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Age of Consent
Age of Consent (1969) is a story about an older Australian
artist (James Mason, with an Aussie accent, sort of) who has lost his
inspiration, so moves to a remote island to recapture his connection with
nature. (The film was actually lensed on Dunk Island in the Great Barrier Reef
area.) His nearest neighbor on the island is a crazy old alcoholic granny and
... here's the good part ... her very young and free-spirited granddaughter
(Helen Mirren), who becomes the artist's model and muse. Various mischief
ensues. There are some sub-plots about the girl's would-be boyfriend and the
artist's former colleague who visits and steals some money, but the point of
the film is basically Helen Mirren getting naked and James Mason painting her
to reinvigorate his ... er ... artistic muscles.
While not exactly a weighty milestone in cinema history, Age
of Consent is a very pleasant, old-fashioned movie. Made in 1969 in Australia,
it exercised that era's new sense of social and cinematic freedom with plenty
of sensuous nudity from a young, curvaceous, pre-regal Mirren in her nude
debut. While the script has some serious underlying ideas and is not precisely
a zany comedy, it has plenty of laughs. I guess it's what reviewers used to
call a gay romp, back in a day when that phrase had a different meaning.
The nearest film in spirit is probably the legendary
nude-fest Sirens, and there is a very direct connection between the two films.
Sirens is a fictional story about a genuine Australian artist named Norman
Lindsay, who lived apart from civilization with his family and his coterie of
models in a tropical paradise where everyone frolicked about guiltlessly naked
while Lindsay painted and sculpted them into works of art. His creations sort
of blend Rubens and Gauguin into celebrations of a naked female form which is
inevitably full-hipped, large-breasted, and free-spirited. Lindsay was one of
those guys with boundless mental energy. Not content with being merely a
painter and sculptor, he was also a prolific editorial cartoonist, a novelist,
a poet, and an author of children's books ... ... although you more
conservative types might not want your children exposed to Lindsay's thought
process. Here is
his Wikipedia entry if you would like a quick summary of his achievements.
You will notice that among those achievement is a novel called Age of Consent,
which brings us to the connection between this movie and Sirens.
Lindsay certainly knew a thing or two about the subject
matter of this film since it is partially autobiographical. James Mason,
imperfect accent notwithstanding, was in top form as Lindsay's surrogate, and
kept his usual oily mannerisms completely in check. Mirren, with her abundant
hips and breasts, had (still has actually) the perfect body for a Lindsay
model. At various times Mirren swims about in the buff, poses for nude
paintings, and just admires her own impressive knockers in the mirror.
Overall, Age of Consent is a pleasant way to pass the time, and was a moderate
hit in its era.
A fully restored version of this film was shown at the
Sydney Film Festival in 2005 and is apparently now available on DVD in
Australia, at least judging from these third party film clips, which are of
excellent quality. My old VHS tape has a slightly longer version of one of the
nude scenes, so I made a clip of that as well, although the quality of that is
decidedly sub-par. This is a film which cries out to be released on Region 1
DVD.
It's a C or a C+ on our scale. Whatever the precise grade,
it's an easy if somewhat trifling way to pass the time.
6.2 at IMDb.
Helen
Mirren film clips.
Sons & Lovers
Comments and film clips in yesterday's edition. Here are the
collages.
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* Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).
* White asterisk: expanded format.
* Blue asterisk: not mine.
No asterisk: it probably sucks.
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OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
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Stocks and Blondes
Stocks and Blondes (1985) is a soft-core sex film, but I immediately
noticed a cast of hard-core performers. The reason is simple. This is really
an edited version of the hard-core classic, Wanda Whips Wall Street, starring
Veronica Hart in the title role. This sort of conversion was common in the
80s. Porn was not legal in many places in the US, so the editor would snip out
penetration, erections, and as much male full frontal nudity as possible to
create what was often called a hard R or a soft X for unrated video tapes or
late night cable fare. What is amazing is that the hard-core porn of the
classic era often had enough of a plot and a sufficient caliber of acting to
allow the editor to cut ten minutes and create a reasonably watchable
stand-alone soft-core film.
The film is the story of how Wanda (Veronica Hart) and her secretary (Tish
Ambrose) used sexual blackmail to seize complete control of a major Wall
Street brokerage. It is told from the point of view of a college student
investigating the subject for a term paper. Two familiar faces, Jamie Gillis
and Ron Jeremy, were called in to investigate while the takeover was
happening.
Frankly, it is more interesting than the majority of the current crop of
direct-to-vid soft-core. As a soft-core, this is a C. It also gives a less
extreme way to view one of the all-time classic hard-core films.
IMDb readers have barely heard of this film, and there are no reviews
listed.
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Easy Prey
| Easy Prey (1986) is a
fact-based movie about a serial killer and rapist played by Gerald McRaney.
No nudity but early sexy appearances by Jessica Steen and Shawnee Smith
(of the Saw trilogy). This is currently being shown only on European
cable. |
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Shawnee Smith |
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Jessica Steen |
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Concrete Hell
| "Concrete Hell" (1985) aka
"Turning to Stone" is a hard-hitting but non-exploitation women-in-prison
movie. Nicky Guadagni plays the wrongfully convicted prisoner and gets
raped by lesbian prisoners several times. Kim Renders is shown in a wet
t-shirt. Shirley Douglas (mother of Kiefer Sutherland) plays the queen
bee, and Paul Gross in his first role sports a better hairdo than any of
the female cast. Again, this is currently being shown only on European
cable. |
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Nicky Guadagni |
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Kim Renders |
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Shirley Douglas |
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Paul Gross |
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The Last Casino
| "The Last Casino" (2004).
Katharine Isabelle is very sexy in this movie while Sofia DeMedeiros plays
a sexy stripper. |
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Katharine Isabelle |
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Sofia
DeMedeiros |
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When Tomorrow Dies
| "When Tomorrow Dies" (1965) is
a seriously dated cautionary tale about bored housewives and adultery.
Patricia Gage is shown in her maidenforms.
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Patricia Gage |
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Tamara
| "Tamara" (2005) is a skinless
horror only worth seeing because of a lesbian scene between a P. Diddy
dancer named Jenna Dewan and Melissa Elias from Falcon Beach. |
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Jenna Dewan |
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Melissa Elias |
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The Diary of Evelyn Lau
| "The Diary of Evelyn Lau" (1993
TV) is the movie which made Sandra Oh famous. Here she is in her skivvies
having fully clothed sex with Jabba the Hutt. |
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Sandra Oh |
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The First Season
| "The First Season" (1988).
Kate Trotter shows some rare partial breast exposure from this movie which
recently resurfaced on cable. |
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Kate Trotter |
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"Jeff Ltd."
| "Jeff Ltd" is a TV series
which returns for season 2 on CTV next Saturday. For a teaser here is
cougar Deborah Grover with her nipples blocked out from the first season. |
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Deborah Grover |
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"Night Heat"
| Another trip in the wayback
machine. Cynthia Belliveau, best known as for her role as Mona Lott before
she started playing brainy newsbabes, is shown in a sexy teddy as a
prostitute in a 1986 episode of Night Heat. |
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Cynthia Belliveau |
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Animal House
Today the Time Machine is back in 1978 for "Animal House." Time flies when
you are getting old. Can it really be 29 years since this classic scene of John
Belushi climbing a ladder to spy on Mary Louise Weller?
Not a ton of skin but sexy and funny.
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Notes and collages
The Ladies of
Sci-fi/Fantasy
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Frenchpic |
Les Colombes
Two French-Canadian actresses in this 1972 film:
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Pat's comments in yellow
In Sofia, Bulgaria, TV screens in the bus stations show bus schedules during the
day, but at night, the management has started showing soft-core porn on them. A
spokesman said it's not likely any children will be around at that time, and it
takes riders' minds off the cold and the wait. But it has sparked angry
protests, especially from mothers, who say it's not only disgraceful, but the
security guards are no longer patrolling for thugs because they're too busy
staring at the porn on the giant screens.
* That's okay, the thugs are also staring at the porn.
* If you want to see hard-core stuff, try the bus station restrooms.
The Daily Mirror reports that Jeff Donovan of Southampton, England, has been
banned from his local pub, the Gordon Arms, for playing Mariah Carey on the
jukebox. He's such a Mariah fan, he played her songs 20 times a day for six
years until other customers got fed up, particularly with hearing "All I Want
For Christmas" year-round. The pub owner said Donovan was repeatedly warned,
but he just laughed and thought it was a joke. The dejected Donovan said, "I
love Mariah and listen to her over and over again, but other people obviously
didn't share my musical taste."
* The pub owner would've thrown him out years ago, but
his choice of music was driving people to drink.
TMZ.com reports that Tom Cruise may be considering a new career direction: doing
a buddy comedy in the type of role usually played by
Owen Wilson. Cruise has reportedly been talking with Ben Stiller about
co-starring in a goofy comedy called "The Hardy Men," about the crime-solving
Hardy Boys as grown-ups.
* But Ben Stiller doesn't know if he wants to work with
Tom Cruise because he's just too goofy.
WEB LINK! They might actually make a good comedy team. They have before (from the 2000
MTV awards)
BIRTHDAYS - (Almanac) Zsa Zsa Gabor (90).
* For you kids, Zsa Zsa Gabor was a celebrity whose major
talent was marrying rich people...She was like the blond, female Kevin Federline.
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