what’s up, scarlet? (2005)

It’s a Monday night and three whiskeys in (courtesy of Salvi’s, a small Italian-American bistro just around the corner of Extended Stay), I’m contemplating the notes I took on What’s Up, Scarlet?, a little gem of a gay flick about an uptight matchmaker, Scarlet Zabrinki (Susan Priver), who meets her match in the form of a mysteriously foreign and homeless actress named Sabrina (Musetta Vander). We’re first introduced to Scarlet at a bar mitzvah where her mother is pimping her to any eligible suitor in sight. She rather unceremoniously announces to the relentless boner she gets cornered by that she has to go home and walk her dogs. Quick cut to Scarlet under a heap of pups and I began to wonder if I would be alone forever as I observed my own canine wonder sweetly licking his balls under my favorite hoodie. But I suppose things could be worse. He could be humping the hoodie.

Anyway, Scarlet’s life ain’t bad except she ain’t got nobody. Until she gets tail-ended by the enigmatic Slav (?), takes her home and pretty soon has a new roommate. (Don’t ask, it’s implausible, but at eighty-four minutes you can live.) Her mother’s stoked because she thinks baby’s acquired a Venezuelan housemaid – see BAD GAYS/WRITERS? – and Scarlet actually starts enjoying herself, which consists of a trip to the theater and an almost lethal threesome to more lethal muzak at around forty-one minutes with Sabrina and a French lothario.

a marine story (2011)

My cup of iced red wine almost drained (thank you, Trader Joe’s), I turn myself to the matter at hand. Dreya Weber. And it appears she’s turning into a homoflix category all of her own (see The Gymnast). But she is more than that. She is a goddess of some singular genre devoted to “pansexual” women (I swear I read that self-proclaimed shit on Wiki, but it’s possible that’s the four beers I had before the red talking) who wish to make art with their male partners about fucking women. Should I be upset? Or overcome by her pale, gauzy tops? I think you know the answer.

In honor of 9/11, I decided to watch A Marine Story today. Just shy of four minutes in, the incomparable Weber had already thrown some meth head punk to the ground and a minute later was ordering tequila from a small-town shop clerk. And this is all after she got her gay ass discharged from the military. Nice work – and you can get it if you try.

training rules (2009)

No drinking.
No drugs.
No lesbians.

Well, what’s the point?  And that’s what Training Rules seeks to uncover.  Yes, faggots.  It is not just fun and games here in Ohio.  Not normally a fan of the documentary form, I took it upon myself to give this one a look after a hard-hitting spin class got me all fired up and ready to go.  This film clocks in at just over and hour and paints a fairly dismal portrait of women’s lives in sports, focusing on the story of Jen Harris, a hotshot college basketball player whose career was cut tragically short by the homophobia she encountered as a student-athlete at Penn State.  We don’t get to hear a hell of a lot from Harris for legal reasons, but her parents contribute a great deal to the narrative and it’s pretty heartbreaking.  Other testimonials are provided by ex-Penn players (the Gulas twins are particularly cute), the awesomely dykey softball coach Sue Rankin and a variety of other sports activists.  I didn’t even know there was a National Center for Lesbian Rights!

we have to stop now (2009)

Don’t say I never did anything for you.  It took me nearly three hours to watch an hour and change of the first season of the web series We Have to Stop Now.  I nearly exhausted my beer rations in the first sixty minutes, had a nervous breakdown over a Facebook message my ex sent me in the next, but by the last third had grown so accustomed to the prehistoric Internet connection offered to me courtesy of Extended Stay America, I couldn’t imagine watching an Instant Netflix selection any other way. That’s right readers.  I’m writing you from the cozy suburbs of Dublin, Ohio where I will be for the next month and Daddy got some time on his hands.  Bring on the lonely nights!

room in rome (2010)

What happens when you put two ESL actresses skilled in the art of simulated cunnilingus, a lesbian with a musical looping device and Google Maps in one film?  Heaven.  Or a headache.  And these are the poles that Julio Medem’s Room in Rome rides so hard for almost two hours.  These sisters got endurance! Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko) and Alba (Elena Anaya) are both doing some R and R in Rome when they meet at a bar and stumble back to a hotel late one night.  They’re kinda trashed, but soft butchie Alba wants to do the nasty on straight bait Natasha.  Eight minutes in and we’re talking tits akimbo -finally a film looking to serve its viewer- and at twenty-three minutes this two fister’s really got its finger on the pulse.  I think I counted five or six sex scenes (the one where they reenact The Little Mermaid in a tub is questionable) which might be some kind of record outside my Crash Pad trolling (see PORN).

itty bitty titty committee (2007)

With a hurricane pending and a pretty free social calendar since my sweetie starting remacking on cisgender dudes, what better way to spend a Saturday night than kicking it with my girl Rel, her girl Amanda, some questionable shrimp pad thai and The Itty Bitty Titty Committee? Stumped?  Well, I couldn’t think of one either so me and my pup Blue made the trek out to her no-man’s land sublet for some second-wave meets third-wave feminist showdown rom com cooter candy and we were not disappointed.  This movie kills!

Anna (Melonie “Great Lips, No Range” Diaz) is smarting from a break-up from her gf Jacinta.  With big sis getting married and no college prospects in sight, she spends her time working as a receptionist for a plastics guy specializing in breast augmentation.  (She also wears some pretty unfortunate khaki flares for the first twenty minutes of the film.)  But this all changes when she meets Sadie (Nicole Vicius), a ridiculous hottie she catches spray-painting the tit clinic after hours.  Sadie announces that she’s the ringleader of an activist organization called Clits in Action (CIA) and that Anna should totally stop by and jam on their covert activities if she’s ever in the hood.  And she’s about to get more “in the hood” than she ever expected.  Bad news though: Sadie’s got a sugar momma (guest lecturer second year at Smith, thanks) and she’s not givin’ up the perks of living with the director of a nonprofit for the wiles of just any baby dyke who wants to learn the ropes of Rrriot Grrl.  No.  It’s going to take more than that and that’s just what this film is about: Anna’s journey to herself and the politicized pussy of her dreams.

the gymnast (2006)

Alright, before I head out to start decorating for the lezzie bachelorette party of the century, I thought I’d put down a few thoughts I had recently while watching The Gymnast which apparently was a big shit hit in 2006 and won the Best Feature prize at Outfest.  Film’s first line: “You’ve stopped taking your antidepressants.”  Absolutely, pass the popcorn, I’m ready.

But here’s the deal, ladies.  This barely softcore story of two women who want to do aerial dance in Vegas will leave you clit-chafed ‘til Sunday.  But if you accept that fact you might enjoy yourself on the ride.  (See BLUE BALLS.)  Especially if you like really built chicks with eight-packs and long hair who softly whisper things like “I got you” to women they are supporting in mid-air by the strength of their forearms alone and their husbands still don’t know they’re GEH.