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

Legend (Blu-ray)

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If movies were judged purely on how pretty they look, Ridley Scott’s 1985 movie Legend would undoubtedly be considered one of the greatest films of all time. As you’d therefore hope, it looks utterly amazing on Blu-ray, to the point where some scenes are truly mesmerising.

The plot and other aspects of the film sadly remain somewhat problematic. However, with the European Theatrical Cut included on the disc beside the more recently rediscovered Director’s Cut version, you do get a hint that Legend could have been something truly special on all counts, but whether due to the script, story or studio interference, it never quite made it. [Read more…]

Teen Wolf (Blu-ray)

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If someone at your school turned into a werewolf halfway through a basketball game, do you reckon everyone would have been okay with it as long as they played the sport better? When rewatching Teen Wolf, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Michael J. Fox’s hoop dreams hadn’t improved by getting hairy. The film kind of gives the impression it might have been pitchforks and silver bullets time.

But that’s the thing with Teen Wolf. It’s a stunningly silly movie, where nobody acts in ways real human beings do, but which gets by and is deemed worth giving a HD release to 28-years-on, due to its charm, sense of humour and warm-heartedness. [Read more…]

Rolling Thunder (Blu-ray)

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Controversial for its violence on its first release, 1977’s Rolling Thunder has since become a bit of a cult classic, partly because of Quentin Tarantino’s admiration for it, and partly because it’s been mysteriously absent from DVD. As a result its reputation has grown while it’s been pretty difficult to actually watch it.

Now it’s arrived in the UK in a new Blu-ray & DVD release, and we can finally get to see what the fuss is about. The movie is essentially a revenge thriller, but one that’s more grounded and morally complex than most entries in the genre. The film opens with Major Charles Rane (William Devane) arriving back in the US, after years being tortured in a North Vietnamese prison. While he has hopes of rebuilding his life, he discovers his wife has taken up with another man and his son doesn’t remember him. [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…]

Young Adult (Cinema)

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Young Adult has Oscar pedigree written all over it. Directed By Jason Reitman (nominated for Up In The Air and Juno) in collaboration with everyone’s favourite hip writer, Diablo Cody (of Juno fame), and with the beautiful and talented Charlize Theron (Oscar winner for Monster) starring.

On paper it would appear that Mavis Gary (Theron) is a successful, beautiful 37-year-old writer living life to the full in Minneapolis, who’s enjoying all the trappings that life should bring a former prom queen. However, it is obvious from the opening scenes that her life is in a mess. She wakes up from a drunken stupor, having fallen asleep on her bed fully-clothed. She shuffles round her dishevelled apartment, drinks Coke for breakfast, prepares breakfast for her and her dog Dolce from ready made packet food, whilst watching The Kardashians on TV. [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…]

Drive (DVD)

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The release date of Drive deliberately seems to have set in the hope the movie would pick up a few Oscar nominations. While it only managed one – for Sound Editing – the film might well have been helped by the outrage many have expressed about the Academy pretty much ignoring it.

Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt driver, mechanic and getaway driver who strikes up a friendship/chaste romance with a young mother called Irene (Carey Mulligan), whose husband is in prison. When the hubby is released from jail, the driver agrees to help him with a robbery, in the hope this will ensure Irene and her son remain safe. However when things go wrong, it sets off an increasingly violent chain of events, with the driver’s life and that of everyone around him at threat from gangland heavies, including the brutal Nino (Ron Perlman) and gangster turned movie producer Bernie (Albert Brooks) [Read more…]

The Grey

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The first trailer for The Grey made it seem like someone had gotten over-excited about The Tree Of Life. It suggested the film was going to be some sort of weird, ethereal, existentialist drama. Thankfully though, that’s not what it is at all (well, it is a bit, but not too much).

Liam Neeson plays a guy whose job is to sort out the predators that occasionally menace the workers at a remote gas refinery operation in Alaska. On a plane ride with a number of other motley oil workers, things take a rather drastic turn when they fall out of the sky. Normally a plane crash would be the worst part of your day, but the men are now in the middle of nowhere and in the territory of a particularly vicious pack of wolves. [Read more…]

The Descendants

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The Descendants was no doubt Oscar bound at its inception – directed and written by Alexander Payne (of Election, Sideways and About Schmidt fame) and starring one of The Oscars current favourites, George Clooney. With five nominations, the only question now is whether it’ll win.

Matthew King’s (Clooney) wife has been involved in a major accident and is on a life support machine. He is a lawyer as well as the executor of his extended family’s massive estate, even though he’s completely out of touch with his immediate family. The plot centres around Clooney coming to terms with, taking control of and understanding more about his fractured family, whilst also learning about his wife’s infidelity. [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…]