In honor of Elizabeth Taylor's death today yesterday, I dampened my cheeks to the stylings of Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
The movie was enjoyable and I even laughed out loud a few times, which is rare (ask my biographers that follow me everywhere and never have a good tip on a horse). Sidney Poitier was dashing, aggressive, and effective. Katharine Hepburn killed several monologues and the rookie from Connecticut, Katharine Houghton (Hepburn's niece, whom you might remember from her recent performance as Katara's Grandma in The Last Airbender), was the one who made me laugh the most.
Spencer Tracy, on the other hand, reminded me way too much of Robert DeNiro in a comedy, which is a polite way of saying he turned in a poor performance, but unfortunately one not as poor as those of Scott Baio in Arrested Development, which are so poor they come back around again to be funny and are therefore unique and redemptive.
'Maggie the Cat' indeed
If only Most Hideous Man Alive® Bruce Vilanch hadn't stolen my copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I might have cut a more respectable figure this evening as four of the world's leading massage therapists worked me over in the screening lounge aboard my jet and my biographers scribbled wildly. Blaming him for everything that went wrong is so fun these days, especially when the accusations are true.
As it was, the only movie of Ms. Taylor's I had lying around was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and even though she knocks that role right out of the galaxy it isn't exactly how anyone would like her to be remembered.
In your honor, Liz, I am going to bed with this image on my brain instead:
"You think you're a fucking badass, Charlie? You're a small-screen trained monkey whose audience is far from discerning. They're gonna replace you with John Stamos, for Pete's sake. I'm Batman, Patrick Bateman, John Rolfe, John Connor, and a boxer from Boston.
"I grew up in Wales and even though you're nine years older than me I was chewing kids' ears off in the park for no reason at all ever since you were in short pants. I beat-up every single person I see, just so they know not to fuck with me. Your Dad is Martin Sheen and mine was a pilot (who later married Gloria Steinem). My Mom was a circus performer. I had to be exponentially more crazy than you could ever imagine in order to escape my humble beginnings and beat you out for all the good roles and all the good girls (the kind you don't have to pay for).
"I think we all know it's been a long time since Platoon + Men at Work, but still you were the highest-paid actor in television history until the other day and I guess that is a commendable accomplishment for somebody in your field. It takes dedication to put up with the grueling schedule of a television show. I know I would never want to do it, that's for sure. I prefer to do my work in intense chunks, in exotic locations, and then take several months off to drink vintage wine and fornicate with native women on a white-sand beach somewhere warm while the footage is edited in preparation for a lavish premiere and I marinate in Cuban rum, fresh pineapple, and rare orchids.
"But I no longer need to fake my respect for your humble dedication because you were fired by your boss--an ugly guy who made even more money than you, had more than enough of your annoying bullshit, and put you in your place on the world stage.
"Boy, that must be fun. Can't wait to watch you get shot-down by Barbara Walters on The View before your on-air pedicure even begins to dry.
"Oh! You think you got a comeback for that one? You don't. You never will. You're a puff pastry at heart. You'll never have the fire your dad has and it kills you. Even with a full arsenal of Hollywood stylists at your disposal you look about as bad-ass as an Olsen twin. Proof:
"In conclusion, shut up and go to bed, Charlie Sheen. You're wearing out the world's patience. You're tired. You're broke in every manner of speaking other than financially. Make sure you get a good long sleep by finishing the entire bottle of pills and I promise everything will be better in the morning. The whole world will be a safer, happier place for everyone--especially those closest to you--and it will help set-up another Oscar win for my 'vicious,' 'lifelike' portrayal of you in the made-for-TV movie of your pitiful life."
[Disclaimer: Nothing in this post was written or spoken by Christian Bale although he may have thought it at some point and nobody can prove he didn't. -Ed.]
Although he's been directing movies for almost fifty years, I had never heard of Claude Lelouch until the other day, when I rented a movie he made called A Man and a Woman(1966). This exquisite romance was nominated for four Oscars® during the 1966 season and declared Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay. Not exactly a lightweight.
Much like Michaelangelo Antonioni, Lelouch was a documentary man who found success in art films, although it appears he did not find as much success as good ole Antonioni. Despite having only seen one (1) film of his, I feel comfortable saying that for two reasons:
1. I had never heard of him before the other day and I heard of Antonioni before I uttered my first word (almost).
2. Despite a prolific fifty-year career, he appears to have only made two movies of enduring quality: A Man and a Woman and the 1981 musical Les Uns et Les Autres (aka Boléro). The fact that a 23 year-old Sharon Stone has a bit role in the latter film only piques my curiosity and fear not--it is already on my Netflix queue.
Please do not think I mean to belittle Lelouch's contribution to the world of art, however. Anybody who contributes one exquisite book, painting, poem, photograph, motion picture, building, or sculpture to the global treasure trove can hold their head high in my book.
We should all be so lucky as to be responsible for the crafting of something enduringly beautiful, something strangers the world over can enjoy indefinitely, something that never would have existed without their unique efforts.
In other words, Joseph Heller can rest easy after 38 years of painful (trust me) failure post-Catch-22 and Claude Lelouch certainly has no reason to be ashamed of his cinematic hit ratio.
Even if Matthew McConaughey were naked the entire movie and I was a raging homosexual with only McConaughey on the lower brain I would still avoid this movie like the plague.
Who needs to pay for a nap these days? Even if you wanted to, would you choose to take that nap while upright in a chair next to an old woman who smells like diapers? Don't answer that, perverts; you probably would.
In case you think I'm being too harsh, here is the one-line synopsis that elevated this turd from the page to the (now even more tarnished) silver screen:
A lawyer conducts business from the back of his Lincoln Town Car while representing a high-profile client in Beverly Hills.
Hahaha! I get it! It has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln at all! What a curveball! He just works out of a Lincoln automobile! A really old one, from back when they actually had personality! And it's still running really well because in Hollywood things always go according to plan!
Oh, man--me and the fellas totally gotta sneak away from the wives to see that on Friday, March 18...unless I can hack into the Lionsgate servers and get my jollies ahead of schedule...though I would still probably wanna see it on the big screen anyway...
Although Black Swan was a fantastic cinematic experience--the best ending since There Will Be Blood?--and a just-in-time tour-de-force effort from Darren Aronofsky (I also loved Requiem for a Dream, but that's about it), after watching the vast majority of the movies I wanted to watch from this past year I can confidently state Blue Valentine was my favorite.
Sorry, Clash of the Titans, but I don't need to see you to know you suck and that says a lot about what you are!
Much like the equally-brilliant A Prophet(2009, France), Blue Valentine is gritty, real, and uncompromising. The actors are allowed to breathe in the frame, the camera records the action free of any agenda, the audience feels like intimate participants in a drama with limitless possibilities. There are tears-of-joy-inducing moments of beauty and there are moments that hurt your soul a little bit, irreparably. In short, it is a lot like real life--which is astonishingly difficult to recreate onscreen even when that is your goal.
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are both reliably-talented actors, but there is something particularly engaging about their performances in this movie, something about the air that exists on-screen between these two fictional lovers that is truly something special.
How was this delicate feat accomplished? Well, an insightful piece from HuffPo Entertainment Editor Katy Hall today--reprinted in its entirety--explains a lot about the method behind such success:
Finally watched Jacques Audiard's gritty 2009 2hr35min masterpiece, Un Prophète (A Prophet). Yes, I said masterpiece and I am aware that is not a word that should be used as often as it is.
What made it so good? Well, it's interesting you ask because I was about to tell you...
Let's start with something a lot of reviewers neglect to mention about movies they are discussing: the feel. This movie opens unapologetically in medias res--gritty fly-on-the-wall footage of a young man entering prison for a six-year stretch. The camera lingers, unhurried, soaking up every detail, every expression, every nuance. We don't need to know why he's going there--the point is he is headed to prison and we are going to watch what happens as it happens. The audience is instantly cast as voyeurs who have no idea what to expect, no desire to have their hands held through predictable plot devices, no fear to watch unapologetic and sometimes-gruesome reality unfold in front of their eyes without mercy.
Un Prophète was one of those rare movies that picked me up by the collar and stared deep into my life-force without blinking, without promising anything but a raw, beautiful, visceral experience I will carry with me forever.
Okay, so longtime friends Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston have paired together for the first time (!!!) in a please-go-to-it-on-Valentine's-Day romantic comedy called Just Go With It.
Could that title be any more on-the-nose?
All you need to know, America, is that Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler, and some hot chick in a bikini are in a new movie where some schlub has to decide which sexy woman to marry. Just go with it, buy your tickets, and maybe you'll even enjoy a few parts of it!
"Help! The multinational corporate conglomerates running the studios need your support!" -Corporate Flunky #3102
It is interesting that recent-box-office-dud Adam Sandler (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Funny People, Grown-Ups), who also exec-produced this turd, chose to align himself with an actress who has the same problem (Love Happens, The Bounty Hunter, The Switch) in what is apparently an effort to make a successful movie.
Or is that not even the goal anymore?
Maybe simply making a movie is enough for them these days, regardless of quality. I mean, they both got paid millions of dollars, right? They got to spend some time in Hawaii on somebody else's dime, eat some killer free food on-set, have a few laughs, feel like they're being productive...it's the little things in life that they are concerned about at their age, I guess.
"Haha--all you stupid people make us rich, America!"
"There's always gonna be haters, Jen, so what the fuck? Let's just hang out in Hawaii for a while and wipe our asses with 35mm film." -Adam Sandler
"As long as I can bring my yoga instructor, hair-stylist/best-friend, a couple lap dogs, and my scrapbooking supplies I don't give a shit what we do there." -Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston craps shitty romantic comedies in her sleep and I guess just enough overweight women with cats watch them that her gravy train continues its incremental slide toward the fiery pits of hell. So, what does she care what anybody thinks about them? The 'elitist' critics will always hate on her; jealous women will always hate on her; men will always hate on her; she just needs to persevere and eventually some happy accident will redeem her in the end.
Right? Well, that's what she's hoping for, no doubt. Let us ruminate on what that happy accident may be, shall we?
Possible entertainment-rag quotes from the future:
At age 56, Jennifer Aniston has finally found her niche--and Oscar gold--as a bronzed, sultry, embittered Miss Havisham in Baz Luhrman's dramatic retelling of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. With a guaranteed 14-year contract on Broadway and a traveling ice-capade in the works, Miss Aniston finds it bittersweet that the secret to her happiness lies in the glorification of the loneliness that has dogged her for what seems like centuries.
Former actress Jennifer Aniston, 52, was spotted dining at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills over the weekend. As always, her characteristic printed-silk Gucci bandages obscured her entire head but there was no doubt in anybody's mind as to who was living it up with Jesse Eisenberg during a jovial four-hour martini-and-painkiller lunch. Was having acid thrown in her face by Angelina Jolie the best thing that ever happened to her? Probably. Her besties freely admit "we've never seen her happier."
After a marathon 14-day bidding-war cage-match atop the CAA Death Star, Jennifer Aniston, 68, has finally outlasted the competition and secured the rights to Angelina Jolie's unfinished autobiography. Who will play Hollywood's most notorious vixen, who took her own life as soon as she showed sign of aging? Why, Jennifer Aniston, of course. "I'm thinking no make-up on this one," the wrinkly old actress quipped.
Regardless of how things turn out for Jen in the end, one thing is certain: Just Go With It will suck and you should probably hang out at the mall next weekend to intimidate/eliminate anybody interested in purchasing a ticket. After all, a tragic opening weekend box office tally is the best way to ensure this sort of bunk won't tie-up our silver screens in the future.
Where did he spend all this coolness in such a hurry? On this giant smelly turd:
For those of you not in the know, this regrettable project has regrettably been in development for an eternity. Many, many years ago somebody got stoned at one of Elton John's castles (probably) and he became fixated on the idea of doing a version of Romeo & Juliet with animated gnomes--for which he, of course, would do the music and win another Oscar/Grammy/knighthood.
Flush with coolness, Elton had no problem forcing the project onto Disney Feature Animation while it was roofied on the couch in his pool house, but when Disney bought Pixar (in order to release good movies again--SNAP) John Lasseter greatly increased his own coolness reserves by calling a turd a turd and kicking Gnomeo out the back door without so much as a how's-your-father.
Say "Ahhhh" Harvey. And yes, Bob--you can watch.
So Elton did what anybody in his enviable position would do--he climbed up on Harvey Weinstein's solid-diamond desk and shoved good-ole Gnomeo down Miramax's throat with ease. After all, Elton still had plenty of coolness left to spend [More than one could ever spend in a lifetime. We think. -Ed.] and he was not going to let this brilliant idea die on the vine, goddamnit!
But then Miramax never woke up from the Gnomeo-induced coma, went bankrupt, and the project was dead and buried...until a recent full moon, when that zombie climbed out of the grave, walked over to Burbank incredibly slowly, and put the blocks to Disney's Touchstone Pictures while it was on acid and totally distracted by some water dripping out of a faucet.
Starring the voices of every whore who can do a British accent (sorry, Gwyneth!)
And so now here we are--unrecyclable Gnomeo & Juliet ads coat the town and a bunch of stupid gnomes will grace silver screens all over the country on February 11th. [Bad movie junkies should wait until said gnomes are available for much, much less at Big Lots starting February 12th. -Ed.]
How bad is this movie? Well, let's just say it has NINE credited writers (plus the Bard himself) and that is never a good thing. There were probably, what, fifteen writers who didn't want their names anywhere near this slithering turd that vomited thousand-pound notes all over Hollywood for 15 years?
But that doesn't matter because Elton is happy. He still has just enough coolness currency to skip to the front of the line at Starbucks, he sold the same movie at least three times, he got to be Executive Producer and do the music, his boo (David Furnish) got to be a producer, and some poor team of handsome young PAs got to be fondled while managing Elton's treasured bobblehead collection.
The bottom line here is that if Elton John doesn't become President of Haiti and clothe the entire nation in sequined jumpsuits and velour top hats for a fast-motion, single-take-helicopter-shot music video within the next couple years he might not only have to forfeit his spot in Princess Diana's tomb, but I might also have to leave him off my Christmas card list and get in on some of this Bieber Fever action that's been going around...
There was once a Dutchman named Robert Wolders. He was born in Rotterdam in September of 1936, to a man and a woman, although if you asked her, the woman did most of the work.
In 1965, Mr. Wolders became an actor, starred briefly in a TV show, but never achieved much success. By 1975, he decided to retire from acting and marry legendary Hollywood nutjob Merle Oberon.
Below are more than a few words about Merle Oberon, for your pleasure:
She was an exotic beauty born on the British side of Bombay to a British mechanical engineer working on the Indian Railways and her own (half) sister, Constance.
To hide this embarrassing bit of incestuous pedophilia, one of Merle's birth certificates listed her father's wife--a Eurasian from Ceylon with partial Maori heritage, who had Constance at age 14 with an Irish foreman of a tea plantation--as her mother and the story stuck.
Merle and her "mother" moved to England, where she dated a retired actor who passed her off to a studio in France when he realized her "mom" was dark-skinned and he was irretrievably racist. The "Sexy Extra All the Powerful Men Hit On at Craft Service" roles poured in and once famous director Alexander Korda got the hots and cast Merle as Ann Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), she was officially going places.
Alexander Korda, Merle Oberon, and Samuel "Thug" Goldwyn
Scarred for life in an automobile accident a mere four years later, skilled lighting technicians were at least able to hide Merle's disfigured face long enough for her to tear up the silver screen opposite Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939).
By the following year, Merle's face "suffered even further damage...from a combination of cosmetic poisoning and an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs." Mr. Korda, now her husband, paid for several treatments at a skin clinic in Nueva York, but to no avail--without makeup she was hideous to behold.
So Mr. Korda decided to join the knighthood and make Merle a Lady, to give her something else to do with her time. Three years later, bored of being a Lady knight and day, Merle divorced her knight and married cinematographer Lucien Ballard, who then created a special light--the Obie--to obscure her facial scars on film.
That act of devotion fell short, however, and Merle married twice more--to Italian industrialist Bruno Pagliai (with whom she moved to Mexico and adopted two children) and the Most Interesting Man in the World, Mr. Robert Wolders--who is 25 years younger than her.
But only four years after Merle marries Robert Wolders, she dies at age 68.
What does the most interesting man in the world do when this happens? Why, he immediately becomes companion to Audrey Hepburn (7 years his senior), of course--ever the proper lady, she was waiting patiently for her turn on the Wolders, no doubt--and the two of them even hang out with the Reagmeister General:
Thirteen years later, in 1993, the honorable Audrey Hepburn dies on him, too, leaving Mr. Wolders all alone in frigid Switzerland. How does the most interesting man in the world cope with this tragedy?
He hops on a train to France, where he becomes the companion of another older woman, of course. Then-64-year-old screen legend Leslie Caron is a French dancer discovered by Gene Kelly in 1951 who went on to become a successful actress at MGM for decades and dance with every famous dancer whose name you have ever heard.
Alas, their torrid, Metamucil-tinged affair lasts only two years before the furnace goes kaput and Mr. Wolders moves on--for the first time?--without anybody dying.
Where does he go? Sadly, one can only speculate.
Here goes:
Immediately after french-kissing his goodbyes to dear Leslie, Mr. Wolders steals her 1964 Peugeot 404 convertible and drives all the way to Marseilles on the wrong side of the highway, chain-smoking a box of Cuban blunts given to him by Johnny Depp at his birthday party last year.
After six martinis and a few bottles of cheap cognac in the backroom of a rough-trade dockside saloon, Mr. Wolders gets himself into a card game and wakes up to find himself at-sea in a 45-foot sailboat named Skye.
Upon hearing several members of the crew refer to him as "Captain" (as in: "Captain, you have vomit in your beard."), Mr. Wolders commands his crew to pull into the nearest harbor for supplies and a bit of barbering.
After a killer haircut and the trading of most of their food, medical supplies, and lifeboats for several dozen barrels of rum, six pounds of beef jerky, a prostitute, and two fishing poles, Mr. Wolders and his crew are able to outrun a couple police officers and set sail for anywhere else.
The crew becomes family as they drift around the Mediterranean with Mr. Wolders for the next 15+ years, mastering kung-fu, running guns for the Russians, trying to get invited to parties along the Riviera, counterfeiting their own Cuban cigars, making their own sushi, experimenting with mind-altering drugs...and subsisting solely on the bounty of nature, the naivete of strangers, and the small fortune Mr. Wolders inherited from his two famous dead lovers.
The crew was not terribly pleased to have their berths converted to rum storage,
but they eventually got over it and embraced the good life.
When his love of the finer things in life--coupled with his innate distaste for labor of any kind--catches up with him, Mr. Wolders sees no other choice but to adopt a fake Mexican accent and resume acting under an assumed identity in commercials for Dos Equis.
It's the closest he can get to not working while still getting paid, so that's alright with him.
Yes, at 74 years of age and still kicking, life has been good to Robert Wolders. I wonder if the next 74 will be so kind?
The Oscars are not that far away, guys. What I'm trying to say here is that before all you nerds go home to fill out your Oscar pools this weekend while laying low with mud facials, martinis, and pre-awards-season bacne treatments, I think you should keep in mind this hot little tip: a donkey should have at least been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Award in 1966, but tragically was not even credited in the film.
The performance in question was written and directed by Robert Bresson, and the uncredited role of Donkey Saint was portrayed flawlessly by the brilliant but chronically unappreciated Balthazar.
Was dear Balthazar's performance too realistically donkey-like to be considered acting? Was he too method for the voting audience? Were all the other actors jealous enough to blackball him? Did he run away with beautiful Marie and just not give a donkey's cuss about getting his name out there?
We may never know--just like with the Oscars this year. Somebody will win the awards and some people will think other people (or donkeys) should have won them instead. Sigh. What can you do, right?
Ladies and gentlemen of taste, I'll tell you what you should do-- make Au Hasard Balthazar the extremely slow but clever and memorable movie you watch this weekend while most people in this country satisfy their baser urges with fast food, fake butter, and the nonagenarian antics of Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller.
You deserve a treat, after all, in these tough times. And so does Balthazar.
Paid for by the Campaign to Posthumously Nominate Balthazar the Donkey for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (CPNBDBSAC)
A mere glance at the poster for the new Vince Vaughn/Kevin James waste-of-time The Dilemma on my way to the sulphur mines this morning confirms what I have feared for a while now--Kevin James and Vince Vaughn have fused their hands together and are spinning around in circles laughing at each other's stale jokes as crumbs tumble from their bespittled lips, their jiggly centers of mass gradually moving closer to impact.
Eventually--I give it maybe two years, tops--their ever-enlarging torsos will collide, their bodies bursting into millions of pieces that will continue to orbit Hollywood along the same path until these little turdlettes coalesce into one larger, more formidably awful superturd that will indubitably acquire several sycophantic moons in the Brett Ratner mold and reign over a large swath of Hollywood for many years to come.
A bone-chilling reminder that the continuing evolution of the universe is not always a good thing; in fact, the creation/destruction cycle puts our odds at only 50%.
Yes, much like the man himself this project was a bad idea from the instant it was conceived.
Yes, you will probably see it with your family this holiday season and/or receive it on BluRay from a friend as a Valentine's Day gag gift.
Yes, you all should be ashamed of yourselves.
Aside from the movie crew's community-saving bribes to dozens of unemployed+underwater homeowners near the shooting location pretending to mow their lawn every day, probably the only good to come of this debacle is all of the anti-fan art out there on the web.
Viz:
Probably a direct quote as he walked to craft service for a handful of Peanut M&Ms.
I would much rather see THIS movie.
Probably an accurate assessment of what Gibson's golden years would have been like
if he didn't have $400 million in the bank and a team of parasites that live off him.
For even more anti-fan art, check out the endless comments on the post that inspired mine at Videogum.
For your viewing pleasure, here is an old Japanese cologne commercial made by the director of Hausu, starring Charles Bronson:
What a crazy piece of shit, eh? I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the meeting where the director explained his vision to the ad agency and client.
"Okay, so...he's in a candle-lit bar by himself, making love to a black piano player with his eyes. After thanking an insane old doorman on his way out, he drives home really fast to take off his shirt and pour cologne all over his body as he gives himself a rubdown and shoots guns. Guys will love it!"
"Wait--there are no women in this?"
"No! There are no women in Mandom--just men. Men who like to choke each other to death with the overpowering stench of their cologne-soaked half-naked bodies as they dance around the room, giggling and flirting. And shooting guns!"
"I see...well, what the fuck do I know? I named my cologne Mandom. Let's give it a shot."
Remember back in April when all those miners blew themselves to bits in West Virginia, in a misguided attempt to get the CEO of Massey Energy in trouble with some of his elected employees?
Remember more recently when those 33 Chilean coal miners made their tunnel collapse and played hooky from work by hiding underground for 69 frustrating days?
Well, now it seems some Chinese attention-seekers have thrown their hat into the ring:
Associated Press -- BEIJING -- An explosion in a Chinese coal mine killed 20 and trapped more than 30 workers underground Saturday in the country's central region, state media reported.
A man answering phones at the mine said he had not heard anything an accident.
China's mining industry is the most dangerous in the world, and more than 2,600 people died in mining accidents last year.
What exactly is it that all these miners are after, aside from time off work, peace and quiet, total darkness, homosexual tension, and the satisfaction of temporarily crippling their bosses' golden goose?
If the results of Rivers Cuomo's ill-fated decision to use an equation he distilled after studying the music of numerous successful songwriters to replicate infinite variations of the perfect pop song weren't bad enough--the Green album, Maladroit, Make Believe, the Red album, Raditude (really?)--trixie pixie sellout Cuomo just shot the moon with his latest aural turd, Hurley.
In case you were wondering, yes--the album IS named after the morbidly obese guy on Lost, yes--he IS featured on the cover, and yes--he DID sing a duet with Rivers onstage at some sort of asshole convention in Los Angeles.
I feel no need to ruminate on the wherefores of Rivers' decision, since I don't give a shit what stupid reason he had, but I do think it is important for everybody out there to realize, if they haven't already, that the man behind Pinkerton and the Blue album, two of the greatest rock albums of the last 20 years, has officially become an irredeemable, unapologetic jackass.
You have been warned.
Also, I feel the need to warn you of the following forthcoming turds from the Cuomo camp:
- Pinkerton, their best album and the last one worth a damn (recorded 14 years ago) is set for an unnecessary re-release (same music, but with new fan art! probably! OMG!).
- A third solo album--The Pinkerton Years--is also in the works.
So, apparently, does the mewling alleycat outside my window, but unfortunately for me, my thirst is not so easily slaked.
No passing stranger of the opposite sex can solve my hydration problem, even if they wanted to, but here this greedy cat will take all comers and get as much as she wants.
Or maybe my perspective is wrong.
Maybe satisfaction looms in the distance, tantalizingly on her radar but frustratingly never within reach. Maybe she is a tormented soul whose thirst, like mine, is bottomless. Maybe we are two of a kind.
Much like the insatiable central characters in the 1976 Japanese arthouse porno, In the Realm of the Senses, which I watched this evening in (mostly) wide-eyed surprise.
Never in my life have I seen so much penis--and I own one.
Never in my life have I seen two people engage in so much public fornication, to such blase reaction. To say the sex is gratuitous misses the point, but still--it is exhausting to watch.
Here is what Mr. Criterion has to say about the movie, for all you bumpkins out there that ain't never heard of it:
SYNOPSIS: Still censored in its own country, In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida), by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, remains one of the most controversial films of all time. A graphic portrayal of insatiable sexual desire, Oshima’s film, set in 1936 and based on a true incident, depicts a man and a woman (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda) consumed by a transcendent, destructive love while living in an era of ever escalating imperialism and governmental control. Less a work of pornography than of politics, In the Realm of the Senses is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone. SYNOPSIS:WARNING: THISFILM IS SEXUALLYEXPLICIT
I wish I could agree with their pornography versus politics angle, but there was so little politics involved in this movie that I was bored stiff. Imagine saying that! I wanted more politics!
What exactly...were the politics? I saw some soldiers march past in one scene, but who knows what that's supposed to mean. What I do know is that the entire movie involves a former prostitute fellating, ravaging, and beating/strangling her master-cum-husband, whom she rapidly turns into her willing sex slave.
I'll put it this way--there is a good reason the narrator feels the need, at movie's end, to reveal the events took place in 1936, because any other movie that took place in Japan in 1936 and even hinted at politics would have found that designation superfluous.
Game, set, match. Verdict: Porno. Sorry Criterion--there was no need to salvage this one.
That being said, if you are in for an initially titillating movie that ultimately makes you never want to have sex again, this 'masterpiece' is for you. Enjoy!
The Expendables takes the crown two weeks in a row, after FIVE new movies premiered this past weekend? And all it took was a $16.5 million haul in August?
Some shitty spoof of shitty vampire movies came out to no acclaim? A 3D remake of low-budget cult-hit Piranha? Bow-Wow wins the lottery? Some movie about Julia Roberts eating gelato in Italy while looking for herself/a man that middle-aged women don't even like?
What the fuck is going on? Is this the third horseman?
It gets worse: The Nanny McPhee sequel beat out America's Sweetheart(TM) Jennifer Aniston's The Switch. Ha-ha!
Will this undeniably laughable result finally decrease her shitty-romantic-comedy output to less than two per year in the coming decade (until she finally ODs on whatever it is that numbs her), or do I have to sew my eyeballs shut every time I risk encountering a billboard or commercial?
Speaking of Jennifer Aniston (nee Brangelina), I know there are plenty of men out there who would 'put one in her,' but aside from that, does anybody actually care for her at all? Anybody not on her payroll, I mean. Does she have fans? Who are they? Do they not realize how boring and whiny she is, or are they interested in her like somebody who goes down to the Y once a week is interested in some little kid without a dad?
By the way, not all movies made these days are shitty--the ones that are good are usually just really hard to find. For example, when will we finally get to see 2009's I Love You Phillip Morris?
Which 12 old white men running this country from the rec room at the C-Street House do I have to blow like a circus seal during some clandestine pagan ritual in order to get the religious-right minority to back down on this one? Would they even realize the irony in making me do that? How many of them will write me checks for my services because they don't know how to use an ATM?
I'd rather not have to accidentally blow any footsoldiers, so precision is appreciated here, my child; do whatever you need to in order to get me those names.
