In Onegin, a three-act ballet new to us by the gay South African choreographer John Cranko, San Francisco Ballet have a hit on their hands, a romance that belongs in an opera house. Onegin tells a story without words but with thrilling, intricate, and very bold use of ballet technique. And there's music by Tchaikovsky.

By the end of the show last Friday, when Tatiana had renounced the love of her life and thrown him out of her house, it might as well have been Tosca – the thousand people sitting on the orchestra floor rose and cheered as if this gave a new meaning to the word ballet.

I did not feel that way myself, though I'd admired the dancers' conviction and their delivery of the thrillingly dangerous choreography, as well as the delightful score and how exquisitely the musicians played. I'd found it absorbing only in the great moments and puzzling at many moments. Why are these young ladies dancing with the field hands? Why do the porch columns have to cramp the dancing? Why do all those birch trees cut up the stage picture so you can't see the outlines of the dancers? Why are there unskilled mimes botching these important minor roles? (read more)

Here are a dozen films from the 28th Sundance Film Festival crop, leading with a queer pick to click; a romantic comedy, Liberal Arts, I screened as part of the Festival's outreach to indie cinema; and several films that have garnered distribution, or that have good pedigrees based on their creators' resumes.

Keep the Lights On Memphis-raised filmmaker Ira Sachs has continued to confound anyone who expects a certain kind of film from an openly gay filmmaker. Sachs, in a Sundance blurb, explains his approach to this quasi-autobiographical, erotically charged drama.

"It's about the highs and lows in the relationship between these two men [Thure Lindhardt and Zachary Booth]. You can be in a relationship that you should have left but you don't have the perspective to know why. I was in a relationship for 10 years in New York City, and on the day it was over I knew it was a story that was different from other things I've seen.

"It's very sexual, there's nudity, also there's an emotional nakedness. It was pretty obvious once we saw Thure and Zach that they had something that would surprise most people: something dangerous and unknown and unexpected. You need to have an extreme intimacy with the material, but also a certain distance – it's not a confessional because it has the perspective of an artist. I'm not nervous about showing it, I'm interested in the conversations it will generate." (read more)