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

How To Survive A Plague (Cinema)

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I was alive during the early days of the AIDS epidemic but was too young to really understand what was going on. It’s always shocking to see something like How To Survive A Plague, about events that took place while I was around but which seem so far from a world where gay people are increasingly being allowed to get married. Sure there are still problems but it’s incredible that just 20-30 years ago politicians were happy to allow millions around the world to die, just because they didn’t want to be seen to doing anything that might help gay people. [Read more…]

Gravity (Cinema)

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Gravity comes to the UK having taken an impressive $200+M dollars at the US box office on a budget estimated at only $100M. So why has this movie been such a huge success, rocketing its way to the the big box office earners of 2013?

Gravity has great pedigree of talent, namely Oscar winners Sandra Bullock (Ryan Stone), George Clooney (Matt Kowalski) and Ed Harris (the voice of Mission control) as well as its Oscar nominated director, Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children Of Men). [Read more…]

Philomena (Cinema)

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Peter Mullan’s 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters was a howl of outrage at the Catholic Church in Ireland; a coruscating, raw drama about the abuse of young girls basically held prisoner by sadistic nuns after falling pregnant.

Stephen Freers’ Philomena has basically the same theme but is, by comparison, a gentle, warm story, which seems too timid to unveil the same power as Mullan’s film. Dench and Coogan have rightly garnered strong reviews for their performances, but the film’s script seems too scared of going for the emotional knockout punch, despite the real power of the story. [Read more…]

Chasing Mavericks (Blu-ray)

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Chasing Mavericks is a biopic of surfer Jay Moriarty, following his teenage years when he went from keen amateur so surfing some of the biggest waves in the world. Jay (Jonny Weston) is a little bit of a misfits and often pushed around by the other kids. However he loves to surf and discovers that just up the coast from his Californian home are some truly monster waves. [Read more…]

Wentworth Prison – Season 1 (DVD)

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There’s no doubt that Prisoner Cell Block H (originally just called Prisoner and known as Caged Women in Canada) is an Aussie camp classic series. With its wobbly sets, OTT plots, women calling each other ‘slaaaaags’, evil prison warders and villains with upturned collars, it gained fans around the globe who loved its women’s prison antics, but also appreciated that it was a show that really cared about its characters. [Read more…]

I Do (DVD)

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Often when a film decides it wants to take on an ‘issue’, it’s painful to watch. The story get twisted and hammered in order to serve the exploration of the problem, so that it feels more like a heavy-handed lecture than a movie. I Do however manages bring in all sorts of points and ideas about how lack of LGBT equality in the US has effected bi-national couples, and yet makes it feel organic and simply as if it’s telling the truth about the characters. That’s perhaps even more impressive as it’s the first feature script of David W. Ross, who also plays the lead role (and is, incidentally, a former member of 90s British boyband, Bad Boys Inc.). [Read more…]

Five Dances (DVD)

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I had a film studies teacher at university who insisted that Michelle Pfeiffer taking off a glove in Martin Scorsese’s The Age Of Innocence was the sexiest moment in cinema. At the time I assumed this must be someone who’d only heard about having sex the previous Tuesday and therefore couldn’t actually tell what was sexy (or who had some sort of major glove fetish). However Five Dances makes a good argument that watching dance on screen can be a lot sexier than most movie sex scenes (even though the film also has a decent one of those). [Read more…]

Triple Crossed (DVD)

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Once upon a time Sean Paul Lockhart was Brent Corrigan, who got a massive following in gay porn due to his cute boy-next-door face and the fact that what he has between his legs was able to generate fans of its own. However he gave up porn several years ago and has become an actor, appearing in several gay-themed movies. Now he’s moved behind the camera with Triple Crossed, as well as giving himself a plum co-lead role. [Read more…]

Thor: The Dark World (Cinema)

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Thor – The Dark World is the 8th installment set in the Marvel’s Interconnected Universe, and this time the franchise has a new director, Alan Taylor, taking over from Kenneth Branagh, who did such a great job introducing Thor to the cinematic world.

So what do we need to know about Thor: The Dark World? Well, it delivers much the same as the original Thor – there are intergalactic baddies (Elves lead by Malekith – played by Christopher Ecclestone) trying to kill the residents of Asgard as well as the other nine realms. There are amazing backdrops to set the battles in, there are ridiculously over the top costumes, and massive body counts, rippling muscle and a good thread of humour running through the film. [Read more…]

The Bling Ring (DVD)

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Based on a true story, The Bling Ring follows a group of LA teens who in 2008 and 2009 became notorious for robbing the houses of celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Audrina Partridge, Lindsey Lohan and Orlando Bloom. Marc (Israel Broussard) is a lonely young man (who’s also gay, but the film doesn’t really deal with that) who finally feels connected when he meets Rebecca (Katie Chang). She gets him involved in petty crime, which eventually grows until they break into Paris Hilton’s place. [Read more…]