Philadelphia Weekly

An Englishman in New York Reprising the role that made him a star, John Hurt once again does his Quentin Crisp cocktail-party trick in this quasi- sequel to 1975’s The Naked Civil Servant . Catching up with the out pioneer and wit during his autumnal New York years, Richard Laxton’s made-for-BBC film is frankly pretty terrible—a stiff and corny biopic that offers ‘80s New York on the cheap and plays a bit too nice with such low points as Crisp denouncing AIDS as a “fad.” But it does have Hurt’s positively uncanny take on Crisp—the celebrity he was born to mimic—which is really all it needs. C+ (Matt Prigge) Fri., July 17, 7:15pm, Ritz East 1. Sun., July 19, 12:15pm, Prince Music Theater.

The Baby Formula The common denominator among the best mockumentaries is consistency in the face of absurdity. Even when Parker Posey is screaming through her braces for a new dog toy in Best in Show , the ridiculousness of the moment suits the tone. The Baby Formula shifts from comedy to drama abruptly about halfway through, making a weakly humorous movie even weaker. The main characters, a lesbian couple, are pregnant with each other’s baby thanks to new science. They’re being documented by filmmakers, a conceit that contributes crap acting and gaps in continuity. The best part is the end credits, when adorable lead actor Angela Vint does some funky dancing. C (Liz Spikol) Thurs., July 16, 5pm and Sat., July 18, 7pm, Ritz East 2.

City of Borders It’d be hard to believe if it weren’t in a documentary: a Jerusalem gay bar where Israelis and Palestinians bro down. (The latter have to sneak over walls, past barbed wire.) Yun Suh’s doc uses this anomaly as a starting point for a broader look at homosexuality in one of the most homophobic regions in the world—where denizens sometimes have to overcome the stigma of being gay and in love with someone from the other side. The warm and fuzzies from learning of the subjects’ existence is countered by footage of antigay protestors who say gays are lower than donkeys and should be stabbed or killed. B (M.P.) Wed., July 15, 5pm, Ritz East 1.

Chica Busca Chica This Spanish TV show is called Spain’s answer to The L Word , and if they’re talking about hot, femme-y women in tangled relationships, Chica Busca Chica fills the bill. In fact, it even has a Shane character—the one who’s so drop-dead sexy, she makes women damp after just a hello. That character—a bartender (hot!)—is temporarily living with Monica, who’s an ex-judo champ and has a reputation for being “psycho”; and Carmen, who says she’s not gay but is drawn to the bartender anyway. And then there’s Ana, the hick from the country, who’s just coming out for the first time. And yeah, each episode of CBC is 10 minutes long, and yeah, its dialogue and plot makes The L Word look like Swann’s Way. But who cares? It’s a real guilty pleasure—stupid, sudsy, sexy fun. B (L.S.) Part 1: Wed., July 15, 7:15pm, Ritz East 2. Part II: Thurs., July 16, 7:15pm, Ritz East 2.

El niño pez Two women living in Argentina, one from a wealthy family and the other their Paraguayan maid, secretly love one another. Tightly written and directed by Lucia Puenzo, ( XXY ), the film adeptly interweaves magical realism to create a dark and poignant extended fable of the Fish Child. Generously withholding the kind of information that insults an audience member’s intelligence, Puenzo gives us nothing but succinct, powerful moments and poetic visual imagery. The final scene binds the tales together—fable and full-length film—for a heavy but lovely sigh at the fade to black. B (Becca Trabin) Sat., July 18, 2:15pm, Ritz East 2 .

Fruit Fly Fruit Fly is a series of scenes in which actors with mediocre vocal talent break out into hilariously catchy tunes in the middle of conversation and start inexplicably pointing at the screen. Main character Bethesda, our “fruit fly,” has moved to San Francisco from the Philippines to perform her one-woman show about her search for her Filipino birth mother who gave her up for adoption. She moves into a hostel-style apartment building where she seems to be the only straight person. Gay roommate Wyndam labels Bethesda a “fag hag,” seemingly without explanation, upon arrival. The movie—a festival centerpiece screening—will be followed by Q&As with writer/director/producer H.P. Mendoza, who’ll also get the fest’s Rising Star Award. C (Anastasia Kotsosavas) Thurs., July 16, 7:15pm, Ritz East 1. Sat., July 18, 2:30pm, Prince Music Theater

I Can’t Think Straight Look. I want lesbians to have films that better reflect their experience. I’m (pretty much) straight and I can’t stand the heteronormative gay-fearing hard-on- humor male gaze that pervades mainstream movies. The tough part is that not every female gaze is a good one, and a crappy rom-com is what it is, whether the leading couple both sport pink bits or not. This movie reads like a parody of your darkest (Sandra-esque) Bullocks fairy tales: impossibly beautiful women (the gorgeous lead has eyes the size of toddlers’ mouths); predictable plot points drowned in stiff, righteous dialogue; and disjointed faux-intellectual subtext thrown in to make it seem smarter than it is. It’s just about as smart as mainstream films, by which I mean, pretty dumb. C (Tara Murtha) Fri., July 17, 7pm, Ritz East 2. Sun., July 19, 2:30pm, Prince Music Theater.

Lady Trojans Lady Trojans is a documentary chronicling the drama of a high school basketball team in Arizona. Told through interviews with now-adult team members, corny staged reenactments (featuring actors who don’t resemble the individuals they’re portraying), excessively long clips of home video, and misplaced Sesame Street -style animation, Trojans focuses mainly on the relationship between Anna, the half-sister of director and producer Elizabeth Hesik, and Quinn, who is said to have “turned” the team to lesbianism. It’s clear Hesik is painting her as the story’s villain because Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison” plays frequently when she’s on-screen. The film culminates in a completely pointless Lady Trojans reunion featuring only Anna and a few other team members who only attest to Quinn’s brazen sexual acts, but add no compelling details to the film. In the hands of a better director and editor, this film could’ve been an interesting peek into the lives of this microcosm of lesbianism in high school. Instead, it just falls flat. C (Erica Palan) Sun., July 19, 9pm, Ritz East 2 .

Limbo Mexico is currently in a full-tilt-boogie New Wave, not just with the likes of Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro, but also Fernando Eimbcke ( Lake Tahoe ) and Gerardo Naranjo ( I’m Going to Explode ). Bubbling under would be Horacio Rivera, whose tale of a swishy fifth grader who’s knocked unconscious boasts a promising plot and energetic filmmaking but too little follow-through. Once our hero awakens in a celestial waystation alongside a suicided lawyer and a loony nurse, the film runs out of things to do, and so turns terminally chatty to no purpose beyond pat homilies. One should live life to the fullest, you say? Never heard that one. B- (M.P.) Sat., July 18, 7:15pm, Ritz East 1. Sun., July 19, 4:30pm, Ritz East 2 .

Misconceptions Misconceptions is a pleasant if perplexing movie about an evangelical woman (A.J. Cook) who decides to act as a surrogate mother for a gay couple. But the film never quite settles on what it wants to be: a satire on Christian homophobia? A “we’re having a baby” comedy? Real Christian Housewives of Florida ? It ends up being a mishmash of all those formulas and satisfies none of them particularly well. At least there’s the soundtrack, which offers one of the more satisfying collections of movie gospel music since Robert Duvall’s The Apostle . B- (Joel Mathis) Sat., July 18, 7:15pm, and Sun., July 19, 9;15pm, Prince Music Theater .

Myra Breckinridge “[I]t seems amazing that Myra has never been recuperated by film theorists,” wrote J. Hoberman about this 1970 travesty of Gore Vidal’s transgressive lampoon. Indeed. The most notorious product of Hollywood’s flailing counterculture kiss-ups, this rootless X-rated debacle begins with film critic Rex Reed sex-changing into Raquel Welch. Later Welch will rape a cowboy with a six-shooter while 77-year-old Mae West will woo Tom Selleck, quip about “policeman’s balls” and engage in some barely behind-the-scenes catfighting with her non-geriatric co-star. After making this tone-deaf would-be Fellini, director Michael Sarne was predictably drummed out of Hollywood; when he was found working at a pizza joint, Vidal quipped, “It proves that God exists and there is such a thing as divine symmetry.” D (M.P.) Thurs., July 16, 9pm, Jamaican Jerk Hut.

Out in the Silence  A gay filmmaker returns to his hometown in Oil City, Pa., at the request of a woman whose son is being tormented after coming out of the closet. The footage of conservative, religious, formerly homophobic moms and dads fighting to protect their newly out kids against the community’s tacitly sanctioned bigotry is heart-wrenching. Despite the self-righteousness of documentarian Joe Wilson, who seems more motivated by flaunting the superiority of his position and making asses out of his opponents (think Michael Moore with Charlton Heston), Out in the Silence is stunningly empowering. Hands-down, it fortified my queer, young, spiritually seeking soul more than any film in recent memory. Anyone who has an opinion about small-town conservative Christian Americans should watch this. A (B.T.) Mon, July 20, 7:15pm, Ritz East 2.

Redwoods Surely that title won’t reap a hoary metaphor, will it? David Lewis’ mega-straight-faced romance features a man (Brendan Bradley) in a loveless relationship who falls stupid for a brooding traveler (Matthew Montgomery). There’s more than a longtime bf as collateral damage; there’s also a disabled boy. But these problems are raised only to be largely ignored, or at least resolved too handily. Well-meaning to the point of kitsch, Redwoods is fueled on nothing but good intentions, pretty mountain scenery, a moderately novel concept and one good, grounded perf (Montgomery). C (M.P.) Fri., July 17, 7:15pm, Prince Music Theater. Sat., July 18, 2:30pm, Ritz East 1 .

Training Rules Oscar nominee Dee Mosbacher’s doc smacks down local native Rene Portland, former esteemed WBCA coach and apparent serial homophobe. At the film’s center is Jennifer Harris, a budding b-baller who Portland booted from Penn State’s Lady Lions for being (in her eyes, anyway) gay. Harris can’t talk about it for legal reasons, so Mosbacher goes for the bigger picture, tracing a long history of Portland discriminating against lesbians. Former victims speak of either living a painful double life or ditching their dreams altogether, while one ponders of Portland, “Does she really think she’s going to win a national title without a lesbian on her team?” B (M.P.) Sat., July 18, 4:45pm, Prince Music Theater. Sun., July 19, 9pm, Ritz East 2 . ■

Prince Music Theatre: 1412 Chestnut St.
Ritz East: 125 S. Second St.
Jamaican Jerk Hut: 1436 South St.
For more information call 267.765.9800 or go to qfest.com.