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

John Wick (DVD Review)

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I’d imagine some stars would think twice before agreeing to appear in a movie directed by their stunt double/martial arts choreographer, but that’s what Keanu Reeves has done with John Wick, and it turned out to be a good idea. I’ve always thought Reeves is a really good actor – as long as he doesn’t speak. John Wick gives him a character that’s who isn’t big on words, but which allows him to showcase that physically he’s very good, especially when given some slick action to dispense.

Keanu is the title character, an ex-assassin who left his life of crime behind when he met the perfect woman. After his wife dies, he’s barely holding on and is sent over the edge when the spoiled, selfish son of a criminal kingpin steals his car and kills the dog John’s wife gave him. [Read more…]

Spooks: The Greater Good (DVD Review)

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While Spooks (known as MI5 in the US) ended on British TV in 2012, it’s now been resurrected for the big screen with Spooks: The Greater Good. It’s certainly not necessary to have seen the show though, especially as it’s largely about new characters, with the main holdovers being the Secret Service setting and the presence of Peter Firth as counter-terrorism chief Harry Pearce.

Harry’s career comes crashing down around him after he makes the call to free dangerous terrorist Qasim (Elyes Gabel), after his prisoner transport is held up by armed men, which makes many people in MI5 feel he needs to be removed. He also becomes convinced that Qasim couldn’t have escaped without help from inside MI5, and so decides to disappear and go into hiding, in order to investigate. [Read more…]

Big Game (DVD Review)

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Big Game will not be winning the award ‘Most Sensible Movie Of The Year’. Indeed it reaches Fast & Furious levels of preposterousness, where you either have to submit to its inherent silliness or alternatively break down in tears and decry the state of modern entertainment. Personally I went for the former.

The US President (Samuel L. Jackson) is flying to some important talks when an evil terrorist (played by an actor who looks the dictionary definition of ‘stereotypical foreign bad guy’) blows Air Force One out of the sky. The Pres is put in an escape capsule and dropped into the middle of the remote Finnish wilderness. [Read more…]

Hamlet – Maxine Peake (DVD Review)

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Taking a classic play and swapping the traditional genders is always in danger of looking a little gimmicky. There were certainly a few who thought that would be true when it was announced that Maxine Peake would be taking on the role of Hamlet in a new stage production. It’s not the first time it’s happened (Sarah Berhardht famously took on the role in 1899), but it’s certainly not common.

Peake’s performance was filmed live in Manchester and beamed live to cinemas, and now that’s been brought to DVD. [Read more…]

Pitch Perfect 2 (DVD Review)

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The Pitch Perfect movies are proof positive that despite many people arguments to the contrary, originality isn’t the key to an entertaining film. Indeed, both films are just about as clichéd as it’s possible to get story-wise, following tried and tested formulas for this sort of film. However, despite that – or actually arguably partly because of the oddly comforting nature of that – they are huge amounts of fun.

This time around things have moved on a few years and rather than being a freshman, Beca (Anna Kendrick) is now getting ready to graduate and thinking about the future. Her a cappella group, The Barden Bellas, are now three time national champions, until disaster strikes when ‘Fat’ Amy (Rebel Wilson) suffers a major wardrobe malfunction while performing for the President, which results in the group’s tour being cancelled and threatened with never being able to compete again. [Read more…]

A Royal Night Out (Blu-ray Review)

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A Royal Night Out takes a small part of a true story and then spins it off into a fiction. The known truth is that on VE Day in 1945, the young British princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, left Buckingham Palace to mingle with the crowds outside who were rejoicing after years of War.

We know that happened, but I think it’s fair to say the rest of the movie was made up. Having gotten permission to go out incognito, Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) and Margaret (Bel Powley) discover their mother (Emily Watson) isn’t going to allow them to have the night of dancing and being normal that they’d hoped. Despite their mother’s desire to keep things dull and stuffy, the princesses give their military chaperones the slip and end up getting separated. [Read more…]

Unfriended (Blu-ray Review)

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While the title is enough to make any discerning person cringe and its unusual concept could have gone horribly wrong, Unfriended is actually quite an effective slice of teen horror – as long as you beef up your ability to suspend disbelief (or you already think teenagers are total morons).

The whole thing takes place in real time and for the entire movie you are watching the computer screen of a teenage girl called Blaire. It’s a year after her friend, Laura, killed herself, but Blaire, her boyfriend Mitch, and three of their friends are more interested in video chatting than mourning the loss. [Read more…]

Fast & Furious 7 (DVD Review)

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If you’d told me a year ago that one of the Fast & Furious movies would make $1.5 billion at the box office and become the fifth highest grossing movie of all time, I would have laughed directly in your face. However, I’d be eating humble pie now, as that’s just what Fast & Furious 7 has done, helped by a record-breaking run in China.

I still have no idea why it did so well – not because it’s a dreadful movie, but simply because there’s it’s tough to understand why it was so stunningly successful. But then, I suppose it’s like McDonald’s – nobody would class it as genuinely great food, but it’s incredibly popular because it’s tasty and you know exactly what you’re going to get. [Read more…]

A Little Chaos (DVD Review)

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It’s 17th Century France and King Louis XIV (Alan Rickman) is on the throne. He wants a revamp of the Versailles gardens and hires architect Andre Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) to build it. However, he needs help from a landscape artist and so brings in widower Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet).

They have a few initial problems as he likes classical geometry and straight lines, while she is more forward-thinking and asymmetrical in her design (metaphor alert). Despite this, the two begin to fall for one another. This should be okay as Andre has an open marriage, however his wife (Helen McRory) isn’t keen on the feelings he develops for Sabine and plans to destroy what they are creating together. [Read more…]

Child 44 (Blu-ray Review)

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When it was first announced Child 44 seemed like a good bet – based on a hit book, directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House, Easy Money) and a really good cast. However, when it arrived in cinemas it was met with bad reviews and made hardly any money at the box office.

I’m not entirely sure where all the animosity came from though, as while it has quite a few problems it’s certainly tense, uneasy and very watchable.

Set in post-World War II Soviet Russia, Tom Hardy is Leo Demidov, an investigator for the feared MGB who roots out traitors for Stalin. The organisation is judge, jury and executioner – and it extracts ways to find guilt in everyone they arrest. It’s an era of massive paranoia and one where deviating from the official line on something can be a death sentence. [Read more…]