Blood, Sex, and Jessica Lange: The Beauty of American Horror Story

Scariest nun Meryl Streep in Doubt

I know I’m way late coming into this, but I really only binge watch shows these days because my weekends are loads of fun spent spooning my dog and streaming Netflix. I don’t watch shows one by one on TV like some chump. And since Netflix started streaming American Horror Story, I finally had something beside Lost re-runs or desperately trying to pay attention to the turd waffle that is TURN. I love to be scared ergo I avoided shows like that because I’m thinking; ‘how terrifying could it be, it’s on television?’ turns out VERY. I’m a full on addict and on the third season. Yay! My life is awesome!

I was always intrigued by the series considering it stars so many reputable actors including a number of Oscar winners; Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange, Gabourey Sidibe, Joseph Fiennes, Frances Conroy, I mean how bad could it be if the biggest names in Hollywood are flocking to it like a moth to a flame?

The premise is awesome. Making a show like this, you have to ask yourself, how do we keep this consistently terrifying in a TV format? We’re not Alfred Hitchcock. So here’s what the creators did; every season takes place in a different place and time and under different circumstances recycling the main cast into new roles. It’s bizarre but it totally works. Every season has a subtitle. The first one is ‘Murder House’ which takes place in a heavily haunted house in Los Angeles that an unassuming family moves into.

Don't mess with the Lange. She's a witch.

The second season is subtitled; ‘Asylum’, the third is ‘Coven’, you get the idea. Asylum takes place in the 60’s, while Coven is set in New Orleans, but what’s consistent (perhaps the only consistency) are the actors even though every season they play different characters.

Let’s move on to what we find scary. Me personally? I hate blood and guts, that’s not at all frightening to me, it’s gross more than anything else. I love suspense. Dark corners, unexplained noises, moving shadows…you get the idea. American Horror Story utilizes both. It is not for those with a weak stomach. It’s pretty damn gory. It’s also surprisingly very blatantly sexual. It doesn’t shy away from any extremities. There are severed heads, buckets of blood, naked men, a lot of simulated sex…basically everything that you wouldn’t expect to see on TV.

Another regular on the show is fabulous actress Sarah Paulson. I heard in Freakshow she has two heads. I don't know why or how, I just want to see it damn it. My god, what have I turned into?

Of all the bright spots and innovation of this series, I’ll have to give the gold medal to Jessica Lange on this one. She’s absolutely fabulous and this completely resurrected her career. She’s played a controlling Southern Belle, a lunatic nun, the head of a witches’ coven, and she’s unbelievable. She’s so frightening and enticing at the same time. Having her front and center every season was a very smart move. Also, at this point we know that basically every kind of story has already been told, to the point where we find ‘found footage’ horror movies actually interesting…ugh. Ergo, the show strives to be as outlandish as possible. It’s hard to believe in its campiness but it’s delicious. I’m more titillated than terrified and can watch it with the lights off…as I said my dog is usually there. Dear Netflix, please start streaming the 4^th season; American Horror Story: Freak Show so I can get caught up for the 5^th season. I only have like 2 weeks before it’s premiere and I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with Lady Gaga.

Below, trailer for Hotel...

Below, trailer for Coven, the season I'm currently on and my favorite so far. 

Another Von Trier Sex Film? Um...I Guess.

Still from Nymphomaniac (2013)

Gratuitous and relentless painful sex is as likely to appear in a Lars Von Trier film as much as bare-knuckle boxing matches are likely to appear in a Guy Ritchie film, so brace yourself children for Nymphomaniac (2013).

Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg (who’s been in the two prior Von Trier films; Melancholia (2013) and AntiChrist (2009)) a dying self-proclaimed nympho retells of all his sexual experiences to anyone who would listen, but for the love of god why would they? I mean if Von Trier is involved I imagine every story has something to do with just a lot of blood and tears. Has sex in any Von Trier film ever been enjoyable or arousing to watch? It’s been torture, and not in the good way, but I think that is a creation of Von Trier unto itself. The displeasure of sex.

Hate to say it but it sounds very Breaking the Waves (1996) don’t it? Remember his first English language film? The one that was actually good and not polarizing? The one that was not art for art’s sake? The one before he made the incendiary statement that he sympathizes with Hitler?

Innocent small-town girl Emily Watson plays against Skarsgård (a man who's appetite for sex knows no bounds) and eventually leads to her demise.

Anyway, Breaking the Waves (1996) was a beautiful film starring Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgård, who is in this one too apparently. It involves some kind of rig worker (Skarsgård,) who gets injured on a barge (or something I can’t remember) and becomes paralyzed form the neck down. He then forces his wife Watson using survivor’s guilt on her sorry ass to have sexual encounters with other men and then tell him all about it so that he can thereby vicariously experience them himself because his peen is more or less in the vault at that point.

So basically, this is not a film about sex, it’s a film about the stories we tell each other about all the sex we’ve had or hope to have, so kind of like a Danish existential bizarre-as-shit slumber party. I for one still haven’t forgiven Von Trier for his completely irresponsible comments at Cannes, but again looking at it from a filmmaking perspective, I have a love-hate relationship with him. His earlier Danish films don’t interest me much, and I never liked them. Then, he had a winning streak with Breaking the Waves (1996), Dancer in the Dark (2000), and Dogville (2003) (which he appropriately titled his ‘Death trilogy’) how Ingmar Bergman of you, Trier. But Antichrist (2009) is a film I flat out blocked out of my brain it was so profoundly idiotic. And Manderlay (2005)…let’s be honest, no one gave a shit about, or watched as far as I remember. 

Von Trier on the set of Melancholia (2011) with co-stars Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg

Melancholia (2011) on the other hand was a revelation, it took me a couple of times (and a couple of friends, you know your names) to finally convince me that this was a great work of art, so based on his history, I’m going to say that I have faith in the project, but am expecting a widely mixed if not totally polarizing reaction from every festival it travels to this year (except Cannes considering he’s a persona non grata there and we all know why), but that’s exactly what he wants. No publicity is bad publicity is it Trier? Unless of course you’re defending Hitler. 

 Below some trailers.

Nora Ephron - In Memoriam

Still from the infamous Katz's Deli scene in When Harry Met Sally, if you haven't seen it then shame on you sir. (I say sir because every ma'am on this planet has most definitely watched that movie).

When I first started writing, short stories and mini-plays about god knows what...anything, there was one person who I wanted to be exactly like. That was Nora Ephron. The woman who wrote cinema's most famous deli scene, wrote two Academy Award nominated performances for Meryl Streep, and for three decades had the market cornered on romantic comedies and dramadies.

It breaks my heart to hear that she died today, because so much of my childhood was learning how to speak, feel, and be as a woman the way that Nora wrote them. She was eponymous of dry, witty humor, and plenty of heart, and wrote both sexes down as if she had them completely pegged, and she did. What really was appealing about her from my point of view was just how fearless she was. She was a screenwriter at a time when the movie business was very much a man's world, particularly behind the cameras. A woman screenwriter? who'd have thunk? Nora did, and she really did pave the way. And everyone knew to take her seriously after the landmark romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally (1989) came out and Nora ripped the sheets clean off the sex-relationship table and gave 'I'll have what she's having' a permanent place in perfect joke history.

To be such a trailblazer couldn't have been easy, but Nora remained at the top of her game all throughout her career, and we never lost sight of just how insightful, bright, and brilliant she was when it came to the challenges, however awkward and comic, that we all face in our stupid relationships.

Though many people didn't enjoy it, and by 'many people' I mean the pretentious critics at the Village Voice who turned up their noses at a lighthearted and sweet-as-fuck romantic comedy, but I thoroughly loved Julie and Julia (2009), Nora's last film. For a film basically sans plot, it was still interesting, unique, and fun to watch, which is a gift that only a rare few have, Nora being one of them. As a writer, she's up there with the likes of Anais Nin, Margaret Mitchell, and what the hell, Emily Dickinson. She was truly an original, and the screenwriting/directing world is lesser because of her loss. But we'll always have her legacy tainted in the films she wrote straight from her heart (as corny as that sounds), because she always remained true to herself, and always completely and utterly fearless, and for teaching me at a very young age that men are literally the dumbest species on earth, an invaluable lesson, I say thank you.

Below are some clips of the gifts of blissful moments Nora left in her films: 

Flesh and Blood: The Borgias Sex Up the Renaissance

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.