Sons and Daughters of Anarchy

If this show is anything, it's fraught with testosterone, and sometimes the chicks are doling it out more than the dudes. It follows a fictional motorcycle club based of course on some composite of the Hell's Angels. They're called the Sons of Anarchy, men of mayhem, and the plot centers around the 'Redwood Original' wing of the charter in a Hamletesque narrative focusing on the heir apparent Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), the matriarch of the club, Teller's mother Gemma (Katey Sagal) and the pretender to the throne Gemma's husband Clay Murrow (Ron Perlman) who is just a little more tough than the rest of his crew.  

He's never shed a tear, hugged a puppy, or said a baby was cute, and his wife knows how to keep up with him. You won't see her at a tea dance handing out cupcakes, and trying on dresses. To be the mamma to her biker boys, she's had to grow a pair of rather large and hairy balls herself. She throws a punch as devastating as Indiana Jones back in his heyday and never shies away from a little confrontation if it means she gets to choke a bitch. She's so tough she could stare down the most hardened member of SAMCRO (the abbreviated term for the Sons) and make him beg for his life on his knees. 

Then we have Dr. Tara Knowles, the doctor girlfriend of Jax played by the incredibly talented and versatile Maggie Siff who slowly takes more and more lessons form Gemma on how to properly inflict pain and intimidate inferiors and get what she wants. Those healing surgeons hands of hers quickly pick up on the art of firing a semi-automatic and the occasional hair-pulling debacle, and she quickly earns the respect of the men not only for that but because she constantly ends up patching them up after they carelessly get shot and can't go to the hospital. 

Then there's the main antagonist through the 2nd and 3rd season, ATF agent June Stahl (Ally Walker) who will stop at nothing to bring down SAMCRO and make the world safe for democracy again...or something like that. At first glance, she looks like she could be Gemma's younger sister, but she goes above and beyond in the masculinity game than any of the other chicks on the show. Where Gemma loves to wear low-cut tops, lipstick, and styles her hair to add to her female aesthetic rather than demeanor, Agent Stahl is a 300 pound WWE wrestler in a 120 pound gangly woman. She's aggressive, crude, intimidating, and inherently macho. She's that bully in high school that everyone feared. 

At times it seems that the 'manly' aspects of Sons of Anarchy are actually represented by the women. Sure there are some femme chicks in the series, but they are used more for set dressing and plot devices more than anything else. If we look at the big three female roles, we see a definitive new-woman emerge. It is that of the woman that wants to stand toe to toe with the men and level the playing field, therefore she has to somehow adapt a lot of male characteristics including behavior, language, and mannerisms, but she gets to keep her aesthetic appeal. They also keep the very essence of their femininity. 

Keep in mind, this is not just a show about the men, though on the surface it seems that way. They definitely approach a lot of serious issues such as rape, abortion, prostitution, and others. But that's not to say that there isn't a level of sexism on the show but it's just as sardonic as it is on a show like Mad Men. I mean, who honestly thinks that a bunch of leather-clad gun-wielding  motorcycle thugs would treat women respectfully and gently all the time? The show introduced us to the term 'sweet butt' which is apparently what a girl is called when she decides to hang around the boys in the club, bringing them shots of Jack Daniels and swabbing their wounds with rubbing alcohol. When she gets officially inducted into the tribe is when she starts getting referred to as 'so and so's old lady', it's an old school practice, and if i've learned anything about motorcycle clubs by watching this show is that they are highly dependent on traditions. Also, that I would rather not watch Ron Perlman have simulated sex with anyone, but you take the good with the bad. 

The show's creator Kurt Sutter (who is married to Katey Sagal) clearly started the premise with the character of Gemma and then worked around her to create the rest of the troop. Her contribution to the Sons has far more impact than anyone else that's 'officially' in the club. In the end, even though the cast is mostly men, and the title connotes a male influence of the premise, the show is clearly more about the women who's struggle to be peacemakers amongst warlords is the most interesting aspect of the narrative. 

The typical woman on the show gets the best of both worlds; The admiration and attraction from the male characters, as well as mutual respect and equality from the same group. The Sons may be a boys-only kind of institution, but these girls have proved that they are just as important if not absolutely vital to the show's visual and representational style. 

Below are some videos for you to enjoy. 

Katey Sagal and husband Kurt Sutter make an appearance on The Soup 

Katey Sagal wins Golden Globe last year for her portrayal of Gemma Teller

A youtube video collage that actually happens to be not bad. 

Spotlight on: Girl 27

Every once in a while I like to get serious around here, and talk about something that is really important to me, don't stop reading, I promise to make it interesting. A while ago I saw a documentary that I have since shown to basically all of my film buff and non-film buff friends and every one has thought it to be very moving. It was a tiny film distributed by Red Envelope, directed by a first-timer who stumbled upon the story whilst researching his biography on Jean Harlow. It's called Girl 27 (2007) and it's about a young Hollywood extra named Patricia Douglas who was brutally assaulted and raped by an MGM salesman and whose case against said salesman and the studio that pays his salary was turned into a cruel media circus. She eventually lost, was disgraced, and spent the rest of her life in seclusion until David Stenn, the director, tracked her down for this film.

Here's some background. MGM like other big studios at the time (Columbia, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. etc.) ruled the movie business with an iron fist and controlled everything in the industry from a person's name to their shoe size, to put it in simplistic terms. Back then, if you were contracted to a studio like MGM it meant that you were owned body and soul and treated as a commodity.  and no one had less say about that than the women in those days, particularly female extras ,who's daily routine consisted of dancing around half-naked in elaborately choreographed musical numbers amongst all-male crews. Many extras vouch that they were subjected to many sexist and demeaning processes when they initially auditioned for contracts, the studio executive would often make passes at them, come up and grab them from behind, and ask them to pull up their skirts and show their legs.

Patricia Douglas was one such woman, well it's unfair to call her that. She was a girl. She was 17 when a 'movie call' came in that asked for her to report to what was known back then as the Hal Roach Ranch (Hal Roach was one of the top producers at MGM at the time) the year was 1937. She was asked to report in costume to what turned out to be a drunken free-for-all party hosted by Louis B. Mayer as a thank you for his sales task force. So basically you have a bunch of underage girls serving booze and being paid to make nice with a sea of older belligerent men. In this sea, was a man named David Ross who savagely and without mercy attacked Patricia Douglas, beat her up, and raped her in the back of a Ford Model-T while the rest of the party went on.

Patricia Douglas faces her attacker

Here's the thing, that's not even the worst part. The worst part is what happened next. Brave enough to take her case to court, MGM put all of their money and muscle into silencing her. This is before rape shield laws, so nothing was out of bounds. They played her up to be a tramp and a drunkard, ruining her reputation, getting David Ross acquitted, and pretty much ensuring that the rest of her life would be miserable and painful. 

It's an unforgettable and truly captivating story, the irony of which being that it wasn't a story anyone ever knew. Stenn talks about how he accidentally stumbled on it when trying to find newspaper archives regarding the sudden and shockingly early death of Jean Harlow at 26 years old, when he realized that something was 'pushing her off the front pages' and it was Patricia Douglas who took on the Goliathian MGM system at 17 armed with nothing but the truth. 

During this documentary we find out what a painstaking process it was to find anything on her at all considering the studio had done everything possible to suppress the case and the identity of Patricia Douglas, successfully I might add, and she herself absolutely refused to talk about it completely until Stenn's begging finally paid off and she made a few on-camera interviews. 

It's an incredibly heartbreaking and profound piece of work, not necessarily for the film making itself, but for the story it tells. It is shocking considering the corruption of the criminal justice system and the moral ineptitude of an entire infrastructure and is a black spot on the entire history of the movie business that had for a long time gone unnoticed. That is why I chose to write about it, and that is why I recommend everyone please see it. This is my contribution to its word-of-mouth trajectory. It had premiered at Sundance in 2007. I believe it is still streaming on Netflix, if not, you can find it online. Here is the trailer. 

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Bromance

Law and Downey Jr. make the best on-screen couple since Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise almost had steamy vampire sex with each other. 

I went to see Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows last night and have quite a bit to say about it today. Let's forget that I'm not a huge Guy Ritchie fan...ok I dislike him with gusto, so I wasn't expecting too much. Yet I'm not a Conan Doyle purist either, if someone wants to take the material and run with it, it's their prerogative. Nearly all of that is irrelevant, let's talk about sex. I was pleasantly surprised to surmise that this was the most homoerotic themed film since Interview with the Vampire (1994). What's interesting is how unintentionally homoerotic it is, or maybe I'm not giving Ritchie enough credit here, the bromance between Law and Downey Jr. was well played in the first installment, and perhaps they utilized it in this one. But I really did enjoy the way they parlayed those themes into a Conan Doyle action-thriller.

Forgoing conventional casting for the role of Sim the gypsy fortuneteller, Ritchie chose the rough-around-the-edges and exponentially masculine actress Noomi Rapace from Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fame. So even though her character first seemed to drive a wedge into the unrequited bro-mance between Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) she quickly falls into her place as a plot catalyst negating any romantic ideas that might have been inadvertently implicated by her presence as the sole female character in the film with the exception of Watson's bride (Kelly Reilly) who disappears half way through the first act. 

Even if you've yet to see the film you know that Downey Jr. has a scene where he is dressed in drag, as it is featured prominently in the trailer, which he has stated he himself thought up because the initial idea was for him to go in disguise as a priest or something 'lame' like that. Downey describes the idea saying that he wanted Watson to be distracted by another woman that wasn't his wife. 

After a lengthy gun battle, where no one is a good shot at all and manages to hit a lot of wood that explodes like cream cheese for some reason, Holmes finds himself lying on the floor of a train car awaiting another lengthy rain of bullets, shirtless, with Tiffany's Blue eye-shadow sliding down his face. 

'Lie down with me Watson' he beckons, it's of course very humorous and meant to be a double entendre, but the erotic undertones are there. I wished the two would start making out right then and there, but when do I ever get what I wish for? Can you even imagine how hot that would be? People's Sexiest Man Alive and an American sex icon? I think everyone would buy a ticket.

Clearly, Holmes is the more masculine of the two, with Law playing Watson as some sort of turn-of-the-century gallant-doctor-genius who is very meticulous about how his outfit is put together. It absolutely the right creative choice, because it makes the relationship between him and Holmes a tender and romantic one, rather than just one of respect, camaraderie and a kind of symbiotic intellectual farce. It makes it much more interesting, particularly in times when the two are in peril. They are far more quick to comfort each other rather than let Sim (Rapace) cry on either of their shoulders. In the end it's what drives the film. 

The story itself, and the eventuality of solving a complex, mathematical, and irretrievably impractical and flawed mystery that is the supposed plot is not as inciting as the relationship between the two main characters who breaking from cinematic tradition are both male. The two leads have more chemistry with each other than with any woman that happens to catch a couple of lines with either of them in the film. 

In a film as macho as Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (I & II) there's going to be an overabundance of fighting, punching, bullets, and man-humor, but he manages to tell a compelling story of devotion and unwavering love between Holmes and Watson which was really the focal point of the series, executed with tongue-in-cheek poignancy by Downey and Law. Cheers mates. 

The Making of Every Hollywood Sex Scene

Ok I found this pretty hilariously gratuitous. Adam Scott is amazing, and this sketch includes those timeless words 'God damnit Bilson, I fucking hate your ass'.

Enjoy!

Rachel Bilson's Deleted Sex Scene from Rachel Bilson      

Daniel Tosh Puts the Nasty Back Into Funny

Daniel Tosh is one of those comedians that is completely unexpected and very much rogue. He's certainly not family friendly and a lot of the time you find yourself oh-laughing more than just clean laughing, but that's perfectly fine because his knack for sarcasm, self-deprecation, and sardonic cynicism is pitch perfect.

He's also got another thing going for him that most contemporary comics don't: he's relatively young and good looking. He's incredibly brash and rather crass but we take that considering how funny his borderline offensive jokes are. As he likes to say 'all's fair'. After his Comedy Central special titled Completely Serious (2007) that was bleeped more than one of GOB's monologues from Arrested Development, there was a new voice of crude humor in town.
Comedy Central quickly jumped on this and gave him his own show, Tosh.0 (2009- )which currently ranks as the top cable show for adults. Formatted like The E! Network's The Soup, Tosh stands in front of a green screen showing ridiculous internet clips and either cracking jokes about them or parodying them. You might not think that this has too much merit, and you're right, but since when did we care about merit in our television programming? Well, I guess since Mad Men premiered, but we all need a bit of trash TV and sex jokes every once in a while, and Daniel Tosh fills that void effortlessly.
Whether comparing Posh Spice to his testicles, hypothesizing of what porn would be like in an I-MAX 3-D theater, or commiserating sarcastically about his 'huge cock', Tosh proves that vulgar humor is not without value. We need filthy humor people get over it. Of course you can have your Gaffigan and the three other 'clean' comics out there right now, but that doesn't mean that filth is funny across the board. Tosh brings a refreshing delivery and clever snark into his act so that even though you're somewhat disgusted, you're still laughing, and you hate yourself for doing it...which eventually he'll point out.

Excerpt from Tosh.0

Tosh.0
Get More: Tosh.0 Videos,Daniel Tosh,Web Redemption

Also be sure to check out Completely Serious (2007) Happy Thoughts (2010) 

Top 20: Sexiest Stars of Hollywood's Golden Age

Ok bloggers make these lists all the time, as do reputable archivists like AFI and yet they still seem to get it wrong! I remember when they named Humphrey Bogart the #1 film star of all time, ok he's huge and definitely should be in the top 5, but he's not #1 I'm sorry. Of course, every one is entitled to their opinion and I thought I'd thrown mine out there. In Hollywood history there have been movie stars that are good looking, and then there have been icons. The difference between the two is the ability to locate that part of the self that is appealing within. Obviously. Anyway, these are the top 20 film stars of Hollywood's golden age (1930's - early 1960's, and to some extent the 1920's) that I never stop obsessing over. They have the 'it' factor, to put it in really simplified terms. You can watch one of their films over and over at any stage in your life and still feel your heart skip a beat. 

Now to just end on yet another cliche, this list will illustrate that they really don't make them like they used to. I've decided to include photos that are very simplistic, black & white, and for the most part professional head shots to show just how unfathomable and unimaginably perfect stars used to look back then. No one in Hollywood presently can touch them. They built a persona, an aesthetic totality measured by the way they walk, the suit they wear, the way they're hair falls off their shoulders, and how they place their hands in front of themselves. They were always immaculate. Of course that's all part of the make belief, but during a brief period in our culture, that's what we wanted; the glamour, the unattainability, and the super-humanity. This list is of course very subjective to my taste, but I thought I'd stick it in with all the others and just remember for a short bit. Enjoy!

20. John Barrymore

19. Dolores Del Rio

18. Kirk Douglas

17. Steve McQueen

16. Louise Brooks

15. Cary Grant

14. Natalie Wood

13. Joan Crawford

12. Leslie Howard

11. Joseph Cotton

10. Rita Hayworth

9. Harry Belafonte

8. Ingrid Bergman

7. Gary Cooper

6. Vivien Leigh

5. Paul Newman

4. Barbara Stanwyck

3. Montgomery Clift

2. Marilyn Monroe

1. Sidney Poitier

HERE IS A FEW CLIPS FOR YOU TO ENJOY...OR SPANK IT TO IF THAT'S YOUR THING. LIVE YOUR DREAM.

Stefon: The Filthiest Correspondent on Weekend Update

Hader cracking up (as per usual) during his Stefon monologue. This results from co-creator John Mulaney's penchant for changing the script seconds before airtime. 

In all the years of Weekend Update, from Chevy to Norm, from Tina and Amy to now Seth, there hasn't been quite an inspired character as Stefon gracing the stage next to the correspondent every Saturday night in front of a live audience to make them cackle in hysterics and fill them with glee, and find his way to SNL greatness and immortality. Just like Bill Hader (the actor behind Stefon) probably practiced his best Bill Murray or John Belushi, some kid that's going to join the Saturday Night Live cast as a repertory player in 2032 is going to site practicing Bill Hader characters in front of his mirror as a child. 

The incomparable Stefon was born from the minds of SNL staff writer 27-year-old boy-wonder John Mulaney from Best Week Ever fame, and Hader himself when they combined two characters they had each separately encountered on their every day trek around New York. For those of you who have never watched a full season of the show and are missing out big time because of it, Stefon is this 'city correspondent' whom Seth Meyers asks on the show frequently to give 'salt of the earth' type of people good tips on what to do in the city; regular things like the Magnolia Bakery, Guggenheim Museum, and ice skating in Rockefeller Center. The comedy stems from the fact that Stefon never seems to understand this and goes into monologues about things to that sound like as Seth Meyers puts it; 'nightmares of a crystal meth addict' among other things. 

There are few characters that take off the way that Stefon has and gain such a loyal and profound a following. After this weeks episode last night featuring Katy Perry as host (yes, as host not musical guest) Twitter erupted with Stefon hash tags, the general sentiment being that even in a lack luster episode, one appearance from Stefon can save the overall merit of the show, and it's true. As a writer, Stefon is a character who I've always dreamed of being able to create and kick myself for not being half as brilliant as it takes to come up with someone like him. But overall, I'm so grateful he exists and makes my life wonderful every once in a while. 

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This is how Stefon is described on Wikipedia: 

Stefon is a flamboyantly gay character who appears to be always nervous, as indicated by how he can never keep his hands still and constantly rubs them together. He always touches his face and hair, and it seems like he has frequent anxiety attacks. A possible explanation for this is Stefon's excessive consumption of recreational drugs.^[2] He is very knowledgeable and has the inside scoop on nightclubs featuring very bizarre themes and characters. This is where he constantly recommends tourists to go visit, much to Seth Meyers' frustration.

According to the May 7th episode of Saturday Night Live, his mother is named Ms. Stefon, and his father is David Bowie.

Stefon wears Ed Hardy shirts and multiple rings. He has an asymmetrical haircut that is highlighted, and has a very loud style of dress...
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Hader himself tends to break character and crack up pretty much in every sketch that Stefon appears, which makes the audience loose their minds. But it's completely understandable considering the incendiary comedy contents of his speech. Stefon usually starts his monologues with 'New York's hottest club is __________' and follows it with many increasingly bizarre and implausible attributes commonly containing very clever puns on famous names. The hilarity of it growing exponentially with every descriptive phrase. 

But to truly understand Stefon, you have to hear it from his own mouth. So i've painstakingly compiled an anthology of all of his monologues since his first appearance on Update in November of 2008. At first, the show didn't have the character back on for almost a year, but after his second appearance everyone knew he was here to stay. I think it's time I let Stefon speak for himself: Here are excerpts from some of his best spots on Weekend Update

You're welcome. 

“New york’s hottest club is Gush. Club owner Gay Dunaway has built a fantasy world that answers the question, “Nooow?” This place has everything: geeks, sherpas, a Jamaican nurse wearing a shower cap, room after room of broken mirrors, and look over there in the corner – is that Mick Jagger? No. It’s a fat kid on a slip ‘n slide. His knees look like biscuits and he’s ready to party.”

“New York’s hottest club is TRASH. After you step through the stainless steel door to this meat-packing hot spot, you’ll be greeted by none other than Pierre, the Muslim Elvis impersonator. This club has everything- clones, freaks, sneezing, a Russian man on a prepaid cell phone, and anyone can get in- there’s no password. At the door just do the Cosby face.” 

“New York’s hottest new club is Slash. This place has everything; glass, steam, bear-traps, and just when you think the fun is over, knock knock, who’s there? it’s black George Washington. All of that in a party room filled with human bath mats. Drag superstar promoter Coochie Crumbles is back. And this time, she has gone curazee! With a party that answers the question, “Whaaat?!”It has everything: ghetto blasters, condom balloons, reverse fist fights, 200-pound middle-aged women in glittered leotards, a kiddie pool full of Chinese contortionists, gummi bear kisses…"

"Wait, what are gummi bear kisses?"

"You know when one person starts chewing on a gummi bear and the stranger next to them finishes it…"

"New York's hottest club is Taste. Nightlife designer Tranny Griffith is back with the all new club that answers the question, “HUHHH? Don’t look for a bouncer, there isn’t one. Instead, the door is guarded by ten jacked homeless guys in old fashioned bathing suits. And inside is just sick, ice sculpture, winos, Gurmfs...German Smurfs, a teddy ruxpin wearing mascara, an old lady with Kid 'n Play hair, and none other than DJ Baby Bok Choy… He’s a giant 300 lbs Chinese baby who wears tinted aviator glasses and he spins records with his little ravioli hands."

"New York’s hottest club is Kress. Club promoter Tranny Oakly, has gone all out. Inside is just everything. Lights, pyschos, ferbies, screaming babies in mozart wigs, sunburn drifters with soap sud beards. You know it’s that thing, when a hobo becomes a rich man so they take the big bubble bath."

"New York’s hottest club is Wesh. Nine year old, Tokyo pimp Hitchy Yakogoru is back with an all new hot spot that answers the question: What?! This place has everything. Trants, stilts, throw-up music, an albino that looks like Susan Powder, teddy graham people...you know it’s that thing of like when a guy has the stumpy arms but with the belly."

"New York’s hottest club is Twice. Don’t be thrown off when you’re greeted at the door by a rabbi that looks Joaquin Phoenix. You’re in the right place. Club owner, Robert Blake has thought of everything. Gosps, carnival barkers, groups of guys with afros in graduation caps, human fire hydrants. You know it’s that thing when high-waisted midgets, with like, the red pants."

Here is Stefon's appearance from last night (12/10/11) 

 

And here is my favorite Stefon appearance on Weekend Update. 

Stefon's New York Hot Spots! by Laylorkb

Freudian Fail and Other Options.

even the spanking scenes in Method were lackluster.

For something as promising in filth, sin, and spanking, A Dangerous Method was a dull and mundane fake orgasm you share with the person you are about to break up with later in the day. From a director who is known for cultivating a cult status based on blood, sex, and surrealism, you would think he would have been the ideal choice to tackle psychoanalysis. Alas, it couldn't have been more sugar coated if it was a Busby Berkeley musical. I wanted it to be raw and dirty, deranged, shameful, degrading, and punishing. It was none of those things, though they managed to talk about all of those things ad nauseam and made it feel as if reading verbatim from Freud for Dummies. 

We open on a picturesque view from a hill in the farm lands of Switzerland where Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) a well-educated and well-mannered gentlemen with good looks and charm runs a hospital for the criminally insane. He is seeking to cure these poor unfortunates with the new and controversial 'talking cure' that's been going around those parts. His first subject is a overly realized perception of mental instantly that filmmakers dressed in period clothes and tousled the hair of, I am speaking of course of none other than masturbation fodder for a whole generation and Wonderbra aficionado Keira Knightly who just can't stop screaming, damn it. The bitch has issues, let's put it that way, and strangely enough, they all stem from her being spanked by her pop pop when she was a little girl.Fancy that. Could she be more of a perfect candidate for psychotherapy? I venture nay. She's thus the perfect subject for Jung and his new 'experimental method' this 'psychoanalysis' that couldn't possibly work, well he'll prove all of them wrong, and he'll use her as his prototype. That means a lot of time alone together recalling all kinds of nasty shit. A few spank scenes worthy of a soft-core short later and they are completely in love, the student and the master. Fancy that!

Keira really outdid herself, and I'm not sure if I mean that in a positive way, call me crazy but I STILL have a problem with her playing serious roles. She chewed the scenery so hard it was almost comic. She did that under-bite and finger claws film cliche thing that just infuriates me, and overall really tried to make herself unappealing, when all she had to do was that nude scene where she and Fassbender are in bed together after coitus for all of us to see that she has the upper body of a per-pubescent boy. Regardless, she might have been the most redeeming quality of this film and this statement includes the Cronenberg and his underwhelming lackluster portrayal of three central figures in sexual psychology and psychoanalysis.

Basically it was all talk no action, which is an elementary no-no in cinema. Why the filmmakers felt the need to take nearly two hours to explain Freudian theory backwards and forwards to us like we're all idiots is beyond me, and it doesn't make for a dramatic narrative at all. It didn't even present it in a way that was remotely interesting or sparking the curiosity of the greenest Freud layman (no pun intended). Bottom line is anyone with half a high school education will know the basics of Freudian psychology.

Basically the filmmakers got frustrated with compressing almost half a century of scientific psychological research into a film so they decided to focus on making it aesthetically pleasing by throwing money at the costume and production design departments with one grand rule: make sure Keira's nipples are showing in every scene. 

This film was an enormous let down. If I can compare it to a sexual scenario which would be appropriate in this context, it would be like finally bedding that one person who you've lusted over since you were aware of your sex organ functions and never felt you were good enough to get, and though they were the hottest thing you'd ever had a wet dream about, they were the worst lay you've ever had, including your right hand on a wine-soaked evening. Definitely skip, you will not be missing anything.

Please do yourself a favor and watch Freud (1962) directed by John Huston and starring the incomparable Montgomery Clift as the titular character (no pun intended). Below is a clip. Get on it. Seriously. 

Also, you should watch the psychoanalysis-inspired film by Hitchcock called Spellbound (1945) if you haven't already, starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman with a cameo by Mikhail Chekhov and a dream sequence directed by Salvador Dalí. It doesn't get much better than that folks. Both films in full versions on the youtubes. 

Spotlight On: Allison Harvard: A Cause Célèbre

Tyra Banks and the producers of the TV juggernaut America's Next Top Model (2003- present) have answered our prayers and done an all-stars season that is now nearing it's highly anticipated finale with the three finalists being Lisa D'Amato, season 5's hot mess and former alcoholic now breaching her 30's (that's retirement in model years), Angelea Preston known as '716' for her street style and ghetto demeanor, and nearly unanimous favorite from season's passed, Allison Harvard who lost the title in cycle 12, and gained almost instantaneous fan support. 

Let me first try to describe Allison Harvard to those of you who don't watch the show. She's 23, from a small town in the middle of nowhere, and fundamentally weird. During her first appearance on ANTM she told Tyra that she had a fascination with blood and bloody noses in particular. She has the biggest doe-eyes anyone has ever seen, and though incredibly introverted and awkward can model like nobody's business consistently impressing panel with her unique pictures. 

She seems to have no idea what she's doing but once the shutter starts clicking she produces, it's almost shocking. And she's taken some of the best photos in ANTM history. She's definitely this cycle's fan favorite and the internet is bound to explode with pandaemonium if she doesn't get retribution and come out victorious this time. I suppose we all want her to win because she personifies that type of beauty that is unconventional and uses her strange look not as a crutch but as an asset, and it works brilliantly for her. In a nutshell, her appeal is that she doesn't look like most supermodels, and it's refreshing. It's different, and that's what the industry craves. 

Here's the gist, she looks like a porcelain doll with a dark goth sexual undertone that is intriguing, frightening, and totally unique. She almost reminds me of like a Victorian Era ghost woman that haunts your attic and cries a lot, but in a fabulous and sexy way, if that makes any sense (probably doesn't). But I can't really do her justice, here are some of her photos from both this cycle and her initial cycle.

I can't remember which photo shoot this was from, but I love it. It's the classic 'Allison' face. 

Simple, beautiful, and captivating. 

Her demeanor doesn't give any indication that she can take pictures like this. There's a confidence and sexuality there that is surprising every time.

this was her second photo shoot in cycle 12 when she really started to blow people away and never stopped. 

This was from the current competition where the girls had to pose provocatively with a chili dog. gross? maybe. sexy? as hell. 

In a dress that she was born into. It couldn't suit her better. 

This is the quintessential 'Allison Harvard look' that she is starting to make her brand, the offbeat, childlike, and unsettling model.

This is probably the photo in which she looks the most 'normal' but is still an amazing one, showing her versatility. 

In this photo she's doing what Tyra coined as the 'booty tooch'. I've done it since in every picture I take, it gets annoying. But for her it works so, awesome.

This is my favorite photograph, shot by Tyra herself, where Allison poses as some kind of owl baby scared to leave the nest. I dressed up like this for one Halloween. 

A still from music videos all of the girls had to shoot in this cycle, showcasing her insane and amazing eyes. 

Another conventional shot where she rocked it. She proved that she literally can do no wrong and work with any aesthetic. 

Though it may look like blood, this is actually powder paint that was blown with a straw-like instrument unto her face. It's her most iconic photograph. 

Martha Marcy May Marlene and A Brief History of the American Sex Cult

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) takes place in a small picturesque town in Connecticut where a troubled teen named Martha escapes to after fleeing an abusive sex cult in the catskills of upstate New York. The protagonist is played vividly by Elizabeth Olson, the cult leader, by could-not-look-like-a-maniacle-sex-cult-leader-if-he-tried, John Hawkes. Both brilliant performances and worthy of Oscar gold if the Academy weren't such snobs. Our in into the workings of the cult is very limited but we do get a cohesive idea as to what is going on and why it would motivate Martha to escape. 

Hawkes plays Patrick, an enigmatic and extremely strange figure head of a small hippie-like commune where the women (or should I say girls) outnumber the men about 10 to 1 and are forced to have sex with them (primarily Patrick) as a way of paying homage to...something. 

It's the classic scenario that entails the brainwashing of young impressionable girls and the subsequent forced sexual interaction that is inflicted on them usually when they are underage. Why do I refer to it as a classic scenario? Because we've seen this dynamic dominate our headlines time and time again beginning  as early as the 50's, and perhaps earlier. 

The most infamous example of a sex cult in our history is of course the Manson family in Spahn Ranch, just outside of the Santa Susana Mountains in Southern California. A wannabe musician, ex-con, and psychotic named Charles Manson drove up and down the 101 Interstate searching for teenage girls who had been abandoned by their family and community who were just searching for answers, pumped them full of LSD, and told them that no one understood or loved them like he did. On the ranch, they engaged in group sex, bizarre pseudo-religious rituals, general hippie-inspired hedonistic behavior until one night Manson convinced them to go on a drive down the scenic hilly scape of Cielo Dr. in LA and we all know what happened next.
Another significant example of this modern day phenomenon would be the Branch Davidians in Waco, TX. I lived in Texas (unfortunately) for about 9 years, and the televised 50 day siege was like our moon landing. For those of you not in the know, there was this nut job awkward pseudo-nerd named Vernon who later changed his name to David Koresh who took over leadership of the Branch Davidians, a bizarre religious cult in Waco, Texas. Most of his recruits were women and a lot of them were underage, just like in the film, and just like in the film he called them his wives and had sex with all of them on a regular basis, leading to a little less than 80 children, some of whom were mercifully allowed to escape before the siege violently and tragically ended when the FBI set fire to their compound killing roughly 100 or so cult members.

David Koresh

Koresh used psychological games to twist the minds of the young women he recruited by telling them that he was the only one who cared and loved them, and eventually convinced them that he was the messiah. He obliterated their sense of self and severed their ties with the outside world including their families, upon which leaving became virtually impossible. At the height of his ascent in the Branch Davidians, Koresh proclaimed to have over 20 wives, about half of which were under 18.

The tragic climax of the Waco Siege moments after the
FBI set it ablaze killing everyone inside. 

These are details that Martha Marcy May Marlene explores with devastating precision and grittiness. The psychological impact that being inducted into a cult has one a young person (usually woman) is astronomically debilitating, and one doesn't usually fully recover even after they leave. The sexual control that Hawkes' character portrays makes his performance visceral and sadly familiar. It is reminiscent of a phenomenon that in America has destroyed thousands of lives, and continues to be a very serious problem as we saw with the FLDS sect at the Yearning for Zion compound.

It's a film that doesn't shy away from difficult sexual themes and that is why I immediately respected it. It's very raw and in your face, and sometimes that's what we need.