Our OutTakes GLBT film festival is now on. Some good movies that might not be released in your part of the US yet.
History:
Screaming Queens: the riot at Comptons Cafe documents a pre-Stonewall riot of drag-queens and gay hustlers at a popular meeting place in SF's Tenderloin in 1966. About five queens were the talking heads, none of the hustlers - probably couldn't be found (and probably aren't with us). A reminder of what the oppression was like in some of our living memories.
Gay Sex in the 70s should have been called Gay Sex in New York in the 70s (Stonewall to AIDS). Lots of flares, moustaches and blow-j^hwaves. Oh yes, BJs too. It covered very well the exuberance of the sexuality in those days. No dividing line between obsession, addiction and what everyone was doing, from the anonymous and risky sleaze of the trucks on the docks and the abandoned piers (falling through the floor into the river was one) to the public, exclusive and wealthy sleaze of Studio 54, with bathhouses and back rooms in between, and many a quickie in corners on the street. Quite a bit about Fire Island. About 10 survivors were the talking heads, including Larry Kramer, photographer Peter Bianchi, the gay doctor who noticed a disproportionate number of gay men in a cancer ward with a rare skin lesion, and the architect of Studio 54. One interesting point was that before AIDS appeared, there were a lot of STDs, but some doctors felt that they, being curable, were a small price to pay for the liberation people were experiencing. Condoms were unthinkable. With no test, by the time people were showing any signs, they had infected many others. It was the community itself (starting with Kramer) who did the hard yards of blowing the whistle on the epidemic and taking care of the dying. Not a sexual movie, it didn't deserve the late-night slot it got.
Original Pride: the Satyrs Motocycle Club of LA celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2004, the oldest gay club in the world. Lots of beer and bears (but not so called) and leather. Basically they used their bikes to get together without a venue. They were hard hit by the epidemic too, of course. They used to (maybe still do) have an annual gathering at a place called Badger Flat, featuring lots of beer, bonfires and a drag show. The drag was burlesque, of course, and always had a Kate Smith lipsynching "America the Beautiful". Over 50 years, they only had 200 members, but lots of hangers on. You got recruited without knowing it; some beer/sex buddies would just get you some time and say "You're now a Satyr".
Doco:
Chris Kris And I (NZ 10 mins) about 3 local guys in a menage-a-trois.
Comedy:
Gay Volleyball saved my life quite funny.
Feature:
Hildes Reise (Hilde's Journey, Switzerland, in German with French/English subtitles), about a poor carpenter whose former lover has died of AIDS and has to decide whether to carry our his last wishes and scatter the ashes in the sea off France, or accept his a fraction of his inheritance from the phobic relatives. A later and last lover takes matters into his own hands, so it's a sort of road movie. Quite appealing and engaging. We never see the deceased.