Marcus Hu

The first time that James Schamus met Marcus Hu and Jon Gerrans, two of the co-founders of Strand Releasing, they were slouched in the back of a near-empty Berlin theater laughing all the way through a screening of "Golden Boat," Schamus' debut film as a producer. "I had to know who these two teenage stoners were," Schamus says, "especially since they were the only two people left in the room at the end of the screening."

"Dogtooth" ? an enigmatic Greek film about family life, with intimations of animal mutilation, incest and "Flashdance" ? has been among the most divisive and talked-about movies on the festival circuit since its award-winning premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2009. Greece's official foreign-language submission for this year's Academy Awards, the film has also turned up in numerous critics' lists and 2010 best-of polls. The film opened in New York last June. But apart from a single screening last summer, L.A. film fans had to wait more than six months longer to see it. Finally, it opened Friday at the under 200-seat Cinefamily theater on Fairfax Avenue ?

"Dogtooth" ? an enigmatic Greek film about family life, with intimations of animal mutilation, incest and "Flashdance" ? has been among the most divisive and talked-about movies on the festival circuit since its award-winning premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2009. Greece's official foreign-language submission for this year's Academy Awards, the film has also turned up in numerous critics' lists and 2010 best-of polls. The film opened in New York last June. But apart from a single screening last summer, L.A. film fans had to wait more than six months longer to see it. Finally, it opened Friday at the under 200-seat Cinefamily theater on Fairfax Avenue ?

The first time that James Schamus met Marcus Hu and Jon Gerrans, two of the co-founders of Strand Releasing, they were slouched in the back of a near-empty Berlin theater laughing all the way through a screening of "Golden Boat," Schamus' debut film as a producer. "I had to know who these two teenage stoners were," Schamus says, "especially since they were the only two people left in the room at the end of the screening."

The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival will celebrate its 20th anniversary next month with a 12-day event featuring a record 241 films and videos from 30 countries, organizers said Thursday. The festival will open on July 11 with a program of short films from the last 20 years. It will close on July 22 with a screening of "Lan Yu," a Chinese film described as a love story between two men in Beijing.

At the early evening reception to view the Cindy Sherman Retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Saturday night, there was space to see and to be seen. Those lucky enough to be invited to the 5:30 p.m.

With "Hustler White," the notorious underground gay actor-filmmaker Bruce LaBruce has hardly gone mainstream, but this time teeters on the brink of pornography rather than slipping over into it. Graduating from Super 8, LaBruce has had enough money to shoot "Hustler White" like a regular movie--in color yet--but a bigger budget hasn't corrupted him, so to speak. He's just as outrageous and hilarious as ever.

"Psycho Beach Party" has to be twice as funny a play as it is as a movie.It's too much filmed theater to come alive fully on the screen, and it doesn't help that spoofing schlocky movies of the '50s, '60s and even '70s is not exactly virgin territory. What's more, deliberate camp like this film presents a special challenge: It must generate and sustain a high level of energy or it will swiftly fall flat. The latter is too often the case here.

"Grief" may be an unlikely title for a comedy, but a large part of its appeal is in its willingness to take its people seriously amid much laughter. In a nifty feature debut, writer-director Richard Glatzer makes hilarious use of his experiences as producer of "Divorce Court" as he takes us into the crazed world of the writers for a lurid daytime courtroom TV show.

The 22nd edition of Outfest, the largest film festival in Southern California and among the biggest gay and lesbian film festivals in the world, will run July 8-19 at nine venues in Los Angeles. This year the festival, which has become a cornerstone of the city's summer cultural calendar, will be screening 218 features, documentaries and short films from 24 countries. The opening night film will be Angela Robinson's "D.E.B.S.

The novels of Dennis Cooper, with their relentless exploration of the extreme juncture of sex and death, have got to be among the most challenging to film, yet Todd Verow has brought Cooper's "Frisk" to the screen with much impact and equal seriousness. Verow and his collaborators intimate every kind of sadomasochistic activity but show just enough to allow us to complete the most terrifying images in our imagination.

Nick Katsapetses says he made his bracing, bristling, near no-budget "Get Over It" in response to "a swamp of feel-good queer cinema." Katsapetses, however, is an equal-opportunity critic. He's hilariously hard on all self-indulgent twentysomethings in need of growing up, regardless of their sexual orientation or uncertainties about it. He's tougher by far on men than on women, but then men tend to hang onto immaturity more tenaciously than women.