The Owls

It's always exciting to see fresh work from an iconic filmmaker who hasn't come out with something new in a while. I got a chance to see Cheryl Dunye's new experimental thriller The Owls last week and it was a distinct treat. The fast-paced and highly entertaining feature manages to cram a whole lot of edgy, smart and fun stuff into less than 70 minutes. "OWL" stands for "Older Wiser Lesbian" and the four main characters of the film are just that, some of them aging more gracefully than others. I won't give away any of the plot, but there are some really interesting things that this film does in terms of mixing genres that make it great. It walks a line between fiction and documentary in a way that is both reminiscent of Dunye's earlier work and an improvement on that, evolution indicative of progress and the wisdom that the title refers to.