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In Season 1, Episode 25 of Out of Town, airing at 4:30 Pm on Sunday, 22 September 2024, on Talking Pictures TV, Jack Hargreaves takes viewers on another charming countryside adventure. This episode, from 1981, begins with Jack exploring an old, abandoned railway line. As he wanders through the overgrown tracks, he takes a closer look at the flora and fauna that have reclaimed the area, offering a peaceful and insightful glimpse into nature’s ability to thrive in forgotten places.

The episode then takes a turn as Jack heads to the annual New Forest Show, where he’s tasked with judging the horses. However, what starts as a grand countryside event quickly becomes a soggy affair as a cloudburst hits, soaking Jack and the participants. Despite the rain, Jack’s down-to-earth commentary and appreciation for rural life make this a delightful watch.

Out of Town continues to offer a mix of nature, tradition, and Jack’s personal observations,...

This article contains references/descriptions of drug misuse

Martin Scorsese filled the soundtrack of The Wolf of Wall Street with a wide variety of great songs. Adapted from the life story of unscrupulous stockbroker Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street marked a return to Scorsese’s signature style of fast-paced biopic. Much like Goodfellas and Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street is jam-packed with music. Ever since Robert De Niro's iconic entrance to the tune of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” in Mean Streets, Scorsese has been renowned for the needle-drops on his soundtracks. The Wolf of Wall Street proudly continues that stylistic tradition.

From Elmore James to Billy Joel to the Lemonheads, there’s a wide range of different artists featured on The Wolf of Wall Street’s soundtrack. This eclectic mix of musical styles was a large part of creating the movie’s rapid, frenzied pace. Thanks to...

Olympia Dukakis, the Oscar-winning actress best known for her roles in Moonstruck and Steel Magnolias, has died at the age of 89.

50 Greatest Romantic Comedies of All Time

The actress’ brother Apollo Dukakis announced his sister’s death on Facebook Saturday. No cause of death was revealed.

“My beloved sister, Olympia Dukakis, passed away this morning in New York City,” he wrote. “After many months of failing health she is finally at peace and with her Louis [Zorich, Dukakis’ husband of 55 years who died in January 2018].”

Olympia Dukakis brought warmth, humor and wit to the stage and screen for almost 60 years,...

Olympia Dukakis, a character actress best known for her Oscar-winning supporting turn in Norman Jewison’s “Moonstruck” and for her role as the wealthy widow in “Steel Magnolias,” has died. She was 89.

Dukakis’ brother, Apollo Dukakis, confirmed her death to Variety. Apollo Dukakis announced her death in a Facebook post, writing: “My beloved sister, Olympia Dukakis, passed away this morning in New York City. After many months of failing health she is finally at peace and with her Louis.”

The actress was 56 when she came to prominence overnight thanks to her Oscar-winning turn in “Moonstruck,” the 1987 film in which she played, with an extraordinary comic ethnic gusto characteristic of the movie as a whole, the mother of Cher’s character. The Washington Post singled out Dukakis for praise: Cher and Nicolas Cage are “backed by an equally quirky cast of marvelous supporting players — especially Olympia Dukakis, whose role as Loretta...

Every year, movie-preview pieces herald the holidays’ arrival; in 2020, the headlines are a little different. As USA Today proclaimed, “10 Must-See Movies to Stream Over the Holiday Season.” They include “Soul,” “Mank,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Let Them All Talk,” and “Small Axe” — major awards contenders, many of which would have have been theatrical releases. However, they all belong to streamers, not VOD.

Meanwhile, on Friday Vertical Entertainment dropped an action film, “The Informer,” which stars Joel Kinnaman as an ex-con who returns to prison undercover to expose a Polish drug cartel. Shot in 2017 and released in most of the world in 2019, this title from the director of “Escobar: Paradise Lost” is unlikely to show up on anyone’s awards-season list. However, even at $19.99 to rent, it topped two major VOD charts this weekend.

“The Informer” has a strong ensemble cast that includes Rosamund Pike, Common, Clive Owen, and Ana de Armas...

Despite the plethora of horror and other genre releases that glutted home platforms this week, romance “After We Collided” placed best on VOD charts this weekend. It ranked #1 at both Apple TV and Google Play, both of which rank by transactions.

“Unhinged” is #1 at FandangoNow, which is based on revenue and gives an edge to Premium VOD titles like this $19.99 entry. Cable giant Spectrum still shows the Alec Baldwin-starring mystery “An Imperfect Murder,” which has little action elsewhere, atop its chart.

Surging late on the charts, “The Craft: Legacy” from Blumhouse Prods. and indie director Zoe Lister-Jones performed strongly at $19.99. It likely missed the top spot at FandangoNow because its full-week chart covered four days prior to its Friday release, but still took the #2 spot there. It is #3 at Apple TV and Google Play, despite its higher cost.

As the evolving strategies surrounding VOD releases emerge, the placements this...

“After We Collided” is the big winner this week. It is #1 at both Apple TV and Google Play, and #2 at FandangoNow (where its $6.99 price on the revenue-based chart put it at a disadvantage). Its Friday debut precluded Spectrum.

This is the sequel to 2019 college romance “After,” which grossed $12 million domestic and $57 million overseas. “After We Collided” also had a theatrical release this weekend, but earned only $420,000 at theaters willing to play day and date. This opened weeks ago in international theaters (including Canada), where it’s earned over $46 million. It’s a sign of how foreign results are dwarfing domestic ones (albeit with minimal competition).

Briarcliff opted to go at a non-premium VOD price and this clicked right away. “After” cost $14 million; figure this is more. It’s recouped a nice share of its cost overseas, and now can collect 70 percent of its domestic VOD from what appears to be a strong response.

After selling off a half-dozen titles to Amazon and Netflix, “Love and Monsters” is one of the few Paramount Pictures titles to receive a 2020 theatrical release. It’s not much of a release — 387 theaters this weekend, for $255,000 — but its PVOD performance (at $19.99) may suggest why Paramount chose to hold on to it.

Scheduled pre-covid for theatrical release April 17, “Love and Monsters” (original title: “Monster Problems”) is no. 1 at both Apple TV and FandangoNow. Budgeted at $30 million, this adventure comedy led by”Maze Runner” and “Teen Wolf” star Dylan O’Brien, is not unlike “Zombieland” in its use of a young hero fighting off monsters in a dystopian society.

It’s the only new PVOD title this week, so it’s unsurprising to see its high placement at FandangoNow, which ranks its charts by revenue. Still, it beat out “Mulan,” which costs $29.99. More impressive: It leads at Apple TV, which ranks by number of transactions,...

The range of pricing in VOD play has never been so clear. Two films at the extreme ranges of budget and premium stand out among new releases. At $3.99, which represents rock-bottom for a new film, Dinesh D’Souza’s latest right-wing polemic “Trump Card” is #1 at both Apple TV and Google Play, charts that rank by transaction volume.

At the same time, Disney’s “Mulan” is now available on platforms beyond Disney+ for $29.99, and is #1 at the revenue-based FandangoNow. “Ava” also continues its successful showings, with first place at Spectrum.

“Trump Card” is pitched as an expose of “socialism, corruption, and the deep state,” and clearly aimed at Election Day interest. In his past films (which received theatrical release), D’Souza preferred to specifically demonize Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. This time, the target is far broader than the tougher-to-hate Joe Biden. It placed #2 at FandangoNow, where its low price hurts its ranking.

Despite the loss of more than 500 Regal Theaters, total grosses went up this weekend. Led by newcomer “The War with Grandpa,” the top 10 grossed about $9.7 million. That’s up from $8.5 million last weekend. With so many library titles adding to the pot, the full take might reach $13 million. By comparison. 2019 saw $141 million on Columbus Day weekend.

To be fair, with most of Regal gone and with New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle still closed, that might have reduced the potential gross by as much as half. Had Regal been open, the total would have been over $15 million. If all markets and theaters were open, the total might have been $26 million. The lack of product is a major factor, but this depressed level of business continues suggest that audiences have not restored their appetites for theaters.

After “Tenet” spent five weeks in the top spot, “The War with Grandpa” took no.

In the wake of Cineworld’s decision to shutter its UK venues and Regal U.S. theaters, AMC, the No. 1 exhibitor in the world, will remain open. AMC joins No. 3 exhibitor Cinemark in staying open during the pandemic, despite Cineworld and Regal’s plans to close this Thursday.

More than 80% of AMC’s U.S. circuit is open and an even higher share of the chain’s international theatres across Europe and the Middle East are open, with more than 90% of its Odeon Cinemas Group across Europe and 100% of the chain’s locations in the Middle East in operation. In addition, AMC is actively planning to open more of its theatres, especially in New York and California, when authorized to do so by state and county officials.

Yes, business is tough for exhibition, especially as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stands firm on not reopening cinemas, but AMC is planning to weather the storm,...

As Regal Theaters in the U.S. and U.K. parent Cineworld weigh closing their cinemas, this weekend’s box office offered little encouragement as this weekend’s top 10 came to about $8.2 million, and could be $10 million-$11 million for all films. That’s down from $9.6 million for last weekend’s top 10, which saw about $12 million overall. By comparison: This weekend in 2019, with the opening of “Joker,” brought in $150 million overall.

“Tenet,” by far the biggest contributor to domestic returns since it opened a month ago ,held well again, down 21 percent with $2.7 million. It has reached $45.1 million domestic so far, for $307 million worldwide.

The only country that is not reliant on “Tenet” is China, where local titles have driven the grossed to over $1 billion in the last six weeks. This weekend (a holiday there) showed two titles both gross over $150 million with “My People My Homeland” and the animated “Jiang Ziya.

In the wake of Covid-19’s continued grip on the box office, Disney made another round of release-date changes Wednesday, the good news for exhibition being: Nothing is headed to Disney+. That includes Pixar’s Soul, which is currently sticking to its November 20 release against MGM’s James Bond movie No Time to Die.

While we already knew Marvel’s Black Widow was set to move, it’s by far the biggest shift on Disney’s theatrical calendar, going from November 6 to May, 7 2021. That’s a complete annual delay of Black Widow from its original pre-pandemic release date of May 1 this year. Black Widow‘s shift kicks Marvel’s Eternals from February 12, 2021 to November 5, 2021, and moves Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings from May 7, 2021 to July 9, 2021 (a post-Independence Day release date that Disney had already reserved for an untitled feature). Trickling up into Eternals’ February spot is 20th Century Studios’ The King’s Man,...

As theaters regain their footing, they’re making baby steps. The good news: for the first time since March, 10 first-run films played in theaters in the U.S. and Canada, grossing $100,000 or more. And most drops from the past week were under 30%, which is above average: Warner Bros.’ “Tenet” dropped 26%, with few new theaters. Such small drops suggest an uptick in interest in going to theaters.

The bad news: there is little new to be seen. And disturbingly, on the specialty side, even though they played hundreds of theaters, Bleecker Street’s “The Secrets We Keep” and IFC’s “The Nest” failed to pull even minimal adult audiences.

This weekend last year, all films grossed $123 million. Led by three new openers, the lowest total for a Top Ten title was just under $1.5 million. This year, with something over 3,000 locations open (exact number unknown), a tiny increase over last week, total...

Breaking: Don’t count on Sony Animation’s Lord & Miller movie Connected for this fall. The feature joins a number of other features fleeing the immediate fall calendar or delaying until later in the year, or even in 2021. Connected, last scheduled for Oct. 23, is now being moved by the studio to an unset future date this year.

Studios saw what Tenet‘s (and other films’) grosses were like without New York and Los Angeles, and both cities are required to be part of a tentpole’s marketing blitz; hence the meltdown of the immediate theatrical fall schedule. Connected joins Wonder Woman 1984 which was recently delayed from Oct. 2 to Christmas Day, STX’s Greenland, which moved to a Tbd 4Q date after stepping off of its Sept. 25 release, and Universal/MGM’s Candyman which jumped from Oct. 16 to next year Tbd as notable delayed releases. Also, we’re waiting to see...

"Ma'am - it's not polite to stare!" Momentum Pictures has debuted the official trailer for an indie dramedy titled Stage Mother, the latest film from filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald. When the conservative, Texas church-choir director Maybelline inherits her recently deceased son's drag club in San Francisco called "Pandora's Box", she surprises her closed-minded husband and everyone else she knows by moving alone to Sf to save the club from bankruptcy. Jacki Weaver stars as Maybelline, who quickly becomes a mother-figure to the club's many flamboyant performers. Described as a "dance in your seat, music-infused comedy-drama that boasts a fiery supporting cast" including Lucy Liu, Adrian Grenier, Mya Taylor, and drag superstar Jackie Beat. This looks kinky and funny, an uplifting story about learning to let go of your prejudice and celebrate pride instead. And Jacki Weaver always rocks. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Thom Fitzgerald's Stage Mother, direct from YouTube: When conservative,...

Elizabeth Sellars, the Scottish actress who starred with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa, with Marlon Brando in Désirée and with Peter O'Toole in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, has died. She was 98.

Sellars died Monday at her home in France, her family reported.

Sellars co-starred as the wife of a pilot (Jack Hawkins) in Decision Against Time (1957), one of the last films made by famed Ealing Studios, and worked with Gardner again in the historical drama 55 Days at Peking (1963).

She also appeared in the Hammer films Cloudburst (1951) and The Mummy's Shroud (1967),...

Elizabeth Sellars, the Scottish actress who starred with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa, with Marlon Brando in Désirée and with Peter O'Toole in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, has died. She was 98.

Sellars died Monday at her home in France, her family reported.

Sellars co-starred as the wife of a pilot (Jack Hawkins) in Decision Against Time (1957), one of the last films made by famed Ealing Studios, and worked with Gardner again in the historical drama 55 Days at Peking (1963).

She also appeared in the Hammer films Cloudburst (1951) and The Mummy's Shroud (1967),...

Forthcoming novel from San Francisco author, centered on iconic Tales of the City character, could be made into a film

The venerable stage and screen actress Olympia Dukakis is poised to reprise what is perhaps the most iconic role of her career – and certainly one that had a huge impact on her outlook on life.

No, not her 1987 part as Cher's mother, in some sort of sequel to the hit movie Moonstruck, which won her an Oscar. Dukakis is in talks with the author Armistead Maupin about embodying once more – after a long hiatus – the character Anna Madrigal, the transgender landlady of a fictional house in San Francisco, where the legendary writer set his Tales of the City novels.

"I'd be there in a minute," Dukakis told the Guardian of the prospect of playing the iconic character again.

January 2014 sees the publication of The Days of Anna Madrigal, Maupin's...

By Mary Malia for YourTango.com

A lesbian-themed film won at Cannes. Wow! How is that possible? Why did it happen? Is it a film that shows the reality of lesbian life, love and coming out? Or does it pander to heterosexual ideas of lesbian love and turn lesbian sex into a porn show?

Abdellatif Kechiche's "Blue Is The Warmest Color" walked off with two trophies at this year's Cannes film festival: the Palme d'Or and a special award for its two lead actresses, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux.

Lesbian film is taking off. The quality of films coming out in this genre is growing. The actors involved are well-known in the industry, often award winners themselves. The cinematography is increasingly well-done and often amazingly beautiful. The scripts are well-written and the acting has moved from amateurish and stilted to experienced and smooth, with excellent story-telling and directing.

Lesbian-themed...

Tags: Malin AkermanCBGBNatalie PortmanMila KunisThe Queen Latifah ShowQueen LatifahPinkSkinOlympia DukakisBrenda FrickerCloudburstGrey's AnatomyIMDb

Good afternoon my lovelies!

Happy birthday to Ellie Kemper, Christine Baranski, Lily Allen and Bianca Jagger.

Check out the trailer for the lesbian road-trip movie Cloudburst starring Academy Award winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker (and will be screening at festivals this summer). This movie is totally going to make me cry.

Are you ready for tonight’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy? Here’s a sneak peek if you’re like me and you can’t wait.

Out rocker Skin, from the British band Skunk Anansie is suing her wedding planner for a full refund. Skin and her wife Christiana Wyly hired Besos Concierge, a women-only event planning company to organize their lavish Italian wedding. The couple claim that they paid an “all-inclusive fee to plan their wedding and cover the costs of the ceremony and party...

Tags: 2012moviesYoung & WildMosquito Y MariJack and DianeFarewell My QueenIMDb

In the past few years there’s been an influx of increasingly mainstream films with lesbian themes (The Runaways, The Kids Are All Right) but unfortunately that was not the case in 2012, which didn’t have much to offer in terms of films depicting ladies who love ladies. Sundace brought us the pick of the litter: Young & Wild, My Best Day and Mosquito Y Mari. Overall I saw more films depicting gay men than women and if we’re going to be represented at all in the Oscars this year, it’ll most likely be with a film that happens to feature lesbian characters (like Your Sister's Sister) as oppose to films that focus on lesbian narratives.

France brought the biggest let-down I faced all year: Farewell My Queen, which should have been called Hello Blue Balls. It's a look at...

The newly-rebranded aGLIFF Polari film festival kicked off Wednesday evening at the Stateside Theatre with an introduction from Film Programming Director Curran Nault, who explained his philosophy of diversity and inclusiveness in the programming selections this year. He then presented Queer Youth Media Project student Valentina Weatherspoon, who showed two short films she made: Not My Type and Sick Kids, both of which were under 2 minutes and showed great potential for a first-time filmmaker. A third short, an experimental piece called A Place for Us, left the audience bemused before the opening-night feature, Cloudburst (pictured above).

Cloudburst, directed by Thom Fitzgerald, stars Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as Stella and Dot, a lesbian couple in their seventies who have been together for over 30 years. A health scare prompts Dot's granddaughter to trick the blind old woman into signing a power of attorney, and then forcibly removes her to be placed in a nursing home.

I have been anxiously awaiting Fantastic Fest 2012 (September 20-27) ever since the carnivalesque tomfoolery of the Fantastic Fest 2011 closing party. Year after year, Tim League and the Fantastic Fest programmers have totally blown me away with their impeccable curating of genre films. And the parties… Oh, the parties! If my liver could talk, the stories it would tell… If history serves, Fantastic Fest 2012 will continue to expand upon its awesomeness, so this year will probably be ten times more amazing than last year’s festival. The announcements that Fantastic Fest has made so far with the first wave and second wave of programming have already solidified the fact that this will be the best damn Fantastic Fest of them all. First off, Tim Burton will be in attendance at the world premiere of Frankenweenie on the opening night of Fantastic Fest 2012. Sure, I have not been a fan of most of his recent work, but...

With the Edinburgh International Film Festival a sadly distant memory and a little while to go until the London Film Festival starts in October, Festival goers have a rather dry spell while waiting for their next Premiere fix.

But if you travel south to the charming Roman city of Chichester in West Sussex, you will find a 120 seater cinema that is ready to boast 13 European, 6 UK and 7 Us Premieres alongside talent including Derek Jacobi, Ol Parker, Amanda Waring, Sarah Miles and Maximilian Befort.

Open Air screenings of Guys And Dolls and Brave opened the Festival, with Artistic Director Roger Gibson securing Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones’ Hope Springs as the Closing Gala on September 2. There are also retrospectives of Lewis Gilbert, Theo Angelopoulus and Chichester favourite, the late Ken Russell’s work, as well as a focus on Sir Laurence Olivier, his films and the world-renowned theatre he became...

NewFest, New York’s Lgbt film festival, returns this year with bicoastal fortification, its programming taken over by the folks at L.A.’s Outfest, whose motive for the merge is to foster a national queer arts entity. But is the alliance holy? With Outfest having just wrapped its 30th anniversary, an 11-day event that boasted nearly 150 titles (including Ira Sachs’s Keep the Lights On, Jonathan Lisecki’s Gayby, and David France’s riveting Act Up doc, How to Survive a Plague), NewFest has the not-so-faint whiff of an afterthought, its 18-feature lineup looking more like the subpar cache of a scavenger than a carefully curated medley. The only films that seem to leap out as hot tickets are Yossi, Eytan Fox’s tender sequel to Yossi and Jagger; Cloudburst, a geriatric lesbian dramedy with Brenda Fricker and Olympia Dukakis; I Want Your Love, Travis Matthews’s arthouse-porno expansion of his 2010 short; and Four,...

Tags: Todrick HallNewFestPretty Little LiarsMarilyn MonroeJoCasta ZamarripaIMDb

Good morning, Brewbies. When you woke up this morning, I know you were like, "Man, I wish I could see a gaye-ed up fairy tale music video that mashes-up Disney soundtracks with Katy Perry. A lesbian Alice in Wonderland dancing with some drag queens would be just the thing to get my day going." Well, you're in luck! Todrick Hall, the best thing to get voted off American Idol since Jennifer Hudson, has released a follow-up to his "Beauty and the Beast" music video, and this time it's "Cinderfella."

Photo courtesy of Toddrick Hall

Click here to watch the video; you won't be sorry. It's actually a really lovely plea for same-sex marriage.

Photo courtesy of NewFest

Ok, now let me help you plan your weekend. This Friday, New York's top Lgbt film festival, NewFest, kicks off its 24th annual season. There are...

Outfest -- the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival -- is kicking off its 30th anniversary celebrations tomorrow night with a screening of Jeffrey Schwarz's "Vito" and a tribute to the one-and-only John Waters. What will follow is 10 days showcasing the best Lgbt cinema of the past year, which -- in something of a rare occasion -- isn't simply one or two great films and then countless filler. It's been a pretty exceptional year for Lgbt films, and if you're in Los Angeles over the next little bit, Outfest is a pretty great opportunity to see why. Indiewire offers 13 best bets below, though there's also quite a bit more where that came from, so check out the festival's full program here. "Cloudburst," written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald “Cloudburst” comes nearly fifteen years after writer-director Thom Fitzgerald made his directorial debut with “The Hanging Garden.” But unlike...

Thom Fitzgerald’s "Cloudburst" and Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall's "Call Me Kuchu" topped the winners of the audience awards at Frameline36 the San Francisco International Lgbt Film Festival, which came to a close this Sunday. The Festival drew together an audience of 57,000 over 11 days of screenings, culminating with a screening of the forementioned "Cloudburst," which stars Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as aging New England lesbians that go on a road trip to Canada to get married. Other major honors at the fest included the juried First Feature Award, which went to Negar Azarbayjani’s "Facing Mirrors," the first Iranian narrative film with a transgender protagonist. Honorable mention went to director Sally El Hosaini's story of two Egyptian brothers living in inner London, "My Brother The Devil." Taking home the Outstanding Documentary Feature Award was Yariv...

HollywoodNews.com: The 38th Seattle International Film Festival, the largest and most highly-attended event of its kind in the United States concluded today with the announcement of the Siff 2012 Competition Awards and Golden Space Needle Audience Awards. The 25-day Festival, which began May 17, featured over 460 films from more than 70 countries, including 65 feature premieres (24 World, 25 North American, 16 U.S.) and over 700 screenings. Additionally, Siff brought in more than 300 directors, actors and industry professionals.

“A festival’s success is dependent on two basic principles: providing a platform for filmmakers to be celebrated and connecting them to audience members that would not otherwise be aware of their remarkable stories,” said Siff Artistic Director Carl Spence. “This year a record number of filmmakers participated in person and online with virtual Q&A’s successfully expanding the conversation around the best in cinema with passionate audiences, illuminating guests and distinguished industry in attendance.”

Siff Managing Director Deborah Person said,...

Lgbt nonprofit media arts organization Frameline has announced the 36th edition of its annual film festival: Frameline36. The festival will run in San Francisco from June 14-22 and feature 217 films from more than 30 countries. Jeffrey Schwarz's documentary "Vito," which chronicles the life of gay activist Vito Russo, will open the festival. Other films screening at the festival include Jonathan Lisecki's "Gayby," Ira Sachs' "Keep the Lights On," and Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s "Call Me Kuchu." Frameline36 also will feature a retrospective on 1990s New Queer Cinema with Gregg Araki's "The Living Dead," Cheryl Dunye's "The Watermelon Woman" and Alex Sichel's "All Over Me." The festival will close with Thom Fitzgerald’s "Cloudburst," which follows a lesbian couple who breaks out of a nursing home to get married in Canada. ...

Cloudburst

Written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald

Canada, 2011

The story of a gay couple battling against social stigma has become an old, tired genre, so it’s only appropriate that in Thom Fitzgerald’s lesbian road trip film, Cloudburst, the two leading ladies share a combined age of about 140. Although it’s initially humorous and deeply affecting, this road trip runs out of gas half way, and instead, relies on artificial melodrama to take it to its final destination.

Starring acting heavyweights Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker, the story is about two lesbian women, Stella and Dot, who have been living together in Maine for 31 years. However, when Dot (Fricker) is hospitalized after a fall at their home, her granddaughter (Kristin Booth from Below Zero) sends her to a nursing home to be properly looked after.

Not wanting to lose her, Stella (Dukakis), breaks Dot out of the home and,...

I can't remember a time I went to the Seattle International Film Festival (Siff) press launch and looked over the list of films and saw so many I was interested in seeing. The claim to fame for over the years is to call it the largest and most-highly attended festival in the United States. This is a fact I've often taken issue with as I don't equate quantity with quality. Granted, there has been a large number of quality features to play the fest over the years, including Golden Space Needle (Best Film) winners such as Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), My Life as a Dog (1987), Trainspotting (1996), Run Lola Run (1999), Whale Rider (2003) and even recent Best Director winner, Michel Hazanavicius's Oss 117: Nest of Spies in 2006. That said, looking over this year's crop of films I see a lot of films I will be doing my absolute best to see.

QFest opens today (Sunday April 21st) in St. Louis. QFest, the annual Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is celebrating it’s fifth year with a terrific line-up of films spotlighting Gay and Lesbian filmmakers and themes. QFest is a Cinema St. Louis event and this year is presented by Tla Releasing, a Us film distribution company whose primary output is Lgbt-related films from all over the world. All films will be shown at the Tivoli Theatre (6350 Delmar Blvd. in the University City Loop district). Individual tickets are $12 general admission or $10 for students and Cinema St. Louis members with valid and current photo IDs. Advance tickets are available through the Tivoli Theatre box office or online at Landmark Theatres’ web site

Here’s the line-up for the QFest films playing today and tonight:

Sunday, April 22nd at 1:30pm.

Cloudburst- (Canada, 2011, 93 min.) Directed Thom Fitzgerald

In this moving comedy, Oscar-winning...

QFest, the annual Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is celebrating it’s fifth year with a terrific line-up of films spotlighting Gay and Lesbian filmmakers and themes. QFest is a Cinema St. Louis event and this year is presented by Tla Releasing, a Us film distribution company whose primary output is Lgbt-related films from all over the world.

QFest begins this Sunday, April 22nd and runs through Thursday, April 26, 2012, at the Tivoli Theatre (6350 Delmar Blvd. in the University City Loop district). QFest uses the art of contemporary gay cinema to spotlight the diversity and inherent complexities of living an alternative lifestyle in today’s society. This year’s event features an eclectic slate of contemporary Lgbtq-themed feature films, documentaries, and shorts.

Here’s the line-up for this year’s QFest:

Sunday, April 22nd at 1:30pm.

Cloudburst- (Canada, 2011, 93 min.) Directed Thom Fitzgerald

In this moving comedy, Oscar®-winning actresses...

Cloudburst

Directed by Thom Fitzgerald

Written by Thom Fitzgerald

Canada, 2911

The story of two gay lovers battling against social stigma has become an old, tired genre, so it’s only appropriate that in Thom Fitzgerald’s lesbian road trip film, Cloudburst, the two leading ladies share a combined age of about 140. Initially humorous and deeply affecting, this road trip runs out of gas half way, and instead, relies on artificial melodrama to take it to its final destination.

The film stars Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as Stella and Dot, two women who have been clandestinely living together in Maine for 31 years. When Dot is hospitalized following a fall at her home, her granddaughter resolves to place her in a nursing home where she can be properly looked after. Stella, not wanting to lose her, breaks Dot out of the home and, together, they head for Nova Scotia, where gay and lesbian marriage is legal.

Jason Sperb's new book, Disney's Most Notorious Film: Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of Song of the South, will be out soon from the University of Texas Press.

In other news. "Barbara, a slow-burning drama set in communist East Germany from director Christian Petzold, is the front runner for this year's Lolas, Germany's equivalent of the Oscar, with eight nominations, including best film." Scott Roxborough has more in the Hollywood Reporter; the Süddeutsche Zeitung has the full list. The awards will be presented in Berlin on April 27.

Los Angeles. "Maya Deren's best-known achievement, her remarkable 1943 dream-poem Meshes of the Afternoon, was just the beginning of a too-brief career," writes Tom von Logue Newth in the Weekly. "Her output would extend from experiments in psychodrama, like Meshes and Witch's Cradle, a fascinating, barely edited collaboration with Marcel Duchamp made during Deren's short period in Hollywood; to highly personal dance...

BFI tells viewers "explode your expectations".

The 26th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival opens in style today with the English premiere of Olympia Dukakis comedy Cloudburst and a party at the Riverfront Bar expected to last late into the night. Following last year's low-budget, somewhat muted event, this one brings back all the glitz and glamour that regular attendees had come to expect.

With its theme of 'Explode your Expectations', this year's line-up features some genuinely challenging films, from disturbing and...

BFI London's 26th Lesbian and Gay film festival opens tonight with a lineup that boasts at least a dozen feature films that could be marketed as mainstream. So why is it still a niche event?

Tonight sees the opening of the 26th Lesbian and Gay film festival at the BFI in London, making it one of the longest-running gay-focused events in the UK. I recall being there in 1988. As a young lesbian from the sticks I was bowled over by its sophistication, but could not for the life of me understand much of what appeared on the screen. All I can remember is being surprised at glimpses of sex and genitalia and confused about the artsy focus. Today it is more mainstream, and definitely more accessible with its feature-length dramas and political (rather than avant garde) documentaries about serious issues around the world, but it remains a niche interest within the film festival circuit.

The actor talks about her latest role, the importance of her Greek ancestry and having a sideline as a gay icon

That was a long phone number. Where on earth are you?

I'm in Cyprus. I came here to do a play called Mama Pou Pas? with Mimi Denisi but unfortunately she had a car accident and the play got cancelled, so I'm doing a concert reading of Rose (1) instead, ahead of taking the production to Israel. So yeah, I'm in a hotel in Greek Cyprus.

How important is your Greek ancestry (2)?

It's important in that it's who I am. But it's also made me feel like I was an outsider and that I never quite fit in – both in relation to Greek culture and mainstream Us culture. Growing up, I was always kind of torn between those two worlds, never quite according enough respect to either one. But that's Ok.

Catch up with the last seven days in the world of film

Read our 4-star Hunger Games review

The big story

With the John Carter fiasco rumbling on Hollywood was desperate for some good news, and it duly came in the slinky form of Jennifer Lawrence and Hunger Games. The set of novels by Suzanne Collins have been touted as the new Twilight and – to all astonishment – have been turned into a rather good film, if you believe Xan Brooks, our man at the first press preview. As the week wore on, it became clear that The Hunger Games was looking at a serious pile of cash when it would finally be released – perhaps even beating the first Twilight film's opening weekend mark of $69m in 2008. Fortunately, as is their way, the Guide had got in quickly and interviewed Lawrence last weekend – and she had little truck with the Twilight...

Consumers looking to view one of the best performances of the year will have a chance to see Glenn Close in the celebrated three-time Oscar® nominee Albert Nobbs for a limited two week engagement on Video On Demand and Pay-Per-View beginning April 10th through April 24th. The sneak peek will come one month ahead of the film’s debut on Blu-ray Disc, DVD and Digital Download May 15th.

The drama stars six-time Oscar® nominee* Glenn Close, who gives a “powerhouse performance”. (New York Post), as Albert. An impressive supporting cast includes two-time Academy Award® nominee** Janet McTeer, along with Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right), Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) and Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Showtime’s “The Tudors”.). Directed “with grit and grace”. (Rolling Stone) by Rodrigo Garcia (Mother and Child), the film is based on the novella by Irish author George Moore and features a story by Istvan Szabo and screenplay by Gabriella Prekop,...

After the phenomenal success of last year’s twenty fifth anniversary celebrations, the BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival returns this coming week for its twenty sixth instalment, with another internationally flavoured and diverse line-up. Last year defied the recession and saw punters turn out to support the ailing festival which was under threat of being scrapped, luckily its back with a ten day slot devoted to the best new, old and experimental queer filmmaking. With a huge line-up of over sixty screenings and handful of talks and debates there is a lot to be seen, so here I am just going to pick some key highlights and a few personal choices.

Obviously the opening and closing night galas are the most hyped and talked about, and this year it would seem, for especially good reasons. Opening the festivities (for a third time) is Canadian-American director Thom Fitzgerald with Cloudburst,...

Viggo Mortensen (Sigmund Freud), Michael Fassbender (Carl Jung), A Dangerous Method Monsieur Lazhar Tops Genie Awards Meilleur Film / Best Motion Picture A Dangerous Method – Martin Katz, Marco Mehlitz, Jeremy Thomas CAFÉ De Flore – Pierre Even, Marie-Claude Poulin, Jean-Marc Vallée * Monsieur Lazhar – Luc Déry, Kim McCraw Starbuck – André Rouleau The Whistleblower – Christina Piovesan, Celine Rattray Meilleure RÉALISATION / Achievement In Direction David Cronenberg – A Dangerous Method Steven Silver – The Bang Bang Club Jean-marc VALLÉE – Café de Flore * Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar Larysa Kondracki – The Whistleblower Meilleures Images / Achievement In Cinematography Miroslaw Baszak, C.S.C. – The Bang Bang Club Pierre Cottereau – Café de Flore Jon Joffin – Daydream Nation * Jean-FRANÇOIS Lord – Snow & Ashes Ronald Plante – Monsieur Lazhar Meilleur Montage / Achievement In Editing Jean-FRANÇOIS Bergeron – The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom Michael Czarnecki – In Darkness Patrick Demers – Jaloux * STÉPHANE Lafleur – Monsieur Lazhar Ronald Sanders, C.C.E. A.C.E. – A Dangerous Method...

The 26th BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (Llgff) has announced that its opening film on Friday, March 23 will be Cloudburst Directed by Thom Fitzgerald, the award-winning road movie stars Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as a septuagenarian lesbian couple. Fitzgerald said: "I'm thrilled and tickled that the BFI has chosen Cloudburst to open its 26th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. "To me, the BFI is more than a national treasure; it's a cultural icon of worldwide significance. It represents the best in film exhibition and preservation. I deeply appreciate its (more)...

Thom Fitzgerald's "Cloudburst" - a lesbian romance starring Oscar winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker - has proved a considerable favorite on the Canadian film festival circuit. In the past two weeks, the film has won laurels at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax (People's Choice Award; Atlantic Canada Award for Best Screenplay), Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival (Audience Choice Award); and Edmonton International Film Festival (Best Canadian Film; runner-up ...

The 31st annual Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, Canada announced its lineup, which this year boasts 189 films and an array of events. Andrew Bush's "Roller Town" will have its world premiere as the Opening Gala screening, and was described by the festival as "a slapstick parody of the late 1970’s roller skate movies filmed in Halifax." Thom Fitzgerald's "Cloudburst" and Sarah Polley's "Take this Waltz" will also have Gala ...