Odd couples.

Two by two they march into movies this fall: gay, lesbian, transgendered, and just pretending

Yes, Adam Sandler's hit summer comedy Big Daddy boasted a loving gay couple, but who expected that to open the floodgates to a plethora of same-sex pairs? The screen is about to offer a bumper crop of real and pretend gay and lesbian couples--along with several more-ambiguous partnerships--happily proving that queer roles aren't just for loners anymore.

* Splendor. When pretty, young Kathleen Robinson is forced to choose between sensitive Johnathon Schaech and studly sexpert Matt Keesler, she dodges the question and chooses, um, both. While each guy is straight on his own, as a threesome they come to realize they love not only the girl but also each other. And since this cheeky film comes from sexually ambidextrous director Gregg Araki (The Living End, Nowhere), you can rest assured that the two male dreamboats will share one hot kiss--on a dare from Robinson, of course. SEPTEMBER 24

* American Beauty. In a film written by an out gay man and starring Kevin Spacey (as a suburban husband who begins to lust after his daughter's teenage friend), perhaps it's not surprising that there's a gay couple in the hood. The two are "just a regular presence on a suburban block," says screenwriter Alan Ball, who adds that they're "the only normal characters in the film." OCTOBER 1

* Happy, Texas. The gay deceivers in this Wong Foo reversal are harmless hetero prison escapees Jeremy Northam and Steve Zahn, who steal a lace- and gingham-filled Winnebago and are soon mistaken for a gay couple who coordinate little girls' beauty pageants. Relishing their small-town celebrity (and the company of straight love interest Ally Walker), the duo keep the ruse going. Ironically, the twosome's "openness" has a liberating effect on one not-quite-happy Texan (William H. Macy). OCTOBER 1

* Man of the Century. Rent's Anthony Rapp and Chasing Amy's Dwight Ewell play a gay couple on the rocks in this chipper farce about Johnny Twennies, who lives in modern New York City but talks, dresses, and acts like a character from a Jazz Age melodrama, oblivious to 70 years of social (and technological) change. Rapp says his cynical artist-wannabe character "assumes Johnny is gay because he's so chipper and stylish and corny." OCTOBER 15

* The Sex Monster. Mariel Hemingway and Mike Binder, the marrieds at the center of this indie farce, start out normal as can be--that is to say, seething with naughty secret fantasies. For hubby, it's all about getting into bed with Mariel and another woman. But in giving him his wish, the seemingly docile Mariel learns what she's been missing, and before you can say "Djuna Barnes," she's shagging every woman in sight. Loose, lithe, and limber, Hemingway gets into the comedy groove and has a great time spoofing her overearnest screen persona. OCTOBER 15 (VIDEO ONLY)

* Being John Malkovich. When John Cusack discovers a door that grants secret entrance into the mind and body of actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes at a time (don't ask), wife Cameron Diaz seizes this decidedly unique opportunity to get close to hubby's slinky coworker, Catherine Keener. Coproducer (with Michael Stipe) Sandy Stern says the Diaz-Keener pairing "transcends sexuality. It's almost irrelevant that they're the same sex [because the film] takes gender roles and turns them upside down and inside out." OCTOBER 29

* Flawless. After suffering a debilitating stroke, conservative curmudgeon Robert De Niro begins a rehabilitation that includes singing lessons from the pre-op transsexual next door, Philip Seymour Hoffman (Happiness, Boogie Nights), creating an As Good as It Gets-like unlikely alliance. Flawless marks the first venture into explicitly queer territory by Batman & Robin director Joel Schumacher. NOVEMBER 24

* Cradle Will Rock. The character list for this earnest, fact-based film is a virtual who's who of the art and theater world of 1930s New York City, including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, John Houseman, and Orson Welles. Lurking on the periphery is a gay ventriloquist duo, Moe and Larry (Jack Black and Kyle Gaff), under the tutelage of Bill Murray, a vaudeville impresario trying to rid his troupe of communists. DECEMBER 1

* The Talented Mr. Ripley. Writer-director Anthony Minghella's follow-up to his Academy Award-winning The English Patient is this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's acclaimed homoerotic suspense novel, When poor, amoral Tom Riplev (Matt Damon)is sent to Italy to persuade runaway rich boy Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law)to return to his family, he instead becomes enraptured by Dickie and his life, eventually taking his obsession to its dangerous acme, An early draft of Minghella's screenplay has the repressed Ripley flirting with two young men besides Dickie--quite a change from the 1960 French version, the hot but heterosexualized Alain Delon film Purple Noon, DECEMBER 24

RELATED ARTICLE: Foreign affairs

THIS FALL'S STANDOUT GAY-THEMED MOVIES HAIL FROM ABROAD, BUT ALL SPEAK THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF LOVE

* All About My Mother. Spain's premiere moviemaker Pedro Almodovar won the Best Director prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival for his latest effort. A potpourri of lesbians, transsexuals, and fierce women, the movie features Antonia San Juan as a transsexual who says she's tired of all the silicone she has inside. NOVEMBER 19

* Lola and Billy the Kid. Turkish director Kutlug Ataman set this culture-clashing drag queen melodrama in Berlin's Turkish community, where determined Lob (Gandi Mukli) struggles with a traditional, homophobic family, the younger gay brother he's forbidden to see, a trio of German gay bashers, and a macho boyfriend--Billy the Kid (Erdal Yildiz)--who wants Lola to undergo a sex-change surgery so that they might live as a "normal" couple.

According to Ataman, Turkey's masculinity-obsessed climate is responsible for "a Matthew Shepard every week," As such, the film has been quite a cause celebre back home, where the director was inundated with death threats that compelled him to flee the country. NOVEMBER 12

* Love Reinvented. This collection of 12 gay and lesbian short films includes ten French works (one called "Night Hustler," by Anne Fountaine, director of the praised gay-themed comedy Dry Cleaning) bookended by American and Australian shorts with similar themes. OCTOBER 1

* Not Love, Just Frenzy. Also hailing from the country of gazpacho and Goya comes a rather dysfunctional tale of love-starved Spaniards. OCTOBER 15

* Show Me Love. Unanimously praised since snagging the Teddy Award at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, this Swedish teen-angstfest tells the tale of two adolescents--depressed Agnes (Rebecca Liljeberg) and sexually confused firebomb Bin (Alexandra Dahlstrom)--who foster a burgeoning lesbian love in the doldrums town of Amal. Show Me Love reportedly usurped Titanic in its home country as most popular film, particularly among teenagers, The movie was a hit with the queer crowd as well. Love's straight director Lukas Moodysson says Swedish gay magazine OX nominated him for "best hetero" of the year "But I didn't get it," he reports. "The archbishop did;" OCTOBER 22

Kinser is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.