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festival flicks

2006-07-22 - 3:31 p.m.

Headed in town last night to catch a double feature at the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

The first was a lesbian flick called Loving Anabelle. Trouble-making daughter of a senator, Anabelle, gets dumped into a Catholic school after being expelled for the second time and falls in love with Simone, the smokin' hot, broken-hearted poetry teacher. Overall, it was quite good. Only real complaint was that the romantic pursuit crossed the line where it really just became pesky and pitiful before the pursuee gave in. And perhaps three separate scenes of Simone in the tub were just a teensy bit gratuitous?

What was funny was seeing it in a theater full of lesbians; there were only a token few men in the theater. When a heterosexual love scene came on, there was an instant chorus of "bleah!" resounding through the place, followed by snickering at their own reactions and one very loud "ick!"

The producers answered questions afterwards. They had to reshoot some scenes after having to fire at least one actress during shooting. Eek! The actress playing Simone only had the script for about 3 days before they shot. The audience went wild when they found out the love scene was done in only about 2 takes (though they were then bummed since they were hoping for some outtakes from it on the DVD). What will be on the DVD will be an alternate ending. After shooting the original ending, they realized they really needed to change it and reshot. Drastically different outcome, but I won't give it away.

Next up was Coffee Date. The audience was the exact opposite of the previous film and there were only a handful of women this time. Coffee Date started as a short film, after which people kept asking the writer/director, "so what happens to them next?" Straight guy's just coming off a bad divorce and his brother plays a prank on him, setting him up with someone on the internet. He goes off to meet his date for the first time and discovers it's Kelly, a gay man rather than the girl he thought he was falling for. They strike up a friendship and everyone thinks straight guy's coming out (including his mother, who comes to stay and joins PFLAG). Well-written, funny and quite a good cast. At times the audience was laughing so hard they'd miss the follow-up lines. I'd like to see something else by the writer/director, Stewart Wade...he said he's writing a script now they expect to shoot next summer.

Pretend it's 10th grade. Leave me a note.

previous - next

eager for some spring fever - 2007-02-20
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tacky Easter to you - 2007-02-12
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