Wednesday

I Want You (1998)

On paper, I Want You has certain thematic and structural similarities to Atom Egoyan's masterpiece The Sweet Hereafter. Like Egoyan's film, I Want You includes a strong undercurrent of father/daughter incest. Like Egoyan's film, I Want You starts with vague, mysterious plot details and gradually peels away layer after layer of the mystery. A man arrives in a seacoast town in England after having been absent for many years. Why did he leave, and why has he returned? As the script progresses, we find out that he was in prison, then we find out that he killed someone in that very town. Another character is introduced. The local hairdresser is not willing to have sex with her boyfriend. She's not much interested in sex at all. What caused that?

The mysterious stranger seems to be her ex-boyfriend ...

 ... and so forth.

I've only scratched the surface of the revelations, and I've only touched on two of the four main characters. To reveal any more would spoil the basic mystery, which boils down to the identity of the murder victim. Even after that is known, many mysteries remain, and the behavior of some characters seems inexplicable until all the hole cards have been turned over. As each character's secrets are revealed, the lives of the characters seem to get more closely interwoven. Even when the film is over, certain elements of the plot resolution are implicit rather than explicit. I think I understand what happened in the past to drive the events which transpire in the present, but my understanding is based on several assumptions

In reality, the resemblance to Egoyan's film ends there. If The Sweet Hereafter is all well-scrubbed, polite, middle-class angst from credible people and situations, I Want You is all gritty and impoverished Anglotrash despair in some kind of post-modern fantasy world populated by typical offbeat film characters and gimmicks. (One of the main characters does not speak and, although he seems to live in dire poverty, owns all sorts of state-of-the-art bugging and taping equipment, which he uses for eavesdropping and recording the comings and goings of other characters, especially when they are engaged in anything sexual.) The Sweet Hereafter is elegant and glacial, photographed in stark whites with very little in the way of gimmicky lighting or colored filters, and it's backed by somber classical music. I Want You is all filters all the time, mostly blue hues indoors and amber hues outdoors, all backed by eerie punk and alternative rock. The director of I Want You is Michael Winterbottom, a man who is constantly experimenting with storytelling and cinematic forms. In his later film, 9 Songs, he filled virtually an entire screenplay with nothing except explicit sex and musical performances, all presented unedited and in real time. Sex and performances comprise perhaps 95% of the running time of that particular movie, with the rest consisting of a simple framing story in which a man looks back on the sex and concerts as a way of coming to terms with a key relationship in his past life. I Want You is sort of a harbinger of 9 Songs, in that it also has a brief framing story (which seems unnecessary to me) and also includes some full musical numbers in real time as well as some long, drawn-out sexual acts, albeit far less explicit ones than in the later movie. Sometimes the sexuality and music are combined, as when a stripper delivers a long private performance.

Although the mysteries of the plot are intriguing, and the film is certainly not a routine commercial effort, you may well find your mind wandering during the overlong digressions, or distracted by some of the arthouse mannerisms of the film. I had a problem with those elements, and I also have to invoke the Siskel Rule, because I didn't enjoy spending time with any of the four main characters, which in turn made it difficult to care about their past, present, or future activities. It's a film that I admired far more than I liked. The film does have some enthusiastic supporters, however, among those who look for alternative cinema experiences. For the rest of you: quite a bit of T&A.

 

Rachel Weisz
Labina Mitevska
Dee Dee Menta

 

More Weisz:

It just so happened that Mr Nude Celeb also did some captures of Rachel Weisz today, this time in Stealing Beauty

Rachel Weisz

Other Crap:

Caddyshack in 30 seconds re-enacted by bunnies.

Kevin Phillips and Colbert discuss theocracy. (Colbert is, of course, in favor of it.)

Chapter One of "Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure" (If you have to ask, you probably won't get it.)

The official site of Ave Maria, Florida (The Catholic planned community being built out in the friggin' swamp and former agricultural area near Naples.)

Colbert's Word for the day: "Lunchables." America should be patriotically divided into sanitary compartments of like-minded citizens.

Colbert Report: All You Need to Know (News Summary)

Colbert discusses the Ahmadinejad letter to President Bush

The Daily Show: "President Bush did not have sexual relations with that NSA program, Miss Lewinsky."

Daily Show: "Presidential frontrunners stand up for what they think the people want them to believe in."

The Professional Cheerleader Blog: "Arena Bowl Dream Team Selected" Gee, I wonder who submitted this one?

Tawny Kitaen - then and now

WHERE'S ALBA? -like Where's Waldo, except with breasts.

'Da Vinci Code' protests widespread

This week's movies (nearly 4000 screens): Over the Hedge - 83% positive reviews. (But based on only six reviews.)

John Rocker has a new girlfriend - hey, wait a minute ... she's ... the same woman who wrote that nice article about him in March and she's ... she's ...

The nicest guy in sports is .... John Rocker???????

Spacecraft crashed into satellite, interrupting your Skinemax movie

Sloth bears not too slothful to attack and eat a monkey as zoo visitors watch.

Meg Ryan, looking like a crazy homeless person. Perhaps she has been studying under Margot Kidder?

The Weekend Warrior's prediction for the upcoming weekend's box office

  • He's calling it 75 for DaVinci, 44 for Over the Hedge
  • If his numbers prove correct, the weekend will finish 2-3% ahead of last year.

Classic TV Theme Songs. Some of my nostalgic favorites:

Samaire Armstrong pictures and bio on STUFF MAGAZINE DOT COM

Watch preview clips of Tom Goes to the Mayor

VIDEO: CNN cut too early to President Bush, while he was rehearsing his speech.

There's no need to fear, Oscar nominee Amy Adams has been added to the cast of Underdog

"Jessica Alba + Eva Longoria = Double Bikini Action"

WC Fields - The Dentist

"Oops, I did it again" played on a flaming tuba, accompanied by fire dancers.

Polish TV Ad involving a missing vibrator.

NSA Announces New Dating Service

  • "Because NSA has the exact dimensions of every penis and vagina in America, a smooth and wonderful sexual experience is almost guaranteed. This is something that other dating services can't begin to offer. You wouldn't believe the reactions that we got when we test-marketed this thing!"

OK, Canadians get record number of Tony nominations, eh?

Breast Augmentation Before & After - Cosmetic Plastic Surgery

  • A couple of these women had deformed breasts or miniscule breasts, so the surgery was a wonderful thing for them, but the sad thing is that several of them had pretty, perky breasts before the surgery.

Remember the footage they showed while the announcer said "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat"? Well, those guys need this clip.

Make your own Bollywood movie!

The R-rated traile for Woodenhead. (You just know this indie movie will be lovingly crafted, because they spent nearly five minutes on their website!)

  • "If you've ever wondered what was really going through the Grimm brothers' minds when they wrote all those tales of woods and wolves and lost little girls, well here's your chance to find out. Welcome to "Woodenhead," a film in which the subterranean perversions inherent in any good fairy tale have been brought rumbling and gushing to the surface."

Keith's brain is normal and he's 'ready to tour again'

  • I have finally figured this thing out. It's "Gilligan Syndrome." Remember that when Gilligan had one encounter with a palm tree, he would lose his memory, but the second one would always snap him right back to normal. When we didn't realize is that Keith fell out of his first palm tree some 45 years ago, and this was the long-awaited second one - the restorative palm tree.

Baseball's greatest showmen

MANDY MOORE says Wilmer Valderrama did NOT pop her cherry

 

 

 

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

 

Daughter of Darkness (1993)

Daughter of Darkness (1993) or Mie men can an zhi nie sha is a Hong Kong category three thriller. As the film opens, Mak Wei-Fong (the lovely Lily Chung) comes into the police station and tells detective Anthony Wong that her whole family has been murdered. Wong discovers that one of his young detectives is her boyfriend, and that she did not have a very happy relationship with her family. Her father was a whoremonger who abused and then raped his daughter; her mother did nothing but berate her; and her sister and brother were equally unkind.

The detective begins to suspect that she and the young detective know more than they are telling. Gradually, the actual story unfolds. The first half of the film is a comedy, unlikely though it may seem from the premise, with Anthony Wong as the comedian. When he first investigates the murders, for instance, he finds Chung's sister in the bath tub. He squeezes her breast to estimate the time of death, and then sniffs her crotch to see if she had been raped. He also has a novel method of interrogating suspects by threatening to shoot them, or taking a plant into another room, and sending him back out looking like he was beaten senseless. Confessions are remarkably easy to obtain. I found the first half a little slow going, but this film made up for it during the last half.

The film was cut in several key scenes for the original Hong Kong release, but is now nearly completely restored, including the father sticking his big toe into the hookers crotch, and some of the Lily Chung sex scenes. The subtitles are coherent, with no glaringly bad translations.

IMDb readers say 5.5. This is a solid genre effort, and hence a C.

 

Lily Chung shows breasts and buns in two lovely sex scenes with her boyfriend, and also in the rape and abuse scenes with her father.

An unknown as a hooker with the father shows full frontal and rear nudity after a game of naked rock, paper, scissors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some more clips from the 1993 video, Teasers. This one involves a couple of guys who find a wallet and use the poor slob's credit card to hire one stripper after another to come over and strut her stuff.  End of plot.  A bunch of B-movie gals did the stripping.

zipped .avis

  • Annette Burger (1, 2, 3)
  • Holly Spencer (1)
  • Lauren Hays (1)
  • Melinda Armstrong (1, 2)
  • Melody Johnson (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 


Today would be called a Hankster "Grab Bag" day.

Heather Conforto is a "Babe in Bondage" in "Hillside Cannibals."

and is then attacked by one of the cannibals, but he never does get her clothes off.

Erica Robey shows breasts in bad light as one of the cannibals.


Way back when. Elke Sommer with cleavage in "A Shot in the Dark".


Bee Simonds teases but never really shows much in The Choke.

Lila Vlaviano a topless "Babe in Bondage" in The Choke, but those boobs  have been really screwed up.

 

 

 

 

Anne Hathaway in Brokeback Mountain
Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain
Charlotte Rampling in 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore
Claire Danes in Shopgirl
Elisabeth Shue in Cousin Bette
Elizabeth Hurley in Sharpe's Enemy
Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia
Jillian McWhirter in The Dentist 2
Felicity Huffman in Bedtime '96
Felicity Huffman in Out of Order: Put Me in Order
Felicity Huffman in Transamerica
 

 


Pat's comments in yellow...

Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, who gets publicity by offering odd bets, hopes to make Dublin the home of the world's biggest strip poker contest. It started as an April Fool's joke inspired by the popularity of TV poker tournaments, but it sparked so much interest, Power already has 100 applicants and is studying to see if he can host it without being arrested. He said he hasn't decided on a prize for the winner yet, but "maybe a gold pair of underpants or a golden fig leaf would be most appropriate." * No, those would be more appropriate prizes for the losers.

* Women players are not allowed to cover their breasts with their hands, unless they're playing Texas Hold 'Em.

Jennifer Aniston told the movie magazine Hotdog that she'll never do another TV series, "not just because I'm above it," but because the work is too grueling

* Also, at a million dollars an episode, the pay sucked