Britney's Gone Proletariat...You Better Work Bitch

Still from 'Radar' almost Kate Middleton but not quite. Nice binoculars btdubs.

Britney Spears has probably never picked up a book in her life that did start with the words 'Chicken Soup For' much less read the Marx manifesto, but I'm starting to notice a strange trend in her work, and I'm wondering if it's just out of rebellion, sickness of privilege and entitlement, or she's gone full on Communist on our asses.

The trend started a few years back with the release of her single 'Radar' in 2009 off her Circus album, which was a triumph by the way. The song was a catchy weird melodic tune that alluded to someone Britney was non-chalantly pursuing because he appealed to her. The video however gave me pause. It starts out with her driving a Bentley to some English country house that rivals Downton Abbey and meeting sweater-vest wearing, shoe-shining, vanilla spoiled rich boy for a weekend in the country for some polo matches. How Madonna of her. She is dressed very appropriately for the occasion, she probably asked her wardrobe stylist to look like Kate Middleton but with a Britney flair. She sits atop a big patio and while vanilla gold-plate man tries to woo her by giving her diamonds (they are a girl's best friend), she keeps being distracted by some scruffy Josh Holloway from Lost looking guy who's gearing up for said polo match. I mean he's playing polo so he's not exactly a chimney sweep, but he don't have no mansion in the hills to entertain his lady friends. He's just a scruffy sweaty hot guy that's really good at polo. The next scene is the match itself and while Ritchie Rich is arguing about who won, scruff-daddy woo's Britney until she throws her diamond necklace (how wasteful, keep that shit, love fades things are forever) and they run away together. Ergo hottness wins over money...but you know, it's nice if the guy's got both. 

Britney dressed to the nines at the polo match but her mind is somewhere else, as she repeatedly points out.

Then I saw this trend reappear when her single 'Criminal' started climbing the charts in 2011. Also taking place in England, no idea why, she's cast opposite her then actual fiance Jason Trawick who plays a tattooed, mean-streets biker, with a gun fetish who rescues her from an uptight British bitch of a boyfriend who insists she go to parties with him and act like a damn lady. I have no idea where this came from. Jason Trawick was a former agent at WME, he's not a bad boy people, he barely has a personality, but you know what, a few fake giant tattoos, some hair growth, and that crazy six-pack he worked for made him look like he would beat the shit out of a guy for looking at you the wrong way, which he does in the video. It's a Bonnie and Clyde-themed thing, they rob convenience stores and make out, like a lot, while she sings about how she knows he's no good but she's still in love with him even though he's a...say it with me...criminal. Then they kiss in a blaze of bullets when the bobbies catch them (that's British for the po-po) but miraculously nothing hits either of them and they escape. Again, giving up a life of empty luxury to risk everything with some guy you just met who looks cool on a motorcycle. Style over substance, I get it. 

Wait a minute, he rides a Harley AND has a gun? Jackpot!

And now she's driving the point home with her newly released single; 'Work Bitch' (September 16th, 2013), fuck the video (which is ridiculous and totally under-budget for someone like her). The lyrics say it all; 'You want a hot body? Want a Bugatti? Want a Maserati? You better work bitch'. Yes, those are all superficial things that I want more than anything, seriously someone buy me a fucking Maserati, but still she's saying that nothing comes easy, even 'parties in France' and you have to work for what you want, and every time I drive through Beverly Hills I have to remind myself of that to keep from crying. I'm sure it's got something to do with the fact that she almost lost everything and is kind of poking fun at that. She lost things that were of actual importance to people like custody of her children, so she's being somewhat ironic, either that or I'm giving her too much credit here, but I think she's smart enough...yes I did just fucking say that. So basically driving the point home, Britney is telling us that this lifestyle that we all want (didn't you watch The Bling Ring (2013)) Oh you didn't? Yeah no one did) Anyway, this lifestyle ain't all it's cracked up to be. And the important things in life you have to work for...also scruffy guys on motorcycles are way hotter than a man who has everything except an interesting personality and a living soul. 

Below the videos for the aforementioned singles. See if you can point out the similarities. It's like Britney homework. Which is the best kind.

A Royal Affair Reminds Us That Romance Is Indeed Dead

American poster for the film

 I seriously cannot believe it's taken me so long to watch A Royal Affair (2012) but it's been sitting quietly in my Netflix queue until the other day when I was driving up Sunset Blvd. and saw Madds Mikkelsen in a very ill-fitting pair of suede pants (yes, suede in May) walking down the street towards The Coffee Bean. I've heard pieces about it here and there, most of them good, but no one saying it's pretty damn close to a perfect movie, which it completely is. 

An affair begins in shadows. How's that for pretentious?

It is a Danish historical drama that made the rounds at some important festivals last year and even landed a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at last years Oscars, shamefully it didn't win.

It tells the true story of a British princess betrothed to a psychotic and somewhat slow-in-the-head Danish king and is forced to relinquish all over her customs, language, and family and move to Denmark to begin a bizarre life with a bizarre man. Although The Princess Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander) is unbelievably beautiful, like right out of a Botticelli painting beautiful,  the king does not enjoy 'visiting her bed chamber' if ya know what I mean, because he'd rather get wasty-pants and do it with some nasty hooker, his words...no seriously. But it's in Danish so it doesn't sound so trashy. 

The requisite naked-in-a-copper-bathtub scene, every period piece has one, it's in the rule books somewhere.

Time passes, and the king (Mikkel Følsgaard) grows more more and more despondent and insane due to what his trusted advisers believe to be 'excessive masturbation', so they audition doctors from far and wide to be the king's personal physician. Out of the few that make the rounds is a strangely attractive and mysterious small-town idealist and cheerleader for the incoming Enlightenment movement of Rousseau, Voltaire, and John Locke (and others that character names from Lost were based on) doctor named Johann Struensee (Madds Mikkelsen). It's beyond obvious that sooner or later this young impressionable now-queen and idealist doctor will begin a passionate love affair as she has a secret gateway to her bed chamber, and no that's not code for anything, that's actually in the film. I mean, he's the only one who doesn't wear powdered wigs and rouge, with those ridiculous white silk stalkings they thought looked so fly back in the 18th century. 

Madds has that rugged primal manliness...thing that you just can't put your finger on, you just know it's there, although you'd like to put your finger on it.

It's a bit obvious the queen is in need of some real man-lovin' and he's more than obliged to give it to her, but you know what? They end up falling in love, and everything falls apart as it does when love gets in the way of really steamy caressing and intercourse set to classical music. But as a historical drama it works brilliantly. It tells the actual love story and the tragedy of it, although totally inevitably, in such a passionate way that you still fall for it, and by the end of it are wiping away tears saying how you would totally give up all your worldly possessions and live in exile as she's eventually forced to if you could have a love affair like that, but you won't because it's 2013, and shit like internet dating exists. 

I swear 18th century costumes make any plot line sexier. That's also on the books.

It's brilliantly shot, and executed, and as a film is almost pitch perfect in narrative, aesthetic, and every other possible detail. Every time I see a costume that astounds me I immediately thought 'take that Sofia Coppola!' and that's always a good thing. This is a film that gets it right, and really reminds us that true love and romance did in fact exist at one point, where people sacrificed everything for it, and it's not like Grey's Anatomy at all out there, you just would have had to have lived 200 years ago, when there was no indoor plumbing. So you take the good with the bad. But seriously, watch this film. It's streaming on Netflix. I don't want any excuses.

Trailer below: 

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.

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.

Finally, a Film About Vibrators

Still from Hysteria (2011) It opened Toronto last year. 

This is not hyperbolic at all, in essence, the entire film Hysteria (2011) is about the greatest scientific advancement since penicillin. Yes ladies, before the little blue pill, there were doctors out there who cared about OUR orgasms, and in the late 1880's they designed something that would eventually become the amazingly miraculous thing it is today. 

The title refers to a diagnosis known as 'female hysteria' which since then has been eradicated and we just call it 'horny' these days. Pleasing the missus wasn't exactly priority number 1 for the average man in 1880, with a handle-bar mustache, who was too busy polishing his monocle, dusting his snuff box collection, and oiling up his penny-farthing bicycle. So a handful of genius doctors to whom we as women owe a tremendous amount to, along with whomever invented high heels and the flat-iron, invented a new device to help women 'handle' their hysteria better. And the world changed forever.

a prototype...thank god.

No longer did we have to deal with living, breathing, men who talk back, smell, and generally don't know what they're doing down there flopping on top of us. Now we could lock the doors, close the windows, turn on some Enya and go nuts, all we needed was a couple of double AA batteries. 

But be aware, obviously the first prototypes if this miraculous invention was a far cry from the modern rabbit. It was actually quite frightening, resembling something used to torture people during the inquisition when put to 'the question'. Before a vibrating device was implanted into the thing, they served the same purpose as the common dildo. They were made of wood (ouch, think of all of the splinters), stone (ouch, think of the cold) and other unspeakable materials you wouldn't want to put anywhere near your sensitive lady parts, but science came a long way, and eventually doctors had realized that a very effective way of 'curing' the 'hysteria' was to stimulate the body with a strong vibration, and guess what. They were right.

It sure is.

This film starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy explores that unique period in our history when were just fine with giving women some more sexual freedom. Of course it would be a good 80 years more before the pill even came out, but still just imagine how different the world would be without the vibrator. It's such a simple concept, but I see it as a post-apocalytpic type of scenario when women have banned together to destroy all men due to never-ending anger and frustration that accumulated through years of gender inequality. Because we all have vibrators now, and yes guy, even your girlfriend has one. Every single woman on this earth has a vibrator, and we name them too. Mine's called Cecil. He's British. This is a means to distract us and lull us into a state of bliss so that we don't need to focus on the fact that we'll always be #2. 

I'm very excited to see it. Here's the trailer - 

MASTER CHEF GETS ALL ABOUT APHRODISIACS.

Tonight's episode of Master Chef (2009 - ) features an elimination challenge which involved cooking with an aphrodisiac ingredient, hence combining my two favorite things: food and sex. I don't even want to get into which i've dealt without for longer. Anyway, the winner of the 'quick fire' Jennifer, a perky cute 30's something blonde with a huge rack and peppy personality was given a choice from three ingredients said to  have scientific properties of sexual arousal when ingested. I'm sure by now you've surmised that one of the options was oysters, which I'm sorry to say I detest. This does not mean i don't have a sophisticated palate, it just means I don't enjoy eating giant wads of snot. No offense to anyone who loves them, but I'd rather go for a more conventional approach to arousal than making incessant sucking noises as the slimy gooey texture of the oyster slid down my throat, did I paint a gross enough picture for you yet? The next one was a complete shocker: artichokes. A very metaphoric food for sex in retrospect considering how much you have to work at the damn thing to get rid of all the intolerable bad shit to get to the 'heart' of it. I'm a huge artichoke kind of girl but can't recall one time when i've finished a soup or salad with an artichoke base and immediately felt the urge to pummel the man next to me in a fit of sexual excitement. Take me waiter at chili's! that spinach artichoke dip makes me just want to rip off all that 'flair' from your suspenders and drag you to the back seat of your 1997 Chevy Impala that smells like old gym socks and beef jerky. 

But next time I'm on a date and the guy has impressed me enough to make me want to cook for him (which is a feat accomplished by very few as of late) i'm putting artichoke into the whole meal, drugging him with subconscious bursts of desire with every bite. 

The third ingredient that Jennifer actually ended up choosing for the whole rest of the competitors is another easy conclusion. The 500$ a pop turd looking thing that pigs burrow in the ground for hours because only their sophisticated snouts can pin point this diamond in the rough (and no, none of that was intended to be sarcastic), the truffle. 

I have many soft spots for truffles, and i'm sure at least some of them are in my erogenous zones. Truffles look horrific but once are placed on the palate of one's tongue ignite pleasure that is too good to be only measured with one sense, and perhaps that is why it is regarded as one of the most potent means of sexual stimulation...orally that is. 

Now, the challenge was not only to create an appetizing dish using an ingredient that most of these competitors have ever seen much less tasted. A lot of people made the mistake of cooking a filet mignon in truffle essence not realizing that actually truffles don't go with much, but definitely not with meat. 

A burly generation Italian home-cook named Guiseppe created a taglioni dish with truffle cream sauce and spinach, and immediately made my mouth water. He book ended his presentation by saying his wife (who he loves very much still) his words...was the inspiration. The judges loved it, moving on. 

Nothing rather than that is really worth mentioning, and for some reason the men seemed to triumph over the women in this round because it seemed they had an easier time finding a good romantic memory to use for inspiration, while the chicks were all snarkily looking at their ingredients trying to recall a rare moment when they weren't being royally screwed over. Food is to me always sexy, I know this sounds cliche but i really do eat with my eyes first, then my mouth, and just like attraction to someone else if the food doesn't appear appealing, what it can offer you becomes secondary to how it looks, even if it tastes divine. 

So my course of plan is to stick to my diet coke/barley and the missed connections tab on craigslist because even though i don't take it seriously, i still find it hilarious. And for all of you happy people out there, i wish you many oyster filled romps with your significant other (preferably when the oysters have been cleaned, shucked, and sprinkled with lemon juice). Bon Appetit!