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

300: Rise Of An Empire (Blu-ray Review)

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Ever since 300 became a surprise blockbuster they’ve been talking about a sequel. However it kept getting put back due to the fact comic creator Frank Miller hadn’t finished the graphic novel it was supposed to be based on. Eventually they decided to go ahead anyway, and so we have 300: Rise Of An Empire.

The movie is a sidequel to the earlier film, following the men of Athens before, during and after what happened to Gerard Butler and his Spartans (and in case you’re wondering, the shirtlessness and six pack abs are back, although the Athenians aren’t quite as hulking as the Spartans). [Read more…]

The Wind Rises (Blu-ray Review)

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While Japanese anime that covers weirdly sexual sci-fi, giant robots and horror has found its place in the West, what still seems like an anomaly to us are animated movies for grown-ups that don’t go that far into the fantastical. In fact for several reasons, and despite how good it is, it’s difficult to imagine The Wind Rises ever getting a release over here if it weren’t directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki (and it’s probably his last film).

The movie is a biopic of one of Miyazaki’s heroes, Jirô Horikoshi, starting with his youth as a young boy in the 1920s who dreams of being able to fly, but knowing that due to his bad eyesight he can never be a pilot. Once grown he heads off to university to become an engineer before getting a job helping to design planes. [Read more…]

Postman Pat: The Movie (DVD Review)

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It’s surprising how many films get made where the moral of the movie is completely contradicted by the film itself, but nobody involved in making it seems to have realised that. And that’s the problem with Postman Pat: The Movie, a film where the central character has to remember to appreciate the small things in life that the original 80s TV show handled so well – where the most pressing issue was a lost sheep – but then sets it within a movie that’s noisy and bombastic, and has little to do with the gentleness of the series it’s based on. [Read more…]

Legends Of Oz: Dorothy’s Return (DVD Review)

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I get the impression that whoever did the casting on Legends Of Oz: Dorothy’s Return must have a fondness for the 1980s. After all bringing in Dan Aykroyd (the Scarecrow), Kelsey Grammer (Tin Man), John Belushi (Lion) and Martin Short (Jester) to play some of the voices can’t be a coincidence.

But that’s by-the-by to this sequel to The Wizard Of Oz, which is pretty much the same as the earlier story but different. Dorothy is just back from Oz when she gets snatched up (by a rainbow this time) and dumped back in the magical country. Once more she needs to get to the Emerald City, this time enlisting the help of an overweight owl, a prissy princess made of bone china, a marshmallow soldier and a talking tree that gets turned into a boat. [Read more…]

Who’s Afraid Of Vagina Wolf? (DVD Review)

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Anna (Anna Margarita Albelo) has just turned 40 and is having a bit of an early midlife crisis. After leaving college she had dreams of finding love and having a glittering filmmaking career, eventually deciding she would sacrifice the former for the latter.

However she’s now finds herself with neither, she’s living in someone’s garage, and she can’t even organise herself enough to put in a grant funding application on time. Her film career – while initially promising – has come down to her dancing around in a vagina costume. [Read more…]

Jayson Bend: Queen & Country (Review)

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Jayson Bend: Queen and Country sees gay super-spy Bend (Davis Brooks) team up with his Swiss counterpart (Tom Read Wilson) to stop the launch of a satellite that will make salon chain owner Raymond Perdood (Paul Norton) the most powerful man in the world.

If that synopsis wasn’t enough the trailer will definitely give you a taste of what’s to come: A joyful peek into a world of gay secret agents, bad guys trying to take over the world and more puns than you could shake your weapon at. [Read more…]

My Straight Son (DVD Review)

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Diego is a photographer in Venezuela, living a nice life where he can go out to clubs and restaurants, and spend time with his doctor boyfriend, Fabrizio. However his life takes an abrupt right turn when his teenage son, Armando, arrives from Spain to visit and quickly realises that his dad is gay – something the young man isn’t that impressed about. Around the same time Fabrizio is beaten into a coma, leaving Diego reeling.

Diego’s friends become an unconventional family while he tries to deal with what happened to his boyfriend and also attempts to reconnect with his son. [Read more…]

Sabotage (Blu-ray Review)

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There’s a tendency that even film reviewers fall into, which is to think that we always treat each individual film on its own merits. However sometimes it’s often not true. There can be a big problem when people go into a movie thinking it’s going to be one thing when actually it’s something else. As a result they judge it against their expectations not against the film itself.

I couldn’t help thinking about that while watching Sabotage, as many of the truly horrendous reviews the film have received are essentially bemoaning the fact they thought they were getting a ‘typical’ Arnie movie. However it’s not that, but the reviews still seem to view it through the lens of 80s Schwarzenegger. [Read more…]

Only Lovers Left Alive (Blu-ray Review)

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Like many Jim Jarmusch movies, Only Lovers Left Alive is the sort of film where one chunk of the audience will be wondering what sort of tedium they’ve just had to sit through and another chunk will be hailing it as a masterpiece. He is as impressively idiosyncratic director and his films determinedly refuse to be boxed. Many have described him as a cinematic poet, and it’s a very good description. What he’s great at is creating mood, feeling and thought, where narrative isn’t the driving force, it’s merely the thread that pulls the fabric together.

Tom Hiddleston is Adam, who’s living in Detroit making music but keen that nobody bothers him. That’s partly because he’s a vampire and hundreds of years old. He’s also depressed and filled with weariness at the direction mankind has taken and how it treats the promise it has, to the point whether he’s wondering if there’s any point living on to see the future. [Read more…]

Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas (DVD Review)

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Drifting in LA, Bruno (Miles Szanto) meets the slightly older Earlene (Ashleigh Summer) and almost in spite of themselves they begin to bond, connecting over the fact they’re both outsiders. After deciding to get away from the City Of Angels, they head off into the desert with plans to get to the bright lights of Las Vegas.

It’s not a straightforward trip though, and along the way they come across a sexually uncertain outlaw, a pair of Scottish former strippers and the inhabitants of a desert ghost town. Although to the outside this collection of huts and ramshackle houses looks like a tenuous community, Bruno begins to feel that he might have finally found a place that is prepared to accept you no matter how atypical you are, while the alcoholic Earlene isn’t as sure she should even be allowed to find a home. [Read more…]