By and large, the consensus among the movie-goers, fellow film critics, and critically minded queer pals I’ve informally polled seems to be that Frameline34  has offered some of the festival’s strongest programming in recent memory (full disclosure: I was on this year’s shorts screening committee and contributed program notes to the festival’s publications). Chalk it up to the fact that there are far fewer fluffy coming-out narratives or romcoms this year; or to the bumper crop of Showcase features by established and emerging international directors; or to the large portion of documentaries that speak relevantly to hot-button issues—military service, same sex marriage, body image—currently contested within the LGBT community, as well as those that retrace queer history. It’s as if Frameline’s audience threw down the challenge: “Show us something different.” The festival has largely obliged.

“What do they want from an old dinosaur like me?” quips John Hurt, reprising his career-making role as Quentin Crisp, in response to an invitation to regale a much younger audience about his life. By this point in An Englishman in New York, Richard Laxton’s sequel to The Naked Civil Servant (1975) and this year’s opening night film at Frameline33, Crisp has been branded a black sheep for refusing to retract flip comments made on the then-emerging AIDS crisis and is still adjusting to the slights that come with being perceived as some living relic of the past. To a large degree, the image of Crisp as a stoic holdover from an earlier age of faeries and rough trade who survived on wit and sheer force of will was one of his own making, and it is certainly a reputation that Claxton’s film helps secure.  […]

Revolution seems to be on the minds and in the hearts of many in LGBT folk these days. The desire for change is palpable at the marriage equality marches that have now become regular occurrences, even if one isn’t marching under the banner of marriage equality. Indeed, the large and sustained outpouring of grassroots activism that has sprung up since Proposition 8 “passed” last November has been hailed, however ill-fitting the comparison, as “Stonewall 2.0.” […]

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There is an Alfred Jarry quote at the top of kino21’s Web site: “It’s always those who can’t who try.” Jarry’s pithy observation might seem like a backhanded compliment on what motivates the underdog, but it also nicely encapsulates the risk-taking and politically provocative sensibility that kino21 founders and organizers Irina Leimbacher and Konrad Steiner bring to their screenings. “We wanted people to see films as a community, to talk about them as you see them, rather than about them, privately,” reflects Steiner over the phone. “It’s always hot and cold — it depends on the show. It’s hard to say if the goal is ever reached, but the point is that we have consistently been showing these films.” […]

Whether out of boredom on a long weekend, or for a school assignment, or out of a burning sense of ambition seeded by repeated viewings of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (or Harold and Maude), chances are that at some point in your young adult past, you picked up a camera. Someone became a filmmaker, if only for the span of an afternoon. My own efforts included a shriek-filled “remake” of Child’s Play — but with a little girl doll called “Dolly Dearest,” which entailed liberal amounts of ketchup and a screenplay for an extremely low-tech knockoff of The Birds called The Boxes.

My first and last attempts as a filmmaker, however, are nothing like the final products of the talented young directors in TILT’s Summer Film Camp showcase (screening as part of of Straight Outta Film Arts program at YBCA).That may be because these filmmakers receive training: TILT, which stands for Teaching Intermedia Literacy Tools and is overseen by the local media arts nonprofit Film Arts Foundation, aims to help young people develop their abilities to critically evaluate the media around them and to teach them the skills necessary to create their own media. […]

When Cruising (1980) finally arrived in Bay Area theaters Feb. 15, 1980, San Francisco’s gay community had long been up in arms. The 1978 murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone were still fresh in many people’s minds. Gay bashing was still a regular occurrence. Word had spread through the gay press about efforts to disrupt the movie’s filming in New York, and the verdict was clear: Hollywood was profiting from gay murder. […]

It’s not too surprising that On the Lot, the Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg-produced reality show in which budding filmmakers submit weekly short films in competition for a pitiable $1 million production deal with Dreamworks, hasn’t completely caught fire. It might be the lack of shallow Machiavellian scheming and casual nudity within a hot house environment a la Survivor or Big Brother, or, maybe, the dearth of withering judgments (“On the Lot” has no Simon Cowell amongst its trio of judges, and Carrie Fisher is this close to becoming the Paula Abdul softie); or the fact that thanks to 24-hour-paparazzi-surveillance and the collapse of studio-run P.R., Hollywood has lost much of its mystique. Still, the show has its strong points — Oakland-based contestant Mateen Kemet, being one of them. Now that only seven contestants remain, perhaps the presence of a Bay Area rep will boost local ratings. Kemet, though, is worth tailing for other reasons. […]