Perhaps it was because I was stuck watching The Last Tango in Paris last night but I've got a little deviant streak in me and unfortunately for John, I've got the certification.

Breathe.

I probably won't sodomize him, but after forcing me to watch Marlon Brando rape a girl in the ass using butter for lubricant, I have to say, I have a hankering to do so.

Can someone tell me what makes this movie so "spectacular", so "top 100 movies you have see before you die" listworthy? I thought it was pure shit...I also thought the poor lead girl who was constantly naked while chunky Brando always had sex with his clothes on (except once), looked exactly like Marc Bolan (T. Rex). I love T. Rex, so that was the only bonus...I kept turning to John and saying, "I wish one of them would just get hit by a car so that I can go to bed!" Unfortunately, the conclusion took place long after the "last tango".

Last night I sat with a hand clasped over my one eye as I watched John's movie pick of the evening. He read the synopsis as he took the DVD out of the envelope, "

A lonely and dejected woman (Amira Casar) learns that only when all inhibitions are cast aside will she be able to truly understand the truth about how men see women in this erotically charged exploration of sexuality from controversial director Catherine Breillat. Teetering on the edge of overwhelming ennui, the woman pays a man (Rocco Siffredi) to join her for a daring, four-day exploration of sexuality in which both reject all convention and smash all boundaries while locked away from society in an isolated estate. Only when the man and woman confront the most unspeakable aspects of their sexuality will they have a pure understanding of how the sexes view one another" ( Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide).

I wasn't afraid to watch the screen, as my hand over my eye suggested--I have pink eye and my eye was so light sensitive I felt like a mole. I know it's hot. You don't even need to tell me, because I KNOW. I had to smack John away because he was so turned on by my eye (not really, in fact, I think he avoided looking at my face yesterday altogether). John reading the plot outline made me forget about my horrid eye and made me laugh. I mocked him, as he mocked me when I picked up Notes on a Scandal... and I said, "Gee, that sounds awfully titilating John...kind of like porn!" He turned toward me solemnly and pointed the DVD at me and said, "It's a french film, so it's classy." Boy was it ever not classy...I don't want to ruin too much for you if you want to see it--it is actually a worthy film to see if you can handle it. But after this movie you'll equate steeping your tea with using a tampax. Sound cryptic? Perhaps it is. The director obviously had menstruation on the mind. Oh and it's safe to say that you'll probably be put on a government list after viewing it...for reasons I really don't want to get into...probably the only unnecessary part of the 77 minute film.

John and I joined the world of Blockbuster Online, kind of like the younger, much cooler little sister of Netflix. You create a queue online and then you can return the movies in the store and get a free rental for each movie you return to the store. As soon as you do, they ship your next three movies (almost) immediately. Because of this, we've become movie freaks; we loaded the queue with every movie we've ever wanted to see (bad or good) and once we get it in our hot little hands, we put it into the DVD, riding on a wing and a prayer. I've decided because of all the movies that we've been watching while we "fork on the couch" that I will start doing regular movie reviews. After this somewhat long list of movies to review, I will only review three movies at a time. Hopefully, I will become a little more skilled in my ability to talk about a movie's plot, my opinion and the actors' abilities as I go. Right now, I'm definitely a novice!! These are obviously my own opinions, and I've decided to give a two to four sentence review for each movie and then give it an official Gummi Bear Head Rating aka GBH (copyright pending). One GBH= total suckfest to Five GBH=the most awesome dryhumpfest you ever had before you lost your virginity (pretend you don't know what I mean, go ahead...I dare you. Oh and I'm sure that Siskel (rest his soul) and Ebert wish they would've thought of this rating scheme first!)

Let's begin!

PS. John, may chime in on here with his own (differing) opinions, as he is now a "team member" of this blog. He'll probably use a different font color, if he has time...*edit* he's informed me that he's going to do a "thumbs up haiku" segment, so we'll see.


Feast
This is a product of Project Greenlight; it should've been a product of Project Redlight. John refers to this movie as the "Gay Henry Rollins Movie", I concur. It has a bit of potential but the horrible "hide the monster" effects are so distracting that you want to bang your head on the TV screen and pray for the movie to end. We both feel asleep while people were (supposedly) getting their heads ripped off their bodies in what I guess was supposed to be a tongue in cheek gorefest. GBH rating=1


The Machinist
Christian Bale is yummy, yummy,yummy...but not in this movie. He actually reaches my goal weight of 119 (which I will never ever see) as he attempts to overcome paranoia, sleep a little (he hasn't slept in a year), settle down with a lovely Jennifer Jason Leigh, figure out who Ivan is while also attempting to figure out who is leaving him weird hangman notes. The movie is good, that being said, it moves very slowly. Not everyone will like this movie, but I did, however--it's a one watch only! I've seen the movie before and tried to watch it with John this time around and I ended up doing laundry. It's kind of in the same vein of Memento. GBH rating= 4.0

Ulli Lommel's Black Dahlia
I was able to watch thirty seconds of this movie before I turned to John and said, "My life is too short to watch this movie" and I ripped it out of the DVD player. The first 30 seconds were wretched. The rental itself was an accident, as we meant to get De Palma's Black Dahlia. GBH rating= (while unfair) .5

The Night Listener
I'm not a big fan of Robin Williams outside of Mork and Mindy, Awakenings and yes, I liked Dead Poets Society, but I wanted to give this movie a chance. Robin Williams' character is a writer/radio personality who tells his tales in serial format in a show that airs at night. He is contacted by a collegue who has a book written by an extremely young boy (I think 14) called the "Blacking House" which is filled with sexual abuse at the hands of his parents (amongst others). The boy wants to talk with Gabriel (Williams' character) and they form a relationship where they speak on a daily basis. The identity of the boy and the existence of the boy comes into question and that's where the movie "takes off". To be fair, I liked the premise of the movie; I thought the acting was well done--but for some reason (it could be as simple as personal preference), I didn't end up caring enough about the characters to really follow the movie that closely. Ultimately, I think it's rentable but it's not a griping thriller (which again, I don't think it's meant to be a griping thriller, it's meant to make us thing about identity, our interactions with people and how much influence we have on the tapestry of our own personal narrative). GBH rating= (very tough...) 3.5 (sorry...that was a long one!!)

Cache
(Hidden)(Subtitled) This is a french film about regret and how painful and lingering lies can be. I believe this was meant to be high art, there isn't a lot going on in the plot but the meaning hits home. There is one moment of the movie where both John and I jumped from the couch our legs all akimbo and mouths agape...this one moment made the movie worth it for me. GBH rating=3.0

Audition
(subtitled)
Actually it a movie called Odishon. This is a Japanese movie about a man who is lonely. His wife has been dead for several years and he wishes to remarry. Uncomfortable with the dating scene, his friend who is a television show producer, allows him to run a fake audition to meet potential brides. Without giving anything away, I will say that this movie is not for the squeamish but I thought it was excellent. The development of Japanese widower and the woman of his affections was extremely well done as were the moments outside of reality towards the end of the movie.
GBH rating= 4.5

We also went to the movies and saw this:

Pan's Labrynth
(Laberinto del Fauno, El)
The movie takes place in rural Spain where a little girl travels with her pregnant mother to live with her new step father who is a general in Franco's army. Ofelia (the little girl) creates a world of fantasy (or does this world truly exist??) to exist beyond the world of her terrifyingly brutal step father, the strange surroundings and her helplessness. The world she creates is no less dark than the one in which she lives but it is an escape nonetheless. It's hard to talk about this movie without talking about it. I would recommend this movie highly. GBH=5.0


Next up? Throne of Blood, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Videodrome

I wasn't expecting it to be good. But I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. (Don't read this if you want to see the movie...there aren't really "spoilers" per se, but I do talk about the plot (or lack thereof) a bit.

OK let's start at the beginning. Back when I was just a wee child Don Johnson (Sonny to you) and I had a one sided love affair. He was all like, "Melina, I love you...even though you're a mere five or six years old, I have high hopes for you...and see, I cultivated Melanie Griffith into the fine young woman that she is starting at the age of 15." (Don was a bit of a pervert) And I was like, "Yeah, whatever" and gave him the "talk to the hand" move long before it was popular. At least that's how I remember the story going. My mom and dad remember it otherwise. They would tell you that whenever Miami Vice came on the television that I would sit inches away from the screen and when Don would come onto the screen I would attempt to make out with him by licking and sucking on the glass. (This was when my dad knew there was going to be a lot "boy trouble" in our future...since I was a super horny five year old. Let's not even discuss what I would do when Dukes of Hazzard was on!) So, on with the story.

John and I went to Blockbuster, (the mecca of sucky movies all lined up like ducks ready to be shot down in a game of Duck Hunt) and saw Miami Vice beckoning us. I looked at the DVD case. Colin Ferrel (l?) looked hot in a smarmy way with his sun (peroxide) streaked longish hair and his little furry caterpillar of a 'stache. I instantly wanted to rent this movie, I could feel it in my loins! John saw the words ACTION and he was just excited that I didn't try to talk him into renting The Notebook (I'm sorry, I'm human, I'm fallible and I love that movie even though I LOATHE Nicholas Sparks and all that he represents in his formulaic and ridiculous little tales that everyone calls a "best seller"). So we trotted home content. John got action, I was going to see Colin and then John was sure to be getting action afterwards.

The tape sat around the house. It was kicked under the coffee table, hidden under bills and Christmas cards. It was almost as if...we had regretted renting the movie...could we be a slight bit psychic?? I hope so!! I can see our 900 number commercial, ** dream sequence music here** John has a long prairie skirt on, a kerchief on his head and he shouts in his fake Jamaican accent, "Calll me nnnnow!"*** dream sequence over*** let's let bitter reality wash over us.

We put Miami Vice into the DVD player and almost instantly we were lost. Most of the time we couldn't understand what people were saying because--as John put it--"we just aren't cool enough". Jamie Foxx (Tubbs, to you...Jamie to moi) abbreviated nearly every other word in each uninspired sentence he dribbled out of his mouth. We learned (after rewinding and practicing our fake Cuban/Puerto Rican/too cool for school accents) that the boys were going to be hunting down some no good drug dealing skinheads. Skinheads? Really?? Maybe I shouldn't be saying this but aren't skinheads about as passe as say...stirrup pants? I dunno. But then, a twist! We abandoned the skinheads to hit up the "real drug operation". Cue lack of action for about 20 mins here.

Lots of stuff doesn't happen for a while, and Colin falls in love with an Asian woman who grew up in Havana with her doctor mother. A woman he should definitely not fall in love with as he is a vice cop (and for this movie's purposes, a deputized federal agent)--that's all I'll say about that, I guess that was supposed to be our "complication". In truth, it was complicated because the lovely Asian woman was very hard to understand because her accent was marbly and weird--or I'm an ignoramus, which I'm not discounting. Somehow after sex a few times, Colin falls in love with her...or at least his penis has a protective feeling about her. I'm not sure why because I've had hotter sex with myself than what I saw on my small screen (from either Jamie or Colin)--muy disappointanto (or disappointing...whatever, I never took Spanish, it seemed too practical).

And that's where I'll stop because I don't want to "ruin" the ending for you--because lordy! it was a hum dinger of an ending (not at all...I'm just being nice to Colin and Jamie).

And that's how my love of Miami Vice was dashed upon the rocks of Havana and the docks of Miami within the privacy of my own home. The next time I'm out of Nyquil, I will race to Blockbuster and put Col and Jame into the DVD player and drift peacefully off to Nodsville, sure there was a little gunfire (In fact, at one point I yelled, "It was an unimpressive firefight!" ala Willam Dafoe in Boondock Saints). That was the only source amusement throughout the entire film.

For the love of all that's holy and holey, never rent this movie.
Colin, I forgive you. All my love, Melina

I'm in a posting mood today because it's that time of year again when I become a depressed little girl and this is when I typically curl up in a ball and watch really deep movies, take notes on them--write...tonight however, I'm not watching a deep movie at all. Do you remember that 80's movie,Some Kind of Wonderful with Eric Stoltz and Lea Thompson? Probably not, and I'm not suggesting anyone run out and rent it (although it's kind of funny to see the guy who plays Stabler on Law and Order:SVU play a biker/skin head of sorts). Well I'm watching that movie and just being dumb and thinking about the one time I've actually been in love...I mean really in love; and I wonder if that experience has totally warped me for eternity. I hope not...but you never know. I'm not typically the type of girl to get hung up on a guy. They come, they go and I'm happy--but V could've stayed forever. The nice thing about him was that he helped to improve every aspect of my life...the bad thing was, I obviously didn't improve his very much. Ah well--I wanted to talk about it but I don't want to go into any detail because it's embarrassing. It truly was a time (afterwards) when I clearly slipped off the deep end...not like boil your bunny crazy, but the "I''m going to die alone and no one is ever going to fill a space in my heart like this again" moping. Not that I might not potentially die alone, but at least I'll have few friends filling my bed before I go. I gave up on love and I believe it gave up on me...so lust and I became happy bedfellows. That probably explains the most of it. I'm sure I'll post more before the evenings over...I'm feeling maudlin.