Brief encounters
The best and the rest of the lesbian and gay film festival

All the Queen's Men (Stefan Ruzowitsky, USA/Germany/Austria/Hungary) A 1960s-style misfire that might as well have starred Horst Buchholz and Anthony Newley, All the Queen's Men instead has Matt LeBlanc and Eddie Izzard – together at last! – as ever-so-reluctant Allied comrades forced to don ridiculously bad drag so they can infiltrate a WWII Axis bomb factory. You can just imagine the genderbent hilarity! Actually, your imagination will no doubt provide more laughs than this multinational coproduction. With Friends like these ... Fri/21, 8:30 p.m., Castro. (Dennis Harvey)

American Mullet (Jennifer Arnold, USA) This 52-minute doc about America's most controversial hairstyle points out that "people love to talk about the mullet – but who is talking to people with the mullet?" Highlighted are members of widely diverse groups (lesbians, rock 'n' roll fans, soccer players, bikers, Native Americans, Mexicans, a physician, a Billy Ray Cyrus impersonator), all of whom sport the coif with fierce pride. Though the making-fun-of-mullets pastime is given screen time (one mullet-themed Web site is depicted as somewhat mean-spirited), the unfailingly optimistic American Mullet debunks the stereotypes associated with the cut (i.e., stupidity, redneck-ness) and puts a positive spin on something one hockey-haired individual admits, with a grin, is "not fashionable." Playing with American Mullet are Mary Jo Godges's celebrity-studded "Lesbian Fashion?" and Margaret Broucek's "Your Better Butch Fashion," a comedy about a meddling mama's desire for her lesbian daughter to have only the best. Sun/16, 6:30 p.m., Castro. (Cheryl Eddy)

'As if It Matters' (LYRIC/Gay Straight Alliance Network/TILT, USA) Youth is fervently worshipped in queer culture, not to mention American culture, but how often is it accurately portrayed? This accomplished 25-minute video stems directly from the nine high school students who wrote, edited, produced, and directed – as well as acted in – it. Refreshingly free of party-line (read: adult) viewpoints, the made-in-San Francisco "As If" reveals how six high school kids of various backgrounds deal with sexual identity, homophobia, body fascism, locker-room discomforts, queer parents, and doing their homework. The characters, credibly portrayed by amateur actors (a few clearly playing themselves), intersect as if in a junior Altman movie, and the gentle, insistent way "As If" addresses its subjects is anything but dogmatic. Part of the "Not For Adults" program, Thurs/20, 3:45 p.m., Castro. (Glen Helfand)

Britney Baby – One More Time (Ludi Boeken, USA) A, like, totally delightful wide-screen semifictional fantasia based on the saga of cross-dressing Britney Spears impersonator Robert Stephens, who won a Britney-sponsored "Do me!" contest, then was cruelly spurned by flaks who took his mimicking exactitude the wrong way, getting Stephens thrown bodily from a backstage in-person meeting with the perky gelatin-assisted star. (He was later granted an apology and an actual handshake.) This gleeful spin-off finds Stephens initially mistaken for the real pneumatic thing by American Movie stars Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank. Even once they get wise, they press on with a bogus cross-country "touring with Britney" TV exclusive. Britney Baby is an oddball, heartwarming camp comedy – just the sweetest thing you ever saw. June 29, 8:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

The Business of Fancydancing (Sherman Alexie, USA) Native American author Sherman Alexie makes his directorial bow with this complex, intriguing look at cross-cultural identity. A popular "crossover" artist because of his Caucasian-friendly poems about Indian suffrage, Seymour Polatkin (Evan Adams) is much less loved in his formative Northwestern tribal community, where he's considered a New Age sellout. As he journeys back to attend a childhood friend's funeral, the gay scribe gets a harsh wake-up lesson in community loyalty. Uneven in character and story development, the movie nonetheless has a textural richness and restless intelligence that consistently fascinate. Tues/25, 6:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Claire (Milford Thomas, USA) Shot using a hand-cranked 35mm Mitchell Standard camera, Milford Thomas's movie pays homage to silent film. In doing so, it may not approach the kinetic brilliance of Guy Maddin's recent short "Heart of the World," but it does succeed as a dreamlike visual fairy tale. The title character is a moon princess (Toniet Gallago, radiating pre-talkie glamour, but updating it as well) discovered in a corn crib one night by an old, bearded farmer couple (James Ferguson and Sister Missionary P. Delight). She grows up quickly; her beauty and flair for reciting poetry inspire one young man to risk his life in a cliff-diving attempt to impress her. Set to a live score by Anne Richardson, Claire is precious – your enjoyment of the movie will correspond to your favored definition of that adjective. June 26, 6:30 p.m., Herbst. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Group (Marilyn Freeman, USA) The ultimate lesbian processing movie? It's hard to resist using that cheap shot to describe Marilyn Freeman's six-screen feature, which asks you to accept therapy as a viable form of screen drama. If you do, you'll discover that not all of Group's characters are lesbians, and the differences between the nine women – therapist included – aren't always resolved by a comforting self-help embrace. (Sometimes they are, though, unfortunately.) Nomy Lamm and Carrie Brownstein are among the actors channeling real-life grief into fictive characters, but the best performance comes from Tracy Kirkpatrick, who moves beyond her role as token bigot. A soundtrack featuring songs by the Aislers Set, the Need, Sarah Dougher, and Sleater-Kinney breaks up the talk. Wed/19, 6:30 p.m., Herbst. (Huston)

Guardian of the Frontier (Maja Weiss, Slovenia) A Shirley Jackson short story meets soft-core porn as three hot young women – often topless – take a "relaxing" canoe trip down a river on the Slovenian-Croatian border at the same time that an alleged serial killer is loose. En route, two of the women (who are supposedly straight) begin to have an affair. The trio runs into strange characters on both sides of the border, culminating in a surreal confrontation with a misogynist, xenophobic group of backwoods folk. Or was it all just a strange sexual fantasy of the most repressed, homophobic woman in the group? (Maybe it was just the old Blair witch again.) Adding heat to the episode are lush cinematography, gorgeous locales, beautiful women in bathing suits, and beautiful women not in bathing suits. June 26, 9 p.m., Castro. (Laura Irvine)

Karmen Gei (Joseph Gaï Ramaka, Senegal/France/Canada) A joyous burst of energy, this Senegalese update of opera's Carmen tale presents bisexual Karmen (the spectacularly self-assured Djeïnaba Diop Gaï), a charismatic semicriminal adventurer in modern-day Dakar. Racking up conquests hither and yon, she eventually meets the traditional fate at one jealous suitor's hands. But this movie is so vividly attuned to Karmen's own unrepentant joie de vivre that the "upright" citizen's grudge seems more unjust than ever. Deliciously costumed, designed, scored, and choreographed, the quasi-musical loses some steam as its narrative grows more somber. Still, this is one of the most purely enjoyable features to come out of Africa in years. Thurs/20, 6:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Ke Kulana He Mahu: Remembering a Sense of Place (Kathryn Xian and Brent Anbe, USA) Shot on video, this documentary investigates native Hawaiian culture, suggesting that homophobia and narrow "family values" are very much nonnative qualities imported by the Christian, capitalist West. Directors Kathryn Xian and Brent Anbe lose focus by cutting too broad a thematic swath, covering Hawaii's natural-resource despoilment, local HIV issues, and so forth. But the material centering on little-remembered tribal practices – including collective child-raising and veneration of the gender-blurred shamanistic mahu – is compelling. Sun/23, 6 p.m., Herbst. (Harvey)

Lianna (John Sayles, USA) It took a hunky heterosexual writer-director to make the most Olivia Records-type lesbian screen romance ever. Twenty years later, one wonders if Lianna might prove less stereotypically p.c. and ever so earnest than it did in 1983. Linda Griffiths and Jane Hallaren play the lead lovers; auteur John Sayles plays a supporting role, as does future cabin boy Chris Elliott. Mon/24, 6 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Looking for Langston (Isaac Julien, U.K.) Isaac Julien, 2002's Frameline Award winner, first leapt to attention with this original, poetic featurette, a 60-minute evocation and critique of the Harlem Renaissance as personified by poet Langston Hughes. Fetishistically in thrall to exquisite surfaces – from the gleam of a champagne glass to the glow of contrasting bared skin tones – the movie is B&W to the metaphorical max, its glamour constantly undercut by the suggestion that all the aristocratic role-playing might be just another mask laid over deep cultural pain. Mon/24, 6:30 p.m., Herbst. (Harvey)

Markova: Comfort Gay (Gil M. Portes, Philippines) There's a sensationalism to many gay-themed features from the Philippines that tends to render good intentions less than credible. Not (for once) about hunky poor boys driven into degrading exotic-dance vocations (which they hate with every bulging muscle of their gyrating young bodies!), this supposedly fact-based tale instead veers fecklessly toward La cage aux folles territory, tossing in a dash of Sophie's Choice for awkward measure. Rest-home queen Walter (a.k.a. Markova) spills his back story to a reporter after seeing a TV documentary about WWII "comfort women." During the Japanese occupation, he and other cabaret-performing cross-dressers also endured abuse from enemy troops. Framed as tragedy but played as soap opera, the movie is indifferent to tonal and narrative continuity, which only makes a dicey tale more implausible – and borderline offensive, in its rather bogus correlation of Markova's experience to those of real "comfort women" forced into Axis prostitution. Wed/19, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Skeleton Woman (Vivi Letsou, USA) New Age kitsch alert! You'll be woo-hooing in amazement at writer-director Vivi Letsou's San Francisco-set first feature, which takes Showgirls to the Esalen Institute. Her fictional alter ego, oft-reincarnated Olya (Daphne Rubin-Vega), is a dancer both exotic (for cash) and mythic-interpretive (for soul) who has terminal cancer yet still finds time to enchant and revivify various less evolved sorts, from her live-in lover (Ria Pavia) to a yuppie couple in marital trouble (Serena Scott Thomas and Tony Denison). Psychobabble, soft-core sex scenes, Tarot readings, and such mark time until the howlsome noble-sacrifice ending. When Skeleton Woman premiered at the Mill Valley fest two years ago, the audience was too polite – and possibly too New Age – to laugh out loud. Hopefully no such restraint will be exercised at this fest. Tues/25, 9 p.m., Herbst; June 27, 1 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Spacked Out (Lawrence Ah Mon, Hong Kong) The audience is granted entrance into a stylish, inner-city gang of five futureless teenage girls. Sex, drugs, shoplifting, black-market deliveries, pornographic modeling, attempted suicides, abortions, and barely scraping through high school are just blasé facts of these daily Hong Kong lives. Neglected or abused by their families, their school, and their society, the girls attempt to support and comfort one another. Two surrealist scenes (a drug-overdose at a party and a 13-year-old's abortion) are awkwardly inserted into the seriously realistic narrative. Despite the heavy subject matter, the film is never dismal, allowing the characters' youthful charisma to shine. Tues/18, 9 p.m., Castro. (Jennifer Young)

That's My Face (Thomas Allen Harris, USA) It's ironic that director Thomas Allen Harris has amblyopia (a.k.a. lazy eye), because his directorial eye is anything but lazy, traveling through generations and across continents with grace. Seamlessly integrating his grandfather's Kodachrome slides, 8mm movies, and videotape into his own Super 8 footage, Harris has fashioned a vivid, truly dreamlike movie that stars thousands of faces, each of which confront and search the camera, just as the camera confronts and searches them. The soundtrack is equally rich, moving from monologue to dialogue – and from Miriam Makeba to the Staple Singers – with an ease that's hypnotic. Brazil, Tanzania, and the Bronx are the settings of That's My Face, but really Harris's movie occupies a space where Christian iconography and African spirit worship merge. Mon/17, 6:30 p.m., Herbst. (Huston)

Young Soul Rebels (Isaac Julien, U.K.) Isaac Julien's most commercial effort to date seemed in line with the New Queer Cinema movement cresting around the time of its release in 1991. But as with most of the director's work, it has an agenda more complex and unpinnable than mere sexual politics. On the eve of the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 London, punks, rastas, teddys, and toffs uneasily mix, the borders between them variably blurred and prohibitive. A man's murder during park sex is the key that somehow ties together a range of characters, most notably funk DJs Chris and Caz. Less than completely satisfying in story terms, Young Soul Rebels nonetheless has an ebullience both musical – it is giddily soundtrack driven – and intellectual, as it discovers surprises in the intersections between class, race, gender, and political identity. Tues/25, 9 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)