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

REVIEWS

Cinema, DVD and Blu-ray reviews

Friends With Kids (Cinema)

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What do you do if you want a kid but you don’t have a significant other (or indeed if you’re a gay man)? Well, if you’re a woman you could pop down the sperm bank, I suppose, but in the case of Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), they decide perhaps they should have a kid together, despite not being in love. Now in their 30s, the duo are best of friends, but for various reasons haven’t settled down.

That’s not true of their friends, Ben (Jon Hamm) and Missy (Kristen Wiig), and Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O’Dowd), who are married and on the baby train. Despite the fact both couples seem harassed and on the edge due to their children, Jason and Julie decide to go ahead anyway and have a child. [Read more…]

Lesbian Vampire Warriors (DVD)

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Lesbian Vampire Warriors would more accurately be titles Vampire Warriors Including Some Of Indeterminate Sexuality, but that would be quite tough to fit on the DVD box. Ar is a vampire hunter, dedicated to taking down the worst bloodsucking scum around – of which there isn’t a lack. However things are slightly complicated by the fact she hangs around with a bunch of ‘vegetarian’ vampires, who don’t drink human blood, and so instead survive on animals.

Events take a serious turn when an ancient, evil vampire called Mung arrives in town who is a cannibal, intent on killing other vamps, sucking the life out of them and stealing their power. With her friend’s life under threat, Ar must make the ultimate decision – is the only way to defeat Mung for her to become a vampire herself? [Read more…]

Spork (DVD)

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Spork is named after the title character, who goes by that name due to her brother’s cruel teasing about the fact she was born a hermaphrodite. She’s frizzy-haired and perennially put upon by her classmates, who like nothing better than bullying her loner nature and intersex biology.

With a school dance-off coming up, Spork decides to enter and prove she’s more than just a loser. With the help of her trailer park neighbour, Tootsie Roll, she starts learning how to bust some moves, and also attracts the attention of young Charlie. However the bitchy, popular, mean girls aren’t about to allow Spork to upstage them and so they launch a campaign to bring her down in the cruellest way possible. [Read more…]

Dark Horse (Cinema)

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Todd Solondz is an award winning writer and director who has brought us such classics such as Welcome To the Dollhouse, Palindromes and the highly controversial and brilliant Happiness. Solondz’s greatest is gift is giving us a slice of life drama with characters on the edge of society that we normally wouldn’t care for. This is his first film since Palindromes in 2004, so has the wait been worth it?

Dark Horse is exactly what it says in the title – a film about a dark horse, an outsider, someone who isn’t thought likely to succeed, but who may just surprise us all. The dark horse in this film is Abe (Jordan Gebler), who’s the elder son of Jackie (Christopher Walken) and still works for his father, who runs a highly successful development company. [Read more…]

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (DVD)

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Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Dev Patel, Ronald Pickup – if you assemble a cast like that, you could get them to read the phone book and it would be entertaining. It would be tough to get them to make something that wasn’t at least worth a look, and thankfully although The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a relatively slight tale, it’s never less than charming.

Dench, Smith, Nighty, Wilkinson, Imrie, Wilton and Pickup play a group of aging Brits, who for one reason and another respond to an advert for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The ad promises an Indian idyll where retirees can live out their days in luxury that brings to mind the days of the Raj. After a rather problematic journey to the hotel, the reality turns out to be rather different than what was promised, with the hotel falling to bits and little of the advertised luxury. [Read more…]

Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance (DVD)

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Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), aka Ghost Rider, is lying low in Eastern Europe, trying to control the demonic presence inside him. However he’s sought out by a man called Moreau (Idris Elba), who wants to use the Rider and in return he promises to try and free Johnny from the curse of the flame-skulled demon inside him. Moreau wants Johnny to protect a young boy, who happens to the son of the Devil. Satan, in the human form of Roarke (Ciaran Hinds), has plans for the child, which Johnny and the Rider must stop.

Many were surprised that a sequel to the somewhat disappointing Ghost Rider was put into production, and reports that the reason it was rushed through was because Sony would otherwise lose the rights to the character didn’t exactly promote confidence. However early footage reignited interest, with fun-looking, slightly insane images of the Rider pissing fire and zooming around on his bike. [Read more…]

The Vow (DVD)

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Inspired by a true story, Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum play Paige and Leo, a young married couple who are desperately in love and living a slightly bohemian life in the big city. However their romantic idyll is shattered when a truck rear-ends their car, sending Paige through the windscreen. She’s left with amnesia, meaning that while she can remember her early life, she has no memory of Leo or their marriage. Indeed, the last she can remember, she was engaged to another man (Scott Speedman). She also can’t understand why she’s supposedly estranged from her wealthy parents, or why she’s now an artist when the last she knew she was in law school. [Read more…]

The Lost Weekend (Blu-ray)

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Back in 1945, vaguely realistic depictions of addiction on screen weren’t just a rarity, they were pretty much unheard of. However, coming off the success of Double Indemnity, writer-director Billy Wilder decided that the time was ripe to adapt Charles R. Jackson’s novel about alcoholism, The Lost Weekend, for the big screen. It certainly worked, as Wilder won Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for the movie.

Ray Milland plays Don Birnam, who’s supposed to be giving up the booze and heading off for the weekend with his straight-laced brother, Wick. However the lure of the liquor proves too much and Wick gives up on helping his brother, leaving Don’s girlfriend, Helen (Jane Wyman), to deal with him. This is the start of a four day binge, where Don’s desperation for alcohol becomes ever greater. He harbours ideas of being an author, but blames his alcoholism of writer’s block, and it’s gotten so bad he even hocks his typewriter to get more whiskey. [Read more…]

Double Indemnity (Blu-ray)

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The likes of The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, The Night Of The Hunter and other films have claims to being the greatest film noir, but for me it’s Double Indemnity. It’s a true masterpiece of a film, which truly grasps all the things that made noir great (indeed it created many of them, as this was a very early entry to the ‘genre’), from fast-paced hard-boiled dialogue and femme fatales to chiaroscuro lighting, a duplicitous protagonist and wry narration.

Fred MacMurray (who other than this is largely synonymous with comedy) plays insurance salesman Walter Neff, who turns up on the doorstep of Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), hoping to sign up her husband for some protection. However Phyllis has other ideas. After an initial flirtation, she slowly reveals a plan to sign her hubby up for a massive life insurance policy that pays double if he dies on a train, and then kill him. Using her highly sexual feminine wiles, she hooks Walter in to help her with her scheme. It’s a complicated plan, but Walter believes they can pull it off and then he and Phyllis can be together, but things get ever more difficult. [Read more…]

My Babysitter’s A Vampire: The Movie (DVD)

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If Wizards Of Waverly Place was kids TV’s answer to Harry Potter, My Babysitter’s A Vampire’s is the same for Twilight (let’s ignore CBBC’s rather dismal Young Dracula). In fact it’s a rather self-knowingly comic attempt to capitalise in the interest in all thing vampiric, as it even includes a Twilight-esque movie-within-a-movie called Dusk.

My Babysitter’s A Vampire actually hails from Canada, but the TV series has found success on the Disney Channel in both the US and UK. This is the film that spawned the TV series and gives a bit of an origin tale for fans of the show. Ethan (Matthew Knight) is a geeky high school student who’s horrified when his parents demand they bring in a babysitter. It’s his own fault though, as Ethan’s attempt to look after his little sister ended up with her outside the house at night by herself. [Read more…]