Christine Didn't Make It

This is Christine Chubbuck coming to you live from WZRB in Sarasota, back to you George.

I don't usually take a somber tone, I mean 99% of what I say and write is sarcasm. But I watched a movie recently that really affected me, and I've seen quite a few of those. Contemporarily speaking, this was perhaps the most overlooked film of this past year. It's called Christine starring Rebecca Hall as the titular character of Christine Chubbuck who is famous for shooting herself on air at the network where she worked. Rebecca Hall could very well be the most underrated actress of our time. People kind of lost interest in her after she was upstaged by Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Christina, Barcelona. 

It's one of those films that makes you immediately go on Wikipedia because you think to yourself that no way is this based on a true story, but it is. The tragedy of Christine is very much steered by the patriarchy that is constantly in her way. The film is meditative and a strong character piece and if you don't know what happens in the climax it can seem to drag, and yet Hall carries it so brilliantly. 

Christine is a co-anchor at some local station in Sarasota, Florida…jealous? And she's interested in positive human interest stories, alas her boss doesn't give a shit because it doesn't sell. One could say that it's the female Nightcrawler but the opposite of that. She doesn't want to sensationalize the news, in fact she calls it exploitative.

'Jesus Christ, just make your stories juicy!'

What's truly tragic is that she is optimistic to the very end. In the opening scene (this film takes place in the 70's btw) she imagines she's interviewing Richard Nixon, knowing she'll never even get close. We learn throughout the film that she lives with her mother, and about to hit 30, is still a virgin. She hates pot smoking, which her mother regularly engages in, and has a general disdain for the shall we say 'free love' of the times. She is so determined to not be famous per se, but to succeed in the job that she so much loves to do; a job dominated by male culture. She even volunteers at a children's hospital and is desperate for human connection. The lead anchor she frequently works with is the handsome George played my Michael C. Hall, whom she is desperately in love with, but because of her awkward workaholic demeanor, she doesn't really have a chance until he invites her out to dinner only to tell her that despite her hard work and cooperation with the whole 'if it bleeds it leads' attitude the station has taken on, that George has been promoted to anchor in Baltimore in a top 20 market over her. What makes it worse is that he was able to choose someone to take with him and surprise surprise it's not her. Things are made worse when she find out that she a cyst on her ovary and the entire thing has to come out. 

The fake flowers that symbolize a lot more than you think. 

Over time, Christine realizes that everything is working against her. We don't really get a sense that she's suicidal but we get clues that she has some mental issues that are only exasperated by her circumstances. 

Aside from Hall, it's the direction of the movie that is truly special. The camera follows her into an abyss surrounded by 70's glamour. There is a brilliant scene where she's clearly distracted in an interview on air by the fake flowers on her desk. She abruptly stops the interview and throws the flowers at the camera operator saying that it's all she can think about right now. 

I suppose there's a tenacious stubbornness to her that a lot of us, especially women can relate to. She works in a highly sexist environment where her abstaining from drinking and partying is looked upon as weird and she herself is looked upon as aloof. The amount of time she spends working shows how passionate she is, but left and right she is shut down even when she is cooperative. Her boss has nothing but disdain for her, and they are at odds almost constantly.

The way the film is directed, we can see that not only is Christine at the end of her rope towards the climax, but she sees no other way out. We don't see the gun, not really. We see it in her bag, but we don't see her staring at it contemplating what she's about to do, which is the lazy way out. 

Her final and only revenge is to put on a very false and somewhat creepy facade by going to her boss' office and asking to be lead on the following Monday about the weekend news. She promises that it will be sensational, and in the most prophetic and unforgettable way, through the strangest smile she tells him; 'I'm agreeing with you'.

The real Christine Chubbuck

I've already told you what ends up happening to Christine, and sometimes when you're not quite ready for that moment even though you know that it's coming, you need to see it again. But I couldn't watch this again. It was directed so viscerally that I literally jumped …off of the exercise equipment I was on, but give me a break. 

Back to Hall, I really thought she'd be at least nominated, but the film was small, the film was dark, and if anyone should have won, it should have been Natalie Portman for her haunting portrayal of Jackie Kennedy, but Hall needs to be acknowledged not only for the aesthetics of Christine; the walking style, the hair, the mannerisms, etc. But it was one in a few times where an actor inhabits a character so intimately that it really bothers you. You want so much to know what's going on inside Christine's head and her descent into making the decision that she finally does, and yet you don't want to know; that's great acting. Hall did Christine Chubbuck justice in a subdued, understated performance of a woman who is pushed into a corner by her male colleagues and no matter how hard she fights and how much she compromises, she feels that she's left with no choice and no other way out. And there's a strangeness in that part of you that actually does understand that.

Trailer below, streaming on Netflix, highly recommended.

On Christmas Night I'm Watching Schindler's List

The famous girl in red who serves as a catalyst in the change within Schindler's attitude, symbolizing every Jew he wasn't able to save. 

Let's put everything aside for the moment; Spielberg's first Academy Award, the event that it was that everyone saw, how important it is not only to the Jewish people, but for the world at large, etc. I want to talk about the filmmaking, because if I talked about absolutely everything, I'd never finish this post. 

Most of all, let's talk directing. Spielberg said his decision to shoot in black and white was because he didn't want to 'prettify' any images of the Holocaust. Apparently the studio insisted for a while that he shoot in color, and he assured them that if that was the case, he wouldn't have made the film. The lights and shadows harken to something out of Orson Welles. His long time DP (Director of Photography for the layman) Janusz Kaminski is truly a paragon of his craft. He made the events of the Holocaust and the events in Schindler's life so seamless as he moves from shmoozing with Nazi's in the first scene, the the chaos of Jews pretending that they have 'essential' factory skills so that they would get a blauschein (a blue card) meaning that they could go to work for Schindler (Liam Neeson) instead of being loaded up into trucks headed for death camps. His fluid camera captures the most aggressive and most intimate moments ranging from the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto to a conversation between Schindler and his wife. 

Itzhak Stern played brilliantly by Ben Kingsley as Schindler's accountant and de facto right hand man. Their exchanges range from the mildly intellectual comic banter to some of the most harrowing moments of the film. 

As a historical epic (and that's what it is, not just a bio-pic), Spielberg utilized suspense so brilliantly it astounds me even today, considering that I've seen the film way too many times (like there even such a thing). A very iconic example of this is when Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) stands atop his balcony with a rifle killing people off one by one. He's aiming for a young Jewish boy who told him that he couldn't clean his bathtub as much as he tried. Amon tells him (as Schindler instructed when he said that power comes from pardon) that he pardoned him, changed him mind and after a few missed shots, as the kid walks away, aware of his fate, eventually gets shot in the back. 

'I pardon you'.

Another suspenful and heartbreaking scene is when a machinist gets examined by Göth, because Göth (like most Nazi's) takes his bloodlust to the extreme, and decides to kill him on the basis that he didn't make enough hinges. He knocks him to the ground and pulls the trigger, but the pistol jams. Through tears, the man tries to explain why his work was 'unsatisfactory' as Amon keeps trying to fire over and over again. Finally, he gives up and pistol whips him. The man survives, and is the one that writes the letter to the Soviets in case Schindler was captured that every Schindler worker signs on his behalf.

One of the most iconic scenes in the film of which I just spoke. It is so compelling, so terrifying, and so brilliantly executed, that it is the hallmark of perfect directing.

Now let's talk about the writing and acting. There is so much more going on than the story itself, and even with characters that have just a couple of lines, it pulls you into this film, this story, this world as if it's almost matter-of-fact. There is small humor here and there, especially with the Nazi's. A good example of this is when his accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) gets mistakenly put on a train to a camp, and Schindler goes to rescue him, despite his efforts, low-ranking Nazi's won't let him off. Schindler takes down their names and says; 'Thank you gentlemen, I think I can guarantee you that you'll both be in Southern Russia before the end of the month, good day'. Then the film cuts to Schindler walking along the train pass and yelling for Stern, while the low-ranking Nazi's follow him doing the same. Now that's good writing. 

But Spielberg doesn't shy away from the stuff none of us want to see, because we don't want to think that the greatest mass genocide in modern human history happened only 60 some years ago. He does this very subtly. A man sorting valuables, obviously those that Jews who are now in camps had to give up gets handed a burlap bag, inside which are a few handfuls of gold teeth. The man takes off his glasses in disbelief, as do we if we had glasses. But back to this later. 

Making the list.

A very important character is Poldek Pfefferberg (Jonathan Sagall) who actually wrote the book that the film is based on. He survived from the start of the Holocaust to the liquidation of Krakow to standing next to Schindler as he says a tearful goodbye to his workers at the very end. He is a rogue character. The first time we see him, he's mad at another seller on the black market for giving him shoe polish in glass containers instead of metal and threatens his co-conspirator. Schindler overhears his tenacity and offers him a job buying things on the black market that will be needed to shmooze with more Nazi's and eventually trade for the lives of his Jews. His mass fortune which was made by profiteering off of free labor from Jews at his company, he eventually gave up to save everyone he possibly could. 'They say that no one dies here, they say your factory is a haven, they say that you are good' a woman tells him who is desperate to bring her elderly parents into Schindler's factory. She dresses up in fancy borrowed clothes and puts on rouge and lipstick to appeal to Schindler. At first, he's furious at the fact that he's considered a Moses among the Jews, but his conscience catches up with him and he trades his cigarette lighter, his cigarette case, ties, pins, suits; everything, for his own humanity, and for theirs. 

Moreover, this is not a film about Schindler, and it is not a film about the Holocaust either. This is a film about history. A history that has been preserved in survival accounts, photographs, testimonies, etc. But someone had to put the pieces together and give us a narrative that not only educated us, but touched and enlightened us. The chaos, the deplorability, the horror, and the sorrow birthed a film that in itself is history, which taught us a very important thing through its fly-on-the-wall aesthetic; That (as the ring that the surviving Jews give to Schindler says) 'He who saves one life, saves the world entire'. 

'It's Hebrew from the Talmud, it says he who saves one life saves the world entire'.

Even watching it now, after so many times I can't even count, there are moments of terror, moments of contemplation, anger, but mostly moments of awe in the worst way. This is our history, not just the Jews, but all of us. A time where survival was more important than any sort of life, where hiding in excrement  meant the difference between life and death, where there was real evil in the world, and eventually the righteous  triumphed over it. This happened, and no one has ever or since brought it to film more comprehensively, with more brevity, and with such a sincere heart. 

Below some related clips: 

20 Foreign Films That Are Sexier Than Anything American

Perhaps I was inspired by my current Netflix queue, but I just finished a lazy rainy Sunday full of sexy and raunchy European films, because I totally have a life and I'm super cool. maybe it's because Europeans understand sex better, or maybe because they give absolutely no shits, and over there, it's dirty to show someone's head blowing off rather than someone's pubic hair, they just seem to get it right when it comes to Original Sin. Whether it's erotica, vanilla romance, straight-up kinky shit, and especially unsimulated sex, they've got it down. Having no filter really pays off. We as Americans have a total black and white approach to it. Because we're a kindergarten country. It's either way extreme and niche like the faux kink sweaty piece of sex bullshit; Fifty Shades of Grey (directed by a Brit, and written by a Brit, but still in the American idiom done for American audiences); or it's the most watered down single-girl fodder known to man in the tradition of Nicholas Sparks adaptations. So here are my picks. A lot of them fall (unavoidably so) into that 'controversial' category, while others straight up got the kiss of death with a dreaded NC-17 rating which basically goes to show that we're a country of people that just can't handle anything that is just a little too visceral. These are in order, we'll start from the bottom and go to the best.

20. Caligula (dir. Bob Guccione). Anything starring Malcolm McDowell and produced by Dino de Laurentis with a screenplay by Gore Vidal you shouldn't expect to be a comfy ride. Full of incest, full frontal nudity, and a birthing scene that might be more uncomfortable than sitting through an actual birth this film checks every box for what we consider to be sexual obscenity. And it's fabulous. It's ancient Rome, not a landlocked Midwestern city in the 50's.

19. Diary of a Nymphomaniac (dir. Christian Molina) this Spanish gem I don't even think had theatrical distribution in the states. It's a no-holds barred feminist farce on what it's like to be a nymphomaniac and the meteoric rise and fall of one. It's not easy, especially when pesky things like love get in the way. 

18. 9 Songs (dir. Michael Winterbottom). A director known in the UK for being sexually incendiary, this is probably in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most unsimulated sex scenes in one feature. It's not just a one off like The Brown Bunny. It's literally like watching a relationship. A normal one, where two people have sex...they do other stuff too, but this is one of those rare occasions that puts the sex front and center. 

17. Young and Beautiful (dir. Francois Ozon) I am a huuuuuuge Ozon fan. I think no one photographs, writes, or understands young women quite like him. This is the first of a few directors who are on this list more than once and no one deserves it more. It's the story of a reluctant whore. Are we noticing a pattern here? I think so. 

16. Chansons d'Amour (Jean Genet) Quick history/culture lesson. Listen up babies. Jean Genet is basically a French national treasure. He was arrested in the 40's for vagrancy, among other things (but mostly for being gay which was against the law at the time) a brilliant playwright and poet, this is his only film based on his encounters while in a French prison. If you ever took an avant-garde film class you probably saw it. If you haven't go on ubuweb.com. You're welcome. 

15. Sleeping Beauty (dir. Julia Leigh). And yet another hooker movie. Here's the twist, the beginning of the story is somewhere we've all been girl in financial trouble from student loans (take a lesson, Vera) looking desperately for a way to make extra money. She finds a gig, might be the weirdest form of hookerdome we've ever seen. She's basically given a sleeping pill cocktail every day and has to basically be a dead body to men who get off on stuff like that. However disturbing it is, a lot of naked Emily Browning is never a bad thing. 

14. Sytiracon (dir. Federico Fellini). Another ancient rome orgy film, only this one is by Fellini, so I think it's one of the best things ever. togas, wine, and general sexual ambivalence, this film definitely has everything. Literally. 

13. Belle du Jour (dir. Luis Bunuel). If you don't get a little hot watching Catherine Deneuve in her underwear check yourself for a pulse. The end. 

12. Y Tu Mama Tambien (dir. Alfonso Cuaron). Native Mexican filmmaker, Cuaron made a film in his hometown which is perhaps the most graphic coming-of-age story ever. Pun fully intended. It launched the careers of Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and a film that starts and ends with full nudity is one not worth missing. PS it was nominated for it's almost perfectly splendid script. Watch it, if you haven't already I'm judging you. 

11. The Dreamers (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci). A film for perverts and film lovers, and sometimes those can be mutually exclusive. Michael Pitt plays a young American studying in Paris in the mid-60's and chances upon a brother and sister cinephile team who have a strange relationship from the word go. Together they'll bring the term 'threesome' to a whole other level. 

10. And God Created Woman (dir. Roger Vadim) The film that introduced a naked Brigitte Bardot to the world. I'm surprised theater screens didn't catch on fire. No one before or since in the European film idiom has been so sensual...arguably. 

9. Blue is the Warmest Color (dir. Abdellatif Kechiche) I don't remember a film that generated so much controversy before it was even released. Along with it came accolades from the Academy to Cannes. It's universally considered not only one of the most beautiful love stories, but also one of the best films of the year and perhaps the decade. Brilliantly acted by Adele and Lea in the two principal roles, it's one not to be missed. 

8. Bad Education (dir. Pedro Almodovar). I know what you're thinking, why is this the Almodovar film she picked? I absolutely love it, and I never understood critics who thought it was one of his weakest. Bernal outdoes himself in drag, and as a personal piece, granted all of Almodovar films are in one way or another, but one that really expresses his passion for cinema is always a treat. Also there's a lot of naked Bernal in it. 

7. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (dir. Peter Greenaway). I was just re-watching this film today. It is so beautifully experimental surreal and downright weird. It's a formalistic masterpiece. With the avant-garde set dressing and costumes designed exclusively by Jean-Paul Gaultier and incomparable performances by Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon, this is truly in my opinion one of the greatest films of all time. 

6. Swimming Pool (dir. Francois Ozon). Ludivine Sagnier plays the promiscuous Julie who has moved unannounced back to her father's place in the French countryside disrupting the life of writer Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) who has just come up there in a fit of writer's block to find some solace which is now made impossible by Julie's constant philandering drinking and general debauchery

5. Sex and Lucia (dir. Julio Medem). Paz Verga, perhaps one of the most gorgeous women on the planet plays someone who's seriously unlucky in love. With more sex scenes than probably all American films from the past 5 years put together against a beautiful non-linear backdrop of secrets, lies, and a Spanish island, this film is breathtaking in every way. Also there's an areola on the poster. There ya go. 

4. Nymphomaniac Parts I and II. (dir. Lars von Trier). Lars von Trier really hates sex, and women, and everything...oh and Jews lest we forget. But this film is really really sexy. None of the advertising points to that because he photographs sex as it is. No romance, no flickering candles, and no feelings a lot of the time. This is sex stripped down to its bare animalistic, selfish, and at times maniacally impulsive nature. Thanks Denmark! 

3. The Night Porter (dir. Liliana Cavani). And yet another film directed by a woman. This also stars Charlotte Rampling in the most unsexy of places. She's a young Jewish woman who's been sent to a work camp during the Holocaust. Yes it's frightening. A German guard at the camp becomes infatuated with her and makes her his sex slave basically which comes with a lot of privilege. It's perhaps the most perverted scenario imaginable, and yet, it's still somehow romantic. We women, we're a clever bunch. 

2. Last Tango in Paris (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci). I know a lot of people that would disagree with me on this, in fact so vehemently that they'll get all oh-hell-no on me, but you know what despite 'that infamous scene' I still find both Brando and Schneider completely sexy together in this film. For the most part their sexual chemistry is right on. But I find it hard to imagine Brando not having good sexual chemistry with anyone. 

1. Lust, Caution (dir. Ang Lee). Here's another film by a director who's made so many sensually stunning films, but this one is head and shoulders above the rest. Lust, Caution is not a pretty film. It's not romantic, well maybe...but it's not rainbows and butterflies put it that way. It's a very dark film, and there are some insanely graphic scenes in it that somehow manage to remain highly erotically charged and incredibly sexy. Winner winner chicken dinner. 

VIDEOS BELOW:

The Wind That Shakes The Barley: Revisiting a Contemporary Classic

So I couldn't sleep and was perusing the Instants for something to watch that I'd already seen and didn't have to really pay attention to and have the sandman sleep me away. Boy did I make a mistake. I had seen The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) when it first came out, was very impressed and then sort of forgot about it. Big mistake. It's one of those quiet lightning films. Very much a historical epic, and told so matter-of-factly and with such bravado, directed by the absolutely brilliant Ken Loach, The Wind is up to par with cinematic classics like Schindler's List (1993). 

Director Ken Loach on set. 

Ken Loach could very well be the best English filmmaker of our time. And I say this with great difficulty because I am a huuuuuuuuge Mike Leigh aficionado, I can't sing his praises enough, and yet Loach always seems to have that subdued fire that elevates a film from interesting to unforgettable. Here's the irony. It's a film about Ireland's struggle for independence and it's directed by a British guy. Not Neil Jordan, not Jim Sheridan, a dyed in the wool Brit, and it couldn't be more visceral and more honest. That being said, Loach has been around for quite a while, slowly permeating his cinematic style. They should have a makeshift word called 'Loachesque' because his aesthetic is as unique to a filmmaker as someone like Fellini. British directors like Steve McQueen are trying to somehow imitate it, but nothing can quite compare to the rawness and the guts that Loach brings to his cinema. 

The birth of the IRA

Back to the film. It's 1920, and the Irish uprising is boiling under the surface, particularly in the small provincial towns where men and women are terrorized constantly by the Black and Tans. A 17 year old kid is brutally beaten to death because he wouldn't say his name in English only in Gaelic, which ignites a guerilla spirit in the towns people including two brothers Teddy and Damien O'Donovan (Pádraic Delaney and Cillian Murphy respectively). They decide to become militant and now there's no turning back. It's full on guerilla warfare, and it's absolutely brutal. Now you might think you know about the struggles in Ireland because you listened to a Cranberries CD and watched that Michael Collins film back in the day, but Ken Loach shows you how it ALL went down, and he leaves no stone unturned. There are scenes that are downright painful to watch, and you know what? They should be. It's a piece of history that needs dramatization, and no film does it better. 

There are many films about the IRA, none quite so honestly reflect its infancy and the dedication it took for these Davids to defeat the Goliath of the British Empire to win the Republic back for themselves. 

There is literally no break for the audience, which I usually hate, because Lars Von Trier does that and I tend to find that selfish. If you make a film like Dancer in the Dark (2001) at the end of which every audience member is contemplating different ways to kill themselves then you didn't make the film for your audience did ya? But I find the relentlessness of this film to serve a greater purpose. It brings the violence, the pathos, and the eventual redemption to that much higher of a cinematic plane. Basically it makes it stick. And though the film is sans happy ending (I mean why should it have one?) It's about the IRA not Norma Rae (hey that rhymed), there is a sense of relief the audience receives in the end because they all now feel that they've lived through a painstaking two-hour history lesson and now they actually know some shit. 

Damien (Murphy) faces the firing squad while his brother who has betrayed him, Teddy (Delaney) pleads with him to give up names of his resistance movement which he ultimately refuses to do. 

Some films are meant to entertain, and some are meant to educate usually the latter we group into the documentary pile. But with Ken Loach's guidance and his cinematic realism the likes of which we haven't seen since probably Rossellini, there seems to be very little difference between what actually happened in the hills of Cork, Ireland almost a century ago and how we see it dramatized for filmic purposes. There is absolutely no suspension of disbelief here, and that is very much intentional. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2006, it deserved it, it's on Instant it's been there forever, if you haven't seen it, first of all, shame on you, second of all go do it! 

Trailer below: 

Enough with the Open Letters! French Films are Exploitive. We Get It.

Lea Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)

So if you religiously check Indiewire.com every morning like I do, you'll see that the director of the sleeper hit Blue is the Warmest Color (2013), Abdellatif Kechiche has penned an open letter to its star, France's new 'it' girl Lea Seydoux, who called the filming of said film an experience that was both trapping and disrespectful in terms of dealing with its racy sex scenes. Guess what folks, without racy sex scenes there would be no French cinema to speak of let's just be honest here. Especially now-a-days with directors like Christophe Honore and Catherine Brellait leading the charge of how-much-gratuitious-nudity can we cram into a 2 hour film and the answer is...a lot. But you know what? With such content comes responsibility, and I'm going to side with Seydoux here. To be fully nude surrounded by grips, electricians, script supervisors and who else is no fun, and to have to do it take after take, can be exhausting, not like I would know, but I'm sure at this point shooting porn is a more wholesome experience than going full on French.

Kechiche basically blamed her for trying to destroy the very same film she helped make into a success and also not to mention helped to win the Palme D'Or. He writes, "Miss Seydoux, who after having repeatedly thanking me publicly and privately and having wept in my arms at Cannes for allowing her to take on this noble role … has, against all odds and all personal coherence, radically changed her attitude towards me." 

In his letter Kechiche calls Seydoux 'spoiled and opportunistic' um, exaggerate much?

So why don't we just calm the fuck down and take a look at the mistakes we might have made as directors. Actors are by definition fragile individuals who look to directors not only for guidance but for comfort, and not exploitation, unless of course you like that sort of thing. And now, I'm going to name a perfect example of someone who refuses to follow these guidelines and has the balls to blame his actors for not 'being comfortable'. 

20 year old Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris (1972)

One, Bernardo Bertolucci has been accused of this very thing on several occasions. The first and most infamous case I can remember is when Maria Schneider, Marlon Brando's co-star in the then X-Rated Last Tango In Paris (1972) famously said that in the scene where Brando's character sodomizes her with butter lubricant (there's honestly no wholesome way for me to describe this folks, sorry) that she felt that not only was she being raped by Brando, but by Bertolucci himself who just let it happen without asking her not even once if she was comfortable, if she wanted to stop and catch her breath, if it was all too much, you know, everything we as girls would like to be asked in scenarios like that...even if it's simulated. It's just polite.

This misogynistic behavior on Bertolucci's part continued up until The Dreamers was released in 2004 and sex-pot Eva Green basically said the exact same things. It's a film I've seen on a few occasions and I can tell you that yeah, the sex is pretty gratuitous, and no one had to work harder at it (no pun intended) than Eva Green, she had the most nude scenes, the most sex scenes, the most bodily fluid involving scenes as gross as that sounds, and she said that sometimes even though she's a seasoned professional and full fledged Frenchie, it was hard, and she felt that she received no guidance or comfort from her director who basically sat behind the camera and watched like some perv with a box of donuts and a pair of night-vision goggles. 

Eva Green in one of her most erotic scenes in The Dreamers (2004)

 I believe that Bertolucci is someone who makes gratuitously sexual films for his own personal pleasure, kind of like the James Spader character in Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989) so he can whack off to them later, he just happens to be really good at it and call it art, and let's face it a lot of French directors seems to go down that road.

So in conclusion; Kechiche - You should be thankful that Lea Seydoux who is huge not only in France but currently in America even participated in that film, and without her quite honestly I don't think the Palme D'or was within your reach. Enough with the open letters, there's this cool devise called the telephone, pick it up after a bottle of Bordeaux and go nuts. But also realize you are not blameless here brother. Here's a link to his open letter: 'Blue is the Warmest Color' Filmmaker Pens Enraged Open Letter; Slams 'Spoiled,' 'Opportunistic' Star Lea Seydoux

Trailers below: 

Dear James Franco: Stop Everything! Sincerely, The World.

A picture worth a thousand words.

I don’t even understand the appeal here. He’s not even fun to look at, he might have been in the beginning when he was on that whole matinee idol next River Pheonix skew back in the early 00’s, but then he decided to go the pretentious artist route and become a full-fledged laughable academic all at once. And I do mean laughable. He started doing two masters degrees at the same time one at NYU and one at Columbia. And if you’ve ever done 1 Masters (ahem) you know how grueling and time consuming it is, so he was basically trying to show off, and didn’t do a half decent job of it. My cohorts and I would see him around Dodge Hall (School of the Arts in Columbia University, what what!) droning around staring at his blackberry and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth like he was the reincarnation of James Dean, too cool for school; as it turns out he was just too stupid for it. And when he got into Yale, and I didn’t for a PhD program, I had realized people had seriously lost their effing minds...not that I deserved to get into Yale, but he sure didn't! I mean seriouslaaaay. 

Finally realizing that he’s a total joke in academic circles, he decided to go the pretentious artist route and scathed by with a whole series of garbage films, both acting and directing them, the newest of which, a bastardization of the William Faulkner novel ‘As I Lay Dying’ which is unbelievably going to open in Un Certain Regard at Cannes this year, and putting in a piss poor performance in perhaps one of the most interesting films of the year; Harmony Korine’s Springbreakers (2012), James Franco should get a universal 'F' for failing in life. 

Pretentious ass. Franco in a still from his new film in which he stars and directs (of course) As I Lay Dying (2013)

He once said the reason he’s so ‘productive’ or as I like to call it scattered in a clusterfuck is because his mind is so active, which I translate into ‘I’m on Adderall all the time’ which is basically what it seems like. I remember in 2008, he took over for Gus Van Sant’s absence when we screened Milk (2008) at Columbia for the film program and a subtle sighs of ‘awwwww’s’ echoed through the audience. He seemed totally stoned (of course) and couldn’t tell us anything interesting. Not about the film, not about his career, not about anything in particular because he was so mentally befuddled, like words were confusing him and hitting him at the face and grabbing at his brain. 

Franco in Milk (2008) probably the only good thing he's ever done.

And now it’s just getting ridiculous, you are not a renaissance man, James Franco, you will never be the next Kerouac, Orson Welles, or Dostoevsky, stick to what you know how to do best; rolling fatties and making teenage girls squirm in their panties. Just stop, for the love of god, stop everything. Now. Much love, Vera.

Golden Palmes and Perverts (Cannes 2013)

Last year I wrote about Cannes, I called it Who Will Win the Palme d'Fuck at Cannes this Year? And I thought the prize would be between two of the most non-sexy films in competition that year, Cosmopolis (2012) and On the Road (2012) both featuring Twilight darlings; Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Let’s do this again shall we? With more insight, but aside from the actual awards that mean something, to the French anyway, let’s talk about who’s got the sexiest film at the sexiest film festival this side of an unapologetically obsessed-with-sex country.

Still from Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Now listen because I’m only going to say this once; BAZ LUHRMANN DOES NOT MAKE SEXY FILMS. For the love of god, if anyone made anything more unsexy he would have cast real life cousins in it. For all of the smoke and mirrors he employs to try to tell stories of love and yearning, lust and tits, I feel nothing below the waste watching his glitzy shitshows. And The Great Gatsby is already feeling like the biggest bastardization of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but above all completely unsexy and unsatisfying. Like that one bad one-night-stand that your friends still don’t let you get over. 

Promo still from Gatsby (vulgar, NOT sexy)

Although I’m excited for films like Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra (2013), Alexander Payne’s Nebraska (2013) and Polanski’s LA VÉNUS À LA FOURRURE (2013), I think the two films that will battle it out are going to be sensualist extraordinaire François Ozon’s Jeune et Jolie (2013), and Ethan and Joel Coen’s ode to folk music; Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) starring foreign hotter-than-hot tall, dark, and handsome man slice of heaven Oscar Isaac, co-starring perhaps the most interesting bright young things right now; Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, and Carey Mulligan. The film also looks pretty dang interesting and wildly sexual considering it takes place during the Beat era where basically anything goes. 

Ozon. Handsome to boot.

But I’m going to give the edge to Ozon.  Not only because he’s a personal favorite of mine, but his films are so incredibly sensual, so detailed in their steaminess, it’s hard to beat when we’re thinking about contemporary sex culture. Also, he’s fucking French. So basically, there ya go.

Still from Juene et Jolie (2013)

 I feel like I’m watching the best high-class porn every time I turn on an Ozon film, because he understands very importantly I might add, that what is NOT SHOWN is more enticing than WHAT IS. This is what make his films such a hallmark of sexuality in cinema, so I’m going to say that though Juene at Jolie (2013) probably won’t win the Palme d’Or, It wins the Palme d’Fuck in my book.

Trailer for Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

French teaser for Juene et Jolie (2013) 

Trailer for another new Ozon film In the House (2013)

Road Rage: A Persnickety Analysis of: On The Road

 This film screened earlier today in the competition at Cannes, and I for one found it one of the worst things that's ever happened in the world of Cinema, that's ever. John Ford, Orson Welles, and D.W. Griffith should like form a ghostly coalition of the willing and beat Walter Salles to a bloody pulp. If I could punch this film in the face I would do it. But instead, I'm making a corn husk doll of Kristen Stewart and punching that in the face. It's healing some of the wounds.

First thing's first. Do not adapt Kerouac in the 21st century. Why the hell did you wait so long to where it's not even remotely relevant anymore. Who in their right minds could give two fucks about some hipster without a job meandering around, having pretentiously mediocre thoughts about the uselessness of existence whilst drinking and smoking a lot. Because, that's all the film is! I understand that that's what Kerouac wrote about, but it's considered 'unadaptable' for a reason. You can't just do that to your film audience i.e. have nothing happen for two and a half hours whilst people philosophize about said nothing in the voice over. Kerouac is dead folks. Oh and by the way, he died because his liver exploded from drinking so much. 

This brings me to my second point; it's a pet peeve of mine when people are shown CONSTANTLY drinking and doing drugs, but no one ever seems to get high or drunk, it's like I know you're in your early 20's but if you ingest that much Benzedrine and that much Vodka at the same time, I'm dropping your comatose ass off at the emergency room and making a quick getaway.

Neal Cassady on the left with Jack Kerouac on the right, the inspirations behind Dean and Sal in On the Road. Did I mention both died before they were 35? from alcoholism? Oh I did? well doesn't hurt repeating.

Point three. No one in our generation, who's never 'burned burned burned with the fire of a Roman candle' but plays 'Draw Something', talks to Siri like she's an actual person, and blogs blogs blogs all day long gives two fucks about the beat generation. That shit burn burn burned out real fast, and it's not even nostalgic anymore. It's taking us to a place none of us want to be, and around people none of us would be friends with. You're not watching it thinking 'oh these people are really unique and interesting, they have thoughts man, ya dig?' You're sitting there, thinking; 'wow, they are all dirty and useless. Grow up and get a fucking job...and where exactly do they get the money for all this weed?'

'Oh look at me with my silk blouse rocking out to spontaneous jazz medleys. I am soooooo of the period and don't stick out at all'

Point four. Casting. What the fuck were you thinking? Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty? He looks like the moron jock from every 80's movie. Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (who is just an avatar for Kerouac himself) gets a pass. But Kristen fucking Stewart as child bride Marylou? Are. You. Kidding. Me. She stands out like Winona Ryder in a period costume drama, like totally. She's so not 'of that generation' that it makes me infuriated that everyone is taking her seriously just because she does half of the movie naked. I respectfully disagree! This is worse than Keira Knightley pretending to be a Russian intellectual who likes to get spanked in A Dangerous Method (2011). Ya should have made it back in the early 90's when people still gave two shits about Neal Cassady, Jack Karouac, and reading in general, cast Brad Pitt as Dean, Ethan Hawke as Sal, and Juliette Lewis as Marylou. Sidney Lumet should have directed. Side note, that British dude who's Sienna Miller's baby daddy as Carlo Marx? So bad that it went past good and back to bad again.    

Tom Sturrige as Carlo Marx in one of the many ambiguous posters made for the film, caption reads 'we're alive?' harkening back to a question this motherfucker brings up constantly because he's on too much Benzedrine to disassociate reality from sleepy time. So the answer to your question you pretentious fuck is 'yes...but that can change. go buy a gun'.

Also, stop peppering films with big stars that just want to prove that they read Kerouac and are thereby intellectuals like Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortensen. You guys are established stars you do not need to associate with such garbage. Also, again, why exactly are you naked? 

If you want to walk out of a movie this year and be like 'hmm, I didn't give any fucks the whole time' then this is a film you should see. I kept rolling my eyes so much I think they started making a noise. Bright spot at the end of the dark tunnel lined with human excrement is that the films about beatniks genre might not be violently dead from massive head wounds which I personally inflict on it quite yet. Kill Your Darlings (2013) with Daniel Radcliffe as Allan Ginsburg actually seems pretty promising. I anxiously await for it to cure the cancer that I got watching this.

Basically, this sums it up beautifully:

"Many have speculated that 'On the Road,' Jack Kerouac's seminal beat novel, is unadaptable for the screen, and Walter Salles' game attempt suggests that this may indeed be the case. Despite its pretty cast and sun-ripened colours, the film quickly settles into a tedious looping rhythm of Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) experiencing some kind of beatnik debauchery with co-wanderers Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) and Marylou (Kristen Stewart), before retiring to a shady corner and scribbling wildly in a notebook. Neither the journey nor the destination seems to matter a jot." — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

Read the full article here: Cannes 2012 Review of On The Road

Here's another really interesting article called Kerouac retold as 'Bro-Retry'
Every Sentence of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Retold for Bros

Which is basically what this film is. It's a dumb-it-down bro-mance road movie. And it's long as fuck. No pun intended.  

I realize that all I'm doing is making you watch it more, so fine. Here's the trailer. I hope you enjoy contemplating murder-suicide for two and a half hours.