Screen Picks



Bingo stars: Bingo Verifying Divas "Ophelia Balzac" (Bill Bixkup, left) and "Rhonda Block" (Michael Rossi) in Gay Bingo.

The week in repertory film, TV and video.

by Sam Adams

Gay Bingo

(premieres Sep. 14, 9p.m., WHYY-TV)

Glenn Holsten’s WHYY minidocs tend to drown in feel-good sentiments, but the subject of Gay Bingo isn’t so easily compressed, which turns out to be a good thing for all involved. Framed as a year in the life of the wildly popular Philly event — held monthly to raise money for AIDS charities — the slickly produced film lauds the fabulousness of Carlota Ttendant (a.k.a. Michael Byrne) and the BVDs (Bingo Verifying Divas) who turn an ordinary game of bingo into a sassy, brassy event. But just as Gay Bingo’s origins lie in the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic, so Gay Bingo takes on the stories behind the scenes: Byrne, an Action Aids employee when he’s not in heels and a pageboy wig, recalls his own history of losing friends to the virus, and Holsten interviews Paul Corson, whose pharmacy was one of the first in Philadelphia to knowledgeably provide for AIDS patients. Mostly, though, it’s a celebration. The film is particularly enamored of Gay Bingo traditions like stamping your feet ("like a petulant 7-year-old") when B-7 is called, and especially the fact that all are required to rise and shout "Ooooooh, 69!" whenever O-69 comes up. (That particular point is made a few times too often, but so be it.) A fitting tribute to a beloved institution.

Independent Images

(Sep. 18-22, 11 p.m., WHYY-TV)

Back for a 16th year, WHYY’s showcase of independent short films includes such standouts as Kimi Takesue’s Rosewater (Friday) and I Witness (Thursday), which traces the history of abortion-related violence in the Florida panhandle. The series is a bit of a strange bird, without the sweep of Through the Lens, and it usually offers up more than an occasional dog. But with two weeks left until the new Buffy season, what else are you going to watch?