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

Reckless (US DVD Review)

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We’re used to Hollywood doing pointless remakes of European movies, but we’re less used to one European country remaking a film from another. It’s not actually that uncommon though – for example Spain has had some success with new versions of British films – and now it’s time for Holland to take on the 2009 British movie, The Disappearance Of Alice Creed.

The set-up is pretty much the same. In the opening scene a woman, Laura, is kidnapped, taken to an apartment, stripped naked and photographs are taken or her in preparation of asking for a ransom. Victor and Rico are the kidnappers, with Victor an incredibly intense, paranoid and dominant person, who met the softer, more gentle Rico in prison, and who has plotted their latest attempt to make a lot of cash. [Read more…]

Boys On Film 13: Trick & Treat (DVD Review)

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The Boys On Film collection of gay-themed short films has proved far more successful than you would expect – after all, shorts on DVD have rarely found an audience. However, thanks to the quality of the films it’s now on its 13th instalment, but that doesn’t mean this one is unlucky. So what does it have in store amongst its 10 shorts? Take a look below to find out more.

And you can see what we think of other Boys On Film releases here.

Surprise – dir. Leslie Bumgarner (Canada) 9 mins 2015
Teenager Jack’s mother wants to talk to him about something. It soon becomes clear there’s something pressing she wants to get off her chest, but she isn’t sure whether Jack will understand the evolution she’s going through – especially as he’s got something rather different he needs to reveal. Surprise is a sweet and simple film that captures the dynamic between a mother and teenage child who love each other but exist on slightly different wavelengths. It also has a great ending which is likely to leave a smile on your face (as long as you’re not too shocked by naughty words). [Read more…]

Do I Sound Gay? (US Cinema Review)

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I’ve always been slightly fascinated by the idea of ‘sounding gay’ and where it comes from. Is it something innate in certain people, an affectation, or a way of bonding (perhaps a hangover from the feeling gay men had of their other-ness when they were more rejected by society and internalised the idea of homosexuality amongst men making them innately feminine)?

My interest stems from two experiences, the first when I was only about seven or eight and a young boy started at school who we all thought was like a girl – and for all I know, perhaps inside he was. He only ever wanted to play My Little Pony, begged his mother to pierce his ears (so he could wear faux-diamond studs) and spoke with a feminine quality. At the time we didn’t have the words to express what made him ‘different’, but looking back there is no doubt that even if he was only about five-years-old, he sounded gay and was rather camp. [Read more…]

Paternity Leave (Review)

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Director Matt Riddlehoover has been described as gay cinema’s answer to Woody Allen. It’s difficult to know whether he’s consciously thinking about that when he makes his movies, but there are definitely a lot of echoes of Woody in his work.

With Paternity Leave those echoes are particularly of some of Allen’s earlier work, where he took an absurdist situation but then didn’t treat it in an overtly over the top, silly way. The movie follows boyfriends Greg (Jacob York) and Ken (Charlie David), who’ve been together for four years, but whose lives are flipped upside-down when Greg discovers that he’s pregnant. [Read more…]

Dániel (Short Film Review)

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The short film Dániel recently received its World Premiere at the Palm Springs Film Festival and will be screening at festivals over the coming months. It follows the eponymous Dániel (Balázs Csémy) a Hungarian living in the UK who is paying for his studies by working as a male prostitute for both men and women.

He is invited for lunch by his friend Nori (Hilda Péter), who introduces him to her new boyfriend Tom (Henry Garrett). They seem to be getting along well, chatting about their lives and experiences, but Tom may be hiding something he wants to tell Dániel while Nori isn’t around. [Read more…]

Roxanne (Short Film Review)

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In the past couple of years there’s been a move towards gay-themed films not being about the experience of being gay itself, instead having it as a theme that is intrinsic but not the be-all-and-end-all. However trans-themed film – or at least the ones that seem to get into LGBT festivals – still have a tendency to make being a trans person the main subject. The short film Roxanne (which perhaps surprisingly was partly brought to the screen with the support of Absolut vodka!) doesn’t do this, instead coming at things somewhat more sideways, with a tale of two people who don’t quite fit in. [Read more…]

Boys In Brazil (DVD Review)

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Also known as The Pink Pact, Boys In Brazil follows four men – teenage friends Mauro and Rodrigo, Mauro’s uncle Vicente and a man they meet at Sao Paulo’s Pride Parade, Roger. After Roger is gay-bashed the quartet end up at Vincente’s apartment, where the outrageously camp Mauro decides that something must be done about the fact they are all in the closet. He makes them promise that by next year’s parade, they will have all come out.

Rodrigo is scared to tell his parents but does manage to embark on a relationship with a good-looking school friend. Vincente meanwhile is afraid to let his work colleagues know about his sexuality and even enlists his female friend to pose as his wife. Roger is married, has a child and his thoughts of escape get more complicated when he discovers his wife is pregnant again and has to be on bed rest until the baby comes. [Read more…]

Those People (Frameline Review)

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It’s always good when a film is a pleasant surprise, especially when it’s because the movie knows what you were expecting and then slightly subverts those expectations. It’s something that Those People manages, but not in a showy, arrogant way – just by showing there’s more to its subject and different ways to look at things than you might initially expect.

Charlie (Jonathan Gordon) is young man from a well-off New York family who’s in college studying to be an artist. His best friend, Sebastian (Jason Ralph), is from an even more elite background, but he has a few problems, due to the fact his father has just been locked up for serious white collar fraud. However, that hasn’t stopped Sebastian being spoiled, entitled and difficult – but even so Charlie cannot help but love him. [Read more…]

Little Bi Peep (Review)

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Emma (Anna Shields – who also wrote and co-directed the film) is a young woman who works in a sex shop. She also enjoys sleeping with both men and women as much as she can, but she isn’t one to get attached, partly because these fleeting bits of fun allow her to be whoever she wants to be – a teacher to one person, an artist to another – anything that isn’t someone stuck in a sex shop who doesn’t quite know what the next step to take is.

Into that comes Mason, a trans man who takes a shine to Emma, and to her own surprise, who Emma genuinely likes back, and who she starts to develop true feelings for. Despite her disarmingly honest approach to her sexual dalliances, Emma unsurprisingly finds it difficult to stay as detached from those around her as she might like, as some don’t like what she’s got to say even if she is just being honest, and that may come back to bite her. [Read more…]

Folsom Forever (US DVD Review)

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San Francisco’s annual Folsom Street Fair is one of those legendary events that is likely to leave very different impressions in different people’s minds (assuming they’ve even heard of it, of course). Some may view it as pit of depravity, full of sexual freaks and weirdos, others think of it as a celebration of diversity that allows the kind of things that are usually hidden to have their day in the sun. There are also those – mainly those who know little about it – who think it’s essentially an open-air orgy, while some view it as something exclusively for Leather Queens.

The documentary Folsom Forever sets out to take a close look at the Fair, covering its history and what it has become now – something that isn’t just tolerated by the City, but which is actively promoted due to the vast amounts of cash it generates. [Read more…]