The Very Best of Film/TV

The Perfect Family, Pink Ribbons, Inc, Wish Me Away, 2012 Tribeca Film Festival

Kathleen Turner stars in The Perfect Family, in New York theaters May 4. The film tells the story of suburban mother and devout Catholic, Eileen Cleary, who has always kept up appearances. When she runs for the Catholic Woman of the Year competition she must finally face the nonconformist family she has been glossing over for years: Her gay daughter, Shannon, a successful lawyer, is about to marry her life partner Angela. Her unhappily married son Frank Jr. is cheating on his wife. Eileen’s own marriage to a recovering alcoholic is fraying at the seams. This dysfunctional family emits just the right amount of seriousness and levity in this buzzy dramedy.

Cinemarosa, the queer independent film series, celebrates the beginning of its eighth anniversary at the Queens Museum of Art on May 20. To highlight eight years of award-winning films for the queer community of New York City and the world, Cinemarosa will offer a presentation of shorts that touch on different aspects of the LGBT experience. Featured films include Irma, Awol, Santiago From the Other Side and Genderbusters.

Who really benefits from the pink ribbon campaigns: The cause or the companies? That’s the question veteran filmmaker Léa Pool poses in her new film Pink Ribbons, Inc. Opening in theaters Jun 1, this timely film examines the ubiquitous pink ribbon campaigns and reveals how the movement has evolved from activism to consumerism, challenging viewers to rethink their assumptions about the meaning of breast cancer in our society. Using interviews with activists, medical experts, breast cancer survivors and leading players in breast cancer fundraising (including the embattled director of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Nancy Goodman Brinker), the film shows how breast cancer fundraising may boost corporate profits and brand awareness more than it benefits people with the disease.

Opening Jun 1 at area theaters, the award-winning documentary Wish Me Away tells the traumatic and inspiring story of Chely Wright, the first country music star to come out as gay. As she emerges from a lifetime of hiding and shame that brings her to the brink of suicide, Wright’s coming out shatters cultural and religious stereotypes within the Nashville music industry, her conservative heartland family and herself. Knowing that she risks losing the dream that has inspired her since the age of four, she takes the bold step to use her public capital to speak out on one of the most polarizing civil rights issues of our time.

Check out the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival with film-related events starting Apr 21 in various theaters around the city. This year’s festival will once again screen films from around the globe complemeted with auxiliary events, including a three-day Tribeca Drive-in at the World Financial Center Plaza, a family street fair, a special festival for sports fans of the latest independent sports films, panel conversations with filmmakers and actors, star-studded red carpets and more. LGBT highlights include Jack and Diane, Stitches, Chupachups, Keep the Lights On and Any Day Now.


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