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

Whitney: Can I Be Me (DVD Review) – Love, drugs, sexuality & a singing legend

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There is no doubt that Whitney Houston had a truly incredible voice. Indeed, she’s a strong contender for being the great popular singer of the 20th Century. However, the last few years of her life and her tragic death have rather overshadowed that talent. The documentary, Whitney ‘Can I Be Me’, is partly an attempt to find some balance, putting the drugs and career problems in the context of her wider life and family.

To many the most interesting aspect of the documentary will be how it presents one of the key aspects of Whitney’s life as a relationship with a woman. It presents us with what is essentially a love triangle between Houston, her long-time friend Robyn Crawford and her husband, Bobby Brown. The film tries to confirm the rumours that Crawford and Houston were once together in a relationship, and indeed many of those close to her believe they were indeed once in love and are happy to say so in interviews. Although it cannot 100% confirm they were lovers, they were certainly closer than most friends, even after Houston had married Brown. [Read more…]

Win The Acclaimed Gay-Themed British Drama Against The Law!

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Broadcast as part of BBC 2’s Gay Britannia season that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which partially decriminalised gay sex in England and Wales, Against The Law is a powerfully emotive factual drama of the court case that led to a review of laws regarding to homosexuality. The film is available on DVD in the UK from 11th September 2017, courtesy of Network Distributing, and we’ve got three copies to give away.

Set in the 1950s, journalist Peter Wildeblood (Daniel Mays) meets RAF corporal Peter McNally (Richard Gadd) and they begin a love affair at a time when being gay is against the law. This lead to to Wildeblood being arrested and put on trial alongside his two friends Lord Montagu and Michael Pitte-Rivers to be given a prison sentence. His release coincides with the setting up of the Wolfenden commission set up to consider amending existing laws ion homosexuality. His testimony contributed to the eventual change in the law in 1967. Against The Law also includes eyewitness accounts from gay men offering poignant reminders of the emotional, mental challenges as well as continual abuse and hostility that homosexuals experienced before 1967.

For your chance to win Against The Law on DVD, answer the question below and fill in your details, then press submit! The competition closes on September 24th, 2017, so get answering and good luck. [Read more…]

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Gay Short Film Showcase: Shower – Homoerotic tension mounts in a locker room with chilling results (NSFW)

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Henry K. Norvalls’ Shower had a great run at film festivals a couple of years ago, and now that it’s been released online, it’s very quickly been chosen of as one of Vimeo’s showcase Staff Picks. You can see why, as the gay-themed short manages to be sexy, unnerving, full of possibility and also a little chilling.

It doesn’t hurt either that the film’s two stars, Svend Erichsen and Per Magnus Barlaug, are completely naked for the whole thing.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘A man enters the shower after working out, but is soon side tracked by an unidentified noise. He decides to seek out the source and enters a situation that leaves him completely exposed.’

Take a look at Shower below. If you know a short film we ought to be posting, tell us by getting in touch via our contact page. And check out more gay short films and web series here. [Read more…]

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Benedict Cumberbatch To Star In A Gay-Themed ‘Gypsy Boy’ Fighting Tale

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If Benedict Cumberbath was going to star in a movie about fighting, you’d expect it to be of the rather posh, Marquess Of Queenberry boxing type. However, he’s going more working/under class, as Screen Daily reports he’s signed on to star in Gypsy Boy, based on Mikey Walsh’s best-selling memoirs.

The film is ‘set among the Romany Gypsy community and follows the Walsh family, who were known for their considerable prowess in the Gypsy boxing ring. Cumberbatch will play Mikey’s father Frank Walsh, who pressures his son (who is gay) to maintain the family’s bare-knuckle boxing tradition. As he grows into his teens, Mikey is forced to make an agonising decision – to stay and keep fighting and face the shame head on, or escape and never return.’

Cumberbatch comments, “I was immediately drawn to Mikey’s courageous and heart-breaking story. And his father Frank is unlike any character I’ve played before. He’s a complex man torn between tradition and his love for a son struggling to come to terms with an identity that’s completely at odds with Frank and his culture. It’s a tension that threatens to tear everyone in their family and that community apart.”

Walsh has since become a LGBT activist, although as hesuffers from social anxiety disorder he rarely makes public appearances.

Morgan Matthews (X+Y) will direct the film, and he’s currently in the middle of casting the role of Mikey. BBC Films is backing the movie, which will be looking for buyers at the Toronto International Film Festival. The current plan is to shoot Gypsy Boy next summer.

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Thelma Trailer – The lesbian-themed supernatural film is Norway Best Foreign-Language Oscar submission

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Every year country’s around the world have to decide which movie to submit as their entry for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, as each nation is only allowed one film to be in competition. Norway has already announced that their entry for this year is Thelma, which has been getting good notices at film festivals, and is due for release in the US in November.

The very brief synopsis simply says, ‘A Norwegian student, Thelma, moves to Oslo where she falls in love. She soon discovers that she has inexplicable powers.’ What that doesn’t mention is that Thelma falls in love with a woman, and that she’s gone to a religious college. As she becomes erotically awakened, she begins to have strange seizures, which may be a sign of something more inexplicable.

Take a look at the trailer below. [Read more…]

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Billy Magnussen Joins Disney’s Live-Action Aladdin As Will Smith Posts The First Photo From The Set

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Disney’s live-action take on Aladdin is kicking off with Will Smith posting the first picture from the set of the movie, alongside Mena Massoud (Aladdin), Naomi Scott (Jasmine) and Marwan Kenzari (Jafar). Filminh has begun at Longcross Studios outside London, with Guy Ritchie directing.

We also know the movie is going to have a few differences from the animated classic, not least that Bridge Of Spies and Broadway star Billy Magnussen has signed up for the movie. He’ll be playing a brand new character called Prince Anders, who’s described as ‘a suitor from Skanland and potential husband for Princess Jasmine’. Also in the movie are Navid Negahban (Homeland) as the Sultan, the ruler of Agrabah who is eager to find a proper husband for his daughter, Jasmine; Nasim Pedrad (Saturday Night Live) as Dalia, Princess Jasmine’s hand maiden and confidante; and Numan Acar (Homeland) as Hakim, Jafar’s right-hand man and head of the palace guards.

No release date has been officially set, although many expect it to arrive in early 2019.

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Will Thor: Ragnarok Have The First Gay Character In A Marvel Movie?

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There’s a chance – and it’s just a chance at the moment – that after many people complaining that Marvel’s cinematic universe has been exclusively straight, we may be getting the first openly LGBT Marvel film character in the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok. It’s just speculation at the moment, but the recent trailer, which featured he chracter Korg, makes it a distinct possibility.

The movie is partly inspired by the Planet Hulk series of comics, with the big green one taken from Earth and ending up doing battle with the also imprisoned Thor on the planet in Sakaar. In the mid-2000s comics, it was revealed that Hiroim and Korg, part of a group of intergalactic warriors called the Warbound, are in a same sex relationship.

While Korg will be in the movie, it’s not known at the moment whether his sexuality will be acknowledged in any way, or whether Hiroim will also feature (we’re presuming they won’t make him straight). Either way, the best we can expect is something very brief, but hopefully it’ll be a step in the right direction.

And while we’re talking Thor: Ragnarok, take a look at a new set of character posters below. [Read more…]

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Armie Hammer Joins Ruth Bader Ginsberg Biopic, On The Basis Of Sex

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A few weeks ago it was revealed that Felicity Jones had signed on to play Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the biopic On the Basis of Sex, based on Daniel Stiepleman’s Black List script. Now she has some company, as Deadline reports Armie Hammer is also set to be part of the movie.

Ginsberg was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Clinton and became the second female justice after Sandra Day O’Connor. However, the movie is set to concentrate on an earlier moment in her life, when she and her husband Marty (Hammer), teamed ‘to bring the first landmark gender discrimination case before the Supreme Court’. While Ginsburg argued six cases before the Supreme Court between 1971 and 1976, the movie is likely to concentrate on the first one she wrote the brief for, Reed v. Reed, which extended the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to women for the first time.

The movie is due to start shooting this month in Montreal, with Mimi Leder directing from a script by Daniel Stiepleman (who just so happens to be Ginsburg’s nephew).

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Will Laura Dern’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi Character Be LGBTQ?

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Shortly following the release of The Force Awakens, a lot of people got excited about the idea that Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac) were more than just friends. While the actors and filmmakers both flirted with the idea and denied it, it did appear to that the reaction to the possibility of Poe and Finn getting together made Lucasfilm start thinking more seriously about including LGBTQ characters in the movies.

Now we may have one in Star Wars: The Last Jedi – although we’ll have to wait and see whether the character’s sexuality actually makes it into the film. Screenrant reports that in Claudia Gray‘s new novel, Leia: Princess of Alderaan, which looks at events during Leia’s life before the first Star Wars (1977) movie, the character of Amilyn Holdo is presented as possibly pansexual.

While the book includes a young Holdo, we will get to see an older version of the character in The Last Jedi – who by that time is an Admiral – played by Laura Dern.

Here’s a brief passage from Leia: Princess of Alderaan: “A pair of pretty dark eyes.” Then Amilyn thought about that for a moment. “Or more than a pair, if you’re into Grans. Or Aqualish, or Talz. Or even – ”

“That’s all right! Leia said through laughter. “It’s just humanoid males for me.”

“Really? That feels so limiting.”

“Thank goodness it’s a big galaxy.”

Now, it is a bit of a leap from that exchange to say that Holdo is definitely LGBTQ, or that if she is there will be any direct evidence of it in the movies, but it’s makes it a distinct possiblity. The fact Amilyn is such a big part of the novel and of Leia’s earlier life also suggests she may become increasingly important to the Star Wars movies, especially considering Carrie Fisher’s sad death. We will be able to see how Holdo fits into The Last Jedi and whether her sexuality is evident when the film is released in December.

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First Look At Rami Malek As Freddie Mercury In Bohemian Rhapsody

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It’s only in the last few days that we’ve learned who would be starring alongside Rami Malek in the planned biopic of the rock band Queen, titled Bohemian Rhapsody, and now we’ve got our first look at Malek as Freddie Mercury in the movie (click on the image above for a larger version). And it has to be said, the Mr. Robot star is a far better fit for the music legend than some said he might be.

The image debuted over at EW, who also confirm that ‘the Bryan Singer-directed film…chronicles Queen from 1970, when Mercury teamed with Brian May and Roger Taylor, until the band’s performance at Live Aid in 1985, six years before the singer died of complications from AIDS.’

That time frame is partly because of a desire to honour the music (the other members of Queen are involved in the film, and probably didn’t want it to become just about Freddie and his untimely death). Singer says, “It won’t just be the dark Freddie story, but that being said, that also will be honored. It’s about collaboration. It’s a celebration.” He also adds that it won’t be a “traditional biopic”.

As for the music, it will apparently be a blend of Malek’s own vocals and those of the real Mercury. The actors says, “We’re going to use Freddie as much as possible and use myself as much as possible. I’m in Abbey Road [Studios] right now if that should say anything to you. I’m not working on my acting.”

Bohemian Rhapsody, which also stars Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor, Joe Mazello as John Deacon and Gwilym Lee as Brian May, is set for a Christmas 2018 release.

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