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

Hidden Kisses (Baisers cachés) (US DVD Review) – A secret gay kiss leads to major problems for two teens

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At a party teenagers Nathan and Louis share a secret kiss. What they only realise later is that someone saw them, took a photo and put it on Facebook. Only new boy in school Nathan is recognisable in the picture, leading to plenty of speculation about who the other boy is. It also means that Nathan has now been outed, including to his unsuspecting father and his classmates, who soon start making life difficult for him.

With his teachers prevaricating over how – or even whether – to help him and the abuse getting worse, Nathan also has to deal with the fact his dad is struggling with the realisation he has a gay son. Louis isn’t helping either, as he says the kiss was just an experiment. However, he may only be saying that because he has deeply homophobic parents who he knows would reject him. [Read more…]

New Queer Visions: Men From The Boys (VoD Review) – The gay film festival strand brings us a short film collection

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For several years New Queer Visions has been presenting programmes of LGBT short films at various film festivals. Now some of the shorts that have been screened by NVQ have been brought together into a package available for us all to watch via Filmdoo (worldwide) and Amazon (in both the UK and US).

While a previous New Queer Visions collection we covered concentrated on female-led films, this one is all about the boys. They range from how sexuality touches race and ethnicity to dating someone deep in the closet. Take a look at what we thought of the films below. [Read more…]

Boys On Film 17: Love Is A Drug (DVD Review) – Get your fill of gay short films

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There are far worse ways to say goodbye to an old year and hello to a new one than with a brand-new Boys On Film release. The DVD/VoD series is the most successful short film collection in the world – not just gay short films, that’s any short films at all. The series is now on its 17th instalment, once more bringing us a mix of sweet, sexy and thought-provoking gay-themed tales, adding up to over two-hours of entertainment.

So does this one match-up to the great Boys On Film releases that have gone before? Take a look at what we thought of the shorts below.

And if you want to check out our reviews of earlier Boys On Film releases, click here. [Read more…]

The Limehouse Golem (DVD Review) – Bill Nighy investigates possibly LGBT Victorian murders

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A murderer is stalking the streets of Limehouse in Victorian London, killing viciously and spreading panic. The killer has become known as the Limehouse Golem; named after the medieval Jewish monster made of clay. Police Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy) is brought in to investigate, soon coming to wonder whether the killer is the recently deceased John Cree (Sam Reid).

This line of questioning introduces him to Cree’s wife, Lizzie (Olivia Cooke), as well as the world of the music hall theatre she used to work at, which is led by cross-dressing comedy star Dan Leno (Douglas Booth). The number of potential suspects continues to grow – at one point even leading Kildare to the door of Karl Marx – especially after the discovery of a book that may be the murderer’s diary. But who wrote it and why? [Read more…]

Mixed Messages (DVD Review) – A lesbian experiences a year of being single in queer Berlin

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Ren (Alana Lake) is a British transplant living in Berlin. She’s single but doesn’t really want to be. Over the course of a year, we get to see her various attempts to get lucky and find connection. That ranges from dealing with someone who seems more interested in their Tinder match than her, as well as a one-night-stand who doesn’t seem able to eat any of the breakfast banquet she’s created. She also heads off to a bondage workshop and tries speed-dating, while a lost mobile phone on one date cause all manner of problems.

Ren is living in a world where finding someone for more than a night seems increasingly difficult, and sometimes even a whole night is too much to ask. [Read more…]

England Is Mine (DVD Review) – The early days of Morrissey gets a movie

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To some, Morrissey is a figure who inspires devotion – the musician-poet of outsiders and of those wish the world were a different place. To others though, he’s a man who’s spent the past 35 years whining and becoming increasingly out of touch with life as lived by everyone else (not helped by the messianic adoration he still attracts from those who love him). He’d also probably be the last person to collaborate on a film biopic, so England Is Mine is very much unofficial, picking up Steven Patrick Morrissey’s life in the 70s, before anyone knew who he was. By concentrating on the time before he started collaborating with Johnny Marr, also helps the movie get around the fact that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for them to get the rights to use any of The Smiths’ music. [Read more…]

Beach Rats (Cinema Review) – A teen struggles with masculinity & sexuality in the gay-themed movie

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With Call Me By Your Name, God’s Own Country and Beach Rats, 2017 may have been strongest year ever for gay-themed films at the Sundance Film Festival. The last of those, Beach Rats, took the Best Director (Dramatic) Award for director Eliza HIttman, and it’s also just been nominated for a couple of Independent Spirit Awards. The result is that it arrives in UK cinemas with quite a reputation. But does it deserve it?

The short answer is – yes.

It’s summer and Brooklyn teenager Frankie (Harris Dickinson) has nothing to do but hang out with his friends, heading down to the beach to flirt with girls, play ball and try to pass the time. However, away from his somewhat delinquent mates, he’s started going online and looking for guys. Initially he’s uncertain about what he’s doing or whether it means anything beyond being a way to pass the time, but he soon starts meeting men for sex. [Read more…]

Desert Hearts (Criterion Blu-ray Review) – A landmark lesbian movie gets a well-deserved prestige release

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Watching Desert Hearts it’s difficult not to feel a little frustrated. That’s not because of anything in the movie itself. It’s because even 32 year later it still feels so exceptional. A film with a female director and screenwriter – and based on a novel by a woman – is still an unusual thing. A film that’s about the lives of women and not just how they relate to men, is still an unusual thing. A movie that treats lesbian love as a serious thing and isn’t framed by tragedy, is still an unusual thing.

It shouldn’t be that way, but Desert Hearts retains a very special position as one of those incredibly rare movies by women, that doesn’t feel like it’s been co-opted either by the influence of men, or by a need to please the male viewer. [Read more…]

Tom Of Finland (DVD Review) – Inside the challenging gay life of the homoerotic artist

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For a couple of years duelling biopics of Tom Of Finland were in the works, but this is the one that finally made it to the screen. The life of Touko Laaksonen is certainly an interesting subject to take on, and there are many ways it could have been done. The route they’ve gone down is to make a fairly traditional, prestige biopic, which is perhaps an unexpected choice for a man who made his name for outsider homoerotic art that defied conventions of both sexuality and class.

The film follows the life of Laaksonen, picking up his tale just after he has been discharged from the Finnish Army following the Second World War (the movie rather bypasses Finland complicated position in the conflict, other than that it was hell for the soldiers and also helped set off Touko’s love of Nazi uniforms). While he had encounters with men in the Army, in post-War Finland, being gay is still about furtive and dark meetings in order to avoid society’s rampant homophobia. [Read more…]

Jabberwocky (Criterion Blu-ray Review) – Terry Gilliam’s first directorial fantasy returns (including its little gay Easter Egg)

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In 1977 Monty Python had made their TV series and their first film, The Holy Grail, but hadn’t yet brought us Life Of Brian or The Meaning Of Life. In amongst this came Jabberwocky, which wasn’t a Python movie (although their production company was involved), but marked Terry Gilliam’s first movie as a solo director, and starred Michael Palin and Terry Jones.

The result is a movie that’s semi-Python, with echoes of the zany, off-the-wall humour, but which is still its own beast.

Palin plays Dennis, an apprentice cooper in a fantasy medieval kingdom. He’s desperately in love with Griselda (Annette Badland), and so to prove himself – and after a falling out with his father – he sets off to the city to make his fortune. [Read more…]