Feeding The Desire

Out at The Wedding - Movie Preview

This feature film is a romantic comedy cocktail with a splash of southern comfort and a twist. The film is directed by award-winning director Lee Friedlander and written by
Paula Goldberg. Principal cast includes: Andrea Marcellus, Desi Lydic, Charlie Schlatter, Mike Farrell, Mink Stole, Reginald VelJohnson, Cathy DeBuono and Mystro Clark.

Transplanted Southerner, Alex Houston (Andrea Marcellus), has found life as a successful wine importer in Manhattan to be a pretty fabulous life. Laughs come in spades from her best gay pal since childhood, Jonathan (Charlie Schlatter) and love is found in the package of Dana (Mystro Clark), a dreamy bi-racial airline pilot. When he unexpectedly proposes to her the day she’s to leave town for her sister’s wedding, life gets complicated. Having assumed her southern family would never accept her ethnic boyfriend, she’s never told them he exists. In turn, she’s led Dana to believe her entire family is dead. Now, don’t judge her too harshly, it was sort of a mix up that turned into genocide. Making an excuse to leave town, she takes Jonathan as her date to the wedding and figures once she gets through the weekend, she’ll come clean to everyone.

Once back in South Carolina, it’s a minefield of emotion as she deals with her distant father (Mike Farrell), her overly exuberant sister Jeannie (Desi Lydic) and all the relatives and friends of her past who can’t believe she’s still single. Especially curious is Alex’s dim high school sweetheart who misunderstands a conversation with Jonathan and starts spreading a rumor at the reception that she’s gay. When an inebriated Alex gives a thinly veiled speech about her interracial relationship at the wedding, everyone mistakenly thinks it’s a big coming out speech. After unsuccessfully trying to set everyone straight so to speak, her right wing family has a decidedly left wing response and the lie actually brings them all closer.

As the two sisters build a relationship they’ve never been able to cultivate before, Alex can’t bring herself to fess up she’s straight. When Jeannie comes back from her honeymoon and wants to come to New York and meet Alex’s lesbian love “Dana,” Jonathan comes up with an idea to “hire” a girlfriend. That’s when things really start to get complicated!
Out At The Wedding is about relationships. It’s about the thin line between trust and truth and the incredible comic lengths we go to avoid both. But essentially the film is a love story between two sisters, who desperately want to be friends, but only know how to be family.

Out At The Wedding Trailer


Upcoming Screenings:
Jan 11, 2008 7:30P
PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Palm Springs, California5
Jan 12, 2008 1:00P
Palm Springs International Film Festival Palm Springs, California5

For more information, go to http://www.outatthewedding.com/.

Wanted - Coming in 2008

Angelina Jolie. What is left to say. Mmmmmm.


Based upon Mark Miller's explosive graphic novel series and helmed by stunning visualist director Timur Bekmambetov -- creator of the most successful Russian film franchise in history, the Night Watch series-- Wanted tells the tale of one apathetic nobody's transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice. In 2008, the world will be introduced to a hero for a new generation: Wesley Gibson. 25-year-old Wes (James McAvoy) was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known. His boss chewed him out hourly, his girlfriend ignored him routinely and his life plodded on interminably. Everyone was certain this disengaged slacker would amount to nothing. There was little else for Wes to do but wile away the days and die in his slow, clock-punching rut. Until he met a woman named Fox (Angelina Jolie). After his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits him into the Fraternity, a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his father's death by unlocking his dormant powers. As she teaches him how to develop lightning-quick reflexes and phenomenal agility, Wes discovers this team lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: carry out the death orders given by fate itself. With wickedly brilliant tutors-- including the fraternity's enigmatic leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman)-- Wes grows to enjoy all the strength he ever wanted. But slowly, he begins to realize there is more to his dangerous associates than meets the eye. And as he wavers between newfound heroism and vengeance, Wes will come to learn what no one can ever teach him: he alone controls his destiny. From www.imdb.com.

Moment of Silence for a Literary Pioneer

Jane Rule, a prominent Canadian writer whose first novel, "Desert of the Heart," is considered a landmark work of lesbian fiction, died Nov. 27 at her home on Galiano Island in British Columbia. She was 76.
The cause was complications of liver cancer, said Deborah Windsor, executive director of the Writers' Union of Canada.

A major literary figure in Canada, Ms. Rule wrote seven novels as well as short stories and nonfiction. But it was for "Desert of the Heart" that she remained best known. Published by Macmillan in 1964, the book appeared five years before the Stonewall uprising, at a time when lesbians were all but invisible in mainstream letters. It told the story of a woman who goes to Reno, Nev., for a divorce and there finds love with a dynamic younger woman.
Ms. Rule's other books, some of which also centered on lesbian themes, include the novels "This Is Not for You," "Against the Season" and "After the Fire"; the story collection "Theme for Diverse Instruments"; and a volume of criticism, "Lesbian Images."
Jane Vance Rule was born March 28, 1931, in Plainfield, N.J., and grew up in the Midwest and California. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Mills College in 1952. In 1954 she joined the faculty of the Concord Academy, a private school in Massachusetts. There she met Helen Sonthoff, a fellow faculty member who became her life partner. They settled in Vancouver in 1956.
Sonthoff died in 2000, at 83. Information on other survivors could not be confirmed.
Ms. Rule, who became a Canadian citizen in the 1960s, was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 1998 and the Order of Canada last year.

Over the years, her opposition to government censorship of gay and lesbian books made her highly visible in Canada. She did not, however, support same-sex marriage, which was legalized there in 2005.
"To be forced back into the heterosexual cage of coupledom is not a step forward but a step back into state-imposed definitions of relationship," she wrote in BC Bookworld, a Canadian trade periodical, in 2001.
****This article appeared on page C - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle****


--Moment of silence--But... we have to say something at the loss of one of the first lesbian authors.

Desert of the Heart was one of the first books Web read as a teenager and it gave her something tangible to relate to, at a difficult time for her as it is for most teens. We are saddened at the loss of such a great writer for our community. Thank you Jane Rule for your creativity and persistence. R.I.P.

Reading lesbian novels and short stories have always been a source of "normalcy" in an unaccepting world. TV and movies have come a long way in adding to that feeling of belonging. However, a recent search of our public library, which happens to be only 2 blocks from the High school, has a minimal assortment of lesbian fiction. Its very distressing to consider that to acquire a book of that genre you need to alert the staff and have your selection sent from the Phoenix library. Not something a teenage girl is apt to do. There just aren't enough books and not enough access for our young people. Those stories might be the only way they can quietly escape, feel normal and not feel alone. Going to have to write a letter to that library and bring it to their attention I think.

Please continue to read, encouraging new authors to get their stories out there for us to share and appreciate.
And again.. we mourn the loss...

Arizona considers offering domestic partner benefits to state employees

An Arizona paper reports that the state may start offering benefits to the partners of its employees. Arizona is close to offering health and other benefits to domestic partners of state employees, both gay and straight, according to a story in The Arizona Republic.

The change in policy, supported by Governor Janet Napolitano, would apply to about 65,000 current employees of the state government and public universities, as well as about 9,000 retirees covered by the state's health plan."It's something that most of the other private corporations and large cities are doing, and it's time state government started doing it," Tim Nelson, general counsel to the governor, told The Arizona Republic. "It's something the governor believes strongly is the right thing to do."State Department of Administration Director Bill Bell filed the proposal for domestic partner benefits on November 7 with the Secretary of State's Office. It was published Friday along with the secretary of state's registry of proposed rules.

Citizens are likely to have less than 30 days to comment on the proposed change, after which a hearing will be scheduled. The governor's six-member Regulatory Review Council will make the final decision on the plan.Arizona Senate majority leader Thayer Verschoor, a Republican, described the plan as a "slippery slope" toward government acceptance on variations of traditional marriage."I think it's going to be met with a lot of resistance," he told The Arizona Republic.


--We LOVE Janet Napolitano! Why shouldn't we have benefits?? Its still ends up being money in the pocket of the insurance companies. Where some aren't even carrying insurance because of the expense. And why do they even care?? Really! The way things are now there are probably a lot of people on Government funded insurance programs that wouldn't be if they were on their partner's insurance. So, see? Better all around. You go Janet!

Great! Now they will think a drug will FIX us.. I don't wanna be fixed.

Study Finds Gay Gene in Fruit Flies.

Researchers in Chicago have discovered a gene that identifies homosexuality in fruit flies, which can be turned on and off with drugs. David Featherstone, a biologist at University of Illinois, said that while humans have a similar gene, it has yet to be determined whether that gene has any effect on same-sex attractions in humans.
Researchers have found that fruit flies with a mutated "gender-blind" gene are bisexual. The flies cannot tell the difference between male and female pheromones, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The mutation strengthens synapses, causing the flies to overreact to the pheromones. This causes the fruit flies to be attracted to both males and females.
"The [gender-blind] mutant males treated other males exactly the same way normal male flies would treat a female," Featherstone said in the article. "They even attempted copulation."
The study tested the hypothesis by giving the bisexual fruit flies drugs that weakened their synapses. Within hours the flies engaged exclusively in heterosexual activity. The group also gave heterosexual flies drugs that strengthened their synapses, causing them to be attracted to both male and female flies. (The Advocate)

--Ok, I don't how you feel about this tidbit of scientific info, but I am not thrilled. Imagining teenagers taken to a Dr. to have them "fixed" is not an appealing visual. Regardless of a "mutated gene" as they put it, (I prefer to think of it as an "enlightened gene") you still don't choose who you fall in love with.
And before they get too carried away with this discovery...let me just ask this: What kind of scientist spends his days staring endlessly through a camera (probably attachd to a microscope) to catch fruit flies "doing the dirty"??? AND... we already know that some animals engage in bi-sexual behavior and now even the insects are doing it! So, maybe they should realize we arent as "abnormal" as they would like to think. Next, they could decide that the gene that is responsible for red hair is abnormal and eliminate it from the "gene pool" too. AND--I hope our tax dollars aren't paying for this insane research! It would be time and money better spent if they were looking for the gene responsible for being a slob or laziness or chauvanism! Then the world really would be a better place. Just my two cents.

Mad Money - Coming Jan. 18th 2008

Mad Money - Trailer
Video sent by moviemax1

The official trailer for Mad Money, a comedy about three ordinary women who form an unlikely friendship and decide to do something extraordinary—rob one of the most secure banks in the world! The three female employees have the crime of their lives when they devise a master scheme to steal money about to be destroyed! Starring Katie Holmes, Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton, and Ted Danson. Written by Oscar winner Callie Khouri, who also wrote Thelma and Louise. For more info, visit: Mad Money Movie Site .

Movie Review - The Gymnast

When life turns upside down. Look up.

A film about hanging on... and letting go.

The two leading stars (Dreya Weber and Addie Yungmee) are aerial artists, who find an unexpected attraction within the fabric of the art. Beautifully directed and very well written. Believable and fun to watch these two make it look easy because "its what they do". A story of self realization, on more than one level and finding your own happiness...with a few twists.