If
you read Don DeLillo in your formative years chances are you were a bit fucked
up in the head, but that yielded only the urge to understand the hypocrisy of
the world to a better degree…you probably read a lot of Bret Easton Ellis along
with that. Now, if you watched Cronenberg growing up, congratulations you’re
probably smarter than 95% percent of the world’s population, and moreover if
you actually understand all of his films on body-horror, pan-existentialist
levels, then you’re a fucking genius.
A
few of his newest films have been rather polarizing. A Dangerous Method (2011) was schmaltzy crap the whole way through.
And Cosmopolis (2012) got all kinds
of black and white reviews, it’s the kind of film Armand White loves to write
about. The kind of film that gets a mixed reaction at Cannes, and Rotten
Tomatoes has a meltdown over because film critics turn into 5 year olds; All
having something to say each at a louder more obnoxious volume than the other.
Sarah Gadon plays the wife of Billionaire playboy Eric (Robert Pattinson) who promises that one day they will indeed have sex, but never delivers. Probably a smart move on her part.
I
had heard a shit ton of bad press about this film, but it was mostly from
people that didn’t ‘get it’ and were faux film critics to begin with in the
tradition of Ben Lyons who just tear it to shreds because they don’t understand
allegory and post-capitalist theory and still manage to make 6-figure salaries
(Fuck Ben Lyons is basically what I’m saying) he’s probably never watched
anything of Cronenberg’s past Dead
Ringers (1988)).
A prostate exam during a meeting with his financial advisor yeilds the metaphor that Eric has an asymmetrical prostate, take it for whatever you think it might mean.
This
is a film that combines sexual frustration and depression of fear of
being-in-the-world, particularly of being powerful, both sexually and
otherwise, and the inner struggle that exists in the responsibility which that
power comes with. Also, the boredom that comes from knowing that everything is too
easily accessible weather it be billions of dollars or seriously hot French tail.
It is a Jean-Paul Sartre manifesto on film, and no one better to understand
that and make it erotic than David Cronenberg. I thought the film was
fantastic, and thought most didn’t and it barely got distributed, it finally
landed on Netflix, so good for it, a bunch of teenagers can now be either
confused as fuck or take up reading DeLillo and start speaking with a French
accent.Either way, it’s one of
Cronenberg’s more complex and erotic films, which is exactly how he initially
made his name in the business, mixed with some political pathos, it makes for
one hell of a mindfuck.
I don’t know about you but I
found the premiere of Season 6 of one of the most dynamic and incendiary shows
on TV right now to be somewhat of a snoozefest. It was all about showing us
symbolically (and sometimes outright) how people had changed in the time’s
passing. It’s almost 1970, and the men have grown ridiculous beards, including
Pete Campbell’s new mutton chops (I mean what the fuck was that).
The most interesting
transformation was that of Peggy who now seems more masculine in her new gig,
as if she’s becoming the new Don Draper, she has people coming to her for
advice, orders others around, hair cut more prim and proper and in total
control of her emotions. Cool as a cucumber, and androgynous as fuck.
Party like it's 1969. Drop your keys in the bowl on your way in.
This was needed because guess who’s
back? The OLD Don Draper. We find him wasted at Roger’s mother’s funeral and
throwing up which was hilarious, and then by the end of the finally he’s got
Lindsay Weir of all people (Linda Cardellini) lying on top of him. Basically,
Old Don is back. There’s no longer the soul-searching, happily married,
fatherly, sober, boring Don. Now the womanizer, the chain smoker, the boozer
Don is back, and I couldn’t be happier. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was
getting to be a bit drab, but now with Old Don, and Joan as silent partner (yet
not so silent) I have faith that even without Layne (rest in piece on a rope),
they will continue to thrive, mutton chops and all.
Trouble looming on the perfect marriage? Most definitely
The question remains is how are
they going to deal with the sexual revolution impending on everyone’s heads now
that the 70’s are looming and they’ve already taken acid trips and tried to see
the Rolling Stones in the flesh. The only thing left is wife swapping, so
getting with the times, I suppose Don is going to partake, while Roger gets
involved in a really gross 70’s orgy, the kind you see in the worst of John
Holmes movies, but those are questions waiting to be answered, and I for one
can’t wait. Hopefully this premiere episode wasn’t an indication because I’m
sick of all of the existential self-aggrandizement that Don experience mmmmmmm…every
single fucking episode. I want the old Don back, and I’m glad they’ve answered
my prayers.
Going off script here, It's my 200th post. So yay! I'm going to write whatever the hell I want. Fellas, listen the fuck up. Enough with the frosted tips, tribal tattoos, plastic sunglasses and skinny jeans. You look like an idiot, and I can smell the douche on you from a mile away. If your goal is to make yourself appealing to females and eventually their vaginas, you're doing it all wrong. Here are trends that I think we should bring back that make you look like more of a man and like less of a bitch.
Man-tanning. Take it from me, if you do it evenly and don't overdo it, you'll remind girls of Cary Grant, and that's always a good thing. Even in the dead of winter.
Cravats. If you want to look sharp and like you make a lot of money, which is always, always appealing to women, buy a cravat or two, it's not as obnoxious as a dickie-bow, and not as boring as a tie. It will always sharpen up your oufit.
The serious beard. Enough with the crazy facial hair experiments. Last year it was the handle-bar mustache, now it's the amish beard, it's like stop smoking so much pot and grow a dang serious beard if you're going to have any facial hair. All or nothing boys.
The sweater vest is not fundamentally dorky. You don't have to be Chandler Bing to properly rock this, and you will always look like you just stepped right off a yacht.
This might be a bit controversial, but I swear, a man in high rise bell bottoms always looked awesome to me. It makes me think their a rock star from the 70's. Also it attracts attention to your ass, so yay!
The short tie. The Mad Men revolution has been of utmost importance in fashion particularly. Enough of the skinny bitch tie. It just makes you look fat. The short tie will make you look like Don Draper. I'm talking like instantly. Try it, put one on.
The curtained hair. I always always always was attracted to longer hair, I have no idea why. I know it's like way ridiculous, but when a guy grows out his hair, he just looks hotter. I swear, it just happens. And curtained hair makes you look sensitive.
The frilly shirt. If you're ballsy enough to wear this non-ironically, I salute you sir. The frilly shirt is very Baroque, and shows that you're not afraid of taking risks. Yeah, because that fedora you think you're rocking is not a risk and it's retarded.
the cigarette holder. It looks so much cooler than just pulling out a cigarette and smoking it. You just feel fancy, and that's always fun.
I'm not going to lie. I just ate my weight in McDonalds, because I'm secretly white trash and have zero self respect, so I am bed-ridden at the moment with nothing to do but watch TV Guide Channel's Best Cinema Kisses, because all of the animal fat is coursing through my veins like poison and I'm too lethargic to even pick up the remote and change the channel. I actually happen to agree somewhat with this list (OMFG I actually agreed with something) but of course not completely. They are missing some serious heavy hitters in the tonsil hockey celluloid world and I'm going to go ahead and make my own list before the fast food makes it's way to my skull and renders me brain dead.
Ok let's just get this one out of the way. The most famous kiss in cinema ever, of all time, bar-none, no arguments. Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity (1954).
Liza Minelli, Michael York, and Helmut Greim in Cabaret (1972). This prelude to the actual kiss goes on for a good 4 minutes, it's one of the most erotic things I've ever seen.
Yeah, ok. Atonement (2006). But I give the credit to James McAvoy. Keira seems completely devoid of any kind of passion, probably because she's not human.
Notorious (1946). This is definitely my personal favorite on the list. The story goes that back during the Haze code, kissing couldn't last longer than about 4 seconds, so Hitchcock had the kissing last about 2 minutes with intervals where Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman pull away for air every 4 seconds. Thereby in full compliance with the censors, but actually totally not.
Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Velvet Goldmine (1998). Probably the hottest thing I had seen on film at that point, both men seriously know how to kiss. And the embellished glam rock outfits only make it better.
Match Point (2004). Second time Jonathan Rhys Meyers is on the list, but what can I say, the dude is passionate as fuck. No pun intended. Ok, maybe a little intended. This kiss scene way trumps The Notebook in the kissing-in-the-rain department.
Probably the second most famous kiss in cinema history, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in the iconic burning of Atlanta scene in Gone with the Wind (1939) The story goes that Vivien Leigh actually hated all of those repetitive takes of having to kiss Gable over and over again because he had bad breath, but then again on set, she was a chronic chain-smoker, so I can't imagine it was too pleasant for him either.
The closest thing to S&M I had experienced when I first saw it, Marlon Brando tries to get Eva Marie Saint to admit that she's in love with him in On the Waterfront (1954), when she refuses he grabs her, throws her up against the wall and passionately has at it, she at first tries to fight him off and then succumbs, what girl wouldn't?
And let's end on a low note. As you know, I'm a fervent fan of the first Twilight (2008), and in this scene Kristen Stewart wakes up to Robert Pattinson watching her sleep at the foot of the bed, and apparently he does that all the time, now if that was me, that guy would be on the floor in a headlock with the police on the way, but she tells him she wants him to try 'controlling himself' and kiss her without basically eating her, it's really hot for about two seconds before he loses control and flies to the other side of the room.
And here are some clips, in case you haven't seen any of these and need proof. Now go make out with someone.
Ok ladies, I hope you didn't make plans for next weekend because Channing Tatum strips and shows his lady parts for money in the nastiest film of the year...that is directed by Stephen Soderbergh. The only man that can make a film about a call girl starring a porn star completely unsexy and boring. Hence, casting Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, and Italian stallion slash hottest man on earth right now Joe Manganiello were all very good decisions in the effort to make us forget that this is a film by Stephen Soderbergh. Honestly, who would pay money to see that 'Stephen Soderbergh stripper movie'? It's like saying, hey you want to see that Ridley Scott soft-core porno?
But it promises to be everything that The Full Monty wasn't including showing graphic man parts, so I'm excited. It's not British, it's not very clever or funny, and the men in it have muscles so count me in.
Also, I'm not too psyched about casting. Alex Pettyfer from Beastly fame is the protagonist, so off-hand you can tell it's going to be crappy on the acting. And I'm sorry but I never had a boner for Channing Tatum. I am not into guys that look like The Incredible Hulk and talk like Lurch from the Adam's Family, no matter how 'magical' his eyes are. And McConaughey's white trash stank is far too strong for me to even think of him in a sexual manner, even though most of his career is based on either one or the other of those.
This is where we seperate the men from the boys. I'm guessing you can tell which is which. Nice faux-hawk and Blue Steel, Tatum.
But hey, it is a film about stripping, so it basically goes without saying that I'm going to be front row center on opening night...because I use my time wisely. But it's not expected to be anything near the campy genius of Showgirls, the satiric splendor of The Full Monty or even the catchy awfulness of Striptease. It seems more than anything to be mediocre, but brilliantly marketed to women of all ages, and by all ages I mean late 50's.
I'm not expecting too many tweens sitting next to me (thank god) because it IS rated R for excessive nipples and I just don't think parents would let their 13-year-old cheerleader squad captain out to see it no matter how much she loves The Vow (2012). And most of them are too young to know that McConaughey is just playing the same character he's always played in every film because Dazed and Confused (1993) came out before they were born. But I think I'm going to have the hardest part dealing with Olivia Munn, because that's usually the plot of my every day life - I struggle with her existence, and it's really frustrating. But I'll deal. Can't run a filth blog and not go see Magic Mike, I mean really.
Now, if this film doesn't deliver in the penis category I'm going to have a conniption fit, because I'm placing bets already as to whose got the gurthiest weiner...I've got 35$ on McConaughey, because we all know the man with the gurthiest body build, has the smallest one. Anyone want to contest this? I mean I'm sure there will be a lot of pant-stuffing, but if there's not serious full frontal (and I don't see how there can't be, Soderbergh has a film actually titled Full Frontal) then, I'm just saying, there will be blood. That's why I'm going by myself. I would hate having to explain to my friend's parents that I murdered them because of lack of money shot.
As you film buffs are well aware, in just a week the biggest and sparkliest names in show business will descend upon the beautiful resort town in the south of France called Cannes for the most prestigious film festival that exists in history. So basically it's a lot of pretentious Europeans and the Hollywood elite rubbing shoulders, watching a shit ton of movies, and booing Sophia Copolla and Lars Von Trier (which I have no problem with).
Two of the biggest films in competition this year are David Cronenberg's urban shit-show BDSM violence fantasy Cosmopolis (2012) and sensitive guy socialist Walter Salles' subterranean clusterfuck of disjointed Benzedrine-inspired bullshit On the Road (2012) both based renowned literary opuses, and both starring the principals from Twilight, how fucking appropriate. When you're thinking of adapting Kerouac, the first person that pops in your head should be Kristen Stewart I mean clearly.
Still from On the Road (2012) be prepared for a lot of nude driving.
Both contain excessive fucking and all other kinds of derogatory behavior, one is surreal, the other nostalgic. One is futuristic, the other, dated. And if you can't tell which is which, then go stand in the corner you dumb bitch.
Point is, that hey, it's France. Neither of these are going to pick up any Academy Awards for Best Tits, but they might snag an Un Certain Regard or two. Both are big 'risk' movies with explicit material. The Cosmopolis trailer was even slapped with a red band, therefore parents beware, but Frenchies get your binoculars out if you want to catch Robert Pattinson's peen.
Still from Cosmopolis (2012) be prepared for a lot of nude Robwrt Pattinson shooting and being shot at.
And to assume that a book based on professional drunk Jack Karouac's On The Road would be anything but blatantly explicit is just plain ignorant. Now, I'm not a big fan of either of the books, but I am a fan of Don DeLillo in general (who wrote Cosmopolis, not his best by far) and a way bigger fan of Cronenberg than Salles. To me, if it's competing for who's got the hotter, filthier, more provocative film, it's like the junior varsity sit-ins vs. the starting team on the Lakers. Oh snap, i just made a sports analogy (not even sure if it worked but whateves). It's a no-brainer folks, you're going to make it rain golden palms on Cosmopolis.
Now none of this is to say that either is going to be a 'good' film in the way that we define 'a good film' in fact, I'm not too excited about either. I'm going to go ahead and say for the record that Abbas Kiarostami is going to walk away with the Palme d'Or or even Sang-soo Hong. 'Oh who?' you ask...go stand in the corner, bitch.
Let's face it, outside of Mad Men, and waiting for Downton Abbey to wrap their 3rd season, we're all strapped for things to watch after we unwind at home. Unless you're into Ancient Aliens and Deadliest Catch, but I need something right before bedtime and I love a show with characters named Cesare and Lucrezia, torture chambers, and simulated sex by candlelight. So it was either I start watching The Borgias, or I re-watch The Tudors basically. I can't really think of other shows that take place during the reformation and involve a lot of gratuitous nudity, sex, and violence, and all in all, that's really all I'm looking for before my sleeping pill kicks in.
All I know about the Borgias (aside from the fact that it's my favorite coffee/chocolate/orange drink to order at Cafe Borrones in Menlo Park, CA when I visit my family in the Bay Area) is that they were one of those many rich families along with the infamous Medici who had close ties to The Pope that wielded power in Italy before during and after the Renaissance basically up until the point they started having Prime Ministers in the beginning of the 20th Century (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a hell of a while since European History high school classes).
If Jeremy Irons was Pope, I would convert to Catholicism in a nano-second. He's the hottest Pope this side of Vatican City and I'm not ashamed to admit it, though I'm probably going to hell for that.
Anyway, the show focuses on the Borgia clan made up of really hot guys and ladies who are always either fucking or fighting, or both at the same time. How this is not getting HUGE hypocritical censorship issues with the Catholic church I have no idea. But hey, it's on the poster: 'Flesh and Blood...The Borgias' So basically you can assume there's a lot of naked writhing flesh, and excessive blood and guts.
Oh and did I forget to add that the man with the sexiest voice in the history of all film ever Jeremy Irons is there too as Pope Alexander VI? I've never wanted a pope so much in my life. Also, he seems like his character is very good at oral sex so there's that. I am not making this up, don't shoot the messenger, this shit is actually in the damn show.
There's boys in tight pants for the ladies, and girls in tight corsets with heaving breasts for the men, and there's lots of unnecessary violence and women having the most exaggerated orgasms ever. And apparently everyone bathes, showers, and brushes their teeth regularly back in the late 1400's. I had no idea.
New season premieres this last month on April 8th on Showtime, I'm only on episode 2 and I've already had my sex fix for the week. So you know it's a good time. Also, it's created by Neil Jordan, you can't lose.Also, don't confuse this with Borgia (2011) a series about basically the exact same people with a completely different cast but with even more nips. That you can catch on Netflix, but then again, Jeremy Irons is not in it.
Promo 'sneak peek' below.And below that, trailer for season 2.
Since hooking up with everyone's favorite nicey-nice Gilmore Girl Alexis Bledel, it begs the question, who's next on the roster of folks Pete cheats on Trudy (Alison Brie) with...here's what I imagined.
I would lead in with field mouse Karen Cartwright (Katherine McPhee) on Smash even though they are decades apart, they both live in New York, and she's very field mousy and impressionable, I think he could sweet talk her into it, convincing her she can be in Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's new commercial for Heinz beans.
He'd definitely do the nasty with Chloe (Krysten Ritter) of Don't Trust the B---- in Apt 23 but she'd forget about him the second he left her apartment in the village. And the Beeks would probably like 'um...wtf?'
Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham) from Girls seems like a good fit that could actually lead to something but she's a little chubby for Pete's taste, but then again, he is getting bald so it evens out.But I'm not sure he'd venture that far into Brooklyn.
I would love for Pete to experiment with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) from Breaking Bad if he ever takes a trip out to Arizona. How hot would that be? The answer is 'very'.
And you know he'd be all up in Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively) from Gossip Girl but she would rebuff him like the bitch that he is.
But the perfect match has to be Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) of Damages, she's upper west side, high-end take-no-shit lawyer that would teach him a thing or twelve. And she thinks like him (i.e. how to get ahead no matter what) but she's a heart-breaker. He'd probably end up using that gun he bought randomly and holds every once in a while on that show. Did you guys forget about that? Pete Campbell has a gun.
It's 7 episodes into the 5th season of Mad Men and holy dirty pubic hair, a lot of nasty shit has gone down on the show. But last night's episode took the cake for me. They don't make water hot enough for me to finally feel clean after showering in it. So basically, this was a Sally episode who after spending just one afternoon with Megan's pretentious euro-trash parents (Julia Ormond and Ronald Guttman) already speaks like Leisl Von Trapp ('Papaaa, may I try on my new dress?') and comes out looking like a girl Roman Polanski would loooove to photograph one warm night at Jack Nicholson's house...too far? It's this sparkly Nancy Sinatra get-up with go-go boots and a ton of make-up. Any father like Don would of course get nervous and run right out to buy a sawed-off shotgun, but he plays it cool, old-fashioned in hand and ciggy in mouth tells her to lose the boots and the whorey face paint.
Daddy like? No Sally, Daddy no like. Daddy want kill himself.
Meanwhile, all of them have to deal with Megan's annoying parents, which is weird considering they are clearly French (I know because my BFF is French-Canadian and can tell the difference between the accents, so there!) and somehow Megan is French-Canadian, but whateves. As if we don't have enough racial stereotypes on the show, the most recently added is the middle-class Brooklyn-raised fast-talking nervous and neurotic Ginsberg who works as a junior copywriter at SCDP, and Layne with all of his unbridled bare-knuckle boxing Britishness, now they're going to lampoon the French by portraying them as sex intellectuals, or at times just intellectuals with an endless cannon of pretentious things to say.
'What a pleasure to meet you. You can tell I'm French by the slow and specific way in which I talk and how impeccably dressed I am, would you like a blow job in the empty lobby no one is using for some reason?
Let's cut to the chase. The episode culminates when Sally, still in hooker attire walks in on Roger 'her date for the night' because he was trying to be cute' receiving a pretty graphic BJ from Megan's mother. She's pretty disturbed, as are the rest of us. First of all, Julia doesn't look like she's simulating at all, and it was a couple camera angle's shy of being The Brown Bunny (2003). So basically what it's taught us is that no matter if you're cleaning the house in your black lacey underpants, or blowing some guy you literally met seconds earlier, if you're French, it's all good. The last scene is between Sally and world's biggest future pervert slash serial killer Glenn discuss they're budding discoveries of the sexual clusterfuck around them, him asking her 'so how's the city?' to which she replies 'dirty'. That about sums it up.
I hope that they give Peggy a scene like that because she's seeming a little sex-starved and uppity of late and I'm really starting to think it's this student-leftist 'I'm going to change the world as soon as i finish my degree in ornithology' (Charlie Hofheimer) asshole is spending too much tying arguing with her rather than making sure she get's properly effed. And you know who I think would be an ideal candidate of course is Ginsberg (Ben Feldman). Get on it Peggy.
The gym was closed today, so I had a couple of hours of free time before I made myself an Ambien smoothy and called it a night. I was in a crabby mood (no pun intended) so I came home, and put on the Redtube. Even porn has been depressing me of late, but there's always someone I can rely on. And the body attached to it's name is James Deen. Oh you've never heard of him? first of all, bull. Second of all, let me enlighten you. No relation to Paula Deen (thank the lord), Deen is a nice-Jewish-boy-who-could-be-a-doctor, precious-faced, 20-something with an innocent disposition who just happens to fuck like an alpha gorilla on steroids.
He's been in everything you can imagine, and...everyone for that matter. 20/20 just did a segment on him that's how huge he is, and I swear I'm going to stop using double entendres right...now. You could say he's the James Dean of porn, but that would be wrong, considering his craft is so versatile and nuanced you would actually have to say he's the Peter O'Toole of porn, which is ironic considering 'Peter O'Toole' is a better porn name than 'James Deen', anyway, I'm getting off track. He can fuck it gently, or he can mess your shit the eff up, either way, you're going to leave with a smile for the camera, and not the kind you get from the occasional genius joke on Modern Family.
Hey girl, when I suggest role-playing I'm not talkin' about drama club rehearsal.
Though he's far from 13 inches, he's got that good ol' stamina and charisma of John Holmes that first made porn so gosh darn fantastic back in the 70's, and has since lost it's way. We all watched Boogie Nights (1997), we know the story. He's a real character actor, in fact if you're listening Hollywood, he might be your ideal cock for the coveted role of sadist Christian Grey, you know he's got the 'credentials'. And no, I'm not posting any links though it would be perfectly legal and free and probably doing you a big service, go find it yourself, I am not your porn fairy...or am I?
Peggy Olsen sure has grown up a lot on Mad Men from the mousy frumpy secretary who was madly obsessed with Pete for some reason and rejected the advances of both Ken and Paul (remember him? he was the Orson Welles looking guy that disappeared after the third season). She had a secret baby, sexual tension with Tom Hank's son, and a rather sorry affair with a man named Duck.
Now she's dating some faux-socialist 'writer' who's actually attractive (Charlie Hofheimer) having lesbian tendencies and hooking up with strangers in the movie-theater a la PeeWee Herman. Perhaps she's absorbing all of that mid to late 60's sexual awakenings and experimentation, but what I think is happening is that she's becoming a man at heart. She's becoming her mentor Don Draper who's sexual ambivalence gives him basically 'the power'.
In the last episode before tonight's, Peggy opened up to the new receptionist at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce that she feels like a man sometimes, and that's of course what's to be expected considering she's in a man's world, in a still very repressive world for women, and one of sexual cautiousness. She's had to conform; now she makes men come to her rather than take late night booty calls or quick romps in the office after hours, and they do. In a sense, Peggy has grown to be the most sexual apparatus on the show that is female rather than Joan who's promiscuity is merely a facade. Joan falls in love, Peggy would never allow herself to go there. She's become the one in control, and the master manipulator. And guess what, we love her for it.
Sex is awful in your 20's...are you aware? This is one of the things that is awful in your twenties of the many that are explored in Lena Dunham's sarcastic new tragicomedy Girls which premiered on HBO on April 15th. It's a new show that starts off with a pretty familiar bang, there are so many of us who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars going to liberal art schools and remained in New York to do unpaid internships with the financial support of our parents while we chased some kind of dream, which one in particular we weren't sure of at the time.
But now it's time to grow up, and Hannah Hovarth's (Lena Dunham) parents have had enough. They want the lake house in Vermont damn it, so they tell her the words we all dread to hear but eventually do 'you are on your own'.
This show is brilliant in that there isn't a moment in which we aren't squirming because of how the worst moments of our twenties are being dragged out for a national audience bringing back so many painful memories, like that time we fucked that loser undergrad who only wanted to do you from behind with your clothes on and weren't sure if he even wore a condom.
Or that time you get so dissatisfied with the person who you currently rely on for daily orgasms that you would rather swim in a river of miserable fatty's who've never had one than take another from him.
Or that time you sucked up the remaining remnants of your teetering pride and begged like a dog in the street 'don't cut me off! I have dreams!' and no one listened.
as someone who's had her fair share of awkward sex with social retards whom you wouldn't walk down the street to piss on if they were on fire the next day, I found this scene particularly devastating in its accuracy.
Now you're on your own bitch, and here's the thing.
1. Find a real job
2. Find a grown up boyfriend who can last longer than 4 minutes
3. Buy a vibrator
4. Stop listening to MGMT
5. If you're frustrated about writing, write about how frustrated you are with writing.
and 6. NEVER drink opium tea.
I think that about covers it. I look forward to more life lessons along the way as we learn more about Hannah Hovarth and her motley crew of 20-something comrades.
Even someone like me isn't above being slightly offended by this poster. It's too much of hitting the nail on the head...so to speak.
After his recent teary-eyed adorable triumph at the Oscars, Frenchy Frenchman Jean DuJardin was untouchable. Between starring in the sleeper hit and best picture of the year The Artist (2011), and charming everyone and their mothers with his inherent Frenchness, pencil-thin mustache, and acceptance speech crying, It would appear the world is his oyster voulete. But he's quickly learning that not all of his actions are adorable and sweet. Case and point: ads for his upcoming film reunited with Michel Hazanavicius (American title: The Players, original title: Les infidèles) sparked some controversy not just here in Puritanical hypocritical America, but (gasp) in France too.
It is consistently being called a 'very French film', I have no idea what this means in a contemporary context; is it full of shots of Eiffel Tower with Edith Piaf singing in the backgroundand everyone of the extras constantly smoking? I only kid, what I'm assuming it actually means is that it's uncompromisingly and unapologetically promiscuous. So basically, it's a film about sex with a lot of sex in it...starring Jean DuJadrin...and some other people.
Here's the thing, I don't believe the French to be that big of an authority on sex in the cinema, though they like to constantly state that they are. I think they definitely make coitus into a bigger deal than it usually should be in any given context and tend to chew the scenery with gratuitous thrusting in random and unusual places where everyone is crying after, but other than that I don't believe it to ever be an honest portrayal of any given person's sex life. Even someone like Catherine Breillat whom I greatly admire as a filmmaker sometimes goes overboard, and I'm not talking about a sensory overload of endless fucking, (which can be applied to most of her films) I'm talking about substituting basic plot and storytelling guidelines for scenes of immeasurable nastiness (watch Anatomy of Hell 2004, I dare you). It seems like French filmmakers do a fantastic job of convincing everyone how painful sexual relationships are, and how disillusioning the experience is. They often flout the idea that intercourse leads to nowhere good, and now they get to do so in High Definition and perhaps even at some point 3-D.
But not to worry fine upstanding asexual citizens, The Players is a comedy. Therefore, it's sure not to contain as much pubic hair as you expect from a French film. But wait wait, it's already getting some negative press for being overly provocative and sexist. And I'm not talking Mad Men sexist, actual sexism without irony. The poster art speaks for itself. Though the subject of infidelity is often amusing, it is in danger of crossing into the sleazy zone.
Thank you for spelling it out for me that a film called 'The Players'' involves men getting head. If you hadn't pointed it out in this poster, I would have assumed that it's a soccer movie. PS. If you run the caption through google/translate it says; 'It's (the line) going to cut, I'm headed into a tunnel'...hilarious? Photoshop Bill Clinton's head on this poster and we could rename it 'The Great American Tragedy'
I love a no-holds-barred sex comedy as much as the next filth blogger, but the ad campaign was way the wrong choice. It looks like a cover for a unintentionally hilarious 'classy' porno and quite frankly makes DuJardin look like quite the creep. I also found it funny that in the original poster art, DuJardin's tie is actually not swept for his shoulder but extended down as it is regularly supposed to do, making it almost look as if it's hanging right into the middle of whomever legs those are, providing a not-so-subtle double entendre. I just happen to think it's not in good taste.
DuJardin is clearly trying to establish himself as a jack-of-all-trades, but I don't think coming off as a serial philanderer is the correct route right now. He's trying to go from the universally adored soft-spoken DuJardin to the James Bondesque no-apologies swave as fuck DuJardin, but the transition is just not happening as smoothly as one would like.
And here is the French trailer for said film: My french is very poor but I'm imagining most of the dialogue goes something like: 'she just landed on my dick, I have no idea how it happened'.
I'm going to stray again and not write about something related to film or televisino, though distantly it can be I'm sure. But there was this explosive story that hit stands recently when a woman who looks like everyone's senile least favorite grandma went on Today and promoted her new book which was released this past week called redundantly; 'Once Upon a Secret', which sounds like a cheap cheeseball romance novel...it is, there's only one catch, it's not fantasy, and it involved President Kennedy.
Apparently when this corpse bride was an impressionable flat-chested dinky looking teenager she interned at the White House while JFK was in office. On her fourth day, she gets asked by the president's right hand man if she would like to go for a swim on her lunch break...I know, I didn't think the White House had a pool either. I wonder where they keep the S&M dungeon and the crack den, downstairs somewhere I reckon.
Anyway, after the cool splashdown, the President took time out of his hectic schedule of saving the world from a Soviet nuclear attack and lured her into his private residence where she apparently lost her virginity to him that very same day. According to her, even the president with his Ivy league education and aristocratic pedigree couldn't avoid stupid utterances during sex such as 'is this ok for you?'. Thanks for ruining the sexual appeal of the President miss Mimi Alford. Next thing you're going to tell me was that he had cartoon kitties on his underwear.
Mimi Alford at 19, the age that she was when she popped her cherry with JFK apparently in Jackie's bedroom.
According to Mrs. Alford, the affair lasted on and off for almost a two year period, which is so ironic considering how much flack we gave to Bill Clinton just for coming on a girl's vesty pants-suit. But it's no surprise that JFK was somewhat of a sex junkie, and this new tell-all is just a drop in the bucket along with a slew of women who claim (and probably accurately so) that they had long-standing yet unrequited love affairs with the Commander in Chief.
From the excerpts read on air, this really sounds little more than a book with a wind-swept oily Fabio on the cover, and now I've made you all picture JFK in a long flowy blonde wig with a ripped-open pirate shirt on hanging off the side of a boat. There's a lot of 'caressing' and 'tenderness' and apparently childish playfulness involving rubber ducks not in a gross way, which I have to admit is rather intriguing because I don't know about you, but I've always wondered what sex with JFK would have been like...I've also wondered that about Bobby, Ted, and John Jr. Sue me.
On the whole, this book corroborates every similar story that preceded it, basically stating that the president was a bit of a philanderer and put on the guise of 'caring' about a girl just so he could have her at his sexual beck and call...why? because he's the president and he can. Rules have changed since then, and if any of those girls went to the press with a mysterious stain on her person I'm sure it would have been her that would be ruined rather than what happened with Clinton.
Long story short, the book is not professionally written, nor is it really a tell-all, or any great revelation. It's basically 'hey guys, I slept with JFK' and our collective response is 'yeah who hasn't?' When I read it I just hope it's more sordid and filthy than what I have been able to preview watching her interviews.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers sorrounded by tits. If that doesn't already give you an idea of what this show is about what will?
This might be a bit irrelevant considering the show is not on the air anymore, but how am I supposed to run a blog called Filth Screen and not post at least once about the Showtime's crossover hit The Tudors which ran for four seasons during the second half of this past decade? Basically it's a historical fiction night time soap. It's All My Children in Elizabethan costumes, and there's a lot of beheadings.
The title is self-explanatory. It focuses mainly on the rule of Henry VIII before he got fat and all syphilis-y and was busy divorcing and executing his many wives. Now, if you ever paid attention in high school history class or read the first five sentences of a Wikipedia entry on the subject you know that this show takes major major major creative liberties. But that's the point.
Some genius TV executive in Canada was thinking 'what if we hypersexualized the already scandalous and incendiary story of Henry VIII and his six wives? Sure everyone has heard of them but has no idea just how much sex everyone was apparently having. Make it by candle-light and throw bone corsets in and you got yourself some serious medieval pseudo-porn. On the whole it's about how sexual obsession eventually destroys a man from the inside out. Very true...very true. I think every man I know has that problem.
Let's be honest, how good could the sex have even been back then. Remember this was a time when people took a bath once a year and no one shaved anything. Also, it's Henry VIII, I just keep imagining it involved just a lot of blood and tears. But that's the price you pay for being Queen of England, sure you might get your head chopped off if god forbid you sneeze during supper but you take the good with the bad.
Let's get things straight, apart from him executing two of his wives for infidelity, there might not be an accurate thing in this whole series, but who cares when you've cast really hot young Brits to play much older, plumper and hairier people. I don't. And I have a bit of an Elizabethan costume fetish so I dug it..
Cast wise, you can see that no one was beating around the bush and trying to be 'correct' about the whole thing. I mean come on, are you really going to cast Philip Seymour Hoffman as Henry and put him in graphic simulated sex scenes in every episode? Does he really have the stamina for that? No, you've got to go with someone like Jonathan Rhys Meyers and rightfully so. He's staggeringly beautiful and also, he's fanatically dangerous. His eyes are captivating but if you saw them staring at you in pitch darkness you'd freak out a little bit. Though, they could at least have given him a ginger wig, I mean come on.
To be clear Henry VIII did not kill ALL of his wives as a lot of people misconceive, just two...which makes it totally ok.
Anyway, back on track, let me describe the wives as I remember reading about them, yes I'm a history nerd.
1. Catherine of Aragon - Spanish, age appropriate, rather chunky and round-faced, a little too religious and prude. Mother of Mary Tudor. She's played by someone I don't recognize, she disappears after a few episodes. Appropriate. moving on.
2. Anny Boleyn -Mother to Elizabeth and woman that fucked up Henry for life. An innocent, quite literally who got the ax because she couldn't bear sons, also the king thought that she was having an affair with her brother and pretty much just lost interest in her. I remember in a made-for-tv shitfilm she was played by Helena Bonham Carter who is like 25 years older than Anne Boleyn would have been at the time the film is set, but in the series, Natalie Dormer plays her as a frisky mean girl that plays mind games with the king and usually wins...for a while anyway. Seriously think about it, she alone determined the fate of an entire religion by causing Henry to break away from the Catholic Church when she insisted he divorce his first wife if he wanted to get into her old-timey panties.
3. Jane Seymour - Ok here we go, bore Henry his only son, who reigned for like 10 minutes before he died of some lame medieval plague-like disease like a chump. She died too, oddly and quietly. Henry was inconsolable for a couple of days.
4. Anne of Cleves - German-born well-to-do member of the gentry to whom Henry was finagled into marrying, but because he didn't find her hot enough he annulled the marriage and had the man who arranged it killed. And we think men today are shallow. Here's the thing, in the series she's played by Joss Stone, who is unbelievably sexy and charming, and I don't have any idea how the producers got her to agree to this role. 'We need a woman who is so ugly and repuslive that a person would literally kill whomever introduced them...oh Joss Stone's available, get her on the phone!' ...What?
5. Catherine Howard. Oy vey. Where do I start. Well she was 17 when she became queen, which largely had to do with her perky breasts and budding sexual awakening. It eventually steered her down the wrong path because the king couldn't keep up with her excessive need for passionate bunny sex so she found it elsewhere, except she should have known better than to look in the king's own cabinet. Off with her head! She's portrayed awfully by Tamzin Merchant who plays her like an awkward dodo-brained teenager, which in all fairness is what she was, but I'm sure she never said the words 'Oh come on, your majesty!'
6. Catherine Parr. She was one that actually made it through until the end of a marriage with Henry VIII and survived him. Holy shit is that ever an accomplishment. She was older, very religious, and pretty much boring compared to all the others. Joely Richardson plays her in the show. Next to the rest of the cast she seems like an old hag. But I guess that's the point.
Alrighty, did you make it through all that without falling asleep? good. The show is really nothing more than soft-core porn in beautiful elaborate costumes, and none of this is supposed to be stated with a negative connotation by the way. I think it's something that we universally crave. We all see the past as being more romantic than the present no matter which time period we're thinking about, lest it be the 1980's, but anyway, this show isn't trying to be anything more than it is. It's certainly not regarding itself the foremost example of a historical biopic on Henry VIII, everyone knows that 90% of its content is bullshit, but it's ok, because there are people fucking all over the place. Constantly. And it's hot. The end.
Below a behind the scenes look at the characters, basically explains itself.
