Saturday

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Intimacy (2001) has finally been released on Region 2 DVD. It has received a good deal of notoriety over the explicit and seemingly honest sexuality portrayed by stars Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox, which purported to include an actual blowjob on camera. The film has won major festival awards, and has been hailed as a brilliant art film. Critics are standing in line to award 3 or 4 stars, and the current IMDB score is 6.8 of 10.

The plot is simple enough. Rylance is divorced with kids, and a former musician, who now works as head barman, and lives in a squalid cold water flat. Fox shows up each Wednesday, and, without so much as a "Hi, how are you?" the two rip each others clothes off and have frantic sex. One afternoon, after a particularly nice blow-job (which we see), Rylance decides to follow Fox, and learn something about her. Thus begins act two. Whereas act one is all sex, act two is all about his learning the details of her life. She is married with a son, acts in a Pub/Theater and teaches acting classes to amateurs. Rylance meets her husband (Timothy Spall in an excellent performance) and son, and all but tells the husband he is boning his wife.

Fox finds out that Rylance now knows who she is, and breaks off the relationship. It seems she was up for a good shag every Wednesday, which gave spice to her life, and gave her something to look forward to, but didn't want any sort of relationship. Rylance clearly wanted a little intimacy along with his great sex.

So, was this as hot and explicit as I was led to believe? Far more so. Check the last 12 Fox images, which show the blow-job, a hand-job, what I think is clear evidence of actual intercourse, and lots of erections, complete with condom. Rylance and Fox received kudos for their performances as being honest and convincing. I say they weren't acting at all, but were boning away, not that this is a bad thing. I am just a little puzzled as to why this hard core porno is an important art film. Reading reviews by critics may have answered the question, but not in a direct fashion. Ebert found a theme where Rylance hated women because he was a latent homosexual. That is why he divorced his first wife, why he has what Ebert calls brutal sex with Fox, and why he doesn't want to talk to Fox. Interesting, but Fox wanted the anonymity, not Rylance, and even Ebert admits that there is no evidence for his claim in the film, but that it is inferred. Another critic sees the entire film as one of redemption for Rylance, who has hit bottom, and that the squalor of his flat is a metaphor for the mess his soul is in. And so it went... each critic found a new important theme. So why is this an important film, rather than a porno? Because it is confusing and muddled. It also helps, probably, that much of it is filmed with a shaky-cam, which we all know means either low budget or art film.

For lovers of celebrity, in case there are any of you reading, this is birthday and Christmas rolled into one. Fox is naked through most of the first hour of the film, and shows every inch of her body, including a couple of gyno-cam shots. In addition, Rylance has a sexual encounter with a very talkative Rebecca Palmer, where she shows breasts, bush and buns.There is plenty of male nudity from Rylance as well. This film is entirely too explicit for me to award more than C+, as those who hate nudity and sex on camera won't want anything to do with it, hence no cross-over appeal. Does it deserve to be an award wining film is the real question. I found the second half very slow, and the characters were not really revealed to my satisfaction. One comment at IMDB calls it Last Tango in Paris meets 9 1/2 Weeks. I see similarities to Last Tango, in that the relationship is purely sexual, but see none of 9 1/2 Weeks in the film. Too much time was spent on minor characters that had nothing to do with advancing the plot, and we didn't really get the motivations of the leads. Expect any US release to be either NC-17, unrated, or heavily cut.

Movies:

I don't have much more to say about S.O.B., Blake Edwards's excessively preachy satire of the movie industry. I didn't like the movie when it came out in 1981. I still can't defend it very well, but I drag the damned thing out and watch it every couple of years, and some of it still makes me laugh, especially Robert Preston and Larry Storch. (Yup, I actually laughed at Larry Storch). By the way, as noted in the script, Julie Andrews does have "a terrific set of knockers".

• Julie Andrews (1, 2, 3)
• Rosanna Arquette. Her own terrific set came out for the first time here. She was 21. (1, 2)
• Marisa Berenson (1, 2)
• Orgy chicks (1, 2, 3)

Alexandra Stewart in an episode of The Hitchhiker, from Herr Skin

Other crap:

• Great moments in history - Al Gore invents the internet
• Shaune Bagwell at the MTV awards
• Omnipresent Shaune Bagwell at the premiere of  Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I normally hope that films will have nudity. In this case of this film, I am hoping it does not, simply so I won't have to watch it. (It's for the "Steel Magnolias"/"Fried Green Tomatoes"/Beaches" crowd)
• The winners of the MTV movie awards. I'll bet you were holding your collective breath on that one, eh? Lord of the Rings won best picture, which I think you might have predicted if you know the MTV demographics. Legally Blonde was also nominated. Josh Hartnett was nominated as best actor. When I worked with a certain national chain which will soon be obvious, we used to do a lot of Slurpee advertising on MTV, because their demos were a perfect match to the typical Slurpee customers. Lord of the Rings was still not able to beat out Varsity Blues for the "best.movie.ever". Surprisingly, Will Smith was chosen for "Ali" in the Best Actor category, which was actually a reasonable choice.
• Dolly Parton's new album includes a cover of Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". As Jack Paar used to say "I kid you not". The album hits the shelves July 8th, so mark that on your calendar. Better get there a couple days early, because the lines are already forming, ala Star Wars movies.

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that I inexplicably determined there might be something of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Here is the latest poll, if you care to participate. Remember, we are asking for the most realistic movie sex scene ever, not the best nudity. The results will pop up after you vote, assuming it isn't completely fucked.

• Susan Sarandon in her nude debut. Breasts and a hint of pubes are visible in the movie "Joe" (1970).

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

• Susan Lynn Kiger

Then there is former German Hefmate, at the age of 16, and American Hefmate, at the age of 18, Ursula Buchfellner. She even posed for Penthouse at one point and did a fair number of Euro-softcore thingees. These caps are from a movie with an American title of Manhunter. No, this is not the god-awful cinematic treatment of Tom Harris' best book, Red Dragon (really, seriously, RD is even better than Silence of the Lambs, but the movie bites the big green weenie), but a kind of action-adventure sci-fi kidnapping mutant movie in which Ursula spends most of the time nekkid. I got ahold of a second-generation copy, however, and the only semi-decent frames I could pull out of it were these, at the very end of the movie when Ursula lolls around on the rescue boat, topless, for about two minutes of screen time. The scene, itself, is entirely gratuitous but to whomever directed this stinker: thank you very much.

• Ursula Buchfellner

The last of the Heffers would become 80's mate, Peggy McIntaggart (nee Peggy Sands, aka Peggy Sanders) in two Oscar-winning performances. We have two collages of Peggy in the Cheech and Chong vehicle, Far Out Man. Peggy plays a punk-rocker/groupee who strips down to get into a tub with Tommy Chong. We get to see Peggy's still-natural and quite nice hooters and her bum in thong undies. Then there is Peggy playing the role of "Shameless Woman" in the Michelle Pfeiffer movie, Into the Night. Peggy is shameless 'cuz she is topless as she leaves a stall in a men's room, having apparently boffed some geezer. Not that much to see, to be honest.

• Peggy (insert any one of her last names) (1, 2, 3)

And while we are at it, here's a few old scans of 90's Hefmate, Victoria Silvstedt. I think Victoria wins the prize for appearing in some stage of nekkidness in the greatest number of magazines.

• Victoria Silvstedt (1, 2, 3)

Part 2 of today's goodies...a bunch of paparazzi and newswire pics of the beautiful people. Unless otherwise noted, these are extreme cleavage pics.

• Ali Landry, American beauty queen and Doritos girl.

• Brittany Murphy in a killer dress with cleavage and see-thru stuff.

• Calista Flockhart in what would be called cleavage, if only... PETScan thinks the former Allie McCancelled is hot. The other boys in the shop think that is grounds for watching PET very, very closely.

• Halle Berry looking tres hot, as usual.

• Jennifer Lopez, in a rear view, whilst wearing a pair of Levi's. This picture reminded me of the historical trivia that the denim Levi Strauss used to make the first jeans was intended for the construction of two-person tents.

• Pink in an outdoor performance, with a white shirt that reveals black tape crossing out the underneath goodies. Such fashion sense this girl has.