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

The View From Here Short Films (BFI Flare Review)

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The View From Here – a collection of short films centring on coming out and the emotional minefields associated with such a life-changing action.

An Afternoon (En Apftermiddag)
Dir. Soren Green
A very sweet yet tense coming-out story involving two young friends. With communication restricted mostly to lingering looks, semi-articulate teenage grunts and text messages, this feels convincingly teenage, with the boys seemingly authentically struggling with feelings they’re not entirely confident about and have no idea how to express. A contemporary story told deftly and convincingly by everyone involved. [Read more…]

Brokeback Mountain The Opera (DVD Review)

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Yes, there really is a Brokeback Mountain The Opera. It’s not a satire like Jerry Springer The Opera; it’s a proper, legit opera, and even has a libretto by the creator of the original short story it’s based on, Annie Proulx. It was originally written to be performed by the New York City Opera’s programme that creates new works around ideas and stories that are familiar to a younger, less elite audience. However when General Director Gerard Mortier moved from New York to the Teatro Real in Madrid, he took the piece with him.

It is initially an odd mix. Watching big, tough burly cowboys singing in a singularly operatic fashion takes some getting used to. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story though. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar meet when they are hired to look after sheep one summer on Brokeback Mountain. Initially Jack finds it difficult to connect with the quiet and somewhat taciturn Ennis, but soon they bond and embark on an intense love affair. [Read more…]

Out To Win (BFI Flare Review)

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Out To Win is an interesting and intimate documentary of LGBT sporting history over the past 40 years.

Beginning as a retrospective, Out To Win looks at how attitudes and conceptions of gay sports stars has changed since 1975 when David Kopay came out as the first professional gay NFL player. Featuring interviews with several now-retired athletes including Kopay, Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King, all of whom have lived through scandal and prejudice and had their careers damaged as a result of their sexuality being made public.

In the telling of their now historical comings-out, these elder statesmen and women of gay sports are able to tell their stories in a non-sensationalised context, allowing them to discuss openly and honestly how things have changed since their (often forced) exposure and the work they’ve done to ease the process for younger athletes who’ve found themselves in similar situations. [Read more…]

Vivant! (Alive!) (BFI Flare Review)

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Vivant covers the week of training undergone by five HIV+ men leading up to their first solo parachute jump, and documents the development of unlikely friendships that develop between such a disparate group.

The Director’s decision to focus quite evenly between the interpersonal relationships of the five men and on the quite intense training for the parachute jump makes for an interesting mix. The training is obviously both physically and mentally demanding, and there are points when these men visibly struggle to assimilate all the information needed to make a successful jump. [Read more…]

Cucumber & Banana (DVD Review)

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Cucumber arrived on British television with huge amounts of fanfare. After all it was a return to gay Manchester for writer Russell T Davies more than 15 years after Queer As Folk. Plus it came with the interesting idea of having a secondary show, Banana, which aired on E4 and told a half-hour story about one of the characters from the main Cucumber episode.

However after the first episode the critical response was somewhat muted, and while many viewers hung around hoping Cucumber would suddenly become great, a lot of people gave up partway through. However now that the whole thing is complete and has been released on DVD, should everyone have stuck around until the end? [Read more…]

Interstellar (Blu-ray Review)

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The world is on the brink of disaster as extreme climate change has left much of the planet a dust bowl, with civilisation pretty much collapsed and many convinced that humanity only has a short time left to live. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is scratching out a living on a farm, but discovers that not far away is a facility that’s hopes to find a future for mankind.

A wormhole has been discovered near Saturn, which leads to another galaxy where there may be habitable worlds. Years before scientists were sent to each of those planets, and now it’s time to send another ship to discover what happened to them and whether one of the worlds could be humanity’s new home. With his ace piloting skills Cooper is selected to go on the mission – much to the anger of his young daughter Murph – alongside scientist Brand (Anne Hathaway) and two other crew members. [Read more…]

Penguins Of Madagascar (Blu-ray Review)

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I’m becoming increasingly convinced that DreamWorks Animation have given up on making films and have instead decided to make a series of 90 minute chase scenes. With some of their output this strategy has resulted in a giant mess, but with others it’s worked surprisingly well, and that’s the case with Penguins Of Madagascar.

Despite the title, this doesn’t really have much to do with the Madagascar films bar the presence of the military-minded penguins and a few jokey references. In the new film Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private come up against a surprising opponent when they meet Dr. Octavius Brine, who seems to be a brilliant human scientist, but is actually an octopus called Dave. The purple cephalopod harbours a hatred of the penguins due to the fact that they used to be loved far more than him at the zoo. [Read more…]

Network (Blu-ray Review)

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There are plenty of contenders, but in my opinion the best scripts Hollywood has ever come up with are All About Eve and Network. Perhaps surprisingly – or unsurprisingly depending on how you look at it – they could both be accused of biting the media hand that feeds them, with All About Eve taking on Tinsel Town itself, while Network is a scathing satire of TV.

Indeed it was seen as so scathing back in 1976 that it nearly didn’t get made at all, as studio executives were worried no television station would ever air it after its theatrical run had ended. However they obviously hadn’t read the script closely enough or they’d have realised that it doesn’t matter too much what the subject is, as long as it produces ratings/profits TV will show it. [Read more…]

No Good Deed (DVD Review)

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Sometimes getting two really good actors to take on a rather run of the mill script can raise the whole thing to new levels. There must have been hope No Good Deed could do the same, but it doesn’t really work.

Colin (Idris Elba) is a very bad man, who police believe is a serial murderer but who they’ve only managed to lock up for manslaughter. After a parole hearing he escapes custody and heads for the house of his girlfriend, whom he promptly kills (just in case we were wondering just how bad he is). [Read more…]

Cinderella (Cinema Review)

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After the success of Maleficent (2014) it’s little surprise that Disney is remaking some of their classic animated stories as live action movies. In a few years we will also have Beauty And The Beast and Tim Burton’s Dumbo (complete with a Danny Elfman soundtrack) and one day hopefully a version of Snow White where Peter Dinklage plays all the dwarfs.

To be honest though any studio can do these films as the stories are public domain (although Disney does like to bring in elements they have exclusive rights to due to them first appearing in their animated versions).

However what the other studios don’t have is the Disney magic. [Read more…]