STAGE REVIEW: THE GOAT OR, WHO IS SYLVIA?

A scene from The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?

Ewe, sex

By Ed Rampell

Let’s just cut to the chase: This production of Edward Albee’s The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? is simply one of the best plays this reviewer has seen in, well, a dog’s age. The acting is riveting, Ken Sawyer’s direction taut and Albee’s writing letter perfect. Late in his career, the now 86-year-old playwright who gave us Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-- with its scathing, scalding critique of (heterosexual) marriage -- way back in 1961, conjured up this pushing-the-envelope drama (albeit one with lots of laughs) in 2002.

The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? is just ideal to present on the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s boards: As homosexuality and gay marriage increasingly gain acceptance and tolerance in 21^stcentury America, Albee the gadfly moves the goalposts. Note the plural, for in The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? the daring dramatist explores several types of sexual relationships that are universally considered to simply be beyond the pale of polite society. To find out what taboo forms of sexuality Albee alludes to, you’ll just have to hoof it down to the Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre yourself -- and unless you’re a puritanical, patriarchal overzealous proponent of heterosexual monogamous sex (preferably only after marriage for procreative purposes), you’ll likely be glad you did.

Ann Noble is absolutely stellar as Stevie who, on the surface, has the ideal marriage to award winning architect Martin (Paul Witten, who, in a bit of copasetic casting, played a makeup artist in HBO’s 2013 Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra). In The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? our favorite Martin is turning 50 -- and has the über-midlife crisis to end them all. Martin’s outrageous acting out at the mid-century mark makes buying a Lamborghini, or pursuing a trophy woman half his age, seem tame in comparison.

Needless to say, Martin’s unorthodox (to say the least) choice completely disrupts his life and household. Best friend Ross (Matt Kirkwood) goes ape shit. Son Billy (Spencer Morrissey) now finds coping with being gay the least of his problems as his formerly idyllic family life comes to a screeching halt. And as for the wronged woman, for wife Stevie it’s literally up against the wall, motherfucker! (You’ll see what this critic means. BTW ticket buyer: If you value your personal safety your ever considerate scribbler recommends that you do not sit in the first row, which is about as safe as front row seats at a Samoan fire knife dance show. You have been warned, Dear Reader!)

And now a word about Noble: Your erstwhile scribe last had the pleasure of seeing her roam the moors and heaths of Antaeus Company’s 2012 Macbeth wherein, his review singled out “Noble as Lady MacBeth …the ultimate henpecker, ever prodding her beleaguered husband on. She’s more terrifying than Scotland’s other infamous horror, the Loch Ness Monster. Noble is positively harrowing with her crimson locks and reddish period outfit, all redolent of her blood obsessed psyche…” Considering the twists and turns The Goat takes one could say, with tongue planted firmly in cheeky cheek, that Noble is in “danger” of being typecast. What’s next? Starring as “Norma Bates” in a female version of Hitchcock’s classic, re-titled Psycho’s Psyche?

What makes Marty run? Noble’s performance, sculpted with the finesse of a Rodin or Michelangelo, provides clues. Her Stevie (hmm, odd choice of names selected by the gay bard, eh wot?) seems like a person full of artifice, who acts out roles in her daily life, such as dutiful wife or urbane sophisticate. For instance, in a vignette full of Albee’s dazzling wordplay, she and Martin partake in well-rehearsed (that is, by the characters -- although these polished thesps obviously all worked their tails off) banter, expertly parodying a British comedy of manners.

So the role playing, persona-wearing Stevie stands in sharp contrast to her husband’s devastating, off-kilter choice, which is to pursue a totally (literally) natural partner, who, as Martin says, is completely “guileless.” Noble, by the way, has lovely thighs and a heaving bosom; although this may strike some as sexist, this is important to note as it makes Martin’s actions seem even stranger and more bafflingly incomprehensible. The fact that we’re repeatedly informed that, as husband and wife for 20-ish years, Stevie and Martin never strayed and maintained a fulfilling, even exciting sex life, all conspires to make hubby’s philandering all the more mystifyingly puzzling.

Albee is asking a simple yet profound question: Do we have the right to love who we want and in our own ways? Especially if said love is consensual? Do you remember how much outrage Woody Allen’s defense of his romance with his wife’s much younger (and shall we add non-white -- let alone non-Jewish) daughter was? “The heart wants what the hearts wants.” Well, The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? takes the Woodman’s notion to the nth degree. What is especially telling is Martin’s honest response when he attends a 12-step type program for those “suffering” from similar afflictions.

Robert Selander’s stylish set -- or what’s left of it by the end of this one-acter -- also merits mention as it succinctly expresses the personalities of the play’s chic urbanites. The entire deftly directed ensemble is spot on, with the Noble savage the standout, proving once again -- as she did when portraying Lady Macbeth -- that: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Seriously fellow theatergoers, please roll out a wheelbarrow full of Ovation, Tony, Obie, etc., awards for this actress, as Ann Noble deserves a flock of theatrical accolades while she leads the lyrical lambs to slaughter. Those who love great theater should gallop -- on all fours -- down to see this hilariously provocative dramedy from one of our boundary-pushing peerless bards.



The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? runs through Nov. 23 at the Davidson/Valentini Theatre at the Los Angeles LGBT Centerat Ed Gould Plaza,1125 McCadden Place, Hollywood, CA, 90038 through Nov. 23. Free onsite parking. For more info: www.lalgbtcenter.org/theatre; (323) 860-7300. 

 

L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell co-authored The Hawaii Movie and Television Book. (See: http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/.) Rampell and co-author Luis Reyes will be signing books at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6 at the bookstore Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105.  (See: http://www.distantlands.com/events-calendar/.)     

 

 

FILM REVIEW: THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS

A scene from in The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears.

The man and the menses 

By John Esther

Dan Kristensen (Klaus Tange) has just returned to Brussels from a business trip abroad. After leaving several messages for his wife, Edwige (Ursula Bedena), without receiving response, Dan comes home to find the door is chained from the inside. When Edwige still does not answer Dan through the ajar door, Dan breaks the chain and enters his home. 

Edwige is missing. Rather than immediately call the cops, Dan goes on a drinking binge and then rings up his neighbors to see if they have seen his wife. One of his neighbors lets him into her home. A strange woman whose face remains shadowed in darkness, Dora (Birgin Yew), relays a ghastly story about the day her husband went missing in the ceiling after he tied her up and sedated her. (She wakes up later to help him, somehow eschewing or forgetting or forgiving her husband's horrific behavior.)

After this bizarre encounter with the elderly lady in black, Dan's journey becomes increasingly strange -- while one's patience diminshes. People appear and disappear. There are displaced bodies in the forms of simulacra, split screens, broken glass and sliced flesh. Side stories are started and stopped. Snuff recordings are played over the phone. Nightmares repeat themselves. Carnage becomes fetish. Razors are the choice of weapon, but any piercing object will do. Law enforcement is ephemeral.

Oh, as The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears never lets us forget, the male gaze is at work. Eye see you. Does it want to see female flesh or blood or both? Well, it is certainly obvious what is more thrilling to the filmmakers; and they are not going to break down the patriarchal visual paradigm a la Marguerite Duras, Toril Moi, Toni Morrison, Jane Campion or Robert Altman. 

Written and directed by the husband and wife team behind Amer, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, The Strange Color of Your Body's Eyes is intended (Italian artists audibly participate throughout) and advertised as a "homage to the Masters of Italian Giallo horror" -- an aspiration about as admirable as a novelist writing a homage to the novels of Danielle Steel or a cinephile's homage to pulp fiction -- and almost as reactionary and illogical in execution.

Stuck in a beautiful-turned-nightmarish Art Nouveau building where people hide and emerge from the walls and ceilings (are they ghosts?), the directors, plus the director of photographer, Manu Dacosse, are obsessed with the image at the risk of plot or sign, which in many cases displays a pornographic fear of female sexuality. As if reworking the work of George Bataille inside out or Jacques Lacan upside down, the Belgium filmmaking duo (whether they are familiar with those French authors or not) see sexuality not as an extension of one's self, but the murder of one's self -- metaphorically and literally. Continuity is obliterated in the name of discontinuity. Here, sex is horror without any redeeming pleasures. Man has vagina on the mind -- a bloody nightmare triggering subconscious memories of lost innocence. All because a little boy saw a trickle of blood. Menophobia. It also turns out that, indeed, some women do fantasize about being stalked, raped and murdered. Or is that Dan's dream? Golly gee, even Ingmar Bergman had a better sense of humor when it came to sex than this couple.

The film rarely maintains an image for more than a few seconds. Everything must be rapid, colorful and artsy, but it is an intellectual sham. At least Marquis de Sade and Jean Genet knew how to play both filthy and sensitive while simultaneously addressing violent sexual practices within and between the realms of power and the powerless. In The Strange Colors of Your Body's Tears, nothing enlightening goes beyond one of those "horror" films where a bunch of teenagers are stuck in the woods, getting killed off one by one because of the big, bad, old monster known as sex is after them.



 

 
















 

SUNDANCE 2014: R100

A scene from R100.

A L-O(a)de to (en)Joy

By John Esther

Once upon a time, a mild-mannered man named Takafumi (Nao Omori) needed some sexual excitement in his life. His wife was in a coma, so sexual relations in the biblical sense may not have been the most decent thing for him to do. 

Thinking, or feeling, he should just have his sexual needs fulfilled by sadistic, random encounters instead, Takefumi enters into a yearlong contract where dominatrices will appear unexpectedly to humiliate and hurt him until his head comic(book)ally swells -- thus indicating sexual gratification. (It would have been funnier, more subversive and more apropos with the film's conceits if the filmmakers had done that with Takefumi's crotch area instead.)

Unfortunately, for Takafumi, and soon others, these sadistic encounters become increasingly intrusive, degrading and violent. Random encounters move from the public to private sphere -- threatening Takafumi's workplace and home. Soon, Takafumi wants out of the contract, but getting out of the contract has never been an option. But does he really want out? The upping of the sexual ante leads to a bigger payoff.

Certainly not for everybody's viewing pleasures (but what film is?), the latest film from writer-director Hitoshi Matusmoto (Big Man Japan) is a surreal, absurd tale of an everyman combating his sexual desires. The more dangerous the abuse and sex become, the more Takafumi wants it to stop. But the danger is just too erotic to stop. The more the women come after this department store salesman, the more explosions, metaphorically and literally, will be necessary.

Reflecting the absurdity of Takafumi's sexual-cinematic adventure is a metanarrative involving a film ratings board (or is it the film crew?) consisting of three men and one woman watching Takafumi's story. Their bewildering comments about what the viewer (them and us) has seen, suspects, and speculates adds a layer of humor and intelligence to the primary narrative. Their responses to the lack of continuity or reality in the film are amusing, but what is especially amusing is that the male board members are less comfortable with the film's sexual tropes than the female board member -- in particular the first scene with the Gobble Queen (Hairi Katagiri), a metaphor for the all-consuming vagina; or, perhaps, vagina dentata run afoul.

However, when a film goes for this level of absurdity and humor it is bound-ed to have a few, exasperating, or very unfunny, scenes, such as the prolonged ordeal between Saliva Queen (Naomi Watanabe) and Takafumi. Prancing and oral spitting is so limiting. Plus the casting of Lindsay Hayward, AKA professional wrestler Isis the Amazon, as CEO of the bondage company. Casting a six-foot nine-inch blonde American woman in a Japanese film may have added more leverage to film's satire of petite bourgeois sexual desire -- or theory of desire, notably in the relation with the constructions of desire in Occidental imagery -- had Hayward been less cartoonish, or a better actor, than her professionally wrestling persona.

But those are mere drawbacks to one fun film to watch. Director of photography Kazushige Tanaka, costume designer Satoe Araki and composer Hidekazu Sakamoto wonderfully abet the film's atmosphere of sex, violence, dread, desire, humor and whimsy.

 

FILM REVIEW: SHOWGIRLS 2

Penny/Helga (Rena Riffel) in Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven.

Bore to culture

 

By John Esther

 

The follow-up to the notorious 1995, Showgirls, Showgirls 2: Penny’s from Heaven is actually better than its predecessor insofar as the original was not made to be the laughingstock, cult movie it has become whereas Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven is intentionally, unabashedly bad in order to satire wannabe movie stars, the entertainment industry and yes, its predecessor. In other words, it is so bad it is good.

 

Somewhat reprising her role from the original film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas (one of the worst Hollywood screenwriters ever), Rena Riffel wrote and directed this story about a Las Vegas stripper named Penny (Riffel -- now old enough to play an aging showgirl) who dreams of moving to Hollywood and becoming the star of a new dance show. Penny has no talent, formal training. or “X Factor,” but that is not going to stop this “whore,” “slut,” “trash,” “stripper,” and “bimbo” from making it.

 

However, just getting to Los Angeles is not easy. On the road west, Penny is robbed, then entangled in a multiple homicide.

 

Once in Los Angeles, Penny meets all sorts of egomaniacs, abusers, exploiters and television producers (but I repeat myself) who just want Penny, whose new name (sometimes) is Helga, for her flesh. Yet the whore with a heart of gold still believes in herself and those around her – no matter how many times they use her. Meanwhile, the authorities are on her track.

 

Deliberately pumped with histrionics, painstaking inane dialogue, soap operatic Sapphic sexual scenes, and editorial discontinuity that are outrageously tongue-in-cheek(s), the 145-minute film -- which definitely takes its toll on one’s patience (occasionally one’s feminism, too) -- makes the films of John Waters look like the work of Michelangelo Antonioni. Okay, I exaggerate for the billionth time, but so does just about everything in this hyperbolic striptease of wannabe stardom in Hollywood to make its point.

 

 

LAFF 2013: CONCUSSION

Abby (Robyn Weigert) in Concussion.

Homo superior

By Don Simpson 

Sure, some of the situations in Stacie Passon’s Concussionmay seem a bit ridiculous at times, but Robin Weigert is always convincing as Abby. Consistently intense with intent, Weigert’s Abby is a woman on a mission. Passon thankfully never sexualizes Abby; instead, she develops Abby into a complex and thought-provoking character. Despite the tangled web of a secret life that Abby weaves, she remains empathetic. We feel for Abby, we want her to have a happy sex life; all the while, Abby wants to help make other women happy as well. This is precisely Passon’s true genius — her ability to portray prostitution as a social service. Abby is neither skanky nor sleazy, poor nor desperate; she is an intelligent, talented and successful woman who just so happens to rediscover her love of sex by way of prostitution. If she can teach other women how to have healthy and happy sex lives — and make some decent cash while doing so — why the heck not? What other choice does she have? Would it be better for her to never experience sexual pleasure with another woman?

 

We have watched plenty of films over the decades in which a husband strays from a sexless heterosexual marriage to enjoy sex with prostitutes. When a man does that to a woman that is bad, right? At least that is what the history of cinema has taught us. That is what I find most interesting about Concussion, because Abby seems to be in the right. So, why is Abby so different than her male predecessors in cinema? Is it because she is a woman? Is it because she is having sex with other women? Or, is it simply because Passon adequately justifies Abby’s actions?

 

 

Concussion screens at LAFF 2013: June 19, 7:30 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 21, 4:30 p.m. Regal Cinemas. For more information: Concussion at LAFF 2013.

LAFF 2013: I'M SO EXCITED

A scene from I'm So Excited.

Flying over windmills

By John Esther

When a writer-director of Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar’s stature titles his film after a banal, albeit apropos, American pop song from the 1980s, you know he is aiming for his lowest common denominator.

The opening night film for Los Angeles Film Festival 2012, I’m So Excited commences with León (Antonio Banderas) and Jessica (Penelope Cruz) working on an airport runway. After a minor accident, León learns that Jessica is pregnant with their child. He is so excited he forgets his job and thus puts all the passengers on the plane in serious jeopardy.

While in flight 10,000 feet above terra firma, the plane suffers a malfunction and needs to make an emergency landing. As it searches for a possible landing spot it repeatedly flies in circles. The lower classes are knocked out by a concoction made by the airline stewardesses. Their fate will never be in their hands.

Meanwhile, the first class passengers – a “drug mule” (Miguel Ángel Silvestre), his comatose bride (Laya Martí), a professional assassin (José Luis Torrijo), a man with a string of mentally unstable girlfriends (Guillermo Toledo), a virgin psychic (Lola Dueñas) plus a few other kooky characters -- along with the hysterical flight crew respond to the dire situation with sex, drugs and The Pointer Sisters.

Filled with frank jokes, remarks and marks about sex, especially gay sex, there are some very funny moments, dialogue, etc., that makes I’m So Excited barely bearable – and a de-light-headed choice to open LAFF 2013. Yet the film has its share of very low moments, especially when some of the crew perform the titular song. Ouch.

I’m So Excited screens Opening Night at Los Angeles Film Festival 2013, June 13, 7 p.m., Regal Theaters. For more information: www.lafilmfest.com 

 

SLAMDANCE 2013: DIAMOND ON VINYL

Charlie (Sonja Kinski) in Diamond on Vinyl.

Sexy talk

By Don Simpson

Henry (Brian McGuire) is addicted to collecting audio recordings of conversations no matter if they are albums from the 1950s or conversations clandestinely recorded on his portable recorder. This is all research and practice because Henry strives to record the perfect conversation.

It sounds innocent enough, right? Yeah, but the habit gets him in trouble when his fiancée (Nina Millin) discovers that he has been recording their lovemaking -- so much trouble that Henry is promptly kicked out of the house.

Enter Charlie (Sonja Kinski -- Klaus Kinski's granddaughter), an attractive, young, voyeuristic photographer who is excited by the possibility of creating audio recordings with Henry; except when Charlie says that she wants to "record something" her words drip with sexual innuendo.

Charlie and Henry begin to play make believe, recording improvised conversations together. Sometimes they develop new characters for their role
playing, other times they attempt to mimic various people they have met. To further their "research," they begin to engage unsuspecting strangers, secretly recording the resulting conversations. Charlie and Henry approach their lives as if performing a series of acting roles, attempting to achieve a greater level of realism by pretending they are someone else. It seems as though we never see the real Charlie or Henry, we only see whichever characters that they choose to play. The problem is that they do not always know when and where to draw the line. Boundaries are repeatedly crossed as voyeurism mutates into obsession.

Writer-director J.R. Hughto's cinematic chamber piece questions the authenticity of our selves -- specifically, what we say. Are we all just playing roles in this world? Do we sometimes adopt false personas in order to fit into certain situations? Do we sometimes over-think (mentally rehearse) what we are going to say? Do we, like Henry, strive to have the perfect conversation?

LAFF 2012: GAYBY



Jenn (Jenn Harris) and Matt (Matthew Wilkas) in Gayby.

Can you relate?

By Don Simpson

Jenn (Jenn Harris) and Matt (Matthew Wilkas) are best friends from college. They are now in their thirties and currently single. Jenn has just never met the right guy for her; neither has Matt, who is still recovering from his last relationship. Years ago, they promised to make a baby together. Now, Jenn’s biological clock is ticking and she is ready to follow through on that pledge. The catch? She wants to make the baby the old fashioned way: no turkey basters, artificial insemination or fertilization for them!

Jenn and Matt struggle to get their dating lives back in motion while concurrently jump starting their careers. Jenn has a low-ranking position at a yoga studio; Matt is a comic book illustrator who works as a clerk at a comic book store. They each make some bad decisions along the way, but they support each other as only best friends know how — which sometimes means not talking to each other for a while. Luckily they have a “nellybear," Matt’s friend, Nelson (Jonathan Lisecki), to help guide them along their way.

Jonathan Lisecki’s Gayby is a film with many admirable qualities. It intelligently discusses sexuality (including issues of gay identity), aging, friendship, loneliness, and the definition of family. Gayby is not a “gay film." it is a film about people and relationships, whether they are L-G-B-T-Q or A…and everything in between. Sure, Lisecki includes a lot of gay-oriented humor but his goal is not to segregate his audience. Instead he hopes to create a better understanding of sexuality and gender. As offensive as some audiences may find a narrative about an unmarried straight woman and gay man having intercourse to make a baby, the purpose of Gayby is not to shock or offend people. Gaybymight actually expand your mind a little if you just give it a chance. When it comes down to it, Gayby is a well-written (and acted) and undeniably silly romantic comedy.

Gayby screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival: June 16, 9:40 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 21, 9:40 p.m., Regal Cinemas.



FILM REVIEW: HAPPY, HAPPY

Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen) in Happy, Happy.

The fears of a frau

By Ed Rampell

Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky’s feature debut, Happy, Happy is a Nordic screwball comedy about marital mayhem, infidelity, closeted homosexuality, slavery and more for adults. Written, shot and produced by women -- screenwriter Ragnhild Tronvoll, cinematographer Anna Myking and producer Synnove Horsdal -- Happy, Happy is also a Scandinavian equivalent to a chick flick.

Kaja (a fetching Agnes Kittelsen) is a wistful wife in a sexless marriage with Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen). The couple have one son, Theodor (Oskar Hernæs Brandsø), and they live not so happily ever after in a rural part of Norway, where they rent a spare house on adjoining property to an unknown couple: the prettier Elisabeth (Danish actress Maibritt Saerens), Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen) and their adapted African son, Noa (Ram Shihab Ebedy).

Kaja is curious about the newcomers, whom she disparagingly compares herself to and places on a proverbial pedestal. But far from being the deal couple Kaja imagines them to be, we soon find out that Elisabeth and Sigve have retreated to the countryside due to problems their own marriage is experiencing. The mixture of the two couples proves to be a combustible combination, and all hell breaks loose.

In the hands of a more somber helmer -- say, the Ingmar Bergman of 1973’s Scenes from a Marriage or Francois Truffaut of 1981’s The Woman Next Door -- Happy could have devolved into a tragedy. Instead, Sewitsky directs with a deft, droll touch, saving the film from being about endless, dreary Nordic nights filled with contemplation of the sheer meaninglessness of life, existential angst, oh woe is me, blah, blah and blah. Sewitsky’s comic panache spares us, and a quartet of upbeat musicians periodically appear from out of nowhere to serenade and amuse viewers with folksy tunes sung in English in the otherwise subtitled film.

Although her husband belittles her, Kaja is the central character, not the more glamorous, upscale, colder Elisabeth, precisely because the somewhat cloddish Kaja is essentially a warm woman, full of yearnings for love. Often, when you see films the behavior of characters seems completely inexplicable. But if you listen closely to the dialogue, when Kaja briefly, offhandedly recounts her personal back story, it all makes sense. Kittelsen’s performance reminded me of Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh’s similarly titled 2008 Happy-Go-Lucky and in 2010’s Made In Dagneham.

The sex scenes alternate between fun and funny (I could almost imagine Lina Wertmuller shooting some of the sequences, with her tongue firmly ensconced in cheek). The exuberance of new love and sexual awakenings are, of course, intoxicating, those rare moments when we feel truly, fully alive. If I have one criticism of this film dealing with sexuality it’s that while there’s full frontal male nudity, the women are, for some strange reason, less revealed. This works against the storyline, as it is largely about Kaja’s self-revelation.

The sexual interplay (and lack of) of the adults is mirrored by the strange role playing of the two sons, which takes on a First World/ Third World twist, as the blond-haired, blue-eyed Theodor “enslaves” his black neighbor. Some viewers may find this subplot to be disturbing, even offensive.

Yet somehow things manage to work themselves out, due to the writer and director’s comic-tragic vision of this journey we call life. Despite the vicissitudes of her relationships, Kaja manages to come into her own as a newly empowered, confident, independent woman. And like Nora before in another Scandinavian work of art, Kaja too leaves her doll’s house.

It’s an affirmation of life that after the dreadful mass murder at Norway this past summer the first Norwegian film to reach our shores is called Happy, Happy -- and seeing this movie, which won Sundance’s World Cinema Jury Prize, I did feel, well, you know: Happy.     

FILM REVIEW: AUTOEROTIC

A scene from Autoerotic.

Own is the loneliest number

By Don Simpson

Havelock Ellis, a British sexologist, defined autoeroticism as “the phenomena of spontaneous sexual emotion generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, directly or indirectly, from another person.” Joe Swanberg and Adam Wingard’s film Autoerotic focuses on four heterosexual couples as they contend with relationship-crippling sexual arousal issues; however, Autoerotic is not always about self-arousal. Structured in four mostly autonomous vignettes (all with unnamed thespians): the first and fourth chapters reveal perverse men who are grasping at straws to achieve sexual satisfaction, whether it be the desire for a significantly larger penis or a penetrable mold of an ex-girlfriend’s vagina; the second and third chapters portray women whose sexual desires are insatiable, one cannot have enough orgasms while the other is unable to enjoy a complete orgasm (their male partners are little to no help in quenching their thirst).

Commencing with a good old fashioned iPhone-recorded spanking session, Autoerotic is just as much about watching others as it is about sexual gratification. (The male character in the first chapter is the only one who seems more satisfied while looking at himself in the mirror than at others.) Swanberg and Wingard’s focus on voyeurism places the audience in a somewhat awkward position. As we observe the questionable ways in which the characters observe each other in order to obtain arousal, we are forced to question what we are achieving from the footage. Are we becoming aroused? Is that okay?

Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs, Uncle Kent, Silver Bullets) has never been one to abide by the overwhelmingly puritanical view of sex in Hollywood; and with Autoerotic, he and Wingard effectively comment on many cinematically taboo issues: male body issues, fetishes, the desire for orgasms, and the importance of communicating your sexual needs and desires to your partner. For Swanberg and Wingard, sex remains utterly confounding despite the openly frank conversation between partners and friends. Just as the characters are often not judgmental about their partners’ sexual idiosyncrasies, Swanberg and Wingard’s perspective is also quite open-minded. They merely seem interested in posing questions for their audience to ponder and discuss: Is autoerotic asphyxiation okay (what about erotic asphyxiation)? Is masturbation acceptable behavior (if so, how much is too much)? How do fetishes figure into romantic relationships? Is is acceptable to recruit a same-sex friend to help a pregnant woman enjoy a successful orgasm? How much kinkiness is okay before it becomes perverse?

DVD REVIEW: SENTIMENT OF THE FLESH

Héléna (Annabelle Hettmann) and Benoît (Thibault Vinçon) in Sentiment of the Flesh.

One to (se)x-ray you

By Don Simpson 

Love makes people -- especially characters in films -- do some really crazy things. In the case of Héléna (Annabelle Hettmann) and Benoît (Thibault Vinçon), they decide that attraction to each other's external features is not quite enough; they want to delve deeper into each other, and not metaphorically either, they literally want to peruse each other's innards, bones, muscles, organs, every nook and cranny.

Their mutual interest in the human anatomy stems from different perspectives, Héléna is pursuing a degree in anatomical drawing, while Benoît is a medical doctor and professor. Héléna and Benoît meet while Héléna is getting x-rays in an attempt to diagnose a lower back pain. In addition to the x-ray of her back, Héléna discovers that Benoît has inexplicably taken an x-ray of her thorax as well. From there, the duo delve into a discussion about how every human being is unique; their individual quests to acquire absolute knowledge about human anatomy (according to Benoît, "1000 painters died not knowing the sentiment of the flesh. Many more will die not knowing...") are fatefully (or fatally) intertwined. When a date in the MRI lab does not totally quench Benoît's thirst for completely penetrating Héléna's intimacy, their desire to continue down this path spirals totally out of control.

I am not quite sure I believe that Héléna and Benoît would have free reign of a hospital to use x-ray and MRI machines as their sex toys. The most unfathomable scenes, however, are when Benoît and Héléna are each caught red-handed on separate occasions, yet no punishment in enacted upon either of them. Then again, I do not work in a French hospital, so maybe security is much more lax than I would expect.

David Cronenberg comparisons are unavoidable, as writer-director Roberto Garzelli's feature-length debut The Sentiment of Flesh reveals a certain kinship with the erotic perversity represented in Dead Ringers and Crash. The primary difference is that Garzelli revels in the eroticism while Cronenberg amps up the perversity. 

FILM REVIEW: FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

A scene from Friends with Benefits.

Marital parachute

By Don Simpson

As if revenge for losing the Swan Queen character to Natalie Portman's Nina in Black Swan, Mila Kunis one-ups Portman's role as Emma in No Strings Attached with Friends with Benefits. At least that is the word around Tinseltown (in Austin). Though I like Portman, I have avoided No Strings Attached with her portrayal as Jamie in like a STD because I do not want to watch her makin' whoopee with co-star Ashton Kutcher. (Maybe it is unbridled jealousy, but I do not find them to be a likely pair.) Kunis and co-star Justin Timberlake, however, seem like they would be a more likely (and likable pair), and I guess they are.

Jamie (Kunis), a Manhattan headhunter, has placed Dylan (Timberlake) in a high-profile position as Art Director forGQ magazine. While cozily watching Jamie's favorite movie -- a film-within-a-film rom-com with a satirically amped-up cheese factor -- like BFFs, the emotionally psychotic Jamie and the emotionally vacant Dylan decide that sex can be just like...um...tennis? Tennis is a recreational sport enjoyed among friends who cordially shake hands at the end of the match and then go their separate ways; surely sex among two impeccably beautiful Hollywood stars can be enjoyed as a recreational sport as well. Jamie and Dylan give it a go and the experiment goes well at first. The pair are able to communicate their sexual likes and dislikes in bed and fulfill each other's desires to the rhythm of Dylan's repeated sneezes. (Note: Dylan sneezes whenever he ejaculates.)

Eventually, though, all of their repressed emotional baggage bubbles to the surface, thus disproving their theory that friends who sneeze together can remain just tennis buddies. If Jamie and Dylan cannot pull off this experiment, where does that leave the rest of us horny Americans? Well, it looks like heterosexual marriage truly is our only road to eternal salvation. Thank God! And thank you, Jamie and Dylan, for taking one for the team so that no other God fearing Americans will need to go down the dastardly rabbit hole of emotionless sex.

Two films in one calendar year (three if you include November 2010's Love and Other Drugs with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway) about loveless fuck buddies must mean something about our modern society, or at least there will be plenty of bible-thumpers who will say so. Of course if the bible-thumpers would just sit down and watch Friends with Benefits, they would realize that Friends with Benefits redeems itself in God's eyes (well, at least a God who is not opposed to premarital sex) by the closing credits.

Despite the manic meta-ness of its first half, the second half of Friends with Benefits shamelessly relies on all of the very same rom-com genre tropes that the film had just hysterically satirized. As with Easy A, writer-director Will Gluck's previous film, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge Gen-X quotation marks of Friends with Benefits are exclaimed ad nauseum. Gluck's hyperactive propensity for pop culture references (flashmobs, iPads, T-mobile, Harry Potter, John Mayer, Third Eye Blind, Criss Cross, etc.) would be much funnier if he could utilize them with more restraint. Instead he leaves the valve wide open, thus drowning the audience in what could have been some really funny stuff. Besides, by eventually embracing all the clichés that Friends with Benefits so manically attempts to deconstruct, Gluck is essentially saying that all of the jokes from the first half of the film were for naught.

Friends with Benefits also seems intent on making excuses for Jamie and Dylan's lack of sexual morality. One look at Jamie's boozy and slutty single mother (Patricia Clarkson) and we know that Jamie inherited her sexual prowess (yet no physical traits) from this woman; and in a continuance of the cinematic device of characters being defined by the films they watch, Jamie's mother watches Paul Mazursky's Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. The reckless promiscuity of Jamie's mother has also forever blurred Jamie's ethnic identity -- she has no idea who her father is, therefore Jamie does not know her own ethnic background.

Dylan's father (Richard Jenkins) is mentally wasting away due to Alzheimer’s -- though he does enjoy some suddenly lucid flourishes during which he is able to deliver crucial motivational monologues to Dylan -- and Dylan feels guilty for leaving his father in the sole care of his sister (Jenna Elfman) in Los Angeles. Dylan's estranged mother divorced his father ten years ago, abandoning their family in a time of need, resulting in abandonment and commitment issues for Dylan.

Dylan is also riddled by fears of being presumed gay. His ex-girlfriend (Emma Stone) thinks he likes a finger up his ass during sex; Dylan feels "emasculated" when Jamie is on top of him in bed; and, a sure-fire sign of gayness (at least according to Friends with Benefits), Dylan likes Harry Potter. Dylan's fears are then magnified tenfold when his gay co-worker (Woody Harrelson) suggests that they go "trolling for cock" together. The only good that could possibly come out of all of the gay jokes is if you turn this into a drinking game, slurping one down every time the word "gay" is used in relation to Dylan's sexuality.