Pittsburgh International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival schedule

The Pittsburgh International Lesbian & Gay Festival continues this weekend at the SouthSide Works Cinema.

A special price applies for the closing night movie and party afterward but other tickets are $8.50 and can be purchased at the theater. Go to www.plgfs.org for details.

7 p.m.: "Ghosted" -- A Hamburg artist is thrown off balance by the unsolved murder of her young Taiwanese lover in this German film about cultural misunderstandings and different perceptions of death.

9 p.m.: "Redwoods" -- California's Russian River region provides the setting for this story about a couple whose already frayed bond is tested when one of the men meets a writer passing through town. Writer-director David Lewis and associate producer David Wang will field questions afterward.

7 p.m.: Shorts -- Eclectic selection designed for broad festival audience.

9 p.m.: "And Then Came Lola" -- Time-bending rom-com loosely inspired by German "Run Lola Run" and starring Ashleigh Sumner as a San Francisco woman trying to salvage a job and a relationship.

3:30 p.m.: "Training Rules" -- Documentary about the charges, legal battle and eventual resignation that rocked women's basketball at Penn State University.

5 p.m.: Youth Shorts.

6:30 p.m.: "Night Fliers" -- When a 12-year-old tomboy moves to a small Northern California town, she finds solace and salvation in other misfits.

9:30 p.m.: "Make the Yuletide Gay" -- See review.

5 p.m.: "The Butch Factor" -- Wide-ranging documentary that touches on a gay flag football league, homophobia in the African-American community, a gay member of the San Francisco sheriff's department and such recent phenoms as bromance and metrosexuals.

7 p.m.: "Patrik, Age 1.5" -- See review.

A sampling of reviews of second week features:

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

Every year it seems like there's one "it" gay flick. Last year it was the underwhelming "Were the World Mine." Before that it was the superior "Shelter." This year it's the European import "Patrik, Age 1.5," a winning Swedish film with English subtitles.

The movie's colorful "Three Men and a Baby"-style poster art may set expectations for a comedy but "Patrik," although humorous at times, is more of a drama. It's also well-acted, and even though the story eventually gets to where you expect it to go, the path is not entirely predictable.

Married gay couple Sven (Torkel Petersson) and Goran (Gustaf Skarsgard) move to what appears to be the Swedish equivalent of Wisteria Lane where they're greeted by a surprising amount of homophobia for a supposedly enlightened, more tolerant European country. (Imagine "Desperate Housewives" if the story focused on that show's gay couple.)

The pair plan to adopt a baby but a typo results in them getting a surly teen, Patrik (Thomas Ljungman), who says he doesn't want to live "with homos." The film takes too long to reach this point and fails to adequately develop the relationship between Sven and Goran, but the heart of the story is Goran's parental bonding with Patrik, which is nicely played and affecting.

Written and directed by Ella Lemhagen and based on a play by Michael Druker, "Patrik" benefits from professional production values and strong performances by its three lead actors, especially Skarsgard. This time, the movie lives up to the hype that precedes it.

-- Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor

1 1/2 stars = Bad
Ratings explained

A true groaner with gay puns and innuendo worthy of a bad sitcom, this holiday-themed flick suffers from a low-budget look and often dreadful performances.

Written and directed by Rob Williams, "Yuletide" follows Big Queer Man on Campus Olaf "Gunn" Gunnunderson (Keith Jordan) as he returns home to spend Christmas with his spacey dad, Sven (Derek Long), and his mother, Anya (Kelly Keaton), an exceedingly annoying "yeah, sure, you betcha"-spouting cheesehead.

Although Gunn is out and proud at school, he's closeted at home and forced to consider coming out when his boyfriend, Nathan (Adamo Ruggierio, "Degrassi: The Next Generation"), gets ditched by his parents (Gates McFadden of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" slums as his mom) and shows up on the Gunnunderson's doorstep. (Another TV veteran also appears: Alison Arngrim, who starred as Nellie Olson on "Little House on the Prairie," plays a neighbor.)

The parents are written as caricatures and the relationship between Gunn and Nathan doesn't ring true because they're often saddled with expository-heavy dialogue. A coming out scene almost works, but the movie botches the comic timing.

There are many attempts at merriment in "Yuletide," but too often these efforts will not make audience members laugh, just roll their eyes.

-- Rob Owen

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.