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

August (DVD)

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It’s always difficult expanding a short film into a feature length movie. If you add too much you’re in danger of losing what was special about the original short, but if you don’t add enough, the film feels stretched and thin. While August has plenty to recommend it, it does tend to suffer from the latter towards the end.

August is an expanded take on Eldar Rapaport’s 2005 16-minute short, Postmortem, and even keeps a couple of the same actors. Troy (Murray Bartlett) returns to LA after time in Spain and reconnects with Jonathan (Daniel Dugan), the man he had a painful break-up with before he left the country. They initially meet for coffee, but what starts as a seemingly innocent attempt to reconnect turns into a resurgence of their affair. However Jonathan now has a new boyfriend, Raul (Adrian Gonzalez), who seems to feel he was in a kind of competition with Troy even before he reappeared on the scene. [Read more…]

Tomboy (DVD)

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A mother, father and their two children move house one summer, several weeks before the new school year is about to begin. The eldest child introduces himself to the local kids, telling them he’s called Michael, starting friendships and beginning a fledgling adolescent romance with a girl called Lisa.

However 10-year-old Michael is hiding something, as he was born a girl and his parents know him as Laure. Initially Michael manages to keep his secret well, with the local kids accepting him as a boy, but the truth inevitably emerges, especially as they’re all due to attend the same school and Michael will be enrolled by his parents as a girl. [Read more…]

The Stranger In Us (DVD)

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Small town guy Anthony (Raphael Barker) arrives in San Francisco to live with his new boyfriend Stephen (Scott Cox). However domestic bliss soon turns sour when Stephen turns out to be demanding, controlling, abusive, manipulative and volatile.

The film jumps between Anthony in the midst of the tempestuous relationship and afterwards, when he find himself alone and isolated in the big city, before striking up a friendship with a young, runaway hustler, Gavin (Ada Perez). In between one night stands, trying drugs and desperately attempting to put his life back on track, Anthony finds himself drawn to Gavin, and together they find a connection in the anonymous, impersonal world of the big city. [Read more…]

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Cinema)

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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel doesn’t have the catchiest title I have ever heard. However, based on the novel by Deborah Moggach, the film stars the ‘crème de la crème’ of our favourite geriatric British film and TV actors, and is directed by John Madden (Shakespeare In love, Mrs Brown and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin).

After the phenomenal success of Slumdog Millionaire, it was inevitable that at some point mainstream British cinema would be return to India. The premise of the film is that seven elderly people decide to up-sticks from the UK and go to India, moving into a hotel for the ‘elderly and beautiful’. However it doesn’t quite live up to the image of the photoshopped promos! [Read more…]

Four Weddings And A Funeral (Blu-ray)

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“Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed.”

It may be the most vomit-inducing line in modern cinema, to the point that it’s rather overshadowed people’s opinions of the movie. The fact is that beyond that moment, Four Weddings & A Funeral is a rather wry, witty, sweet and somewhat subversive romantic comedy. Indeed it’s the fact that it doesn’t take the usual route of generic rom-coms that turned it into a huge hit, which on its release became one of the biggest movies ever at the UK box office.

If you haven’t seen it, the title is very literal, as the film takes place over the course of four weddings and a funeral, as we chart the course of the relationship between Charles (Grant) and Carrie (MacDowell), who meet at the first wedding  and take a rather unusual romantic course through the other ceremonies. [Read more…]

Thelma & Louise (Blu-ray)

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21 years after the release of Thelma & Louise, it’s rather sad that women’s position in film, both in front of and behind the camera, hasn’t changed all that much. When it first appeared in cinemas, the film was treated like it was going to be a new dawn for women in the movies, but little has changed.

In fact, other than the great movie itself, Thelma & Louise’s most lasting legacy is Brad Pitt, who might never have hit the big time if he hadn’t gotten the chance to be unfeasibly hot and sexy in this (he very nearly didn’t, as William Baldwin initially landed the role, but dropped out after he was cast in Backdraft). Thank God he did get the role, as few people have ever been so breathtakingly sexy in what is actually a very small role. [Read more…]

Sasha (DVD)

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Sasha is a teenager living in Cologne. The son of immigrant parents, his mother is slightly obsessed with her children bettering themselves, which in Sasha’s case means she wants him to become a renowned classical pianist – although he needs to get into a top music school first. His father meanwhile is a bit of a traditionalist, who feels things should be his way or no way.

However Sasha has more than music on his mind, as he’s coming to terms with the fact that he’s gay, which is brought into focus when the piano teacher he’s secretly in love with announces that he’s leaving Cologne to follow his own dreams.  As Sasha tries to absorb this, he sets out to tell his teacher how he feels and try to get him to stay. As Sasha tries to sort out the maze of his own emotions, things begin to spiral out of control and head towards a potentially tragic end. [Read more…]

A Bigger Splash (Blu-ray/DVD)

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A Bigger Splash is the very definition of enigmatic. The best description I can think of is that it’s kind of like The Only Way Is Essex, but made in the early 1970s and featuring artist David Hockney and his circle. Yep, that does sound weird, because it kind of is.

On the surface it seems like a fly on the wall documentary looking at Hockney, but as you watch it slowly becomes clear that what you’re seeing isn’t a documentary at all. Instead it is recreation of reality, using all the real players in Hockney’s life, who are taking part in a devised reflection of the truth. It is therefore an odd ally to TOWIE and its ilk, but of course made at a time when reality soaps would have seemed like the idea of a madman. [Read more…]

The Love Patient (DVD)

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There’s been an odd trend in recent years for comedies to be about unpleasant people who it’s difficult to like. Whether it’s Jason Bateman fathering Jennifer Aniston’s child without her knowledge in The Switch, or Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler trying to outdo each other in the impossible-to-empathise-with stakes in The Ugly Truth, there seem to be more rom-coms about assholes than ones about people you might actually like. The Love Patient seems to want to ensure that gay cinema doesn’t miss out on this trend.

The movie follows Paul, who’s feeling a bit down on his luck as the ex-boyfriend he still loves has found a new man and nothing else in his life seems to be going his way either. In his spare time, he volunteers at a medical centre (his sole redeeming feature), where he hatches a plan to make people care for him – pretend he has cancer. [Read more…]

Red State (Blu-ray)

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From the moment Kevin Smith first mentioned Red State several years ago, it was clear it wasn’t going to be like any of his other movies. Although his claims it would be an incendiary movie that’s “so bleak that it makes The Dark Knight look like Strawberry Shortcake” turned out to be slightly hyperbolic, it’s certainly a new side to the director. It’s rare that making a violent horror/thriller movie can be said to show a director maturing, but this really is Kevin Smith on a different level to where he’s been before.

The director’s earlier movies have been a relatively easy ride, with fairly simple stories, plenty of jokes and a rather point and shoot filming style (that’s not to denigrate how much fun they are). [Read more…]