<a href="http://www.logoonline.com/shows/dyn/outlaugh_festival_on_wisecrack/series.jhtml" target="_blank">Bruce Vilanch Rips on Minorities</a>

Love, Mister D

Mister D: Here’s a review of Bruce Vilanch’s new movie playing at the Castro this Saturday. The movie continues to garner great reviews so try and check it out if it comes your way. To see reviews of the other films playing: Click Here

Bay Area Reporter
New queer paradigms
Highlights from the 32nd San Francisco International LGBT Film
by David Lamble
Issue: Vol. 38 / No. 25 / 19 June 2008

Tru Loved

This ensemble piece sprinkled with known movement figures (Dave Kopay, Alex Mapa, Bruce Vilanch) tells the story of a high school sophomore blessed with two gay moms and two gay dads, but cursed with a three-year sentence at a bland Southland academy. Tru soon finds herself with two boyfriends: one, a cute but closeted African American quarterback; the other, a blonde Adonis raised by a queer uncle. Stewart Wade keeps the talented cast from sinking to the piece’s camp potential, and provides a diverting 99 minutes with all the right messages. (Castro, 6/21, 25)

- The Capital Pride Parade will be held Saturday from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., starting at 24th & N Streets, NW and ending at 14th Street and Thomas Circle, NW. In conjunction with the parade, the Sixth Annual Team D.C. Sport Pride Fest will take pace during and immediately following the parade on the dead-end block of 1700 Church Street, NW. The parade, which will be grand marshaled by comedian Bruce Vilanch, will cause Metro to re-rout bus routes that conflict with the parade’s route.

The Washington Blade
Pride arrives next weekend
33rd annual celebration to bring thousands of revelers to city
By CHRIS JOHNSON
Jun. 06, 2008

Organizers for this year’s Capital Pride estimate about 40,000 visitors will descend on Washington for the annual parade and about 200,000 for the festival, which includes a few minor upgrades from last year’s event.

The parade on June 14, slated to begin at 6:30 p.m. at P and 23rd streets, will feature an additional announcement stand toward the beginning of the parade. Music will play from the stand and when the parade begins a speaker will describe the contingencies as they pass. In previous years, announcements came only from the reviewing stand toward the end of the parade.

The parade path will not deviate from previous years and will continue on P Street until 14th Street.

Comedy writer Bruce Vilanch will serve as the parade’s grand marshal. Wendy Rieger, news anchor for NBC 4, will handle the announcements from the reviewing stand.

Dave Mallory, Capital Pride director for Whitman-Walker Clinic, said he is expecting about 100 contingencies for the parade, which will include floats, cars and walking participants. The parade is on track to have about as many contingencies as it did last year.

The Pride festival will take place June 15, a Sunday, on Pennsylvania Avenue between 3rd and 7th streets. A new feature this year will be the placement of recycling bins throughout the festival grounds.

“We’ve had a couple volunteers step up who really wanted to make Pride more green, so people need to be looking for the recycling bins throughout the site,” Mallory said.

In addition to serving as grand marshal, Vilanch will also be master of ceremonies for the festival. Destiny B. Childs will assist in the duties as master of ceremonies.

Festival performers include Derek Hartley and Romaine Patterson, hosts of the Derek and Romaine on Sirius OutQ radio. Pop duo and real life couple Jason & deMarco will headline the afternoon entertainment.

Local talent includes the Charm City Boys, a Maryland drag king troupe; D.C. Cowboys, a gay male dance company that dresses as cowboys; and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.

Booths for the festival are sold out. Mallory estimates that 230 organizations will have displays.

Destination D.C. estimates that leisure visitors spend between $100 and $200 when they come into the city for an event, so if Pride brings in the expected 40,000 attendees, the event would bring in about $6 million to Washington.

Capital Pride is undergoing a transition this year as Whitman-Walker Clinic gradually hands over control to the newly formed Capital Pride Alliance. For 2008, the Clinic is still handling the legal, financial and logistical matters for Pride.

Mallory said the transition has been “fairly smooth” and that the bulk of the transition over to the Capital Pride Alliance will be on the administrative side.

“When it comes to like actually planning the events and putting on a successful Pride week, I think they certainly have those tools already at their fingerprints because they’re the ones that are doing it now,” Mallory said.

A number of organizations targeting gay audiences are planning to participate.

The Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL), an organization dedicated to serving gay youth in the Washington area, plans to have a walking contingency in the parade and a booth at the festival.

Andrew Barnett, acting executive director for SMYAL, said his organization plans to have a kick-off party on the Friday preceding Pride, during which gay youth will come together to decorate the car that SMYAL will use in its contingency.

“I think we’re just going to do the usual — streamers and balloons — things like that,” he said.

During the festival, SMYAL will partner with Youth Pride Alliance and the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry for a T-shirt-decorating activity at their booth.

Barnett said it is important for SMYAL to participate in Capital Pride because the D.C. gay community provides support enabling the organization to operate its programs.

“It’s also just a great opportunity for our youth to come out and show their pride and be in a space where they really get a sense that there is a larger community that supports them,” he said.

D.C. Strokes, the gay rowing team in Washington, an organization with more than 200 members, also plans to be in the parade and have a festival booth.

Andy Rabus, head coach for the team, said D.C. Strokes is sponsoring Capital Pride for the first time this year. Rabus said his organization will try to sign people up who are interested in the organization and will give out T-shirts. The team will seek out experienced rowers who want to be part of the organization and gauge interest for future “learn-to-row” classes.

Lake Expo

By Colin Covert/Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)

There’s a spirit of avant-garde goofiness to the new Adam Sandler movie that sets it apart from his usual sophomoric work. Sprung from the fertile comic imaginations of Robert Smigel (”Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog”) and Judd Apatow (the grand vizier of film comedy), it exists in a slap-happy parallel universe. In “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” Israeli commandos dream of styling mousse and blow driers, hummus is a dip served with eyeglasses, and Mariah Carey asks terrorists to explain Bluetooth technology.

Zohan is a top Israeli counterspy who bops down the boulevard like Borat imitating a disco-era Travolta snapping Chuck Norris moves. He is the master of almost any situation, from a hacky sack challenge to outswimming a jihadist on a jet ski. He leaps across rooftops with an agility that would make Spider-Man weep, and he never overcooks grilled fish. He is also a sex god (Sandler, buffed to perfection, sports a codpiece the size of a cantaloupe). His greatest drawback is his consonant-gargling accent, which sounds like a collection of Scrabble tiles swirled in a blender.

But Zohan is unfulfilled. He dreams of leaving the endless conflict of the Middle East for a peaceful life as a New York hairdresser. While pursuing the extra-dastardly-evil terrorist known as The Phantom (John Turturro), he fakes his own death, stows away on a trans-Atlantic jet and wrangles an entry-level job at a rundown salon, his new mission in life to make the world “silky smooth.” He’s great with a clipper and comb, but Zohan’s real appeal is the additional services he gives his elderly clients in the stockroom love pad.

As in last year’s “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry,” homosexual anxiety underpins many of the film’s jokes. This time it’s turned inside out: Rather than a red-blooded firefighter pretending to be gay, Sandler’s now a lady-killer stud in a gay man’s profession. Zohan is a macho dynamo: He’s so exuberantly proud of his body that he can’t help doing a bump and grind with every rinse and fluff, and it must be said that Sandler’s campy body language is hilarious.

Naturally, the Happy Madison films stock company is on hand with extended cameos. Rob Schneider pops up as an Arab taxi driver who recognizes Zohan and endangers his new life, Kevin Nealon appears as a timid neighborhood watch captain, and Nick Swardson plays a nerd who’s appalled by Zohan’s nonstop lovemaking with his mommie dearest (Lanie Kazan). John McEnroe, George Takai and Bruce Vilanch show up just for the hell of it.

Full marks go to longtime Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan (of “Chuck & Larry” and “The Benchwarmers”), whose direction has never been better. The film has a disorienting, daffy feel, swinging easily between the comic romance of Zohan and the pretty Palestinian owner of his salon (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and farcical action scenes that demolish half of Brooklyn. The dialogue is full of left-field weirdness: When Zohan explains his accent by insisting he’s Australian, someone comments that it’s much nicer there since they ended apartheid.

And for fans of physical humor, Sandler performs impossible deeds of athletic prowess with the aid of computer animation and prosthetic feet. (Don’t ask.) Best of all, his character’s accent keeps Sandler from drifting into the adenoidal whine that made many of his characters physically painful to listen to.

“Zohan” tries for a message of social relevance with a nod to America as the land of multicultural coexistence, but its real value is in air-fluffing our cares away for a couple of hours.

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN

3 stars

Starring: Adam Sandler

Directed by: Dennis Dugan

Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and nudity.

From AfterElton.com
by Snicks
June 2, 2008

Logo (our mother ship) is one of the proud sponsors of NewFest 2008: The 20th Anniversary NY LGBT Film Festival , which runs from June 5th to 15th. We’ve already mentioned the festival’s closing film, Were The World Mine, and another festival entry, The Sensei, so let’s take a look at some other highlights (for a complete list, check out the festival’s website).

The festival opens with Tru Loved, which stars Alexandra Paul, Cynda Williams, Jasmine Guy, Bruce Vilanch, Marcia Wallace, Alec Mapa, Jane Lynch, and Nichelle Nichols (what a cast!), and is described as a “thoroughly modern high school romantic comedy”:

“Sixteen-year-old Gertrude aka Tru is a typical high school teenager from an atypical home - she is raised by her two moms, interracial couple Leslie and Lisa, who have just moved to a new town in suburban southern California, while her two dads remain in San Francisco. At school, Tru catches the eye of Lo, the closeted star quarterback who soon makes a deal with Tru to pretend they are an item. It’s seems like a perfect solution – it keeps his friends and family from asking too many questions, and it allows Tru to instantly find a place to belong in her new school. But when Tru befriends picked-upon openly gay student Walter and decides to join him in forming a Gay-Straight Alliance, she falls for GSA member Trevor, a handsome metrosexual who has been raised by his gay uncle. Her new love affair threatens to expose Lo’s true desires and standing as big man on campus.”

Other films playing:

Chris & Don: A Love Story

One of the two “centerpiece” films is Chris & Don: A Love Story, about the relationship of Don Bachardy and writer Christopher Isherwood, who was many years his senior:

“When 18-year-old Don Bachardy was introduced to 49-year-old Christopher Isherwood in 1950s Malibu, neither man knew it would be the start of a love story that would last for 30 years. Chris & Don chronicles their years together, with the vibrant and engaging Don at this extraordinary documentary’s epicenter … a touching, illuminating portrait of the enduring power of love.”

Equality U

There are five “Festival Focus” series. The first is called “Activism/Repression”, and includes the documentary Equality U:

“What happens when a busload of young LGBT Christian activists travel around the country to confront antigay discrimination policies at conservative religious and military colleges? Equality U tells the story of the Soulforce Equality Ride and their experiences combating hatred, fear, and ignorance through direct action. Their goal: to engage in a dialogue with university administration and students, explaining the tragic consequences that discriminatory policies have had on LGBT lives. Some schools welcome them, while others have them arrested and prevent them from speaking to students. Can these young activists create social change, one university at a time?”

Don’t Go

Included in the “African American Images” series is the tv pilot Don’t Go:

“Melrose Place meets The L Word in the smart ensemble drama Don’t Go, a series pilot featuring Nisha Ganatra (Chutney Popcorn), Guinevere Turner, and a host of sexy, multicultural characters who all live in the same apartment complex in Los Angeles. The best elements of unexpected soap-style intrigue, romance, and humor play out with people of color directly in the spotlight.”

Clapham Junction

In the “NewFest Late Night” section is the UK entry Clapham Junction, which originally aired as a part of the “40 Years Out in the UK” television program (we reviewed it over here):

“In Clapham Junction, a number of separate stories weave together over the course of one long night - the celebration of a gay wedding, a young man devoted to his grandmother’s care, a schoolboy lusting after a much older man, a couple hosting a stylish dinner party, aided by a maid whose son walks home alone. Intersecting in surprising ways, these strands form a devastating and provocative portrait of modern day gay life in London, culminating in a shockingly violent climax in the titular area, the site of a real-life hate crime that claimed the life of a young gay man in 2005.”

Daddy’s Love

From the “Parenthood” series is the Norwegian drama Daddy’s Love:

“Kenneth is a young single gay Norwegian who wants nothing more than to be a father. Working with a surrogate mother in Kansas, he eagerly awaits his son’s birth. A fascinating, intimate portrait of a father’s love and of the straight couple that helps him realize it.”

The Universe of Keith Haring

And from the “Early Days of AIDS” series, comes The Universe of Keith Haring:

“Keith Haring was one of the most popular artists of the late 20th century, and his images remain some of the most recognizable today, 18 years after his death from AIDS. Christina Clausen’s film literally explores the scope of Haring’s universe, from his personal history to interviews and archival footage of the many friends, associates, and admirers who traveled in his orbit – including Yoko Ono, David LaChapelle, Madonna, Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Junior Vasquez, and others. The Universe of Keith Haring serves as a wonderful celebration of his life and of the enduring legacy of his art.”

For more films and for tickets, be sure to check out the festival’s website.

Glaad.org
Vilanch Hosts Lively LGBT TV Retrospect
By Sarah Holbert on May 30, 2008 6:34 PM

On Thursday, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences hosted “LGBT: Above and Below the Line in Prime,” the Academy’s first “state of the union” review and celebration of LGBT contributions to television. Two-time Emmy Award winner Bruce Vilanch jokingly kicked off the evening by announcing his engagement to American Idol winner David Cook.

And thus began a funny, engaging panel discussion about gay and transgender representation on television from the 1970s to today.

The near-capacity crowd at the Academy’s Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre was certainly enthusiastic. GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano gave the evening’s keynote address. When he referred to Kevin and Scotty’s wedding on Brothers & Sisters and the California Supreme Court marriage decision the audience rose for a standing ovation.

Many actors, writers, showrunners and TV execs participated in the panel, including Billy Crystal, who played the first openly gay series regular character on television. He said that in 1977, he was excited about the prospect of playing Jodie Dallas. “We could do something with this person,” he said. “We could do something important.” He confessed that the cast and crew were nervous at the beginning; Crystal even called them “skittish.” But Soap remained on the air for four seasons, the final season airing with no sponsorship at all, due to many of the controversial storylines, Jodie’s included.

Other actors told their own coming out stories, including Amanda Bearse (Married with Children) and David Marshall Grant (thirtysomething), who is now a producer of Brothers & Sisters. Out comic Ant (Celebrity Fit Club) joked about trying to hide his orientation when he began his standup career, but was too flamboyant to stay in the closet. He blamed it on Hollywood Squares’ Paul Lynde, proclaiming, “Come on! The center square was my role model!”

Transgender actresses Candis Cayne (Dirty Sexy Money) and Alexandra Billings (Grey’s Anatomy, ER) talked about the importance — and pressure — of being role models today to young trans kids. Billings also expressed the need for transgender performers everywhere to be viewed not exclusively as trans actors playing transgender roles, but as simply working actors. “We have to integrate ourselves artistically,” Billings said. She joked that there were exactly five working transgender actors in the business and that is simply unacceptable. The time for visibility and equality has arrived.

Also on the panel were Deondray Gossett and Quincy LeNear, creators of the GLAAD Media Award-winning The DL Chronicles (here! TV). They talked about the difficulty of being a “double minority,” both gay and African American. Meredith Kadlec, VP of here! Productions, said she wholeheartedly supported the show, knowing that though the subject matter could be considered controversial, it was an important story to tell. “The fact that we exist as a non ad-supported network,” she said, “we can take the chances that we do.”

Robert Greenblatt, President of Entertainment at Showtime Networks, echoed that sentiment. Because Showtime is a subscription network, he realizes he can air groundbreaking series like Queer As Folk and The L Word, calling them “revolutionary,” but cautioning, “I don’t know if there will ever be another show with eight gay characters again.”

Most panelists agreed television is moving in a direction in which LGBT characters are woven into the fabric of a series, like Dirty Sexy Money or Weeds. “You don’t need to be a visionary,” said DSM creator Craig Wright. “You just need to know what people want to see.”

Vilanch closed the evening by saying, “Be true to yourself. Write it that way. Produce it that way. The single most important thing you can do as a gay person is come out.”

Benefit Concert

Shawn Ryan (”America’s Got Talent”) headlines a concert for the Young Actors’ Theatre Camp Scholarship Fund. Performers include Bruce Vilanch, Wesla Whitfield and Connie Champagne. All ages welcome. $45-$60. 7:30 p.m. June 3. Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St., San Francisco. (866) 468-3399, www.therrazzroom.com.

Frameline fabulosity
Coming attractions at LGBT film fest
by Roberto Friedman

Frameline Artistic Director Michael Lumpkin and Director of Programming Jennifer Morris sat down with Out There in their offices last week as they prepared to roll out Frameline 32, the SF International LGBT Film Festival coming up June 19-29.

The opening-night attraction will be director Tim Fywell ’s Affinity, based on Sarah Waters ‘ first novel, a period piece set in a women’s prison. “A bodice-ripper!” blurbed Lumpkin. “We haven’t had a good women’s prison film in a while!” added Morris.

The fest’s centerpiece, XXY from Argentine director Lucia Puenzo, premiered last year at Cannes. It concerns 15-year-old Alex, born intersex, brought up female, and just beginning to explore sexuality.

Closing-night’s film, starring TV hunk Thomas Cavanagh , will be Breakfast with Scot (director Laurie Lynd), described as an “only-in-Canada mix of homos, hockey and family values.”

Showcased films include date-night delight Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!; a restoration of seminal gay doc Word Is Out, complete with a short update; Isaac Julien’s doc on queer film pioneer Derek Jarman , Derek, with Jarman leading lady Tilda Swinton; and When I Knew, directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s exploration of that moment when we knew we were different from other little {boys, girls}. “It sounds hokey, but they do a great job at interweaving stories, not of coming out, but of self-realization.” Filmgoers will be able to record their own WIK story in a video booth at the AT&T Festival Pavilion next door to the Castro.

This year’s fest finds Frameline in transition, as both Lumpkin and Managing Director Matt Westendorf prepare to move on. The deserving winner of this year’s Frameline Award, Lumpkin chose seven films from his 25 years at the fest to present in retrospective, “both films I really love, and films that audiences really loved, that got the kind of response you never forgot — those are few and far between.” The short list: Mala Noche, Law of Desire, Lilies, Big Eden, Karmen Gei, Yes Nurse! No Nurse! and Bound, featuring hot Gina Gershon-on-Jennifer Tilly action. “The Wachowski Brothers sent us a note afterwards saying they’d never watch their film again, because nothing could possibly match the audience at our screening.”

Here’s a quick run-down of a few highlights in feature offerings. In Steam, neighborhood women (including Ally Sheedy, Ruby Dee) meet at their local steam room. In Tru Loved, a high school sophomore founds a chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance; the cast includes Bruce Vilanch, Alec Mapa, and the first openly gay pro athlete, David Kopay, and a panel will follow the screening. Del Shores ‘ Sordid Lives: The Television Series is a sneak preview of a “prequel” to that cult film.

Intriguing documentaries include Out in India: A Family’s Journey, in which two gay dads with children move to Bangalore; Fairytale of Kathmandu, involving gay Irish poet Cathal O’Searchaigh and charges of sex tourism; and It’s Still Elementary, in which SF filmmaker Debra Chasnoff revisits her groundbreaking work on raising gay issues in grade school. With A Horse Is Not a Metaphor, lesbian-feminist pioneer Barbara Hammer made a movie while battling cancer and undergoing chemo treatment. Then there’s Pageant: “We’ve had a lot of drag pageant films come through the doors,” declared Lumpkin, “but this one is really it. You really get into the heads of the contestants as they prepare for the contest. It’s old-school drag.”

Like road-trip movies? Bi the Way is a feature-length documentary journey through bi America; in Finished Life: No Regrets, a longtime survivor of HIV takes a farewell tour; in Equality U, college-age gay Christians undertake a bus tour of Christian campuses hostile to their cause; and The Kinsey Sicks: Almost Infamous finds the queer a cappella quartet both on the road and ensconced in Vegas.

Eleven Minutes picks up the story of Project Runway winning designer Jay McCarroll, “and we’ve scheduled it in Runway ’s time slot, Wednesday night at 10 p.m., so fans can get their fix.”

And in honor of their profile-by-documentary Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band, the great early-90s SF rock band fronted by Jon Ginoli will be playing a reunion gig at the venerable South of Market gay bar The Eagle Tavern.

Lots more. Complete information is at www.frameline.org.

Join GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano & Billy Crystal for a “state of the union” review and celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender contributions to television presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

Hosted by Bruce Vilanch

Thursday, May 29, 2008 • 6:30 pm reception • 7:30 pm event

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre
5220 Lankershim Blvd • North Hollywood

Scheduled to appear: Ant (Celebrity Fit Club), William Baldwin (Dirty Sexy Money), Amanda Bearse (Married With Children, The Big Gay Sketch Show), Alexandra Billings (ER), Billy Crystal, David Marshall Grant (Brothers & Sisters), Robert Greenblatt (President, Entertainment, Showtime Networks), Deondray Gossett & Quincy LeNear (The DL Chronicles), Neil G. Giuliano (President, GLAAD), Meredith Kadlec (VP, here! Productions), Dave Mace (VP, Logo), Ron Rifkin (Brothers & Sisters), Jai Rodriguez (Queer Eye), Tracy Scoggins (Dante’s Cove), Craig Wright (Dirty Sexy Money) and others to be announced.

Free to the public. Please RSVP to LGBT@emmys.org. Include first and last name and number of guests. Television Academy members please register at emmys.tv.