Cinematical

• Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor Get Close in 'I Love You Phillip Morris'
  

  Filed under: Comedy, Gay & Lesbian, Romance, Movie Marketing, Images

  
  
  Jim and Ewan sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N..well, you get the idea. Thanks to Jim Carrey Online, we now have our first official look at the happy couple in the black comedy, I Love You Phillip Morris. Elisabeth brought us a behind the scenes photo back in May, but in spite of the thrill of seeing Jim Carrey and Rodrigo Santoro dripping with sun-tan oil and Versace, I was a little disappointed that my favorite Scot was nowhere to be seen -- until now.
  
  Morris was written and...
  



• Is There Really a Gay Hutt in 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars'?
  

  Filed under: Action, Animation, Gay & Lesbian, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Releases, Warner Brothers, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels

  Another day, another George Lucas related kerfluffle. There's an, um, interesting new character in Star Wars: The Clone Wars named Zero Ziro the Hutt. He's purple, covered in sky blue tattoos, sports a peacock feather behind his squashy head, and really digs Cher.
  
  Ok, I made that last one up, but only just barely. Because according to MTV, Jabba's uncle, Ziro the Hutt "is a gay stereotype that makes what Jar Jar Binks represented to the island of Jamaica...
  



• Cinematical Seven: More Than One Woman ... (The Bechdel Rule)
  

  Filed under: Comedy, Gay & Lesbian, Independent, Cinematical Seven

  
  
  
  The other day, a blog entry from the cinetrix about "The Rule" evoked a flood of memories from my love-movies-hate-the-patriarchy college days. In 1989, my then-roommate's then-girlfriend showed me a comic strip from the series Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel. The strip was called "The Rule" and it was about a character who explained that she only went to movies that met three criteria:
  
  1. Two of the characters had to be women --
  2. Who talked with each other --
  3. About something other than a man.



• Review: Brideshead Revisited
  

  Filed under: Classics, Drama, Gay & Lesbian, Romance, Theatrical Reviews, Cinematical Indie

  

  Some might question whether Brideshead Revisited, the classic novel by Evelyn Waugh, needed to be revisited in a film adaptation; the novel, after all, has been adapted once before in a lengthy and well-beloved British television serial. Fortunately for fans of Waugh's work, this film version of Brideshead, directed by Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Becoming Jane) off a screenplay written by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, is beautifully shot, painstakingly directed, and well worth watching. For the most part, the filmmakers avoid mutilating Waugh's work, although the end result does place a greater...
  




• Outfest Hands Out Awards in LA
  

  Filed under: Gay & Lesbian, Awards, Other Festivals

  
  
  The 26th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which is also known as Outfest 2008, is wrapping up today, but the cinematic winners of this year's fest have already been announced during an awards ceremony last night in Hollywood. In the list of winners, there are some familiar names, plus some other films that might be worth keeping an eye out for.
  
  The awards were led by Were the World Mine, which won Outstanding US Dramatic Feature. The film focuses on an all-boys school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (and for those Twin Peaks fans out...
  



• Indie Spotlight: New Releases for July 18
  

  Filed under: Documentary, Drama, Gay & Lesbian, Independent, New Releases, Columns, Cinematical Indie, Indie Spotlight

  I concede that it's possible you might already have a film in mind to see this weekend. I understand that there's a highly anticipated major release hitting theaters today that's expected to draw huge crowds. But enough about Space Chimps. This is the Indie Spotlight, a weekly round-up of films opening in limited release that you can see now (if you live in the right city) or put on your list of Movies to Watch Out For.
  
  So what's opening beyond the multiplexes today? These...
  



• TLA's Mini-Fest Will Bring the Gay to You
  

  Filed under: Gay & Lesbian, NSFW, Other Festivals, Cinematical Indie

  Well, assuming you live in New York, L.A., or Fort Lauderdale, that is. Those are the cities that will get TLA Releasing's mini-fest this summer, with six gay-themed features playing for one week in each location. You can see a somewhat NSFW trailer for the fest at TLA's YouTube page, but here's a brief rundown of what's happening:
  
  First you got your Bangkok Love Story, a thriller about a hitman who falls for his victim. Then there's Chuecatown (Boystown), a comedy involving bathhouses and murders (I'm thinking of that scene in Eastern Promises, but...
  



• The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar: June 27-July 3
  

  Filed under: Animation, Classics, Comedy, Drama, Foreign Language, Gay & Lesbian, Independent, Exhibition, Columns, Cinematical Indie, The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar

  A bit of math tells me that after this weekend, 2008 will be halfway over. But here at The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar, we prefer to think that 2008 has only halfway begun. There are still six months left to participate in the many cool film-related events that happen every week outside the nation's multiplexes! If you know of something coming up -- special screenings, retrospectives, mini-festivals, etc. -- send me a link! My e-mail...
  



• Oh, Man! Ellen Page is Off the Lesbian Werewolf Flick?
  

  Filed under: Gay & Lesbian, Independent, Casting, RumorMonger, Fandom, Cinematical Indie

  Well, this is a bit of a bummer. I've been waiting, it seems like forever, to see when Jack and Diane, Bradley Rust Gray's endlessly gestating "lesbian werewolf" movie that Ellen Page was supposed to star in, would finally go into production. As I wrote waaaaaaay back in September, the film is supposed to be about:

  "Jack and Diane, two teenage lesbians, meet in New York City and spend the night kissing ferociously. Diane's charming innocence quickly begins to open Jack's tough skinned heart. But, when Jack discovers that Diane is...
  




• Discuss: Having Gay Pride Doesn't Help the Box Office
  

  Filed under: Gay & Lesbian, Distribution, Exhibition

  
  
  As proclaimed by then-president Clinton, June is Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. Pride festivities and parades are gearing up across the world with a flurry of color and rainbows, but lately, it's been about more than just extravagant celebration. Gay marriage is now legal in California, and more people are coming out, like the indirectly out Jodie Foster. Yet, as a new article by Reuters reports, these advancements are not doing anything for the LGBT box office take.
  
  Sure, they're talking about a lot of indie films no one has heard of, but it's not like all of...