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

Going In Style (Blu-ray Review) – Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman & Alan Arkin are going bank robbing

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As a feature film director, Scrubs star Zach Braff has previously helmed the quirky indie comedies Garden State and Wish I Were Here. He’s gone far more mainstream with Going In Style, a movie that could have perhaps benefitted from a quirkier spirit.

The movie is a remake of a 1979 film that starred George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg, who have here been replaced by Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin. The three men are lifelong friends whose old age is being put in jeopardy by shady corporate goings-on that are set to rob them of their pensions. [Read more…]

Free Fire (Blu-ray Review) – Armie Hammer & co. have a shootout & a half

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After the complex and rather operatic JG Ballard adaptation High-Rise, Ben Wheatley has gone for something that’s far simpler in terms of plot, but perhaps just as complicated in terms of technical execution with Free Fire.

It’s the 1970s, and in a warehouse in Boston a group of American are hoping to sell some Irish men some guns. Things are already a little tense and distrustful when it’s revealed the weapons aren’t the exact ones ordered, but things get completely out of hand when one of the Yanks realises one of the Irish guys is the man who assaulted his cousin the night before. [Read more…]

Power Rangers (Blu-ray Review) – The teen superheroes go big budget & one (almost) comes out

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I’m a bit confused. It’s called Power Rangers, but no one is wearing spandex, there are no men in slightly cardboard looking suits, and no CGI that looks like it was made in 10 minutes on a ZX Spectrum. Perhaps most confusing is that Rita Repulsa’s mouth now moves in time with what she’s saying. It’s all very strange.

It’s time for an origin story though. The film opens with Bryan Cranston causing the end of the dinosaurs. Well, Cranston’s alien Power Ranger, Zordon, does anyway, dying himself in the process of stopping evil former ranger, Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks). [Read more…]

American Gods – Season 1 (DVD Review) – Strange, surreal & TV’s most explicit gay sex ever?

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Quite a lot of people have tried to get Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel to the screen, but it’s never happened until now. Despite being beloved by a lot of people, you can see why the money men were nervous about ponying up the cash for a film or TV version, as the book is often strange, surreal and quite graphic, with various tangents and peculiar moments that could be unintentionally funny in the wrong hands.

However, executive producer Bryan Fuller was the right man to hire, as with the likes of Hannibal and Pushing Daisies he’s shown an affinity with unusual, multi-layered tale that often verge towards the surreal. He certainly brings that to American Gods, which is often perplexing and weird, and will annoy some due to the fact it obstinately refuses to fully explain what going on. [Read more…]

Ghost In The Shell (DVD/VoD Review) – Scarlett Johannson is just a robot with a human brain

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Despite being in development for years, the live-action Hollywood movie version of Ghost In The Shell seemed to have the cards stacked against it. Some questioned whether Snow White & The Huntsman’s Rupert Sanders was the right director for the job, and many more felt that casting a white actress in a traditionally Japanese role smacked of whitewashing. Sadly, when the movie arrived, it didn’t get the sort of critical and commercial reaction that might have been able to overturn the issues surrounding it.

The movie opens in the near future with the brain of a young woman being transferred into a robot body (Johannsson) – the first of her kind. The android is named Major, and with memories of being nearly drowned by terrorists, she becomes part of a special team tasked with particularly difficult, often technological crimes. [Read more…]

Personal Shopper (Blu-ray Review) – Things get creepy and possibly paranormal for Kristen Stewart

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Personal Shopper got a strange reaction on its Cannes debut. It was booed at the critics screening, but then got a standing ovation at the official showing. It eventually won Best Director for Olivier Assayas. Even when it was released in cinemas, the reviews were incredibly polarised. Some said it was a ‘masterwork’, while others thought it was total mess. As so often with these things, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is working as a personal shopper/assistant for a rich, snooty celebrity in Paris. However, she also has some psychic ability, and is trying to connect to her twin brother Lewis, who died in France from a congenital condition that could also kill Maureen. [Read more…]

A Quiet Passion (Blu-ray Review) – Terence Davies & Cynthia Nixon explore the life of Emily Dickinson

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Filmmaker Terence Davies early work was intentionally autobiographical. The likes of The Terence Davies Trilogy, Distant Voices Still Lives and The Long Day Closes looked at growing up working class in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s, touching on the overwhelming effects of Catholicism on him, as well as his own difficult relationship to being gay. Although his work then hasn’t been so explicitly based on himself, there have always remained very distinct echoes of the director in the subjects he’s chosen and the way he’s approached them.

That continues with A Quiet Passion, his biopic of 19th Century American poet, Emily Dickinson. Davies personal connection to the material is apparent from the first scene, where a young Emily is being asked to pick between two strict ideas of where she and a group of other young women stand in relationship to Christianity. However, she stands alone, unable to say where she should be. Once again Davies is fascinated by the push and pull of religion, of someone who wants the world while simultaneously limiting themselves to a small part of it, as well as the strictures of society for those who both desire to fit in and reject it. [Read more…]

Logan (DVD Review) – Wolverine & Professor X sure say f**k more than they used to!

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There have been increasing grumblings in some circles that too many superhero movies feel like they’ve come off a production line and are all pretty much the same as one another. Included in that grumbling has been Fox’s X-Men movies, but in the last couple of years they’ve also produced two standalone movies set in that universe – Deadpool and now Logan – that have really felt different and have shown that there are all sorts of possibilities in the world of comic books.

Although Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has had two previous non X-Men movies, this is a very different beast to the earlier film, having more in common with a western or a road movie than a traditional superhero film. [Read more…]

The Hippopotamus (DVD Review) – Stephen Fry’s novel makes it to the screen

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Stephen Fry’s debut novel, The Hippopotamus, has gained a lot of fans since its debut in 1994. It would seem like a good candidate for a film version. Sadly though, what we’ve got is rather limp.

Ted Wallace (Roger Allam) is a famous poet who hasn’t written anything for years, and whose very vocal cynicism causes him to lose his main means of support – as a theatre critic. In order to make money he agrees to go to the grand house of his former friend, Michael Logan (Matthew Modine), under the guise of visiting his godson, David (Tommy Knight). [Read more…]

Fifty Shades Darker – Unmasked Edition (Blu-ray Review) – Just how boring is it possible for kinky sex to be?

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Oh, dear God. How do you manage to make a film that’s supposedly about kinky sex be this boring?

At the end of Fifty Shades Of Grey, the timid Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and her S&M-obsessed billionaire paramour, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), had parted company. However, it doesn’t take long until they’re back together, with Christian promising he loves Ana enough that he wants to be her partner rather than her master. She isn’t sure, but they start dating again, and are soon negotiating a different kind of contract than the last movie. It’s a more unspoken one where they attempt to create a more equal relationship, despite Christian’s issues and ‘boundaries’ (which handily you can literally paint on him in lipstick).

It’s not going to be all smooth sailing though, as there are various figures out to cause them trouble, including the previously unseen ‘Mrs. Robinson’ character, Elena (Kim Basinger), who inducted Christian into kinkiness and isn’t quite ready to let him go. There’s also Leila (Bella Heathcote), one of Christian’s earlier submissives, and Anastasia’s boss, Jack Hyde, who may be looking to make a different sort of sexual powerplay. [Read more…]