WHEN THE MULTISCREEN behemoth SF International LGBT Film Festival made its humble start in a basement almost three decades ago, handbills gushed, "Gay movies!" a term that seemed quite fresh, specific, and all-encompassing in itself. But these days, describing what's available at the Frameline fest is a lot more complicated – you don't just say "coffee" when you mean "nonfat no-whip soy mocha latte," now do you? Here's a far-from-complete guide to some of the currents flowing through this year's programming:

Sex is artier in Europe Or is that "Art is sexier"? Germany gets its own Bar Girls in Beautiful Women. The Almodóvar-esque freak flag is flown by Spain's Unconscious and the very Greek Blackmail Boy. France's opening-night contribution Côte d'Azur orchestrates a shotgun marriage between Jacques Demy and polysexual polemicism.

Young, dumb and full of fun Audiences never get enough of movies about the smooth-skinned, youthful coming-outs they wish they had. A good one: Marco Kreuzpainter's bittersweet but ultimately exhilarating Summer Storm, about a Bavarian high school rowing team's horn-dogged training camp trip.

Three-way doom Documentaries Three of Hearts and Life in a Box profile inspirational-in-theory domestic arrangements – bisexual men plus heterosexual woman, and three gay men, respectively – that sadly only get truly interesting when things get really, really ugly.

Gender splendor Particularly good buzz surrounds Duncan Tucker's closing-night Transamerica, which stars Desperate Housewives' Felicity Huffman.

Is it still lezploitation if we like it? Haven't seen the movie, but that catalog photo sure makes the 17-year-old lesbian prostitutes of Dennis Iliadis's Greek drama Hardcore look like gay-for-pay Russian pop duo Tatu. Have seen Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love, which is both male-gaze lezploitation and a very good movie. Holy mixed feelings, Batman! Have also seen Dragan Marinkovic's Take a Deep Breath, and dude, these lesbos do just about everything but mud-wrestle! In other words: One small step forward for Serbian cinema, one giant step backward for everyone else. For actual old-school lezploitation, check out Just the Two of Us, a 1970 grindhouse gem presented by Jenni Olsen, whose own non-lezploitative feature The Joy of Life is – more poetically – also about the yearning to be unalone.

Beyond the glitter ball Is it just me, or does the post-birth-of-punk adherence to disco music as Official Community Soundtrack seem the worst mistake in modern gay history? (Unless you count Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover.) See shorts programs "I Wanna Be Sedated," "Scary, Mary!," all things Trannyshack-related, and the documentary Ned Rorem: Word and Music for proof our clubs and CD collections need not all be frozen in 1975 – let alone enslaved by disco's satanic spawn, house music.

Drag camp Nothing lacking here, given programs by or about Charles Busch, Peaches Christ, Trannyshack, David Weissman, Kiki and Herb, and Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner.

Gay marriage and child-rearing 'Nuff said – and 'nuff filmed, already – on these topics, is the opinion you might have if you've gone to a lot of film festivals (gay or otherwise) in the past few years. Only if, of course.

AIDS movies Actually, it's AIDS movie. Just one, really – Ending AIDS: The Search for a Vaccine. How times have changed.

D.H.