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

27SUNDAY

The Laramie Project
This feature by Venezuelan playwright-director Moisés Kaufman recounts the true story of a New York City theatrical troupe that traveled to Laramie, Wyo., to query residents about the brutal 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard. The cast includes Christina Ricci, Steve Buscemi, Laura Linney, Peter Fonda, and Amy Madigan.
At noon at the Lincoln Theatre. Free.

For Men Only
Love, love, love. For all the full frontal nudity and dirty talk, the subjects of these man-on-man short subjects are love triangles, passionate pursuits, and romantic destiny. In the talky British short Stag, two friends hash out their one-night stand. The trouble is, they believe themselves to be straight with the same equanimity with which they believe themselves to be destined for one another and one of them is about to be married. David Kittredge's funny and charming Target Audience depicts two college-age boys zoning out to a midnight horror movie. One has fallen asleep, but the other ends up watching, with varying degrees of disgust and fascination, an infomercial for homosexuality called "It's Great to Be Gay." The corporate-motivational show within the short is a scream ("I tried being homosexual, but I just wasn't fabulous enough," an interviewee says mournfully), and you can imagine the rest. In Gerald McCullouch's artfully constructed but hopelessly old-fashioned The Moment After, a man experiences his birthday on a wild bus ride surrounded by madcap friends through the prism of miserable birthdays past, with tragic consequences out of a '50s dime novel. The Last Blow Job, a glowingly handsome German short, is a conversation between two men who work to defuse a car bomb while dealing with one of the team member's romantic discontent. It's tense and deliberately not comic, and it gives a new meaning to the concept of a love affair blowing up in one's face. Alexander Pfeuffer's Breakfast, also German, follows the footloose adventures of a heedless bisexual hottie and his more serious, seriously devoted friend through the clubs and nightscapes of Berlin, with the mundane ritual of breakfast standing in for romantic stability. This program also includes Lino Escarela's Space 2 and Tony Krawitz's Into the Night.
—Arion Berger
At 2 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre.

Zus & Zo
Dutch director Paula van der Oest's strenuously up-to-date comedy sets three sisters refugee-magnet Michelle (Sylvia Poorta), sex-tips writer Sonja (Monique Hendrickx), and confrontational artist Wanda (Anneke Blok) on a quest to thwart little brother Nino's marriage. Nino (Jacob Derwig) is gay, so he must be marrying Bo (Halina Reijn), a curvaceous art critic, only to fulfill his late father's terms for inheriting the family's small hotel in Portugal. The sisters treasure the place as a refuge and a repository of childhood memories, and Nino intends to sell it. The women try to scuttle the wedding by driving Nino and Bo apart, but none of their gambits work. It turns out, for one thing, that Bo knows her future husband is gay. Then it occurs to someone to call Nino's ex, a TV chef for whom he still pines. Meanwhile, guess which sister's hubby is cheating, and with whom, and who's pregnant? Connoisseurs of the it's-all-too-much farce may be amused, but the film would have benefited from more characterization and fewer complications.
—Mark Jenkins
At 4 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre.

A Woman's a Helluva Thing
American director Karen Lee Hopkins' film follows the relationship of men's-magazine publisher Houston (Braveheart's Angus MacFadyen) and his ex-girlfriend Zane (The Relic's Penelope Ann Miller) after Houston discovers that Zane had been shacking up with his mother.
At 6 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre. $10.

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