Dicks, Dykes & Documentaries

A Family Affair (7 pm Friday, Sept. 20)--A romantic comedy about a Jewish lesbian searching for "Mrs. Rightowitz."

Friends and Family (9:30 pm Friday, Sept. 20)--A screwball comedy about a gay couple who happen to be Mafia enforcers.

By Hook or By Crook (2:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 21)--I can think of one reason why you might want to see By Hook or By Crook: You can't get enough of handsome butches. If that's enough to fulfill you, by all means check it out. But if you're also looking for meaningful, well-crafted dialogue, smooth-acting and thoughtful cinematography, you might want to look elsewhere. This tale of a small-town butch who comes to the big city to become a Natural Born Grifter is unfortunately weighed down by stilted acting, groan-worthy lines and film techniques (Super 8 footage from childhood to create feelings of nostalgia) perfected by college students in 1990. Still, there're those cute butches. (CBB)

Lan Yu (7 pm Saturday, Sept. 21)--Not only will you be hard-put to find a better film in this year's festival, you'll be hard-put to find a better film, period. Based on a novel anonymously published on the Internet, director Stanley Kwan's film follows the relationship between two gay men in Beijing over the course of a decade. Hu Jun stars as an older business man who keeps his emotional distance, stringing along his young lover (Liu Ye) for the better part of 10 years and never fully appreciating what he has. Kwan's film is stylishly beautiful, wonderfully acted and emotionally devastating. (DW)

His Secret Life (9:15 pm Saturday, Sept. 21)--When an youngish, beautiful wife finds out her attractive dead hubby has been cheating on her with a hot fella, she begins to find out her life is not all it seems. Although the film sometimes comes off as soap-opera-ish, it does a good job of busting wide open the International Male conceit that sophisticated Euro-men love a little dick on the side. (BB)

Georgie Girl (Noon Sunday, Sept. 22)--Georgina Beyer's life stands as one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories of triumph in the face of adversity. Having entered the world as George, a Maori lad born in New Zealand, Georgina remade herself from a drug-abusing transvestite sex worker into the first transsexual to hold a national office. This inspiring documentary looks at Georgina's life as she transistions from male to female, from cabaret performer to Minister of Parliament. (DW)

P.S. Your Cat is Dead (7 pm Sunday, Sept. 22)--Steve Guttenberg has always been able to titillate queers with his whole "is he or isn't he?" shtick (see Queer Window). This time out, though, Steve-O (who also directed, wrote and put up all the money for this flick) goes for broke by playing a supposedly straight dude who gets his revenge (and jollies off) on a bumbling gay burglar. The real shocker in this somewhat kinky and far-fetched film is watching A.J. Benza (of E! and Howard Stern fame) wipe his finger along the ass crack of burglar Lombardo Boyar and then take a long, giant whiff. Yowza! (BB)

Treading Water (7 pm Monday, Sept. 23)--A lesbian couple faces relationship strains as one of them attempts to appease her anal-retentive mother.

Food of Love (9:15 pm Monday, Sept. 23)--Based on David Leavitt's novel The Page Turner, this drama follows a young musician in his search for love and artistic fulfillment.

Luster (7 pm Wednesday, Sept. 25)--Your festival schedule should lack Luster. Everett Lewis' film is like porn without the pounding. Its cobbled-together script is the type of sophomoric filler usually mouthed by models before hauling out their dry goods, and the acting has all the conviction one would expect. The basic premise--twink zine wonder wants a boy he can't get because boy is sex slave to a famous rock star (a performance that should have Michael Stipe suing)--is as dull as it is predictable. Also, it doesn't help that the lad of every character's fantasy is played by a scrawny, dead-eyed mumbler whose true calling seems to be as a faceless bottom for booth loops. Dismal. (SS)

Exploding Oedipus (9:15 pm Wednesday, Sept. 25)--An intriguing addition to the festival, since Marc Lafia's film isn't really queer. Lafia is interested in the twinned structures of love and betrayal. Hilbert (the excellent Bruce Ramsay) hides out in a San Francisco flophouse watching old 8mm home movies of his family screened on a tacked-up sheet. The juxtaposition of this filmed past and Hilbert's nocturnal hunts for something or someone to desire is haunting. Joplin Wu's cinematography is nothing less than mesmerizing, as is Lafia's poetic script. Exploding Oedipus deserves a wider distribution. (SS)

SHORTS PROGRAMS

The LGBT Film Festival is well known for the collections of short films that grace each year's offerings. This year there are eight programs of shorts from all over the world, including Gaymation: Animated Shorts (2 pm Sunday, Sept. 22), in which various forms of animation are utilized in queer-friendly 'toons, and RAW (11:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 21), the follow-up to last year's HUGE, in which 20 filmmakers interpret the meaning of the title word in a series of explicit three-minute shorts. Also screening will be Celebration: Boys' Shorts I (4:30 and 9:30 pm Sunday, Sept. 22); Diverse Voices (Noon Sunday, Sept. 22); Interviews With My Next Girlfriend: Girls' Shorts I (4:45 pm Saturday, Sept. 21); A Lesbian Survival Guide: Girls' Shorts II (7 pm Tuesday, Sept. 24); Night Trade: Boys' Shorts II (9:30 pm Tuesday, Sept. 24); Lost Souls: Four Stories from the Edge (7 pm Thursday, Sept. 26).

Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 223-4515. Friday-Sunday, Sept. 20-29. $7 general admission, $75 half pass, $125 full pass, $175 platinum pass.

For information and schedule updates go to www.sensoryperceptions.org or call the festival hotline at 242-0818.

Call 866-468-7623, go to www.ticketweb.com , or visit Balloons on Broadway or Gai Pied Bookstore for tickets.

WWeek 2015