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

Heartstone (Cinema Review) – Gay and straight teens come of age in remote Iceland

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The Icelandic movie Heartstone arrives in the UK fresh from a very successful festival run, where it impressed audiences and picked up over 30 awards. That’s not bad for a movie from a country with a population of just 332,000 people. That’s about the same as the city of Coventry. Despite its size, it has a surprisingly thriving film industry, to the point where a large chunk of the population must spend at least part of their time making movies – and surprisingly good ones.

The film follows a group of teenagers in a remote fishing community. It’s a place where they’re left to their own devices a lot of the time, as parents are either absent or ill-equipped for their role in shaping young minds. The focus is Thor (Þór – Baldur Einarsson), who’s on the point where he’s frustrated his body is developing as fast as some of his friends, but he’s certainly becoming more interested in girls. His best friend is Christian (Kristján – Blær Hinriksson), with the two of them pretty much inseparable. [Read more…]

Rampage Trailer – Dwayne Johnson gets his very own giant gorilla

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I don’t know whether Dwayne Johnson really wannted a role in Kong: Skull Island and didn’t get one – and so initiated his own everyle large gorilla movie. It seems a definite possibility, even if the gorillas here seem to have been dyeing their hair white, like the apes in Michael Crichton’s Congo!

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson), a man who keeps people at a distance, shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, silverback gorilla who has been in his care since birth. But a rogue genetic experiment gone awry mutates this gentle ape into a raging creature of enormous size. To make matters worse, it’s soon discovered there are other similarly altered animals. As these newly created alpha predators tear across North America, destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with a discredited genetic engineer to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield, not only to halt a global catastrophe but to save the fearsome creature that was once his friend.’

Rampage – which oddly enough is based on a 1986 computer game (yes, really) is due out in cinemas next April. Take a look at the trailer below. [Read more…]

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First Look At Jude Law As Young Dumbledore As Fantastic Beasts 2 Gets A Name

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Press release: ‘Warner Bros. Pictures announces “FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD” as the title of the second of five all new adventures in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World™. Opening November 16, 2018, the film features an ensemble cast led by Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, with Jude Law and Johnny Depp.

‘At the end of the first film, the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Depp) was captured by MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), with the help of Newt Scamander (Redmayne). But, making good on his threat, Grindelwald escaped custody and has set about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda: to raise pure-blood wizards up to rule over all non-magical beings.

‘I’n an effort to thwart Grindelwald’s plans, Albus Dumbledore (Law) enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.

‘“FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD” is being directed by David Yates, from a screenplay by J.K. Rowling, and produced by David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram.

‘(Left to right) JUDE LAW plays a young ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, taking on the mantle of one of J.K. Rowling’s most beloved characters; EZRA MILLER makes a return as the enigmatic CREDENCE, whose fate was unknown at the end of the first film; CLAUDIA KIM appears as a Maledictus, the carrier of a blood curse that destines her ultimately to transform into a beast; ZOË KRAVITZ plays LETA LESTRANGE, who had once been close to Newt Scamander but is now engaged to his brother; CALLUM TURNER joins the cast as Newt’s older brother, THESEUS SCAMANDER, a celebrated war hero and the Head of the Auror Office at the British Ministry of Magic; KATHERINE WATERSTON returns as TINA GOLDSTEIN, who has been reinstated as an Auror for MACUSA; EDDIE REDMAYNE stars again as wizarding world Magizoologist NEWT SCAMANDER, who has now gained fame in the wizarding world as the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them; DAN FOGLER reprises the role of the only No-Maj in the group, JACOB KOWALSKI; ALISON SUDOL reprises the part of Tina’s
free-spirited sister, QUEENIE GOLDSTEIN, a Legilimens who can read minds; and JOHNNY DEPP returns as the powerful Dark wizard GELLERT GRINDELWALD in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD.”” [Read more…]

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Deadpool 2 Teaser Trailer – Ryan Reynolds’ antihero channels his inner Bob Ross

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If you’re not American, you may not know who Bob Ross is. If you don’t, you’re missing out. So head to Youtube to find out all about the legendary American TV patiner. After that, watch the new teaser for Deadpool 2, as you’ll appreciate it a lot more.

The new trailer shows that while directing duties may be moving from Tim Miller to John Wick co-director David Leitch, the tone and sardonic humour are very much intact. Although you may have wished there was a bit more footage from the movie in this promo, it’s still a lot of fun and fingers crossed, suggest we’ll have plenty of fun with the actual movie.

Take a look at the new vid below. Deadpool 2 is due out March 2018. [Read more…]

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Mean Girls Star Daniel Franzese Calls Out Actress Bijou Phillips For Homophobia, Assault & Body-Shaming Him

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In the last few weeks, many actors have felt emboldened to step forward and talk about harassment and abuse they’ve faced in the industry. One of the latest is queer actor Daniel Franzese, best known to many as Damian in Mean Girls, and gained new fans as Eddie in HBO’s gay-themed series, Looking.

However, he made his movie debut in Larry Clark’s powerful 2001 movie, Bully, where he says he faced homophobic abuse, body shaming and even physical assault from his co-star, Bijou Phillips. In a deeply person post on Facebook he writes, ‘On my first film BULLY I was harassed by Bijou Phillips the entire shoot. She body shamed me and ridiculed me about my sexuality‬ and physically assaulted me. I was scared and closeted and feared for my job. It started with a lot of eye‪ ‬rolling whenever we spoke but‪ ‬escalated when we did a cast shoot for the poster‪.‬ ‪A‬s we were shooting she kept loudly saying “Are you gay?!” and laughing‪ while ‬the producers‪ ‬and photographer did nothing‪ ‬to stop her but some of my cast like Micheal Pitt and Brad Renfro kept telling her to shut up‪ ‬but she continued to say “Are You Gay?!” Like 10 times making sure to be loud enough for everyone to hear I reluctantly told her i was bi. Which at the time was how I was choosing to‪ ‬identify as “Q” wasn’t known to be an option yet and to be honest I don’t know that I had many gay experiences at the time my life. I was an extremely late bloomer. She cackled and‪ said “HA! He’s bi!” And then when I showed up to work the next day in front of the crew she was screaming “Oh look! The Bi guy is here!”’

He also writes about how she body shamed him, despite the fact he was already nervous and self-coinscious about his weight. He says, ‘So I take my shirt off in the scene and she breaks character and she pointed at my body and at the top of her lungs yelled “Ewwww gross!!!” She laughed and pointed at me and continued to berate me. they call cut and I had to walk off set to collect myself.’

Franzese also suggests she engineered it so he walked in on her having sex with one of their co-stars, before her behaviour culminated in a physical assault. ‘When we shot one of our last scenes in a court room,’ he says. ‘She was walking around barefoot and the bottom of her feet were black with dirt. She was sitting behind me and kept rubbing her dirty feet on my neck. I kept swiveling the chair to move away from her and she kicked me as hard as she could in the back of the head. To this day I’m not even sure if she gave me a concussion because I was light headed and dizzy for a while.’

He ends by saying that he feels Bijou’s behaviour on film sets at the time did affect her career, but he hopes she has changed in the years since. However, for him, ‘It was such a blessing to get a foot into Hollywood’s door but I was greeted at that door with homophobia, body shaming and abuse. The way I was treated in that hostile work environment gave me a PTSD that had me stay closeted for a long time… I love the movie and my other cast mates and crew but BULLY was one of the most stressful experiences of my life on or off a set and it was my first one.’

After Daniel wrote his emotional post, Bijou responded, telling TMZ, ‘I want to write to address what Daniel has said. I don’t remember that time well, those years are a blur. I was a teenager and reckless in my behavior. I know Daniel to be a trustworthy and honest person, and to find out through social media that I was not the friend I thought I was to him made me so sad… I am so mortified by this behavior and have contacted Daniel and apologized to him privately. I am not and never have been homophobic. I have nothing but love for the LGBTQ community and Daniel.”

Franzese has now responded on Twitter, saying, ‘I forgive @BijouPhillips because I don’t know her private story either. I shared this story only to bring light to a dark memory… It was 18years ago. She has sent me an apology I accept. It would be nice to see her make a donation to @TrevorProject or something.’ [Read more…]

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New The Greatest Showman Trailer – Hugh Jackman & Zac Efron enter a musical big top

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Despite the success of La La Land, big, Hollywood original musicals are still a rare thing. However, Hugh Jackman has one up his sleeve with The Greatest Showman, which even has songs from the team that created the La La Land tunes. A new trailer has arrived which suggests this could be a really good and pretty spectacular movie – although it does seem Hugh Jackman has now started aging backwards.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘“The Greatest Showman” is a bold and original musical that celebrates the birth of show business and the sense of wonder we feel when dreams come to life. Inspired by the ambition and imagination of P.T. Barnum, “The Greatest Showman” tells the story of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a mesmerizing spectacle that became a worldwide sensation. “The Greatest Showman” is directed by exciting new filmmaker, Michael Gracey, with songs by Academy Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (“La La Land”) and starring Academy Award nominee Hugh Jackman. Jackman is joined by Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams, Zendaya, Zac Efron and Rebecca Ferguson.’

The film will arrive in UK cinemas in on December 26th. Take a look at the new trailer below.  [Read more…]

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A Morbius The Living Vampire Spider-Man Spin-Off Movie Is In Development

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For the past few year, Sony have been a little concerned about their lack of a massive, superhero franchise. Disney has Marvel and Star Wars, Warner has DC, and Fox has X-Men. While Sony own the rights to Spider-man, they’re only now attempting to build that beyond the central character (after giving up on a previous effort that would have been linked to the Andrew Garfield films).

A Venom movie is already in production, and there’s also been talks of other Spidey spin-offs such as Black Cat. Now though there’s attempting to build a film around a character only real fans will know – Morbius the Living Vampire.

THR first reported news of the film, which will be about ‘Dr. Michael Morbius, a scientist who suffered from a rare blood disease and attempted to cure himself to disastrous results. He instead became afflicted with a condition that was a form of vampirism — the thirst for blood, along with fangs and super strength — and fought Spider-Man. Over time, however, he became a slightly heroic figure in his own right.’

Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama have been brought in to write the script. The duo have previously worked on the likes of Power Rangers, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt and Dracula Untold (which doesn’t exactly bode well).

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Baby Driver (Blu-ray Review) – Kevin Spacey coerces a young man for director Edgar Wright

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The subheading about Kevin Spacey above may be a bit unfair, but I do wonder whether director Edgar Wright is wishing right now he’d picked someone else to play a powerful man coercing a much younger guy to do his bidding. There are also moments in the special features on the Blu-ray where they’re talking about how wonderful Spacey is and how good he is at ‘playing’ a manipulative asshole, where you know the distributors wish they’d had time to cut it out before the disc his shelves, but which certainly give things an unexpected subtext now.

Thankfully though, the presence of the disgraced actor doesn’t completely overshadow the movie, which got great reviews and word of mouth on its cinema release for reasons that had nothing to do with Spacey. [Read more…]

Princess Cyd (US Cinema Review) – Life opens & changes for a teenage girl in the lesbian-themed film

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Stephen Cone has been building a pretty strong reputation as a writer/director with contemplative LGBT-themed films such as Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party and The Wise Kids. Indeed, New York’s prestigious Museum Of The Moving Image has just finished the ‘Talk About the Passion: Stephen Cone’s First Act’ season, which featured a selection of his film, including his latest, Princess Cyd.

The titular Cyd (Jessie Pinnick) is a 16-year-old who lives with her depressed single father. For the summer she goes to visit her novelist aunt, Miranda (Rebecca Spence), which will both get her away from her dad for a few weeks, and allow her to catch up with her mom’s side of the family, who she hasn’t had a lot of contact with since her mother’s death. [Read more…]

Even Lovers Get The Blues (DVD Review) – Friends try to figure what sex and life mean in the LGBT-themed movie

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The Belgian film Even Lovers Gets The Blues follows a group of friends in the aftermath of the death of one of their number. After a night of fun and passion for all of them, Hugo keels over and dies while his girlfriend, Ana, is taking a post-sex shower.

This potent reminder of mortality has a profound effect on all of them. Ana is left reeling from the death of her lover, and tries to fill the gap in her life and deal with her grief by sleeping with a variety of men. Louis seems to wants his girlfriend, Leo, to have a baby, but she seems unsure and both have difficulty communicating about it. Dahlia and Graciano meanwhile have issues with their sex life, as Graciano is finding it difficult to stay aroused and his attempts to bring intimacy back to their relationship fail. Things change one drunken and drugged up night when he sleeps with their promiscuous gay friend, Arthur. [Read more…]

Alpha Delta Zatan (VoD Review) – It’s homoerotic frat boy murder time

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You know the bits at the beginning of a porn scene where they have some plot (the plumber’s here to work on your pipes etc.) or where men get themselves all sexually frustrated by working out? Well, this is kind of like the feature-length version of that, except with no sex at the end.

Set in a frat house at a top university, right from the beginning we know this is a dangerous place as a man is stalked and killed by someone wearing a harlequin costume. When a new pledge comes into the house, he’s at first pleased to have been chosen for this prestigious frat, which is known to produce the future leaders of America. However, he soon starts to realise something strange is going on, as his fellow frat members start disappearing, he has dreams about someone wearing a harlequin mask and a slightly older guy known as ‘Frat Dad Brad’ begins being increasingly demanding. [Read more…]

Win The Classic Sci-fi The Incredible Shrinking Man On Blu-ray!

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To celebrate the Blu-ray release of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, available on Blu-ray from 13th November, we have a copy of the film on Blu-ray up for grabs, courtesy of Arrow Video!

Based on the novel by the massively influential sci-fi and horror writer Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Martian Chronicles), with a script adapted by Matheson himself, and directed by Fifties sci-fi king Jack Arnold (Creature From The Black Lagoon), this is rightly regarded as being one of the finest science-fiction films of all time, a critically-acclaimed smash hit that currently has a 90 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Genuinely thrilling, and, as Scott’s plight becomes more desperate, tense and gruelling, the film features superbly realised special effects that bely the era, and the setting Scott finds himself in – filled with oversized household objects that suddenly become threatening and dangerous – takes on a wonderfully surreal atmosphere.

This beautiful UK Blu-ray debut features a documentary on Jack Arnold, the pioneer behind Creature From The Black Lagoon and It Came From Outer Space; new sleeve artwork and a collector’s booklet; as well as, for old school enthusiasts, a Super 8 presentation of the film – the incredible shrinking reel, if you like.

Key Talent:
Grant Williams (The Monolith Monsters, Written on the Wind)
Randy Stuart (All About Eve)
April Kent (I’ve Lived Before)
Paul Langton (They Were Expendable)
Raymond Bailey (Vertigo)

Special Features:
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Auteur on the Campus: Jack Arnold at Universal – an extended documentary about the early career of director Jack Arnold at Universal-International studios
There Is No Zero: Writing The Shrinking Man – an in-depth conversation with author Richard Christian Matheson about his father and the creation of the original Incredible Shrinking Man novel
Super 8 cut-down version
Original Theatrical Trailer
Teaser
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck
★FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kim Newman

For your chance to win The Incredible Shrinking Man on Blu-ray, answer the question below and fill in your details, then press submit! The competition closes on November 26th, 2017, so get answering and good luck. [Read more…]

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