Gay pride on sundance

Sundance Channel celebrates Gay Pride month with its fourth annual "OutLoud" FilmFest. Every day in June brings a different gay tale, including features, documentaries, and shorts.

Topping the list is a national, one-time-only sneak preview of David Weissman and Bill Weber’s new documentary feature The Cockettes, a major hit at the 2002 Sundance and Berlin film festivals. The Cockettes made its theatrical premiere on May 10 at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre and begins a national rollout on June 28. • Filled with archival footage, The Cockettes is a loving tribute to the spirit and unbridled creativity of its subjects, a gender-bending San Francisco musical troupe founded in 1969 by a charismatic drag queen named Hibiscus. A flamboyant ensemble of hippies (gay men, women, and babies), The Cockettes took musical theater to new heights of fabulous absurdity with their midnight revues. There were all-singing, all-dancing original shows replete with glittering costumes, rebellious sexuality, and gleeful anarchy. Newsweek’s David Ansen said: "[T]he best time I’ve had at the movies [at the Sundance Film Festival] has been at a documentary. The Cockettes is an exuberant journey into a barely remembered corner of the psychedelic ’60s." • Circle this date on your calendar: Friday, June 21, 8 p.m.

Francois Ozon’s See the Sea (1997), Water Drops on Burning Rocks (1999), and Criminal Lovers (1999) • See the Sea is a psychological thriller in which a mother and her baby are spending the summer at an isolated beach house when a scruffy and sullen backpacker pitches her tent in the yard and is welcomed into the house. • Water Drops on Burning Rocks, based on an early play written by German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, is a satirical examination of shifting cycles of sexual dependency. • Criminal Lovers is a disturbing meditation on sexual identity and erotic power, a twisted retelling of the Hansel and Gretel story.

By Hook or by Crook • Striding boldly into areas rarely visited by filmmakers, this first feature by Harriet "Harry" Dodge and Silas Howard stars Howard as Shy, a drag king searching for meaning and love after the death of his terminally ill father. One showing only: Friday, June 28, 8 p.m.

Sundance Out Loud Feature Films

• Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer
• Aimée & Jaguar
• Alive and Kicking
• Bar Girls
• Bedrooms & Hallways
• Benjamin Smoke
• The Brandon Teena Story
• Chuck & Buck
• Chutney Popcorn
• Companions: Tales from the Closet
• Dear Jesse
• The Delta
• GODASS
• Hey, Happy
• Hide and Seek
• Hit and Runway
• Kiss Me, Guido (one showing only, June 22, 10 p.m.)
• Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis @ 100
• Mädchen in Uniform
• Maurice
• The Monkey’s Mask
• My Left Breast
• Persona
• Steam: The Turkish Bath
• Taboo

For a complete list of films, documentaries, shorts, and playdates, go to www.sundancechannel.com.

Turner classic movies goes with icons

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating Gay Pride on June 27, the 33rd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. If you’re not gonna be home for the day, you might consider learning how to time-record on that VCR. Or I guess you could always take the day off (not that OutSmart is advocating such a ruse). But wouldn’t it be pretty enjoyable to lounge around all day with these gay and lesbian icons?

Thursday, June 27

• 6:30 a.m. The Blue Angel Marlene Dietrich
• 8:30 a.m. Mata Hari Greta Garbo
• 10 a.m. The Letter Bette Davis
• Noon Mildred Pierce Joan Crawford
• 2 p.m. Adam's Rib Katharine Hepburn
• 4 p.m. Easter Parade Judy Garland
• 6 p.m. Calamity Jane Doris Day

Bobbie’s girl on Showtime

Bobbie (Rachel Ward) and Bailey (Bernadette Peters) are, to say the least, an atypical couple living on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland, in the seaside village of Bray. Together they run a pub named "The Two Sisters" with Bailey’s eccentric brother David (Jonathan Silverman). Their life takes a traumatic turn with the sudden arrival of Alan (Thomas Sangster), Bobbie’s 10-year-old nephew. Alan, whose parents have been tragically killed, casts the three adults in the unlikely and unexpected roles of adoptive parents. Unfortunately, matters are complicated by Bobbie’s diagnosis of breast cancer. • Bobbie’s Girl is one of Showtime’s Original Pictures For All Ages. Finally, a film with a lesbian couple is considered suitable "For All Ages." Hats off to Showtime. • Bobbie’s Girl premieres on Sunday, June 9, at 7 p.m.

Questioning faith: confessions of a seminarian on cinemax

This documentary follows minister-in-training Macky Alston as he searches for the ways people find meaning in life when sometimes nothing seems to make sense. During his quest, he encounters people with a wide range of religious backgrounds and beliefs, from born-again Christians to Muslims, from atheists to Buddhists to Orthodox Jews. • The documentary begins with the death of Alston’s seminary classmate Alan Smith. • Among many others, Alston encounters Liza Gottlieb, a straight-talking atheist and grandmother of Alston’s life partner, and Hazel Rankin, the mother of Alston’s friend Alan, who died of AIDS. At stake for Alston is whether or not he has the faith to be a minister. • Debuts Thursday, June 27 (5:30—7 p.m.), on Cinemax.