July 17–24, 1997

movie shorts|Philadephia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival

Green Plaid Shirt

Gregory Phelan in Green Plaid Shirt.

This earnest but morose AIDS drama hopscotches across 10 years of a relationship between Philip and Guy, two men who meet when they haggle over a green plaid shirt at a yard sale. There's nothing particularly fresh about the couple's subsequent conflicts (infidelity, careerism, monogamy), and writer/director Richard Natale indulges in a few too many soulful voiceovers and walks on the beach. In its melancholy traversal of the early AIDS epidemic (the film spans from 1978 to 1988), Green Plaid Shirt is likely to ring true for many viewers. Unfortunately, this 1996 film already feels about five years old.

— Hans Kellner

(Ritz at the Bourse, Sun., July 20, 12:30 p.m.)

Leather Jacket Love Story

Valley boy Kyle is an 18-year-old aspiring poet who drops his shallow West Hollywood friends for Mike, a shallow 30-year-old carpenter from Silver Lake. The trouble is, director David DeCoteau expects us to see this as some sort of step up. Good sex aside, Leather Jacket Love Story never shows us why Kyle would want to spend more than 10 minutes with this self-centered boor. Still, Leather Jacket Love Story does contain one priceless exchange between the lovers. When Mike complains about being bored with "vanilla sex," Kyle retorts: "Mike, we've only had sex twice. If you're bored, that's your problem." You go, girl.

— Hans Kellner

(I-House, Sat., July 19, 9:30 p.m.)

Scream, Teen, Scream!

(recommended)

Scream, Teen, Scream!

Pure and simple, Scream, Teen, Scream! is a 38-minute nonstop laugh riot. A chubby-chasing "apricot hankie" serial killer terrorizes the Halloween slumber party of three teenage "girls" — Jackie De Palma, Jennie Lee Curtis and Lisa Blair (Alexis Arquette, gay movie poster boy). The makeup is outrageous, the performances crackle with fun, and the pop-culture references fly at dizzying speed (including an appearance by the Ouija board-conjured ghost of Karen Carpenter). At once a campy drag spoof and a smart satire of slasher movie conventions, Scream, Teen, Scream! is the funniest movie John Waters never made.

— Hans Kellner

(Arts Bank, Sat., July 19, 10 p.m.)