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 Debt (DVD)

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The Debt starts out in 1997, with Rachel (Helen Mirren) being lauded for her role in a Mossad mission 30 years before, in which she and two other agents are known for going into East Berlin to bring a Nazi War Criminal to justice, killing him in the process. After a dinner in her honour, shocking news comes through that one of the other agents, David (Ciaran Hinds), has thrown himself in front of a truck, and it seems to have something to do with their shared past.

Flashing back to 1965 – when Helen Mirren was Jessica Chastain, Ciaran Hinds was Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson was Martin Csokas – we find out exactly what happened on the mission. Rachel enters East Berlin and a rundown apartment where David and Stephan have been cooped up together for months, with only each other for company. When the mission goes wrong and the plan to get the Nazi out of East Berlin fails, the situation gets ever more intense while the trio try to find a way to extract the criminal to Israel. [Read more…]

The Guard (Blu-ray)

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Although I can’t imagine the Irish Garda being a massive fan of the film, The Guard is a very entertaining movie, with a strong script, tight direction and a couple of excellent performances from Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle.

Gleeson plays small town cop, Sergeant Gerry Boyle, a man who’s more interested in hookers than keeping law and order, but whose quiet life is disrupted by the arrival of FBI Agent Wendell Everett (Cheadle), who’s on the trail of an international drug smuggling ring. Boyle isn’t interested in this multi-million Euro operation, and with the two men initially having a very confrontational relationship (largely because of the Irishman’s decided non-PC approach), it would appear they’ll never be able to work together. [Read more…]

Boardwalk Empire – Season 1 (Blu-ray)

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Mixing fact and fiction, the past with present sensibilities and a great cast, Boardwalk Empire hit TV with a bang. Much of the initial interest came from the fact Martin Scorsese directed the first episode, and his influence is felt throughout the 12 episodes of Season 1. With the little expense spared in the creation of 1920s Atlantic City, it’s an incredibly rich world full of well-written characters, plenty of intrigue, decadence and moments of shocking violence.

The series centres around Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), a fictionalised version of a real-life New Jersey prohibition figure, who’s the treasurer of Atlantic City and one of its most esteemed businessmen – largely because he’s got the entire city in his pocket and his criminal network is pretty much untouchable [Read more…]

Cell 211 (DVD)

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In principle, a prison is a great place to set a movie. By its very nature it’s a hotbed of tension, with different sides, agendas and emotions battling against one another. As many prison movies have shown though, because there’s so much going on in a jail it’s a place that’s often difficult to tame on screen, leading to films that are either too dumb, too unrealistic or too haphazardly hectic.

Cell 211 is a rare case of a prison flick that manages to keep control of everything, while weaving a complex narrative where the tension comes from the characters as much as the situation. Juan (Alberto Ammann) is a young man who’s got a job as a prison guard and is touring the jail the day before he’s due to start work. After getting knocked unconscious just as a prison riot break out, Juan is abandoned in the empty cell 211 when the guards make a run for it. [Read more…]

Troll Hunter (DVD)

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Troll Hunter is a movie that shouldn’t work. The whole thing has a faint whiff of the ridiculous about it, but thanks to a contradictory mix of absolute conviction and tongue-in-cheek knowingness it turns out to be a rollicking Brothers Grimm meets Blair Witch Project ride.

Purporting to be real footage mysteriously sent to a film company, the film follows a group of eager young filmmaking students who are out in the Norwegian wilds making a documentary about a spate of bear killings. Although the local legal hunters feel there’s something odd about these dead bears, they also think they might know who’s responsible, a man called Hans, who they believe is a poacher. While Hans initially wants nothing to do with the documentary crew, they won’t be shaken off and while following him late at night they have a close encounter with a strange creature. Hans is convinced it’s a troll, but surely these fairytale creatures can’t exist? [Read more…]

Whisper Of The Heart (Blu-ray)

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When most British people think of Japanese animation (if they think anything about it), it’s either family fantasies such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle or the mad and violent world of adult anime. However there’s a lot more to it than that, with one vein being animation made specifically for teenage girls. Although not typical of the genre (there tends to be more of a fantasy element to most Japanese animation aimed at women), it’s into this field that Whisper Of The Heart fits.

Normally this movie would either never have seen the light of day in the UK or have gotten a tiny little niche DVD release. That’s not because it’s bad, but because traditional thinking would say there’s not market for it. However thanks to the fact it’s made by Studio Ghibli – the company behind the aforementioned Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle – and has a screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki, the 1995 movie is getting a Blu-ray release. [Read more…]

CSI: NY – Season 7 (DVD)

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You have to wonder whether Melina Kanakaredes pissed somebody off in CSI land. After six years playing the female lead character of Det. Stella Bonasera in CSI: New York, she decided to leave the show. However, the fact she’s no longer in the series at the beginning of Season 7 isn’t even mentioned. None of the characters finds it odd or even comments on it. In fact it’s like she was never there.

Presumably the idea is to treat things as business as usual, but it does feel like a bit of a snub after audiences have gotten to know her over the years. The show just powers through this departure, with Kanakarades’ replacement, Sela Ward’s ex-FBI agent Jo Danville, not in her job more than five minutes before she finds a dead body on the floor of the Crime Lab. [Read more…]

Final Destination 5 (DVD)

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I’m slightly worried I’m about to die. Before I even put the Final Destination 5 DVD in the player, I had a premonition that it would be about someone foreseeing a terrible event that allows them and a bunch others to survive, followed by an hour of death trying to claim the lives of those who managed to escape its clutches. As I knew all that before the film started playing, going by the rules of the franchise it surely means I’m going to die in an overly elaborate fashion anytime now!

This time around the disaster is a spectacularly collapsing bridge, and it’s a guy called Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) who’s having the premonition, which allows him to lead a bunch of his friends and work colleagues off the bridge just before all hell breaks loose. [Read more…]

Brazil (Blu-ray)

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A masterpiece to some, a source of utter befuddlement to others, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil has been dividing opinions now for over 25 years. Now it reaches Blu-ray, which is certainly a good way to show off the film’s extraordinary production design.

Set in a dystopian mix of the future and the past, Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowry, a man trying to live a quiet life as part of a vast bureaucracy, but who has extravagant dreams where he’s a flying, monster-slaying hero. During his waking life though, he’s mainly trying to be efficient and stop his plastic surgery obsessed mother from pushing him around. [Read more…]

We Were Here (DVD)

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Although it’s a bit of a shame We Were Here didn’t hit DVD  last week, just in time for AIDS Awareness Day on December 1st, the powerful documentary about the impact of HIV and AIDS in San Francisco in the 1980s has now been released. It’s already received plenty of plaudits, including being shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar.

We Were Here consists of interviews with San Franciscans who lived through the early years of the emergence of AIDS, giving testimony about its effect on them and those around them. For a younger generation for whom HIV has largely seemed like a manageable condition (whether that’s the truth or not), it’s sobering stuff. [Read more…]