Month: September 2008

Categories
News The Fly-By

What They Said

About “Cohen, ‘Funniest Man in Politics,’ Says GOP Forever Out of Luck in Shelby County, Seriously,” by Jackson Baker:

“It sure looks to me like the Shelby GOP is circling the wagons, declaring SD-9 to be the Alamo and making Kemp Conrad their Davy Crockett.” — leftwingcracker

“I served with Davy Crockett: I knew Davy Crockett; Davy Crockett was a friend of mine. Kemp Conrad is no Davy Crockett.” — tomguleff

About “To Drink or Not To Drink,” concerning the drinking age on college campuses, by Bianca Phillips:

“If under-21s can get ‘fitshaced’ on campus … they typically do not need to drive to unsupervised location keg parties as they do these days.” — wintermute.

About “Hillary Watch in Denver,”
by Chris Davis:

“If you interview an infinite number of monkeys, sooner or later one of them will say what you want for your news story.” — fancycwabs

Comment of the Week:

About “Title Talk,” where Frank Murtaugh discussed the chances of the University of Memphis winning the conference championship:

“The Tigers can ‘talk’ all they want, but they won’t win a title until they move from a second-tier conference to a third-tier one. Sunbelt maybe? Maybe not. They have trouble with Arkansas State and Middle Tennessee. Toilet Bowl, here they come again.” — squeeznoutsparks

To share your thoughts, comments, concerns, and — maybe — get published, visit memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Redbirds Recap

There are two ways to measure the success of a Triple-A baseball team’s season. The first is obvious: Look at the record of the 2008 Memphis Redbirds — who concluded their 11th season on Labor Day — and you see a final mark of 75-67, the franchise’s best record in eight years. Alas, the team again missed the postseason. Among Pacific Coast League squads, only three — Colorado Springs, Fresno, and Omaha — have longer playoff droughts than the now-eight-year drought suffered by Memphis.

But if you look beyond the record and second-place finish in their division, you might find the 2008 Redbirds a success in the area of player development in ways many of their predecessors — including the 2000 PCL champs — were not. It doesn’t necessarily help the local brass — winning baseball teams sell tickets — and the Redbirds fell to fourth in the PCL in attendance this year. But considering the team takes the field with the success of its parent franchise in St. Louis foremost among priorities, Cardinal fans — here in Memphis and elsewhere — may be looking back fondly on the summer of 2008.

But the story of this Redbirds revival really began with the 2007 edition.

You have to go back 49 years in Cardinal history to find a team that turned over its entire outfield from the previous season. (Who will ever forget the 1959 trio of Bill White in left, Gino Cimoli in center, and Joe Cunningham in right?) And the 2008 St. Louis outfield is made up entirely of players who earned the second bird on their jerseys with their play at AutoZone Park.

Rightfielder Ryan Ludwick was clinging to his pro career before hitting .340 over 29 games with Memphis at the dawn of the 2007 season. Rick Ankiel established himself as a legitimate, everyday centerfielder — and slugger — by hitting 32 homers and driving in 89 runs in but 102 games for the ’07 Redbirds. Leftfielder Skip Schumaker paid his dues in Memphis, batting .306 in both 2006 and 2007 before taking a permanent spot on Tony LaRussa’s roster this season. (With multiple walk-off, game-winning hits, Schumaker has established himself as one of the best clutch hitters on the Cardinal team.)

Looking at this year’s club, you need a deep breath before reciting the names of players to impact the Cardinals’ extended stay in a pennant race they weren’t supposed to join: Joe Mather, Chris Perez, Mitchell Boggs, Jaime Garcia, Kelvin Jimenez, Nick Stavinoha.

Perez, in particular, has been a godsend since the demise of longtime Cardinal closer Jason Isringhausen. Armed with a slider that would make Bob Gibson proud, Perez has saved six games in 31 appearances for St. Louis and looked like a legitimate 2009 Rookie of the Year candidate on August 27th, when he struck out Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder to clinch the Cardinals’ biggest win of the season to date (one that salvaged any lingering playoff hopes the team had before a weekend sweep at Houston).

With the emergence of Ludwick and Schumaker (not to mention Ankiel) in the Cardinal outfield, this year’s Redbird prospects may become next winter’s trade-bait, as St. Louis is lacking a productive bat in the middle infield and, like every team not named Angels or Cubs, will be in the market for more starting pitching. Mather, Stavinoha, and David Freese — this year’s third baseman in Memphis — will be among names Cardinal general manager John Mozeliak hears when his counterparts start calling.

Freese, in particular, is a great story. Having never played above Class A in San Diego’s system before this season, he was considered less a prospect than merely a ticket for a Jim Edmonds homecoming in Southern California. One Triple-A campaign later, he has 26 home runs and 91 RBIs on his resume. Only 25, Freese could end up succeeding Troy Glaus at the hot corner for St. Louis.

Here’s one more name to remember as you consider yesterday’s Redbirds and tomorrow’s Cardinals: Jason Motte. The flame-throwing relief pitcher — a converted catcher — struck out 110 batters for Memphis in only 67 innings. He’ll likely join Perez in a much younger, presumably more effective bullpen at Busch Stadium next year.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Huckabee “Sucks Up” to Tennessee

–video by Chris Davis

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Little Big Mouth

Forget for a second president aspirant Barack Obama and the Audacity of Hope. We’re talking about the diminutive redhead comedian Kathy Griffin and the Hope of Audacity.

Griffin first became well known in the mid-1990s as the grating, sassy-mouth sidekick to Brooke Shields in the sitcom Suddenly Susan. In the years following the end of that show, she made her bread and butter by performing stand-up comedy of the bad-boyfriend variety and by shamelessly appearing in anything that would have her (the first season of Celebrity Mole, which she won; and The Surreal Life, on which, in one season, she chauffeured the struggling stars to their destination). Griffin reveled in her D-list status and seemed to be pleased by her frequent appearances as a target in US magazine’s “Fashion Police,” happy perhaps that they even bothered.

Then, in 2005, Griffin opened her big mouth, and everything clicked. She was working the red carpet at the Golden Globes as a reporter for E! and quipped that the then-10-year-old actress Dakota Fanning had just entered rehab. The joke earned her a pink slip from the network, a public rebuke from director Steven Spielberg, and many, many new fans. That same year she debuted her reality series My Life on the D-List, now in its fourth season on Bravo, and has since been gleefully targeting celebrities with a renewed vigor and getting banned from an ever-growing list of talk shows.

In 2007, My Life on the D-List won an Emmy. During her acceptance speech, Griffin declined to go the route of other winners. “A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award,” she said. “I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn’t help me a bit. … So all I can say is suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now.”

Hoping for audacity? You’re in luck: Griffin performs at the Orpheum on Saturday.

Kathy Griffin, Saturday, September 6th, at 7 p.m., at the Orpheum. Tickets are $47 and $57.

Categories
Music Music Features

Saved

Dormant since 2004 and in disrepair for many years before that, the once-proud Overton Park Shell makes a comeback this week. Rechristened the Levitt Shell — after the nonprofit, Los Angeles-based Mortimer-Levitt Foundation, which has helped finance the venue’s renovation as part of a bid to rehab classic band shells across the country — the venue that hosted Elvis Presley’s first paid concert, classic hippie-era blues and folk festivals, and other memorable events is being reborn as a family-oriented venue.

The Levitt Shell debuts on Thursday, September 4th, when Amy LaVere performs to kick off a five-week, 25-concert fall season.

The $1.3 million renovation (funding by the Levitt Foundation and matching city funds) includes a new, all-white backdrop, new green rooms, and new wings on each side of the stage that will house speakers and include garage-door-size screens with rear projection. The wooden benches in the seating area have been removed and sod installed for open lawn seating (with new benches for elderly or disabled patrons). The bathrooms also have been renovated.

At the core of the Shell’s new programming strategy will be two annual concert seasons, one starting next week and running through early October, the other scheduled for May. All concerts are free and open to the public.

“We want to attract a diversity of the public in Memphis,” says Levitt Shell executive director Anne Pitts, a former Oxford, Mississippi-based entertainment attorney who came aboard in early August after the departure of the initial director, Chip Pankey.

“We’re making it open and free because we want to get people involved with their community. We want to attract all of the city’s representative communities. We have a mission to provide programming that speaks to everyone,” Pitts says. “There’s a real drive in the community to offer more things in the park, more family-friendly, more walking-friendly. We think this does that.”

The fall and spring concert seasons are set to feature five concerts each week in five different spheres: Americana, R&B/gospel, kids’ music, Latin, and “world rhythms.”

Pitts hopes bookings will be roughly “50-50” between area artists and touring acts.

Outside of the two concert seasons, Pitts says the shell will book some larger, one-off concerts as ticketed events to raise money. The bulk of other programming will likely come from renting the facility or from partnering with other organizations for joint programming. Pitts mentions film screenings, live theater, and kid-specific events as the kinds of nonmusical programming that will be sought.

In addition to renovation costs, the Levitt Foundation also has agreed to provide some operational funding for the first five years to ease the local, nonprofit Friends of the Levitt Shell into full financial independence while the organization builds its local fund-raising. Pitts says local grants (including assistance from the Plough and Assisi foundations), private donations, and sponsorships are going well and that the organization will be looking to hire a development director.

“We’re really focused on pulling all of the pieces together and having a successful opening season, so we can present that to future sponsors,” Pitts says.

The lineup for the Shell’s opening week:

Amy LaVere and Justin Townes Earle (September 4th, 7 p.m.): Still going strong on the strength of her 2007 sophomore album, Anchors & Anvils, LaVere is a versatile, charismatic roots performer who has been much in demand lately. Over the past few months, she and her band (Paul Taylor on drums, Steve Selvidge on guitar) have made separate tours to the U.K. and Scandinavia in conjunction with overseas releases of Anchors & Anvils. Before and after the trip to Norway and Sweden, LaVere filmed scenes for Craig Brewer’s web series, $5 Cover. “I basically have not had a day off,” LaVere sighed last week, packing for a trip to a Pennsylvania folk festival. LaVere says she plans on taking off the month of January to focus on recording her follow-up to Anchors & Anvils. Earles, the son of roots-rock icon Steve Earle, will open.

Kirk Whalum (September 5th, 7 p.m.): The heralded, Memphis-bred jazz saxophonist will be joined by the choir from Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, where his brother, Kenneth, presides.

Teatro de la Rosa (September 6th, 5 p.m.): A Hispanic theater troupe that provides bilingual entertainment geared toward kids.

Melina Almodovar (September 6th, 7:30 p.m.): This Miami-based salsa singer is a former Memphian who got her start at the beginning of this decade as the frontperson for the local ensemble Orquestra Caliente.

Watoto de Afrika (September 7th, 7 p.m.): A local troupe that introduces African-American kids to African music and dance styles.

The rest of the fall concert series will feature artists such as saxophonist Bill Evans, Stax stalwart William Bell with the Bo-Keys, and Texas polka-rock band Brave Combo. Local caterer Another Roadside Attraction will provide concessions at tents located at the back of the lawn, with a third concession site reserved for rotating local vendors.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Local Record Reviews

Blues, Afrobeat, and alt-country collide.

Memphis blues guitarist Little Jimmy King passed away in 2002 at age 33 (of a heart attack). Born Manuel Gales, King was the brother of guitarists Eric and Eugene Gales but renamed himself in tribute to his two biggest influences: Jimi Hendrix and Albert King. Before his too-early demise, King recorded three solo albums and one live album for Bullseye Blues and looked like one of the genre’s great young hopes.

Gales evoked Hendrix with his explosive left-handed playing, but it was King’s powerful, blues-drenched electric guitar that seems to have made a profound impact on the younger Memphian’s music. No surprise then that Little Jimmy King went on to tour with Albert King, who dubbed the young sidekick his “grandson.”

On this posthumous live album, King nods to both heroes with covers of King’s “Cross Cut Saw” and Hendrix’s “Red House” (along with the Hendrix-identified “Hey Joe”). After the intro — only one of 10 tracks clocks in at less than five minutes (“Cross Cut Saw,” 4:56) — King goes on several long guitar excursions. His four-piece backing band provides able support but mostly stays out of the way.

The centerpiece here is “Red House,” which lasts nearly 13 minutes. It lacks the genius and grace of Hendrix’s version but still showcases a virtuosity that garnered King a star on Beale Street, where he’ll rest alongside “grandpa” Albert for eternity. — Chris Herrington

Grade: B

Alliance Afrissippi

(Hill Country Records)

The Oxford, Mississippi-based Afrissippi is led by Senegalese native Guelel Kumba, who unites the West African music of his childhood with an adulthood discovery of John Lee Hooker and moved to Oxford earlier this decade to explore that sonic fusion. The band recently recorded this second album, a follow-up to the 2005 debut Fulani Journey, at Jimbo Mathus’ Delta Recording Service in Como.

On the opening “Singha,” the hypnotic Junior Kimbrough-style riffs of Mississippi guitarist Eric Deaton are layered over the polyrhythmic African percussion of Kimbrough’s son, Kinney Kimbrough, and Papa Assane M’Baye. The result takes the droning, physical guitar style of North Mississippi hill-country blues and coils it into an even more trance-like creation.

Alliance may be even better when the electric blues guitar drops back and the African rhythmic and vocal traditions take the fore, as on the gorgeous call-and-response “Leeliyo Leele,” or when Kumba’s own African guitar launches a song, as on “Maasina Tooro.” — CH

Grade: A-

Smothered & Covered

Joecephus & the George
Jonestown Massacre

(self-released)

This second album from Joecephus & the George Jonestown Massacre is another slice of raucous alt-country/Southern rock/punkabilly built on a heavy hardcore/metal foundation, uniting two brands of white/male/working-class aggression in the manner of Hank III. The band’s in-your-face vulgarity is announced with an opener dubbed “Jerk You Off My Mind.” Elsewhere, the band mixes interesting covers with what are presumably originals. (The liner notes aren’t very clear on songwriting attribution.)

The band cranks up the volume on Merle Haggard’s jaunty “Honky Tonk Night Time Man.” It’s an inspired cover choice. The band’s revved-up reading of Willie Nelson’s “Bloody Mary Morning” turns Shotgun Willie’s “family band” groove into bar-band rock music. The band’s distorted, riff-heavy take on the Elvis-identified “Mystery Train” isn’t quite as successful.

When the band sticks to punk-fueled honky-tonk, the trick works well enough. When things slow down, as on “She” and the steel-guitar-driven “The Ballad,” vocal deficiencies become more prominent. — CH

Grade: B-

Categories
Book Features Books

Wood Work

James Wood — staff writer at The New Yorker; lecturer in English and American literature at Harvard — is a literary critic whom writers and critics love to admire. Ask Cynthia Ozick, Daniel Mendelsohn, Susan Sontag, Harold Bloom, Christopher Hitchens, and Martin Amis.

And then there’s the opposite camp: writers and critics out to bring Wood down a notch or two — or three. Make that a dozen or more times in the words of writer Walter Kirn in his front-page review of Wood’s latest book, How Fiction Works (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), in The New York Times Book Review on August 17th.

That’s where we read that Wood is a “modest self-marketer” because his latest book, addressed to the “common reader,” is in fact no common reader. How would Kirn know? Because, as Wood explains and as Kirn reminds us, the works Wood references throughout How Fiction Works issue from Wood’s very own library. (And that includes such uncommon titles as The Iliad, War and Peace, Madame Bovary, and Atonement.)

Those quotes and references in support of Wood’s arguments? They’re dropped by Wood (Kirn’s word for it) “copiously.” And what’s worse: Wood writes from the “detached, big-picture perspective of an orbiting critical satellite,” which is true to a point. Wood’s a critic writing from the perspective of a reader who’s read a hell of a lot, and what’s more, he remembers what it is he’s read and circled that experience with his own brilliant observations. But Wood “detached”? Never. Poor Gustave Flaubert and Henry James, however, writers Wood admires … those two, according to Kirn, are worse than detached. They’re “semimonastic introverts,” which means they fit nicely, again according to Kirn, with Wood’s “vicarish” ways.

In no way the vicar: author David Foster Wallace, whom Kirn praises for being among the blessed contemporary writers of fiction whose talent lies in “exalting the vernacular, absorbing the anarchic and ennobling the vulgar,” which puts Wallace at odds with Wood’s “eminently resistible prose style” matched with his “donnish, finicky persona.” But Kirn does grant Wood this: “[T]here is one question this volume answers conclusively: Why Readers Nap.”

Kirn has a possible point, if he’s referring to the discussion in How Fiction Works on “free indirect style,” which Wood, in his opening notes on narrative, defines as the collapse between the voice of the author and the voice of a character.

Early naptime, then, for the common reader? Not when Wood uses Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings (a book out of Wood’s very own library!) to make his point — and to further bring home the point: Henry James’ What Maisie Knew, John Updike’s Terrorist, and here we go: David Foster Wallace in his short story “The Suffering Channel,” which Wood identifies as “unidentified free indirect style,” and he doesn’t care for it one bit.

Here’s what Wood does care for, though. In fact, he more than cares. He’s built his critical reputation on it and sees it as the reason we read: truthfulness to the way things are, the real. But Wood has a better word for it: “lifeness” — “life on the page, life brought to different life by the highest artistry,” whether through narrative, detail, character, language, or dialogue.

Take a phrase from Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, a line from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, or a paragraph from D.H. Lawrence’s Sea and Sardinia. Wood does and shows us how language works and how it works on us, and it doesn’t hurt to be reminded. In fact, it’s a pleasure.

A primer: That’s what Wood calls How Fiction Works — Wood, that teacher who taught you to read with greater attention and with a better appreciation for an author’s artistry. Walter Kirn, who sees Wood as an enemy of innovation, a throwback, an out-of-touch “critical satellite,” couldn’t be more wrong. Common readers everywhere: How Fiction Works is your refresher course.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Counter Offer

Ciao Bella, in the former Lulu Grille location on Erin Drive, is now offering a late-night menu on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, when it stays open until midnight. Sirloin sliders, Spiro’s gyro, gourmet mini pizzas, and the “Abe Froman,” a spicy Italian sausage served on a French roll, are a few of the menu items, all of which are priced under $9.

Ciao Bella is an Italian and Greek family affair. Judd Tashie, the restaurant’s co-owner, says Mediterranean best describes his family’s roots and style. This heritage will be reflected again in Tashie’s latest venture. With his dad, Paul, and cousin, David, Tashie is planning to open Carmela’s Little Italy in the space adjacent to Ciao Bella in October.

Carmela’s, a specialty food store and deli named after Tashie’s grandmother, will carry Greek and Italian items, such as olive oil, pasta, cheeses, and meats. The store also will offer a variety of prepared foods as well as simple lunch fare and sandwiches from the deli.

“We want to be a gourmet store but also offer our customers Ciao Bella food that they can take home and heat up for a family dinner,” Tashie explains.

For more information about Carmela’s Little Italy, visit ciaobellamemphis.com.

Ciao Bella, 565 Erin Drive (205-2500)

Staff Outings

Paul Gerald, a former Flyer staffer who now calls Portland, Oregon, his home, believes the essence of a place can be discovered if you know “how and where it eats breakfast.”

When Gerald regularly wrote travel features for the Flyer, he often wrote about the meals he ate to tell stories about the places and people he visited.

“I like breakfast, and that’s why some of those stories center around that first meal of the day,” Gerald says.

When eating breakfast at Beaterville Café in Portland one morning, Gerald realized he hadn’t investigated his new home yet. And because the options in Portland are endless, Gerald decided to write a book rather than a newspaper article.

For the project, Gerald ate about 200 breakfasts at more than 100 restaurants. His self-published book, Breakfast in Bridgetown (Bacon and Eggs Press), will be available this week from his website, breakfastinbridgetown.com. The book includes descriptions, anecdotes, and the basic facts — addresses, phone numbers, hours of operation — of 95 breakfast places in Portland.

“I’m not a food critic, and I don’t rate the restaurants in my book,” Gerald says. “There are two types of breakfasts as far as I’m concerned: memorable and non-memorable.” (He did, for the record, find out which coffee each restaurant serves, an important stat for Portlanders.)

breakfastinbridgetown.com

Other Flyer folks revealing their foodie stripes: freelance photographer Justin Fox Burks, staff writer Bianca Phillips, and wine columnist Michael Hughes.

Chubby Vegetarian is an online record of Burks’ artful vegetarian dishes. The site includes photographs and recipes as well as Burks’ reflections on tertiary topics, such as the perfect pizza, shopping at Winchester Farmers Market, and what to do with stolen apples. If you are a vegetarian who needs new meal ideas or a newbie who doesn’t know how to cook without meat, check out Burks’ blog for inspiration.

chubbyvegetarian.blogspot.com

In her blog Vegan Crunk, Bianca Phillips shares the good and the not-so-good sides of being a vegan, plus vegan-centric recipes and links. Growing up in the Mississippi Delta on “cornbread, butter beans, collard greens, and Paula Deen,” Phillips is on a mission of veganizing Southern and soul-food staples and eventually collecting her recipes in a cookbook. Reading her blog, you’ll discover that vegan fare can be exciting and delicious. Who can resist caramelized fig spread on an “everything” bagel?

vegancrunk.blogspot.com

In Midtown Stomp, Michael Hughes muses about the aroma of dried apricots and pineapples, peaches and white pepper, simple foods, local wine lists, and wine and food pairings. Hughes also reveals the treasures of his “cellar” and explores food and wine during dinners at home and at local and out-of-town restaurants. Don’t know what wine to have with dinner tonight? Check out this site, and you’ll be sure to come away with a few ideas.

midtownstomp.blogspot.com

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Beauty in a Bottle

Right now is one of the most exciting times of the year for cork dorks. The holiest of Italian wines — Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello di Montalcino — are being released. These are some of the most sought-after wines in the world and are quickly snatched up, coveted, and salivated over.

Yes, they are expensive, but there is absolutely nothing that can match experiencing an aged Brunello or Barolo — and I do mean “experience.” Describing the feeling a beautifully aged version of these wines gives goes far beyond flavor, aroma, or texture. It can affect your entire body, especially when served alongside a meal to enhance it.

What makes the wines so special is that they can only be crafted in certain parts of Italy. The grapes at the heart of these wines — Nebbiolo for Barolo and Barbaresco, Sangiovese Grosso for Brunello di Montalcino — have been planted elsewhere in the world, and they can produce good wine, but they are rarely, if ever, exhilarating to taste. Sometimes a grape doesn’t want to leave its birthplace, and this is one of those instances.

While most Barolos, Barbarescos, and Brunellos can be enjoyed now (if you are a fan of big, rich, full-bodied, and darkly tannic wines), patience is rewarded with real pleasure. These wines are built for aging and don’t truly express themselves and all their beauty until most are at least 10 years old. The current vintage for Barolo is 2004, and the current vintage for Brunello is 2003, so just a little bit of waiting is required.

These wines are released only after fanatical selection processes. Only the best barrels go into Brunello di Montalcino, for example, and whatever isn’t up to the strictest of standards is set aside to be bottled as Rosso di Montalcino, a very good quality wine that is more approachable in its youth. That’s another beautiful thing about this time of year. Wine buyers can come home with a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino and pop it open that night, satisfying their desire for Sangiovese Grosso while they proudly eye their awaiting Brunellos.

As I’ve stressed, these wines can be expensive. But when compared with how exceptional they are, it’s practically a bargain — especially for wine drinkers who want a wine that is like no other. Napa Cabernets and Bordeaux are reaching near-stratospheric prices.

For a fraction of the cost of some so-called cult wines, you can own a truly honest expression of a unique and beautiful landscape. It’s no contest, really. No other wines have ever brought tears to my eyes.

Recommended Wines

Conterno Fantino “Sori Ginestra” Barolo

2004, $122.99

Poderi Luigi Einaudi “Costa Grimaldi”

Barolo 2004, $101.99

Poderi Colla Dardi Le Rose Bussia Barolo

2004, $76.99

Uccelliera Brunello di Montalcino 2003,

$81.99

Le Potazzine Gorelli Brunello di

Montalcino 2003, $88.99

Fuligni Brunello di Montalcino 2003,

$91.99

Conti Costanti Rosso di Montalcino 2006,

$48.99

Lisini Rosso di Montalcino 2006, $49.99

Poggio Antico Rosso di Montalcino 2006,

$59.99

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Busting Out

The Outflix Film Festival, presented by the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center, presents its biggest and perhaps best program ever starting this week, with screenings running from Friday, September 5th, to Thursday, September 11th, at Ridgeway Four.

The festival’s opening-night film, Breakfast with Scot, features Tom Cavanagh (TV’s Ed) as a sportscaster and former pro hockey player living in Toronto with his lawyer partner when their life is disrupted by the sudden custody of 11-year-old nephew Scot. Breakfast with Scot was filmed with the full participation of the National Hockey League, marking the first time a major professional sports league has allowed its logo and uniforms to be used in a gay-themed film.

Another highlight is sure to be the short film Freeheld, which won the Academy Award this year for Best Documentary Short Subject and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. The film, which screens at 4 p.m. Sunday, September 7th, chronicles New Jersey police detective Laurel Hester, who is suffering from terminal cancer and who has to fight local officials to leave her pension to partner Stacie, an automatic option for heterosexual married couples.

Though Breakfast for Scot and Freeheld may be the highest-profile screenings of the weeklong festival, there are many other potential highlights. A few I’ve had a chance to screen:

Brother to Brother: A real film-fest find, this 2004 feature from writer-director Rodney Evans stars Anthony Mackie (8 Mile, She Hate Me) as Perry, a college student and artist whose sexuality has led to abandonment by family and tension with classmates. In the midst of this turmoil, Perry strikes up a friendship with Bruce (Roger Robinson), an elderly man at a homeless shelter where Perry volunteers. It turns out Bruce was a poet and writer of note during the Harlem Renaissance, when he boarded with Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. This relationship opens up a history of black gay culture that helps Perry negotiate his own world.

Though the film — which alternates present-tense scenes of Perry’s life with black-and-white flashbacks of Bruce’s life — comes across a little too earnest at times, its modern scenes are effective and realistic and its historical connections are illuminating. That a film of this caliber didn’t get a wider theatrical release is testament not only to the difficulty, still, of gay-themed content getting a fair airing but to the resistance to serious African-American work in the cultural marketplace.

Brother to Brother was nominated for four awards at the 2004 Independent Spirit Awards, won awards at gay and lesbian film festivals in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, and was given a Special Jury Prize (for director Evans) at the Sundance Film Festival.

Incidentally, fans of The Wire should take note that Brother to Brother features three actors from that series: Larry Gilliard Jr. (DeAngelo Barksdale on The Wire) as Perry’s straight best friend; Lance Reddick (Daniels) as James Baldwin; and Chad Coleman (Cutty) as Eldridge Cleaver.

Screens at 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 9th

Pageant: The tagline of Pageant, a documentary portrait of the Miss Gay USA Pageant, is “Fifty Men … Fifty Dreams … One Crown.” Partly filmed in Memphis and co-directed by Memphis native and Christian Brothers High School graduate Stewart Halpern, Paegant chronicles the 34th Miss Gay America competition, which was held in Memphis and featured 50 female impersonators competing in beauty-contest categories such as evening gown, talent, and public speaking. The finals took place at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.

The structure of Pageant is familiar but effective. Like other contest-based docs such as the spelling-bee-set Spellbound and the crossword-puzzle-themed Wordplay, Pageant introduces a handful of competitors in their home environment and tracks them as they come together at the main competition. Among the memorable protagonists are Victor Parker (aka Victoria “Porkchop” Parker), a Miss Piggy-loving professional drag performer from Nashville; David Lowman (aka Coti Collins), who does such an ace Reba McEntire that the country singer invited him on tour; and Carl Giorioso (aka Victoria DePaula), a young landscaper/cosmetologist from Kansas City whose pudgy adolescent brother delivers the bravura monologue of the film: “I love my brother Carl a lot. It’s like infinity. It keeps on going on.”

Screens at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 9th

3-Way: Outflix will screen a series of episodes of this engaging Web-based series. The premise is that straight actress Siobhan divorces her washed-up movie-star husband and invites lesbian friend Roxie to be her new roommate, not realizing that Roxie’s new girlfriend, Andrea, and ex, Geri, would soon follow. High jinks ensue.

This engaging series is sort of like The “L” Word meets Entourage, but it’s more sitcom-y (3 Way‘s website mentions Three’s Company, which might capture the tone better) and less glamorous. Big-screen Buffy Kristy Swanson has a recurring role. Several members of the cast — including, potentially, Swanson — are scheduled to appear at the Memphis screening.

Screens at 1 p.m. Saturday, September 6th

Were the World Mine: This visually and conceptually ambitious film won the award for Best LGBT Film at the Nashville Film Festival. Shot in widescreen, it comes across as a gay, musical answer to Donnie Darko, tracking the troubles (and fantastical resolution thereof) of a high school boy who takes a starring role in his male-only school’s staging of Shakespeare’s

A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Screens at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, September 11th