Boxer Shorts

The pieces in Boxer Shorts, a collection of gay-themed short films, are a little clumsy and amateurish--but every filmmaker has to start somewhere. Furthermore, that's part of their charm; they have a rough sincerity that slicker movies often lack. "Tom Clay Jesus" depicts an ironic hazard of anonymous pickups; "Audit" is about a gay tax auditor who uses his position to torment an ex-lover who's now married and claims to be straight; the hero/heroine of "The Prom Queen" is a would-be glam rock star who discovers that a fling with a football star doesn't change his status in the high school hierarchy. But the gem of the lot is "Boychick," a simple tale of a young Jewish boy who adulates a Britney Spears-esque pop star and hungers for the head of the debate team; this piece's whimsical fantasy is sweet, unpretentious, and funny. --Bret Fetzer