By Scott Marks
SDUN Film Critic

With approximately 50 shorts and features to choose from, this year’s Filmout LGBT Festival is bound to pack the North Park Theatre.

For 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.

This year’s opening night presentation is “The Big Gay Musical,” and while I did not have a chance to see it ahead of time here are three movies destined to be crowd pleasers.

Jason Bushman’s “Hollywood Je T’aime” may have cribbed its title from “Paris, Je T’aime” and “New York, Je T’aime,” but it’s 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, “Hollywood Je T’aime” is a cut above thanks to Alison Kelly’s sparkling cinematography and Phil Bartell’s crackerjack editing.

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’s bound to get a big laugh when it screens on April 18 at 8 p.m.

Evgeny Afineevsky’s “Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!” is a safe distance from Albert Brooks. Hell, it’s 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’t 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’ll probably spend just as much time laughing at the film as with it, but I think with the title such as it is, that’s to be expected.

Wendy Jo Carlton’s “Hannah Free” is an unashamed tearjerker that benefits from Claudia Allen’s heartfelt script and a superb performance by “Cagney and Lacey” 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’s 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.

April 16-22
Birch North Park Theatre
2891 University Ave.
North Park
$150 for Festival FilmPass; $10 for individual admission
filmoutsandiego.com
814-3422