An Affair of Love (2000) is the region 1 DVD release of Une liaison pornographique (1999), a tragic French love story. Tragic and French may be a redundancy here. We all know the Hollywood love story formula, Boy meets girl - boy loses girl - boy finds girl. The French managed to shorten the formula to boy meets girl - boy loses girl, quelle tragédie. In this film, a man and a woman are each being interviewed separately, but are shown in parallel in the film, about an affair they enjoyed together. The Gérard Depardieu role is played by Sergi López, a huge improvement in my opinion. The woman is played to perfection by Nathalie Baye, who won Best Actress at the Venice film festival for this role. The film was nominated for several other European awards.

Despite the somewhat whimsical introduction above, this is a very well-made film. It is never explained why the two characters are being interviewed, nor do we learn much about either of them. The film chooses to focus on the relationship they shared. She is between lovers, and places an ad in a fetish magazine, wanting to try something sexual she has always fanaticized about, and he answers. Two minutes after their first meeting, they are in the hotel room she pre-booked. After a successful first meeting, it becomes a regular weekly tryst, and they become closer to each other with each visit. They don't, however, exchange names, or any information about their lives.

Eventually, they try "normal sex," and the relationship becomes far more serious. What makes this film such a treat is the focus on the affair, the wonderful photography and art direction, and the incredible heat and honesty of the sex. We never learn what the fetish was, but it doesn't really matter to the story, and everything unnecessary was omitted. As a matter of fact, not telling us is exactly right -- it is enough to know that the fetish is very non-mainstream, and that they both enjoyed it a lot. Ebert awards 3 1/2 stars, as does Berardinelli. Apollo says 78, but Apollo readers give it an amazing 90. IMDB readers also elevate this film to near classic status with a 7.5/10. Like most sub-titled art house films, this one peeked at 19 screens in the US, and grossed $347,808. This is the most beautiful and intelligent film I have seen about love and sex in a very long time. Great date fare, despite the tragic ending, it is a good bet for the start of a romantic evening.

Here it is. You know that James Bond is a long continuing role that has been played by many different people. Well, I figure Madonna is the same thing for women. Here are the similarities:

• James Bond sometimes played by an old person, then mysteriously replaced by a young attractive person. Same with Madonna.
• James Bond's weight and facial fullness keeps changing. Same with Madonna.
• James Bond is younger in 2000 than in 1980 or 1990. Same with Madonna.
• The many people who have played James Bond don't look much alike. Same with Madonna.

I looked at Last Call because it was a new release rated R. Waste of time for our purposes. Canadian straight-to-vid, zero budget, no nudity. (Wasn't a bad film, for what it was, but never got a distributor, not listed at IMDb. I could have told them they wouldn't get a distributor - would have been illegal since it's a Canadian film without Molly Parker)

Speaking of Molly, I finally got to the DVD of that outstanding Kieslowski clone, The Five Senses, making in an all-Canadian day for me. I liked the movie even better the second time around.

Molly Parker (1, 2)

Mary-Louise Parker (1, 2)

TomCat did "Progeny", featuring the Streep of Shit Movies, Jillian McWhirter. (I really like this girl, and I'd tell her so if only she'd lift that restraining order.)

• Jillian McWhirter (1, 2)

The Fourth Chapter of Volume C is updated.

Next I did Guinevere Turner and Julie Graham in Preaching to the Perverted. Gotta love Graham's haircut eh? I wasn't going to bother capping this movie, but I couldn't resist a bald fetish girl, and Turner is one of my favorite actresses (check her out in the lesbian film "Go Fish" to see what I mean, she's the non-butch lesbian "Max")

Next off a hardcore cap. I know, she's not that good looking, and she has deformed breasts. But this is kind of a special interest peice, Kendra Jade is the porno girl who's step-mother video taped her having sex with Jerry Springer a couple years back. She actually made a couple movies with her step mom as well. She said she was just trying to expose Jerry, for what he was, but as you can see looking at her, she needed a "claim to fame" to get noticed.

I had a loan of Nine Inch Nails video "Closure". It's a concert/Interview/uncensored video thing. There was nudity (both male and female) all over it, but I didn't bother with a lot of it, I just stuck with the naked bald girl in the "Closer" video.

I also put together a couple of Rhona Mitra (1, 2) and Kim Dickens from Hollow Man, including one from the deleted scenes.

Enjoy!

The nudity comes from two sources. Senta Berga (I'm not 100% sure it is her as she isn't named in the movie) is a German nurse who helps James 'recuperate' after he is wounded. The other nudity is by some unnamed Russian women soldiers who are captured by James' platoon.

Felicty Price

Michela Noonan

Sam Healy

Helen Dallimore

These are DVD vidcaps by Uco from 1993's "Body of Evidence". "Body..." is not yet available yet on Region 1 DVD, so we in the Western half of the world haven't seen this quality before.

Here's what Uco has for us...

Keep up the good work!

-BigJack