if you're headed to the video store tonight, you might want to keep these queer interest DVD's in mind.

Teeth
Teeth is the first directorial effort from out actor Mitchell Lichtenstein. The premise is ... well, read for yourself:

“High school student Dawn works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group's most active participant. Her task is made even more difficult by her bad boy stepbrother Brad's increasingly provocative behavior at home. A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence. As she struggles to comprehend her anatomical uniqueness, Dawn experiences both the pitfalls and the power of being a living example of the vagina dentata myth.”

We reviewed it at the beginning of the year, and it sounds like a good choice if you like, quirky, offbeat indies.

I'm Not There
Speaking of offbeat, out director Todd Haynes has made a career out of following his own artistic vision, from the Karen Carpenter inspired barbie doll short Superstar, to the gay anthology Poison and the glam rock epic Velvet Goldmine. His biggest success came with the Douglas Sirk inspired Far From Heaven in 2002. His Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There is released today, and features an Oscar nominated gender-bending performance from Cate Blanchett.

The Witnesses' Michel Blanc and Johan Libéreau

The Witnesses
Wild Reeds director Andre Techine releases his latest, The Witnesses (Les Témoins) today. It's about the onslaught of AIDS in the mid-80's in France, and how it affects a circle of friends. (Ed. note: As a reader points out, The Witnesses is not actually out until June 24, but is available today for pre-order from TLA. Thanks for the correction - BJ)

Bewitched: Season Six
And the sixth season of Bewitched is released today. This season saw the birth of Samantha and Durwood's son Adam, the introduction of my favorite character, the clumsy Esmerelda, played by the fabulous Alice Ghostley, and of course, appearances from gay faves Paul Lynde and Agnes Moorehead

Happy viewing!

Indeed! 

Well, the nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards were released just minutes ago, and they're just as violence-filled, dour, and heterosexual as everyone had predicted.

Remember the days when Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Transamerica and more gave the categories some flair? Not this year, where angry, obsessed men make up most of the noms (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, In the Valley of Elah, even Sweeney Todd) and the lone comedy is about a pregnant moppet.

At first glance there are no openly gay men up for any of the major awards, and the only role that has even a whiff of queerness to it is Cate Blanchett's gender-bending turn as Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes's I'm Not There. (Haynes, as well as Hairspray's Adam Shankman, were shut out despite delivering critically acclaimed films that were not nearly violent or depressing enough.) But hey - Norbit got a nomination!! 

Even though I saw almost all of the nominated films and enjoyed many of them, this is disappointing, and I can't imagine that the Oscar viewing parties are going to be much fun this year (if the ceremony even happens, as they are insisting it will).

I mean, how do you come up with a theme menu based on these titles?

"The Diving Bell and the Butterbeans"?

"Into the Wild Rice"?

"There Will be Blood Pudding"?

"Ratatouille"? Oh ... well, there is that...

I’m still waiting for his critically lauded experimental Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There, to open in my neck of the woods, but that isn’t stopping me from celebrating the birth of visionary gay director Todd Haynes today.

From the eerie sterility of Safe to the gender-bending antics of the vastly underrated 70s glam-rock epic Velvet Goldmine, Haynes’ films are always overflowing with inventive ideas. Now how often can you say that about the crap that gets released these days?

After the jump, check out a lengthy clip from one of my favorites, the gorgeously shot ode to Douglas Sirk-stye melodrama, Far From Heaven, as well as one of the wacky music videos from Velvet Goldmine.

Alright alright, so technically he isn't alive enough to hear our birthday wishes ... but that's not enough to keep us from taking a moment to honor one of the godfathers of wit, wordsmithery and worldliness, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.

Wilde was born on this day in Dublin in 1854, and in his brief 46-year lifespan produced lasting classics in theatre (The Importance of Being Earnest), literature (The Picture of Dorian Gray) and poetry, although Wilde's very public trial for gross indecency and subsequent imprisonment for his homosexual leanings may be what many know him for more than anything. Wilde's ill-fated affair with Lord Alfred Douglas ("Bosie"), was portrayed in gay actor/writer/filmmaker/Wilde historian Stephen Fry's film Wilde, which was partly responsible for launching Jude Law to international stardom.

Wilde was also a master of clever quotations, and many commonly used today are attributed to him. His prominent role in the decadent movement has cemented him as something of a pre-rock rockstar, a point which gay director Todd Haynes made in his glam-rock epic Velvet Goldmine by suggesting that Wilde was delivered to earth by a spaceship to become the world's first pop icon.

Here's a selection of Wilde's best lines, in case you want to celebrate his birthday by dropping a few in the break room...

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

"I am not young enough to know everything."

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

• Neil Patrick Harris lookin' tough. (Or, at least, as tough as anyone can be expected to look in a Sesame Street muscle shirt.) And David Burtka from On the Lot looks cute as ever!
• Neil Patrick Harris (as Barney on How I Met Your Mother) looking not-so-tough when guest star Mandy Moore refers to his "enormous vagina" when she appears in the season premiere as a tattooed rocker-chick.
• Televisionista's sad, sad eulogy for the late Football Wives pilot, including some great Eddie Cibrian pics. *sniffle*

• Let's see if I can get this right: there's apparently some kind of online community set within a superhero video game called City of Heroes, and a group of gay players known as the Wig Heroes recently staged a sort of Virtual Wigstock within the game, and not even invading aliens could derail the parade of celebrity impersonators, which included "The Lady Bunny, Lady Miss Kier, Patsy and Edina, Cher, Britney, Janet, Ru Paul, Christina, Madonna, the girls from 9 to 5 (Dolly, Lilly and Jane), Rihanna, Pink, Daft Punk and of course the Spice Girls."
• The New York Post asks, "Are You a Gay Senator?" Um, not with those recycled stereotypes we ain't. Showtunes? Really? How very first-season Will & Grace.
• A new clip of Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in gay director Todd Haynes' increasingly fascinating upcoming film, I'm Not There.

• OutZone has a handy-dandy roundup of Zac Efron fansites, including the creepy and gay-baiting ones.
• A mini-profile of Hot 100 vet Christian Bale, in which he reveals that he plays not one, but TWO incarnations of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' upcoming headtrip biopic, I'm Not There.



• Dan Kroll at SoapCentral posted a forum on the ATWT "Nuke" kiss (along with a very personal essay on the event and what surrounds it) and the comments are very encouraging. Sure, considering Dan started the site, the visitors are likely a little more reasonable and open to "that kind of thing," but it's still nice to see. (t/y Wayman!)
• What we won't hear reported about Larry Craig
• One of John Barrowman's many busy clones (as there is simply no way that one man can make as many public appearances as he apparently does!) will host a gala tribute to composer Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!, Mame) in London next month.

• FX has reportedly greenlit a pilot for Ryan Murphy's (Nip/Tuck) transgender series 4 oz., which details a married gynecologist who undergoes a sex change over the planned five-season arc (the character was a sportswriter when last we reported on the project). Murphy will direct and co-produce with Brad Pitt. (t/y Josh!)
  
• Paul Reubens is reportedly joining hype-crazy Pushing Daisies (created by out Bryan Fuller) in a recurring role. Awesome.
• USA Today is running an opinion piece on just how significant the de-wrapping of The Advocate really is.
  
• I know people are all stoked about Vicky Pollard and Daffyd making the trek across the pond for the much-anticipated US version of Little Britain, but it's duplicitous Fat Fighters taskmaster Marjorie Dawes that I'm really excited to see make the trip. Seeing this unimaginably evil woman in the land of the Super-Size is going to be downright horrifying.
• The trailer for gay filmmaker Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan rumination, I'm Not There, is on the web, and despite not being even a tiny bit a Dylan fan, I'm So There. How crazy is it that of all the actors playing Dylan, Cate Blanchett is the closest fit, looks-wise?
  
• Ross "the Intern" Mathews is the cover boy for next month's Instinct, and yet he still speaks in non-gender-specific terms regarding his love life, noting in the press release that his "special someone" has been elusive so far. "It would be nice to be swept off my feet. I want to cut through all the rest: the ones that don't work out." It's fine to not discuss your sexuality on The View or Tyra, but the cover of a gay magazine is a bit different, no? Oh, right ... guess not! UPDATE: a friendly reader noted in the comments that the article itself does refer to Mathews as a gay fella.
  

• Soundtrack details for gay filmmaker Todd Haynes' sure-to-be-fascinating Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There, in which the singer/songwriter is portrayed by everyone from Heath Ledger to Cate Blanchett to one of my cats. Antony and the Johnsons covering "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"?! Sufjan Stevens on "Ring Them Bells"?!?! Somebody catch me...
• The L.A. Times has a nice article on how Neil Patrick Harris is a gay actor playing a straight role and how no one seems to mind in the least. But beware: the piece quotes some wingnut named Michael Jensen, so they're obviously not playing with a full deck!
  
• SpoilerTV caught wind of yet another gaysploitative detective show episode on its way, yet again within the Law & Order monolith.
  
• GLAAD has changed the eligibility rules for their media awards to include gay-for-gay media (the awards until now have only been awarded to mainstream media). Gay-targeted outlets will not be granted their own categories, but are invited to compete within existing categories. In other words: Sorry, The Lair. That "Best Gay Vampire Softcore Soap Opera" award isn't yours quite yet.
• I so cannot believe that no one was all over this while I was out at the end of last week, but The Advocate cover boy of the month, Ryan Reynolds, and gay filmmaker John August (whom Reynolds actually plays, in part, in their utterly bizarro new comedy The Nines) did a fascinating Q&A for the mag and also documented their trip together to Africa, where they helped build an orphanage. We already knew that Reynolds was uncommonly gay-friendly and as hot as tarmac, but he builds orphanages, too? *SWOON*