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

The Happy Prince (BFI Flare Review) – Rupert Everett takes on Oscar Wilde’s post-prison life

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The Happy Prince has been a true passion project for writer, director and actor Rupert Everett. After years of trying to get it to the screen he’s finally been able to make the movie, which looks at the lesser known story of what happened to Oscar Wilde after was released from prison following his sentence for gross indecency with men.

Knowing his fame/infamy means staying in Britain is impossible, Wilde (Everett) heads for the continent. We first see him ill and barely surviving in Paris, still trying to live it up (beyond his means), but only just hanging on. The film then flashes back to his arrival in France when things seemed very different. Friends including Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas) and Reggie Turner (Colin Firth) are keen to help him build a new life. He’s got money thanks to a stipend from his estranged wife and after two years of hard labour the sun of France gives Oscar a sense of optimism. [Read more…]

Alaska Is A Drag (BFI Flare Review) – A young gay man finds escape through drag & boxing

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Leo (Martin L. Washington Jr.) is a young man living in a tough part of Alaska. He and his twin sister, Tristen (Maya Washington), were abandoned by their mother when they were young and re now trapped between a desire for escape and fear that this will mean their mother will never be able to find them. To make matters worse, Tristen is battling cancer. [Read more…]

Love, Scott (BFI Flare Review) – A profound look at a life changed forever following a homophobic attack

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This documentary follows Scott Jones, who was stabbed in the street after leaving a bar in Nova Scotia. The homophobic attack left Scott paralysed and using a wheelchair. Now trying to piece his life back together – partly through music, leading choirs and speaking publicly about his experiences – he tries to deal with the impact of the attack. Scott attempts to find some form of catharsis, whether that’s making a kind of peace with his attacker or processing the changes to his life. [Read more…]

Pulse (BFI Flare Review) – A young, gay, disabled man is put in the body of a woman

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Teenager Olly (Daniel Monks) is disabled and has had various health issues to deal with throughout his life. His doctors tell him that it’s likely he’ll have to start using a wheelchair soon. He decides to take advantage of a brand new treatment that’s just arrived in Australia – a full body transplant. However, rather than staying a man, he elects to be put inside the body of a good-looking young woman.

Unsurprisingly his friends are surprised, as they didn’t even know he was attracted to men, let alone that he might be interested being in a woman’s body. Although the new body gives Olly a new lease on life, it also causes problems as he takes his freedom to the extreme and others react badly when they discover who he truly is. [Read more…]

My Own Private Hell (Inferninho) (BFI Flare Review) – A unique queer netherworld comes under threat

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A trans woman, Deusimar (Yuri Yamamoto), runs a bar in what looks like a storage room, where her clients are a bunch of misfits including a man painted completely silver, a bearded Wonder Woman and a hoary old Spider-man, and her staff includes a man dressed as a rabbit. A stranger, Jarbas (Demick Lopes), comes into the bar, and soon starts an affair with Deusimar. She falls deeply for the sailor but in his wake the influences of the outside world come into this safe but unusual world, which increasingly threatens its existence. [Read more…]

Win The Gay Classic La Cage Aux Folles Criterion Collection Blu-ray!

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It’s one of the all-time gay classic and perhaps the first international gay-themed mainstream hit – 1978’s La Cage Aux Folles. The movie is being released on Criterion Collection Blu-ray in the UK on April 2nd 2018 and we’ve got three copies to give away.

Renato (La grande bouffe’s UGO TOGNAZZI) and Albin (Diabolique’s MICHEL SERRAULT)—a middle-aged gay couple who are the manager and star performer at a glitzy drag club in St. Tropez—agree to hide their sexual identities, along with their flamboyant personalities and home decor, when the ultraconservative parents of Renato’s son’s fiancée come for a visit.

This elegant comic scenario kicks off a wild and warm-hearted farce about the importance of non-conformity and the beauty of being true to oneself. A modest French comedy that became a breakout art-house smash in America, EDOUARD MOLINARO’s La Cage aux Folles inspired a major Broadway musical and the blockbuster remake The Birdcage. But with its hilarious performances and ahead-of-its-time social message, there’s nothing like the audacious, dazzling original movie.

The new Criterion Collection edition also includes an array of special features.

For your chance to win La Cage Aux Folles on Blu-ray, answer the question below and fill in your details, then press submit! The competition closes on April 15th, 2018, so get answering and good luck. [Read more…]

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F.A.M.I.L.Y. (F.A.M.I.L.L.E) (BFI Flare Review) – Looking at gay parenting by artificial insemination

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Director Jessica Champeaux looks into the world of lesbian parenting via artificial insemination in Belgium. This is mainly done via interviews with medical professionals, women who’ve decided to have children that way, and adults whose gay parents had them by artificial insemination.

It’s the last of those that’s the most interesting. Both the doctors and the parents largely let us know exactly what we’d expect to hear (at times parroting a party line that perhaps needs to be challenged a little more). However, the adult children are the voice that offers something new, expressing their confusion at the homophobia they experienced growing up because of their parents. They also talk about how they experience an oppression that is unique to them and can be quite acute – it’s not merely homophobia once removed as many would like to believe. [Read more…]

The Wound (Inxeba) (BFI Flare Review) – A gay relationship challenges a traditional manhood initiation ritual

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The Wound has proven intensely controversial in its native South Africa. Some among the country’s Xhosa people (including the ‘King’) objected to its portrayal of their manhood initiation ceremony, which they said was taboo to talk about (others said their objection was really about trying to quash the idea that there are gay Xhosa people). That resulted in the movie being banned. After a public outcry it was swiftly unbanned, but with a certificate that was usually reserved for pornography.

The film certainly isn’t porn, but the controversy has meant it’s remained in the public consciousness over there far longer than it probably would have otherwise. It’s one of the latest examples of the so-called Barbra Streisand effect, where calling attention to something in the hope of making it disappear has the unintended side effect of amplifying it, in this case internationally. That leaves the difficult job on the part of the reviewer of trying to extricate themselves from the cause celebre the movie has become from the movie itself – luckily in the case of The Wound the movie stands up on its own. [Read more…]

Uncle David 2 (BFI Flare Review) – David Hoyle’s back on the Isle Of Sheppey with a new ‘nephew’

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Back in 2010 we got the movie Uncle David, about a middle-aged man – the David (David Hoyle) of the title – going to the Isle Of Sheppey with his younger lover/protégé. Now we have the sequel, which has a similar set-up with David back in his Sheppey caravan with a different young person – the genderqueer Michelle. Again David is pontificating about what he sees as the social ills of the world, although as those who’ve seen the first film will know, he’s got his own secrets and may be more dangerous than he first appears.

Into the mix come the almost feral Max and his sister, who are struggling for survival. The sister takes an interest in David and Michelle, but Max is wary of them. That doesn’t stop him taking an interest in Michelle though. [Read more…]

Cherry Grove Stories (BFI Flare Review) – The gay history of the Fire Island community unravelled

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Fire Island, located just off Long Island, New York, is a legendary part of gay history. It’s a place bound up in ideas of hedonism, sexual freedom/liberation and, some would say, debauchery, but perhaps more importantly its seen as a place where LGBT people have long been able to themselves in ways it was (particularly in the past) difficult to be anywhere else. It’s reached the status that for people who’ve never been there it’s almost mythic. Cherry Grove Stories is a documentary that helps to bring this spit of land back to earth, focussing on the Cherry Grove community and showing what it really was and is. [Read more…]