Sex, Love and Videotape

On movie sex and movie love...

Tag: Romcom

The poster for Wimbledon, showing Dunst in profile, leaning her head against her racket, and Bettany looking at us out of the poster

Wimbledon

July 10, 2024 / / 0 Comments
  • YEAR: 2004
  • DIRECTOR: Richard Loncraine
  • KEY ACTORS: Kirsten Dunst, Paul Bettany 
  • CERTIFICATE: 12A
  • IMDB SCORE: 6.3
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 61%

SEX SCORE: 4/5
✔️ I watch this most years so, yes, it is rewatchable!
✔️ And I’d absolutely fuck the cast! Who wouldn’t?!
✔️ It did inspire fantasies, but they’re not that specific to this film – to be inspired by love, to have a whirlwind romance that means I achieve my life’s ambition…
✔️ And I am giving it a point for being sex positive! Sex is fun, sex is joyful, and (at the beginning anyway) sex is just about sex and not about love. Lizzie’s father may not approve…but its the distraction he doesn’t like, not the sex itself!
❌ But it doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. There’s a conversation between Lizzie and a female interviewer that isn’t about men…but she isn’t named.

Continue reading
The poster for How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days showing Hudson and McCounaghay dressed for a party, with Hudson in the famous yellow dress, and leaning against each other's backs

How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days

June 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments
  • YEAR: 2003
  • DIRECTOR: Donald Petrie
  • KEY ACTORS: Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey
  • CERTIFICATE: 12A
  • IMDB SCORE: 6.5
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 42%

SEX SCORE: 3/5
✔️ It is cringeworthy and dated, but it remains surprisingly rewatchable!
✔️ And I would fuck the cast. They’re so 00s and definitely flawed, but both stars are undoubtedly at their hotness peak!
✔️ Incredibly, it does pass the Bechdel Test, which I was not expecting!
❌ It didn’t inspire fantasies though, except perhaps of owning a yellow dress and having that figure!
❌ But it’s not sex positive. It’s not explicitly said that having casual sex means you won’t have a meaningful relationship but it is definitely implied, and I can’t get over the gender stereotypes.

Continue reading
The poster for Pretty Woman, showing Edward and Vivian back to back with Edward wearing a suit and Vivian wearing black thigh high boots, a tight black skirt and pink top

Pretty Woman

July 2, 2023 / / 0 Comments
  • YEAR: 1990
  • DIRECTOR: Garry Marshall
  • KEY ACTORS: Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Laura San Giacomo
  • CERTIFICATE: 15
  • IMDB SCORE: 7.1
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 65%

SEX SCORE: 5/5

✔️ This passes the Bechdel Test easily, but there are really only two named female characters so it’s good that they talk about a lot!
✔️ And it is rewatchable. It’s a classic for a reason!
✔️ I also would fuck the cast. Both Gere and Roberts are at their hotness peaks and are stunningly beautiful!
✔️ It probably did inspire fantasies too. Sex without kissing, sex on a piano, being so overtly and overwhelming desired…
✔️ And I think it is sex positive! It’s not a straightforward decision – sex is tangled inextricably with love but it sends good safe sex messages, it understands consent, and it shows that sex is pretty joyful and therapeutic!

Continue reading
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?

Continue reading

The Holiday

December 22, 2019 / / 3 Comments

YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: Nancy Meyers
KEY ACTORS: Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, Eli Wallach
CERTIFICATE: 12A
IMDB SCORE: 6.9
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 49%

SEX SCORE: 3/5
✔️So the cast are definitely fuckable. I’m not a Jude Law fan as such but, wow, this is extraordinary levels of hotness and Kate Winslet is never better than playing an English Rose
❌ But this film didn’t inspire fantasies. In fact, completely the reverse. I actively didn’t want either of their lives!
❌ This may just be my opinion, but I also don’t think this film is rewatchable. I hate Love Actually and I watch it all the time. I have only seen this twice and that’s too many times!
✔️It does pass the Bechdel test, although I am pretty annoyed that this is another pass because of conversations with children. Adult women can talk too!!
✔️ But I do think it is sex positive. It’s full of romantic cliches but the sexual ones are pretty well handled.

Continue reading

Love Actually

December 15, 2019 / / 3 Comments

YEAR: 2003
DIRECTOR: Richard Curtis
KEY ACTORS: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 7.6
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 64%

SEX SCORE: 3/5
✔️ I’m begrudgingly giving it a mark for being rewatchable as I do watch it every year, despite it being a definite hate watch now!
✔️ But this isn’t nearly as begrudgingly I’m giving it a mark for passing the Bechdel Test. In a movie all full of women, the only conversation between named female characters that wasn’t about a man occurred between Emma Thompson and her daughter about being a lobster in the nativity. Wow…
✔️ It’s difficult to decide but I think it is a sex positive film. It’s unfeminist and it’s problematic but it doesn’t really shame its characters particularly for having sex. I don’t think…
❌ I don’t want to fuck the cast, despite how hot many of them were at this time. I just don’t like them enough to fuck them!
❌ And it didn’t inspire any fantasies. Even the romantic fantasies are looking pretty problematic now!

Continue reading

2000s

Bridget Jones’s Diary

December 1, 2019 / / 3 Comments

YEAR: 2001
DIRECTOR: Sharon Maguire
KEY ACTORS: Rene Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 6.7
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 81%

SEX SCORE: 5/5
✔️The cast are definitely fuckable. Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, Rene Zellweger and Sally Phillips; there’s someone for every mood!
✔️ And although the qualifying dialogue has been described as meaningless, which feels unnecessarily cutting, there are plenty of named female characters who talk about other subjects than men so it passes the Bechdel Test.
✔️ It also definitely inspired fantasies – even though she’s supposed to be a mess, Bridget was pretty aspirational for me sexually. It may reveal the limitations of my own sexual fantasies, but I really wanted dirty weekends away in a B+B, I wanted to send secret messages to a coworker that I was fucking, and I wanted to do all of that while I still didn’t think I was perfect. And I really, really wanted a kiss like that between Bridget and Darcy.
✔️ It is also incredibly rewatchable. I cannot recall how often I’ve seen this film but it still makes me laugh every time and still makes me so happy, every time!
✔️ After much deliberation, I also decided that it is sex positive – more on this later!

Continue reading

Imagine Me and You

September 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Ol Parker
KEY ACTORS: Piper Perabo, Lena Headey, Matthew Goode, Celia Imrie, Anthony Head
CERTIFICATE: 12
IMDB SCORE: 6.8
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 34%

I’m so happy to be posting another guest post from another fabulous sex blogger, Amy Norton from Coffee and Kink! Amy writes hot erotica, detailed sex toy reviews and insightful personal essays – do go and check out her writing!

SEX SCORE: 4.5/5
✔️ Passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours. Main characters Rachel and Luce are shown talking about a wide range of topics from flowers to football.
✔️ Fuckable cast – Lena Headey (yes, as in Cersei Lannister) as a dorky lesbian florist? Sign me the fuck up. Piper Perabo is also super hot. The men don’t really do anything for me; Matthew Goode’s Heck is cute enough but not my type, and Darren Boyd’s Cooper is way too obnoxious to be hot.
❓Fantasies inspired – Half a point here. No specific sexual fantasies from this one (there’s hardly any actual sex in it!) but definitely plenty of romantic fantasies. This movie was the first piece of media which gave me hope that queer women, too, could have cinema-worthy mushy happy endings.
✔️ Rewatchable – Endlessly. I’ve probably seen this film at least a dozen times by now, and it’s a frequent cheer-me-up choice when I’m sad or sick.
✔️ Sex positive – This was difficult to decide. I’m torn primarily because there’s a major theme about cheating, which is hard to classify as sex-positive. However, it’s also a story about following your heart when your sexuality turns out to not be quite what you thought, and it’s unashamedly queer-positive (despite coming out only two years after the end of Section 28.) So, yes, it gets the point.

Continue reading

2000s

What Women Want

July 7, 2019 / / 5 Comments

YEAR: 2001
DIRECTOR: Nancy Meyers
KEY ACTORS: Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt, Marisa Tomei
CERTIFICATE: 12
IMDB SCORE: 6.4/10
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 54%

SEX SCORE: 1/5
❌ Not sex positive – I suspect this was supposed to be sex positive – or at least vaguely feminist – but it hasn’t aged well at all and the male gaze is too infuriating for it to count.
❌ I don’t particularly want to watch this again – I fear that it will only age further…
❌ It didn’t inspire any fantasies – it’s more of a romance than a sexual film, but it’s certainly not a romantic trope that I’d like to be involved in: misogynist undermines professional woman, almost destroying her career, and yet she falls in love with him anyway!?
❌ I don’t want to fuck Mel Gibson. Helen Hunt, maybe, but not enough for a point…
✔️ Somehow this does pass the Bechdel test, but I’m giving the mark very begrudgingly – women talk to each other about something other than men but they rarely both have names and are almost always interrupted by men. Urgh.

Continue reading

1980s

When Harry Met Sally…

June 30, 2019 / / 5 Comments

YEAR: 1989
DIRECTOR: Rob Reiner
WRITER: Nora Ephron
KEY ACTORS: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 7.6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 90%

SEX SCORE: 3/5

✔️ Passes Bechdel test…just! Although most conversations between the named women are about men and dating, Sally and Marie talk about wedding dresses at one point and there are conversations at the wedding that don’t include men!
✔️ Rewatchable and still wonderful – despite my criticisms!
✔️ Inspired romantic fantasies more than sexual fantasies, and not always in a good way as it certainly encouraged me to see and believe possible futures with hot friends when I shouldn’t…
❌ But I don’t want to fuck them – they’re all much too neurotic for me!!
❌ And it’s not really sex positive. Sex is something men do with people they don’t like and where women must fake enjoyment in search of love..

Continue reading

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

© 2024 Sex, Love and Videotape

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑