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

Utopians (US DVD Review) – An erotic look at gay self-discovery

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Filmmakers in mainland China still have issues with LGBT content, as official censors are often pretty squeamish about anything decidedly queer, and have even tried to prevent some gay-themed Chinese films from screening at festivals outside the country, as well as banning them in China. However, it seems things are a little more relaxed in Hong Kong, where Utopians is set, as the movie includes a lot of full frontal nudity – most of it male – and even a very explicit male masturbation scene that goes right the way through to completion.

The film follows Hins (Adonis He), a student at a university in Hong Kong. He has a girlfriend, but in his dreams he’s started to have thoughts about men. That side of himself finds a further outlet when he starts studying under the outspoken Professor Ming, whose class explores ideas such as homosexuality and the philosophical ideas about utopias. [Read more…]

I’m Fine: Season 1, Part 1 (VoD Review) – Love, relationships & friendship in the new gay dramedy

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The online LGBT-centred streaming service Dekkoo extends it range of exclusive online series with I’m Fine, which has just released its first four episodes. The show focuses on gay guy Nate (Perry Powell). He’s relatively recently split up with boyfriend Joey and is still in the process of negotiating life without him.

That involves exploring the possibilities of hook-up apps and whether a bit of meaningless sex is what he wants. There’s also a best friend who may secretly be in love with him, friends who have a tendency towards saying the wrong thing and a hope that maybe there’s still a spark with Joey. Nate may also have to start realising that perhaps there are other people out there for him. [Read more…]

4 Days In France (DVD Review) – A gay man goes cruising to a different life

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Pierre (Pascal Cervo) leaves Paris and goes into the French countryside. He’s left on a whim, wandering off into the unknown with only a vague sense of where he might end up. What he does have is a gay hook-up app, which pings wherever he goes with new opportunities. Indeed, Grindr almost becomes his compass.

As he travels around looking for sexual experiences with men old and young, he also meets various other people, including a singer who he takes to a care home for a performance, a bookseller who he used to know when she taught him English, and a woman he catches robbing him. He finds different types of connection with them, as well as with a young man he sleeps with who wants him to deliver a letter, a businessman who seems to both want sex and rejects it, and an older man where the promise of a hook-up soon develops into something different. [Read more…]

Akron (DVD Review) – Young gay love is challenged by a past death

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If you’re not American, you might be wondering whether ‘Akron’ is a foreign word, perhaps denoting passion, anger or desire. Well, it’s actually the name of the fifth-largest city in the US state of Ohio, which is where most of the film is set.

Benny (Matthew Frias) is a freshman at the University of Akron. He meets the sexy Christopher at a football game and the two start dating. Things go so well that they decide to spend Spring Break together in Florida, visiting Christopher’s mother, Carol. Once there, Benny discovers that his family and Christopher’s have a history, as many year’s before Carol ran over and killed Benny’s brother in a parking lot. [Read more…]

You’ll Never Be Alone (DVD Review) – A man’s life spins out of control after his gay son is attacked

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Based on a true story, Pablo (Andrew Bargstead) is a gay teenager just finding his way in the world. He loves drag and sex, but doesn’t seem to have many other goals. His father, Juan (Sergio Hernández), can’t understand why his son is like this. He’s always believed that you must work hard and apply yourself, and – along with the country as a whole – you will eventually succeed and make something of yourself.

After years of planning and trying, Juan is also hoping to invest in the company he’s been employed by for the past 25 years, and become a partner in the business. He will finally be independent. [Read more…]

Swiss Army Man (Blu-ray Review) – Things get a little gay between a man & Daniel Radcliffe’s farting corpse

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It’s the call every actor dreams about, when someone asks them, ‘Will you play a farting corpse which has a direction-finding erection?’ The lucky man to get that role was Daniel Radcliffe, who stars as a dead guy dubbed Manny. He’s found washed up on a beach by Hank (Paul Dano), a man stranded on an island whose just about to kill himself. However, discovering Manny starts to change Hank’s perspective – not least because it allows Hank to ride the massively flatulent body back to the mainland.

Although Manny is definitely dead, things take an unexpected turn when he starts to talk, and also reveal other powers that help Hank survive in the wilderness. However, Manny has no memory of his previous existence, so Hank begins to teach him about life and love, and in the process begins to think that perhaps there are things worth living for. That includes a woman whose picture is on a phone, as well as in the growing relationship between Hank and Manny, which moves towards being a romance. Oh, and there’s Manny’s erection, which helps point them in the direction they need to go to. [Read more…]

Bwoy (US DVD/VoD Review) – Anthony Rapp starts an online relationship with a young Jamaican man

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Brad (Anthony Rapp) is a man approaching middle age, stuck in a dead-end job at a credit card company. He’s married, but there’s a profound sadness at the heart of his relationship, caused by a past tragedy. Brad decides to shake things up by setting up an online profile on a gay dating site.

He connects with a young Jamaican man called Yenny (Jimmy Brooks), spinning the Caribbean islander a story that he lives in New York City, works in finance and has a jet-setting lifestyle. Yenny meanwhile seems enamoured with his new ‘daddy’, asking Brad to call him his Jamaican ‘pussyboy’. [Read more…]

I Am Michael (DVD Review) – James Franco goes ex-gay in a true-life story

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Michael Glatze (James Franco) is a gay man who really wants to help people. Initially working for XY Magazine before increasingly becoming an activist and launching YGA (Young Gay Americans), he becomes a prominent figure advancing the gay cause. However, Michael still feels something is missing. That’s despite having a loving boyfriend, Bennett (Zachary Quinto), and the sometime addition of a third into the relationship, Tyler (Charlie Carver).

After a health scare where he’s convinced he has the disease that caused his father to drop down dead, Michael increasingly turns to religion. What initially seems like an attempt to find meaning and reassurance that death is not the end, takes an unexpected turn when Michael leaves Bennett and publicly announces that he no longer identifies as gay. This causes a bit of a sensation, but Michael is determined he must live his own ‘truth’. That includes his new belief that homosexuality leads people away from being their ‘true selves’, which is the only way to find God. Eventually that takes him into a relationship with a woman. [Read more…]

Pushing Dead (BFI Flare Review) – A dark comedy look at living with HIV, starring Psych’s James Roday

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Many people will know James Roday from playing the cocksure, mischievous character is TV’s Psych. Here he takes on a slightly different character, playing Dan, a man who’s lived with HIV for over two decades, but still feels the stigma and never tells anyone about his illness. The only ones who are aware are Paula (Robin Weigert), the sister of Dan’s former lover; and his editor, the gruff Bob (Danny Glover), who’s having marriage troubles.

Dan is having more than a few difficulties himself. He’s a poet at a time when no one cares about poetry, and when he deposits a $100 birthday cheque in his bank account, he accidentally goes over the incredibly strict bar for being on a low income that his healthcare plan enforces. That means that rather than getting most of his HIV medication paid for under his insurance, he suddenly needs to come up with $3,000 a month. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have $3,000. [Read more…]

A Little Lust (DVD Review) – A bullied gay teen really wants to see his favourite singer

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Rocco is 16-years-old and used to being bullied at school – even if the bullies don’t know he really is gay. Most of the time though, Rocco is more interested in hanging out with friends Maria and Mauri, and hoping that he will get laid. However, after an incident of bullying leads to a boy jumping out of a window, it leads Rocco to telling his parents the truth about his sexuality. Although the divorced Olga (Veronica Pivetti) and Manuele (Corrado Invernizzi) like to think of themselves as modern and cosmopolitan, the news they have a gay son sends them into a tailspin.

With Olga demanding her celebrity psychiatrist ex-husband get their son into therapy to get over this ‘phase’, and Manuele refusing to properly accept it, Rocco decides he needs to get out. His favourite singer has recently been outed, and announced that his latest set of tour dates will be his last. Rocco, Maria and Mauri decide to run off and see the singer in concert, escaping the problems at home. After they’ve set off across the country, Olga decides she has no choice but to follow, heading off after them with her own mother in tow – a woman who’s still upset the fascists aren’t running Italy anymore. [Read more…]