A scene from Spider Lillies

The 31st annual Frameline Film Festival opens June 14 with the premiere of Andre Techine’s The Witnesses, and continues through June 24 with the closing night feature, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, produced by Andrea Sperling, this year’s festival honoree. Unspooling at area theatres, and this year’s program features films from around the corner (25 Cent Preview, a hustler drama filmed on Polk street) to around the world, (No Regret, a gay romance from South Korea). Here is a guide to some hot—and not so hot—tickets at this year’s fest.

Outing Riley
Friday, June 15, 9:30 pm, Castro
Don’t dismiss this wonderful, funny, even touching feel good comedy as just another coming out film—even though it is. Bobby Riley (writer/director Pete Jones) is a Chicago Irish Catholic man afraid to tell his family he is gay. When his sister Maggie (Julie R. Pearl)—the only one in the family who knows his secret—insists that he tells his pot-smoking brother Luke (Nathan Fillion), his porn-addict brother (Stoney Westmoreland) and his eldest brother Jack (Dev Kennedy), a priest, that he is gay, Bobby’s worst fears are realized. Outing Riley is naughty enough to include a string of altar boy and dick jokes, but the film is also sensitive enough to show how Bobby gracefully struggles with his family as a result of his announcement. If the film has some too cute moments—a conversation Bobby has with the boom mike guy about Andy, or a flamboyant pool musical number that seems out of character for the otherwise straight-acting but gay Bobby—nevermind. This satisfying film is thoroughly enjoyable from start to the expected finish, and the performances by the entire ensemble cast are pitch-perfect.

Laughing Matters...The Men

Sunday June 17, 11:30 am, Victoria
Filmed during Palm Springs’ pride parade, Laughing Matters…The Men is another in the continuing series of documentaries about funny, out queer comedians. This riotous film features a half-dozen guys from the well known Bruce Villanch and Bob Smith, to the should-be-better-known Alec Mapa, Scott Kennedy, Andre Kelley and Eddie Sarfaty. Each comic gets his stand up time and talk about growing up, coming out, and being in show business, as well as topics as diverse as gay marriage and even AIDS. Throughout their interspersed monologues and stand up routines, they zing some hilarious one-liners. Alec Mapa’s wedding present is achingly funny, as is Bruce Villanch’s jokes about Cher. Yet there is a poignancy with each man being comfortable with his sexuality and not conforming to other people’s responses—such as Bob Smith, one of the “Funny Gay Males” being asked to tone down the gay part of his act, or Scott Kennedy revealing to a straight crowd, late in his act, that he’s got designs on a hunk in the audience. Chock-filled with chuckles, this is a satisfying tribute to the gay men who make us laugh at—and with—ourselves.

25 Cent Preview
Sunday, June 17, 10:15 pm Castro
As fascinating as it is frustrating, this low-budget hustler drama, shot mostly at night on the street of San Francisco’s tenderloin district, follows Marcus (Merlin Gaspers) and his friend Dot.Com (Dorian Brockington) as they scam, do drugs, and have sex. The film is commendably gritty, giving a palpable sense of these characters’ lives, and what they go through on and off the job. However, while director Cyrus Amini shoots some of 25 Cent Preview using split screens and overlapping images, among other stylistic gimmicks, the film is at its best when it is in its fly on the wall/documentary mode, especially during an extended sequence in a hotel room featuring Dot.Com verbally and sexually abusing his john, while Marcus watches, unable to sustain an erection. Unfortunately, when the rambling narrative starts to take shape after the midpoint, the film loses its raw appeal. It is easy to watch Marcus steal and seduce, but hard to care about him working on getting the money he owes some guys, or plotting revenge on a man who returns from his past. And when 25 Cent Preview tries to become a morality tale, it fumbles badly. Yet Merlin Gaspers is attractive and seductive as Marcus, and he seems to be paying homage to Joe D’Allesandro’s hustler in Andy Warhol’s Flesh here. In support, Dorian Brockington is riveting, especially when he delivers his monologues to Marcus. Curious viewers should give this indie film a look, but they may feel hustled when it’s over.

The Bubble
Monday, June 18, 9 pm, Castro
Eytan Fox’s gay romance between an Israeli and a Palestinian is more ambitious than good. Opening with a birth at a Middle East checkpoint that is stillborn, alas, so too, is this film. When Noam (Ohad Knoller) starts dating Ashraf (Yousef Sweid), they discover that despite their hot homo sex, their relationship is doomed—for all the expected reasons (family, nationality, sexuality). Noam’s roommates also have relationship troubles. Yalli (Alon Friedman), is an effeminate gay guy whose relationship with his butch boyfriend is played for cheap laughs, while Lulu (Daniela Virtzer), a straight girl, can’t seem to find the right guy in Tel Aviv. Fox tries to make the political personal and in the process, incorporates too many issues—terrorism, anti-Arab sentiments, Israeli pride—with only few of them working. The melodramatic twists are strained, and the ending rings particularly false. If there are some nice sentiments about contemporary life in Tel Aviv, they got lost amid all of the film’s good intentions.

Another Woman
Tuesday, June 19, 7 pm, Roxie
Loosely based on real events, Another Woman concerns Leá (Nathalie Mann), a woman who returns to Paris on a business trip where she also takes care of some unfinished personal business. As the film reveals, Leá was once Nicolas, and he abruptly left his wife Anna (Micky Sébastian) and their two children years ago—never telling anyone that she wanted to be a woman. Now, reuniting with her family for the first time, Leá finds the courage to tell the truth, but the effect is devastating. Anna responds by taking legal action to keep Leá away from the kids. Another Woman may play like a French Lifetimes Movie of the Week, despite veering into melodrama all too frequently, the film is notably sympathetic to the legal situations of the transgendered in society.

Suffering Man’s Charity
Tuesday, June 19, 9:30 pm, Castro
Alan Cumming writes, directs and stars in this alleged dark comedy about a musician John (Cumming) who has a non-sexual exchange with hustler Sebastian (David Boreanaz). Cummings shouts his every line of dialogue and shoots himself frequently in close-up, making much of the film a vanity production. But just when things get almost too painful, there is scenery-chewer Karen Black’s vulgar scene as one of Sebastian’s clients. For his part, Boreanaz spends considerable amount of his screen time tied to a chair with Christmas lights wearing ladies underwear as Cummings screams literature trivia to him. When out actress Jane Lynch appears as Ingrid, a photographer, late in the film she observes, “Something really stinks.”

Apparently, she is talking about this truly unbearable film. Cummings tries to make a connection between art and prostitution, and he likes the line “Even the greats have to whore themselves from time to time” so much he uses it at least twice.  If only he were less impressed with himself, Suffering Man’s Charity wouldn’t be so insufferable. And that is being charitable.

Glue: A teenage story in the middle of nowhere.
Wednesday, June 20, 9:15 pm, Parkway; Friday, June 22, 7:00 pm Victoria
Writer/director Alexis Dos Santos adroitly captures life at 16 in a remote area of Argentina where bored and horny Lucas (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) experiments with sex and sniffing the title substance with his hunky best friend, Nacho (Nahuel Viale). Dos Santos uses dizzying handheld camerawork to reflect on the desolation of the characters and the barren landscape (and perhaps to mask an emptiness in his script) but the intimacy of this visual texture distinguishes this worthwhile film. Dos Santos also creates a tactile emotional space—the nexus of heartache, loneliness, and punk attitude—with utter realism (and music by the Violent Femmes). If all the expected adolescent angst and pain is on display, Glue features an erotic threesome with Nacho and their friend Andrea (Ines Efron) that is not found in many teen coming-of-age films.  

One to Another

Saturday, June 23, 8 pm, Victoria
Jean-Marc Barr and Pascal Arnold’s extraordinary film features Pierre (Arthur Dupont) is a hunky bisexual teenager whose murder drives his infatuated sister Lucie (Lizzie Brocheré) to great lengths to find out whodunnit. The film is highly eroticized—the gorgeous cast of characters are frequently nude and often behaving inappropriately. Furthermore, Barr and Arnold play around with themes of homosexuality, voyeurism, and other taboos. As the case builds, clues are dropped for viewers, but the ending still turns out to be a bit of a surprise. Don’t miss it.