Life with Movies and Maxxxxx

Frameline's 31st San Francisco LGBT Film Festival screens in San Francisco June 14 through the 24th. I've been fortunate enough this year to have access to screeners of nearly the entire festival (since I'm in Atlanta, now), and I'll be posting 'previews' two days in advance of each day's screenings. Woo hoo!

Oops! I've gone a day late in popping advance notices for the next couple of days of screenings! Thursday (aka Day 8) highlights one of the typically best programs of the festival: the Australian short subjects. Unfortunately, I am posting only a couple of hours before it screens! The program really deserves a higher profile slot than midweek at noon. 'Kan-GAY-roo! - New Shorts from Down Under' is a compilation of five short subjects. I am not sure what order they will screen, so in alphabetical order:

"The Manual" [no weblink available] (Dir. Sarah Spillane, Australia, 2006, 16 min.) This was a surprising little drama linking the psychological treatments in adolescents of homosexuality from two decades ago with ADD today. It also features Jack Thompson, who is great in anything!

"My Last Ten Hours With You" (dir. Sophie Hyde, Australia, 2006, 15 min.) This may have been my least favorite in the program, but only because its drama could easily and perhaps necessarily need to be expanded upon. The couple's situation, that being of spending their last night together before one is forced to leave the continent for work, is fraught with possibilities and character explorations that this fifteen minutes doesn't fully allow. It was nearly a teaser.

"PRADA HANDBAG" (dir. Stuart Vauvert, Australia, 2007, 22 min.) This, on the other hand, is just long enough, though you can FEEL the feature length version bubbling underneath, which would kill the gag, as well as the touching climax! It is the story of self revelation and the 'drag' that everyone uses to hide themselves. Rita Kalnejais, as 'Prada Handbag' is the oddest little creature! The makeup and costume design transforms her character, a victim of extreme propecia, into something of an alien, in what is already the huge and costumed world of drag queens, which she enters. The catharsis she endures is tenuously edited. That climax is the most difficult moment of this short film, yet director Stuart Vauvert somehow pulls it off. I loved this!

"Stray" [no weblink available] (dir. Craig Boreham, Australia, 2007, 15 min.) This is a bit of a melodrama, however, considering that it what produced by a gay/lesbian youth project, the results are quite impressive! Though the story of an innocent lost in the big city has been told time and again, the sincerity of the performances, as well as their ferocity during the violent climax, keeps the short from being trite. Frameline has picked it up for distribution, so it should get some well deserved exposure, well beyond the festival circuit.

"Working It Out" [no weblink available] (dir. Tim Hunter, Australia, 2007, 7 min.) Though not terribly well acted, it is a cleverly written twister about a couple's jealous diatribes in a gym, as they work out together.

Maxxxxx says
re "The Manual": "Sickie-poo"
re "My Last Ten Hours With You": "I love you, toooo."
re "PRADA HANDBAG": "Such a pretty bird!"
re "Stray": "Cranky bird!"
re "Working It Out": "Time for shower!"