Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again....

Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine
in Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940)

Queer/Art/Film, curated by filmmakers Ira Sachs and Adam Baran, launches its 2014 Winter season with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock's Oscar-winning Rebecca at IFC Center on Monday, January 13.

So what could make this particular return to Manderley even more fun? How about having the great Lea DeLaria on hand to present it?

New bride Joan Fontaine is thrilled after marrying rich and charming Laurence Olivier, but everything comes tumbling down when she moves in with him and his creepy housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, played with gothic lesbian perfection by Dame Judith Anderson. Will the memory of the first Mrs. DeWinter ruin their bliss? And just how did she die, exactly?

Hitchcock’s Hollywood debut netted him his only Best Picture Oscar and the fascination of queer film fans like actress, comedian and singer Lea DeLaria (currently tearing it up as a lesbian inmate on Netflix smash Orange Is the New Black). She says “To really appreciate Blue is the Warmest Color, Bound, Go Fish, and others, we need to acknowledge the lesbian undertones of Rebecca.” Manderley awaits!

Fontaine with Dame Judith Anderson,
the notorious Mrs. Danvers, in Rebecca

The screening will be followed by drinks and discussion at Julius Bar (159 West 10th Street at Waverly), New York City's oldest gay bar.

For tickets for the screening, click here.

IFC Center
323 6th Avenue (at West 3rd Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

"HOT" fun in the summertime

Keeping this short and sweet: Get your butts over to Dixon Place's HOT! Festival tonight for the closeout of The Loudest Show on Earth (10pm). I don't know if any tickets remain--likely not--but you have my permission to mug someone for theirs.

Loud and hilarious, potty-mouthed Lea DeLaria--who now bills herself as "the fisting consultant for Orange is the New Black"--and motor-mouthed Maggie Cassella rarely slacken the pace in this tight, roughly hour-long gallop through the personal and the political. Again, let me keep it simple: What have you and your best friends been talking and thinking about lately? Okay. You'll find all of that right here but wilder and wackier than you could ever have imagined.

But beyond the stand-ups and character sketches, there's also delicious music. So good to hear DeLaria swing and swoop her way through "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" again and to subvert her own presentational subversion with a sweet rendition of "I Enjoy Being A Girl" while looking like the second coming of Fiorello La Guardia. And later Cassella steps up to the challenge of translating DeLaria's fierce scat singing into English--yeah, right--cracking DeLaria up in the process.

Also repeating tonight on the HOT! bill: Sacha Yanow's solo performance, The Prince at 7pm.

Yanow depicts the prince as a prisoner of her own bedroom--"a fantastical palace...deep in the well of loneliness"--charmingly rendered in her own drawings, which create the set and props. Innocence and sophistication, raw vulnerability and the strength of creative imagination interact in this intimate piece about learning to take a chance on the world and yourself. Yanow has a great face for performance: Under a set of over-determined eyebrows--dashes of black face paint--and madly sculpted hair, she can fix us with a gaze of sad, pleading eyes or a flash of delight. She's a good physical comic with attention to detail and timing.

For program and ticket information about these and other HOT! shows, click here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey), Manhattan
(directions)