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 Wolf Of Wall Street (Cinema)

By 2 Comments

We’ve had Wall Street, Boiler Room, Margin Call and, God help us all, Wall Street 2. Now we get Martin Scorsese’s take on the 1990s decade of excess, in which a tiny number of people got very rich by ripping off ordinary people by selling worthless junk bonds.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort is, theoretically, a hugely conflicted and interesting character. As he admits, he’s not a Harvard type, merely an ordinary Joe driven to making his millions, initially hit by starting his first day at work on Black Monday – which turns out to be his last. Undeterred he takes a job at a rundown Long Island firm, selling junk bonds over the phone and making cash fast thanks to his winning charm. [Read more…]

Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves (Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar) (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

While there’s a tendency in English-speaking countries to only ever consider how certain events affected us, of course they often affect other places too. That’s very true of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Most documentaries and films tend to concentrate on what happened in the US, but the three-part mini-series Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves takes us to Stockholm, Sweden in the early 80s. [Read more…]

The Frozen Ground (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

Back in 1997 John Cusack was busy trying to track down Nicolas Cage in Con Air. Now the roles have been reversed in The Frozen Ground. Based on a true story, Cage is Alaska State Trooper Jack Holcombe, who believes a serial killer is on the loose after several bodies are found in the wilderness. He even believes he knows exactly who it is after one of the victims, Cindy Paulson (Vanessa Hudgens), escapes and says she was held captive by Robert Hansen (Cusack). [Read more…]

Kelly + Victor (DVD)

By 1 Comment

20-somethings Kelly and Victor are living rather dead-end lives in Liverpool when they meet at a club one night. They head back to her place, take a few drugs and end up having incredibly passionate sex. This starts a relationship between the two that  gets increasingly intense as they introduce autoerotic asphyxiation, a little S&M and cutting into their sexual encounters.

The film comes to DVD fresh from garnering a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Kieran Evans. Coming from the world of documentaries Evans shows a lot of promise with Kelly + Victor, although it would probably help if he could be a little less precious about things. [Read more…]

Truth (US Cinema)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date: ,

Caleb (Sean Paul Lockhart) is a young man trying to put a very difficult upbringing behind him. His mother spent his childhood abusing him and calling him a ‘pussy’ and ‘fag’, before she abandoned him and ended up being institutionalised due to her mental health issues.

Caleb meets Jeremy (Rob Moretti) on the internet, and despite his uncertainty, the two have soon fallen head over heels for one another. Caleb is reluctant to trust anyone, feeling everyone he’s ever cared about has ended up abandoning him, but slowly he allows Jeremy in, who is keen to tell Caleb he will always be there for him. However when Caleb discovers Jeremy has been keeping major secrets, things soon unravel in very dangerous ways – indeed we know from very early on in the movie that Caleb has been locked up and something very serious has happened between him and Jeremy. [Read more…]

Exposed: Beyond Burlesque (Cinema)

By 1 Comment

Starring: , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

In recent years the likes of Dita Von Teese have helped to bring the world of burlesque back into the public consciousness. However Exposed: Beyond Burlesque is here to show that this world goes far beyond slightly kitsch striptease with a sprinkling of feminism on the top. The documentary follows several performers who don’t fit into simple boxes, showing how burlesque can be used to challenge perceptions of things such as gender and disability. [Read more…]

Lovelace (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

How do you make a true-tale movie where the facts are in dispute? Well, you either pretend they’re not in dispute, or you try to find a way to suggest you don’t fully know what happened. Or, like Lovelace, you try to do both and trip over yourself in the process.

The film is a biopic of Linda Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried), the star of 70s porn chic hit Deep Throat, which by some reckonings is the most profitable movies ever made on the basis of budget versus its gross – however as much of the cash went through mob-controlled porn theatres, it’s impossible to know how much it actually made. [Read more…]

Big Ass Spider (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

I’m starting to get the impression that with these over-sized monster films, there’s a single script that Hollywood passes around, which is then given a quick polish to give a new location and add in whatever the creature is. Often that results in a pretty rubbish movie, but Big Ass Spider is actually quite fun and has a good sense of humour, even if it has exactly the same plot as 1000s of other films of its ilk.

Greg Grunberg (Heroes) plays Alex, an exterminator who has a bit of a problem on the job and ends up in hospital. At the same time a body enters the morgue that has an over-sized spider hiding inside it. Soon the spider is out and causing havoc, so Alex suggests that in return for the hospital paying his medical bills, he’ll hunt the creature down. [Read more…]

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Cinema)

By Leave a Comment

Starring: , , , ,
Director:
Running Time:
Certificate:
Release Date:

There’s one thing to be said of Ben Stiller’s reimagining of famous daydreamer Mitty – he certainly captures the mood of the times. Mitty works at Life magazine, which is going digital, and most of the staff are being laid off. The ‘digital takeover’ is being handled by Ted (a gloriously oily Adam Scott) and there are many scenes of upset worker carrying brown boxes containing their meagre possessions out of the building, security guard in tow. [Read more…]

We’re The Millers – Extended Cut (DVD)

By Leave a Comment

I’m not sure when it was that Hollywood decided that it would be best if all comedies were about people who are essentially assholes, but it certainly seems to be the trend. Often it completely ruins the film as it’s difficult to care about unpleasant people being horrible to one another, even if by the end they learn not to be such big assholes. At the beginning of We’re The Millers I was worried that would be the problem here, but almost to my surprise it began to win me over. [Read more…]