A feast for the eyes!

Funny how Toronto is described as “the centre of the universe” everywhere BUT Toronto. (Seriously, it’s not.)

Ah, but from tonight until May 24th, it might as well be — the 19th annual Inside Out LGBT Film & Video Festival is on! Among the highlights:

The ’Hogtown Homos’ program features a collection of shorts from Toronto filmmakers, including the screenwriting debut of former Xtra writer Matt Guerin in ‘The Golden Pin’:

John Greyson brings ’Fig Trees,’ his audacious and award-winning blend of documentary and opera featuring AIDS activists Tim McCaskell and Zackie Achmat. Here he is discussing it at an Italian film fest:

I’m looking forward to the documentary ’Sex Positive’ for its look at the early AIDS crisis and the wildly different responses to it from activists Richard Berkowitz and Larry Kramer:

And, of course, if you loved Sean Penn in ‘Milk,’ you owe it to yourself to see the real thing in the classic documentary ’The Times of Harvey Milk’:

 

In a summer of nerdy thrill-rides like ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Transformers,’ ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Terminator,’ the Inside Out festival is an oasis of fascinating film!

A film that sadly isn’t playing at Inside Out, but hopefully coming soon to a theatre near you, is ‘Outrage,’ a documentary on closeted politicians in the US. In this outtake, the filmmakers asked an age-old question — who’s better in bed? Left or right wingers?

What are Chris Pine’s politics, I wonder? The new Captain Kirk has made quite an impression — even on straight ‘Dogma’ and ‘Clerks’ director Kevin Smith, who said:

“I’d watch that dude do anything…I’d watch that dude have sex with my wife at this point. He’s such a good actor.”

But speaking of queer crushes, here’s a new good news/bad news scenario: the long-shelved prison comedy-romance ’I Love You, Phillip Morris’ is finally getting a release date! The bad news is that the Jim CarreyEwan McGregor romance will be released on Valentine’s Day 2010! This is one of those rare occasions when ‘straight-to-DVD’ would’ve been a better option!

But if you’re still resolved to just stay at home in front of the tube, I suppose you can’t go wrong with tonight’s season finale of ‘Supernatural.’ I swear the Winchester brothers get funnier and better-looking every week, especially when they recently discovered their online fan base:

And finally, in one month’s time, it’s the return of ‘Six Feet Under’ creator Alan Ball’s southern-fried vampire soap ‘True Blood’ featuring costar Ryan Kwanten.

See you at the movies!

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

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