Contact Help Wanted

2009 Fetish Film Festival Winners

Flemish filmmaker Erik Lamens‘ SM-rechter / SM Judge (above) was chosen the best narrative feature at the 2009 Fetish Film Festival, held in the northern German city of Kiel from Oct. 29-31.
Inspired by a true story, Lamens’ SM Judge tells the story of Belgian judge Koen Aurousseau, who, as per Flanders Today, "was accused of physical assault and incitement to prostitution" in 1997. Following his conviction, Aurousseau found himself mired in a deep emotional and financial hole; his only source of support was his wife, Magda, the person who’d initially asked him to get involved in S&M sex practices.
“I heard on TV the other day that this is ‘the most controversial film of the year,’ Lamens is quoted [...]

AFI FEST 2009: Phone Sex Gets EASIER WITH PRACTICE

Brian Geraghty in Easier with Practice

Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s feature-film debut Easier with Practice, CineVegas Grand Jury Award winner and Best International Feature at the Edinburgh Film Festival, will screen at the AFI FEST 2009 on Wed., November 4, at 10 p.m.
Easier with Practice tells the story of a writer (Brian Geraghty of The Hurt Locker) who, in a desperate attempt to promote his still-unpublished novel, hits the road with his younger brother (Kel O’Neill) on a self-planned book tour. Things don’t go very well at first, but when out of the blue a sexy female voice calls the writer at his ordinary motel room — to ask what he’s wearing, no less — everything changes. The phoning couple [...]

Sasha Grey in THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE Photos

Set at the time of the 2008 US presidential elections, The Girlfriend Experience follows Manhattan escort Chelsea (21-year-old Sasha Grey, voted best female performer in XXX films last year), a savvy businesswoman who offers the "girlfriend experience" to her clients: dinner and movie dates, chats, sex — and even that most indecent of habits, kissing.
Sounds like fun? Perhaps it is, but then there’s both the boyfriend (Chris Santos) and a special writer (Philip Eytan) from Los Angeles.
Sounds decadent? Well, that’s nothing compared to the free fall of the global economy thanks to the (truly) obscene behavior of bankers and their politician-whores.
While the world financial markets crumble, Chelsea gets laid — and ponders about how to best invest [...]

CineKink NYC Calls for Entries

PRESS RELEASE
Scheduled for its seventh annual appearance February 16-21, 2010, CineKink NYC is seeking films and videos, of any length and genre, that explore and celebrate the wide diversity of sexuality. Billing itself as "the kinky film festival," organizers are looking to blur some boundaries and will be considering offerings drawn from both Hollywood and beyond, with works ranging from documentary to drama, camp comedy to hot porn, mildly spicy to quite explicit–and everything in between.
Presented by CineKink, an organization dedicated to the recognition and encouragement of sex-positive and kink-friendly depictions in film and television, the specially-curated festival will also feature a short film competition, audience choice awards, an adult entertainment showcase, presentations, parties and [...]

Penélope Cruz, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gael García Bernal Sign Polanski Petition

Actor Gael García Bernal, Academy Award-winning actress Penélope Cruz, veteran director Mario Monicelli, veteran screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr, and Academy Award-winning filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Ethan Coen are a few of the latest additions to the list of signatories demanding freedom for filmmaker Roman Polanski, currently being held by Swiss authorities.
Among the other new signatories of the petition organized by France’s Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD) are:
Author Ariel Dorfman; actor-screenwriter Buck Henry; composer Vangelis; actors Sylvia Kristel and Anne Consigny; filmmakers Fatih Akin, Juan Antonio Bayona, Djamel Bennecib, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Alain Berliner, Guillermo del Toro, Michel Deville, Sam Gabarski, Diane Kurys, Tonie Marshall, Brett Ratner, and Jerry Schatzberg; World Cinema Foundation director Kent [...]

Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch Sign Roman Polanski Petition

Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and Terry Gilliam have added their names to the petition, organized by France’s Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD), demanding the release of Palme d’Or and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski, currently in the custody of Swiss authorities.
In 1978, Polanski pleaded guilty to a charge of statutory rape (sex with a minor) of 13-year-old Samantha Gailey (now Geimer), whom he allegedly drugged before having sex with her against her will. Polanski, who at the time claimed that the sex was consensual and that he was led to believe that the 13-year-old was 18, reportedly fled the United States upon learning, after spending 42 days in prison, that [...]

Roman Polanski Arrested

Roman Polanski, who won a best director Oscar for the Holocaust drama The Pianist in 2003, was arrested at the Zurich airport last night. According to reports, the 76-year-old filmmaker could face extradition to the United States for charges of having sex with a minor in the late 1970s.
Polanski, who was in Switzerland to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival, was apparently arrested at the behest of the U.S. Justice Department, following a lead from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He would be held until a decision was made regarding his extradition to the US.
In 1977, Polanski was accused of using champagne and a Quaalude tablet to have sex with a 13-year-old [...]

Fetish Film Festival 2009

Modern Love Is Automatic by Zach Clark (top); The Pawn Layman by Frank-Peter Lenze (bottom)

Kiel’s Fetish Film Festival, which runs from Oct. 29-31 at the Traum-Kino in the northern German city, prides itself in presenting "the best in Fetish and BDSM" cinema.
Among the 2009 festival’s screening films are Zach Clark’s Modern Love Is Automatic, which follows a nurse (Melodie Sisk) working on the side as a professional dominatrix while facing some serious issues with her mattress-selling, supermodel-wannabe roommate (Maggie Ross); Frank-Peter Lenze’s short comedy The Pawn Layman, in which Katharina Wackernagel plays a professional Mistress who makes good (or bad?) use of a young man in desperate need of money; and Nick Broomfield’s 1996 documentary Fetishes, in [...]

BRÜNO in THE GUARDIAN

Steve Rose reviews Brüno in The Guardian:
"Brüno is funniest, though, when it’s at its most politically incorrect, especially when it comes to homosexuality. There’s an eye-popping montage of extreme gay sex practices (imaginary, one hopes), a surfeit of waving penises, dildos, fetish gear, anal bleaching, and an excruciating mime in which Brüno fellates the ghost of a deceased member of Milli Vanilli in front of a psychic.
"Much of it is unavoidably hilarious, but is he lampooning homophobia or perpetuating it?
"Either way, he gets away with a great deal simply by being a brilliant physical comedian. That should stand him in good stead."
***
The Guardian editorial:
"Everyone apart from fans of Germanic diacritical marks will find something to deplore in Sacha Baron Cohen’s [...]

Dustin Lance Black and Role Models

The fact that Dustin Lance Black will — at least for the time being — be better known for his sexual activities than for his Milk screenplay says more about our society (or societies, since the thing has gone global) than about Black himself, whose sex life — with or without condoms; with or without a camera — should be his business and nobody else’s.
Some have tried to turn the online leak of Black’s sex photos into something of momentous importance for gay rights, the spread of HIV, etc. In truth, except for Black and his sex partner those photos are irrelevant. Really, will anyone now decide to fight against marriage equality simply because of Black’s sexual life? Will gay [...]

Cannes 2009: Lars von Trier’s ANTICHRIST

Antichrist: Filmmaker Lars von Trier (top); Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe (bottom).
In this pyshcological horror-drama, a married couple struggles to come to terms with the accidental death of their son.

Wendy Ide in The [London] Times:
"Von Trier has moved away from the sparse, rough and ready work of the Dogme era and embraced a stylised and visually sumptuous look for Antichrist. The movie is packed with arresting and atmospheric images, some of which you’ll wish you could permanently erase from your memory.
"If von Trier’s issues with female sexuality have been evident in previous films, particularly Breaking the Waves and Dogville, in Antichrist he ups the ante, constructing a gender war of nuclear intensity between [...]

Nagisa Oshima at the American Cinematheque

“No other director of Oshima’s generation has made more vital, inventive and challenging films, or taken more risks. He is a giant in contemporary cinema.” – Tony Rayns
“Plainly the greatest living Japanese filmmaker.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum
“Japan’s greatest living filmmaker.” – J. Hoberman
Those in the Los Angeles area can judge for themselves as Nagisa Oshima is the subject of an eight-film series from April 23-26 at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The Oshima series is being presented in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (which will have its own Oshima series in May) and is co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation.
"I am not interested in making films that can be understood [...]

Luis Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA Screening

Viridiana, Luis Buñuel’s provocative 1961 Palme d’Or-winning classic proving that life is a bitch and then you play cards, will run at New York City’s Film Forum from Friday, April 24, through Thursday, April 30.
Inspired by a painting of Saint Viridiana kneeling on the floor before a crucifix and crown of thorns (and by Benito Pérez Galdós‘ novel Halma), co-written by Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, and financed by the lead actress’ rich husband, Viridiana stars Silvia Pinal (recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Ariel Award), as a pious young nun who, before entering a cloister, goes visit her strange and reclusive uncle (Fernando Rey). There, while trying to do Good, she befriends the [...]

Marilyn Chambers

Marilyn Chambers, known for her erotic films of the 1970s, died Sunday at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Canyon Country. She would have turned 57 on April 22. The cause of death is still unknown; Chambers was found by her daughter.
Born Marilyn Ann Taylor (or Marilyn Ann Briggs) in Westport, Connecticut, in 1952, former Ivory Snow soap-box girl Chambers became an adult-film superstar after appearing in the 1972 production Behind the Green Door, which became a sensation of sorts because the actress was seen having sex with a black man, Johnny Keyes. Directed by Artie and Jim Mitchell, Behind the Green Door became one of the first sexually explicit films to be widely released [...]

Michelle Pfeiffer in CHERI Trailer

Directed by Stephen Frears and adapted by Christopher Hampton from Colette’s novel, Chéri stars Michelle Pfeiffer as a 1920s French courtesan who teaches a young man (Rupert Friend) the ways of love and sex.
Also in the Chéri cast: Kathy Bates, Felicity Jones, Anita Pallenberg, Frances Tomelty.
Chéri opens in the US on June 26.
Official site.
 
Sacha Baron Cohen in BRUNO Trailer
Carmen Miranda Does "Cai, Cai" in THAT NIGHT IN RIO
Best Actress Oscar Winners – 1927/28-2007
Hattie McDaniel’s Oscar Acceptance Speech

SHALL WE KISS? – Q&A with Emmanuel Mouret

In Emmanuel Mouret’s quietly observant Un baiser s’il vous plaît / Shall We Kiss? (literally, "A Kiss, If You Please"), which opens today in Los Angeles, a young, good-looking couple, Émilie and Gabriel (Julie Gayet and Michaël Cohen), meet accidentally and are just about ready to go for some physical intimacy when Judith decides to tell Gabriel a story. See, she’s in a relationship. But then again, so is he.
Well, the story in question is about another young, good-looking couple, Judith and Nicolas (Virginie Ledoyen, Mouret, top photo) who broke the barriers of social conventions and personal trust — Judith was married — by kissing one another. But it was all for a [...]

Jack Wrangler

Jack Wrangler, the blond, handsome 1970s sex star — and a lifelong smoker — has died from complications of lung disease in Manhattan. He was 62.
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, a documentary chronicling Wrangler’s life and career — including his marriage to big-band singer Margaret Whiting — was released last fall. Earlier this week, Wrangler was screened at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.
“Jack Wrangler knew the power of image-making and inspired an entire generation to be comfortable in their own skin and to become the man of their dreams,” said the film’s director, Jeffrey Schwarz.
According to Schwarz, Wrangler wasn’t sure about being the subject of a documentary.
"Are you sure people will [...]

AMERICAN SWING: Q&A with Co-Director Jon Hart

Jon Hart and Mathew Kaufman’s entertaining documentary American Swing chronicles the rise and fall of Larry Levenson, whose nightclub & sex club Plato’s Retreat became, along with Studio 54, one of the top New York City hangouts of the late 1970s.
Jon Hart (right) has kindly answered (via e-mail) a few brief questions about American Swing. See below.
American Swing is currently playing at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood.
Photos: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
 
How difficult (or easy) was it to get all those people who had worked at or gone to Plato’s Retreat to be so candid about their experiences at the club? Did you run into many who refused to discuss the past?
Almost everyone was extremely apprehensive about being [...]

Sacha Baron Cohen in BRÜNO Trailer

Written by Sacha Baron Cohen and directed by Dan Mazer, Brüno stars Cohen as a flamboyant Austrian fashionista who, in his desire to become "the biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler," decides to launch himself in the United States, adopting an African baby (à la Madonna) in the process while trying to pass for straight.
As a result of several sex scenes, Brüno has been slapped with a NC-17 rating in the US. I don’t believe anyone was surprised. Its distributor, Universal, will now have to trim the sex bits in order to get the mockumentary an R rating. Apparently, one sequence involves anal intercourse, the sort of stuff that drives the MPAA censors wild. That and the other soon-to-be-cut [...]

AMERICAN SWING d: Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart

American Swing (2009)
Direction: Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart
Screenplay: Keith Reamer
Interviewees: Buck Henry, Annie Sprinkle, Melvin van Peebles, Ron Jeremy, Jamie Gillis, Helen Gurley Brown, and others
 

 
By way of interviews, photos, and home movies, Mathew Kaufman and journalist Jon Hart’s American Swing humorously chronicles the rise and fall of all-American entrepreneur Larry Levenson, free-sex advocate and self-proclaimed "King of Swing," while painting a nostalgic — though hardly all-flattering — portrait of the heyday of Plato’s Retreat, New York City’s foremost sex club-disco of the late 1970s.
Earlier in the decade, wholesale meat purveyor Larry Levenson had decided to reinvent himself as a Sexual Liberation Messiah. Even so, it’s debatable whether Levenson actually saw himself as a Man with [...]

DEBAUCHED DESIRES: Four Erotic Masterpieces by Masaru Konuma

PRESS RELEASE
Kino International and KimStim are proud to release the four-DVD set Debauched Desires: Four Erotic Masterpieces by Masaru Konuma.
Directed by the master of Japanese erotic cinema Masaru Konuma, CLOISTERED NUN: RUNA’S CONFESSION (1976), TATTOOED FLOWER VASE (1976), EROTIC DIARY OF AN OFFICE LADY (1977) and a re-mastered version of WIFE TO BE SACRIFICED (1975) are now available in one four-DVD set at the reduced price of $49.95. Previously, each of these films was available at $29.95.
The street date for Debauched Desires: Four Erotic Masterpieces by Masaru Konuma is May 19, 2009.
"Stylishly directed and singularly harrowing" (Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia), these four films are classic examples of pink cinema, a style of Japanese, softcore theatrical films which was common in the [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: Fred Halsted, THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Friday, March 27, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

The Naked Civil Servant

Directed by:
Jack Gold

Cast:
John Hurt, Liz Gebhardt, Patricia Hodge

Country:
UK

Year:
1975

Running time:
85min

 
This dramatization of Quentin [Crisp]’s first volume of autobiography won BAFTAs for its director Jack Gold and its star. John Hurt gives a dazzling performance as the young Quentin, a flame-haired flamboyant homosexual when such things were not permitted. It contains much of the wit and wisdom of Quentin and celebrates a life lived in a refusal to conform. The highlight is Quentin’s impassioned speech from the dock when charged with soliciting for an immoral purpose.
Plus an interview with Bernard Braden filmed in 1967. Previously [...]

OTTO; OR, UP WITH DEAD PEOPLE, THE LARAMIE PROJECT Offend

Tina O’Grady, a member of the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s "cultural competency initiative" was scolded by her boss after co-workers complained about an e-mail she had forwarded promoting the gay-themed Out@Wex Film Festival in Columbus.
As per the Columbus Dispatch, O’Grady’s co-workers seemed to be particularly offended by the festival’s description of Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or, Up With Dead People in its release. Otto is summed up as an "art-porn provocation [that] depicts an explosion of cannibalistic, sodomy-seeking zombies in Berlin."
What exactly in that sentence — art, porn, provocation, explosion, cannibalism, sodomy, zombies, Berlin — offended some of the Ohio Department of Public Safety workers remains unclear.
The judges at the Milan International Lesbian and [...]

Salvatore Samperi

Director Salvatore Samperi, the maestro dell’erotismo all’italiana best known for the 1973 social/sex comedy Malizia / Malicious (above), died on March 4 in Bracciano, near Rome. He was 64.
Invariably pushing the boundaries of the socially — and erotically — acceptable by the hypocritical, image-conscious bourgeoisie in Italy and elsewhere, the Padua-born (July 26, 1944), former left-wing militant tackled subjects that American movies, with rare exceptions, wouldn’t dare get close to then or now.

For instance, Grazie, Zia / Thank You, Aunt (above, 1968), his feature-film debut (inspired by mentor Marco Bellocchio’s I Pugni in tasca / Fist in His Pocket), tells the story of a wealthy young man (Fist in His Pocket leading man Lou Castel) who [...]

CineKink NYC 2009

When a film festival’s community sponsors have names such as DDevious Delights, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Gay Male S/M Activists, Leather Invasion, Lesbian Sex Mafia, the film festival in question must be CineKink NYC, currently taking place at the Anthology Film Archives, at 32 Second Avenue & 2nd St. in New York City.
Among the screening films are Daryl Wein’s documentary Sex Positive, about an early AIDS activist; Robert Pratten’s horror thriller Mindflesh; a shorts program called — I kid you not — "Whips & Restraint"; the documentary Graphic Sexual Horror; and the sex-film industry parody The Auteur, which happens to be the only film among those listed that I’ve seen. (The best thing about [...]

Next Page →

Recently Posted

• Chicago Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
• AFI FEST 2009: THE LAST STATION, AFTER.LIFE
• AFI FEST 2009 Awards
• AFI FEST 2009: POLICE, ADJECTIVE; TO DIE LIKE A MAN
• Grace Kelly: TO CATCH A THIEF, THE SWAN
• Grace Kelly on TCM
• AFI FEST 2009: A SINGLE MAN, THE SINGULARITY
• AFI FEST 2009: THE ROAD, EASIER WITH PRACTICE
• Academy Awards $450,000 to US Film Festivals
• Oscar-Winning Filmmakers Mark Jonathan Harris, Tracy Seretean at Academy Screening

Most Popular Tags

2008 Oscar Academy Awards Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Animation Best Films Books Box Office Brokeback Mountain Censorship Classic Movies Daniel Day-Lewis Documentaries DVDs Film Awards Film Festivals Film Reviews Gay Film Festivals Gay Interest Gay Movies Heath Ledger Helen Mirren Interviews London Film Festival London Film Festival 2009 Los Angeles Screenings Martin Scorsese Meryl Streep New York Screenings No Country for Old Men Oscar Movies Photos Political Movies Politics Sex Shorts Silent Films Slumdog Millionaire Sundance Film Festival Trailers Turner Classic Movies


Related Posts

CineKink NYC Calls for EntriesCineKink NYC 2008LIBERTY IN RESTRAINT Screening in New York CityTony Comstock CineKink ScreeningsCineKink Goes to WashingtonSXSW Film Festival 2009: Documentary Feature Competition