Since its nearly sold-out opening night screening last Thursday featuring local actor-writer-director Stephen Cone's marvelous Wise Kids, Reeling 2011, Chicago's 30-year-old LGBT film festival, has been hosting one exciting screening after another. However, a host of LGBT-themed cinematic experiences and after parties still await as the fest goes into its second and final week.
Perhaps the festival's most hotly anticipated entry is the Chicago premiere (Friday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. at the Block Cinema on the Northwestern University campus) of the eagerly awaited lesbian coming-out drama Pariah. The film, a big hit at this year's Sundance (and winner of the cinematography award), is an expansion of writer-director Dee Rees' 2007 short film. The movie focuses on a young African-American teenager living in New York City coming to terms with her budding lesbian sexuality and her contentious relationship with her mother as other family issues are coming to a head. The film, which Spike Lee executive-produced, isn't expected in Chicago theatres until the first of the year.
Cho Dependent, a new concert film from comedian Margaret Cho, and Going Down In La-La Land, from LGBT audience favorite Caspar Andreas, are the double feature for Reeling's closing night on Saturday, Nov. 12. Both movies screen at the Portage Theater (4050 N. Milwaukee Ave.—Cho Dependent at 6 p.m., La-La Land at 9:30 p.m). A closing-night reception will be held in the Portage lobby beginning at 8 p.m. between the two screenings (tiered ticket options are available).
Complete festival information, tickets, theatres and locations by calling 773-293-1447 or visiting www.reelingfilmfestival.org .
Here's a brief overview of other second week Reeling fest highlights as compiled by Richard Knight Jr. (RKJ), Andrew Davis (AD) and Steve Warren (SW):
Thursday, Nov. 10
Longhorns (SW): In any movie about cowboys you can expect a certain amount of horseshit. The rom-com Longhorns is artistically comparable to a porno, although much wordier, but won me over because I found lead actors Jacob Newton and Derek Villanueva so attractive. They have zero chemistry with each other, making it easier to fantasize about how much either or both would have with me. Oh, and they play college students, not cowboys, but they're in Texas.
The Love Patient (AD): Would you pretend to have cancer to try to win back an ex? That's the outrageous/somewhat unsavory premise of Michael Simon's comedy. However, as almost any Family Guy episode shows, something that's off-putting can be funny. Unfortunately, despite the attractiveness of the leads (and I could look at John Werskey, who plays Brad, all day long), the uneven acting and unbelievable ending make The Love Patient DOA.
Heart Breaks Open (AD): Jesus is a queer activist/poet who cheats on his partner, Johnny—and then becomes HIV-positive. Despondent, Jesus meets drag nun Sister Alysa Trailer after he tries to commit suicide, and the good sister helps him on an emotional journey. Parts of this film may be too detailed for some viewers (including the drawing of blood in the testing scene)—but this movie's heart is certainly in the right place, and it isn't afraid to tackle some understandably tough issues.
Friday, Nov. 11
Bite Marks (SW): A homophobic trucker (in denial about his own sexuality) hauling coffins (not empty) picks up a gay couple, one romantic and one slutty, in a vampire comedy that achieves its modest ambitions with the insouciance of an early Roger Corman movie. Bite Marks does little to raise the stakes of fang-banger comedies but it will tickle your funnybone while belatedly hallowing your weenie.
Leave It on the Floor (RKJ): Twenty years after the phenomenal critical and audience reception for Paris Is Burning, the documentary exploration of the Harlem drag-ball culture, comes an exuberant narrative feature set on the opposite coast that is filled to the brim with just as much sass, vitality and clever original musical numbers. When hunky gay Brad gets kicked out of his house by his single mother, he finds his way to the Los Angeles drag ball scene where several members of his chosen home, the House of Eminence, fight over him. However, Queen Latina, who presides over the house, is suspicious of Brad's motives and isn't about to let the inexperienced lad walk the floor until she decides he's ready—no matter how much her "children" want one of those coveted trophies.
A Few Days of Respite (RKJ): This aptly titled, contemplative drama focuses on a middle-aged gay couple who flee Iran, illegally entering France in order to live openly as lovers. Once arriving in a small province near the border, however, things turn when one of the men goes to work as a painter and handyman for a widowed French woman who has become romantically attached to him. Small gestures speak volumes in this quiet world and soon the hope for a new life for the two men is complicated and threatened by what at first seemed like the perfect place to begin a new life together.
Saturday, Nov. 12
Cho Dependent (SW): Does Margaret Cho get gayer with every concert tour? How can you not love a self-described bisexual fag hag who says, "I used to not like anal sex but I turned myself around?" Apart from what she says with it, the tongue Cho displays could get her recruited by KISS and elected to the Lesbian Hall of Fame. Cho Dependent is a show you shouldn't have missed. Now you don't have to.
Going Down in La-La Land (RKJ): Out writer-director-actor Casper Andreas (Violet Tendencies, The Big Gay Musical) returns with another erotically charged gay-themed dramedy. Things haven't gone quite as planned in the Big Apple for Adam so the buff young actor heads to Hollywood. Broke, down on his luck and without much success in either the career or job department, Adam slowly drifts toward "physique" modeling, gay porn and, of course, escorting. At that point, Andreas' by-the-numbers scenario, which has been helped by its pretty good casting and eye for detail and sexy situations, goes the fantasy route: Young Adam's client is a hot, closeted sitcom star who falls hard for him. However, is it hard enough to risk everything for Adam and come out of the closet, Neil Patrick Harris-style? Stay tuned!
I Am (AD): This documentary examines the journey of Indian lesbian filmmaker Sonali Gulati, who returns to Delhi—and deals with the loss of her mother, to whom Gulati never revealed her sexuality. Gulati talks with other members of the Indian LGBT community (including Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil) as well as their parents, organizational leaders and others. Make no mistake: This isn't all a feel-good movie, and the scene of a doctor selling medication that supposedly cures homosexuality is simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. This is a quiet film that packs an emotional wallop.
Sex, Guns & Lucha Libre (AD): This collection of four shorts includes "Santiago from the Other Side," "Tijereto (Flycatcher)," "Dinero Facil (Easy Money)" and "Cassandro El Exotico." The most entertaining is the last, as the documentary looks at the life of gay luchador (wrestler) Cassandro, who competes in drag—and even sheds blood. "Santiago from the Other Side," however, underscores a common problem with shorts—you want to know more about what happens, and sometimes they only provide a tease.
