After I posted the final chapter of “Long Red Nails” (check out http://www.mcstories.com/LongRedNails/index.html for the whole saga), I planned to use my free time to increase my blog output. Instead, I very quickly started writing a new multi-chapter story. Finally, though, I’ve found time to return to my Netflix queue.
My previous three pack dealt with films defined largely by their indie street cred. The following three films are united in being truly soft core porn. I agree who those who say that the mind is the ultimate sexual organ. Really good sex depends on context, i.e. story. Unfortunately soft core movies usually have really crappy stories involving buried pirate treasure or zombie hookers.
The following three films offer thoughtful stories, direction and acting while also showcasing explicit sex. In other words, these are three worthwhile NC-17 rated movies.
Where the Truth Lies
Because this movie stars two household names, the MPAA’s NC-17 attracted attention when it came out in 2005. Where the Truth Lies is certainly not the average erotic thriller: instead it’s a period piece murder mystery. It just happens to feature a devil’s three way between Mr. Darcy and hardest working man in Hollywood.
The threesome is technically an important plot point revealed near the end of the movie. But one look at the DVD’s cover art, a naked woman positioned between Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon, and the message is clear.
Where the Truth Lies centers on Firth and Bacon as Vince Collins and Lanny Morris, a ‘60s music and comedy team based on Martin & Lewis right down to the annual telethon. Bacon is the clown while Firth is the straight man. There are two women who threaten the duo’s partnership. The first is a college student found dead in their hotel suite in 1957, though both men had air tight alibis. The second is Karen O’Conner (Alison Lohman), a journalist in 1972 investigating the other woman’s death.
In a lot of ways, I love the ‘70s because those years are the hangover from the ‘50s and ‘60s. The movie reminded me of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, full of vibrant color meant to convey seediness. Both Vince and Lanny’s ‘70s version are depicted as aged but not washed up. Vince is a fading movie star who agrees to give his life story to Karen for $1 million while Lanny is still a comedy legend, appearing on morning talk shows and picking up aspiring reporters in the first class cabins.
There is splashy sex from the height of Lanny and Vince’s popularity. There is also a very hot lesbian sex scene that combines all the drug clichés of the ‘60s and the nihilism of the ‘70s. I think the film’s central mystery is rather obvious but the director and actors sell it so earnestly that the ride to the denouement is enjoyable.
Also a fun fact, the movie was based on a novel by Rupert Holmes, the guy who wrote “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).” So watch Where the Truth Lies with your old lady…maybe she’s more into it than you would think.
Shortbus
Neither is Shortbus an erotic thriller, but it is the closet to being illegally obscene. It features actual, full genital sex between cast members.
Director John Cameron Mitchell has argued that the sex in Shortbus is purposefully “de-eroticized” to “remove the cloud of arousal to reveal emotions and ideas that might have been obscured by it”. I agree the sex not designed just to appeal to one’s prurient interests, but I disagree that it’s not erotic.
Shortbus is also truest to its independent roots. It features a host of unknown actors playing characters with overlapping story arcs living in New York City. There are basically two couples: sex therapist Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) who has never had an orgasm, and her husband Rob (Raphael Barker), a loser who looks like a wanna be rocker; and Sofia’s new gay clients, Jamie (PJ DeBoy), a former child star and James (Paul Dawson), a troubled former hustler. Other characters include Jamie and James’s stalker neighbor and Severin, an emotionally damaged professional dominatrix who goes to Sofia for therapy in exchange for teaching Sofia how to orgasm.
Together they all visit “Shortbus”, an underground club operating out of a Manhattan apartment “for the gifted and challenged.” There are a lot of characters sitting around being angsty while the more enlightened have orgies. Shortbus is a warm, welcoming environment in which anything is possible and no boundaries exist except for consent and tolerance. Maturity is negotiable and self-awareness a work in progress.
There is also a lot of gay sex. Jamie and James have a full on threesome and Shortbus is run by a drag performer. In one of the movie’s first scenes, James does the stuff of urban legends: he performs oral sex on himself. I think the film’s greatest ambition and greatest tension is putting gay themes and polygamous heterosexuality in the same frame.
Shortbus does not offer super high production values or even great character development, but is does have a neat soundtrack, an auteur director and a vibrant and creative title sequence. Its porn with the quest for happiness at it core.
Crash (1996)
This is not the Best Picture from a few years ago. Rather than an ensemble cast confronting racial tensions in L.A., the 1996 Crash has James Spader running with a group of car fetishists in Toronto.
I was tempted to save this film for a James Spader trilogy of Crash, Secretary, and sex, lies and videotape. It is amazing that the guy who won an Emmy hamming it up with William Shatner and Candice Bergen has made so many dirty movies.
Among the three reviewed films, Crash is closet to being a Cinemax movie. Spader plays James Ballard, a successful TV producer, who meets Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter) after suffering a car crash. Remington introduces James to a group of people who spend their time reenacting famous car crashes, such as James Dean’s famous death in his Porsche 500 Spyder, for their sexual gratification. The group is lead by the mysterious and craggily Vaughn (Elias Kotseas).
I love Holly Hunter but she does not deserve the film’s second billing. She has little screen time and her character’s only contribution is introducing James to Vaughn. (Interestingly, Hunter has had a similar career to Spader; famous for early Hollywood films, respected for strong independent work, and starring in episodic television late in her career.) The lead actress is Deborah Kara Unger, who plays Ballard’s wife Catherine. I fell in love with Unger during this film. She’s a cool blonde seemingly willingly to do anything in James’s imagination and talk about it afterwards. A true Hitcockian heroine who shows her boobs.
The film’s depiction of sex is also closest to soft core porn. Simulated sex essentially means women’s breasts. In the very first scene, Catherine is taken stylishly in an airport hanger while James copulates with a camera girl during a film shoot.
The movie’s plot meanders along. The conflict largely comes from the audience’s doubt over Vaughn’s true motives and limits. For better or worse, most of the situations are just set-up for the next sex scene between James and Remington, James and Catherine, Vaughn and Catherine, or Ballard and another member of Vaughn’s crew played by Rosanna Arquette, or even James and Vaughn.
I worry that director David Croenberg’s real message is about the modern equation of violence and sex or how technology keeps us apart. To me, the movie’s excitement is its conveying the camaraderie of a fetish. A fetish is so exciting because it’s a code, an entrance into a private club of likeminded persons.
And that’s pretty much what I want this blog to be.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Tiger Woods' affair offers a teachable moment
Though I am in the middle of my second Netflix three-pack review, I am taking a few minutes to address the altercation that took place at the Woods’ residence early last Friday morning. This blog is about sex and the media. This week, Tigers Woods’ sexual practices became front page news.
Woods has asked for privacy. Obviously, there is little chance of that happening. However, we should keep in mind that his “crime” was a private one. He owes an explanation only to his wife. He did not promise the world he would not commit adultery. If his actions fall outside of the couple’s martial contract, it is wife’s business, no one else’s.
I assume he had promised her monogamy only because of her reaction to the news that he hadn’t delivered it. As I understand what happened: his wife attacked him with a golf club after discovering his affair. Part of me is surprised she reacted so violently. When a model marries the world’s biggest athlete, I tend to think it’s a business deal. Frankly, I’m a little disappointed in her as a Swede—those Northern Europeans are supposed to be free loving swingers.
I guess even the rich feel humiliation. Being a trophy wife is a two way street. Just as he needs an attractive blonde on his arm to help him sell razor blades, she is supposed to be hot enough to keep the attention of a man who has seemingly (but not actually) infinite romantic options.
That is the lesson I take from this event. Why did Woods slept with someone who wasn’t his wife? Because he wanted to. More scientifically, I believe it is the law of diminishing marginal utility. While there is a brief up tick in sexual satisfaction as one gets to know his partner, it soon slops downward. Woods cheated because he couldn’t, or didn’t want to, resist the excitement of someone new, someone different.
This event should also serve as a reminder that infidelity, suspected and/or confirmed, does not justify violence. The police should investigate the incident regardless of the parties’ cooperation. Assault and battery is a public crime.
I don’t want to totally absolve Woods. Lying to one’s sexual partner is both jerky, and is dangerous to her health. Also, Woods has not stood up for himself. He has not defended the right of consenting adults to engage in whatever sexual practices they choose. He has asked for forgiveness rather than asking if what he did was really wrong. I understand his decision. The media might forgive him for cheating on his wife, but it would never forgive him for challenging traditional sexual norms.
The final lesson: you can be a world champion athlete and still sleep with cocktail waitresses. That’s the lesson because those are the facts. Martin Luther King, Jr. had extramarital affairs. So did Albert Einstein. It doesn’t detract from their accomplishments. Monogamy is simple a political message because of all the times the facts have to be shaped to fit its message.
In that sense, I welcome Tiger Woods back to our side. This is the side that points out the limitation of marriage as an institution. It is also the side that insists love is a net benefit to society only when unaccompanied by jealousy. Otherwise it’s just a punch line waiting to happen. Right now, there are plenty of Tiger Woods’ jokes out there.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Random thought: DC needs to act
I watched The Dark Knight over the holiday weekend and I still think it’s over rated. The movie has profound moments but also basic superhero set pieces. The most heavy-handed example is when Rachel, Bruce Wayne love interest, and Harvey Dent, Batman’s most promising civilian ally, are simultaneously but separately tied up next to ticking bombs making the hero chose between his persona’s goals and his own personal wants. Batman’s Choice, so to speak. It’s also annoying that the Joke spends half the movie spouting off about not being into plans and the other half executing really intricate plans.
That said, the movie is still very enjoyable and ranks as one of the better comic book adaptations. Heath Ledger deserved all the praise he received for disappearing into his characterization, but Christian Bale also deserves a lot of credit.
Most of the masked superhero legwork is done by stunt men or computer animators. Toby Maguire plays Peter Parker, not Spider-Man. Michael Keaton could play Batman because he was really only playing Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale plays both by using the old acting tricks of voice and mannerisms, and it helps that he’s not trapped in latex body cast.
The Dark Knight stands as the lone great cinematic achievement from DC Comics. The executives can spin it any way they would like, but they have failed to bring the DC Universe to the big screen.
The original X-Men came out in summer 2000. It is late 2009 and all we have are two great Christopher Nolan movies and a Superman movie that was a domestic box office disappointment and a critical flop. We still don’t have a Wonder Women movie, we still don’t have a Flash movie and we still don’t have a Green Lantern movie. We certainly don’t have a Justice League movie.
Will a live action Batman ever meet a live action Superman? I have heard the issue is a non-starter for Smallville, even though it would make for an epic series finale. They can shrug off the question at ever press conference they give, but DC, which has the advantage of an entertainment juggernaut parent in the form Time Warner, has a moral responsibility to pair the world’s finest together in a live action movie. A responsibility they continue to ignore.
That said, the movie is still very enjoyable and ranks as one of the better comic book adaptations. Heath Ledger deserved all the praise he received for disappearing into his characterization, but Christian Bale also deserves a lot of credit.
Most of the masked superhero legwork is done by stunt men or computer animators. Toby Maguire plays Peter Parker, not Spider-Man. Michael Keaton could play Batman because he was really only playing Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale plays both by using the old acting tricks of voice and mannerisms, and it helps that he’s not trapped in latex body cast.
The Dark Knight stands as the lone great cinematic achievement from DC Comics. The executives can spin it any way they would like, but they have failed to bring the DC Universe to the big screen.
The original X-Men came out in summer 2000. It is late 2009 and all we have are two great Christopher Nolan movies and a Superman movie that was a domestic box office disappointment and a critical flop. We still don’t have a Wonder Women movie, we still don’t have a Flash movie and we still don’t have a Green Lantern movie. We certainly don’t have a Justice League movie.
Will a live action Batman ever meet a live action Superman? I have heard the issue is a non-starter for Smallville, even though it would make for an epic series finale. They can shrug off the question at ever press conference they give, but DC, which has the advantage of an entertainment juggernaut parent in the form Time Warner, has a moral responsibility to pair the world’s finest together in a live action movie. A responsibility they continue to ignore.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sex Rehab Episodes 1-3: Porn Star Sex Addicts NOT Advised to Change Careers
In terms of social trends, I am generally a laggard, embracing trends just as they become uncool. Which brings me to my recent discovery of this radio show called LoveLine.
I always knew such a sex show existed, mostly from clips of its MTV incarnation which ran during the John Henson years of Talk Soup. But I think it wasn’t until Drew Pinsky and Adam Carolla guest starred on Dawson’s Creek (which I embraced during the show’s peak college years) that a friend explained the radio show to me. And only within the last 18 months have I become a listener. And the more I listen, the more I wonder whether Dr. Drew is an ally or an enemy.
Obviously, Dr. Drew performs a valuable service by dispensing frank medical information and tough-love advice on sexual matters to young people. He seems particularly progressive on female orgasms, a common concern for callers. But as soon as a caller veers from a traditional (heterosexual?) monogamous sexual relationship, Dr. Drew can be dismissive, moralizing and insulting.
So I was excited when I heard that Dr. Drew was expanding his VH1 drug rehab show to feature sex addicts. I would finally learn if Dr. Drew is teaching or preaching. Unfortunately, through the first three episodes, he is simply the host of a reality show dominated by genre elements.
In the first episode, we meet the show’s eight patients. There are five women and only three men. The theory being, I suppose, that if one wanted to watch a bunch of guys obsessed with pornography, masturbation and getting laid, he or she could go to a T.G.I. Friday’s. But women addicted to sex, now that’s an act.
Each patient is introduced by way of an initial consultation with Dr. Drew. First we meet James Lovett. Billed as a “professional surfer”, James embraces the stoner personality only to come off like he’s on meth. He spends the first episode literally bouncing off the house’s exercise equipment.
Kendra Jade, billed as a “model/dancer”, is a former porn star turned celebrity stripper. She has supposedly been out of the sex business for 8 years and is now married to a rock star and runs an animal rescue clinic.
Next is Jennifer Ketcham, billed as “adult entertainer.” Unabashedly a porn star, she performs under the stage name Penny Flame and is made to sound very successful. (Check out her website www.clubpenny.com. For the record, I have a couple of her movies from Naughty America.) Jennifer represents at least half my emotional investment in this show. Can a woman be bisexual, a dominatrix and still healthy? The problem is that right now, Jennifer is so clearly damaged.
Nicole Narin, billed as “model”, is a former Playboy playmate and star of a Colin Farrell sex tape. After three episodes, I am still not convinced that most of the patient’s suffer form sex addiction. Acts that superficially indicate sex addiction seem somewhat rational when performed by women who have chosen to make their celebrity living in the soft core porn business.
Kari Ann Peniche, billed as “former beauty queen”, won the 2003 Miss United States Teen pageant. She lost her crown for posing in Playboy and was the other woman in the Eric “McSteamy” Dane nude hot tube video.
Duncan Roy, billed as “producer/director”, is the producer/writer/director of a handful of independent movies, his most famous and autobiographical film being “Aka”, seemingly a kind of Catch Me If You Can set in England the 1970s. He tells Dr. Drew that he wastes whole days surfing Internet porn.
Amber Smith, billed as “actress/model”, is credited with covers on several popular, mainstream fashion magazines, and of course Playboy in 1995. In a repeated clip, Amber talks about her need to start each morning searching for men in order to get “her fix”. This is an example of the show twisting the facts to make sex addiction sound more like a drug addiction. The full scene explains Amber was cruising for men to hustle in order to get her fix of actual drugs.
Phil Varone, billed as “Rock Star”, by VH1 and his own proclamations, played drums in some of the later Skid Row formations. Looking very much the part of a rock star with tattoos, he still comes off with some level of maturity.
These eight people will all being living in Pasadena Recovery Center for 21 days with no sex, masturbation or physical contact with fellow residents beyond a handshake. I wonder if sex addicts are routinely treated so cold turkey. The treatment feels like a reality show construct—put eight celebrities through a drawn of version of Seinfeld’s “The Contest”.
The second episode beings the treatment, divided between group and individual therapy. The individual therapy plays like a camera confessional, allowing different cast members to be spotlighted. The second episode spotlights Duncan, Jennifer and Phil. Dr. Drew, who has such a strong voice on the radio, has an awkward camera presence. In one session, a female patient says something like, “I just want to make a connection with someone.” Dr. Drew replies with a suggestive smile: “I think we can help you with that.” Dr. Drew is assisted by Jill Vermeire, a licensed marriage and family therapist.
The first group session focuses on the patients’ traumatic pasts. If I am going to spare the snark, it is because these people have had truly horrible experiences. Most were molested as young children and then raped in their teens. Dr. Drew often points out that sexual addiction is the effect of such abuse, and even states that sexual addiction usually doesn’t occur without it.
Duncan picks up this theme in his individual counseling; he was raped as a young child by family members. He confirms that although sexual addiction can occur in both genders, those who cause it are men.
Jennifer expresses guilt about initiating sex with other children, essentially committing child abuse. Dr. Drew agrees abuse happened, but believes Jennifer was a mutual victim of child-on-child abuse. Her career as porn star isn’t addressed. I suppose that’s infuriating me because I could respond if he took a position for or against, but can’t argue with his silence.
Phil’s issue is that he doesn’t have trauma in his past. Dr. Drew believes Phil’s trauma was the death of his mother late in his life. I think that’s a stretch. Maybe Dr. Phil doesn’t want to back off from the abuse explanation, but does that also mean that if one wasn’t abused, one doesn’t need to worry about sexual addiction?
James has been largely silent since making such a noisy entrance. I wonder if he is the show’s one true sex addict. He went through immediate withdrawal but has now largely shut down while the rest of the cast plan their dramatic scenes for the cameras and their future careers.
The third episode’s group therapy begins with the women. They are asked to remove their make-up. Then the men come in and Phil and Duncan tell the women they look just as good…and they are right, unless they are all wearing TV make-up. That does raise interesting questions about sex addicts. People can remove drugs from their lives, but they’ll always be surrounded by fashion, other people and they’re own bodies. For example, Jill is very attractive. If normally patients routinely transfer emotions onto their counselors, how can sex addicts resist?
The third episode’s individual therapy spotlights Amber, Nicole, and Kendra. Amber speaks of her father (former Charges running back Russ Smith) abandoning her at an early age and then her guilt when he died alone of alcohol poisoning.
Kendra speaks of her husband. Dr. Drew surprised me by referring to her husband as part of her addiction, when it seems to be the only monogamous relationship among the patients.
Nicole speaks very generally about her a failed relationship and people moving in and out of her life. She is example of what seems to be Dr. Drew’s classification of sexual addiction as anyone who hasn’t had (or doesn’t want?) a long-term relationship.
The group activity in the third episode is an exercise instructor who I imagine is there to help them release pent up steam: but she is also attractive. Jennifer and Kendra articulate their attraction to the woman in one of the show’s few titillating moments.
The biggest problem is that everything I’ve described is barely half the camera time. Too much is spent with the cast members just hanging around, “being real”. The most camera time in episodes 2 and 3 goes to Kari Ann’s acting bratty, fighting with the facility’s lead tech, whining to her manager that she wants to quit, and fighting with Kendra. Because that’s what a reality contestant does.
This show isn’t spotlighting a taboo topic, but is simply advancing what I think is the original screwed-up thinking: that for women promiscuity is the price of fame and for men promiscuity is the reward for fame.
I always knew such a sex show existed, mostly from clips of its MTV incarnation which ran during the John Henson years of Talk Soup. But I think it wasn’t until Drew Pinsky and Adam Carolla guest starred on Dawson’s Creek (which I embraced during the show’s peak college years) that a friend explained the radio show to me. And only within the last 18 months have I become a listener. And the more I listen, the more I wonder whether Dr. Drew is an ally or an enemy.
Obviously, Dr. Drew performs a valuable service by dispensing frank medical information and tough-love advice on sexual matters to young people. He seems particularly progressive on female orgasms, a common concern for callers. But as soon as a caller veers from a traditional (heterosexual?) monogamous sexual relationship, Dr. Drew can be dismissive, moralizing and insulting.
So I was excited when I heard that Dr. Drew was expanding his VH1 drug rehab show to feature sex addicts. I would finally learn if Dr. Drew is teaching or preaching. Unfortunately, through the first three episodes, he is simply the host of a reality show dominated by genre elements.
In the first episode, we meet the show’s eight patients. There are five women and only three men. The theory being, I suppose, that if one wanted to watch a bunch of guys obsessed with pornography, masturbation and getting laid, he or she could go to a T.G.I. Friday’s. But women addicted to sex, now that’s an act.
Each patient is introduced by way of an initial consultation with Dr. Drew. First we meet James Lovett. Billed as a “professional surfer”, James embraces the stoner personality only to come off like he’s on meth. He spends the first episode literally bouncing off the house’s exercise equipment.
Kendra Jade, billed as a “model/dancer”, is a former porn star turned celebrity stripper. She has supposedly been out of the sex business for 8 years and is now married to a rock star and runs an animal rescue clinic.
Next is Jennifer Ketcham, billed as “adult entertainer.” Unabashedly a porn star, she performs under the stage name Penny Flame and is made to sound very successful. (Check out her website www.clubpenny.com. For the record, I have a couple of her movies from Naughty America.) Jennifer represents at least half my emotional investment in this show. Can a woman be bisexual, a dominatrix and still healthy? The problem is that right now, Jennifer is so clearly damaged.
Nicole Narin, billed as “model”, is a former Playboy playmate and star of a Colin Farrell sex tape. After three episodes, I am still not convinced that most of the patient’s suffer form sex addiction. Acts that superficially indicate sex addiction seem somewhat rational when performed by women who have chosen to make their celebrity living in the soft core porn business.
Kari Ann Peniche, billed as “former beauty queen”, won the 2003 Miss United States Teen pageant. She lost her crown for posing in Playboy and was the other woman in the Eric “McSteamy” Dane nude hot tube video.
Duncan Roy, billed as “producer/director”, is the producer/writer/director of a handful of independent movies, his most famous and autobiographical film being “Aka”, seemingly a kind of Catch Me If You Can set in England the 1970s. He tells Dr. Drew that he wastes whole days surfing Internet porn.
Amber Smith, billed as “actress/model”, is credited with covers on several popular, mainstream fashion magazines, and of course Playboy in 1995. In a repeated clip, Amber talks about her need to start each morning searching for men in order to get “her fix”. This is an example of the show twisting the facts to make sex addiction sound more like a drug addiction. The full scene explains Amber was cruising for men to hustle in order to get her fix of actual drugs.
Phil Varone, billed as “Rock Star”, by VH1 and his own proclamations, played drums in some of the later Skid Row formations. Looking very much the part of a rock star with tattoos, he still comes off with some level of maturity.
These eight people will all being living in Pasadena Recovery Center for 21 days with no sex, masturbation or physical contact with fellow residents beyond a handshake. I wonder if sex addicts are routinely treated so cold turkey. The treatment feels like a reality show construct—put eight celebrities through a drawn of version of Seinfeld’s “The Contest”.
The second episode beings the treatment, divided between group and individual therapy. The individual therapy plays like a camera confessional, allowing different cast members to be spotlighted. The second episode spotlights Duncan, Jennifer and Phil. Dr. Drew, who has such a strong voice on the radio, has an awkward camera presence. In one session, a female patient says something like, “I just want to make a connection with someone.” Dr. Drew replies with a suggestive smile: “I think we can help you with that.” Dr. Drew is assisted by Jill Vermeire, a licensed marriage and family therapist.
The first group session focuses on the patients’ traumatic pasts. If I am going to spare the snark, it is because these people have had truly horrible experiences. Most were molested as young children and then raped in their teens. Dr. Drew often points out that sexual addiction is the effect of such abuse, and even states that sexual addiction usually doesn’t occur without it.
Duncan picks up this theme in his individual counseling; he was raped as a young child by family members. He confirms that although sexual addiction can occur in both genders, those who cause it are men.
Jennifer expresses guilt about initiating sex with other children, essentially committing child abuse. Dr. Drew agrees abuse happened, but believes Jennifer was a mutual victim of child-on-child abuse. Her career as porn star isn’t addressed. I suppose that’s infuriating me because I could respond if he took a position for or against, but can’t argue with his silence.
Phil’s issue is that he doesn’t have trauma in his past. Dr. Drew believes Phil’s trauma was the death of his mother late in his life. I think that’s a stretch. Maybe Dr. Phil doesn’t want to back off from the abuse explanation, but does that also mean that if one wasn’t abused, one doesn’t need to worry about sexual addiction?
James has been largely silent since making such a noisy entrance. I wonder if he is the show’s one true sex addict. He went through immediate withdrawal but has now largely shut down while the rest of the cast plan their dramatic scenes for the cameras and their future careers.
The third episode’s group therapy begins with the women. They are asked to remove their make-up. Then the men come in and Phil and Duncan tell the women they look just as good…and they are right, unless they are all wearing TV make-up. That does raise interesting questions about sex addicts. People can remove drugs from their lives, but they’ll always be surrounded by fashion, other people and they’re own bodies. For example, Jill is very attractive. If normally patients routinely transfer emotions onto their counselors, how can sex addicts resist?
The third episode’s individual therapy spotlights Amber, Nicole, and Kendra. Amber speaks of her father (former Charges running back Russ Smith) abandoning her at an early age and then her guilt when he died alone of alcohol poisoning.
Kendra speaks of her husband. Dr. Drew surprised me by referring to her husband as part of her addiction, when it seems to be the only monogamous relationship among the patients.
Nicole speaks very generally about her a failed relationship and people moving in and out of her life. She is example of what seems to be Dr. Drew’s classification of sexual addiction as anyone who hasn’t had (or doesn’t want?) a long-term relationship.
The group activity in the third episode is an exercise instructor who I imagine is there to help them release pent up steam: but she is also attractive. Jennifer and Kendra articulate their attraction to the woman in one of the show’s few titillating moments.
The biggest problem is that everything I’ve described is barely half the camera time. Too much is spent with the cast members just hanging around, “being real”. The most camera time in episodes 2 and 3 goes to Kari Ann’s acting bratty, fighting with the facility’s lead tech, whining to her manager that she wants to quit, and fighting with Kendra. Because that’s what a reality contestant does.
This show isn’t spotlighting a taboo topic, but is simply advancing what I think is the original screwed-up thinking: that for women promiscuity is the price of fame and for men promiscuity is the reward for fame.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Netflix Three Pack #1: Explicit Sexuality Isn't Always Fun
My delays have forced me to replace an orgy with incest. This post finally delivers on my promise of three mini-reviews of provocative movies. Because I previously upgraded my Eyes Wide Shut review to its own post, I have added Spanking the Monkey to the pairing of Sleeping Dogs Lie and The Brown Bunny.
While I have been working on “Long Red Nails” (check it out at http://www.mcstories.com/LongRedNails/index.html), I have kept up with my Netflix queue. Last night, I watched the relatively recent, relatively high profile, highly polished and structured NC-17 movie Where the Truth Lies. It was a warm up to my watching the series premiere of Dr. Drew’s Sex Rehab. But For this entry, I am going back to the beginning of my queue to discuss three very indie movies, each documenting various abnormal sexual practices.
Sleeping Dogs Lie
Growing up in the days of independent video stores, I used to rent the Police Academy series repeatedly. So as an adult, I am qualified to dismiss Bobcat Goldthwait as the annoying guy from Policy Academy 2-4.
But Goldthwait is now an indie director. The release of his latest film, World’s Greatest Dad, with decent reviews for star Robin Williams, inspired me to check out Goldthwait’s earlier Sleeping Dogs Lie (alternatively titled Stay).
Sleeping Dogs is about Amy, a young kindergarten teacher who back in college performed a sexual act on her dog. The act occurs, almost entirely off camera, in the movie’s first scene and it is not what I expected it to be. Amy is happy to take her secret to her grave, but after John, her aspiring writer, live-in boyfriend proposes, he asks for total honesty. Amy wants to share but also worries that her night with her dog is one of those secrets even loved ones could never accept.
The movie contains no nudity and adheres to the sitcom school of filming. A lot of the movie’s jokes come from the intrusive presence of dogs in emotionally charged environments. The biggest criticism is that the movie consciously rips off Meet the Parents. Post engagement, Amy takes John to meet her family: her gruff father (played by Goldthwait’s old Unhappily Ever After buddy Geoffrey Pierson), her sheltered mother, and her loser, drug addicted brother. But it’s funnier than Meet the Parents. Amy’s father’s gruffness isn’t made all sweet, her brother is more pathetically strung out during family puzzle night and her mother holds her own hilarious secret sexual past. Also, this segment makes the audience sympathize with John so it’s even more heartbreaking when Amy finally confesses to him.
The best gag is when Amy lies to John, saying her dark secret from college is a lesbian encounter with her best friend. Suddenly John’s giving out lingering hugs when the friend stops by. To me, that’s the joke of Sleeping Dogs Lie. We all want our girlfriends and fiancés to have a hidden sexual depravity, but it’s not all co-ed slumber parties. Sometimes it’s just a dog.
The Brown Bunny
If a director set out to make a film that people would pick up on DVD out of curiosity, get bored, fast-forward to the end, and still be disappointed, he or she would make The Brown Bunny. Maybe Vincent Gallo’s genius is that he purposefully made a horrible film that people would still rent to watch Chloé Sevigny give him an actual blowjob at the end of the movie.
Gallo plays a motorcycle racer who “undertakes a cross-country drive, following a race in New Hampshire, in order to participate in a race in California. All the while he is haunted by memories of his former lover, Daisy (Sevigny).” I know that’s the plot because that’s what it says on the DVD slip. It’s not that this movie is slow or character driven, it’s that half the movie is literally shots of the highway filmed from behind a car’s windshield.
The film is shot grainy and in depressed locations. Even though it was made in 2004, the movie feels like it’s from the 1980s, which is usually how I feel walking into a highway rest area in some parts of the country. I’ve almost willing to forgive Gallo and think he’s really making a film about rural poverty. But that doesn’t explain why he plays his character as a mildly retarded man child who kisses and then runs away from the women he meets on the road.
I defended my giving this film chance because I thought it was a surreal, trippy road trip movie. But I guess the truth is I liked Sevigny in Big Love and I thought she was hot in American Psycho and in real life, so I wanted to see it. Be warned, she’s a much better actress than porn star.
Spanking the Monkey
While The Brown Bunny was booed at Cannes, Spanking the Monkey won the Audience Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. It was the first film by writer-director David O. Russell. Despite controversy for onset behavior, Russell has had success with all of his major films: Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees. I’ve seen all three and they are all enjoyable, clever and funny in diverse ways. But Spanking the Monkey left me unsatisfied.
Jeremy Davies stars as Raymond Aibelli, who returns home from his first year of pre-med and discovers that instead of leaving for a prestigious internship, he must take care of his mother who is laid up in bed with a full cast on her broken leg.
Spanking the Monkey is pitched as a black comedy but it’s more uncomfortable than funny. It seems absurd that Ray, an obvious over-achiever, though one who may not even want to be a doctor, is denied a chance to advance his career to play nursemaid to his mother so his father can unsuccessfully hock self-help videos across the country. It’s a suffocating environment with no privacy. Even his old high school buddies show up to torment him with driving around aimlessly and drinking beer in the woods.
The best performance is by Albert Watson as Ray’s mother. She’s tormented by wanting Ray to succeed in a career she gave up to be a mother but also isn’t ready to give him up yet. Her anger is real, but we can’t tell if the sexuality is all in Ray’s head. The most explicit scene is brief nudity when Ray helps his mother into the shower. I am not even convinced their relationship is consummated, but every other source disagrees with me.
Anyone who has read “Long Red Nails” knows that this movie’s topic is of particular interest to me. I think there is almost a generation gap. Ray doesn’t even get to masturbate because the family dog keeps scratching at the bathroom door. The implication is that Ray succumbs to his mother because of a sexual frustration/naivety that’s unknown to the Internet porn generation.
Spank the Monkey isn’t a comedy; it’s a 1950s film strip about the dangers of masturbation. Most importantly, it’s not porn. None of these films are. There all feature extreme sexual themes, but none depict those practices as anything pleasurable. The movies are all about tortured desire.
While I have been working on “Long Red Nails” (check it out at http://www.mcstories.com/LongRedNails/index.html), I have kept up with my Netflix queue. Last night, I watched the relatively recent, relatively high profile, highly polished and structured NC-17 movie Where the Truth Lies. It was a warm up to my watching the series premiere of Dr. Drew’s Sex Rehab. But For this entry, I am going back to the beginning of my queue to discuss three very indie movies, each documenting various abnormal sexual practices.
Sleeping Dogs Lie
Growing up in the days of independent video stores, I used to rent the Police Academy series repeatedly. So as an adult, I am qualified to dismiss Bobcat Goldthwait as the annoying guy from Policy Academy 2-4.
But Goldthwait is now an indie director. The release of his latest film, World’s Greatest Dad, with decent reviews for star Robin Williams, inspired me to check out Goldthwait’s earlier Sleeping Dogs Lie (alternatively titled Stay).
Sleeping Dogs is about Amy, a young kindergarten teacher who back in college performed a sexual act on her dog. The act occurs, almost entirely off camera, in the movie’s first scene and it is not what I expected it to be. Amy is happy to take her secret to her grave, but after John, her aspiring writer, live-in boyfriend proposes, he asks for total honesty. Amy wants to share but also worries that her night with her dog is one of those secrets even loved ones could never accept.
The movie contains no nudity and adheres to the sitcom school of filming. A lot of the movie’s jokes come from the intrusive presence of dogs in emotionally charged environments. The biggest criticism is that the movie consciously rips off Meet the Parents. Post engagement, Amy takes John to meet her family: her gruff father (played by Goldthwait’s old Unhappily Ever After buddy Geoffrey Pierson), her sheltered mother, and her loser, drug addicted brother. But it’s funnier than Meet the Parents. Amy’s father’s gruffness isn’t made all sweet, her brother is more pathetically strung out during family puzzle night and her mother holds her own hilarious secret sexual past. Also, this segment makes the audience sympathize with John so it’s even more heartbreaking when Amy finally confesses to him.
The best gag is when Amy lies to John, saying her dark secret from college is a lesbian encounter with her best friend. Suddenly John’s giving out lingering hugs when the friend stops by. To me, that’s the joke of Sleeping Dogs Lie. We all want our girlfriends and fiancés to have a hidden sexual depravity, but it’s not all co-ed slumber parties. Sometimes it’s just a dog.
The Brown Bunny
If a director set out to make a film that people would pick up on DVD out of curiosity, get bored, fast-forward to the end, and still be disappointed, he or she would make The Brown Bunny. Maybe Vincent Gallo’s genius is that he purposefully made a horrible film that people would still rent to watch Chloé Sevigny give him an actual blowjob at the end of the movie.
Gallo plays a motorcycle racer who “undertakes a cross-country drive, following a race in New Hampshire, in order to participate in a race in California. All the while he is haunted by memories of his former lover, Daisy (Sevigny).” I know that’s the plot because that’s what it says on the DVD slip. It’s not that this movie is slow or character driven, it’s that half the movie is literally shots of the highway filmed from behind a car’s windshield.
The film is shot grainy and in depressed locations. Even though it was made in 2004, the movie feels like it’s from the 1980s, which is usually how I feel walking into a highway rest area in some parts of the country. I’ve almost willing to forgive Gallo and think he’s really making a film about rural poverty. But that doesn’t explain why he plays his character as a mildly retarded man child who kisses and then runs away from the women he meets on the road.
I defended my giving this film chance because I thought it was a surreal, trippy road trip movie. But I guess the truth is I liked Sevigny in Big Love and I thought she was hot in American Psycho and in real life, so I wanted to see it. Be warned, she’s a much better actress than porn star.
Spanking the Monkey
While The Brown Bunny was booed at Cannes, Spanking the Monkey won the Audience Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. It was the first film by writer-director David O. Russell. Despite controversy for onset behavior, Russell has had success with all of his major films: Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees. I’ve seen all three and they are all enjoyable, clever and funny in diverse ways. But Spanking the Monkey left me unsatisfied.
Jeremy Davies stars as Raymond Aibelli, who returns home from his first year of pre-med and discovers that instead of leaving for a prestigious internship, he must take care of his mother who is laid up in bed with a full cast on her broken leg.
Spanking the Monkey is pitched as a black comedy but it’s more uncomfortable than funny. It seems absurd that Ray, an obvious over-achiever, though one who may not even want to be a doctor, is denied a chance to advance his career to play nursemaid to his mother so his father can unsuccessfully hock self-help videos across the country. It’s a suffocating environment with no privacy. Even his old high school buddies show up to torment him with driving around aimlessly and drinking beer in the woods.
The best performance is by Albert Watson as Ray’s mother. She’s tormented by wanting Ray to succeed in a career she gave up to be a mother but also isn’t ready to give him up yet. Her anger is real, but we can’t tell if the sexuality is all in Ray’s head. The most explicit scene is brief nudity when Ray helps his mother into the shower. I am not even convinced their relationship is consummated, but every other source disagrees with me.
Anyone who has read “Long Red Nails” knows that this movie’s topic is of particular interest to me. I think there is almost a generation gap. Ray doesn’t even get to masturbate because the family dog keeps scratching at the bathroom door. The implication is that Ray succumbs to his mother because of a sexual frustration/naivety that’s unknown to the Internet porn generation.
Spank the Monkey isn’t a comedy; it’s a 1950s film strip about the dangers of masturbation. Most importantly, it’s not porn. None of these films are. There all feature extreme sexual themes, but none depict those practices as anything pleasurable. The movies are all about tortured desire.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Business of Women
Last weekend I caught an afternoon screening of The September Issue, the Anna Wintour/Vogue documentary. The movie’s producers had to have been inspired by The Devil Wears Prada, thinking that if Meryl Streep’s version made money, then they should certainly make money with the real Wintour. But The September Issue is not a Prada retread. It has no Anne Hathaway and the younger members of Vogue are seen only as background actors. This movie is about the women on top.
Certainly, the leaders of Vogue chronicled in The September Issue all dress in fashionable, expensive clothes. But they are also women in their 40s and 50s and 60s shot in unflattering lights without movie makeup. For a movie about fashion, The September Issue is about real women…and a few gay men because someone had to inspire Stanley Tucci’s character from Prada.
The problem with the The September Issue is that it lacks movie drama. Officially it’s the story of Vogue’s titular 2007 fall fashion guide that defines a season, weighs over 5 pounds, and comes in at 840 pages. But as a documentary, it fails to create a compelling arch. We see only disconnected glimpses of planning and implementation. The stakes are ill-defined and the obstacles underwhelming.
The conflict is supposed to come from Grace Coddington, who seems the inspiration for Wendie Malick’s character from Just Shoot Me—a ‘60s model turned successful fashion editor. Coddington is a quite competent creative director, though. We see her personally wrangling models on a 1920s inspired photo shoot. But the movie doesn’t explain why that particular set of photos belongs in the September issue.
Wintour’s job is to say yes or no to each photo. Doing so, Wintour is not particularly cruel or overbearing or even brilliant, just in charge. Coddington’s job is to champion her work and to be disappointed when her stuff gets cut. The movie fails to make us believe this is any more important, or any different, from every other mundane workplace disagreement.
If we don’t see the September issue, we do see daily life at a fashion magazine. It is a world where Siena Miller drops by for a fitting and then later editors debate if her photo was too “toothy”. It is days when every other word is airbrush and the most valuable employee is the guy who runs the color printer. It is people like editor-at-large André Leon Talley who plays tennis to lose weight and for an excuse to wear his tennis bracelet…I mean, tennis watch.
Ironically, The September Issue arrives when the national job average climbed to 9.8% in September. I saw this movie while waiting to hear the results of a recent job interview. I watched it expecting a mixture of jealousy and relief. The relief is that I don’t have to report to a boss from hell and I don’t have to worry about back-stabbing co-workers. The jealousy is that these people have their dream jobs while I simply dream of a job.
Coddington explains in a moment of frustration that she stays at Vogue because she cares about the art. Every person, and every organization, goes to work with two goals: 1) make money and 2) fulfill a mission. The first one usually just pays for the second, but the first can be comfortingly objective when the second seems too fleeting.
Studies have shown that receiving a new job closer to one’s skills and interests is one of the few life events that increases a person’s baseline life satisfaction. Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to create job satisfaction outside of actual employment. But maybe we have to try. Because unemployment is reaching the point where, just like climate change, we should no longer talk about preventing it, but rather how to adapt to it.
I don’t want to speak on economic subjects too far outside my expertise, but a jobless recovery isn’t necessarily apocalyptic. I recently read that the best analogy for the Great Recession is neither the Great Depression nor Japan’s Lost Decade, but Europe in the 1980s. High unemployment and a large government imprint. But we should also remember that France has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The people working may resent higher taxes used for unemployment checks but at least they have reason to take off the pajamas in the morning.
I wish The September Issue gave us better insight into fashion’s economic model. Early on, we do see a relationship building breakfast with a department store CEO. He asks for Wintour’s help to increases designers’ shipping frequency, and Wintour kind of blows him off. I think the problem with understanding fashion has always been that even the best dressed people in real life or the powerful people on TV never wear the clothes seen on the catwalks. Maybe it’s all a trickle down effect, like that discussion of the cerulean blue sweater in The Devil Wears Prada.
The Devil Wears Prada changed my life. It convinced me to choose the life of a demanding career because I wanted the financial and non-financial rewards. With the economy the way it is, a lot of us have to find rewards elsewhere. There is danger if we fail and waste skills and ambition because there is no accompanying paycheck. There is also danger if we succeed because a generation of us may come to think of offices as movie sets, something for people on screen. I’m reminded that the most important divisions are not between men and women, or black and white or gay and straight, but between success and failure. After seeing The September Issue, that line is just as stark and just as mysterious.
Certainly, the leaders of Vogue chronicled in The September Issue all dress in fashionable, expensive clothes. But they are also women in their 40s and 50s and 60s shot in unflattering lights without movie makeup. For a movie about fashion, The September Issue is about real women…and a few gay men because someone had to inspire Stanley Tucci’s character from Prada.
The problem with the The September Issue is that it lacks movie drama. Officially it’s the story of Vogue’s titular 2007 fall fashion guide that defines a season, weighs over 5 pounds, and comes in at 840 pages. But as a documentary, it fails to create a compelling arch. We see only disconnected glimpses of planning and implementation. The stakes are ill-defined and the obstacles underwhelming.
The conflict is supposed to come from Grace Coddington, who seems the inspiration for Wendie Malick’s character from Just Shoot Me—a ‘60s model turned successful fashion editor. Coddington is a quite competent creative director, though. We see her personally wrangling models on a 1920s inspired photo shoot. But the movie doesn’t explain why that particular set of photos belongs in the September issue.
Wintour’s job is to say yes or no to each photo. Doing so, Wintour is not particularly cruel or overbearing or even brilliant, just in charge. Coddington’s job is to champion her work and to be disappointed when her stuff gets cut. The movie fails to make us believe this is any more important, or any different, from every other mundane workplace disagreement.
If we don’t see the September issue, we do see daily life at a fashion magazine. It is a world where Siena Miller drops by for a fitting and then later editors debate if her photo was too “toothy”. It is days when every other word is airbrush and the most valuable employee is the guy who runs the color printer. It is people like editor-at-large André Leon Talley who plays tennis to lose weight and for an excuse to wear his tennis bracelet…I mean, tennis watch.
Ironically, The September Issue arrives when the national job average climbed to 9.8% in September. I saw this movie while waiting to hear the results of a recent job interview. I watched it expecting a mixture of jealousy and relief. The relief is that I don’t have to report to a boss from hell and I don’t have to worry about back-stabbing co-workers. The jealousy is that these people have their dream jobs while I simply dream of a job.
Coddington explains in a moment of frustration that she stays at Vogue because she cares about the art. Every person, and every organization, goes to work with two goals: 1) make money and 2) fulfill a mission. The first one usually just pays for the second, but the first can be comfortingly objective when the second seems too fleeting.
Studies have shown that receiving a new job closer to one’s skills and interests is one of the few life events that increases a person’s baseline life satisfaction. Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to create job satisfaction outside of actual employment. But maybe we have to try. Because unemployment is reaching the point where, just like climate change, we should no longer talk about preventing it, but rather how to adapt to it.
I don’t want to speak on economic subjects too far outside my expertise, but a jobless recovery isn’t necessarily apocalyptic. I recently read that the best analogy for the Great Recession is neither the Great Depression nor Japan’s Lost Decade, but Europe in the 1980s. High unemployment and a large government imprint. But we should also remember that France has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The people working may resent higher taxes used for unemployment checks but at least they have reason to take off the pajamas in the morning.
I wish The September Issue gave us better insight into fashion’s economic model. Early on, we do see a relationship building breakfast with a department store CEO. He asks for Wintour’s help to increases designers’ shipping frequency, and Wintour kind of blows him off. I think the problem with understanding fashion has always been that even the best dressed people in real life or the powerful people on TV never wear the clothes seen on the catwalks. Maybe it’s all a trickle down effect, like that discussion of the cerulean blue sweater in The Devil Wears Prada.
The Devil Wears Prada changed my life. It convinced me to choose the life of a demanding career because I wanted the financial and non-financial rewards. With the economy the way it is, a lot of us have to find rewards elsewhere. There is danger if we fail and waste skills and ambition because there is no accompanying paycheck. There is also danger if we succeed because a generation of us may come to think of offices as movie sets, something for people on screen. I’m reminded that the most important divisions are not between men and women, or black and white or gay and straight, but between success and failure. After seeing The September Issue, that line is just as stark and just as mysterious.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Kubrick Made a Good Sexy Movie
Since my initial blog entry, the first two chapters of “Long Red Nails” have appeared on the Erotic Mind Control Story Archive. I even received my first piece of fan mail and a couple favorable posting on the mcforum message boards; all very exciting and encouraging. I am currently editing Chapter Three but am taking a quick break to catch up on my Netflix Queue with three quick reviews.
At least that was my plan. But Eyes Wide Shut just demands its own posting.
Eyes Wide Shit is the best NC-17 movie ever made, even if the film was technically rated R because after director Stanley Kubrick’s death additional figures were digitally added to the famous orgy scene to block out some of the juicy parts.
Most NC-17 films lack sex. Instead, they earn their rating with a few a nude scenes that are barely plot related. Eyes Wide Shut is a film where challenges to conventional sexuality morality appear out of every character and ever scene.
Eyes Wide Shut grabbed headlines from its inception because it stared then Hollywood golden couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. They play Dr. William and Alice Harford, a married couple with a posh NYC apartment, a charming young daughter, and a healthy sex life. They movie begins as they prepare to attend a Christmas party hosted by Bill’s uber-rich patient Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) and his wife.
At the party, both of the Harfords face temptation. Alice flirts and dances with a Hungarian playboy played by a poor man’s Jeremy Irons. Bill also flirts with a pair of models who seem to offer every male’s fantasy in the film’s first 20 minutes. The Harfords confront these dalliances the next night in bed. Alice vacillates between being jealous of Bill’s flirting and accusing Bill of underestimating her own sexuality. Cruise plays Bill as full of false calm. He parries all of her attacks until she blows him away by confessing to having lusted after a naval officer the family encountered during their last vacation. The argument ends when Bill receives a call that an elderly patient of his has passed away.
Part of what makes the film dream like is that there’s always a phone call or other coincidence to interrupt when things get to heavy. The call about the patient takes Bill out of his bedroom and his boxer shorts and puts him in a suit on the dark nighttime streets of New York City. Along the way, he has visions of Alice making love to a man in full navy whites. These images continue throughout the film and by the end both Alice and the imaginary sailor are fully nude and intertwined.
Kubrick loves ambiguity and I love that Bill’s reaction doesn’t have to be all about jealousy. I like to think he’s even a little excited. His reactions during the rest of the film are not simply revenge at Alice’s revelation but instead an attempt to do what no man can really do: compete equally with a fully sexualized woman.
Bill walks the streets of New York City and sex seeps every ounce of celluloid in a series of bizarre encounters. Eventually, Bill wanders passes the jazz club where his old medical school buddy, Nick Nightingale, is playing piano. Nightingale is played devilishly by director Todd Field. In character, Field actually challenges Hugh Jackman to the title of “the one threat to my heterosexuality”. Nick lets Bill pull out the details of Nick’s after-hours gig: playing piano blindfold at an orgy.
Bill is ridiculous through a lot of these scenes. He keeps passing around his medical license like a badge, bribing people for the tiniest favors and ordering beverages he doesn’t really want.
Finally, Bill arrives at the Long Island mansion hosting the party and the movie’s famous orgy scene begins. A group of Ventian mask wearing clocked figures observe a ceremony featuring about a dozen servant women in masks, g-strings, and tasteful black heels. And sure enough, Nick is in the corner playing a keyboard blindfolded. Even in the edited version, Bill’s wondering through the house is well, an orgy. Participants are grouped in twos and threes while more people watch. There is probably one example of each sex position, both intercourse and oral, and plenty of women with other women.
Most Kubrick defenders champion this film as being devoid of sexuality. That always makes me ask, which orgy were they watching? I think Kubrick did deliver an art-house porn film. It also interesting to note as a mind-control fetishist, how much of the film portrays a mind control fantasy. The servant women at the orgy move very much like hypnotized sex slaves.
I think the critics expected a supposedly steamy but ultimately safe scene over a ceramics wheel or a grand piano. But true fantasies are scarier because they are about freedom, control and power, and not some celluloid cliché. Eyes Wide Shut exposes the truth that we can never share our true sexual fantasies with our lovers because what makes them fantasies is that they involve other people. Of course, Bill does eventually share everything with Alice in the end and her reaction is probably the film’s most ambiguous moment.
The final third of the film is Bill trying to figure out how sinister the cult was and who paid the price for his crashing the party. The film never reaches the full heights of the orgy again, but there are plenty of sexual set pieces, including Bill’s various trips to a costume shop where his rents his orgy disguise. Eventually, Bill is summoned back to Ziegler’s house. Harvey Keitel was originally supposed to play Ziegler but this is the perfect Sydney Pollack part. He makes his explanation that what Bill saw was merely a mock sex cult for rich people’s role playing enjoyment and not an actual sinister, murderous sex cult sound like a discussion on shady business ethics. Personally, I want to believe Ziegler, but then I always want to believe the best of sex cults.
Ask most men who see Eyes Wide Shut if they found the movie sexy and they will answer a resounding yes. Given the chance, they would crash that orgy as quickly as Bill did. And that’s Kubrick’s point. Like Bill, most of us live with our fantasies just out of reach and with the fear they are occurring behind closed doors in opulent mansions.
To me, that provides some hope because it means the affordable, accessible middle class orgy is still available to be invented.
At least that was my plan. But Eyes Wide Shut just demands its own posting.
Eyes Wide Shit is the best NC-17 movie ever made, even if the film was technically rated R because after director Stanley Kubrick’s death additional figures were digitally added to the famous orgy scene to block out some of the juicy parts.
Most NC-17 films lack sex. Instead, they earn their rating with a few a nude scenes that are barely plot related. Eyes Wide Shut is a film where challenges to conventional sexuality morality appear out of every character and ever scene.
Eyes Wide Shut grabbed headlines from its inception because it stared then Hollywood golden couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. They play Dr. William and Alice Harford, a married couple with a posh NYC apartment, a charming young daughter, and a healthy sex life. They movie begins as they prepare to attend a Christmas party hosted by Bill’s uber-rich patient Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) and his wife.
At the party, both of the Harfords face temptation. Alice flirts and dances with a Hungarian playboy played by a poor man’s Jeremy Irons. Bill also flirts with a pair of models who seem to offer every male’s fantasy in the film’s first 20 minutes. The Harfords confront these dalliances the next night in bed. Alice vacillates between being jealous of Bill’s flirting and accusing Bill of underestimating her own sexuality. Cruise plays Bill as full of false calm. He parries all of her attacks until she blows him away by confessing to having lusted after a naval officer the family encountered during their last vacation. The argument ends when Bill receives a call that an elderly patient of his has passed away.
Part of what makes the film dream like is that there’s always a phone call or other coincidence to interrupt when things get to heavy. The call about the patient takes Bill out of his bedroom and his boxer shorts and puts him in a suit on the dark nighttime streets of New York City. Along the way, he has visions of Alice making love to a man in full navy whites. These images continue throughout the film and by the end both Alice and the imaginary sailor are fully nude and intertwined.
Kubrick loves ambiguity and I love that Bill’s reaction doesn’t have to be all about jealousy. I like to think he’s even a little excited. His reactions during the rest of the film are not simply revenge at Alice’s revelation but instead an attempt to do what no man can really do: compete equally with a fully sexualized woman.
Bill walks the streets of New York City and sex seeps every ounce of celluloid in a series of bizarre encounters. Eventually, Bill wanders passes the jazz club where his old medical school buddy, Nick Nightingale, is playing piano. Nightingale is played devilishly by director Todd Field. In character, Field actually challenges Hugh Jackman to the title of “the one threat to my heterosexuality”. Nick lets Bill pull out the details of Nick’s after-hours gig: playing piano blindfold at an orgy.
Bill is ridiculous through a lot of these scenes. He keeps passing around his medical license like a badge, bribing people for the tiniest favors and ordering beverages he doesn’t really want.
Finally, Bill arrives at the Long Island mansion hosting the party and the movie’s famous orgy scene begins. A group of Ventian mask wearing clocked figures observe a ceremony featuring about a dozen servant women in masks, g-strings, and tasteful black heels. And sure enough, Nick is in the corner playing a keyboard blindfolded. Even in the edited version, Bill’s wondering through the house is well, an orgy. Participants are grouped in twos and threes while more people watch. There is probably one example of each sex position, both intercourse and oral, and plenty of women with other women.
Most Kubrick defenders champion this film as being devoid of sexuality. That always makes me ask, which orgy were they watching? I think Kubrick did deliver an art-house porn film. It also interesting to note as a mind-control fetishist, how much of the film portrays a mind control fantasy. The servant women at the orgy move very much like hypnotized sex slaves.
I think the critics expected a supposedly steamy but ultimately safe scene over a ceramics wheel or a grand piano. But true fantasies are scarier because they are about freedom, control and power, and not some celluloid cliché. Eyes Wide Shut exposes the truth that we can never share our true sexual fantasies with our lovers because what makes them fantasies is that they involve other people. Of course, Bill does eventually share everything with Alice in the end and her reaction is probably the film’s most ambiguous moment.
The final third of the film is Bill trying to figure out how sinister the cult was and who paid the price for his crashing the party. The film never reaches the full heights of the orgy again, but there are plenty of sexual set pieces, including Bill’s various trips to a costume shop where his rents his orgy disguise. Eventually, Bill is summoned back to Ziegler’s house. Harvey Keitel was originally supposed to play Ziegler but this is the perfect Sydney Pollack part. He makes his explanation that what Bill saw was merely a mock sex cult for rich people’s role playing enjoyment and not an actual sinister, murderous sex cult sound like a discussion on shady business ethics. Personally, I want to believe Ziegler, but then I always want to believe the best of sex cults.
Ask most men who see Eyes Wide Shut if they found the movie sexy and they will answer a resounding yes. Given the chance, they would crash that orgy as quickly as Bill did. And that’s Kubrick’s point. Like Bill, most of us live with our fantasies just out of reach and with the fear they are occurring behind closed doors in opulent mansions.
To me, that provides some hope because it means the affordable, accessible middle class orgy is still available to be invented.
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