THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

@ Butler Field/Grant Park, Lake Shore Drive and Monroe: Chicago Outdoor Film Festival - Pillow Talk - Aug. 19, Rear Window - Aug. 26

@ Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, (312) 846-2600: The Irreplaceable Katharine Hepburn features films by the late actress such as Adam's Rib - Aug. 14, Long Day's Journey Into Night - Aug. 16 & 19, Summertime - Aug. 23 & 26, The Philadelphia Story - Aug. 29 & 31, and Stage Door - Aug. 30 and Sept. 1

In theaters:

American Wedding (Universal)—Those mischievous kids from Michigan are at it for a third time in the latest installment in the American Pie series. Blatant sexual references, sexual situations with animals, bachelor party strippers and cranky old people, double entendres and uptight, but well-meaning parents are only a few of the sources of hoped for laughs, some of which succeed and some of which fail. Longtime sweethearts Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan, the lesbian Willow from Buffy The Vampire Slayer) become engaged and their engagement party and wedding bracket wacky goings on. At the center of the movie, a trip to Chicago to track down a wedding dress designer named Leslie, finds Jim and his buddies Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and the homophobic and detested Stifler (Seann William Scott) in a gay bar on Halsted Street. There they meet Bear (Eric Allan Kramer), a gay bar patron who challenges Stifler to a dance-off, later supplies female strippers for Jim's bachelor and even dances with his male partner at Jim and Michelle's wedding. More gross-out humor (including pubic hair on a wedding cake and the ingestion of a dog turd) than you might have thought possible, I imagine that it's only a matter of time before we are welcoming an American Baby into the world. (D+)

Freaky Friday (Disney)—The latest dish of Disney teen girl junk food is a reheating of the 1976 Jodie Foster body-switching flick of the same name that is still cold in the middle. At first, I wondered why Foster wasn't playing the mother role, after all she is the right age. Then I saw the movie, with Jamie Lee Curtis as stressed out single mother, shrink and bride-to-be Tess Coleman, and I understood why. Directed by Mark (The House of Yes) Waters, Freaky Friday insults Chinese people, psychotherapy patients, the elderly, teenage girls who dream of being in rock bands, and ultimately its own audience. Lindsay Lohan, who appears to be a graduate of the Melissa Joan Hart school of acting, doesn't deserve to shine Jodie Foster's shoes, let alone walk in them. Freaky Friday is a flop. (F)

Le Divorce (Fox Searchlight)—From the gay film team of Merchant Ivory Productions comes Le Divorce, the uneven, but entertaining, film adaptation of the Diane Johnson novel. Isabel (Kate Hudson) arrives in Paris to visit her pregnant, poet older sister Roxanne (Naomi Watts) just as her husband, painter Charles-Henri (Melvil Poupaud) is leaving Roxanne for another woman. Isabel, who is there to help Roxanne, also helps herself to a couple of affairs, including one with one with Charles-Henri's older, married uncle, a right-wing politician with a penchant for committing adultery with young, American women. For a movie with such a completely heterosexual story line, it is practically bursting with queer connections. Both Hudson and Watts have previously played lesbians. Openly gay actor Stephen Fry plays a fine art specialist who represents the Christie's auction house, and who offers his expertise regarding a painting that belongs to Roxanne and her family. In addition to being in Six Degrees of Separation and Too Wong Foo … , Stockard Channing, who plays Isabel and Roxanne's mother, has also played the mother of queer children on more than one occasion. Sam Waterston, who plays Isabel and Roxanne's father, co-starred with Channing in The Matthew Shepard Story. Glenn Close, who plays an American friend in Paris to Isabel and Roxanne, starred in lesbian director Rose Troche's Safety of Objects earlier this year and played Margarethe Cammermeyer in the TV movie. And Matthew Modine, who plays the cuckolded husband of the woman with whom Charles-Henri is having his affair, played Dr. Don Francis, in the TV movie adaptation of the Randy Shilts's book And The Band Played On. (C+)

Gigli (Columbia)—Real-life lovers Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez play contracted thugs Larry Gigli ('rhymes with really') and Ricki ('not her real name'), respectively, in this bland, chemistry-less semi-romantic comedy, written and directed by Martin (Scent Of A Woman) Brest. Gigli, who has a reputation as a screw-up, works for Louis (Lenny Venito) collecting debts and doing odd jobs. One of Louis's clients, Starkman (Al Pacino, in scenery devouring mode), is being investigated by the government, and Larry hires Gigli to kidnap Brian (Justin Bartha), the brain-damaged younger brother of the federal prosecutor assigned to Starkman's case. To ensure that he doesn't mess up, Louis also hires Ricki to help Gigli. Gigli, who fancies himself a ladies man, is rejected by Chinese philosopher-reading and yoga-practicing Ricki, who tells him that she is a lesbian. Even if she was straight, it would be hard to imagine Ricki being attracted to the greasy Gigli. In fact, in the brief scenes in which Ricki's distraught and estranged girlfriend Robin (Missy Crider) appear, the two women have more genuine emotional connection than any of the romantic scenes between Ricki and Gigli. Other supporting characters, including bizarre police detective Jacobellis (Christopher Walken) and Gigli's mother (Lainie Kazan), as well as the aforementioned Robin, successively pull the focus of the movie away from the lead characters in their brief time on-screen. MOVIE SPOILER (don't read on if you plan to see this movie): The pivotal point of the movie seems to be whether or not Ricki will have sex with Gigli. She does. However, she still maintains her lesbian identity and, although the pair ride off together in Gigli's 1966 Impala convertible, she makes it clear that it doesn't mean that she has gone straight. (C-)