OCTOBER
18-27, 2002

Introduction
Index of Films

10/18, Friday
10/19, Saturday
10/20, Sunday
10/21, Monday
10/22, Tuesday
10/23, Wednesday
10/24, Thursday
10/25, Friday
10/26, Saturday
10/27, Sunday

Print Version

CPArts

Queer Notions
Reel Affirmations Festival

25FRIDAY

Fun in Girls Shorts
This program of short films looks at the trials of being a teenage lesbian, from training bras to first girlfriends to prom. It includes Carolyn Caissi and Laura Rodriguez's Camouflage Pink, Michael Apted's Lipstick, and Christine Russo's Size 'Em Up.
At 6 p.m. at the DCJCC. Free.

Fish & Elephant
Chinese director Li Yu's film follows two young lesbians trying to come to terms with their sexuality in a small rural town.
At 7 p.m. at the DCJCC.

You'll Get Over It
The setup of French director Fabrice Cazeneuve's feature is brimming with clichés: Vincent (Julien Baumgartner), a model student with a pretty, loving girlfriend and a future as a champion swimmer, also has a deep, dark secret; the school he attends is also home to a frequently harassed gay teacher who empathizes with Vincent's plight; Vincent's family members just don't understand him and how can they when he doesn't open up to them? Vincent's secret, of course, is that he's gay; when new student Benjamin (Jérémie Elkaïm) accidentally kisses him in view of his friends, he's forced to acknowledge his homosexuality and face the mostly ugly consequences. Though You'll Get Over It generally goes in the direction you'd expect, there are some welcome surprising turns along the way, such as Vincent's laughing in the gay teacher's face when he admits his own homosexuality and offers to befriend the student. (OK, it may not be mature, but at least it's different.) Baumgartner plays the conflicted Vincent with a quiet intensity, and the rest of the cast members especially Julia Maraval as Vincent's alternately understanding and angry girlfriend possess a maturity that's conspicuously absent in similar tales involving their American counterparts.
—Tricia Olszewski
At 7 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre.

Guardian of the Frontier
For pretty Slovenian college students Alja, Zana, and Simona, summer vacation means an overly symbolic trip: canoeing down the Kolpa, the river that separates their prosperous little country from devastated Croatia. Rambunctious Alja (Tanja Potocnik) and Zana (Pia Zemljic) are good friends and perhaps something more so it's not quite clear why they invited prim Simona (Iva Krajnc) to join them. All three are slightly spooked by the rumor that a killer is on the loose, but after they hit the river to the tune of James Brown's "It's a Man's World" it's Simona who has the hardest time controlling her thoughts. Is the guy she keeps seeing an outdoorsman, a cop, a politician, or the killer? "It's not natural," is the refrain of director Maja Weiss' first feature, and it's clear that for her, "tradition" is more threatening than three young women messing about in a boat. Her climactic expression of this idea, alas, is a muddle.
—Mark Jenkins
At 9 p.m. at the DCJCC.

A.K.A.
British writer-director Duncan Roy's A.K.A. offers an intriguing formal experiment. Picking up where The Thomas Crown Affair and other split-screen '60s Hollywood features left off, Roy has designed his two-hour narrative as a visual triptych: a horizontal strip of three video-shot images. At times, he shows us a single event from three different angles; at others, a trio of separate episodes or one scene temporally fractured. Unfortunately, this arresting device, as well as some striking location photography in England and France, is largely squandered on a soapy saga about Dean (Matthew Leitch), a good-looking 18-year-old working-class boy who assumes a false identity to hobnob with the upper crust. He soon charms snobbish Lady Gryffoyn, one of his waitress mother's customers, into giving him a job in her art gallery. Having acquired a posh accent and some wealthy admirers, he moves to Paris, where he pretends to be Lady G's son and latches onto a middle-aged English sugar daddy (George Asprey) and his youthful American plaything (Peter Youngblood Hills, doing an uncanny impersonation of early Warren Beatty). But Eurotrash high life, with its drugs, discos, and casual sex, proves to be Dean's undoing, and he ends up far worse than he began. This class-conscious fable of innocence and corruption is cheesily predictable at nearly every juncture, but its presentation imparts a panoramic appeal that keeps it consistently watchable.
—Joel E. Siegel
At 9:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre.

Down & Out With the Dolls
Down & Out With the Dolls has all the manic energy, silly camera twirls, and nonlinear mayhem of your basic Monkees episode. Unfortunately, Micky Dolenz & Co. were significantly more convincing as both musicians and actors than the women who gear up as the fun-loving Paper Dolls. Naive Kali (Nicole Barrett), prudish Lavender (Melody More), wild-child Reggie (Kinnie Starr), and prima donna Fauna (Zo‘ Poledouris) attempt to overlook their vastly different lifestyles, move into a group house, and conquer the Portland, Ore., punk-pop scene. Most of director Kurt Voss' 88-minute party flick is dedicated to the ho-hum battle between virginal Kali and mattress-backed Fauna as they both try to woo a homely Next Big Thing rocker named Levi (Coyote Shivers). Fauna will win, of course, because she gets naked in a hurry, but Kali is too sweet not to get a well-deserved last laugh. (As for Levi, he gets the nastiest part of a somber sex, lies, and electrocution finale that betrays the playfulness of the rest of the movie.) Down & Out is saved from being a total washout by bong-toting bisexual Reggie, who, when she isn't keeping time on the skins, is using her sleepy smile to make time with an assortment of female fans. Also, keep an eye out for Motšrhead's Lemmy Kilmister, who shows up sporadically as a besotted sage who inexplicably lives in a closet.
—Sean Daly
At 11 p.m. at the DCJCC.

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