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 Newsroom – Season 2 (DVD Review)

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Aaron Sorkin is perhaps the best known writer working in entertainment today. He’s part of a very select group of people where an entire show can be sold purely on the fact he created it. He’s renowned for taking on the issues of the modern world, dissecting and criticising the problems he’s sees with America and the things that are taking it away from being the glorious nation he believes it is at heart. As a result he’s often been criticised by those who have a different view of the world – usually a more sharply right wing view – and that was certainly true of the first season of The Newsroom. [Read more…]

Sharknado 2: The Second One (Blu-ray Review)

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Oh dear God, here we go again. Sharknado became a bit of an odd sensation last year, not because anyone thought it was going to be a good film, but purely because of the title. Indeed as director Anthony C. Ferrante openly admits in the Featurette on the Sharknado 2 Blu-ray, the first film was only made after the Syfy Channel liked a joke about a sharknado in one of Ferrante’s earlier movies and decided they wanted to create an entire movie based around that word being the title.

After the success of the first one – it was admittedly success mired in utter derision, but it was success nevertheless – a sequel was inevitable. And to be honest it’s rather like the first one – unable to decide how much of a comedy it is and what sort it should be, as well as constantly flirting on the line between trying to ensure the audience has a good time and having so little respect for them that there are moments that feel like the cinematic equivalent of someone giving you the finger. [Read more…]

Godzilla (Blu-ray Review)

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After the disaster that was Roland Emmerich’s dreadful 1998 take on Godzilla you might have thought Hollywood would never touch the property again. However the massive monster has returned in a movie that sticks closer to the original Japanese Toho ideas than Emmerich’s efforts, and yet is still very much a modern blockbuster.

While working at a Japanese Nuclear Reactor in the late 1990s, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) lost his wife (Juliette Binoche) during a meltdown. However he’s never believed it was caused by an earthquake and has become obsessed with the idea that something is being hidden in the supposed disaster area. After recruiting his estranged son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), they venture into the hot zone and discover that not only is there no radiation, but that an organisation called Monarch is hiding a pupating monster. [Read more…]

The Way He Looks (Cinema Review)

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The Way He Looks is Daniel Ribiero’s masterful treatment of his Iris Prize 2012-winning short, and in what might be a rare case, the extended version is at least as good as the original short – indeed it won the Teddy Award for Best LGBT movie at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

As blind Leo (Gilherme Lobo) begins to grow into young manhood, his best friend Giovanna (Tess Amorim), who looks out for him, starts to get in his way, so he begins to plan an exchange trip abroad. However, when a new classmate called Gabriel (Fabio Audi) arrives, the three become friends and Leo begins to consider revising his plans. As the bond between Leonardo and Gabriel deepens, they start to realise there’s something beyond friendship brewing, but must also battle the social pressures of girls and drinking and schoolmates. [Read more…]

3 Days To Kill (Blu-ray Review)

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Co-written and produced by Luc Besson, Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) has discovered that he’s dying and so he decides to leave his job killing terrorists for the Secret behind and go see his family in Paris, hoping to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld) before he meets his grace.

However his plans get complicated when Vivi (Amber Heard) contacts him about one last assignment, helping to hunt down one of the world’s most lethal terrorists – and in return he will get injections of a top secret serum that could extend his life. Ethan knows though that if his wife and daughter find out what he’s up to, he’s unlikely to be able to have any sort of relationship with either of them. [Read more…]

Oculus (Blu-ray Review)

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Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is just out of the mental institution where he’s spent most of his childhood after being blamed for the brutal death of his parents. However, while his sister Kaylie (Karen Gillan) was bounced around the foster system, she held tight to the idea that Tim wasn’t really responsible – it was the Lasser Glass, an antique mirror she is convinced has supernatural powers and which destroyed her family.

She now has possession of the Lasser Glass and takes Tim back to their old house where she has set up cameras and alarms which she believes can prove that the mirror is evil. However she may have underestimated its power, as while Tim is initially convinced his sister is just trying to deny what he did (as his psychologists have made him take responsibility), strange things start happening where neither of them can trust what they’re seeing. [Read more…]

Walking On Sunshine (DVD Review)

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The musical Walking On Sunshine is undoubtedly a bizarre proposition. There’s virtually no part of it that doesn’t seem ill-judged and pretty bizarre, yet after 90 minutes of what feels like someone screaming in your face ‘HAVE A NICE TIME!’, it’s difficult not to succumb to a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome and submit (while hating yourself for it).

Walking On Sunshine was always going to have a difficult time from the moment that it decided that it was going to have as little plot as possible, but what it would have would revolve you hoping that one sister would be able to steal the other’s fiancé before the credits roll. That’s a tough sell in a drama, let alone a movie that’s essentially an excuse to string together a series of 80s pop songs. [Read more…]

Eternity: The Movie (US Cinema Review)

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Is Eternity: The Movie a gay film? Well, yes, except no. It manages to straddle a hitherto unknown line where it’s a celebration of bromance, but yet has no bones about being a gay love affair in all but name. There’s little ‘no homo’ here, just two characters who are too clueless to know that’s what they would probably say if set if this was set in the 2010s.

The film is a parody of the 80s, filled with as much innuendo as it’s possible to cram into 88 minutes. Todd (Barrett Crake) is freshly arrived in LA with dreams of making it big in music – as well as selling affordable fashions at everyday prices at BJ Maxx (see, we told you it liked innuendo). He meets fellow ‘glamorist’ B.J. Fairchild (Myko Olivier) and while they don’t initially hit it off, they soon realise that with B.J.’s saxophone skills and Todd’s vocals – and his talent at writing songs about heartbreak – they could make it as a big-haired 80s pop duo. [Read more…]

Boy Meets Girl (Best Feature Film, Iris Prize Festival 2014)

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This is a beautiful movie.

Set somewhere in the Deep South of America, we meet Rikki, a transgender girl who laments that her small home town contains no boys she could fall in love with, so jokingly says she’ll try to find a girl instead. She almost immediately bumps into beautiful stranger Francesca, and the two hit it off as friends.

While Francesca is initially very naive about Rikki’s transgender issues, she doesn’t let that get in the way of their friendship. Slowly their relationship deepens and both girls begin to explore different aspects of their own sexuality, despite Francesca’s fiancée, a US Marine currently away on a tour of duty, expressing his disgust at everything Rikki represents. [Read more…]

Helicopter Mom (Iris Prize 2014 Review)

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Maggie, a single mother in the US, is terrified of losing her only son Lloyd when he graduates and moves away to college, and so does her best to control his life as much as possible before he goes. Lloyd, played to nonplussed and eventually exasperated perfection by Jason Dolley, pushes back as she hangs on tighter, and when she realises the only way her beloved son can afford to attend college is with a minority scholarship, she outs him as gay to the whole school in order to apply. The only problem being that Lloyd doesn’t really know whether he’s gay or not, and of course his mother won’t listen.

The term ‘Helicopter Mom’ comes from the behaviour of certain parents who are always hovering over their children, never letting them find their own way without being told what to do. Cue a dozen cringe moments along the lines of the hit American pie series, without the gross-out factor. (The closest this movie gets to gross-out are the overly-tight outfits and youthful hair on Nia Vardalos as she gives a delightfully manic performance as Maggie.) [Read more…]