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

Micky Flanagan – Back In The Game (DVD)

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When I’ve seen Micky Flanagan in short bursts on stand-up and panel TV shows, I’ve found him quite amusing, but I’m not 100% about his gig here. It’s not that it’s bad, but I can’t work out if he’s rather overplaying his cheeky chappie Cock-er-nee geezer persona, or if I’m just too hideously middle-class to fully appreciate it. [Read more…]

Ross Noble – Mindblender (DVD)

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Ross Noble is a bizarre human being, but in a good way. Most comics have a stand-up set that’s all fully worked out beforehand, and it’ll be pretty much the same every night of their tour, with perhaps a bit of spontaneous audience interaction. However with Ross you get the impression he has about five minutes of prepared comedy and the rest is made up on the spot. That’s been shown on many of his DVD releases, as they’ve included several gigs from the same tour, with virtually none of it being the same material. [Read more…]

Snails In The Rain (UK Jewish Film Festival Review)

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A lot of people say that Israel is one of the best places to be gay and that Tel Aviv is one of the freest, most welcoming places for LGBT people, with a vibrant and open gay culture. However if the gay-themed films coming out of Israel are anything to go by, there’s still a lot of challenges for LGBT people in the country.

Snails In The Rain is one of several Israeli movies made over the past few years looking at the difficulty for closeted men who are struggling with the fact the life they’re living doesn’t match the way they feel inside. Interestingly a lot of these movies also juxtapose the men’s lives now with their experiences when they were in the military (which is compulsory for all young Israelis). You can understand why this is, as being in the army is almost the apogee of masculinity in society’s eyes and yet for many people it will be where they first express their same sex feelings. [Read more…]

Geography Club (US Cinema/VoD)

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Based on Brent Hartinger’s popular book, Geography Club follows high school student Russell (Cameron Deane Stewart), who’s just figuring out his sexuality but not ready to tell the world about it yet. He’s also involved in a fledgling relationship with star quarterback Kevin (Justin Deeley), although the sportsman is absolutely determined nobody will find out about it.

Russell ends up getting involved with the new Geography Club, which has nothing to do with geography. It’s actually just a boring name to stop anyone bothering them, as it’s really a secret club for LGBT teens to talk about their problems and connect. However their secrets may be difficult to keep and they may have to face whether they want to come out in the open. [Read more…]

Alan Davies: Life Is Pain (DVD)

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Much of the audience approaching this know of Alan Davies through his regular appearances on QI, in which he consistently outshines many touring comedians with his lovable quirkiness and child-like charm. Others might remember him solving creepy mysteries in Jonathan Creek. Few people know him for his stand-up comedy – partly as he hasn’t done any for quite a few years – but now he’s back to his roots with his new show, Life is Pain. [Read more…]

A Magnificent Haunting (DVD)

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Pietro is a rather obsessive, anal man, who moves to Rome in hope of finding work of an actor, and which will also allow him to be closer to a man he’s been in contact with. Before then he’s going to work in a bakery while living in a rather rundown apartment.

Shortly after moving in he discovers he’s not the only tenant, as the house is full of ghosts dressed in 1940s clothes. Initially Pietro can’t understand what’s going on, but soon comes to realise these are people who were once part of a World War II era theatre group, but who don’t realise they’re dead. He wants them out, as well as for them to stop moving his things around, but eventually he finds a way to live with them. As he finds out more about them it begins to change his life, even though his growing relationship with the spooks has others wondering about his sanity. [Read more…]

Monster Pies (DVD)

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Mike is an Aussie teenager who’s long felt alienated and a little alone. Things begin to change for him with the arrival of new boy William. They’re teamed up on a school project where they have to explore Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. They decide to do it by making a film about Frankenstein’s monster and the wolf man, which they (perhaps surprisingly) find fits well into the themes of the play. [Read more…]

The Great Gatsby (DVD)

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When it was first announced that Warner Bros. was making a $100+ million version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, many wondered why on earth they would spend so much on a literary adaptation – which aren’t traditionally massive box office successes – even if it was directed by Baz Luhrmann. There was some logic to it though. First is that Luhrmann has had huge success taking the historical and turning it into profitable spectacle with the likes of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge. Secondly it attracted big names like Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. [Read more…]

The Internship (DVD)

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Billy (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) are salesmen whose lives are going exactly nowhere, as their youthful dreams have been crushed by the modern world. Then Billy hears about the Google Intern programme, which promises a lucky few a job at what many consider to be the best place to work in the world. Against all odds they get on the programme and find themselves surrounded by youngsters who know far more about technology than Billy and Nick (who know the grand total of nothing), but most of whom severely lack social skills. [Read more…]

Pacific Rim (Blu-ray)

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There’s a saying in Hollywood that if a film is bad critics blame the screenwriter, but if it’s good, it’s the director who gets the credit. There’s a certain amount of truth in that, and it’s something that would be easy to do with Pacific Rim. The action scenes are terrific, it looks amazing and the world building is impressive, but the characters feel a bit like action figures.

The problem is that the film tries to create archetypes more than people – the hero with something to overcome, the damaged love interest, the grizzled commander, the arrogant  colleague who’s convinced the hero with fail. It’s a common tactic with big tentpole films, and writers Guillermo Del Toro and Travis Beachman have certainly been thumbing through their copies of Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces to try and understand the archetypes they need to fulfil the hero’s journey – from being reluctantly called to action, to a flirtation with resurrection – however the result is characters that don’t feel quite real. [Read more…]