Seductress Pick: Abbie Cornish

Cornish in Somersault (2004)

Only once in a great while does an actress come around that completely challenges the landscape of performance in cinema in that time. And just as Barbara Stanwyck or Glenda Jackson or Catherine Deneuve did in their generations, Abbie Cornish is accomplishing currently as a consummate professional and master of her craft. For all of the Kristen Stewarts, Keira Knightleys, and Mila Kunises of our generation there is quietly creeping up behind them a marvelous force that refines the idea of being a female on screen with great finesse and utmost integrity. 

Cornish in great confluence with her co-star Heath Leger in Candy (2008)

Even though her salary is probably not close to half of what any of the aforementioned actresses tally, her legacy is what's really going to pay off in the end. I knew that Abbie Cornish was unique from maybe the first 5 minutes that I saw her on screen, and I mean really unique not just 'oh that's a new kind of sexy'. What Abbie maintains is a complete understanding of femininity which includes the struggle and irreverent power that comes with that. This is really what separates the actors from the 'stars' and what creates actual longevity in this business. Now, I'm not saying that stars can't be serious actors, nor am I using the term 'serious actors' in a pretentious, annoying, Yale drama school/Addison DeWitt kind of way. Cornish's performance reminds me of Gena Rowlands who is arguably the best actress in the English language, and also at the same time is completely reminiscent of someone like Liv Ullman. There's a quiet consciousness that is always self-aware and self-reflexive, and it's not just because she gets to play roles along those lines. Even when Cornish was in garbage like Stop-Loss (2008) she allowed for her vulnerability to carry the bullshit lines she was forced to say. Where the filmmakers had failed to give her character any compelling characteristics or even an arc, she was able to connect the dots and create a cohesive and endearing performance even though she was a supporting player. 

Cornish as the paragon Fanny Brawne, whom she played to nuanced perfection in Jane Campion's Bright Star (2009). Photographed in period costume she reminds one of Liv Ullman in Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (1972)

The way she carries herself boasts that she is all at once completely confident and yet spontaneous, sensitive to what any new situation or project could bring, which gives off the impression that she's fearless, and if you look at her CV, that's basically what she is. Everyone in this business has to do crap to pay the bills here and there, we can't all stick to Jane Campion films. Even Holly Hunter had to make A Life Less Ordinary (1998). Cornish is certainly not above that, no one is. But then she makes films like Bright Star (2009) or better yet she starts out with a bang in an unforgiving and devastating film like Somersault (2004). 

Still from Somersault (2004) with Sam Worthington.

Somersault is easily the best film of that year, and the character Cornish plays is beyond memorable. Ironically, it's a character we've seen over and over and over again; a troubled teenager who runs away from home and slowly self-destructs from excessive drugs, sex, and alcohol eventually leading to a bittersweet redemption of sorts. And yet it's totally new and vital when Cornish plays this character and that's a gift very few people that young have. She plays a 16 year old with the mentality of a 35 year old, while herself only being 20. She understands what sexuality actually stands for from a feminine gaze in the cinema and instead of exploiting it or making it ironic by turning it into melodrama (I'm talking to you, Keira) she quietly guides you through her own journey of self-discovery and by the end of it, you walk out convinced. I was, and I know she's a home wrecker and everything, but as long as she keeps pushing out performances like she has been, it doesn't matter a bit to me.

Below some trailers to help illustrate my point. 

Come On British Press! Show Us Ye Olde Royal Peen.

The now infamous photos leaked by TMZ last week afterwhich the palace quickly threw a muzzle on the British Press, hence the kitschy red star on the right.

Come on British press, we all struggle. Just leak one or two we won't do anything with them, except photoshop them into oblivion and send them all around the interwebs with asinine memes posted underneath. But in all seriousness, we're just curious. We don't have a royal cock over here, so we just want to get a peak. Unless you're a sad sad cave person with stolen mannequins behind the alley at Macy's that you dress up and seat around your living room to pose as friends, you've heard by now that NSFW photos have been leaked to TMZ of a drunken romp Prince Harry had in Vegas before returning to combat training. Oh dear god, I hope the world doesn't collapse on itself. 

First of all, what's the big deal? He's third in line people. Which basically means, he's not in line. More than likely, he's never going to be king. But he's young, rich, and hot. So why not get in a naked hottub psuedo-orgy before you go defend your country in a foxhole in the goddamn desert with nothing but a dehydrated meal and your AK-47 by your side? You're in Vegas. That's what Vegas is for. Do you think anyone has ever not been naked in Vegas? I don't even think it's legal to be inhabiting a hotel room in Vegas with clothes on. It's a state law. 

If anyone gives me the whole 'royal duties' speech one more time I might projectively vomit all over them.

Cadets around the world give Prince Harry a naked salute. Cheers lads.

Prince Harry is a prince, but he's no where near needing to fulfill any 'duties' except be young, have fun, and be irresponsible. He's L'enfante terrible, the rogue brother. If one of the bro's has it down in terms of duty, take a break and go party in Vegas with naked sluts.

Of course the palace put a royal kibosh on the photos so now we can only see them with an unseemly Photoshopped 'star' over what i'm sure is a really toned royal ass.  The other picture, I get it, he's covering HIMSELF up, but there's something else their keeping from us, I can just feel it, no pun intended. Now it's being revealed that VIDEO footage exists of naked Harry's hairy bird. (Yay! the most unoriginal alliteration ever!) 

And I'm pretty good at rummaging the internet for 'lost' or 'leaked' celebrity video...no I'm not...and I couldn't find one single lead on this. I'm lost in the woods. I mean when the palace says 'no', I guess it really does mean 'no'. But hey, we have the Associated Press here in the States that would gladly crawl all over this like flies on shit. What? Did you think we have integrity? We follow Lindsay Lohan around for chrissake. There is no 'bottom line' to our celebrity press. And hey, it's not like he's our Prince, to us, he's just a hot guy who's got a lot of money, and is the bad boy of his family, and who on this side of the pond doesn't find that irresistible?

The Shirtless Appeal of Adam Levine

So, kind of random, but yesterday my neighbor was blasting Maroon 5 for like a good 3 hours, so it inspired me to write about Adam Levine. Ok here we go, I guess. 

photo by Terry Richardson with whom Levine collaborates frequently for photo shoots...thank crap.

My roommate used to make me sit with her in the living room and watch The Voice (2011 - ), and at first I was like 'are you kidding me?' and then I came to the realization that though it was a bastardization of American Idol (2002 - ) it was far superior. Why? Two words: Adam. Levine. Womanizer extraordinaire and tribal tattoo aficionado, with a voice that sounds like he's coming literally all the time. Of course he had his vices, referring to contestants as 'bro', and putting a million deliberate holes in his jeans, and he humblebrags like every Twitter update he makes and he honestly doesn't realize it. Do I give a shit? Not really. 

I think it doesn't matter what your 'type' is, you find Adam Levine unquestionably attractive. It's like is the sun hot? Yes, to every single person on this earth the sun will be hot. He looks like a nice Jewish boy gone haywire on meth. Sometimes he's rockin' a faux-hawk and lime-green kicks. Others, he's buttoned up in a cravat and sweater vest. But no matter what, he has this distinct swagger and wink in his eye as if to say 'I get laid way more than you do'.

Another photo by Terry Richardson. Levine's a bad boy.

Another universal truth is that Adam Levine has more sex than you do. He has more sex than anyone. It's a mathematical certainty. He's giving Gene Simmons a run for his money. Not only is he a rock star covered in tattoos, but he's got this sweet, gentle, heartbroken side to him. It's very primal, sensual, and unmistakeably hot. Also, he sings like a beautiful naked sweaty angel.

You might think I'm partial to Levine-a-mania because 1. He's Jewish 2. He's from the Bay Area, and other similarities, but seriously girls, you have to have ice water running through your veins if your down-belows don't tingle just a little bit whenever he winks at the camera or does his moves-like-jagger sway. My infatuation started much earlier and I think I'm tired of suppressing it. Girls over 25 can find Adam Levine attractive mmmkay? Now get the hell off my back and let me enjoy it!

Now, I have actually been to a Maroon 5 concert. San Jose, 2005. It was their 'Songs About Jane' tour, and we had 4th row seats. There were beads of Levine-sweat hitting me in the eyeball. It was fantastic. He's really a great performer to all you haters out there. He's no Mick, but his stage persona is definitely fathomable. And if you listen to their early songs before they started making teeny-bopper fluff with Gym Class Heroes, it's actually pretty raunchy. What am I saying? Levine has always been quite the sex-maniac. I mean his second album with Maroon 5 was titled 'Hands All Over', and there havn't been that many photo shoots in which he appears with a shirt on.

Levine chillin' on The Voice. He's way too cool for school.

The whole first album 'Songs About Jane' is basically about how much sex Levine is having with his girlfriend and how painful it all turns out to be. Awww shucks. And I know the first couplets that are popping into your fragile mind are 'I tried so hard to feed her appetite, and keep her coming every night', to which ya gotta think, who is this Jane whom Adam can't keep at full tilt boogie? If Adam Levine isn't keeping you coming every night, you might want to check her for a pulse. That bitch is either frigid or totally ungrateful. But she did inspire a really solid record, but now we can all tune in to NBC and watch Levine talk total nonsense to contestants all the live-long day. Or we can just lock all the doors, close all the windows and rock out to 'Moves Like Jagger' in our undies. Don't bullshit, you know you've done it. 

Below some masturbation fodder, I mean, music videos. 

Life is So Fucking Awkward.!

This is usually the face Jenna (Ashley Rickards) makes when things get awkward, which is often...obviously.

So last night after being bored to tears watching Roger cry like a bitch for the millionth time on Snooki & JWoww the predictable train-wreck spinoff of Jersey Shore (2009 - ), I was too lazy to change the channel when Awkward. came on. I had always written it off because it looked just like one of those many many many retrospectives on a pretty but ugly girl in the most uncomfortable moments in her life, and the endless awkward mishaps that keep happening to her for some reason...but for the digital age. At first, it seemed like the teen version of Sex and the City (1998- 2004) and then I was like, hold up - the main character blogs literally like all the time, hold up - the vast majority of her sexual hookups are painfully awkward, hold up - she narrates her life with passive narcissism and ironic self-deprecation. So she's basically me but 12 years ago (good fucking god I'm old). So my advice for Jenna would be - hang in there sister, it gets worse. 

I remember when my high school boyfriend broke up with me. I had on that exact same face/dress/pigtails. This leads her to have sex with her boyfriend's much hotter friend Matty (Beau Mirchoff).

...this guy. Yep, this one.

I think I've figured it out. The 90's celebrated the ditz in all of us, the one who WAS popular, attractive, smart but not really, and not weird at all, except if it's conventionally weird (which sounds like an oxymoron, but I'm making a My So Called Life (1994) reference here.) From Clueless (1995) to Saved by the Bell (1989 - 1993) the 90's celebrated the rich, conventionally hot, accidentally brilliant persona, while the 00's have given life to the disadvantaged, socially retarded, and yet completely endearing girl that television keeps building shows around, starting way back with Freaks and Geeks (1999 - 2000). But for all shows that have taken this trend to narrative, this is beyond superior. Yes, I'm talking to you Glee (2008 - ), and to you Girls (2012 - ), your awkward main characters just aren't making the cut, they're boring, stuffy, inarticulate, and overall huge boner killers.

If you're in your teens (first of all, my condolences) second of all, you are probably having much more awful sex than what TV dictates you are. I mean in the pilot episode, main character Jenna (played brilliantly by Elizabeth Taylor doppelganger Ashley Rickards) has sex with a guy at her camp and his penis slips into the 'backdoor' accidentally. Let me repeat that: His penis slips into the backdoor...accidentally. Usually you wouldn't even find content like this on your worst run of the mill soap opera, but there it is on MTV. So if you're looking for your TV filth fix during Snooki & JWoww hours, hang in there and stick around for Awkward. It's the best show you're not watching. 

Below the Season 2 promo.

Say What? 'Legitimate'-Gate and Its Repercussions

Todd Akin; the picture of privileged white-man hypocrisy. And also he looks somewhat like a serial killer.

As Lynne Koplitz once put it 'I'm not well adjusted, I'm on Vicodin when I visit you', well I had to take a Vicodin because i hurt my ankle, but it's making me all euphoric and woozy so I feel this is the best time to write about the whole 'legitimate rape' debacle that has everyone up in arms, because this means I can't get too crazy and angry, and can just barrel through this with a mellow distance.

Unless you've been planning your suicide and don't have much time for CNN, newspapers, HuffPo, or people talking around you, you've heard of 'legitimate rape-gate'. Some foo named Todd Akin, who's apparently running for republican senate (good luck with that) said something along the lines of when a woman is 'legitimately raped' her body has a way of shutting her reproductive organs so that she doesn't get pregnant. Ergo abortions should be completely illegal even in cases of rape, because rape can't get you pregnant, unless you were wearing a short skirt and asking for it, you disgusting whore.

Now there's nothing I love more in this world (aside from Aussie shepherd puppies) than old white wrinkly dudes on capitol hill talking about a woman's body and anatomy like they've ever even touched a boobie in their entire lives. Every time Uncle Fester has something to say, he looks like his knowledge of the female body was taught to him by his sister in an outhouse (ok I went a little Larry Flynt just now) or, him and his wife procreate through a hole in the sheet without looking at each other, fully clothed. And Mr. Todd Akin looks like he hasn't fornicated with ANYTHING for millenniums. Not only that, he's entering dangerous 'Anne-Coulter territory' to where even the Republican party itself is turning its back to you and disassociating you from their politics. Once that happens, it basically means you've fallen pretty far buddy. 

First of all, I'm very much of the opinion that not only 'my body, my choice', but that it is highly unfair for 'lawmakers' who are mostly white men get to make these kinds of decisions for us, just because their daddy's paid for their Law School back in the 50's get ANY say in this whole debate coming up with scientific theory that even a hungover 8th grade science student would go 'oh yeah, that's not true'.

If anything though, I think what Akin said, as horrendous and utterly disgusting it was, might bring some good to this whole election after all. If people slowly start to realize that this is actually how people in the Republican party think (and i'm sorry, but it's true. You always get flub ups and hypocritical statements coming out of their circle, I mean Sarah Palin's brain was like a hotbed for thoughts like that) then, Obama has more than just a fighting chance. 

The whole thing is beyond infuriating, especially putting words like 'legitimate' and 'rape' even in the same breath, and does so much damage by offending basically the entire female population all over the world, it basically makes us remember that we're still #2 even though we're supposedly as progressive as we all think we are. Some people just need their mouths taped shut, and most of those people are Republicans, this just proves my point. 

See video below.

All the Ladies Love Corcoran: Copper Premieres on BBC America Finally.

There's a lot of sex on this show. It's as simple as that.

BBC America has always had to compete with The States in terms of risque programming. Let's face it, next to shows like Mad Men (2007 - ), Hung (2009 - 2011), Queer as Folk (2000 - 2005), and reality fluff like Strange Sex and Jersey Shore, The BBC might as well be filmed in a convent. But they hit a home run last night with a Hell on Wheels type show about the reformation period in the United States called Copper (2012 - ). Cast with mostly unknowns...and Franka Potente from The Bourne Films and Run Lola Run (1999) fame, this is quite a gritty period drama. Most of it takes place in a brothel, so that should give you some sense of what goes down, no pun intended. A tough-as-nails reformed cop with a heart of gold who is brought from Ireland to keep peace in the Five Points struggles to maintain his integrity while having lots and lots of period corset sex with his madame girlfriend. 

I had no idea prostitutes had showers in their brothels back in the 1860's.

Also, I just have to add, I love how prostitutes from the 1800's are always portrayed as cleaner than say a contemporary prostitute...ok that sounded wrong; modern-day prostitute. Contemporary prostitute sounds like part of a master's thesis, moving on! 

But seriously, I'm sure they didn't have quite as many teeth as Franka Potente, and she still somehow manages to look like she just came straight to set from a Beverly Hills spa, ready to whore it up with the tortured, filthy, but sexy as balls Irishman. Yeah where's that set, sign me up, I'll bring the coffee, I'll gofur, I don't care. 

Corcoran's weapon of choice.

It looks like BBC America has finally started to catch up sex-wise and riding that psychotic horse to its burning stable (bad analogy, I know) but I was thinking 'burning loins' and that's where that came from. Again, off track. 

In the pilot we learn, that Copper (a.k.a Kevin Corcoran) played by super-super-super hot actor Tom Weston-Jones (who? I know, I don't know either) has a past. He's in the big apple (not sure they called it that in 1860 but whateves) searching for the man who killed his wife and daughter, or something like that, I was REALLY distracted by all the sex. Therefore, he's got this soft spot, you know, when a little girl gets brutally murdered and her corpse defiled...yes that kind of thing is on the show too. I realized I might not be selling this all that well any more, but I will say this, it's aesthetically pleasing and has plenty of potential, and it's only been one episode. So if BBC America is on your cable box, then perhaps you can start getting your jollies from a channel other than AMC. Hope you like it!

Below, the promo.

The Many Shades of Bradley Cooper

Acting student Bradley Cooper

Asshole jock Bradley Cooper

Elephant man Bradley Cooper

Damn dirty hippie Bradley Cooper

Pigtails Bradley Cooper

Fifty Shades of Cooper

Bearded and profound Bradley Cooper

Nekkid Bradley Cooper

Surfer dude Bradley Cooper

Wolverine/Ryan Reynolds Bradley Cooper

Hey Girl Bradley Cooper

Classic Cooper

I'mma kill you Bradley Cooper

Tinted aviators Bradley Cooper

Buff Bradley Cooper

Crying Bradley Cooper awwww.

Spotlight on: Sally Potter

Theatrical Poster for Potter's autobiographical film The Tango Lesson (1997)

Sally Potter could be the single most important contemporary filmmaker, yes more important than Mary Harron, yes more important than Jane Campion. Though not particularly prolific, her films are intensely philosophical and sexually provocative. She has a new film out in both Toronto as well as this years New York Film Festival slate called Ginger and Rosa (2012), which will probably be in line with a sub-genre she coined titled 'Naked Cinema' back in 2009 with the release of Rage.

Potter is a thinker's filmmaker, her most famous work to date being the incomparable story of an androgynous time-traveling rogue who also has the ability to change genders and charm beautiful aristocrats with his/her poetic talents. It was called Orlando (1992) and it made Tilda Swinton's career. The creative nature of the sexual content made me see cinematic sensuality in a completely different meditative light. It made me think about film on the same par as visual art for the first time, and encouraged me to appreciate aesthetic as a key aspect of the final product. 

Tilda Swinton as the titular character in Orlando (1992) A deeply haunting and unforgettable performance.

What Sally Potter is able to illustrate within the frame is fundamentally feminine. To be clear, I do not mean she is feminist because her work for the most part is devoid of a political ideology. What her first priority seems to be is to articulate human emotion, yearning, and desire visually rather than verbally, which is one of the fundamentals of film language. 

Still from her new film Ginger and Rosa (2012)

Why I say that she is perhaps the most important female filmmaker is because of her mastering of the art of the female gaze. Her approach towards sexuality on film is inherently a feminine approach. She is an auteur in that she has a very unique style and sensibility, especially when it comes to anything intimate. Therefore she is a master of her craft, whether it be cinema, philosophy, aesthetic, or sexual pastiche. And I always get titillated when a new film of hers is released. If you're in New York, I highly recommend buying a ticket to Ginger and Rosa (2012), it's the most intriguing film in the whole slate.

Below, some video on her films: 

How To Survive A Plague: A Vital New Documentary About Our Millenium's Greatest Crisis

Why do people not make films about the AIDS pandemic? Because they can make them about puppies, and horsies, and 3D dance-offs. Just like the government has always done, the film industry generally turns its back on the greatest cultural and medical crisis of the 20th century and likes to basically pretend it's not happening. You didn't even hear the term AIDS in film until the 90's. Reagan didn't even say it on television during his whole 8 year term as president. 

Even when And The Band Played On was released in 1993 most of the principal cast in the film took their roles despite the advice of their agents which all discouraged it in fear that it would hurt their respective careers.

Key AIDS activist at the forefront of the ACT UP movement, Peter Staley is prominently featured in the documentary.

There have been a lot of docs that have come out about gay culture in the 70's from Before Stonewall (1984)  to Making the Boys (2011) about the seminal Mart Crowley play and subsequent film The Boys in the Band (1970) and also features like Gus Van Sant's Academy Award winning Milk (2008), but no film has ever quite dealt with the AIDS epidemic the way that How to Survive a Plague (2012) does.
I don't think people that grew up in my generation for the most part tend to understand just the level of crisis people were in back in the 70's, and this is why it's important for docs like this to exist. AIDS awareness has always been readily available to us, and we've all had info-sessions on it in schools, not knowing that only decades before people were dropping like flies and no one knew why and when they begged their government for help, the government turned their heads and did absolutely jack squat about it. If AIDS had hit Reagan's friends in Greenwich Connecticut, he would have been on that faster than a fly on shit, but because it concerned primarily the gay community which he at that point had publicly stated that he believed to be a mental disorder, he couldn't care less.

Openly gay journalist, writer, and freelance reporter Randy Shilts wrote the first ever catalog of the AIDS pandemic titled appropriately And the Band Played On: Politics People and the AIDS Epidemic published in 1987. This followed his first non-fiction novel The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1978). He died of the disease in 1994.

What we now consider as AIDS awareness - lectures, free testing, the AZT cocktail, and even those silly GAP t-shirts were all a result of everyday people that walked the streets and saw less and less of their friends, losing someone to this pandemic every single day, and decided that if the people whose job it was to protect them were doing nothing to do so, then they would take matters into their own hands. It was a long and arduous process but the result of which was light-years beyond anything the Center for Disease Control or the Federal Administration could have accomplished in double that time. 
It's beyond important that documentaries like this continue to come out and teach people now, for whom AIDS is not necessarily a death sentence anymore, that once upon a time when it seemed at its most hopeless there were a some unimaginably brave people who refused to accept the Keep Calm and Carry On attitude, and became proactive so that generations later what was once a plague can one day be completely a thing of the past.

Below is the trailer for the film. It is absolutely a must-see.

And below are trailers for some of the other films mentioned in this post:

The Olympics are over, and now I want to kill myself

Wanna throw around some balls?

 You wake up on any given day in the past few weeks and ask yourself, 'Is it too early for me to watch porn?' yes, but it's ok because the Olympics are on. I mean, that's basically porn isn't it? Minus the gymnastics because they are all teenagers and that's just wrong and gross. But hey, I'm not above muting the swim meets and getting just way too excited every time the USA medals, and so not for the reason that you think.

Lochte. #JEAH.

After the cringe-worthy everlasting bullshit clusterfuck mess that was the opening ceremony that we all had to deal with and be reminded of the fact that England makes really funny looking cars, the games officially began, and Jezebel was a buzz with one Ryan Lochte, the swimmer with a merman's fins, face of an angel, and brains like swiss cheese. We were introduced to his ridiculous collection of day-glow kicks, his American flag grillz, and his catchphrase ; 'Jeah', all of which we could do without because we all want Lochte just to do what all the others on his team do; shut up and swim.

I used to be friends with this one girl, no more. And you want to know why? Because we cannot stop being in a hypothetical completely unimaginable scenario argument as to who gets to lay Nathan Adrian when he gets back to the states, talking about it with a bleeding heart preoccupying adult fanaticism as if it's totally going to happen for real. Ergo, Nathan Adrian ruins friendships.

Nathan Adrian in speedo a.k.a. masturbation fodder for most of the American population.

If you're a guy of course you tuned into the beach volleyball match. I mean it's as close to soft-core we get at 8 o'clock in the morning. Muscly girls in tight spandex bikinis grunting like pornstars on steroids lunging for balls, all the while being very hot and sweaty to where their torsos glisten like Edward Cullen in sunlight. Tell me that's not a porn premise.

Hotter than shit US Goal keeper Hope Solo returns for the 2012 games and kicks serious ass all the way to the Gold Medal podium. By the by she made headlines months before by admitting that the Olympic village is one giant constant done to death fuckfest.

But after a painfully long and equally as useless closing ceremony celebrating British fashion (which is of course the first thing I think about when I think Olympics), and reminding us all what rubbish the British national anthem is, and letting me know that Prince Harry got fat, it was all finally mercifully over. US properly kicked ass, medaling head and shoulders above the rest, and Michael Phelps became the most celebrated and decorated Olympian since Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union over 3 decades ago, and reminding us all that the Vault has no affect on our patriotism. No longer will we be able to sit at home all day not doing anything productive and only salivating every time they show Matt Grevers' biceps, Lolo Jones' abs, or Misty Mae-Treanor's rock hard ass. All we have is new episodes of Breaking Bad, so we can still ogle over Jesse Pinkman but they don't dress him in a comically small thong do they? Also, Breaking Bad makes you think, which is my favorite reason to watch the Olympics; no thinking. I'm going to miss you, see you in 4 years (not two years, because I couldn't care less about anything in the Winter Olympics sans figure skating). Now if you'll excuse me, I have swimming gay fan fiction to write. Damn it, someone beat me to it! (See below) 

Fifty Shades of Gay; Olympic Fan Fiction

Below some links to get ya'll hot and bothered.

 

Do We Really Need More Films About Meryl Going Through Menopause?

Meryl making the 'mischievous face' which she's kind of made her trademark of late.

I don't know about you, but one film I'll be skipping this season is Hope Springs (2012). Not that geriatrics getting it on is like insanely hot, but it basically seems like the plot of It's Complicated (2009) with a little bit of Mamma Mia (2009) and Julie and Julia (2009) through the Diane Keaton film Something's Gotta Give (2003) filter, comes this sweaty turd about nothing at all. Two Oscar winners in the cast, some of our most serious thespians, and they are choosing material called Hope Springs, which by the way sounds like a rehab center.

And why is it that something like menopause is always turned into a romantic comedy where the main female character is just dying for the last great sex of her life before her ovaries shrivel up like a pair of prunes in Death Valley and her vaginal cavity slowly sews itself together? And the male counterpart is always just fine with growing old and not being able to sustain boners anymore, because there's reruns of JAG on everyday, and golfing for him to get seriously competitive about. In the trailer, the Steve Carell character, who is their 'marriage therapist' suggests they have sex more often and the two of them are stunned. 'Sex, what's that? We grew up in an age where we slept in two separate twin size beds that were exactly 6 feet away from each other, and I was wearing petticoats. My fragile constitution cannot handle the violent thought of being fucked by my old wrinkly husband after which he would promptly fall asleep right on top of me rendering me unable to move and snoring right into my ears which I can barely hear out of anyway because I'm so old', says the look on Meryl's face.

Thank you Hollywood to presume that old people have sex with their clothes on because none of us want to handle seeing old saggy boobies.

I love Meryl so much, but she's kind of starting to repeat herself, and because she's in her 60's, a watershed time for any actress, the roles are becoming more predictable. Sure, there will be a Devil Wears Prada (2004) or The Iron Lady (2012) in there somewhere, but let's face it, it looks like Meryl will be retiring soon. I for one am rather tired of the giggly, pseudo-horny, childlike characters she plays that are always rediscovering their sexual awakening at the ripe old age of 63. It really seems like a money project, but with 3 Academy Awards under your belt, an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, and an acting career that has sprawled along 5 decades, do you even need the money at that point? And I love how they've dusted off Tommy Lee Jones lately. Like he's never played an uppity 'never gonna change my ways' anal-retentive grumpy old man. This is definitely a skip piece. I can already tell the humor is sub-par, the plot is predictable, and the actors working way beneath their respective capabilities. Fail. 

Trailer for the film. Yawn.

My Favorite Woody Allen Films

Let's cut to the chase. Woody Allen is filthy. Woody Allen is prolific. Woody Allen is funny. Woody Allen averages a film a year. I'm watching the documentary about his illustrious and incomparable career and I'm going to make not a comprehensive list of my favorite films of his, but my top 10. In order. Here it is.PS this might be my shortest blog post ever.

1. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

2. Love & Death (1975)

3. Match Point (2005)

4. Annie Hall (1977)

5. Sleeper (1973)

6. Bananas (1971)

7. Deconstructing Harry (1997)

8. Manhattan (1979)

9. Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

10. Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)

Below some favorite parts from the aforementioned films.