Zipless Puck

[September 17th, 2008]

The Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (or, hilariously, PLGFF) starts off its 12th year with an opening-night dud. The fest’s first week gets much better from there.

Breakfast with Scot

[OPENING NIGHT] The National Hockey League lent its imprimatur to this slight Canadian comedy about gay men raising an exponentially gayer kid. It’s an enlightened decision for a major sports association—if an inexplicable one, since the movie depicts ice hockey as thuggish and (worse) inauthentic. It’s no pastime for a sensitive, sashaying child like Scot (Noah Bernett), an 11-year-old flamer sent to live with former Maple Leafs star Eric (Tom Cavanaugh) and his partner Sam (Ben Shenkman) after his mother ODs. Any similarities between Scot and J.T. LeRoy are purely coincidental: Director Laurie Lynd (a Queer as Folk veteran) aspires to nothing more than a syrupy sitcom pilot—The King of Two and a Half Queens. It’s family friendly, if your family isn’t offended by the alternative lifestyle that is hockey. The movie doesn’t even deliver on its promise of boa-draped figure skating. Lynd and her fellow Canucks should have asked themselves: What would Brian Boitano do? PG-13. AARON MESH. 7:30 pm Friday, Sept. 19.

Ask Not

[DIRECTOR ATTENDING] It seems like a good time to revisit “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military’s policy of banning openly gay and lesbian recruits from active service enacted as a compromise by President Clinton in 1993. Johnny Symons’ documentary kicks off with Jake Reitan, a queer crusader who is currently living in Portland as he helps out gay advocate Terry Bean with the Obama campaign. But this film isn’t so much about Barack as much as it as about military barracks and whether or not queers would create problems if they were to openly live in one. Reitan, a leader of the queer social justice group Soulforce, comes off as shrill and preachy as he tries to infiltrate Army recruitment offices in Times Square and elsewhere. Much more compelling is the story of “Perry,” an out and proud Castro Street queer who goes back into the closet to join the Army in Iraq and slowly but surely gives up his queer identity for the safety of being a soldier. When one of his friends back in San Francisco asks, “What’s the point? You’re a gay man, and the country doesn’t want you—what the hell are you doing?” you can’t help but wonder if all this hemming and hawing about queers serving country is a cause worth fighting for. BYRON BECK. 7 pm Saturday, Sept. 20.

La León

Alvaro (Jorge Román) is a solitary type. He lives on an island off the Argentine coast and spends his days reed-cutting, fishing and book-binding. As a closeted homosexual among intolerant provincials, he must eke out a life on sexual dregs: the occasional clandestine hookup with a boat traveler or a tryst with one of his fellow townsmen. Turu the ferryman (Daniel Valenzuela) especially loves to harass Alvaro for being gay, but his antagonism belies deeper, more troubling emotions. This slow, quiet film from director Santiago Otheguy is a study in surface texture, from the blasted plaster walls of an island dwelling to the cottony cut and sway of a field of reeds. Although at times it feels more like a film student’s thesis than a feature-length narrative—it’s all black-and-white, and the plot’s hard to follow—it nevertheless succeeds in painting a compelling portrait of loneliness. JOHN MINERVINI. 3 pm Sunday, Sept. 21.

Ciao[

Yen Tan’s sedate and overly polite Ciao is unremarkable in nearly every respect save the startling masochism with which it denies its own potential. When Jeff’s (Adam Neal Smith) best friend Mark dies in a car accident just days before Mark’s Internet suitor Andrea (Alessandro Calza) is due to arrive for an in-the-flesh visit, Jeff invites Andrea to take the trip anyway—they’ll sort through their sadness as a team. Their brief and solemn encounter is trapped in timid ritual: incessant, interminable dialogues transpiring in the airless, deliberate space shared by too many independent American films. The set-up raises intriguing questions that the screenplay doesn’t dare to investigate. What happens to our online personalities when we die? What does it look and feel like when digital and analog worlds collide in our wake? Unfortunately, the film shuffles in a languid dance around grief, and Ciao’s otherwise admirable restraint begins to look a lot like avoidance. CHRIS STAMM. 7 pm Sunday, Sept. 21.

A Jihad for Love

For seven years Parvez Sharma followed a dozen devout gay and lesbian Muslims around the world. The result is this hauntingly sad documentary. Sharma’s subjects include an out imam in South Africa as well as gays and lesbians from countries such as Iran and Egypt. It’s a film with no easy answers and should be a lesson for those in more tolerant countries about what can happen to a peaceful nation when it is overtaken by religious extremists. Can you say Sarah bin Laden, anyone? BYRON BECK. 7 pm Monday, Sept. 22. For more, see Queer Window.