There was a great article after 1989 came out by I think (and pray) Judith Butler or Linda Williams (there goes my academia swag card) that labeled Taylor Swift and her 'squad' a bunch of neo-nazi Barbies. I tried to find it, and if you Google Search 'Taylor Swift Nazi' you get about 2 million results; the most compelling of which is this one. It's not difficult to see why that is. I'm sorry but Taylor has been selling herself as kind of a faux Jill-of-all-trades, twerking in her 'Shake it Off' video, and most recently blatantly ripping off Beyonce's 'Formation' video with 'Look What You Made Me Do'. She's a tall Aryan-AF looking blonde who loves to play the victim; and what do white nationalists do aside from playing the victim all the time.
Taylor's go-to music video director Joseph Kahn tweeted that the 'Look What You Made Me Do' video is not in Beyonce's art space ...I beg to differ.
Perfect example: Kanye the villainous African American man is ruining the 'reputation' of a helpless young white girl. What is this, 'Birth of a Nation'? (The D.W. Griffith version). All you have to do is watch the Viceland documentary on the Charlottesville rally to see why that is. I won't go as far as to say that she's their cultural icon, but she's strange not to denounce the rumors much like Trump. However she has no trouble denouncing rumors about her flimsy and flighty love life...hm. But most of this started when the whole squad became a thing. She surrounded herself with tall blonde girls who looked just like her. It was only when she received criticism for that, that she 'allowed' Zendaya in her clique. Like the whole world is her basic Aryan high school. I think Zendaya is doing just fine without her.
Squad goals?
Cultural appropriation is just as bad as outward racism in my opinion, so let's move on to the greatest 'culture vultures' of our time; Kendall and Kylie just can't help fucking up can they? Let's get this out of the way. They are white girls. Sometimes, I like to see what idiots on social media are getting up to, and it doesn't look any better for either of them. Firstly, the unspeakable and tone-deaf Pepsi commercial that would have ruined anyone's career that Kendall miraculously survived, where some genius thought that to make her the face of the Black Lives Matter movement was a good idea. Then came the T-shirt line. If you don't know, let me catch you up. Kendall and Kylie are so obsessed with their own faces they decided to super-impose them unto T-shirts of album covers by Biggie and Tupac. Are you fucking kidding me? And because they wanted to market it for basic bitches, the gave it a vintage look and charged a hefty 125.00$ price tag for them before quickly removing them from the market.
I'm sure the Muslim community is totally fine with this.
Kendall herself is also getting quite a bit of flack because her IG is chalk full of offensive and insensitive imagery such as her dressed up in a Hijab, to a shirt with a confederate flag on it. Also, lest we forget, she tagged a photo of herself and her sisters with the caption; 'girl power ...sister power' with a fist bump emoji on it. Only problem is that the fist bump color was basically three emojis darker than white, implying she was somehow on board the brazen cultural appropriation train without actually doing anything for the community that she is stealing from. I think my fave response to that bullshit was a girl who told her straight up to stick in her emoji lane.
Tupac always wanted his legacy to be two white girls' initials over his image.
The most recent BS regarding members of Taylor Swift's Aryan squad that's popped up is with supermodel Gigi Hadid. You'd think she gets a pass because she's half Semitic; born to a Dutch mother and a Palestinian father. And yet, she got a shitload of well-deserved flack when she announced that she would be walking in the Victoria Secret fashion show that would be held in Shanghai this year. Now, don't think that because she's not full blood that she doesn't enjoy white privilege. Her entire life was spent in Malibu living with her mother and rich, white stepfather, David Foster. Perhaps you're the biggest asshole when you don't admit that yeah you enjoy the fuck out of white privilege. Anyway, someone managed to dig up an IG video of her at a Chinese restaurant with her sister Bella, who did a weird quasi and really racist Asian bow, as Gigi held up her cookie in the shape of a Buddha face and squinted. That's some ratchet shit right there.
Presented without comment.
Now yeah, these things may seem minimal, but this is how it starts. And with racial tensions at an all time high, I'd be a bit more careful if I was a cultural icon, especially one that children look up to ...for some reason. Ana Navarro? No thanks ...Kendall. They're role models whether they like it or not, and people are just not having anymore of their casual racism. You don't get away with everything just because you're pretty, ladies.
Jodie Foster minutes before her attack in The Accused (1988)
There's a film I like to show to most of my friends, it's a flawed documentary called Girl 27 (2007) about a rape case that was kept quiet by the Hollywood studios, mainly MGM for over 70 years. The story goes that in the early 30's a young teenager who worked as an extra for the studio was lured to the Hal Roach Ranch (a place where a lot of MGM films were shot) under false pretenses to be 'entertainment' for the MGM sales team, basically the people who sell the studio's films to theaters. Champagne and whiskey was flowing like ground water, and eventually this 17 year old named Patricia Douglas was dragged out into a parked car and brutally assaulted and raped by one of the salesmen, a man named David Ross. He was never served, never charged, and never had to pay for what he did. The studio heads snapped into action and made sure that even though Pat Douglas brought a class action law suit against him at the age of 17, they paid everyone including the only witness to the crime and even her own mother a substantial amount of hush money, and the whole thing stayed buried until a documentary filmmaker accidentally chanced on the headline while working on his book on Jean Harlow.
Pat Douglas and her mother outside the courtroom in a picture from the headlines in 1932. The mother was later paid to keep quiet about the whole thing. She took it and didn't ask any questions.
It's been a long time since then but have things really changed? In the documentary, the victim, Pat Douglas brings up the 1988 film The Accused. In which Jodie Foster stars as a rape victim with Kelly McGillis as her attorney, who later came out in People magazine admitting she was raped. Jodie won the Academy Award that year, and everything seemed sealed up with a nice little bow. As if Hollywood was saying ok now we know the gravity of the issue and look, we addressed it so let it go away now. If only it was that easy.
There's a scene early on in The Accused where McGillis visits Foster and asks her about all of her 'bad habits'. As in, was she dressed provocatively, does she go to bars alone, and when she does does she get drunk? Even if she's had sex with multiple partners and when she does have sex if a man hits her does she enjoy it? Foster rightfully is unhinged by these terrifying questions and gets irate while McGillis explains herself saying that 'these are the questions they are going to ask you on the stand', to which Foster replies 'That ain't fair'. If that isn't the biggest understatement of our century.
'That ain't fair'.
No it isn't fair, and to this day that's what women have to endure. Just like what happened to Pat Douglas over 70 years ago, when they immediately labeled her a 'tart' and a 'tramp' because back then a tramp couldn't get raped. We see it happen again and again. It's what I like to call the 'double rape standard'. A woman gets attacked physically, and then she gets raped again on the witness stand when she is brave enough to fight for her dignity, her rights, and her life. In The Accused Foster is a self-described 'white trash bimbo' who works in a diner, drinks during the day, and goes to bars alone. And at first all of that is used against her even by her own lawyer. What hasn't changed at all is women being afraid of a predominately male-dominated world to speak out against injustice. In Girl 27, it was Pat's mother, in The Accused it's the best friend who actually witnesses what happens and once one of the male onlookers turns to her and says 'you're next' she runs off.
Pat Douglas in a Vanity Fair photo shoot when she finally revealed her story, about a year or so before she died.
Since that film, this ugly subject matter has rarely been brought up because Hollywood daintily thought well we addressed it (because Foster does get her comeuppance in the end) and that's that. Let's close the book on that forever now. It's not that easy Hollywood. I bring up these two examples to illustrate how little has changed. And even though the outcome for Patricia Douglas was different than that for Jodie Foster's character, it's the hardship in between is something that continues to go unaddressed. In a world that is still highly dominated by the male perspective and male filmmakers, it's not going to be easy to get a woman's point of view, the exact point of view across. This is far from over, and until this stops happening basically every single day, we need to keep putting a mirror to it. Especially when we have (albeit inexplicable) public figures like Melissa Gorga from Real Housewives for New Jersey fame advocating marital rape in fucking 2014. It just goes to show that little has changed. It's never ok, and it's never the woman's fault. It's really not that hard folks. What I've been talking about is basically an archaic version of 'slut shaming' and we all know that that leads no where good. It's not ok either, and it's time to stop.
'Is that soft core porn?' 'no, it's just Oliver Stone trying too hard.' 'oh well i'm sure it has the same low-quality shamelessness and sub-par performances'
What has Oliver Stone been doing to this country and the film industry for all these years if not pissing all over it? Like we needed any of his films to exists, honestly. Alexander (2004) was on BBC America the other day, and I was already not feeling too well and kind of down, after this was in the background for about an hour or so, I was ready to commit murder suicide. But don't think he's hanging up his alpha crazy hat just yet, even though he should have retired 20 years ago, because he's hired the youngest hottest actors in the biz to star in his new movie about pot-growers, cartels, and hot bitches in slutty bikinis. Nope, never seen that before. Thanks for the new outlook, Stone.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is in there, you might remember him as the guy who played Kick Ass and young John Lennon before his cradle-robbing director, Sam Taylor-Wood hypnotized him and made him her sex slave...I mean they fell in love and got married, same dif. Then there's Taylor Kitsch from John Carter (2011) fame. Yawn. And of course, Serena Van Der Woodsen herself, Blake Lively as 'O' the ho-bag who's dating both of the men simultaneously, probably because of the free pot, and gets kidnapped by evil south-of-the-border cartels Benicio Del Toro and Salma Hayek. Can you predict what happens next? I'm going to say a few sensory-overload shootout sequences, lots of making out in the pool, and a graphic stab scene later, the heroes get the girl back, kill the cartel, and take over in Mexico. And one of them dies. Hopefully Taylor Kitsch.
Why I'm just a sweet little girl who's fucking two men at the same time. I never imagined I would be kidnapped because my two boyfriends pissed off a very hostile to begin with drug cartel. Tee hee.
The film is being marketed as a kind of millenial version of Natural Born Killers (1994) with the same degree of speed, violence, and blatant disregard for one's audience. So I'm expecting it to be just as obnoxious and un-sexy, but now with even more incessant noise. If there is a director out there, that is so obsessed with his films being 'sexy' and in the same breath is anything but, it would be Oliver Stone. There is not a film of his that exists that has ever turned me on no matter how gratuitous and graphic the fucking might be. It always comes off gross, and something I'd rather not have seen, and is always treated as a detrimental consequence for the characters involved. If there is one film I am not looking forward to seeing this year, and probably won't, because I want to spare myself the awkward shame of having to look the ticketing office in the face when I'm picking up a matinee for it, is Savages (2012). It looks like a cheap B-movie not even Verhoeven would touch, and now that I think about it, even though the plot is typically bland and predictable, if you gave this material to Verhoeven at least he might be able to do something interesting and campy with it. Alas, we are all stuck with yet another awful Oliver Stone film that we have to stomach, or at least sit through the TV spot every time we want to watch cute puppy videos on the youtubes. There it is, ruining our mood. Whomever is still putting up money for Oliver Stone to work in this town, please stop it. That well has been dry, not to mention insane for decades now.
Here's the trailer they've shoved down our throat for months.
What is a Ridley Scott sci-fi flick without a skinny hot chick in her underpants running around all sweaty and frantic?
In a few short hours, I am going to have the IMAX 3-D experience of my life! Take that Avatar, Titanic, and James Cameron in general. I'm off to see Prometheus this Saturday, the Alien prequel that Ridley Scott had in his head for 35 years and finally decided to direct after Noomi Rapace became available. And we all have unanswered questions.
1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Did Aliens actually plant our DNA here?
3. Who is going to be eventually running around in those tiny tight white undies a la Ripley crying and screaming for half of the film? (I'm being cheeky we all know that's already in the film, and we know who it will be too)
Everyone has beyond extreme expectations for this film and not without good reason, the trailer is just ambiguous and frightening enough to stir up all kinds of repository hypothesizing and wishful thinking. And considering the cast is how do I put this maturely...hotter than shit on fire, we're also all wondering who will be hooking up with who on the spaceship Prometheus until the mutated aliens eat their flesh and blow up their ship...I'm guessing.
Here's what I am predicting/hoping occurs on this magical beautiful day when I'm sequestered in a freezing theater surrounded by overly excited teenagers and sci-fi geeks.
-Idris Ilba's character and Charlize Theron's character get it on.
-Guy Pearce's character and Charlize Theron's character get it on.
-Everyone hits on Michael Fassbender's character because they don't realize he's a robot.
-Noomi Rapace's character is forced to be in a state of undress covered in weird alien goop for a lot of the time.
-There's some kind of sex in a pod.
-Oh and we have our minds properly blown by an appropriate overload of awesome all in spectacular 3-D. That too, is important.
But we can't deny that if not sex, the implication of which is important to the most profoundly philosophical and existentially themes science fiction themes, even if only explored through the birth death ashes-to-ashes zygote to corpse themes as it usually is. But Ridley is a gentleman that loves to make gross allusions to the vagina by filling the mise-en-scene with grotesque slimey creatures that more often than not resemble a lady's nether-regions. Let's hope this film abstains from such metaphors and keeps the sex nice and normal. But with Ridley Scott, you never know. And that's part of the intrigue.
Awesomely bleak and cryptic trailer.
And here's a really interesting article while you're at it -
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.
This beautiful young and smart actress with ginger hair and a million dollar smile came on the scene looking like Christina Hendrick's hypothetical younger sister, and let's face it, as it stands now, Gingers are in: with the formerly mentioned Mrs. Hendricks, Emma Stone, and Bryce Dallas Howard pioneering the road of fiery hair and fiery personalities it's a new brand of sexy that we can all get on board with.
Jessica Chastain seemed to appear almost from nowhere. All of a sudden she's walking the red carpet at Cannes side by side with Tree of Life director Terrence Malick, in which she starred. Since then, she's been tapped for some of the most important projects in cinema right now; huge hit The Help, Ralph Fiennes' contemporary Shakespearian adaptation and directorial debut Coriolanus, as well as Al Pacino's docu-drama of Oscar Wilde's play 'Salome' titled Wilde Salome and playing Helen Mirren's younger incarnation in The Debt, all to be or already released this year. The girl is on fire right now, and her introduction into mainstream and serious cinema is a pretty solid one.
She has a Meryl Streep quality; that of intrigue, beauty, and intellectualism that brings forward very nuanced and meticulous performances. And lets not forget that she's pretty much smokin'.
She is introduced in The Help by two long, statuesque legs walking daintily across the pool side of her luxurious country home, and a voice quiveringly yet sensually speaks on the telephone outside of frame. Then the camera pulls out and we see Chastain as quirky but troubled Celia Foote, sporting a loud bright yellow 60's two-peice and a Marilyn Monroe haircut and cat eye sunglasses. Later in the film, bright red lipstick, tight and low cut tops, and high heeled pumps accent her appeal as she plays the quintessential stock character of the 'dumb blonde' with a certain level of depth and sympathy.
She is a very interesting presence on screen and I can totally understand why directors are fighting over her and why she's able to have so many releases in only one year coming out of a modest background of a few guest spots on TV shows. I don't think it will take much time for her to become a household name. She's well on her way to becoming the next Julia Roberts, and if she plays her cards right, the next Meryl Streep. She is a new brand of sexy that is currently very popular which is the intellectual sexy; a girl that is etherial, intelligent, and sensuous. Smart-Hot is back, and it's taking names.
I'm going to veer off a little here into music videos; a format i've hardly touched since i started writing this blog, but i still think is incredibly important to the art of filth. In light of their new album release on August 29th, titled 'I'm With You', i'd like to focus some much needed praise on them. Lately Red Hot Chili Peppers have been playing ad-nauseum on my ipod and honestly i realized just how important they are, to both music and sex. Now, you might think i'm bias because i'm from California and here, the chili peppers are almost a religion. There are three things we can't live without over here 1. Priuses 2. Avocados and 3. The Chili Peppers. They are the quintessential California rock band, funky, unabashed, and innovative. They are to california what The Beatles are to the UK, and on par with them in my opinion.
They have been around for more than 30 years at this point, and have used the music video format to express themselves further than just the recording of their music can take them. Lest we forget, these are also the guys who stripped down completely for a rather memorable performance donning nothing but old tube socks around their family jewels. And man could they rock a tube sock like no one's business.
Energetic, photogenic (arguably), and unapologetic, this fab foursome has gone through it all, death of a band member, drug addiction, Woodstock '99, etc. and have come out legends. Not to mention they still have bodies that rival the average jocky 20-something and they are all by now pushing 40. Let's go down the line shall we?
There's the lead singer Anthony Kiedis, who hasn't sat still in 30 plus years, with a gorgeous head of long flowey black hair (which he's since chopped, but it still works) and lots of tribal tattoos with a voice so aggressive and yet sensitive. It's raw.
Then there's my personal favorite; Flea, bass player extraordinaire with pecks of steel, a very defined tooth gap, and limitless energy, slapping his instrument like a bitch that owes him money. Then there's John the guitarist; the dark one. Feminine, melancholy, and mysterious who almost got kicked out for his junk habit but bounced back beautifully. Then there's Chad; the Will Ferrel-looking guy behind the drum kit with cut off vests and back wards baseball hats. I don't really have much more to say about him.
Now, lets look at their accomplishments, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Grammy's and Platinum Records aside. They were the first to have a guy on guy kiss in a music video in 'Give it Away', they were the first to all perform in the buff, (i'm going to keep mentioning it until you google it fool) and gave us the timeless lyric 'what i got you gotta get it put it in you' (and i'm thinking, hey fellas, you don't have to tell me twice), anyway...for that Chili Peppers, we thank you, and speaking for myself, I want to have a crazy fucked up 5-way with all of them. I feel that one time would be enough to hold me over for the rest of my life.
There is so much the Chili Peppers should be commended for, and it's difficult to pick just one video to post with this entry, but after thinking about it for a while, the only one I can think of that best describes their trajectory, musical uniqueness, sexual spirit, and fabulous talent is 'Give it Away' from the aptly named album 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' (1991). I for one hope they never stop making music...or not wearing shirts.
Their complete balls to the wall (no pun intended) approach to their music brought out an insane sexuality that brings all of their predecessors to a snoring halt.
They pack the appeal of every tight-panted 70's glam rocker and brought the fun. And whoever can bring the fun, and not be afraid to bring the fun, can hang out at my lunch table.
Note how Flea can position his bass between his legs. Awesome.
So i've spent probably the best ten bucks of my life and bought Furious Love on iBooks. I'm reading it on a 5 inch screen by the pool everyday. I don't have time any other way. The pool is the only pleasure i allow myself once a day. Back on track. Let's see if you can guess who a book titled Furious Love could possibly be about? do I have to even give you three hints? Is there a couple in the 20th century, of the cinema, and of grand pop-culture status that could fit the description more perfectly than Dame Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton? Nope. Not ever. They were the absolute picture of furious love. Their passion for each other was as much sexual as it was violent. It was a volatile, explosive, and fascinating love story, and above all, it was indeed furious.
Of all the Hollywood odd-couples (Marilyn Monroe & Arthur Miller, Debbie Reynolds & Eddie Fischer, Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes etc) Taylor and Burton were indeed the most bizarre, and yet the most perfect for each other. But with two dominant personalities, and each with a considerable arsenal of raw talent and sexual magnetism, it was bound to implode on itself.
Shocking, that neither liked the other when they first met on the set of Cleopatra (1963); Burton being almost too hungover to even hold a sword, and Elizabeth complaining and crying illness every other day, each thought the other was an obnoxious prima donna. And, they weren't wrong. But then again, they were entitled.
Welsh heir apparent to Laurence Olivier with a booming voice, and overwhelming masculinity juxtaposed with perhaps the most perfect looking soft-skinned big-bozomed child-star turned sex-pot actress and their demise is a wonderful read. If you have time to read for pleasure, put this at the top of your list. And then watch Cleopatra, if you can get through all tedious 5 hours of it. Book end that with perhaps the best example of art-imitating-life Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966). Along with this book, you will be able to observe on screen the flourishing passion in the beginning of their relationship all the way to the catastrophic deterioration of it. Two people that lived on such a large scale were never going to go quietly, and they would play out everything supposedly private out in the public, and we as the public are all the richer and more fulfilled for it.
Do I really have to explain with Camp is, I don't really feel like it, read Susan Sontag's 'Notes on Camp', I'll just really quickly note that according to Michael Musto (renowned raconteur, gay icon, and Village Voice critic for like a million years and counting) classifies Camp as something that is so ridiculous that you can't possibly believe it's meant to be taken seriously. Usually, Camp is applied to Queer Cinema, trash films, and Kenneth Anger. The Drag Queen is the perfect example of a Camp entity. The exaggerated make up, hair, and clothing give credence to the idea that Camp is an exercise in the abnormal. It is trying to stretch aesthetic the furthest from the serious and the real as possible. Thus the confluence of this is usually cult comedies and trash films from the likes of John Waters (arguably the most recognizable Camp filmmaker). Camp is an absolute favorite of mine, I learned a long time ago not to take anything too seriously, particularly film. I used to be a Hitchcock/Welles/Renoir junky until I discovered that Paul Verhoeven, Jack Smith, John Waters, and Andy Warhol were creating a certain subjective attitude that reflected itself in films as pure gaudy, filthy, and amazingly fun nonsense. I want to pay homage not only to those filmmakers (which I will exempt from this post considering they are all pretty obvious) but to some of those films that have been called everything from irredeemably filth to disgusting trash. To me, these are in fact positive critiques. Who says that every film has to be a calculated meticulous opus of life, love, and death? And who says that those subjects aren't fair game for satire, glitter, and fun? I am leaving the following a few this list because I've either blogged about them in the past, or are the work of John Waters who's entire body of work is purely Camp. I know I need more examples, this is what I have so far, i'm pretty busy right now. More to come (no pun intended, or maybe intended).
Valley of the Dolls (Mark Robson, 1967). Based on the seminal camp novel by Jacqueline Susann and her experience in show business, her obsession with Judy Garland, and her penchant for pill popping, this film was an amazingly accurate adaptation. It details the lives of three women all struggling in their own way to find their niche in what they are passionate about. Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) is the star of the film. She symbolizes every actress from old Hollywood that was horribly misguided and destroyed by fame, in a most outlandish and comic manner. She opens her bottle of dolls (pills) and chugs it like a Gatorade saying that she's expected to 'Sparkle Neeley, Sparkle!'.
FAVORITE QUOTES:
Helen Lawson: They drummed you out of Hollywood, so you come crawling back to Broadway. But Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope. Now get out of my way, I've got a man waiting for me.
Anne Welles: Neely, you know it's bad to take liquor with those pills. Neely O'Hara: They work faster.
Anne Welles: You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls.
Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998). Most of the dialogue in this film are taken directly from the writings of Oscar Wilde. This film was almost universally shunned, and wrongfully so, because closed-minded critics couldn't see the proverbial tragicomedy forrest for the trees. Loosely based on the life of David Bowie and to a lesser extent T. Rex's Marc Bolan, this flashy and ironic musical is Camp while being tragic. It follows the life of Brian Slade who later reinvents himself Maxwell Deamon, a seminal force in Glam Rock and bisexuality who's own ego is the foundation for his own destruction. This is Citizen Kane bedazzled. The narrative is the same as Kane, where a journalist must discover the mystery behind his idol's identity and disappearance and subsequently travels back in time to when platform shoes, orgies, and glam rock were all the rage, pumping life back into dreary and cloudy London.
FAVORITE QUOTES:
Reporter: Tell us, Brian, are the rumors true when they say you and Curt Wild have some sort of plans up your sleeve? Brian Slade: Oh yes. Quite soon we actually plan to take over the world!
Brian Slade: Ha! Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner!
Cecil: According to legend, when Curt was 13 he was discovered in the family loo at the service of his older brother, and was promptly sent off for eighteen months of electric shock treatment. It was guaranteed the treatment would fry the fairy clean out of him, but all it did was make him go bonkers whenever he heard an electric guitar.
Curt Wild: Excuse me, fellas, while I raise my glass to the loveliest man in Europe. Brian Slade: And they tell you it's not natural.
Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven) 1995. What has often been accurately described as All About Eve in a thong has evolved into a cult juggernaut. Talk about being universally panned. If we're comparing stuff, we could just as easily say that Black Swan (2010) is All About Eve in a tutu. Only this film is so much more than just a stripper version of the Bette Davis classic from 1950. Elizabeth Berkeley known as the neurotic goody-two-shoes Jesse Spano on the pseudo-crappy show Saved by the Bell, totally surprised everyone appearing on screen 80 percent of the time naked in this Paul Verhoeven classic. And yes, it is at this point just as bona fide a classic as All About Eve. Verhoeven isn't necessarily a camp filmmaker, but his exquisite wit and sarcasm transpires into films of every genre that make fun of not only themselves but of films that we think of as 'definitive' of their respective genres like his awesome Sci-Fi extravaganza complete with comically large cockroaches called Starship Troopers. Back to Showgirls though, it pretty much spells out all of our secret guilty pleasures as cinema spectators. All we really want is T&A, choreography, and cat fights, and this film covers all bases brilliantly, sprinkles them with gold glitter, and shoves them down our pretentious serious throats. I defy anyone to say that they see nothing redeeming in Showgirls or that you've never watched it. We all have, and it's better to just admit that it's amazing and throw an ironic Showgirls themed party where everyone dresses up as different costumes of Nomi Malone. My favorite is the bright pink fringe number, and of course the black and sleek 'Versayse'.
While most of the film and tv viewing public would like to put the following selection into the 'character actor' category which is just a nice way of saying, their talented but totally gross, I have strange tastes and imagine some of you will agree with me for picking certain actors who may not be pretty boys or Cary Grant clones (George Clooney, Chris Pine, Matt Damon etc.) and have a strange fondness and sexual attraction to those that are how shall I put this delicately...unconventional. Pretty boys are pretty boring. Too symmetrical, and usually totally aware of their all of their perfections making them annoyingly arrogant. Argue with me all you want, but I think it clearly translates into their films on a subconscious level. They don't usually ask their director if they can do a shirtless scene (unless its Matthew Mcconaughey) but they do walk around the frame like they're 10 feet tall with a 12 inch dick. So here's a salute to those who make us cry, make us laugh, win Oscars without having to have a make-under, and make us question our sexual inclinations. They might not win the cover of People's Sexiest Man Alive, but c'mon, who really wants to? So that they can join the ranks of Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp, and Tom Cruise? Jew-hating wife-beater, king of the douche-bags, and certifiably cuckoo brains? No thanks.
Stanley Tucci (Age 50)
This has to be my favorite one. In fact, I don't think he's ugly at all, and he was just so devastatingly charming opposite Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia (2009) that I told my mom I wanted a man just like that. He's very versatile, and can play both villains and romantics with subtle perfection. Perhaps it doesn't matter that he never gets or will get a romantic lead. If you're someone that can be Oscar nominated as a child-molesting murderer in The Lovely Bones (2008) and a year later play the loving supportive husband to Julia Child, you are winning sir.
John Hawkes (Age 51)
If nothing else I hope this generates more google searches for John Hawkes. He was nominated last year for his heartbreaking and unforgiving performance in Winter's Bone (2010). He's also made a few appearances in the flawed last season of Lost, looking so much like John Lennon that his character's name was actually billed as 'Lennon'. He cleans up nice for the Oscars, believe me.
Alfred Molina (Age 57)
Ok, we need someone to play perhaps the ugliest artist of the 20th century besides Warhol, opposite devistatingly hot Salma Hayek in Frida (2002). They chose Alfred Molina who didn't look anything like Diego Rivera, except for putting on a considerable few pounds. I've always had a soft spot for this very talented method actor. Since I saw him in Species (1995) as a hopeless romantic who gets an alien's tongue through the back of his head. Poor guy.
Paul Giamatti (Age 43)
Talk about a guy who made his career playing the annoyed, cynical, and sarcastic observer who never gets the girl, culminating in his performance as underground comic book icon Harvey Pekar in American Splendor (2003). He totally reinvented himself by shaving that scruff (as well as his head) practicing a British Accent and taking the titular role in the HBO mini-series, John Adams (2008). I saw him on the subway once. He looked exactly like he does in every film he's been in, casually distracted, with a despondent look on his face. It took all of my self control not to go over and talk to him because I find him very attractive. I like cynics.
Jared Harris (Age 49)
I love Jared Harris. Not only has he reinvented himself in not one but two successful television shows (Mad Men and Fringe) he is the spawn of ridiculously handsome and Kirk Douglas doppleganger, actor Richard Harris. As sexually frustrated and demure Layne Pryce on Mad Men, there is even an instance when the other executives at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce joke about how ugly he is. Maybe for American closed-minded alcoholic upper-crust CEO's in the 60's, but not for me. And he's played Warhol. Awesome.
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Age 43)
Here's another favorite. I met him as well (well not met, i gazed tipsily at his magnificent self while he was chain-smoking drunk outside the National Board of Review Awards that I went to in 2005) Sorry, I know I'm kind of showing off here. My bad. He is perhaps the biggest chameleon in the bunch. He's played romantic, but never a lead, always the hopeless romantic. My personal favorite was when he played tortured and disaffected playwright rather comically in David Mamet's State and Main (2000). Lest we forget his incomparable interpretation of Truman Capote for which he won an Oscar. Much deserved.
Tommy Flanagan (Age 45)
Go ahead, look this one up. This Scotch actor has appeared as well, a Scot in most films until he was cast as Chibs in the highly acclaimed TV drama series Sons of Anarchy. His face adorns the infamous Glasgow Smile scars since he was accosted in Glasgow in his 20's. He used this 'handicap' to his benefit, and I don't think it takes away from his appeal at all, if anything I think it adds to it.
David Cross (Age 47)
For you who are awesome, you know this hilarious actor and comic from the best show that has ever been on television (Arrested Development) as Dr. Tobias Funke, analrapist, actor, and never-nude. But get this, he's dating 20-something sex kitten Amber Tamblyn. He is very appealing, not only because he's ridiculously funny, but because he is able to somehow 'connect'. I have always loved this somewhat quirky and eccentric actor, especially after his spread in the infamous 'I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur' PETA campaign.
Willen Dafoe (Age 55)
Wow, I just realize that's i've seen a lot of these guys in New York (again, i'm sorry) Me and my mom treated ourselves to a ridiculously expensive coffee and desert at a posh West Village patisserie when he walked right by me. Like most actors you ever see on the streets or subway in New York, he's a lot shorter than I expected. The first film I saw him in was Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a highly imaginative and surreal recreation of the making of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror in 1922. Now, the actor Max Shreck who plays the original Nosferatu the Vampire was actually a very serious actor whom you wouldn't have recognized without his vampire make-up. Dafoe plays the character as though he was actually a vampire and appears to always look like a blood-sucking, undead, deamon, with pale white skin, chisel sharp teeth, and gaping empty eyes. Only he could do this. And yet we can still consider him sexually appealing and rather handsome, weird face aside, or perhaps because of.
So I'm browsing the youtubes, getting ready for a conference presentation i have in a couple weeks, (shameless plug), and decided I wanted to listen to one of my favorite bands Donovan. I clicked on 'Season of the Witch' and up pops this amazingly fabulous video that someone put together for the song consisting of little known European films from the 1920's. I love finds like this. European films from this era were certainly dark, malevolent, and visually stunning. The way they portray deviants is something that will always aesthetically stick with you. I would argue that these portrayals are even more powerful horror and sexuality wise than anything we are able to do now in terms of truly terrifying or titillating the voyeur. Enjoy. Sadly films like this went out as quickly as they came in, and are very seldom remembered, if you would like to experience further I would recommend Jean Epstein's 'The Fall of the House of Usher", or anything by Carl Theodore Dreyer. There's a surreal yet visceral quality to these films that blends horror and sensuality beautifully.
This is a brilliant concept with an amazing cast about a frustrated and poor high school coach who decides to become a male prostitute, and who better to play that part than Tom Jane (insert Arrested Development reference here). Sex comedy hasn't been this clever since Ernst Lubitch. And one of my favorite quotes of television history is now 'what can't they fuck me for me?'.
2. Mad Men
This show will go down in history as perhaps the steamiest and most sensual program on television, ever. And Christina Hendricks accounts for just like 45% of that whole market.
3. True Blood
This show is swimming in the sex dough and ranked up its fair share of controversy for being just so unapologetically racy. If finally did combine two of the things we love the most, vampires and bare asses.
4. Boardwalk Empire
If you haven't tuned into this gem yet, you're seriously missing out. It is a no holds barred attitude towards sex or at least how sex was in the 20's approach to television, and its verite style is appreciated.
5. Sons of Anarchy
For the ladies, this definitely feeds into that whole bad boy fetish we all secretly relish in. The two opposing sides of this coin are Rob Perlman (perhaps the funniest looking man we have ever produced as a society) and then Charlie Hunnam, perhaps the hottest blondie that can pull off a flesh colored beard. There's a lot of drinking, motorcycles, and tattoos. It's simply brilliant.
6. Gossip Girl
This show was no holds barred from the get go. Chuck Bass seemed to have a problem with keeping it in his pants, and Serena's clothes just kept getting more low cut and shorter. It's a show that's always going to be on a list like this from beginning to end.
7. Big Love
What's sexier than polygamists? well a lot...but these aren't your polygamist wives from that compound with the weird braids and the long dresses. Bill Paxton takes on some of the hottest ladies in Hollywood, and their sexual exploits are interesting to say the least.
8. Californication
The name says it all really, and good think Duchovny can stretch as an actor and play a sex-addict. It's steamy, but also hilarious. And that's the perfect combination.
9. Hawaii Five-0
Though this is a sorry adaptation of what was originally a sorry show, it's nice to have Scott Caan and Daniel Day Kim on the same team...investigating girls usually clad in little more than a bikini.
10. The Closer
Keira Sedgwick is one Mulveyian wet dream. She can run the whole show completely on her own and still have our interest. In terms of premise, it's only so-so, and there's definitely not enough nudity as I would like, but she won me over pretty early on.
