Due to the criticism and controversy of an alleged date-rape scene in Observe and Report, we bring you yet another list of sex scenes, this one focused on cinematic moments that stirred protest, censorship, bans and boycotts. Whether groundbreaking for their time or still questionable today, these scenes could probably have been included in our past highlights of films sold on a sex scene and films remembered primarily for a sex scene. But these are not leftovers. Many of them have merits and memorability outside of their “upsetting” depictions of a sexual act, though many of their objectors wouldn’t know since they never actually saw the films themselves.
One disclaimer must be made, because we’re sure commenters will jump in otherwise asking why A Clockwork Orange and other films with controversial rape scenes have not been included. Besides the fact that many readers will argue that such scenes are not rightly labeled “sex scenes,” there’s also the matter that too many films feature gratuitous rape scenes, and most of the time these are met with criticism. Of course, there are also a number of controversial consensual sex scenes that we’ve had to leave out, so feel free to name any excluded titles after reading the list. …Read more
When it comes to It Came From Kuchar, Jennifer M. Kroot’s deceptively breezy documentary about experimental filmmaker brothers George and Mike, I am without a doubt a member of the choir. George Kuchar was my independent study advisor when I was an undergraduate at the San Francisco Art Institute, and much of Kroot’s film documents his life and times at that alma mater of mine. George is seen clomping through the bayside, architectural masterpiece of a campus, slightly hunched, with appreciative students trailing off him like some kind of handycam-weilding, Bronx-accented, beautiful schlock-peddling pied piper. George isn’t the right professor for everyone — as John Waters puts it in the film, “I think some of his students are probably horrified and leave” — but for me, as a very, very serious studier of cinema who took my own attempts at filmmaking very, very seriously, George gave me a much-needed license to have fun with film, to play and pursue the weird. As Brook Hinton, another SFAI stallwart, says of George’s work in the film, it’s “profound, has great beauty, and yet doesn’t take itself too seriously.” George Kuchar is a walking whoopie cushion n a world of art school pretensions … except, you know, funny.
So I can’t proclaim distance, but I can express my appreciation for Kroot’s film as a creative exemplar of how to make a talking head documentary becomes , and salute it as a much-needed work of historiography. As Anthology Film Archives’ Andrew Lampert notes on screen, there is no complete Kuchar filmography — George in particular works so fast, and with an attitude that renders distinctions between video diary, collaborations with students, and his “Real” movies so meaningless, that even the completists can’t completely keep up. Kroot’s film is clearly the result of intimate access to not only the brothers and their films (thus rendering the doc something like a Greatest Hits reel with commentary), but even to some of their unused archival footage.
Already a veteran of original web production, writer/director/actress Lena Dunham first popped up on the cinephile radar screen with her terrific 2007 Slamdance short Dealing. She followed that up with an Nerve.com original serial Tight Shots, and this week she debuts a hysterical new web serialDowntown Delusional Divas on Index Magazine’s newly redesigned site. We caught up with her to discuss watching Helen Mirren play a homicide detective, why she hasn’t gotten around to reading Anna Karenina and what Lynn Ramsay and Tori Amos could do together. …Read more
It’s already been called the most important civil rights film of the decade, but only time will tell if Milk has any real impact on the gay marriage issue or any other related civil rights matter. Obviously the film, which is set thirty years in the past, can be appropriated by the campaign to overturn Proposition 8, but if that campaign is successful, it will be difficult to prove with certainty Milk contributed to the end result.
The Birth of a Nation may have inspired a reformation of the Ku Klux Klan and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner may have opened some minds to wider acceptance of interracial marriage (which had just recently been legalized). However, as Time magazine reported earlier this year, it’s quite rare for cinema to really change the world. A movie like Philadelphia easily gets moviegoers thinking about AIDS and discrimination, for instance, and Sicko exposes some of the supposed benefits of universal health care, yet most of these kinds of message films preach primarily to the choir.
But at least five films have made an actual difference, either on a local or national level. Will Milk join the small group of movies detailed below? …Read more
While watching Zack and Miri Make a Porno, it is possible to occasionally forget that you are watching a Kevin Smith movie. Mainly because he doesn’t show up in the film, a rare and appreciated move for the guy who has played “Silent Bob” in 6 out of the 8 theatrical releases he’s directed. Then there’s the cast that is involved, which makes Z&M seem like the offspring of Judd Apatow and John Waters. But there are a number of things that do make it clearly a Smith joint, such as the obligatory employment of Jason Mewes — in the role he was born to play, even moreso than “Jay” — and the potentially pitying use of Jeff Anderson, who may have been the only actor to agree to receiving that accidental Hot Carl.
And then there’s the most recognizable element: Smith’s inability let the poop jokes go in order to concentrate on his characters, and the relationships between them. It’s the filmmaker’s Achilles heel, and it’s one of five we at SpoutBlog have noticed are holding back the esteem of five would-be better directors.
If the New York Film Festival marks the beginning of fall for local press and industry like a grown-up back to school, the Festival’s annual black tie opening night party at Tavern on the Green (and the ritual afterparty in the West Village) is like the prom. With indie film legends walking around amongst us cinephile nerds. That, of course, is John Waters above. More photos on Flickr.
Finally, a special July 4th treat: Nick Dawson points us to the website for Proud American, a film described thusly by its official synopsis, “While showing the nation’s spectacular landmarks and engineering marvels, historical sites and natural wonders, Proud American is really about the American people.” And it’s “presented by” Coca-Cola, MasterCard and Wal-Mart, so you know it has to be good!
It looks like John Waters has a new muse. In an interview with Pop Candy’s Whitney Matheson, the filmmaker discusses his upcoming Christmas movie Fruitcake––“imagine The Little Rascals if John Waters had directed it”––and has nothing but effusive praise for the film’s star, Johnny Knoxville:
Yeah, I love Johnny. He really personifies every male character that’s a good guy that I could write that would live in Baltimore. I think Jackass is very much in the spirit of what my early films were. He’s an anarchist, and I’m always happy to hang around anarchists. He’s a cultural anarchist.
Knoxville, of course, starred in Waters’ most recent feature, A Dirty Shame. And Waters has been vocal about his admiration of the prank punk turned actor before; he memorably stuck Jackass Number 2 in the (wait for it) number 2 slot of his Top Ten Films of 2006 list for Artforum, declaring it a triumph that Knoxville and his boys had the “number-one-grossing movie in America on its opening weekend—and the male stars eat shit and drink horse semen for real. They’re nude a lot, too. If this isn’t cultural terrorism, I don’t know what is.”
By now, we’re used to Waters cheerfully celebrating mainstream culture for co-opting his once-shocking provocations. I’ve never been entirely sure how I feel about it––complimenting a product of a Viacom subsidiary as an act of “cultural terrorism” is a little much, don’t you think?––but I don’t know…there’s something vaguely interesting about the idea of him taking this superfamous guy who he’s convinced is an “anarchist”, and putting him in a children’s film. Maybe Waters is finally co-opting his aesthetic back.
The Cannes Film Festival will show a classic Warner Brothers film every night of the fest, including I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang and Dirty Harry, as part of a tribute to the studio’s 85th anniversary. Also on tap: film critic Richard Schickel’s doc, You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story.
John Waters is making a Christmas movie! And it’s gonna star Johnny Knoxville and Parker Posey! The film was reportedly once setup at New Line; this Hollywood Reporter story implies that it was abandoned during that company’s mom and dad took its keys away, and that ThinkFilm “is said to be in talks to come aboard.”
On Tuesday, Variety negatively reviewed the new Broadway musical Glory Days, pejoratively likening it to a certain “digital revolution”-enabled movie movement that has “democratized the filmmaking process, opening the floodgates for kids straight out of school with no life experience and no stories to tell to start making navel-gazing movies.” Today, the trade reports that Glory Days has ended its run after one show.
I honestly don’t mean to keep devoting time and blogspace to Uwe Boll, but when the guy manages to say something hilarious or interesting every other day, what else am I to do? Write about serious issues like the future of film criticism? Karina’s got that covered quite sufficiently and efficiently, so I might as well stick to the fluff.
Of course, I can still relate the fluff to film theory, as in the case of Boll’s latest peer slamming, located at MTV Movies Blog. After criticizing the uneven work of Tom Tykwer (sorry, Uwe, but Perfumeis a far better film than Run Lola Run), Gus Van Sant and Michael Haneke, he goes off again on his favorite nemesis, Michael Bay:
The Chinese censors have reportedly placed a media ban on actress Tang Wei, due to her sex scenes in Lust, Caution. This means she can’t attend award show or appear on television, and the nation’s print media has been ordered to pull all feature stories about her.
Anne Thompson eulogizes New Line, with help from John Waters, who recalls, “They were the first ones to mix art and exploitation, which is where I was coming from.”
A Sopranos producer is writing a “NASCAR drama” for Gary Ross to direct at Universal. Ross seems particularly excited about depicting a sport that people actually care about: “I used blow-up dolls for crowd scenes in Seabiscuit, but that won’t be necessary in a sport where there are 150,000 fans in the stands every Sunday.”
“I love images of people smoking, and I think [others] find it attractive, even if they don’t smoke — they find it sexy in old movie images. It’s so iconic, not only for film noir but for old movies. What’s better than a femme fatale with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth? What better image?” — Bruce Goldstein, curator of the NYC Noir festival which begins this Friday at Film Forum, quoted by The Reeler.
“We discourage depictions of cigarette smoking in Disney, Touchstone and Miramax films. In particular, we expect that depictions of cigarette smoking in future Disney branded films will be non-existent.” — Disney president and CEO Robert Iger, quoted in a press release announcing that Disney will no longer include images of smoking in films released under the Disney label.
Other than that, today’s clip should speak for itself.
When Tammy Faye Messner made what was to be her final media appearance last week on Larry King Live, her physical appearance was so visibly devastated by the effects of inoperable cancer that a clip from the show (available on CNN’s website) knocked the wind out of even the most snarktastic bloggers. Best to remember Tammy Faye’s better times. Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey’s 2000 documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye painted the heavily-painted former Mrs. Bakker as a dotty but loveable spiritual friend to the gay community, a kind of surrogate grandmother with the aesthetics of a drag queen. That film cemented Messner’s status as a cult icon, long before she headlined for John Waters (yes, seriously) and bunked with Ron Jeremy (yes, seriously).
Here she is, giving a tour of her famous make-up kit. Dedicated Tammy Faye fans should also be sure to check out the World of Wonder blog, where Bailey and Barbato (who are also producers of Messner’s son’s reality show, One Punk Under God, as well as half of the guilty pleasures currently on cable TV) have launched a touching tribute to their friend.
The gay marriage debate seems to have been relegated to the back-burner of late (apparently, there’s a war going on). Could Adam Sandler help bring it back?
At AfterElton.com [via GreenCine Daily] Alonso Duralde says I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry “will probably do more for the national debate on gay marriage than every book written by conservative gay writer Andrew Sullivan and every letter you’ve sent to your senator put together.” He goes on to explain that this is mostly because “average” Americans are apparently willing to pay money to see Adam Sandler do just about anything, regardless of whether or not the themes of his films jibe with their personal preferences or political beliefs. It seems like a valid point, even if Paul Thomas Anderson might disagree.
But at the Village Voice, Nathan Lee has much more fun nailing Chuck and Larry’s potential power; the openly gay critic boldly claims that the film is “as eloquent as Brokeback Mountain, and even more radical.” (Lee, it should be noted, famously defendedBrokeback’s “middle-brow man-on-man masochistic romanticism” around the time of that film’s release.) The whole review is basically begging to be blockquoted, but here’s a choice excerpt:
This sodomite had a gay old time. The coup of the movie is that Sandlerites will, too. They’re the ones unmistakably addressed in the courtroom climax, the moment when Chuck and Larry confess their deceptions and assert their principles. Momentarily possessed by remarkable authenticity, Sandler seems to step out of character as he appeals to the crowd to stop using the word “faggot.” I’ve used it a lot myself in the past, he says in a manner less like a line reading than a mea culpa, but it hurts the same way it does if you called me a kike.
Meanwhile, Jeff Wells links to a clip of Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff promoting his boycott of Hairspray on The O’Reilly Factor. Naff says Scientology is anti-gay, and since John Travolta is a Scientologist, ergo, a film that began life as a Broadway musical based on a cult film starring a drag queen and written/directed by the most successful openly-gay filmmaker of the last thirty years is — wait for it — also anti-gay. “Gay people are not so desperate for entertainment that we should be lining the pockets of those who want to cure us,” Naff huffs. Adam Shankman, director of the new Hairspray, responded: “Everybody involved in Hairspray - all the creators - are gay…me, the writers, composer, John Waters - all gay.”
I guess the only question is this: how many gay pockets do you need to line to outweigh the damage done by putting cash in the pants of one Scientologist?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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It looks like John Waters has a new muse. In an interview with Pop Candy’s 
The Cannes Film Festival will show 
I honestly don’t mean to keep devoting time and 
The Chinese censors have reportedly placed a media ban on actress Tang Wei, due to her sex scenes in Lust, Caution. This means she can’t attend award show or appear on television, and the nation’s print media has been ordered to pull all feature stories about her.
