I am mighty disappointed to have to miss Thursday night’s Legacy Awards, a gala at the Directors Guild of America to benefit the  Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation.

It’s always such a special evening and if you haven’t bought your tickets yet, I highly recommend that you do – especially since I just learned yesterday that Jenifer Lewis is going to host!

The fabulous diva of stage and screen knocked ‘em dead Sunday as she belted out an unforgettable version of You’ll Never Walk Alone at the close of opening ceremonies of AIDS Walk LA.

Trust me, with Miss Lewis involved, it will not be boring. Hold on to your seats!

Then there is Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson presenting Adam Shankman with the Visionary Award. Also being honored with the Guardian Awards is Lifetime Television which has long been known as television for women (and gay men!).

Here is a LINK for tickets and more information.

At this point, I can’t even pretend to have any journalistic objectivity remaining when it comes to Gary Lane and Larry Lane and their very special movie Hollywood to Dollywood which screened at Outfest on Saturday.

I’m very fond of these dynamic gay twins from North Carolina with big dreams who left their small hometown ten years ago to make it in Hollywood.

While they have been first-place winners on both Fear Factor and Winter Wipeout, they are poised to make their biggest splash with their heartwarming documentary which had some of the near-capacity Outfest audience in tears.

Directed by John Lavin, the film chronicles their cross-country trip to try and deliver a movie script they have written for their idol Dolly Parton when she is making appearances at Dollywood during the theme park’s 25th anniversary weekend.

In a rented RV they name Jolene, the Lanes and Gary’s boyfriend Mike Bowen embark on a road trip that is also a journey of self-discovery.  The twins open up about their fear of being rejected by their family – especially their mom – once the movie is out because through the film, they are very publicly coming out to everyone they know back home in North Carolina.

But it is clear that they have reached a point in their lives where they no longer want to suppress any part of themselves which has included not bringing boyfriends home for the holidays and not being openly gay during their visits back home.

“We are praying they will come around but right now it’s about us,” Larry said during the Q&A that followed the screening. [Most of the audience stayed for the Q&A which is a rarity at Outfest].

Added Gary: “You care about your parents [but] there’s going to come points where there’s lines drawn in the sand.”

But the pain is clear. When talking about Mike Bowen, his boyfriend of five years who has never met his family, Gary got choked up during the Q&A: “It’s hard not to be able to share that with our mom.”

Their mother knows about the film and Larry shared with the crowd that during a recent visit home to help care for their ailing father, she said: “Whatever happens, just don’t stop talking to me.”

Whether the film will bring forth full family acceptance remains to be seen. But because Gary and Larry have been willing to share their story so honestly, they are sure to help so many people with similar struggles.

Ironically, the twins initially did not want to discuss their sexuality in the movie. Instead they wanted it to focus on their script and getting it to Dolly. But director Lavin insisted that this was the real heart of the movie which was made from 43 hours of footage taken.

“We had a few come to Jesus moments over what was staying in,” Lavin told the crowd.

In the end, Larry said, “It gave us a confidence to tell our story. … We were hiding for so long.”

The twins, the director and Bowen were joined at the screening by a Dolly Parton look-alike as well as actors Chad Allen and Leslie Jordan who both appear in the first section of the movie.

When the credits rolled, I was shocked to see my name included among the special thanks! Later in the lobby, I expressed my surprise and the boys pointed out that I’d been supportive of them since they went public with plans for the film.

That much is true. I was sold before I even saw a frame of Hollywood to Dollywood because of the earnestness and enthusiasm of Gary and Larry [I'm pictured with them, below, at Friday night's pre-screening party]. There’s just something about these guys that touches my heart and I think a lot of people across the country are going to feel the same way after seeing their very special movie.

Outfest has felt like home for the past 10 days or so and I’m going to feel like summer camp has ended after closing day tomorrow.

I saw Hollywood to Dollywood this morning starring my favorite twins Larry Lane and Gary Lane and will have a post all about that later tonight.

But I wanted to give you a heads-up about tomorrow’s schedule.

It kicks off with the awards brunch and I’m already quite certain that Weekend will win one or more awards as should We Were Here. I’d love to see Hollywood to Dollywood get something too, of course.

Anyway, at 1 p.m. in DGA 1 will be a Drop Dead Diva panel. I just love this Lifetime series and am so glad I caught up on all the episodes during a weekend marathon a few weeks back. The panel will include cast regular Margaret Cho, director/co-executive producer Jamie Babbit and guest stars Clay Aiken and Lance Bass!

I’ll then be catching Eating Out: Drama Camp. If there is one thing I know from past Outfests, watching the Eating Out flicks with an audience makes all the difference. Then I’ll catch an encore showing of Boys Shorts because I missed last Saturday’s screening and the buzz is that this year’s group is outstanding.

I’ll be on fumes but will then stagger over to the Ford Ampitheatre for the closing night film The Perfect Family with a cast headed by Kathleen Turner. The cutie Jason Ritter plays her son and will be there as will castmate Richard Chamberlain!

Then, it’s the closing night party at Roosevelt Hotel.

Here’s a tip: If you missed the solid film The Green last weekend (Cheyenne Jackson is one of the stars) you can catch a screening tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Redcat and the film Dirty Girl has been added to the schedule at 5:30 in DGA 1.

When I arrived at the DGA Theatre last night for the screening of Weekend, I was told there was absolutely no press tickets available and that the movie was a complete sellout.

I was crestfallen and stood at the counter asking for a supervisor when I bumped into the publicists for the film who just happened to have ONE spare ticket. I got it! Feeling much better, I sauntered into a pre-party where the film’s British director, Andrew Haigh, was among those in attendance.

Since it was a sellout crowd, I wondered how he was feeling at that very moment.

“I find it exciting and yet I’m a little bit nervous at the same time,” said Haigh (pictured, left). “It’s a good pressure. I’m  just hoping people can understand the accents!”

The director acknowledged that winning the audience award at South By Southwest earlier this year helps in situations like this: “You feel even more at ease knowing the audience is predominantly gay.”

The audience’s expectations were set pretty high when in introducing the film, Outfest Director of Programming Kim Yutani said: “I really think Weekend sets a new standard for LGBT cinema and independent film in general.”

She wasn’t overstating. This outstanding drama was easily the best movie I’ve seen at Outfest this year.  Believe me, awards will be won. It features breakout performances by Tom Cullen and Chris New who seem so natural and so inhabit their roles that you feel like you are eavesdropping on them most of the time.

Weekend follows Russell (Cullen) who, after randomly picking up an artist Glen (New) at a nightclub on a Friday night, unexpectedly spends most of the next 48 hours with him in bedrooms and bars, telling stories and having sex. As they spend more time together, sharing snippets of their lives, they begin to reveal the things that hold them back as much as push them forward and develop a deep connection that could resonate throughout their lives.

Glen gets most of the funny lines including his description of coming out to his parents when he was 16: “I told them nature or nurture it’s your fault so get over it!”

And boy is he opinionated saying that the gays in Britain don’t fight for gay rights  because they’re “too busy on Grindr or having their asses to do anything.”

While Glen seems confident, he acknowledges over the weekend that he is trying to “redraw” himself but is struggling because “everyone keeps hiding my pencil.”

After the screening, Outfest Executive Director Kirsten Schaffer conducted an extended Q&A with Haigh and the film’s producer Tristian Goligher.

We learned that the film was shot in Nottingham in 17 days in sequence and that one of the leads is gay in real life and the other is not. We were not told which one! [I will have a post tomorrow on Haigh's thoughts about casting straight actors in gay roles].

Haigh, whose film Greek Pete previously screened at Outfest, not only wrote and directed Weekend, but he also edited it and he is a superb editor.

He spent three years writing a film that he feels is different from anything else out there: “I’d seen so many gay-themed films that didn’t reflect how I felt about being gay. [He wanted the movie] to feel as realistic as possible, as authentic as possible. … I wrote it hoping it would seem like it was improvised.”

The characters in the film share many deep secrets during a night of drinking and drugs and Haigh used that as a device for a simple reason: “You just open up more, are more honest, and say things you normally wouldn’t say.”

I’ll keep you posted on the distribution plans for Weekend because you really must see it!

Watched a DVD screener of the documentary With You the other night about the life of 9/11 hero Mark Bingham. With the 1oth anniversary of that terrible day coming up, this is a timely tribute to a man who was among the heroes on United Flight 93. I heartily recommend you catch tonight’s screening of the film at Outfest. [Ticket info HERE].

It is such a wonderful thing that so much video exists of Bingham from throughout what looks to have been a very full and happy life. We see him in younger years then on the rugby field, in college, on trips abroad and through the eyes of his dynamic mother, Alice Hoagland, who is really something special. You will wish you had her in your life!

My friend Karen Ocamb has posted an in-depth interview with Alice on her blog LGBT POV. Here are a few highlights:

“For me watching that film was the very first time seeing many scenes in my son’s life,” she said of With You. “It was really wonderful in that respect.”

Hoagland also candidly conceded – as she does in the film – that it was difficult for her to accept Mark’s homosexuality when he first came out:

“When my son first told me, my subconscious mind just rejected it. I acknowledged and believed it on an intellectual level but it took me a while to really come to grips with it and accept it. And when I did, in a matter of months, I guess, I became grateful then that Mark had enough confidence in me and love for me and thought enough of me that he wanted me to be one of the first people in his life to know something very fundamental and true about himself. Even though he knew that my attitudes towards gays was vague and not accurate. I would say that I was vaguely antigay –imbued with stereotypes. I’ve had to fight through that. I am one of those lucky human beings that has done an about face and rejected a lie and embraced the truth. But I wish I had had the courage and goodness of heart to do that on my own.

But it took my son to do that for me by acknowledging, by telling me – challenging my stereotypes and telling me, “Mom, I’m gay.” Because of him, I have gone on a different journey in my life. And with all the important things in my life – and all the accomplishments that I have – most of them have been because I had a little boy who grew up to be a man who set me on an important life’s quest.”

Here is a LINK to the rest of Karen’s interview and below is the film’s trailer:

Provided with a DVD screener, I saw the documentary We Were Here and sat in stunned silence for some time after it was over trying to process all I had seen. I then invited a friend over a few days later to watch it with me again and was even more moved.

But Saturday afternoon was the first time I’d seen the movie with an audience and it was an experience I’ll never forget. You could hear a pin drop inside the DGA Theatre during much of the screening except for occasional laughter and tears.

Produced and directed by David Weissman, it is the first documentary to take a deep and reflective look back at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and explores how the city’s inhabitants were affected by, and how they responded to, that calamitous epidemic.

Weissman, the film’s editor and co-director Bill Weber and two of the seven people who are the voices of the documentary got one of the longest standing ovations that I can remember in more than a decade of attending Outfest.

“When I started making this movie and I didn’t know if anyone would want to see it and it’s been really gratifying to get the response,” Weissman told us. “One of the things I knew in assembling this was that in order for people to watch, they’d have to fall in love with the people on the screen and I think I made really good choices.”

I’ll say.

Two of the interview subjects were at the screening: Eileen Glutzer was a nurse with many gay friends who helped to administer clinical trials of several AIDS drugs and and Ed Wolf who worked with AIDS patients back then and who has developed HIV-related curriculum and trainings for a large number of national and international organizations and institutions.

“It’s such an honor to be in this movie,” Ed told the audience Saturday. “I represent thousands of people. I get to be in this documentary and tell my story but there are so many other people.”

It was 30 years ago last month that the first case of AIDS was officially diagnosed in San Francisco where at one time, an estimated 50 percent of the gay male population was HIV-positive. There were not the life-saving  treatments that there are today – only death. Young people who were born after the crisis need to imagine what it would be like if 25-50 percent of their Facebook friends died in a very short period of time.

This movie is a reminder of this horrific time and the footage and photos we see from that time are devastating. We see just rows and rows of obituaries of beautiful men, many so young, who died from AIDS before they even knew how to prevent getting infected.

So as you watch, you grieve for that time, for the people who never got to live out their lives. But you also learn about the heroes during this time, the people who stepped up during the height of the epidemic to help people die with dignity, to lobby politicians, to fight for research and treatment, and to build up institutions and strength in the LGBT community that continues today.

Eileen Glutzer says in the film that when her mother asked her why she was working with AIDS patients, she said she didn’t choose it – it chose her.

“What’s really important to me and this film is to not forget, to not forget anyone,” she said at the screening. “This film helps keep their memories alive and that’s been very important to me.”

Check out the trailer:

The film will have a run at The ArcLight in Hollywood in September. Visit its homepage for more information. Also, go to the film’s Facebook page to join the conversation.

I’ve been going to Outfest for more than a decade and blogging about it for five. I still forget how hard it is to write about all that you saw and did before you have to get back to the festival for another round of movies and events. It is exhausting in a wonderful kind of way.

On Saturday, I actually missed the Boys Shorts for the first time ever because I was out late Friday at screenings of Longhorns and a shorts program called Shots in the Dark. But I did make the early afternoon screening of The Wise Kids which I think will win a few awards here and at other festivals.

I’m pictured above with writer-director-star Stephen Cone (to my right) and star Tyler Ross (left) before the screening of this superb coming of age Southern drama set in a Baptist church community in Charleston, South Carolina. Three friends are contemplating the stage in their lives between high school and college.

The movie never claims to have all the answers as we follow the struggles of the devout Laura, openly gay Tim and preacher’s daughter Brea who is having a deep crisis of faith. Other compelling characters are the closeted choir director Austin and his frustrated wife, Tim’s supportive dad, and the non-believing woman who grudgingly accompanies her grandmother to church each week.

Although the movie has flawed characters, they are treated with love and respect. Laura is horrified to learn Tim is gay and prays herself to sleep asking the Lord to help him change. Austin is a closeted gay man married to a lovely woman and they are trying to survive as a couple despite this. Austin’s struggle and anguish is in deep contrast to Tim who refuses to choose between loving God and being gay.

There’s a reason that no one comes off as a villain or a stereotype, Cone told us after the screening: “I was raised the son of a Southern Baptist minister and that’s the way I felt about these people. I was inspired by the kids I grew up with and the lonely souls you can spot in the church. I have great love for these people and an awareness of that private pain that is pushed to the back.”

Ross said of the film: “I’m actually from the South and was raised Baptist Christian so I had a lot of connection to this film.”

Molly Kunz, who played the preacher’s daughter summed up the film’s tone nicely: “Coming from a conservative background, you can understand and try to make them real people. It’s just so much of who they are and less about putting people into categories.”

I highly recommend you see The Wise Kids and will keep you posted on its distribution plans.

It was appropriate that Dan Bucatinsky and I would chat on the morning of opening night of Outfest 2011 since it was 10 years ago that his movie opened the festival. This Saturday at 7:15 p.m. in DGA 2, the festival will hold a 10th anniversary screening of the film. [Ticket info HERE] Bucatinsky will be there with director Julie Davis and costars Richard Ruccolo, Sasha Alexander, Adam Goldberg Andrea Martin, Christina Ricci, Joanna Kerns and Lisa Kudrow.

“That it’s the 10th anniversary just blows my mind,” said Bucatinsky. “Outfest was like a fairy tale for me after several years of working on the film and seeing it on screen. It was a really magical night.”

What made it even more magical was that a little-known band named Carriage Flowers, which had four songs in the film, performed live at the after-party. The band later changed their name to Maroon 5.

“I’ve got pictures of me and Adam Levine at the premiere,” Dan said. “I’ve been Tweeting him asking if he remembers.”

Here’s the plot for those of you who haven’t seen the movie: Eli (Bucatinsky) and Tom (Ruccolo) couldn’t be more different. However, when the guys’ straight best friends pair them off, opposites seem ready to attract…at least with the lights off. The film reminds us that every romance and friendship is filled with big challenges and big rewards.

“I had written a play about a guy and a girl and adapted the film into All Over the Guy and turned it into a male role,” recalled Bucatinsky. “It’s a very universal experience, meeting someone, the fun parts the hard parts. I had this idea if you make a movie where When Harry Met Sally is When Harry met Larry. There’s something very conventional about it, a simple story that we don’t treat as a coming out story. It’s just about two people trying to meet somebody.”

It’s a film that resonated with audiences and has had a long afterlife on DVD and countless airings on LOGO. This weekend’s screening on the big screen is something Bucatinsky very much looks forward to.

“A core group of 11 of us will be having a reunion for the first time,” he said. “When we made this movie, it was in a period of time when you could make a gay film and have it released in theaters. Nowadays, if you can get money to make the movie, you have limited [distribution] options. I’ll always feel grateful we had the opportunity to be released across the world.”

It didn’t hurt that he was able to get such top-caliber talent for the main roles and for the smaller ones as well.

“The entire experience was so many lucky, happy coincidences,” he said. “It is what feels like one of the luckiest convergences of a lot of talented people who came together at the same time. Lisa [Kudrow] did a cameo and improvised a lot of it. I met Richie [Ruccolo] in the audition process. he wanted to do a film after [the ABC sitcom Two Guys and a Girl] and challenge himself.”

One of the casting coups was that of five-time Emmy winner Doris Roberts who was still in the midst of her long run on Everybody Loves Raymond. Many well-known character actresses read for the key part of the HIV clinic worker who Eli confides in.

Roberts got the part after director Davis asked her if she had any problem saying the line: “Did you suck his dick?”

Recalled Bucatinsky: “[Doris] said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ She was absolutely perfect.”

PART 2 TOMORROW: Dan talks about his producing partnership with Lisa Kudrow and their various projects including the acclaimed cult fave The Comeback, the NBC series Who Do You Think You Are and their online series Web Therapy which has been picked up by Showtime and premieres this month!

I bumped into August writer-director Eldar Rapaport and actor Adrian Gonzalez at the Outfest preview party last month just hours after watching their wonderful and sexy film on DVD.

You too can see it this Sunday when it screens at Outfest at 9:45 p.m. at DGA 1.

While it is Jonathan and Troy who are struggling with rekindling their romance, Troy shares an intense scene with Raul at Jonathan’s birthday party where the two rivals share a private conversation – completely in Spanish.

“That’s actually one of my favorite scenes,” Rapaport said. “It was one of the first scenes that I wrote. Because in my mind, Raul and Troy are kind of similar on how much power they have. I wanted to make sure they had as moment and it made sense to make him Spanish and have Troy coming back from Spain so they can talk about something that no one else understands.”

It is one of a series of impressive scenes in this fine film that is well-written, beautifully shot and features outstanding performances from the three leads.

Here is a LINK for more information about the Outfest screening.

Thursday is opening night for Outfest 2011 so you will want to start buying your tickets for must-see films if you haven’t already.

I’ll be highlighting films each day leading up to and throughout the festival which runs July 7-17.

On 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 16, the charming and heartfelt documentary From Hollywood to Dollywood will screen and you won’t want to miss it. I loved this movie for so many reasons – mostly because gay twins Gary Lane and Larry Lane are so honest and open with the audience about their life journey.

Sure, their cross-country trip to try and meet their idol Dolly Parton at Dollywood is the hook, but the Lanes are the heart of the film and it is impossible not to root for them.

They left their small town home ten years ago to make it in Hollywood and are finally ready to get a script they wrote to Miss Parton. In a RV named Jolene, the boys embark on the adventure of a lifetime. The road trip is also a journey of self-discovery and an attempt to resolve mommy issues that have divided them since childhood. Helping to move things along nicely are 15 of Parton’s songs which make up the movie’s soundtrack.

I recently spoke with Gary Lane about the film which was directed by John Lavin.

Q. What does it mean for you to have your film accepted into Outfest?

A. Outfest is amazing and we have a lot of local cameos like Leslie Jordan, Beth Grant, [Dustin] Lance Black, Chad Allen. They’re all going to come to the festival  so it is like the home court advantage and everyone loves Dolly. We’re kind of seeing now that getting her 15 songs in the film is opening a lot of doors. The music really goes along with our film.”

Q. How did you come up with the idea for the movie?

A. “Me and my brother wrote this script and we had a dream to try to meet Dolly and give it to her. We found on the 25th anniversary of Dollywood she was going to be there so we did this whole cross-country road trip from Hollywood to Dollywood. The goal was to give the script to Dolly. My boyfriend Mike [Bowen] came on the trip. He does custom bird houses so he built a bird house of her Tennessee mountain cabin so he could give her that.”

Q. While Dolly has long had legions of gay fans, I think her most public pro-gay remarks were made last year when she appeared on Larry King Live.

A. “It made us love her all the more and we actually approached CNN and paid for the copyright and we have that footage in the movie. We got the full clearance. It’s Dolly’s message that she loves her fans and she doesn’t judge anybody. She says only God is supposed to judge you, we’re not supposed to judge each other. A lot of people who have seen it have said, ‘I never really knew her views but it made me love her even more.’”

Q. Did the movie evolve and change once you got going on it?

A. “Our whole thing was giving her our script but then we told our personal stories and you really get your heart attached to it. We’ve sent it to film festivals and the people on the screening committees are sending me personal emails telling me how much the movie touched them. So we know it’s a positive response.”

Q. Dolly has been great in movies like 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias but she has made so few films. Don’t you feel like her movie career has never been fully realized?

A. “I honestly feel like that’s why we wrote the script for her. We wanted to see her in more movies and that’s specifically why we did it. It’s a really a heartfelt part.”

Click HERE to buy tickets and to see the entire Outfest schedule.

Each day leading up to opening night, Greg In Hollywood will feature a “Countdown to Outfest” item. I’ve seen several of the films and will be posting reviews and will also share with you some interviews I’ve done with filmmakers and actors.

To start things off, I’d like to provide you with a LINK to an Outfest Preview story I wrote for the current issue of Frontiers IN LA that spotlights some of the festival’s films, special events and parties.

Here’s an excerpt:

In all, there are 163 films—67 features and 96 shorts from 25 countries—scheduled at seven venues and featuring such stars as Cheyenne Jackson, Margaret Cho, Carol Channing, Dolly Parton, Chlöe Sevigny, Courtney Love, Esai Morales, Julia Ormond, Chely Wright, Leslie Jordan, John Waters, Richard Chamberlain, Jason Ritter, Kathleen Turner, Emily Deschanel, Heather Matarazzo, Jennifer Coolidge and Calpernia Addams, among others.

In between opening and closing nights, there is so much to see that you will want to work out your schedule ahead of time to make sure you’re in the right place at the right time. Sometimes you have to make tough choices!

Regular festivalgoers will already be familiar with opening night venue the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown L.A., and then the festival moves to six other locations—its traditional headquarters of the Directors Guild of America; John Anson Ford Ampitheatre; REDCAT Theatre at Walt Disney Concert Hall; Laemmle Sunset 5; L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza and The Eli and Edith Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

Stay tuned for much more about Outfest 2011!