4uiyz.2000
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6th Annual Gay & Lesbian Cruise
4 -
A
A U g U S t I Z til
11 : 00 P M - 2 : 00 AM
Pre-boarding at 10:30PM
21 and over, ID required
MILLENNIUM
CRUISE
Aboard the Luxurious Portland Spirit.
Located @ Front & Salmon Streets.
Pre-Cruise Party at
’’The Lotus’’
932 SW 3rd & Salmon S t.-,
9:00PM-10:30PM '
No host bars
Club Cruise Buffet
Grand Door prizes
Great dance music
Reserve your tickets
K a
V/- ,VV/ K 'T
in advance!
r n
Mail your check or
money order to:
Ticket Vendors
Socialites
PO Box 6002 A Gentle Strength 2110 Main St. Vancouver, WA 360-750-5676
It's my Pleasure 3106 NE 64th & Sandy Portland, OR 503-280-8080
Vancouver, WA Rainbows 1136 SW Alder St. Portland, OR 503-525-9630
98668
Gai-Pied 2544 NE Broadway Portland. OR 503-331-1125__________
Sponsored by the SW WA Gay & Lesbian Socialites, Contact us at 360.735.190I or email
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JEFFREY GAINES
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From increased picture quality to bonus footage,
DVD technology enhances gay and lesbian films
by
New Years Eve 2000 all over again!
$20.00 in Advance
$25.00 Day of Cruise
The revolution will be digitized
R a d io np-tuuù’w.
A ndy M angels
ing to pick up.” Gai-Pied also sells and rents a
ollywtxxl studios and independent film
line of adult-oriented erotic DVDs, some of
companies are increasingly targeting gay
which offer the option of multiple camera
and lesbian consumers, upping the num
angles!
ber of queer characters on television and
W hen Mike Clark, owner of Movie Mad
in films. As a result, there are an increasing
ness, opened his Southeast Portland video store
number of choices at the video store. And now,
10 years ago, he initially had 20 queer titles;
a new technology that can add even more
that
number has risen to somewhere between
queer content to the viewing experience is
400 and 500 videos and a growing group of
catching on in homo households: DVD movies
DVDs. Although his store mainly has the more
and players.
popular
titles on DVD, Clark notes that he is
Teri Inman, lesbian co-owner of Portland-
“beefing them up.... As they become available,
based electronics store Stereotypes, says she
I will get them.” He sees that DVD will he
sees “more lesbians buying them than gay
“broadening
and expanding and becoming
men,” though both groups are buying DVDs
something of the future that a lot of people will
more than heterosexual shoppers. Although
be turning over to.”
her store has only carried DVD players for a
So what’s out there, and what are the
year, it now offers five models.
_______________
extras? This is the first
“1 would imagine
OmQIMAL DIRECTOR'S OUT
installment of reviews of
within the next year, it
t f T T i R B O X TOBMAT
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DVDs with a Q quotient.
will probably go to 10,”
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says Inman, who notes
that the players range in
R elax ...I t ’ s J ust S ex
price from $149 to
A
f i l l Y:
V i J . C C i < S S tH ii
$1,200.
Though the first DVD
players were released in
Japan in late 1996, the
majority of discs and
players have been
released within the last
year. Currently, more
than 100 gay-and-lesbian-
themed DVDs are avail
able on the market, with
more released each
month.
So, what is a DVD?
The acronym stands for
digital versatile disc, and it’s a CD-sized silver
or gold disc that stores video and audio images
that
can he played back in an unprecedented crisp
fashion.
“Like CDs are to music, DVDs are to films,”
says Ron Rich, publisher of the quarterly DVD
Guide. “It basically has replaced what was the
highest quality home video device [the
laserdisc]. It is clearly the best medium for
appreciating home video entertainment.”
W hat makes DVDs so special? An improve
ment over VHS video, the picture and audio
are recorded digitally, which results in almost
crystal-clear images and sound. Additionally,
most DVDs present the film in “widescreen”
format (meaning that you see it the way you
would in a theater) instead of using the half-
the-picture-is-missing “pan and scan” method
of preparing films for video and television.
Most DVDs also feature a lot of extras,
including director and star audio commentaries
that can be played over the film, isolated music
scores, outtakes, uncensored footage, behind-
the-scenes clips, alternate endings, music
videos, foreign language subtitles and more.
“I didn’t know what I was missing before I
got my DVD player,” enthuses Rick Spencer,
owner of Portland’s Gai-Pied bookstore. “My
partner likes the letterboxed aspect of the
films, and I like the quality of the picture, as
well as the behind-the-scenes supplements.”
Spencer’s store carries about 40 DVDs for
rental, mostly gay male-oriented, though he
has a few women’s titles, and more available to
order. He notes that the DVDs, which general
ly carry a lower price than videos, “sell more
than they rent, but the rentals are really start-
his film follows multi
ple couples— straight,
lesbian and gay— as
well as a gay man looking
for Mr. Right, a bisexual
woman unsure of what
she wants, and a gay man
just diagnosed with AIDS.
A n incredible movie,
Relax. . .It’s Just Sex starts
out quite funny, hut
toward the middle of the
film something hone-
chilling and shocking
happens, altering all expectations. The ensem
ble cast dissects everything from monogamy to
spirituality, from revenge to the government’s
involvement in the AIDS crisis. This is a lot of
ground to cover in one story, hut it is done
superbly. Ultimately uplifting and tremendously
well-acted, this film will make you cheer, cry
and truly think.
The DVD is the unrated director’s cut and
features bonus footage and outtakes.
B etter T han C hocolate
pixyish young lesbian bookstore clerk
meets the girl of her dreams, but her moth-
ier and brother have just arrived to live
with her in a borrowed loft. W hile the two
women keep their affair uncomfortably quiet, a
transgendered woman struggles to love the
butch dyke bookstore owner, who is having her
own battles with Canadian customs. Gorgeous
ly filmed and warmly funny, this film from
British Columbia hits all the right notes,
including an erotic body-painting session and a
too-real confrontation between an angry les
bian and the transgendered woman.
The DVD version of Better Than Chocolate
features a commentary track and the director’s
cut of the film.
H appy , T exas
T
wo convicts break out of prison and hijack
the motor home— and identities— of a pair
of gay guys who produce children’s beauty
pageants. Unfortunately, once they reach