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

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…]

The British Guide To Showing Off (DVD)

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The British Guide To Showing Off is a feature-length documentary that looks at artist Andrew Logan and his anarchic creation, The Alternative Miss World Show, which has been going since 1972 and seen a heady mix of eccentrics and artists taking part and, well, showing off.

The movie follows Logan as he rather leisurely tries to organise 2009’s pageant, as well as charting the history of the event, which has seen everything from David Hockney judging the first, David Bowie not being able to get into the second and the whole thing even being won by a robot. At one point it even got into a court battle with the Official Miss World organisation, who objected to Logan’s event’s name (Miss World lost). [Read more…]

The Debt (DVD)

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The Debt starts out in 1997, with Rachel (Helen Mirren) being lauded for her role in a Mossad mission 30 years before, in which she and two other agents are known for going into East Berlin to bring a Nazi War Criminal to justice, killing him in the process. After a dinner in her honour, shocking news comes through that one of the other agents, David (Ciaran Hinds), has thrown himself in front of a truck, and it seems to have something to do with their shared past.

Flashing back to 1965 – when Helen Mirren was Jessica Chastain, Ciaran Hinds was Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson was Martin Csokas – we find out exactly what happened on the mission. Rachel enters East Berlin and a rundown apartment where David and Stephan have been cooped up together for months, with only each other for company. When the mission goes wrong and the plan to get the Nazi out of East Berlin fails, the situation gets ever more intense while the trio try to find a way to extract the criminal to Israel. [Read more…]

J. Edgar

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There’s an old adage on the standup comedy circuit that the only thing worse than complete silence to greet your routine is a couple of stifled chuckles. This, they say, indicates that not only has your material failed, it has done so in such a way that the audience’s only response is to laugh at its failure.

Had Clint Eastwood, the director of J.Edgar attended the screening of his film that I did, he might have had a similar feeling. The last thing one would expect from a serious political biopic is moments of unintentional hilarity, but from the minute Leonardo DiCaprio appears on screen in an unconvincing elderly prosthetic, that’s exactly what you get. [Read more…]

The Guard (Blu-ray)

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Although I can’t imagine the Irish Garda being a massive fan of the film, The Guard is a very entertaining movie, with a strong script, tight direction and a couple of excellent performances from Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle.

Gleeson plays small town cop, Sergeant Gerry Boyle, a man who’s more interested in hookers than keeping law and order, but whose quiet life is disrupted by the arrival of FBI Agent Wendell Everett (Cheadle), who’s on the trail of an international drug smuggling ring. Boyle isn’t interested in this multi-million Euro operation, and with the two men initially having a very confrontational relationship (largely because of the Irishman’s decided non-PC approach), it would appear they’ll never be able to work together. [Read more…]

Shame (Cinema)

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Oh my God, Michael Fassbender has a penis! Whoever would have thought it? The fact the actor’s little man makes a more than fleeting appearance in the Shame has received so much attention, you’d have thought everyone has assumed he was a Ken-doll down there before he proved otherwise. It’s a pattern that’s repeated over and over, as if an actress gets naked  it’s either barely mentioned or letched over, while male actors gets epithets like ‘brave’ and ‘bold’ thrown around. That’s not Fassbender’s fault, as he’s just doing his job and doing it well (and I’m sure there are some who’ll more than welcome little Fassbender’s appearance in the movie), but it would be nice if we could treat male and female genitals equally! [Read more…]

Boardwalk Empire – Season 1 (Blu-ray)

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Mixing fact and fiction, the past with present sensibilities and a great cast, Boardwalk Empire hit TV with a bang. Much of the initial interest came from the fact Martin Scorsese directed the first episode, and his influence is felt throughout the 12 episodes of Season 1. With the little expense spared in the creation of 1920s Atlantic City, it’s an incredibly rich world full of well-written characters, plenty of intrigue, decadence and moments of shocking violence.

The series centres around Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), a fictionalised version of a real-life New Jersey prohibition figure, who’s the treasurer of Atlantic City and one of its most esteemed businessmen – largely because he’s got the entire city in his pocket and his criminal network is pretty much untouchable [Read more…]

Cell 211 (DVD)

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In principle, a prison is a great place to set a movie. By its very nature it’s a hotbed of tension, with different sides, agendas and emotions battling against one another. As many prison movies have shown though, because there’s so much going on in a jail it’s a place that’s often difficult to tame on screen, leading to films that are either too dumb, too unrealistic or too haphazardly hectic.

Cell 211 is a rare case of a prison flick that manages to keep control of everything, while weaving a complex narrative where the tension comes from the characters as much as the situation. Juan (Alberto Ammann) is a young man who’s got a job as a prison guard and is touring the jail the day before he’s due to start work. After getting knocked unconscious just as a prison riot break out, Juan is abandoned in the empty cell 211 when the guards make a run for it. [Read more…]

Troll Hunter (DVD)

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Troll Hunter is a movie that shouldn’t work. The whole thing has a faint whiff of the ridiculous about it, but thanks to a contradictory mix of absolute conviction and tongue-in-cheek knowingness it turns out to be a rollicking Brothers Grimm meets Blair Witch Project ride.

Purporting to be real footage mysteriously sent to a film company, the film follows a group of eager young filmmaking students who are out in the Norwegian wilds making a documentary about a spate of bear killings. Although the local legal hunters feel there’s something odd about these dead bears, they also think they might know who’s responsible, a man called Hans, who they believe is a poacher. While Hans initially wants nothing to do with the documentary crew, they won’t be shaken off and while following him late at night they have a close encounter with a strange creature. Hans is convinced it’s a troll, but surely these fairytale creatures can’t exist? [Read more…]

Whisper Of The Heart (Blu-ray)

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When most British people think of Japanese animation (if they think anything about it), it’s either family fantasies such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle or the mad and violent world of adult anime. However there’s a lot more to it than that, with one vein being animation made specifically for teenage girls. Although not typical of the genre (there tends to be more of a fantasy element to most Japanese animation aimed at women), it’s into this field that Whisper Of The Heart fits.

Normally this movie would either never have seen the light of day in the UK or have gotten a tiny little niche DVD release. That’s not because it’s bad, but because traditional thinking would say there’s not market for it. However thanks to the fact it’s made by Studio Ghibli – the company behind the aforementioned Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle – and has a screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki, the 1995 movie is getting a Blu-ray release. [Read more…]