NOTES FROM OUTFEST - JULY 13 2009

"Seeds"

"Frequent Traveler"

"Dirty Magazines"

I was coming back from grabbing a quick bite in between screenings, when I was stopped by a young lady. She introduced herself. Her name is Rochelle and she wanted to thank me for volunteering for Outfest. She told me that she missed the evening's screening of the Legacy Project's "Choosing Children" (sad to say, I missed it too) because of work but her girlfriend was inside at the after party while she had a cigarette or two. She told me it didn't matter because she was glad to be there, enjoying the evening with her girlfriend and just happy to be a part of the Outfest scene. She basically just wanted to let me know, that she appreciated what I was doing. This is why I volunteer for Outfest every year.

The film or actually films I saw was a shorts program called, "Makin' Moves". There were six different films and the standouts for me were:

"Frequent Traveler" directed by Patricia Bateria, about a man who lusts after a security agent at the airport. The agent is aware of this, so when the man sets off the alarm, he has another agent check him out. This leads to the passenger to be stripped search as well as an investigation into the man's cavity all under the watchful eye of the very hot agent. I thought this film was funny and very sexy.

"Transatlantic" directed by David Quantic, is a strange and trippy little flick that I liked a lot. It is about, I think, a heterosexual couple in the United States that we follow as they live their lives. When they go to sleep, we are transported to the same time in Germany as a man awakens. He goes home to his lover and we follow them through their day. The German man goes back to sleep at the same time and we are back to the other couple in the morning. I guess they are sharing one life in two different parts of the world. There is no dialogue to help explain anything, so I'm sure this film could be interpreted in many different ways.

The best of the films was "Dirty Magazines" directed by Jay J. Levy. It is the story of a teenage boy who is gay and gets his hands on some gay porn magazines. He hides them under his bed which is a place no one would ever find them. As a surprise for her son's birthday, his mother decides to gets him a new bed. Guess what she finds? His mother is very upset and confronts him of her discovery. She reasons that that since he hasn't been with a woman, how does he know he's gay. His mother goes to some very extreme measures to try and make sense of all of this. A well written and hilarious film. It took me back to my teenage years and the first time I got my hands on some gay porn. But I hid mine in a much better place.

I will make special mention of the film "Seeds" directed by Stewart Hendler because it features RuPaul in boy drag but I can't say I really understood what the film was trying to say.

Until next time.