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

Animals (LLGFF Review)

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Animals follows teenager Pol as he tries to make sense of the confusing world around him. Sexual orientation, a pressure to fit in, and family expectations all seek to complicate his struggle to come to terms with adolescence. Fortunately for Pol, he is not alone, facing life with his imaginary friend ‘Deerhoof’, a teddy-bear who is very much alive. As a girl at school goes missing, Pol’s infatuation with the new boy, Ikara, takes a dark turn and he takes extreme measures to leave behind childish fantasies and find himself. [Read more…]

End Of Watch (Blu-ray)

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David Ayer has made a career writing and/or directing movies about gangs and the police, such as Training Day, S.W.A.T, Street Kings, Harsh Times and now End Of Watch. The movie is an attempt to bring a bit of mockumentary-style realism to the cop flick, although as viewers will soon realise, it’s actually a mix of mockumentary and extreme shaky cam (either that or Jake Gyllenhaal’s character doesn’t mind getting a friend to videotape him having sex with Anna Kendrick). [Read more…]

My Brother The Devil (DVD)

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I often find it difficult to work out my feelings about the seemingly endless parade of British urban dramas. To me these supposedly gritty, realistic looks at urban youth are often rather unconvincing. They seem like a fantasy based on reality – a version of inner city life that’s been mashed through gangster film cliché and social realist poverty porn to create something that’s miserable enough that people think it feel true, even though it isn’t. However I’m also aware that growing up on a farm limits my knowledge of the realities of destitute, gangland, housing estate life. [Read more…]

K-11 (Cinema) (US Release)

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When K-11 was in development, there was talk of Twilight stars Kristen Stewart and Nikki Reed starring in the movie. However they left the film behind, but we’re still left with a pretty good cast including Goran Visnjic, Kate Del Castillo, Portia Doubleday, D.B. Sweeney, Jason Mewes and Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister.

The film follows Visnjic’s Raymond Saxx Jr., who wakes up after a heavy night of drink and drugs locked up in K-11. He can’t remember how he got there and doesn’t really know where he is, initially thinking he’s in some sort of institution, as he seems to presume that’s the sort of place that would be full of drug-dealing homosexuals and transsexuals. [Read more…]

V For Vendetta (2007)

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Too often, gay characters and storylines are relegated to comedies and dramas only – trying to think of a 3Dimensional LGBT character in a western, horror or sci-fi is a difficult exercise for most audiences. This does however make it all the more poignant when a character does appear outside of their heteronormative genre. [Read more…]

But I’m A Cheerleader (1999)

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There is nothing that seems so strange and insidious to British viewers of American culture as summer camps.  They are a phenomenon that would not be tolerated by British youth – yet the Americans seem to love them and they are commonly seen in American films and television.

But I’m a Cheerleader tells the story of Megan (Natasha Lyonne), a naïve teenager who is sent to a gay rehabilitation camp due to her seemingly deviant behavior – the joke being that she thinks that due to her being a cheerleader, she can’t be anything but ‘normal’.  However her friends and family all read the signs and decide that she’s a lesbian who needs help to be straightened out. [Read more…]

Rope (1948)

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Seeing as Hollywood operated under a strict moral code in the 1940s, it is no surprise that Hitchcock’s Roper isn’t an overt gay movie. Having said that though, it is undeniable that it can be watched and enjoyed by modern audiences as a movie that features two men who live together and treat each other very intimately… [Read more…]

Comedown (DVD)

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For a long time it seemed the only mainstream movies Britain ever made were rom-coms and gangster movies. In the last couple of years we’ve added urban thrillers to the mix, which have increasingly tended towards the horror end of the spectrum.

Comedown fits squarely in that bracket. Lloyd (Jacob Anderson) is fresh out of prison and his determination to go straight doesn’t last too long when he teams up with a group of other young people to set up a pirate radio station aerial on a deserted tower block. However the block isn’t as deserted as it appears. [Read more…]

Gayby (DVD)

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In the modern world there are all sorts of non-traditional families. Gayby takes a look at what happens when a straight woman and her gay best friend decide to have a baby together.

Jenn (Jenn Harris) and Matt (Matthew Wilkas) have been friends for years. In their youth they made a pact that if it hadn’t happened for either of them, they’d have a child together. Now in their 30s and with both of them single, Jenn decides to hold Matt to his promise. Keen to have a child of his own, he agrees. However there is one proviso – Jenn wants to have conceive the natural way, without turkey basters or any other equipment than what Matt has attached to him already. [Read more…]

Oz The Great And Powerful (Cinema)

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After much fanfare and a marketing blitz, Oz The Great And Powerful is finally here. So is it worth going down the yellow brick road on Sam Raimi’s trip to L. Frank Baum’s magical world? Are the Friends Of Oscar as good as the Friends Of Dorothy? The answer is yes, even if the film is far from perfect.

James Franco is Oscar Diggs, a Kansan sideshow magician and huckster who sells his illusions as real magic. He has an eye for the ladies and doesn’t care that’s he’s left a thousand broken hearts behind him, but things catch up to him when the circus strongman realises Oscar has been dallying with his gal. Oscar escapes in his hot air balloon (goodness knows why he was one, but he does), which then gets caught up in a twister and transports him all the way to Oz. [Read more…]