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Film fests on the fringe
Outré treats at Queer-O-Rama! and the Boston Underground Film Festival
BY GERALD PEARY

It’s a 10-day treat for the transgendered, gays, bi’s, lesbians, and friends of the above: Queer-O-Rama! at the Coolidge Corner February 14–24, co-sponsored and co-programmed by the Provincetown Film Festival. Many of the movies are gay-and-lesbian faves from the last couple of years, but who viewed all of them the first time around? Here’s a chance for catch-up, and I’m glad to make recommendations. Additionally, Queer-O-Rama! is offering a smattering of Boston debuts, though it’s a shaky list.

Let’s start with the must-see reprises:

Show Me Love (1998; screens Monday, February 18 at 2 and 6 p.m.). Lukas (Together) Moodysson’s totally endearing tale about the mad crush of a thoughtful Swedish high-school girl, Elin, on the moody, explosive, popular-with-the-boys Agnes. The sweetest baby-dyke movie ever made. Is there anyone who has seen this movie and not been smitten?

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001; screens Tuesday, February 19 at 6 p.m.). The first 200 will be admitted free to this sneak preview of a hit from last fall’s Boston Jewish Film Festival. Stars Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen will be present.

Keep the River on Your Right (2000; screens Tuesday, February 19 at 8 p.m.). Here’s a wonderful alternative cultural hero: Tobias Schneebaum, 78, a blithely gay world traveler who has connected with warrior tribes that have a place in their ethos for homosexuality. Cannibalism? No big deal in his amazing life.

Live Girls Unite (2000; screens Wednesday, February 20 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, February 23 at 2 and 5:30 p.m.). A rousing documentary about the unionization of the strippers of a San Francisco peep show, led by Julie Query, lesbian activist and stand-up comedian.

Mädchen in Uniform (1931; screens Sunday, February 24 at 4 and 8 p.m.). This 1931 German feature made by Leontine Sagan about girl students with a crush on their teacher at a harsh Prussian school is the first, and probably the greatest, lesbian film of them all. The Nazis loathed it, but prints survived. Is it too much to suggest that every gay and lesbian make a pilgrimage to see this pioneering masterwork at least once in a lifetime?

I’m the One That I Want (2000: screens Sunday, February 24 at 4 and 8 p.m.). A hilarious one-woman show by gay icon Margaret Cho, who should be remembered for playing the lovable fag-hag in the most underrated gay film of all time, It’s My Party.

New films:

Girls Who Like Girls (2000; screens Friday, February 15 and Sunday February 17 at 10 p.m.). Supposedly, the dykes of Provincetown dug this clip collection. I think it’s the show to avoid: practically every lazy piece of footage is a boring, unedited, unfunny woman-on-womn coupling from a Radley Metzger feature, further ruined by the pedantic voice-over. An argument against soft-core. Yawn!

O, Fantasma (2000; screens Saturday, February 16 at 10 p.m.). Tedium for the rough-trade gay crowd: a Lisbon garbage collector goes cruising between deposits; several hot hard-core scenes in the first act lead to a slow hour of nothing. With Doors Cut Down, a Spanish short about a pampered high-school lad who makes it with his private English teacher.

Kali’s Vibe (2001; screens Sunday, February 17 at 2 and 6 p.m. and Friday, February 22 at 10 p.m.). A rarity: an African-American indie in which the main character is a lesbian. Maybe. A very slight, amateurish story with an ending that somehow doesn’t sit right for a Queer-O-Rama! fest.

MY PAL DAVID KLEILER, legendary founder-programmer of the Local Sightings Film Series, is scattered all over the map, and so is, every year, his Boston Underground Film Festival. The Fourth Fest, February 20–24, is adventurous and edgy and worth your attention, if you can unravel what’s going on. The venues this time are the Brattle, MIT, and the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge; Oni Gallery in Boston; and the Milky Way Lounge and Lanes in Jamaica Plain. For some kind of battle plan, check bostonundergroundfilmfestival.com

I’ve only seen a bit of the program. But I was bowled over by the German filmmaker Virgil Widrich’s Copy Shop (2001), which plays as part of the Opening Shorts at the Brattle on Wednesday, February 20, at 7 p.m. It’s about a guy who accidentally keeps making photocopies of himself until hundreds of them run amuck: Kafka meets the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Other recommendations: We Sold Our Souls for Rock ’n’ Roll (2001; screens Saturday, February 23 at midnight at the Brattle Theatre), the Boston premiere of Penelope Spheeris’s cheery homage to Ozzy Osbourne and his 1999 OzzFest. Metal rules! And Canadian Alan Zweig’s Vinyl (2000; screens Sunday, February 24 at 3:30 p.m. at the Oni Gallery), the American debut of a wry documentary about crazed, LP-record collectors, including the obsessed filmmaker.

Issue Date: February 14 - 21, 2002
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