‘Queer Reels’ at LACE; New Peter Wang Comedy at Asian Fest

FilmForum, a local showcase for experimental and offbeat films, tonight presents “Queer Reels,” a selection of nine films from the third New York City Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. The screening is at downtown Los Angeles’ LACE arts complex at 8.

It’s scarcely surprising that AIDS is a major theme or that some of the films contain explicit sex. Some are not truly experimental, a couple don’t work, but all attest to the diversity of homosexual filmmakers’ concerns and perceptions. The most ambitious and challenging of the films is Barbara Hammer’s “Still Point,” which employs a flow of four separate images to consider a loving relationship in the context of an environment whose coldness and hostility is epitomized by the plight of the homeless.

The two films which deal specifically with AIDS do so with simplicity and directness. David Weissman’s “Song from an Angel” records the final performance of Rodney Price, a popular San Francisco actor/dancer who, rail thin and confined to a wheelchair, bravely sings a jaunty tune about his own mortality--and even tap dances sitting down--a mere two weeks before his death. Carl George’s “DHPG Mon Amour” depicts the daily life of a New York gay couple who encourage those who carry the AIDS virus to try alternative drugs and therapies.

Phillip Roth’s “Boys/Life” focuses on a young man who has come to terms with sex (strictly safe) in his private life but is now concerned with the question of men expressing affection in public. There are erotic sequences in this film as there are in Edgar Barens’ “Autonmonosexual,” which deals with the implications of narcissism, and Tom Chomont’s “Dream and Desire,” an expression of sexual longing. Far more complex is Gerald Tartaglia’s “Ecce Homo,” which explores the relationship of pornography and censorship and quotes the once-censored film of Jean Genet, “Un Chant d’Amour,” as well as employing images from porno films. For more information: (213) 276-7452, (714) 923-2441.

The fifth annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific American International Film Festival commences Friday at UCLA’s Melnitz Theater at 7:30 p.m. with Peter Wang’s delightful new film “First Date,” a warm, semi-autobigraphical coming of age comedy set in Taiwan in the 1950s but universal in its humor, sentiments and the predicaments of its handsome, likable hero (Chang Shi). It’s also a subtle commentary on the growing impact of American mores and pop culture. Sunday’s feature (at 5:30) is David Rathod’s “West Is West,” a wryly amusing account of a well-mannered young Hindu stranded in San Francisco and befriended by an uninhibited would-be punk artist (Heidi Carpenter).

The festival is studded with impressive shorts and documentaries, such as Elaine Velazquez’s “Moving Mountains” (Sunday at 2 p.m.), a comprehensive account about Laotian refugees making new lives in Portland; Pamela Tom’s dramatic vignette, “Two Lies” (Sunday at 7:30), which deals perceptively with the implications of a Chinese-American divorcee’s decision to have her eyes made “rounder” through plastic surgery; Christine Choy’s “The Monkey King Looks West” (Sunday at approximately 8:30), a charming and poignant report on a small group of highly trained performance artists determined to sustain a Chinese opera company in New York. (213) 206-FILM, 206-8013.

The weekend also brings Temp’Theque’s Fritz Lang centennial retrospective at the Directors Guild and the beginning of a week-long series of 14 R.W. Fassbinder features--a couple are fresh prints--as a 15th anniversary celebration of Landmark’s management of the Nuart Theater.

At the DGA you will be able to see a rare 35 mm print of “Metropolis” with its original score played on the piano by Robert Israel, and an archival print of “Die Nibelungen” accompanied by its original score, recorded two years ago with the 65-piece Munich Symphony Orchestra. Among the Lang films screening is the enchanting “Liliom,” made by Lang in France in 1934 and unseen since LACMA’s Lang retrospective over 20 years ago. (213) 466-FILM.

Best bets among the Fassbinders are “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” (May 15) and “Fox and His Friends” (May 16). (213) 478-6377, 479-5269.