2004 at the Movies: Same Story, Different Year Lesbians who sleep with men! Bisexual women who sleep with everyone! Yes, it's another banner year for queer women on the big screen.

Review of Producing Adults This new Finnish film is not your typical coming-out story, but a more realistic look at romance in all of its heartbreaking complexity.

Review of Heavenly Creatures The 1994 award-winning film that launched the careers of Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey features excellent acting and direction, but its portrayal of lesbianism is less than fabulous.

Review of Mango Kiss A review of the new lesbian romantic comedy Mango Kiss, which comes out on DVD tomorrow.

A Lesbian Thanksgiving Thanksgiving isn’t the time for complex and multilayered movies, but sappy romantic comedies, cheesy feel-good dramas, and classic teen movies. Bring it on!

Review of Radical Harmonies This entertaining documentary chronicles the groundbreaking work of women in music, from Ronnie Gilbert and Gwen Avery to Ani DiFranco and The Butchies.

My Summer of Love A haunting and lyrical film about first love between teenage girls from two different worlds.

Queer Asian Women Gain Momentum in Western Entertainment Lesbian and bisexual Asian characters have historically been non-existent in Western entertainment, but they've finally started to make an appearance in the last few years.

Documentary to Explore Queer Women in Entertainment It's been almost ten years since The Celluloid Closet, and queer women have made great strides in shaping entertainment since then. Filmmaker Moore Rhys sets out to document it in Tinseltown Tomboys.

Lesbians in Women-in-Prison Movies Lesbian characters have always been prominent in women-in-prison movies, but they were traditionally not depicted in the most flattering light. Fortunately, these characters have begun to evolve along with the changing social climate.

Review of The Hunger The classic 1983 movie featuring Catherine Denueve and Susan Sarandon as vampires--and lovers--is finally out on DVD.

Review of When Will I Be Loved This new take on the classic Black Widow story features Neve Campbell in one of her best performances to date as a bisexual woman who turns the tables on the men trying to con her.

Review of Frida Warning: watching this film about the legendary bisexual Mexican artist and socialist may lead to an intense desire for tango lessons and large bottles of tequila.

Review of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit This BBC adaptation of the classic Jeanette Winterson novel is rich and layered, but it's also a classic and simple story of a young girl's struggle to accept her sexuality in the face of religious fanaticism.

Review of Aimee and Jaguar Movies set during the Holocaust are always going to end badly, and they are more difficult to watch than disaster movies since the atrocities are committed by friends and neighbors. But as Aimee and Jaguar (1999) shows us, even against such a tragic backdrop, love can flourish.

Lesbian-Themed Bollywood Films Provoke Violence, Dialogue The recent opening in India of the Hindi film Girlfriend was marred by violent protests, as critics, conservative Hindus, and lesbian Hindus alike decried the film. But the movie is still playing, and another lesbian-themed Hindi film is in the works. Is Bollywood finally ready to deal with lesbianism?

Review of Journey to Kafiristan Based on real events, Journey to Kafiristan is a touching story of two women and their relationship, a beautifully crafted travelogue in which the scenery is as much a part of the narrative as the actual dialogue.

Review of April's Shower April's Shower is a cute, funny and sometimes irreverent film about a bridal shower given by single lesbian for her supposedly heterosexual best friend--and the revelation at the shower that the two once had more than a platonic relationship.

More Actresses Willing to Play Gay These Days The increasing success of movies and TV shows with lesbian characters has diminished the stigma of playing a lesbian character to such a degree that directors who even a few years ago couldn't convince well-known actresses to look at lesbian roles are now turning them away in droves.

Review of Drag Kings on Tour Sonia Slutsky’s documentary follows a group of six photogenic drag kings on their 15-city, three-week-long “Kingdom Come” tour, complete with motorhome mishaps (at one point their RV falls into a ditch) and Real World-type drama.

Review of The Experiment: Gay and Straight A documentary produced locally in Chicago back in 2002 that captures the debate among five straight people and five gay people locked in a house for seven days and forced to talk about issues around heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Review of Clara's Summer Clara’s Summer is situated from the beginning as a story about a momentous summer in the life of one girl, but it fizzles out a bit by the end, as if the filmmakers did not have the energy to delve into the complex emotions resulting from Clara’s first lesbian experience.

Review of Goldfish Memory Goldfish Memory focuses on the pitfalls and pratfalls of finding love in modern society. Judging from the previews, the film looked cute, romantic and funny; what it turned out to be was a refreshing outlook on relationships coupled with poor plotting and a lack of heart.

Review of Lily Festival The Japanese film Lily Festival explores the sexual antics of a group of older women--including an evolving lesbian relationship--in a way that is both dignified, humorous, and sexy.

Review of Fire Many early reviews of Fire noted that its message of female empowerment was dated for Western audiences, but this criticism misses the point: Fire is not about Western women. Sita and Radha’s love story and their attempt to change the way tradition limits their lives is inspiring because of the context in which they live.

Review of When Night is Falling Patricia Rozema's When Night is Falling is a coming out story told through lush cinematography and a passionate and compelling--if racially problematic--love story.

Review of The Opposite Sex: Rene's Story This new documentary airing on Showtime is stunning in its frank and often unflattering portrayal of female-to-male transgender Rene and the surgery that he undergoes in his journey to become “a whole person.”

Review of Shelter Island Despite some really lovely cinematography featuring the landscape of Long Island, Showtime's new lesbian movie Shelter Island is undeniably bad. Promoted as an “erotic thriller” with sex(y) scenes between Ally Sheedy and Patsy Kensit, the film's eroticism is weak at best, and its thrills minimal.

Review of Boys Don't Cry and The Brandon Teena Story Transgenderism is a complicated issue that is deeply embedded in our society’s notions of what it means to be a man or a woman, and it cannot be easily unraveled or understood. What The Brandon Teena Story and Boys Don’t Cry did for transgenderism was to reveal its existence in all its complex humanity.

Review of Risk/Reward Of the 1,336 members of the New York Stock Exchange, only 44 are women. Elizabeth Holder and Xan Parker take us into the lives of four of them in the fascinating documentary Risk/Reward, airing on the Oxygen Channel this month.

Review of High Art Writer/Director Lisa Cholodenko has written a screenplay that doesn't just show her characters and their lives, it meticulously scrutinizes them, pointing out every flaw, every weakness, every strength, every misstep.

Review of thirteen The story of the briliant, disturbing movie thirteen is deceptively simple, a chronicle of a really bad seventh grade experience as Tracy meets bad-influence Evie and quickly begins to spiral out of control.

Review of Monster There are few surprises in Monster, a dark, harrowing film about an ill-fated lesbian relationship that doesn't just ruin the lives of the two women involved, but the lives of many others, too.