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

GAY INTEREST MOVIE REVIEWS

The latest gay interest film reviews from BGPS

Remembering The Man (DVD/VoD Review) – Gay love and AIDS revisited in a new look at the story behind Holding The Man

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If you’ve read Timothy Conigrave’s 1995 memoir, Holding The Man, or seen the more recent film version (or indeed the play), you’ll know a bit about the relationship between Conigrave and John Caleo. This documentary retells the tale, focused around taped interviews Conigrave did with an AIDS oral history project before his death, as well as with interviews with the couple’s friends.

The documentary recounts how Timothy and John met as students at a Catholic High School in Australia and started to date one another. Despite a bit of tumult, break-ups and Timothy moving away to become an actor, the connection between the two remained and they developed an abiding love for one another. [Read more…]

Heartland (US DVD/VoD Review) – The possibility of a lesbian affair threatens an Oklahoman family

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I have to admit to being a tiny bit suspicious of Heartland before watching it. I was worried it was going to another entry in the subgenre of gay movies that (often inadvertently) suggest that the best way for someone in a straight relationship to sort out their problems is to have a same sex affair. After all, that’s not really cheating, is it?

Thankfully though, Heartland isn’t quite that (although it gets a little close at times).

Lauren (co-writer Velinda Godfrey) has just buried her long-term girlfriend after nursing her during a long illness. She’s a bit of a mess and so heads home to see her family in Oklahoma. That includes her mother, Crystal (gay film stalwart Beth Grant), who’s never quite embraced her daughter’s sexuality. There’s also her brother, Justin (Aaron Leddick), who’s trying to properly get his wine business going. That means he only has a little time for his girlfriend, Carrie (Bones and Big Bang Theory’s Laura Spencer), a woman who’s long been involved in wine– hailing from Napa Valley in California – whether she wants to or not. [Read more…]

The Freedom To Marry (VoD Review) – Evan Wolfson & the long, gay march to Obergefell v. Hodges

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History is written by the winners. That’s true, but in the modern age it can also be about who’s best at getting their story out there – in numerous cases the full facts haven’t stood in the way of a particular narrative of how things happened gaining traction. In the past few years there have been several documentaries about the fight for same sex marriage in the US, each with a slightly different focus, a different cast of characters and a different take on how it got to the Supreme Court.

As with many things nowadays, there’s been an element in these documentaries (and other media), of people staking their place in the dominant narrative. I’m sure it’s not quite as contrived and cutthroat as that, but I must admit that early on in this documentary, part of my brain wondered whether that was what was happening in this documentary, not because the facts it was presenting were wrong but because of how it threatened to become a fawning hagiography of attorney and gay rights advocate Evan Wolfson and the Freedom To Marry organisation. [Read more…]

Political Animals (US DVD/VoD Review) – Taking a look at the first four gay California state representatives

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Alongside the ‘great men’ theory of history, we also have a tendency to think in ‘great events’, and that the things that have changed society fell out of the sky fully formed. That’s certainly been true of gay rights, where you could be forgiven for thinking no one had considered there should be more equality until Stonewall in 1969, or that the whirlwind of gay marriage in the US was a couple of overtures (the legalisation in Massachusetts in 2004, and Prop. 8 in California) before the Supreme Court decision in 2015. However, there was a lot more to it than that, laying the political groundwork for what was to come.

Political Animals is a look at the first four openly gay people to be elected to the California state legislature, all of them women (although there were previous gay elected officials in California – not least Harvey Milk – they’d operated on a more local level, rather than state-wide). However, as well as looking at the women themselves, the film is keen to show the work they did promoting gay rights in California, particularly in terms of legislation that helped pave the way for gay marriage. [Read more…]

The Naked Civil Servant (Blu-ray Review) – John Hurt’s classic take on ‘stately homo’ Quentin Crisp returns

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It’s difficult to imagine nowadays what audiences would have made of The Naked Civil Servant in 1975. Gay sex had only been (partially) decriminalised in England and Wales eight years before, and homosexuality certainly wasn’t seen on screen much. Then suddenly there was a primetime TV movie in the UK, about someone who didn’t even have the common decency to hide in the shadows and pretend being gay was the most shameful thing in the universe!

The film charts the life of Quentin Crisp (John Hurt) from his youth through to his 60s. As a young man, his parents don’t know quite what to make of their fey son, who doesn’t seem to like girls or be able to fit himself into ‘normal’ society. After meeting a bunch of ‘effeminate homosexuals’ in London, Quentin starts wearing makeup and becoming increasingly ‘noticeably gay’ at a time when homosexuality was one of society’s most detested things. [Read more…]

Before The Fall (VoD Review) – Pride & Prejudice gets a modern gay retelling

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There have been a lot of adaptations of Pride & Prejudice, some of which have been faithful to Jane Austen’s original story and setting, while others have brought it to the modern day (the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries), transplanted the tale to India (Bride & Prejudice) and even added in the undead (Pride & Prejudice & Zombies). Now the story has been retold with a gay twist, and a few other alterations to make it feel more modern.

Elizabeth Bennett has become Ben Bennett, a gay man working as a respected attorney in rural Virginia. He first comes across Lee Darcy when the rough-hewn welder is accused of domestic assault – although neither Lee nor his girlfriend claim to know exactly how she fell and hit her head. Ben doesn’t initially seem impressed with this man, managing to accidentally insult him at the courthouse due to his rather arrogant attitudes and quickness to judge. [Read more…]

Wild Awakening (DVD Review) – Things get a little gay & homoerotic on a Spanish horse farm

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I feel like I should have watched a few telenovelas before viewing Wild Awakening. Although I’m far from an aficionado of the genre (and I’m more than ready for someone to tell me I’m completely wrong about it), but Wild Awakening shares the heightened reality, love for over the top drama and intrigue, and the slight sense where you can’t decide whether it’s a knowing spoof or not.

Young Emma and her gay brother Toni are the owners of a riding school, having inherited the business when their parents died. On the farm a group of (often shirtless) men work, led by the homophobic Ramon. [Read more…]

Tomcat (DVD Review) – Can a gay relationship withstand inexplicable violence?

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Tomcat is a bit of a tough movie to review. Much of the film pivots around a single, shocking moment, which takes place around a third of the way into the film. However, revealing too much about it would take us into spoiler territory, and it’s the sort of thing the needs to come as a surprise – although the amount of foreshadowing may give you a clue something ominous is gonna happen. That said, there are some who’ll be genuinely shocked and probably won’t be able to get past that moment.

Andreas (Philipp Hochmair) and Stefan (Lukas Turtur) are a seemingly happy gay couple, with fulfilling careers and plenty of loving friends. They live in a beautiful house with their cat, Moses. Their lives are full of music, sex, socialising and a sense of connection with both each other and those around them. [Read more…]

Taxi Stories (Review) – Three tales of power imbalance in the gay-themed film

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Taxi Stories got its US premiere on May 3rd at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. It was certainly a fitting place for the film, which spans across East Asia from Indonesia to Hong Kong and Beijing. Each of those locations is the setting for one of the movie’s three stories.

In Indonesia, a young taxi/bajai driver in Jakarta meets an Aussie woman called Samantha who’s on her gap year. He quickly becomes enamoured with her and hopes he can make her his girlfriend. He is also hired by a Hong Kong visitor to take him on a tour. However, the gay visitor may have ulterior motives – but perhaps not you might expect. [Read more…]

Counting For Thunder (US DVD Review) – Rediscovering family and gay love in the Deep South

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Phillip Stalworth (Phillip Irwin Cooper) is an actor in LA, although he’s not been having much luck with his career. As his mother has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he decides to head back to his hometown in the US South. His girlfriend knows this is the end for them, which allows Phillip to take a complete break from his LA life.

His return home inevitably brings up old family issues, not least his somewhat difficult relationship with his emotionally distant and seemingly selfish father (John Heard). His mother (Mariette Hartley) meanwhile is ailing, with Phillip and his sister struggling to find ways to help her. [Read more…]