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 | Go out, go out, wherever you are The San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival continues its strong annual tradition of bringing the best of queer cinema to large audiences across the Bay Area. Now in its 28th year, the festival runs 11 days from June 17-27, screening 267 films (60 by local filmmakers) from 25 countries. Dubbed Frameline28, this unique festival showcases many films you simply will not see anywhere else, even in our local art houses, unless they're lucky and find a distributor.More |  | Tim Burton's Big Fish is an engrossing, touching, and whimsical fable about a man who leads a storied life rivaling that of Baron Münchhausen and later reconciles that life with his skeptical son who yearns to know his father for real. Albert Finney is the larger-than-life Edward Bloom whose wanderlust takes him far from his tiny Alabama hometown so he won't ever feel stuck there as a big fish in a small pond. One day at the circus he spots the love of his life, Sandra (Jessica Lange), with whom he's determined to live out the rest of his years, through thick and thin. What makes this love story unusual is the amount of thick and thin the youMore |  | Rumsfeld's predecessor The oft-repeated adage about history teaching lessons seems commonsensical, yet few political leaders bother to heed it. They prefer to leave their mark on history their own way- and tough luck for those who suffer the consequences of their actions.More |  | In an awe-inspiring display of overacting, Ben Kingsley single-handedly carries the lofty intentions of House of Sand and Fog on his proud shoulders. Unfortunately, the story- based on the novel by Andre Dubus III - fails to create believable situations, empathetic characters or understandable motivations to make many people care about what happens and why. Despite the masterful cinematography - by Roger Deakins of A Beautiful Mind, Man Who Wasn't There and O Brother Where Art Thou? fame - this film is pulp fiction masquerading as art.More |  | Inspired by real events, Calendar Girls is a humorous, uplifting film that entertains and inspires without becoming too sentimental for its own good. Helen Mirren and Julie Walters play longtime friends who are members of a staid women's club in a small English village. Tired of attending boring educational lectures, making jams, pressing flowers, and entering baking competitions, they yearn to do something original. After tragedy strikes close to home, they hatch a plan to raise money for the local hospital by creating a calendar of the group's middle-aged members performing their time-tested women's activities "Full Monty"-style. They enlisMore |  | Based on a play of the same name by actor/playwright/drag legend Charles Busch, Die Mommie Die is a no-holds-barred, deliciously vamped-up melodrama that sends up the B-movies of Hollywood's heyday (including classics Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Sunset Boulevard) while casting itself among them. Busch plays cantankerous, hotheaded singer Angela Arden, a big star whose twinkle has long faded but whose wardrobe has not. After years of enduring her insufferable manager/husband, Sol (Philip Baker Hall), she adopts a well-hung lover, Tony (a terrific Jason Priestly), to make her feel young again. As if her family wasn't dysfunctional alreaMore |  | Probably the most psychologically disturbing film to come around in a long time, In My Skin ("Dans ma peau") is French writer and director Marina de Van's exploration of the human body - specifically, her own - as an object detached from one's self. Look at your foot long enough or repeat a word over and over and it'll start to seem remote, unfamiliar and foreign. De Van plays Esther, a talented research analyst who jeopardizes her promising career after she becomes obsessed over her body following a fall that leaves a nasty gash on her leg but leaves her in little or no pain.More |  | Back in 1986 PBS audiences were startled by Dennis Potter's odd, complex and entertaining six-part series called "The Singing Detective" about a man suffering from painful skin lesions and debilitating arthritis who found solace only when he entered a world of his own fevered creation. Shortly before he died in 1994, Potter re-imagined his story for a larger, more American audience. Robert Downey Jr. stars as Dan Dark, a crime novelist and malcontent afflicted with psoriatic arthropathy.More |  | Ostensibly about the pharmacological factors that affect the way we love one another, Dopamine gives an odd twist to the old boy-meets-girl story. Rand (John Livingston) is a software designer who works with two other guys in a one-room start-up company developing a simulated pet that displays artificial intelligence. One day they bring the pet, Koy Koy, to a nearby kindergarten class run by Sarah (Sarah Lloyd) to try it out on real kids. The children fall for Koy Koy, and Sarah falls for Rand. Somewhere along the way, however, the story falls apart and meanders from one underdeveloped idea to the next - including a coworker's rivalry for SarMore |  | A grouch for all seasons Adapting comic books to film is a difficult undertaking. Besides telling the basic story, you have to make the superhero relevant for new audiences while trying to avoid alienating hardcore fans. Somewhere along the way the movie becomes just another gussied-up action film featuring colorful, far-out characters.More |
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