![\"FilmOut](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Hollywood_Je_Taime_4-1.jpg\" "\\"Hollywood_Je_Taime_4-1\\"")
<\/a>With approximately 50 shorts and features to choose from, this year\u2019s Filmout LGBT Festival is bound to pack the North Park Theatre.<\/p>\nFor his ninth year with the festival, programmer Michael McQuiggan has once again filled the annual weeklong event with a wide array of narrative features, documentaries and foreign films that touch upon numerous genres and issues.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s opening night presentation is \u201cThe Big Gay Musical,\u201d and while I did not have a chance to see it ahead of time here are three movies destined to be crowd pleasers.<\/p>\n
Jason Bushman\u2019s \u201cHollywood Je T’aime\u201d may have cribbed its title from \u201cParis, Je T’aime\u201d and \u201cNew York, Je T’aime,\u201d but it\u2019s anything but another omnibus movie. Still smarting from a romantic breakup up, gay Parisian Eric Debets decides to buy a roundtrip ticket to America and try his luck with acting and romance, Hollywood style. The film is surprisingly charming with Debets acting as the glue that holds it all together. Unlike some of the other features I looked at, \u201cHollywood Je T’aime\u201d is a cut above thanks to Alison Kelly\u2019s sparkling cinematography and Phil Bartell\u2019s crackerjack editing.<\/p>\n
And if you think Debets bears more than a passing resemblance to Academy Award winner Adrian Brody, you are not alone. The filmmakers slip in a knowing reference that\u2019s bound to get a big laugh when it screens on April 18 at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n
Evgeny Afineevsky\u2019s \u201cOy Vey! My Son Is Gay!\u201d is a safe distance from Albert Brooks. Hell, it\u2019s a safe distance from Neil Simon for that matter, but the film gets by largely on the charm of its cast. Lainie Kazan has gone from a sultry spread in Playboy to a career on stage and film that now finds her playing Yiddish mamas that would have made Gertrude Berg proud. Along with hubby Saul Rubinek, Kazan is doing her best to find her son a nice girl, but as the title indicates her gay baby boy ain\u2019t interested. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is Carmen Electra. As the shikse centerfold Mom and Pop pray will be their daughter-in-law, Electra gives a funny and very natural performance. You\u2019ll probably spend just as much time laughing at the film as with it, but I think with the title such as it is, that\u2019s to be expected.<\/p>\n
Wendy Jo Carlton\u2019s \u201cHannah Free\u201d is an unashamed tearjerker that benefits from Claudia Allen\u2019s heartfelt script and a superb performance by \u201cCagney and Lacey\u201d alum Sharon Gless. Hannah (Gless) and her lifelong companion Rachel (Ann Hagemann) grew up together in the same small Midwest town. Hannah grew to be a strong character who refuses to make excuses to polite society while Rachel became a strong, less vocal homemaker. The film, based on Allen\u2019s stage play, intercuts between time frames to reveal how the characters maintained their love for each other in spite of all the odds against them.<\/p>\n