This year's Outfest, Los Angeles' gay &
lesbian film festival, includes two very hot tickets: Mamma Mia!
and Sordid Lives: The Series.
Mamma Mia! is the screen
adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name featuring the
music of Swedish disco band ABBA. The play has become a phenomenal
success with over 30 million tickets sold worldwide.
Donna (Meryl Streep) is planning the
perfect wedding on an idyllic Greek island for the daughter she has
raised alone – Sophie. The bride, however, wants her unknown
father to give her away. To find him, she invites three men from
her mother's past to the island. Singing, dancing, and even
romancing ensue.
Mamma Mia! is set for a July
28th release, but Outfest will screen the film on July
10th.
Sordid Lives: The Series is
based on Del Shores' 2001 cult hit film Sordid Lives. The
show will premiere on cable channel Logo July 23rd, but
Outfest attendees can view the first three episodes on July 19th.
Lives is
the outrageous story of the Ingram family – Texas white trash –
as they shatter Southern notions of family and unconditional love.
Matriarch Peggy
Ingram, her chain-smoking sister Sissy and daughters, Latrelle and
LaVonda, are living in Winters, Texas. Latrelle is the good
daughter, while LaVonda is the wild child. Peggy's son, “Brother
Boy,” who has lived his life dressed-up as Tammy Wynette, is locked
up in a metal institution where he “recovers”from a bad case of
“homosexualism” and a touch of transvestitism.
Latrelle's son Ty
is an actor living in Los Angeles where he is struggling to come out
to his Republican Southern Baptist family.
Sordid Lives: The Series
features an all-star cast including Grammy Award winner Olivia
Newton-John (Grease)
reprising her role as town bar singer Bitsy Mae Harling and Emmy
Award winner Leslie Jordan (Will & Grace)
as “Brother Boy.” Rue McClanahan (Golden Girls)
will star as matriarch Peggy Ingram.
First season guest
star cameos include Margaret Cho, Candis Cayne, and Carson Kressley
as Ty's therapists.
The
festival also includes an intriguing new documentary on the
military's ban on gays serving openly. The policy, titled Don't
Ask, Don't Tell, was conceived as a compromise by the Clinton
administration in 1993. Since then, 12,000 GLBT soldiers have been
discharged under the policy. The issue is currently a hot topic as a
recent federal court ruled the Armed Forces could only discharge
soldiers determined to be detrimental to the group's mission. That
is, a blanket statement that homosexuality is inconsistent with
military cohesion and therefore a gay soldier must be detrimental to
the group's mission and troop morale is unacceptable. This decision
could mark the beginning of the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
The film, Ask Not, by director
Johnny Symons focuses its lens on the true national and human costs
of the military's ban on gays & lesbians.
Ask Not
delivers compelling reasons on the failure of the policy – a group
of young gays attempt to enlist openly, interviews with veterans
expose hidden flaws, and a video diary from a closeted soldier as he
heads off to Iraq vividly unmasks the pain of the policy – making
it a must see film.
Outfest, Los
Angeles' gay & lesbian film festival, is set to run July 9th
- July 21st.
On the net: Outfest
website at www.outfest.org.
Gay Entertainment
Report is a feature of On Top Magazine and can be reached at
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