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

Pompeii (DVD Review)

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It becomes clear fairly early on that director Paul W.S. Anderson would like Pompeii to be his Titanic – creating a movie that spends the first half building romance and intrigue before throwing a massive disaster at it, and then hoping the audience will be suitably moved. Indeed there are moments where the parallels become slightly overbearing.

However what Anderson seems to have forgotten is that he’s the director of Alien Vs. Predator, Death Race, The Three Musketeers and Soldier, all of which have had great ambition and plenty of good ideas but got crushed under his rather cack-handed and condescending approach to filmmaking. [Read more…]

Bones – Season 9 (DVD Review)

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Most shows that have made it to Season 9 are long past their prime and are pretty much coasting until the day they get cancelled, while everyone involved makes as much cash as they can in the meantime. However that’s not true for Bones, which is still fun, entertaining and slick, with a great cast and a good mix of crime-solving and humour.

Season 8 left things on a bit of a cliffhanger, with fiendish serial killer Christopher Pelant forcing FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) to break off his engagement to forensic anthropologist Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan (Emily Deschanel), without even allowing him to tell her why. It certainly adds a lot of angst to the early part of the season, although it does become a little annoying and over the top. [Read more…]

Ballet Boys (Cinema Review)

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Back in 2000, Billy Elliott showed us that despite preconceptions, there’s nothing wrong with being a boy who wants to do ballet. However what’s it actually like if you’re a teenage boy who’s devoted themselves to an artform that many consider to be just ‘for girls’?

The Norwegian documentary Ballet Boys tries to find out, following Lukas, Syvert and Torgeir, who are all in the same class together at a ballet school, where they’re the boys amongst a sea of girls. To be honest, while early on the documentary asks questions about why the boys want to do ballet, it quickly realises there’s no better reason than ‘why not?’ After all like anything else, once you realise you have a talent, it’s no surprise you’d want to pursue it. However there are undoubtedly reasons to stop, not least the time, passion and dedication needed, especially knowing that there are no guarantees of a successful dancing career at the end of it. [Read more…]

Concussion (DVD Review)

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A film about a lesbian who decides to become an escort and then sleep with a variety of woman may sound like a sleazy straight-man’s wet dream, but Stacie Passon’s Concussion is actually a far rarer beast – a movie that takes women and their sexuality seriously as its central subject.

Abby (Robin Wiegert) is a women living what ought to be the perfect modern gay life, with a wife, beautiful children, a home in the suburbs and plenty of friends. However like many others Abby’s found the reality of suburbia isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be, especially as the life has gone out of parts of her relationship. [Read more…]

Frank (DVD Review)

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Michael Fassbender is a top actor who can have his choice of roles, so it initially seemed bizarre that he wanted to make a movie where he spends the vast majority of the runtime with a giant papier-mâché head covering his face. However as I watched more of the movie, I began to realise what an interesting role it must have seemed from his perspective.

For a start it means he has to create a performance and a character with just his body and voice, something he does an extremely good job of. It’s also gives him a chance to play a surprisingly interesting person as it begins to reveal more and more about the man inside the head. [Read more…]

Pride (2014) (Cinema Review)

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Pride opens at the London Gay Rights March in 1984, with openly gay men and women walking down the street with banners protesting their rights to love who they want. They’re suddenly joined by a young, fresh faced Joe (George MacKay), who’s quickly nicknamed Bromley, who nervously joins them in their crusade for equal rights.

There he meets Mark (Ben Schnetzer), a man who’s always keen to support a cause. Mark has the brainwave that the miners, who are striking and facing massive oppression from the government, have many goals that mirror those of LGBT. He decides that they should start fundraising for the miners, and to do it out and proud as the newly formed group, LGSM (Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners). [Read more…]

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (Blu-ray Review)

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In the 80s and early-90s, the world of film had a great sideline in female-focussed movies that traded in sentiment, nostalgia and emotion. They were heart-warming and charming and many of them became major successes (Fried Green Tomatoes cost $11 million to make but grossed more than $80 million in the US alone back in 1991). They don’t seem to make that sort of film much anymore. Indeed they don’t seem to make that many major female-focussed movie at all that aren’t rom-coms or potential Oscar bait.

It’s a great pity as these sorts of film can be excellent and Fried Green Tomatoes is a wonderful example – even if there are some reservations. [Read more…]

Victim (1961) (Blu-ray Review)

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Although Victim wasn’t the first LGBT-themed movie ever made (underground efforts and plenty of films that dealt with it through allegory came first) it still holds a special place in the history of gay cinema. For a start it’s believed to be the first mainstream English-language movie to use the word ‘homosexual’, as well as the first to explicitly make gay men (including the main character) its main subject and to show them in a sympathetic light.

It came at a time in Britain when there was a fair amount of debate over homosexuality (or at least more than there’d ever been before). In 1957 the Wolfenden Report – a commission set up to look at the laws surrounding homosexuality in the wake of a series of prosecutions against high-profile  people purely for having engaged in gay sex – recommended that “homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence”. This wasn’t just because they thought that prosecuting people for what they do in the privacy of their own homes was pointless, but because there was a large problem with gay people being blackmailed over their sexuality. Some estimates say up to 90% of blackmail cases at the time involved homosexuality in one way or another. [Read more…]

A Man, His Mother And His Lover (DVD Review)

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Lorenz (Fabian Krüger) is a successful writer who’s made a name with his gay-themed literature. He’s called back from Berlin to his small Swiss hometown after his mother, Rosie (Sibylle Brunner), has a stroke. While she’s determined to get back to normal, with her health declining and her refusal to stop drinking too much, she may have to go into a home.

While dealing with Rosie, Lorenz also bumps into Mario (Sebastian Ledesman), a young man he knew when he was a kid but who is now all grown up and gay himself. Mario seems interested in Lorenz, but after spending the night together Lorenz starts to push Mario away, even if he isn’t sure himself why he’s so intent on backing away from this possible romance. [Read more…]

Transcendence (Blu-ray Review)

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It’s always a shame when a movie that wants to be a genuinely intelligent slice of a-list entertainment fails. If one succeeds, Hollywood always treats it like a fluke, but if it bombs they point at it as proof that all that audiences want are big, dumb fireworks. What’s a particular pity with Transcendence is that it would probably have been better as a slightly smaller film.

Johnny Depp plays Will Caster, a scientist working on artificial intelligence who believes he’s close to creating a machine that will vastly outstrip any human intellect there’s ever been. However as there always is in this type of film, a group of terrorist-type people don’t believe in this type of machine and launch a series of attacks on facilities working on AI systems. That includes shooting Will with a bullet that doesn’t initially kill him, but is poisoned with a radioactive isotope that will cause him to die over the course of a few weeks. [Read more…]