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

Love Is All You Need? (VoD Review)

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Three years ago the short film, Love Is All You Need, garnered a lot of attention with its role-reversal tale about a world where being homosexual is the norm, and straight people are persecuted. Now that short has been expanded into a feature-length film, bringing a few familiar faces with it, including Briana Evigan (Step Up 2), Jeremy Sisto (Clueless), Elisabeth Röhm (Law & Order), Tyler Blackburn (Pretty Little Liars) and Emily Osment (Hannah Montana).

The basic set-up is the same, taking us into a world where nearly everyone is paired up in same-sex couples, and those who fall for someone of a different gender are looked down on and vilified. Jude (Evigan) is a female football star at her high school, with a gorgeous girlfriend (Osment) and plenty of popularity. However, when she meets university fraternity pledge Ryan (Blackburn), unexpected thoughts start to emerge. As their relationship develops, Jude begins to wonder whether she’s really a ‘ro’ (a derogatory shortening of heterosexual). [Read more…]

Tickled (DVD Review)

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Often the best documentaries are the ones that end up taking a different direction than originally planned. With Tickled, that left-turn occurred slightly before they decided to make a film, when New Zealand journalist David Farrier stumbled upon the little-known ‘sport’ of competitive tickling.

Known for reporting on unusual, quirky subjects, he fired off an email to the company behind the ‘tournaments’, Jane O’Brien Media, only to be met with threats of lawsuits, and an immediate obsession with the fact Farrier is gay. The woman writing back to him was adamant there was nothing gay about competitive tickling, despite the fact only young, often shirtless men were involved and the whole thing seemed, well, pretty gay. The messages from Jane O’Brien Media got more extreme, anti-Semitic and homophobic, and it was only at that point a decision was taken to make a documentary. [Read more…]

Britain’s Got Talent Winner George Sampson To Star In Gay-Themed Movie, Closets

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george-sampsonLloyd Eyre-Morgan’s short film Closets won Best British Short at the Iris Prize Festival in 2015, and now plans are afoot to turn it into a feature-length movie. Those plans have moved forward with the news, via Attitude, that George Sampson is set to appear in the film.

Sampson is best known as the teen dancer who won the second series of Britain’s Got Talent back in 2008. Since then he’s had success as an actor in the likes of Waterloo Road, Mount Pleasant, Emmerdale and featuring in Eyre-Morgan’s recently complete horror short, Kill Pill.

The original Closets short featured Tommy Knight (Waterloo Road, The Sarah Jane Smith Adventures), Ceallach Spellman (Cucumber) and Julie Hesmondhalgh (Coronation Street) in the tale of a teenager in the 1980s worried about his sexuality, who magically gets transported to 2016 when he goes into his closet, where he meets another teenager who has issues of his own.

23-year-old Sampson comments, “Everyday in the news I see reports of young people being bullied for who they are and what they believe in, with sometimes devastating outcomes. Closets is important to get involved in to show young people struggling with any sorts of bullying that there is hope and support out there… As a dancer I was bullied, people would assume that I was gay, as dancing was a ‘gay’ thing to do… but it had nothing to do with sexuality. Jealousy was the real issue and everything they said to me actually spoke volumes about them as a person, and not me. My dancing has been amazing for me, and I’m laughing because I stuck to it. Basically they can go and f*** themselves!”

Eyre-Morgan adds that he hoped the film will stand as “A beacon of hope for young people or anyone that’s ever experienced hate”, adding it “mixes the heart of Billy Elliot with the passion of Pride”.

The movie is currently in pre-production.

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Gay Short Film Showcase: Time To Come – Is love enough to make a young gay Muslim come out?

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time-to-come-slideTime To Come garnered plenty of interest while it was in production, both for its successful Kickstarter campaign and for its timely story about a young, gay Muslim man contemplating what he should do. Now the short has been completed and it’s been released online for us all to take a look at.

The brief synopsis simply states, ‘Left alone, Rami must decide if his love for Lee is strong enough to come out as a gay Muslim.’ However, in it’s 15 minutes it manages to be about a bit more than that, looking at social and cultural pressures, and perhaps just as importantly the pressures we heap upon ourselves because of that. Often quiet and contemplative, it goes for the slow build as it first shows us Rami and Lee’s relationship, before starting to unpack the issues between them and whether Rami is able to do anything about it.

Take a look at Time To Come 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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The First Alien: Covenant Poster Is Here To Show Off The Xenomorph

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alien-covenant-poster-slideOne of the main complaints about Prometheus is that is was marketed as an Alien movie, but it didn’t have any of the familiar killer aliens in it (except at the very end, sort of). As a result they shifted the focus of the follow-up, changed the name to Alien: Covenant to underline that this would indeed include the beloved nasties, and now a poster has arrived to show up front that yes, indeed, the xenomorph will be back.

However, it has been suggested that the full beastie has been redesigned, so it won’t completely look like the ones we’ve seen before. That’s not too surprising, as we know the aliens take on some of the attributes of their hosts, and alter slightly with each incarnation.

Not a vast amount more has been confirmed about the plot, although Michael Fassbender is back as David, and will also play another android, while Noomi Rapace will also have what is expected to be a small part in the movie. Katherine Waterston, Jussie Smollett, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Billy Crudup, and Amy Seimetz also star. It’s been suggested Waterston’s character is related in some way to Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, and that the film itself may be closer in tone to the original Alien that most of the other entries in the franchise.

Fox seems to have plenty of faith in the movie, as they’ve moved its release up from August 2017 to May 19th. Ridley Scott is once more directing. Take a look at the poster below.

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Moonlight Leads Independent Spirit Award Noms, With Plenty More Gay-Themed Films In The Mix Too

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moonlight-slideIt’s certainly been a good year for gay-themed films amongst the nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards, the pre-eminent indie awards ceremony (films are only eligible if they have a budget of less and $20 million), which takes place ahead of the Oscars each year. Leading the way is the acclaimed Moonlight, Barry Jenkins’ film about a young, gay African-American, which picked up six noms, equal with the Shia LaBeouf starrer, American Honey.

It’s up for Best Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and is the sole nominee for the Robert Altman Award for Best Ensemble.

Also gettin multiple nods was Other People, starring Jesse Plemons as a gay guy who heads home to take care of his dying mother. It picked up four nominations for Plemons, co-star Molly Shannon, Chris Kelly for his screenplay and director Chris Kelly for Best First Feature.

However, Moonlight and Other People weren’t only the gay-themed films up for awards, with Spa Night (about a closeted Korean-American teenager) director Andrew Ahn up for the John Cassavettes Award (for Best Feature Made For Under $5,000) and Kiehl’s Someone to Watch Award. Lesbian crime drama Women Who Kill, was also nominated for the Kiehl’s Award, for director Ingrid Jungermann, while Certain Women was nominated for Best Director for Kelly Reichardt, while Lily Gladstone, whose character falls for Kristen Stewart in the movie, is up for Best Supporting Female.

There were also a couple of gay-themed documentaries in the mix, with ball-culture doc Kiki up for the Truer Than Fiction Award, while I Am Not Your Negro, about gay, African-American writer James Baldwin’s unfinished novel, Remember This House, is included in the Best Docuemntary category.

It’s certainly an impressive validation for LGBT-themed movies this year, with the hope that at least some of them will go on to be winners when the gongs are handed out early next year. Take a look at the full list of nominees below. [Read more…]

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Ben Wheatley & Tom Hiddleston May Reteam For Frank Miller’s Hard Boiled Adaptation

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high-rise-teaser-slideDirector Ben Wheatley’s High Rise got a mixed reception this year, but it was clear from interviews that he and star Tom Hiddleston enjoyed working together. Now they may be getting back together, as Deadline reports that Wheatley is planning an adaptation of Frank Miller’s 1990 graphic novel, Hard Boiled, which Hiddleston may star in.

Warner Brothers is backing the movie, which ‘focuses on insurance investigator Carl Seltz, who learns that he’s really a homicidal cyborg tax collector codenamed Nixon. A fellow robot informs him that he’s the last hope for their race to escape their programmed slavery.’ As this is Frank Miller, it’s even more nuts than that sounds, with multiple personalities, unusual characters and murky morality in play.

It’s not known when the movie might reach cinemas, and Hiddleston isn’t firmly attached yet, but it’s being developed as a star vehicle for him. Wheatley’s next film, Free Fire, is due in theatres early next year.

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Win The Gay-Themed One Kiss On DVD!

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one-kiss-dvd-coverThe gay-themed movie One Kiss is out now in the UK on DVD and VoD, courtesy of TLA Releasing. We’ve teamed up with them to give away three copies in this competition.

Antonio is a star basketball player on his high-school team, but that doesn’t mean he’s popular by any means. Soft-spoken, awkward, and still grieving over his older brother’s death, he’s excluded from his teammates and considered dumb. Blu, who has a reputation for her sexual exploits, defiantly rides her scooter past graffiti labeling her a “slut,” and hurries to the mailbox each afternoon to grab her writer mother’s rejection letters before she sees them.

Lorenzo, new in town as well as newly adopted, relies on his extravagant sense of fashion and elaborate imagination to distract him from the bullies at school who mercilessly tease him for his homosexuality. These three teenagers form a friendship and a means of defense against the closed-minded bullies who constantly berate them, but their closeness to each other eventually comes at a tragic price. Reminiscent of 1960s New Wave forerunners like Truffaut’s Jules et Jim and Godard’s Bande a parte, One Kiss is a story of outsider friendship, the limits of imagination, and the consequence of honesty.

To be in with a chance of winning One Kiss, just answer the question below and fill in your details, then press submit! The competition closes on December 5th, 2016, so get answering and good luck. [Read more…]

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Coming In: Episodes 1&2 – A gay man realises he’s straight but would quite like to go back to being gay again

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coming-in-episode-2The new Canadian web series Coming In wants to turn things on its head, taking as its premise a man (Dylan Archambault) who heads to an ex-gay support group, not because he wants to become straight, but because he’s realised that’s what he actually is. He just woke up one morning and he was hetero! However, he’s already got a male hubby, a good life, and would quite like to find out how to be gay again.

It’s a set-up creators think may be controversial, with worries that the show will be taken to be making fun of the struggles of gay people, and that sexuality is as massively fungible as a lot of anti-gay people want to says.

Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey told CBC, “It’s kind of a controversial subject and could be seen as pushing the wrong buttons… We just anticipate there might be some response, but the material indicates where we actually really stand.”

Indeed, Sheppard and Humphrey are both gay and a couple in real life. They add, “I think we understand that it’s not easy for people to come out still. We don’t want to say that people shouldn’t be gay and I think that becomes clear in the series that we are definitely pro coming out and being able to be gay and being able to be yourself.”

The first two episode have now been released. Take a look below and decide for yourself whether the buttons being pushed are right or wrong – although it’s probably going to take a few more episodes (there are 11 in total in the first season) to really work out. However, for our money it’s heading in interesting and humorous directions. [Read more…]

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When We Rise Trailer – First look at Gus Van Sant & Dustin Lance Black’s epic gay right mini-series

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when-we-rise-trailer-slideWow, who thought a gay rights mini-series could get the American alt-right steamed up so quickly. Actually forget that, they’re sitting around waiting to get steamed up and ridiculously outraged by things, while coming up with bizarre conspiracy theories around it, all the time. You just need to take a look through the comments for the trailer for When We Rise to see that those who love to be angry about stuff in racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic and generally aggressive ways (while whining about how white men are the most oppressed people in the history of humanity), are not happy about it. But you know what? Screw ’em.

When We Rise is an eight-part mini-series due to air next February on ABC in the US, which chronicles the rise of the gay-rights movement from the Stonewall riots to the triumphs of recent year – although with the election of Trump, it’s likely to also be a timely reminder of the need to keep fighting. Written by Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black and produced and part-directed by Gus Van Sant, it is perhaps particularly angering the alt-right as it is probably the highest-profile and biggest gay-themed drama US TV has ever produced.

It’s also got a great cast, including Guy Pearce, Mary-Louise Parker, Rachel Griffiths, Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O’Donnell, Denis O’Hare, David Hyde Pierce, Michael K. Williams, Charlie Caver and Ivory Aquino.

Black has commented, “It’s been the honor of my life to research and craft these stories of family, diversity and equality over the past three years. To have collaborators of this caliber sign on to help bring these stories to life is a tremendous vote of confidence, and I hope a testament to the relevancy and necessity of our continued march toward justice for all.”

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

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