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"Dildo Granny" directors Laura Barton and Judy Wilder stuck their businesses where no G*d-fearin' straight white Chr*stian male in the state of Texas had dared before: into various sex shops in the Austin area. This hour-long video documents Texas' ridiculous law regulating the sale of dildos.

Texas makes it illegal to own more than five dildos, or to use them to commit "sodomy", which for them is defined as any sexual contact other than missionary position sex between married people. Back in the early '90's, Molly Ivins raked the idiots of the state legislature over the coals, but more than eight years have passed, and this law is still on the books. Hence, Barton and Wilder invite Ivins back to recap for us, and the results are hilarious.

Being a native New Englander, I had a hard time understanding Ivins' drawl at first, but no matter, we easily see that if Ivins is a shotgun toting pickup driving Texas Mama, her shotgun is her mouth or her pen or her keyboard tapping fingers. No one is spared from her pithy fusillade of recollections.

The highlights of the video are clips gleaned from official tapes on the statehouse floor, where legislators debated what exactly "sodomy" means, and what should be its punishment. Tell-it-like-it-is legislators Senfronia Thompson and Debra Danberg muse about the nonsense they endured during that debate and others.

While the video was hilarious, the ensuing discussion with the directors was much more sobering. Texas sex shop owners and employees are being arrested if they have more than five dildos on their premises, or if they refer to them without using euphemisms. Worse, they are being prosecuted via Title 18 (Rico laws), whereby their assets are being confiscated just as if they were racketeering or were involved in organized crime.

This Canadian effort is accomplished playwright Brad Fraser's film adaptation of his stage play POOR SUPERMAN, in which a celebrated but frustrated artist rediscovers his muse, in the form of a supposedly straight man who's running a downtown diner with his wife. It takes no stretch of the imagination to guess what the basic plot is.

From the beginning, lawyers for Warner Bros. and Marvel Comics had threatened suit if the Superman imagery from the play were used in the film. The play was written at the height of public awareness of the AIDS epidemic in North America (ca. 1993), and was replete with metaphor carried by the very imagery lacking in the film adaptation. Just as the protagonist is seemingly the last of his race (gay men not yet victimized by AIDS), Superman was the last survivor of his Kryptonian race. Gay people were in the closet as Superman was masquerading as Clark Kent. So, the film was bound to have major problems once it was cleansed of much of this context.

Fraser seems to have compensated for his loss by increasing the gymbot quotient; indeed, the male flesh watchers in the audience were treated to a parade of pecs, abs, and asses. Fraser, who answered questions for the audience after the film, insisting he was working on the principle for "equal opportunity sex scenes," ended up showing much more explicit straight lovemaking scenes. Coming in at a short 89 minutes, this film had me walking away remembering most these scenes with the wife's extra perky breasts.

LEAVING METROPOLIS's dialog started out very stilted and the characterizations seemed too heavy handed when translated to film, but as the plot wore on, the uneven acting brought occasional glimpses of brilliance. Troy Ruptash as David the gay artist (in the past, seen on TV in episodes of ER, JAG, THE WEST WING, and BOSTON PUBLIC) put on an occasionally emotionally believing performance. But it is Canadian actor Vince Corazza, a young but veteran TV movie actor, who shone with a great job as the tormented married guy, Matt. Newcomer Thom Allison as David's transgendered, AIDS-inflicted best friend Shannon only endeared with the queeny quips, and fell short trying to bring out the gravity of her situation. David's boozy mentor, Kryla (Lynda Boyd), and Matt's wife, Violet (Cherilee Taylor), weren't given much more than base characterizations to work with.

In the end, we don't care much why David didn't seem to think too much about the implications of his helping to break up a marriage, because we don't see much of what Fraser is trying to say about David himself.

This moody British film, not to be confused with Samuel Becket's work of the same name, was chosen to "disturb" the festival audience, or so said the talking heads of the programming panel. Rent boy Tom (Daniel Newman) gets caught in the evil machinations of his pimp, gangster George Norris (Mark McGann) and a crooked cop Dunston (John Benfield), who enjoys using Tom from time to time, himself. A fateful twist causes Norris's accidental death during his attempted rape of Tom. Desperate to escape Norris's body and Dunston's pursuit, Tom seeks the solace and protection of a very unlikely pair, his downstairs American neighbors Max and Nicki.

Max is a hothead consumed with a passion for money, while Nicki is more down to earth, but a bit unfocused and uncommitted herself. Why in the world would Tom come to them? Desperation, indeed. Walking totally of their initial characters (or perhaps showing us how complex they are?), Max and Nicki, after little hesitation, agree to hide Tom out at their rustic cottage in Wales. A very confused Tom is attracted to Nicki's warmth, and they eventually "seduce" each other. We can understand Nicki's dissatisfaction with Max's self-absorbed hard shell of a personality, and her momentary attraction to Tom's complete vulnerability. And despite how implausible it may seem at first, their sex scene makes sense once we realize that Tom is seeking tenderness, not hot sex per se.

All in all, this film hits home with its theme of sex as a tool of power which even the power-obsessed themselves can't control. But it falls short trying to wrap things up with a fast and violent ending which leads Tom to a happy future, and leads Nicki to sacrifice much more than her husband, Max, does.