Portland Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Recommends:
STRANGERS WITH CANDY is playing now at Cinema 21 through July 13!
A prequel to the critically acclaimed Comedy Central series of the same name, it is the tale of Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris), a forty-seven year old ex-con, junky whore who decides to return home after thirty-two years as a runaway. When Jerri arrives at her childhood home, she discovers her earlier disappearance has caused her father to slip into a self-induced coma. Moved by guilt, and with hopes of jarring her father from his eternal slumber, Jerri decides to turn her life around by picking it up exactly where she left off as a high school freshman. She's going to start her life over, only this time she's going to do the wrong things the right way. Not surprisingly, she finds that the path is fraught with the many adolescent problems and temptations that plague all teenagers, but especially this forty-seven year old former boozer, user and loser.
SAY UNCLE is playing now at the Hollywood Theatre through July 13!
The directorial debut of QUEER AS FOLK’s Peter Paige, SAY UNCLE is the story of Paul Johnson (Paige) an eccentric gay artist who sees the world more like a child than an adult. SAY UNCLE mixes humor with social critique to skewer both modern day paranoia and the hypocrisy of mass hysteria. Ultimately a film about intolerance, it addresses our fundamental ideas about what
is appropriate and inappropriate, what makes a family, and what
it means to be gay in a world where just being different is considered suspect.
WORDPLAY is playing now at the Fox Tower Cinemas!
Inky-fingered NEW YORK TIMES readers often love to attempt the mind-bending crossword puzzles lovingly curated for the paper by longstanding contributor Will Shortz. Director Patrick Creadon's WORDPLAY, a genial documentary, is based around Shortz and his devoted followers. Creadon begins by tracing Shortz's unusual ascent to his tenure at the TIMES, creating a picture of an easygoing, well-liked and respected man. Creadon also takes viewers on a trip to the 28th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, a geek haven where someone like Shortz assumes Godlike status. As we witness the various eccentrics battling it out in an attempt to be the 28th winner of the contest, some of Shortz's celebrity fans get plenty of camera time, with THE DAILY SHOW's Jon Stewart and former president Bill Clinton among them.