Various Directors

She Likes Girls 4

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:18:00 +0000

She Likes Girls 4 is a hilarious compilation of eight short films on various ways in which girls like girls. Topics center around gender, childhood innocence, homophobia, and presumptions. _Babysitting Andy _directed by Pat Mills is a humorous short about a nine-year-old brat who tortures her wheelchair-bound uncle and his partner into schooling her on the definition of fellatio. She has overheard the term being used by her parents, but concludes that she wants nothing to do with it, and confesses she may lesbian.

In No Bikini, directed by Claudia Morgado Escanilla and written by Ivan Coyote, a young girl decides to go topless while taking swimming lessons for six weeks. Unbeknownst to the swim teacher and her classmates, the girl competes as a boy and ends up with the medal for fastest swimmer. When her mother reads a letter that constantly refers to her daughter as “him,” she realizes how the young girl betrayed the two piece.

Another favorite, Don’t Mess With Texas, directed by Carrie Schrader and Tricia Cooke, conjures up all the preconceived notions of the Lone Star State with the presumptuous behavior of a lesbian couple. The couple thinks they are rebelling against homophobia in a small town diner only to find out that their waitress is having trouble with her presumably chauvinistic male partner. When the lesbian partner comes in to apologize to her waitress girlfriend and saves the other woman’s partner from choking, the couple realizes what type of setting they are in.

_She Likes Girls _is a thought-provoking, entertaining compilation of short films worth watching again and again.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, September 14th 2009

Girl + Girl: Classic Lesbian Short Films

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:48:00 +0000

By Various Directors

Wolfe Video

Reviewing a diverse film collection that includes a variety pieces can be a tricky task. This has certainly has been the case for reviewing this collection of lesbian short films. The DVD features a range of lesbian shorts produced between 1988 and 2003 in Europe, Canada, and the U.S. The collection not only spans periods where lesbian filmmaking was not accessible to the wider public, but includes a range of culturally diverse perspectives on filmmaking, art, and the representation of lesbian life in cinema.

From a historic perspective, the collection is interesting and enlightening; it includes classic coming-out stories like Cheryl Farthing’s Rosebud (1991, UK) as well as the film festival favorite Maid of Honor(1999, USA), two short films that represent one aspect of the development of lesbian filmmaking in terms of topics covered and also appeal to a broader audience. From a purely entertainment driven perspective, not all of the films included in this collection are easily accessible. I struggled with the quirkier films where stories and images get lost in the films’ focus on artistic merit.

But as much as the diversity of the collection presented a challenge for writing a cohesive review, it also meant that I could skip ahead and get lost in an absolute masterpiece that is included on this DVD: Canadian director Leah Pool’s Rispondetemi (1991) is the life story of a woman as it flashes before her eyes in fifteen minutes while she is rushed to the hospital after a car accident. The film not only highlights themes, images and perspectives that return again in Pool’s later work such as Lost and Delirious, but also represents fifteen minutes of gripping, breathtaking cinema. This short film alone turns the DVD into a must have collection for anyone who enjoys the kind of dazed and confused (or should I say lost and delirious?) state of mind after having watched a truly amazing film.

Written by: Annette Przygoda, April 27th 2009

He Likes Guys

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:29:00 +0000

Directed by Various Directors

Wolfe Video

As a member of my college cinema club, I would show a film a couple of nights every month. Usually, the featured movie would be preceded by a surprise short film—nothing too long, but always something entertaining. Recently, I showed "Laundromat" by Edward Gunawan from a collection of acclaimed gay short films, He Likes Guys, to my unsuspecting audience. Little did I know that the DVD's menu page featuring a buff torso would draw a variety of gasps—some amused, some more ambivalent, and even a rather repulsed, “Whaaat?!”

Fortunately, "Laundromat" (2007, 13 mins) promised nothing loaded with hackneyed gay stereotypes. In this smile-inducing drama, newly-cohabiting couple Lawrence and Joey bicker over their differences when doing the laundry. Their squabble later gets the attention of an elderly man who teaches them a small but profound lesson in the value of love, life and relationships. So far, so Zen-like.

Another short film that I felt moved by was "Traces" (2008, 19 mins). Directed by Rachel Zisser, "Traces" examines the tragic side of trans acceptance (or rather the lack thereof.) After seeing his handsome college-going son off at the airport, a father is shocked to hear of his son critically injured in a car accident some miles away from home. Arriving at the hospital too late, he is shown the body of his son, in women's clothing and bewigged. He is later consumed by a desire to piece together his late son's hidden identity, using different objects once belonged to his son that eventually lead him to uncover not only a secret double life but also a man who had stood between them for years.

The mixed response from the audience at the prospect of watching a film with gay themes that night says a lot about the position of homosexuality in the margins of cinematic discourse. But He Likes Guys is an anthology with an important social message at its heart. Part of the pleasure of watching the mini social commentaries is attributed to the film-makers' measured use of thought-provoking drama and humour to humanise gay culture. Perhaps the only weakness can be found right at the beginning—in the first short film, "Steam" (2008) by Damien Rea. At (mercifully) three minutes long, it is effectively a music video and an exercise in male objectification—a bland starter to the far superior films that are definitely worth a watch.

Written by: Alicia Izharuddin, April 21st 2009