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

The Big Sick (Blu-ray Review) – Race, religion and stand-up comedy, after your girlfriend gets put in a coma!

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Despite the presence of executive producer Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and plenty of ecstatic reviews, The Big Sick wasn’t the breakout international hit many had crossed their fingers it would be. That said, the fact a movie about a Pakistani-born man raised as a Muslim got a mainstream release seems like progress.

Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) was born in Pakistan but was brought to the US by his parents when he was still a kid. Now he’s living between two worlds, with his family still keen for him to be a good Muslim and have an arranged marriage with a nice Pakistani girl, while he’s not sure what he thinks about God and wants to be a stand-up comic. [Read more…]

The Wall (Blu-ray Review) – Aaron Taylor-Johnson gets trapped by a sniper

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It’s 2007 and two American soldiers – Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Matthews (John Cena) – have been sent in after a group of people working on a pipeline in Iraq are gunned down. Convinced the gunmen have left, they head down to the bodies, only to come under fire from a sniper. Mathews is hit in the gut and collapses in the open. Isaac meanwhile is shot in the knee but manages to take shelter behind a ramshackle stone wall.

Losing blood and with no long-range radio, Isaac is trapped – unable to move away from the small wall without getting shot. Things get even more complicated when the sniper comes onto the short-range radio, demanding Isaac talk to him and threatening to shoot Mathews in the face if he doesn’t. [Read more…]

Baby Driver (Blu-ray Review) – Kevin Spacey coerces a young man for director Edgar Wright

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The subheading about Kevin Spacey above may be a bit unfair, but I do wonder whether director Edgar Wright is wishing right now he’d picked someone else to play a powerful man coercing a much younger guy to do his bidding. There are also moments in the special features on the Blu-ray where they’re talking about how wonderful Spacey is and how good he is at ‘playing’ a manipulative asshole, where you know the distributors wish they’d had time to cut it out before the disc his shelves, but which certainly give things an unexpected subtext now.

Thankfully though, the presence of the disgraced actor doesn’t completely overshadow the movie, which got great reviews and word of mouth on its cinema release for reasons that had nothing to do with Spacey. [Read more…]

The Mummy (Blu-ray Review) – Tom Cruise is cursed (in several ways)!

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While Hollywood has become increasingly obsessed with interconnected universes, Universal Pictures has felt a little left out due to the lack of comic book characters they own the rights to. To make up for it, they decided to go back to the classic movie monsters that the studio had such success with in the 1930s (indeed, they created an interconnected world of them back then). They’ve been busy attempting to build a linked series of movies around them, called Dark Universe.

The Mummy was the film designed to kick off the Dark Universe, with a big budget, an a-list star and a property everyone knows thanks to its 1990s/2000s resurrection with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. The response from critics and US audiences was muted however, with American box office stalling (although it did manage $400 million globally) and an abysmal RottenTomatoes rating (currently 16%). That’s caused a bit of a rethink about how the Dark Universe is going to pan out, with Bride Of Frankenstein pushed back, and the likes of The Invisible Man (with Johnny Depp) and The Wolfman currently without a release date. [Read more…]

Transformers: The Last Knight (Blu-ray Review) – Robots and explosions, what did you expect?

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People often complain that the big Hollywood movies have no story. If nothing else the Transformers movies have attempted to do something about that. Rather than having no story, they have all the stories, non-stop, simultaneously and accompanied by never-ending explosions. It’s never mattered whether it made any sense or if it’s managed to contradict itself in the same sentence, as long as something is going on that appears to be a plotline.

That continues with The Last Knight, which is moderately more coherent than Dark Of The Moon, and slightly less pointless than Age Of Extinction – and yes, that is damning it with faint praise, but it does mean those who’ve liked what’s gone before, will probably enjoy this one. [Read more…]

Wonder Woman (Blu-ray Review) – Can one woman beat the whole German army? Pretty much!

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Although DC’s movies have done okay at the box office, the likes of Man Of Steel, Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad certainly haven’t gained the same level of enthusiasm and fan fervour as Marvel’s movies. However, with Wonder Woman they hit the jackpot, with a movie that was well-received by critics, fans and general audiences, grossing over $800 million at the box office. It set a lot of records for a movie directed by a woman along the way, from being the most expensive film with a female director to the highest grossing.

The film starts out on the mystical island of Themyscira, home of the Amazons. Diana (Gal Gadot) has been trained to be the ultimate warrior, although her mother, Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), is determined that she needs to be protected and shouldn’t find out the truth of her birth. [Read more…]

Baywatch: Extended Edition (Blu-ray Review) – Zac Efron & Dwayne Johnson don the red shorts

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It was almost inevitable that at some point they’d make a movie version of Baywatch. It was, after all, the most popular TV show in the world in the 1990s, and its reputation for being a bit silly and cheesy meant it was ripe for comedy/parody. However, it’s also the sort of property that could have resulted in a truly dreadful film.

I suppose I ought to say what the Baywatch movie is about, but it doesn’t matter an awful lot, as the plot often feels like the least important part of the film. Dwayne Johnson is Mitch Buchanan, head of Emerald Bay’s lifeguards. He has a new recruit thrust upon him – disgraced double Olympic swimming champion Matt Brody (Zac Efron). The young buck isn’t that impressed about being there, and thinks the lifeguards should be honoured he’s walking amongst them. He’s also a bit confused about why Mitch and his fellow guards seem to spend most of their time fighting crime rather than saving people from drowning. [Read more…]

Their Finest (DVD Review) – Gemma Arterton turns Second World War screenwriter in a new Brit flick

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It’s 1940 and bombs are dropping on London. Catrin (Gemma Arterton) is a young Welsh woman who’s run away to the Capital with her artist lover. As a result, Catrin finds herself in need of a job, despite it being the middle of the Blitz. She unexpectedly finds work as a writer for a film company, which has been asked by the Ministry Of Information to make a movie that will help support the British war effort.

Catrin soon discovers that she’s still living in a man’s world, having to fight for respect from her colleague, Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin), and pretty much everyone else around her. After all, in Tom’s words she’s just there for the ‘slop’ – aka the female dialogue. [Read more…]

Lady Macbeth (DVD Review) – Descending into darkness in 19th Century England

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If you’re worried that you’re just not miserable and depressed enough, Lady Macbeth could be the movie for you! It’s safe to say this is not a jolly film, although it is one that some will find pretty powerful, while others will feel it’s oddly pointless (despite its feminist undertones) and nihilistic.

In mid-19th Century England, Katherine (Florence Pugh) is literally sold into marriage to a country gentleman, but soon discovers her husband has no interest in her (in fact seems to despise her), and he father-in-law is cruel and has no issues degrading women. [Read more…]

Raw (DVD Review) – A young, naive woman gets cannibalistic desires (& a gay roommate)

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Just occasionally I watch a movie and genuinely can’t decide whether it’s a case of the Emperor having no clothes. Raw is one of those films.

On its festival debut the Belgian movie was met with a lot off buzz, as well as talk of people walking out and fainting because of its intensity and levels of gore. It now has a 90% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty remarkable for a ‘horror’ movie, but I’m not completely sure whether it deserves it or not. [Read more…]