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 Book Thief (Blu-ray Review)

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, while an awful lot of films have been made about the Second World War, not that many have looked at the German side from a sympathetic perspective. However millions of ordinary people had to live under Nazi rule whether they agreed with Hitler’s policies or not, and while a lot purely submitted to the evil whims of the regime, others did what they could to oppose.

The Book Thief, based on Marcus Zusak’s novel, takes us back to this time and the life of young Liesel (Sophie Elisse), who is separated from her communist mother and sent to live with an ordinary couple, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and the stern Rosa (Emily Watson). Initially she is illiterate and despite the difficult situation she has come from, relatively oblivious to the world around her. [Read more…]

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Blu-ray Review)

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I should probably start off by saying I’m generally not a great fan of director Wes Anderson. I’ve found most of his films far too pleased with themselves and so obsessed with their own quirkiness that it actually got in the way of the film rather than enhancing it.

That said, The Grand Budapest Hotel is the first Anderson movie I’ve enjoyed from end to end since the director’s debut, Bottle Rocket. Previously Anderson’s idiosyncratic style has leaned towards farce while pretending it was something else. With his last film, Moonrise Kingdom he went full farce for large chunks of the film, and they were undoubtedly the best bits. [Read more…]

Hawaii (DVD Review)

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Marco Berger has made a bit of a name for himself in the indie queer cinema world with the likes of Plan B and the Berlin Golden Teddy Award winning Absent. He also directed half of the shorts that made up the collection Sexual Tension: Volatile. Each of those shorts featured two guys negotiating the edge of attraction as it perhaps built towards a sexual release.

In many respects Hawaii takes the idea behind that anthology and expands it into a feature-length movie. [Read more…]

Getting Go: The Go Doc Project (DVD Review)

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After Were The World Mine, many hoped we’d see more of the talented Tanner Cohen. However, except for brief appearances in the likes of Looking, he’s mainly been busy off-screen (as he let us know, he’s been writing novels). Now he’s back in Getting Go.

The film follows Doc (Cohen), who decides to combine his fascination with a New York go-go boy and his filmmaking aspirations by making a documentary about the sexy dancer. Having watched him for weeks and secretly photoshopped pictures of him, Doc approaches Go (Matthew Camp) with his filmmaking idea. To his surprise, Go agrees to be the subject of the documentary and they start making the film. [Read more…]

Chinese Puzzle (Cinema Review)

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After Pot Luck and Russian Dolls comes the third part in Cedric Klapish’s light comedy of modern life and romance. The setting is different again, now we are in New York (after Barcelona and St Petersburg), but the characters are the same – older, not much wiser and terrified of approaching the dreaded 40.

Romain Duris and Kelly Reilly, the apparently golden couple, have split. She has met a bland millionaire in New York and leaves him, taking their two young kids with them. Devastated, he follows, determined to keep in touch with his offspring but with little prospects. He does have some help though, in the form of Cecile de France, his lesbian pal who he has helped get pregnant, and who is living in Brooklyn with her partner. He also has a flying visit from Audrey Tatou, who is determined to throw aside her stuffy past and become a go-getter, and has a business meeting in Manhattan with a Chinese company to broker a huge deal. [Read more…]

In Bloom (DVD Review)

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In Bloom has been compared to the Brit gay hit Weekend, and while the former isn’t quite as good as the latter, you can understand why those comparisons have been made.

The film charts the relationship between Kurt (Kyle Wigent) and Paul (Tanner Rittenhouse) over the course of one summer. Initially the couple are deeply in love, but quickly the cracks begin to show.  Kurt is happy living in Chicago but wants to be able to spend his life dealing pot, smoking joints and to have at least some sense of freedom. Paul meanwhile isn’t that interested in the drug scene or partying (and isn’t very good at it), but he does want to see more of the world than Chicago, even if he’d prefer to do it with him and Kurt as a tight-knit unit. [Read more…]

My Last Round (DVD Review)

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Hugo (Héctor Morales) is a young man living in a small community in the south of Chile. He becomes fascinated by the slightly older boxer, Octavio (Roberto Farías), but when the middle-aged man makes a move on him, he’s initially unsure what to do. However soon they embark on a passionate affair, which due to where they live needs to remain completely secret.

After Octavio is told he cannot fight anymore and Hugo loses a job, moving to the big city seems to offer new possibilities for both them and their relationship. However they soon discover that while the new start offers them plenty of opportunities, they can’t completely leave all their problems behind, and the city may cause some new ones. That’s not least because Hugo is given the chance to be someone completely new, while Octavio has had to leave behind the one thing he was truly good at, boxing. [Read more…]

True Detective (Blu-ray Review)

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HBO has certainly got itself a reputation in the last few years for bringing the big screen onto the small screen, whether it’s with films like Behind The Candelabra and The Normal Heart or by getting big name stars to appear in its TV series. With True Detective they lured in Matthew McConaughey (just before he was going to win an Oscar) and Woody Harrelson, as well as Jane Eyre director Cary Fukunaga, for what the makers have describes as an eight-part cinematic experience.

Although that might sound rather hyperbolic, this time it pretty much lives up to the hype, even if it isn’t the total masterpiece some have suggested. [Read more…]

RoboCop (2014) (DVD Review)

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Unlike some movies, there was no real reason not to remake Robocop. Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original is a great movie, but it leaves plenty of room for reinvention in the 21st Century. Indeed it’s probably why when MGM started digging around in their back catalogue for film to do-over, RoboCop was near the top of the list.

Although it took several years to actually get it done, the results are now here with Jose Padilha (Elite Squad) directing and Joel Kinnaman in the title role. [Read more…]

CSI – Season 13 (DVD Review)

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It’s often difficult for a show to survive the loss of its lead characters. 13 seasons in CSI has lost its male lead twice (William Petersen and then Laurence Fishburne) as well as its female lead (Marg Helgenberg). That’s not too surprising for a show that’s been going this long, but it is surprising that with Ted Danson and Elisabeth Shue it feels as if things have been given a bit of a second wind, and that the going-through-the-motions of the previous few seasons has been replaced by a bit of a revitalisation. [Read more…]