OUTFEST ARRIVES: Reports from opening weekend

Mid July means two things in LA – the weather turns hot and steamy as the June Gloom lifts and gay movie goers are in heaven as Outfest gears up.

Now in its 28^th year, Outfest offers 10 solid days of LGBT movies. It fact, it’s often a so many movies, so little time situation as there are routinely multiple things you want to watch happening at the same time.

But everyone makes their choices and makes their own unique Outfest experience. One of the pluses about Outfest is that actors, directors and writers are right there watching the movies too. So, it provides a chance to shake hands with people whose work you admire and hobnob with up and coming actors.

I spent a busy opening weekend in watching movies, listening in on panel discussions, chatting with filmmakers and catching up with fellow movie loving friends.

Here’s a brief write up of what I saw. The Jane Lynch conversation is written up separately.

Out in the Silence

Fascinating stories come out of the smallest of things. When a Joe Wilson of Washington DC puts his same-sex wedding announcement in the hometown newspaper, it creates a controversy. So, Joe grabs a camera goes back home to Oil City, Pennsylvania to explore the situation.

This result is an engrossing documentary skillfully weaving together multiple stories of how homophobia rears its head. There’s the story of high school linebacker CJ Bills who dropped out of school because of anti-gay harassment. There’s the story of the lesbian couple trying to restore the town’s art deco theater. There’s the story the conservative radio commentator who espouses homophobic rhetoric in the guise of family values. And there’s the story of a minister who slowly changes his anti-gay stance as he gets to know Joe Wilson and his partner Dean Hamer (both pictured right).

Out in the Silence leaves viewers both frustrated by how slow change happens and hopeful that change does eventually happen. Filmed over 3.5 years, the experience changed Wilson and Hamer too. Wilson said during the Q&A following the screening, “We charged up to Oil City with our camera thinking ‘Here come the big city queens to right the wrongs.’ We found out we had to do our own community building.”

The 90 minute film, culled down form 280 hours of footage, is worth every second of time spent in the theater. People from small towns will see much of their upbringing while people from bigger cities will get an idea of how the rest of American thinks and acts.

Fit

Who knew it was possible to so joyously tell a story confronting anti-gay attitudes in high school? You’d expect such a film to be filled with anger, hostility and tension. Instead, British import Fit conveys its message through humor and humanizing each of the characters.

Fit, which is British slang for sexy and attractive, started out as a school play. Writer-director Rikki Beadle-Blair (pictured right), who previously did Stonewall and Metrosexuality, traveled to hundreds of schools in Britain presenting this play. The result was always positive, but after a year of touring, Beadle-Blair realized a more effective way to keep reaching new generations was to make a film based on the play. Thus was born the film version of Fit.

The plot involves a new drama teacher (played by Beadle-Blair) who won’t stand for any anti-gay attitudes in his classroom. As he creates a safe environment, gay students slowly begin coming out in the class, surprising some of the most homophobic ones who then must confront their own attitudes about their peers.

As he did with the stage version, Beadle-Blair cast the roles first. Then he workshopped the story with the actors to create the characters. The result is multi-dimensional characters who are compelling and complicated. This careful creation process what raises Fit above After School Special preachiness and makes it so very watchable.

If the film has a fault, it’s the running time. At 1:45, it’s probably too long for the younger part of the 11-18 year old target group. A 60-minute running time might have worked better, but then there would have been less character development, which would have put the film back in After School Special territory.

Plan B

You know it’s a bad sign when you look at your watch and only 30 minutes of the movie has passed. Such was the case with Plan B. Billed as a romantic comedy although it was neither a comedy nor romantic, a shorter version of this movie played at Outfest a few years back. Encouraged to expand the work, Argentinean director Marco Berger made it into a feature-length film.

It should have stayed a short. Everything about this film feels stretched to fill a 100 minute running time. Establishing shots run 15 seconds. Scenes of characters staring at the horizon sometimes last for 2 minutes. There are even scenes where a character runs out of the room to get something for 60 full seconds while the camera keeps shooting the empty room.

The plot involves the dumped Bruno trying to seduce his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, Pablo, away from her. That plot certainly has possibilities, but they are not realized. There’s little action in this film, just endless scenes of characters staring at the ceiling or gazing at the horizon. Supposedly this represents brooding. But it translates on screen as boring.

There probably could have been a good movie in there if the director has simply used some different camera angles. Virtually every scene is played as a single shot done in front of a static camera. There are no close ups, no over-the-shoulder shots, no point of view shots. Consequently, you never get any idea of what the characters are seeing in the other. If we’re supposed to believe these two guys are falling in love, we need to see that love in their eyes. But we never get to look into their eyes, which leaves viewers as detached observers.

One of the final scenes does offer an over-the-shoulder shot where you see Pablo looking into the eyes of Bruno. And there is genuine affection in his eyes. But that scene comes far too late to make up for the 100 minutes of tediousness viewers have endured up to that point.

No action and no attempt to let the viewer into the world these two are experiencing leaves this one of the dullest films I’ve ever seen.

Writers Panel

Negative gay portrays in movies and TV were what motivated gay writers and directors to tackle gay subject matter in their work. That was the consensus at a panel gathering gay writers to discuss their craft.

Kimberly Peirce, who wrote and directed Boys Don’t Cry said she was attracted to tomboy types in movies/TV as a teen, but didn’t find those tomboy types as she got older. That’s what motivated her to tell the Brandon Teena story in Boy’s Don’t Cry. Angela Robinson, who made D.E.B.S., said she found lesbian bar scenes in movies to be depressing. Barry Sandler, who wrote the screenplay to Making Love, said he couldn’t find any positive gay images in movies at all growing up.

Similarly, it was positive portrayals that helped some with the coming out process. Rob Epstein credits the 70s PBS reality series, An American Family, with gay teen Lance Loud as helping in his journey. His partner Jeffrey Freidman says it was seeing Word is Out that helped him get the courage to come out.

All decry the current state of male-oriented comedies in Hollywood with its obligatory scene where the protagonists have to prove to one another they aren’t gay. They cite movies such as Knocked Up, Wedding Crashers and I Love You, Man as having such scenes which do nothing to advance the plot and merely serve to reassure the audience they’re not watching gay characters.

And the fantasy gay movie these writers would make? Sandler said he’d like to see a superhero movie where the hero comes home to another guy. Gwen Turner who did Go Fish would like to see a Jane Bond movie.

They also note that Hollywood studios are unlikely to finance such big-budget movies since it would limit their appeal to mainstream audiences. But they also note that gay movies are a solid niche for the studios, knowing that gay audiences are dependable in supporting gay films.

Transsexual Equality

While not a part of any official Outfest program, Ashley Love is making an impression on Outfest audiences nonetheless. She keeps popping up at Q&As posing questions about media representations of transgender people. She showed up at the Jane Lynch conversation, the writers panel and several other places to bring light to negative portrayals of transgender characters in movies and TV.

Some in the audience grumbled that Love was attempting to hijack the panel with her agenda, but Love (pictured right) says she’s merely trying to raise awareness about negative portrays. "We're like GLAAD but specifically for transsexual and transgender men and women," Love says of her organization, MAGNET (Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Transsexual and Transgender People).

MAGNET will be holding a panel discussion of the negative representation of transsexual woman in the media. “Women Demanding Change Now: The Dehumanization of Transsexual Women through the Gay Male Hollywood Lens” is the title of the panel which will include community activists, psychologists, journalists and movie/TV producers.

MAGNET is calling for changes in representation. They say negative and over-the-top portrayals stigmatize transgender people and inflict spiritual, mental and physical violence upon them. “It’s dangerous propaganda that miseducates the public and assaults transsexual woman,” says Love.

The panel is Thursday, July 15 at 7 p.m. at Plummer Park (Santa Monica Blvd at Martel) in West Hollywood.