GLAAD-Handed: The Kids Are Alright, Glee, Scott Pilgrim, Burlesque and More

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has nominated the dramedy about a lesbian couple whose kids track down their biological father for Outstanding Film, Wide Release, for the 22nd Annual GLAAD Media Awards, which honor movies, TV and pieces of music, journalism and theater that include faithful representations of the LGBT community. Not exactly thinking outside the box with that one...but a good choice, nonetheless.

Up against The Kids Are All Right in the Wide Release category (can you imagine how limited the "limited release" films must be?) are Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Sweden's The Girl Who Played With Fire, Easy A and Burlesque.

The Jim Carrey- and Ewan McGregor-starring prison romance I Love You Phillip Morris leads off the Outstanding Film, Limited Release, category, followed by the little-seen but much talked-about Howl, starring James Franco as poet Alan Ginsberg; Sweden's Patrik, Age 1.5, about a gay couple who think they're adopting a 1 1/2-year-old but actually get a 15-year-old; La Mission, in which macho Benjamin Bratt must come to terms with his brother's homosexuality; and Peru's Undertow, about a married fisherman who has an affair with another man.

Glee and Modern Family—both of which saw gay supporting characters take home Emmys and Globes this past year—unsurprisingly head up the Outstanding Comedy Series category, along with Greek, Nurse Jackie and United States of Tara.

Brothers & Sisters, Degrassi, Grey's Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood will duke it out for Outstanding Drama Series, while 30 Rock, Bored to Death, Law & Order, Law & Order: U.K. and Drop Dead Diva were nominated for Outstanding Individual Episodes.

Top Chef: Just Desserts and Project Runway are among the shows up for Outstanding Reality Program, and country singer Chely Wright, who inevitably made new fans and, sadly, enemies by coming out last May, is up for Outstanding Musical Artist.

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Movie review: Boston kids' breakup scenes in Guy and Madeline break out in song

Of the many movies set in or near Boston in 2010, the black-and-white one about kids who erupt spontaneously into song might be the most exciting. "Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench" isn't as well-acted as "The Fighter," as suspenseful as "The Town," as brilliantly structured as "The Social Network," or, for that matter, as confusing as "Shutter Island." It is, however, new and young. Those other movies were made by artists we know well.

"Guy and Madeline" is the work of an artist — Damien Chazelle — you want to know better. It's whimsical and winsome and a touch quaint. Not only does the movie look like it's set somewhere, it feels, cinematically, to have arrived from someplace — early John Cassavetes, the French New Wave, Eastern Europe. The characters drift around Boston environs such as Copley, the Back Bay and South End, with the camera at their backs or near their shoulders. They don't say much. But Chazelle gives his movie a mood that feels precise.

Essentially, this is a breakup movie. Guy is a trumpeter, played by the actual trumpet player Jason Palmer. He loves music. He loves women. It's simply unclear whether he'll ever love a woman. He's dating Madeline (Desiree Garcia), and our time with them lasts for a couple of scenes. Their split confirms that she needs to get her life together. But the lovesickness never leaves her face. In fact, singing about Guy near the old North Church only makes it worse.

Guy's spirit is freer. One afternoon, on the commuter train, he meets someone else. Her name is Elena (Sandha Khin), and they spend the better part of their ride staring at each other in the way that is customary for two attracted strangers. We just saw her giving her phone number to some performer in Faneuil Hall, and now, two scenes later, Guy is lying on the frameless mattress she calls a bed.

Calling this movie "Guy and Madeline" instead of "Guy and Elena" suggests that, at heart, Chazelle is old-fashioned. Madeline is a dreamy romantic. Elena is riskier, more carnal. Not that we see her carnality in action.

By "old-fashioned," I actually mean chaste. This film could have been made in 1957 without having to do much more than change the characters' races — Palmer is black, Khin is Asian, Madeline is Latina. But it doesn't feel like a throwback or even a tribute to another age. It's as though we've picked up a rock and discovered a colony of jazz nerds who attend cramped house parties where tap-danced musical numbers break out.

Guy, Madeline and Elena don't know what they're doing or where they're going. The windows of possibility that are a fact of youth appear only partially opened for them. These are young characters with heavy old souls.

Chazelle could go further into eroticism than he tries to here. The camera does glide down that trumpet as it rests in Guy's lap, pretty much wringing dry its phallic worth. He might turn into Denzel Washington in "Mo' Better Blues." For now, he's Sidney Poitier in "Paris Blues."

What's most exciting about "Guy and Madeline" is that Chazelle bothered to make it at all. Other artists his age (he's 25) and a little older make stage musicals and wind up with "Bat Boy," "Urinetown," "Avenue Q" and "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson." Chazelle made a movie musical instead. I hope he loves the art form enough to make more.

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