'MO - May 2008 - (Page 27)

what’s hot Bailey-Boushay House: A Living History This 33-minute short packs an impressive amount of local history into its limited run time, detailing the evolution of Seattle’s Bailey-Boushay House from its inception as a sorely needed hospice for staggering numbers of AIDS victims. With remarkably skilled camera work and cinematography, several key players in the facility’s two decades of history and more than ﬁfteen years of operation are featured telling the story. In the years since the peak of the AIDS crisis created the greatest need for such a facility, the epidemic has changed a great deal, and Bailey-Boushay has had to adapt, ultimately expanding to care for people with other life-threatening illnesses. What makes this documentary so captivating, though, is its illustration of how much respect is given all those lost to AIDS through the design of the structure itself. A huge amount of meaning is found in countless architectural details, which even people who work at Bailey-Boushay House may not know. This is a documentary far more touching and informative than its brief run time might suggest; it’s well worth seeking out. Unfortunately SIFF does not at present have any speciﬁcally lesbian-themed ﬁlms on the schedule for this year (hence the lack of any mention of one in this preview), but there is one notable ﬁlm addressing transgender issues: Be Like Others is a documentary about the booming gender-reassignment industry in Iran, a country where homosexuality is punishable by death but sex changes are perfectly legal. These and other ﬁlms of every imaginable kind can be seen at the Seattle International Film Festival starting Thursday, May 22, with the opening night gala showing of Battle in Seattle, starring Charlize Theron in the story of the 1999 WTO riots. It runs through Sunday, June 15. For more information or to make advance ticket purchases visit www.siff.net or call (206) 324-9996. Chuecatown (“Boystown”) A somewhat trite but still enjoyable romp and mishmash of genres, Chuecatown can’t seem to decide if it’s a screwball comedy or a crime thriller. Or maybe it’s a culturally speciﬁc satire: a real estate agent is so obsessed with renovating a residential building in Madrid’s gay district, he kills all the old ladies who refuse his increasingly large offers to buy their ﬂats. In the midst of this, a couple of bears ﬁnd their relationship on the brink of disaster after one’s semipsychotic mother comes to live with them. Naturally, after her son inherits the ﬂat of one of the murdered women (thereby rendering him a suspect) and he moves her into the unit, the killer encounters more than he bargains for when he comes to harass her into selling. Chuecatown never bothers making the identify of the killer a mystery—he is shown committing the ﬁrst murder in the opening scene, thus setting a somewhat dubious tone—but rather holds us in suspense as to whether the killer will get to the insufferable mother, or to the unwitting gay couple who also won’t sell, or if the crazy lady will succeed at breaking up her son’s relationship with his partner. Added to this is a subplot of a mother-son detective duo, the mother a crippling hypochondriac and the son progressively exploring his effeminate side. There might be a deﬁnitive lack of seamlessness to the proceedings, but Chuecatown still succeeds at being a fun and harmless diversion. to read Matthew’s reviews of current and past ﬁlms on the Web, please visit http://cinema-holic.livejournal.com. moseattle.com 27 issue #15 | may 2008 http://www.siff.net http://cinema-holic.livejournal.com http://moseattle.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of 'MO - May 2008

'MO - May 2008 Contents Letter From the Editor Voices Instant Activist Pet Project 'mo-BIZ: SeattleMeds Pharmacy 'mo-Money: The Federal Reserve 'mo Magazine Interview with Will & Grace Star Leslie Jordan Form & Function: Better Legs By Summer Healthy Alternatives Vancouver: Heading North in Rail Time Book Review: Where Are You Now? By Mary Higgins Clark Seattle International Film Festival Preview Capitol Hill Guide SceneOut: People@Places 'mo-Single Q&A

'MO - May 2008

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