in a tricky situation with a bunch of bad guys. Looking into the lives of his customers also makes his re-evaluate the attempts to save his neighbourhood, which he’d previously ignored, and so he sets out to use his powers to stop the baddies destroying everything. [Read more…]

Ricki And The Flash (Blu-ray Review)

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A film like Ricki And The Flash makes you realise just how good Meryl Streep is, as without her this film is likely to have gotten far worse reviews than it did. She is obviously having a great time in the lead role of an aging rockers whose dreams of stardom never really came to anything, and now finds herself somewhat estranged from her kids.

Ricki (whose real name is Linda) gets a call from her ex-husband, Pete (Kevin Kline), to tell her their daughter, Julie (Mamie Gummer), is severely depressed after her hubby ran off with another woman. Ricki jumps on a plane from California to Iowa and discovers things are worse than she thought, as Julie has attempted suicide. However, Julie seems to respond to having her mother around, even if her two sons are less impressed about having the mother who virtually abandoned them around. [Read more…]

Vacation (Blu-ray Review)

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The reboot of the Vacation series didn’t get a vast amount of love from critics at the cinema. It meant that, as I often don’t even like comedies others do think are good, I approached this one with a bit of trepidation and little hope that I’d enjoy it. However, I was pleasantly surprised that while by no means a masterpiece, I found it decent enough to watch for 100 minutes.

The film truly is a reboot rather than remake, as it picks up the story of the Griswolds 30 years on from National Lampoon’s Vacation. Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) is now grown up and has a family of his own. They’re a bit stuck in a rut though, with his wife, Debbie (Christina Applegate), feeling the sparkle has gone out of their marriage, and sons James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins) constantly fighting – although it’s the younger child bullying the older. [Read more…]

Pixels (Blu-ray Review)

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Things have gone crazy with the world in Pixels. For a start we’re supposed to believe the American people have voted Kevin James to be their President, and also that if the POTUS is your bestie, you’re still going to have to work as a home entertainment installer. If that doesn’t suggest things are bad enough, the world is suddenly attacked by aliens whose army takes the form of 1980s 8-bit video game characters – from Centipede to Space Invaders – and starts destroying things by pixelating them.

The military can’t defeat them as they don’t know the rules of the games, so it’s down to Brenner (Adam Sandler), Ludlow (Josh Gad) and the arrogant and unstable Eddie (Peter Dinklage) – who were videogame champions when they were kids in the 80s – to take down the unusual invaders. [Read more…]

Maggie (Blu-ray Review)

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Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a zombie movie! He’s going to be blowing the undead away left, right and centre, while mumbling memorable catchphrases, isn’t he? Actually, no, as this is something very different both for the Terminator and for zombie flicks. Except for the undead, this is Arnie in a small-scale mother-daughter indie melodrama, with fairly little action and much soul-searching.

Schwarzenegger is Wade Vogel, who’s living with his wife and kids in the middle of nowhere, where they’ve managed to escape a zombie plague that has affected millions. After his eldest daughter, Maggie (Abigail Breslin), gets bitten and infected, he goes to pick her up from quarantine to take her home, knowing that while she will be okay for a while, eventually she will turn and have to be taken away before she turns completely – assuming she doesn’t die before then. [Read more…]

Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (DVD Review)

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Sharknado hasn’t done badly for a franchise where the joke should have worn off after the first five minutes. The first movie survived simply by its jaw-dropping but oddly good-natured ridiculousness, while the second was made vaguely watchable by being sometimes imaginative about the over-the-top ways it could find to kill people with flying sharks and to get people to kill the massive cartilaginous fish.

But now we come to part 3, where any imagination has run out and the whole thing comes across as so cynical that you can almost feel the makers smirking that anyone would be stupid enough to want to watch a third movie about tornados that throw sharks at people. [Read more…]

Ted 2 – Extended Edition (Blu-ray Review)

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Even the makers of 2012’s Ted are unlikely to have expected it to gross $550 million around the world. It ensured Universal was keen to make a sequel, although it has to be said this follow-up wasn’t half as successful, taking $212 million around the world. Not a bad number but nothing like the first.

This time around Mila Kunis is nowhere to be seen, as she and Mark Wahlberg’s John Bennett have gotten a divorce, leaving him completely lacking on confidence around women. Ted meanwhile seems to be having better luck, as he’s marrying the bold and brassy Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth).

Things come unstuck though when the talking teddy and his wife decide to adopt a child, as it suddenly make the government consider his status, and they decide that legally they don’t consider him a person, so not only won’t he be getting a baby, his marriage is invalid, he can’t keep his job and he’s now classed as property. [Read more…]