Sex, Love and Videotape

On movie sex and movie love...

Category: Drama (Page 2 of 3)

A Streetcar Named Desire

January 26, 2020 / / 1 Comment

YEAR: 1951
DIRECTOR: Elia Kazan
KEY ACTORS: Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 8.0
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 98%

SEX SCORE: 3/5
✔️ I definitely want to fuck the cast. Marlon Brando is my ultimate movie star crush, particularly because of this film. His Stanley is an awful, angry man but, damn, no one looks as good in a tight t-shirt. He is stunning.
✔️ So I need to give it a mark for inspiring fantasies as I’ve definitely fantasied about having angry, violent, furniture breaking hot hot sex with Stanley…
✔️ And it passes the Bechdel Test, and does so without difficulty.
❌ But it’s not rewatchable. It’s really quite difficult to watch – it’s intense and upsetting and hard work. I might just watch it for Brando but there are gifs for the best bits so…
❌ And it’s not sex positive. Blanche is literally spoiled and ruined by her promiscuity and ends up in an asylum. I’m not doubting that she’s unwell by that point but it made me uncomfortable how her sexual choices were included among her symptoms.

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1950s

An Affair to Remember

December 29, 2019 / / 1 Comment

YEAR: 1957
DIRECTOR: Leo McCarey
KEY ACTORS: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr
CERTIFICATE: U
IMDB SCORE: 7.5
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 62%

SEX SCORE: 5/5
✔️ Of course I want to fuck the cast. It’s Cary Grant at his suave best!
✔️ It’s definitely rewatchable – it’s a simple story but it still keeps me enthralled right to the end. And it makes me cry every time!
✔️ Considering the restrictions of the Hays Code, I think it is sex positive – although their implied sexual transgressions add a complexity to their choices, I didn’t feel the film judged them. It simply accepted them as stumbling blocks.
✔️ I’m going to say that it does pass the Bechdel test, although it’s surprisingly controversial. The website I use to check says it fails but Terry and Janou at least talk about a scarf so I’d say that’s a pass!
✔️ And it did inspire romantic fantasies! Who doesn’t want the person they thought had jilted them to still love them after all? Who wouldn’t want their hopes of reunion to be fulfilled in such a satisfying fashion?

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Showgirls

November 24, 2019 / / 3 Comments

YEAR: 1995
DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven (as Jan Jensen)
KEY ACTORS: Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon, Kyle MacLachlan
CERTIFICATE: 18
IMDB SCORE: 4.8
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 22%

SEX SCORE: 1.5/5
✔️ Showgirls does pass the Bechdel Test with lots of talk about dancing and work between the many named female characters
❌ But it’s not rewatchable. Regardless of how interesting and clever I think this film is, it is objectively bad.
❌ Extraordinarily considering how beautiful and naked they are, I don’t want to fuck the cast. They’re prickly and spiky and too too much to be fuckable
❌ And the hostile atmosphere meant that this movie didn’t inspire fantasies.
❓But is it sex positive? I’m going to leave this as a half mark of a maybe. I found it hard to decide as, superficially, it is not sex positive. There’s ample evidence of abuse, manipulation and extortion, but it never glamorises that attitude and does not shy away from showing how awful it is. It also approaches sexual taboos like period sex without any fuss. So…maybe?

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Colette

November 12, 2019 / / 1 Comment

YEAR: 2018
DIRECTOR: Wash Westmoreland
KEY ACTORS: Keira Knightley, Dominic West
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 6.7
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 87%

SEX SCORE: 4/5
✔️ This movie is rewatchable. It’s beautiful and funny and interesting, and I definitely want to watch it again!
✔️ It’s easily sex positive. There are feminist issues, certainly, but all the characters have a level of sexual freedom and acceptance of each other’s needs that is admirable and not always present in relationships, even today.
✔️ It also has no problem passing the Bechdel Test. Colette and Missy talk a lot about subjects that don’t involve men, as do Colette and the other women she meets in the Paris salon scene, who are handily introduced to her when she meets them!
✔️ I would also fuck the cast without much hesitation. I have carried a torch for Dominic West since The Wire, which even a dodgy goatee and a dodgier personality can’t entirely extinguish, but Keira Knightley is the star. Colette is witty and intelligent, and Knightley gives her a spark that is frankly irresistible!
❌ But narrowly missing a 5/5 score, it didn’t inspire fantasies. Hot as they may look, I’m not gay so the lesbian love scenes didn’t inspire me beyond wanting hot sex in general, and the dress up scenes with Dominic West were definitely on the creepy end of the hot-or-not scale…

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Practical Magic

October 6, 2019 / / 7 Comments

YEAR: 1998
DIRECTOR: Griffin Dunne
KEY ACTORS: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman
CERTIFICATE: 12
IMDB SCORE: 6.3
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 21%

SEX SCORE: 4/5
✔️ It is indeed rewatchable, but it took me a long time to get there!
✔️ With so few significant male roles, I’d worry if this failed the Bechdel Test but luckily it passes with ease!
✔️ Considering this film has a predominantly female cast, and I’m quite underwhelmed by the men on screen, and I’m straight, this perhaps shouldn’t get a mark from me but even I can’t deny that the cast are fuckable. 1990s were a successful time for them both and arguably their hotness peak so yes, fuckable!
✔️ I almost didn’t give it a mark for inspiring fantasies but I couldn’t ignore that kiss. Sally and her husband’s kiss to Faith Hill’s famous song, This Kiss, is everything.
❌ But despite much soul searching as I love the feminism of this film, I can’t give it a mark for sex positivity. ‘Since when is being a slut a crime in this family?’ Gillian asks but she does suffer. She is the more promiscuous sister who is shown to party with millions of friends and makes jokes about locking up husbands on her return, and she ends up in an abusive relationship. She suffers for her sexuality, and it saddens me that this is the case because it is otherwise a hugely positive and feminist movie.

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Gone Girl

September 30, 2019 / / 8 Comments

YEAR: 2014
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
KEY ACTORS: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike
CERTIFICATE: 18
IMDB SCORE: 8.1
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 87%

SEX SCORE: 2/5
✔️Rewatchable. God, is it rewatchable. I can’t drag my eyes away.
✔️And it passes the Bechdel Test. Admittedly, much of the talk between named female characters is about Amy but it passes the rest!
❌ But I do not want to fuck either of them, no matter how hot they are! They’re terrifying and deeply, deeply unattractive because of it.
❌ And there’s nothing here to prompt fantasies for me. It’s messed up!
❌ Finally, it’s not sex positive at all. Sex is a weapon; relationships are a lie. It’s. Messed. Up!

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Up in the Air

September 16, 2019 / / 3 Comments

YEAR: 2009
DIRECTOR: Jason Reitman
KEY ACTORS: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 7.4
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 91%

SEX SCORE: 4/5
✔️ Rewatchable – it’s soft and gentle and sweet and funny and thought provoking and easy watching, and I could watch it every week!
✔️ And yes, I do want to fuck the cast. I’d even argue that this film is George Clooney’s hotness peak!
✔️ Hotel sex with a handsome stranger was certainly a fantasy before this film, but it added the idea of luxury and exclusivity to this fantasy; a frisson of transience and possibility on expensive sheets.
✔️ Although it is another movie that has a possible cheating plot, I do think it’s sex positive as the main focus is on being OK with who you are. Whether you’re frequent flier Ryan or his home girl sister, it’s OK to have the life (and the love and sex) that you want and in the absence of significant sex negative themes, I’m going to give it the mark.
❌ But does it pass the Bechdel test? Can it be only the second 5/5 movie?? In the end, this comes down to accepting nuance in a binary question. There is one conversation between two named female characters that isn’t about men or dating – Natalie fires Karen Barnes, the women who later takes their own life. It’s an important plot point, but it is only one conversation and the women’s name is only revealed later. She is also not listed in the credits. Is that enough to scrape over this lowest of bars? I don’t think it is…

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Death Proof

September 1, 2019 / / 3 Comments

YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino
KEY ACTORS: Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Rose McGowan
CERTIFICATE: 18
IMDB SCORE: 7.0
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 65%

SEX SCORE: 2/5
✔️ Easily passes the Bechdel test – it’s a Tarantino script so there is a lot of talking about, well, everything and there are eight key female characters so it definitely passes.
❌ I’m going to say not rewatchable – I bought it when it came out but the DVD was deep in the cellar so I clearly didn’t watch it that often!
❌ I don’t want to fuck the cast – they’re hot but no. They’re not real enough!
❌ And no, not sex positive. The women may chat easily and freely about sex and appear to enjoy full and consensual sex lives…but they’re either brutally murdered or have to kill to avoid brutal murder. It doesn’t take much psychoanalysis to see a problem here!
✔️ BUT, this film did inspire sexual fantasies. Unexpectedly so. It’s the lap dance scene. It’s just so hot!

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The Before trilogy

August 25, 2019 / / 0 Comments

YEAR: Sunrise 1995, Sunset 2004, Midnight 2013
DIRECTOR: Richard Linklater
KEY ACTORS: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: Sunrise 8.1, Sunset 8.0, Midnight 7.9
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: Sunrise 100%, Sunset 95%, Midnight 97%

SEX SCORE: 4.5/5
✔️ Definitely rewatchable – and I’d recommend watching the full trilogy in one sitting if you can.
✔️ The cast are definitely fuckable. Julie Delpy is all sorts of fantastic and although there is something, well, weaselly about Ethan Hawke, the chemistry between them is so hot that I still want him despite his somewhat wiry facial hair!
✔️ And these movies did inspire lots of fantasies – meeting a hot stranger on a train, fucking in a park, missing a plane home because I needed to fuck someone right there and then…
✔️ On balance, I think these movies are sex positive. This is mainly as there isn’t much sex negativity so it gets a mark by default!
❓ Only Before Midnight passes…but it’s the only one with more than two named characters after all. The films are so focused on those two characters that this test feels, well, irrelevant.

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Secretary

July 28, 2019 / / 23 Comments

YEAR: 2002
DIRECTOR: Steven Shainberg
KEY ACTORS: Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader
CERTIFICATE: 18
IMDB SCORE: 7.0
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 76%

SEX SCORE: 4.5/5
✔️ Rewatchable – it just makes me so happy!
✔️ Definitely want to fuck the cast – it’s James Spader after all!!
✔️ It did inspire fantasies – not so much of BDSM, but of finding love like that…
✔️ And it does pass the Bechdel test. Lee and her mother talk a lot and very little of it is about a man.
❓ But, oh the sex positive question is a difficult one! (Could James Spader be in both 5/5 movies so far?! Is this possibility affecting my decision??) The positive representation of masturbation is so important and, while the messages within the film aren’t without flaws, I really like the main theme that you can be who you want sexually (with consent, obviously) and that’s OK. But does she really consent…? This has to be a half mark (and I don’t care if that’s cheating – my blog, my rules!!)

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