'Love And Saucers' (2017) Movie Review

Earnest is the best way to describe David Huggins. He’s an affable elder gentleman who works part time in a Hoboken deli, spends his spare time painting, and, oh yeah, lost his virginity to an extraterrestrial. Documentaries are often only as interesting as their subjects, and Brad Abrahams’ Love and Saucers: The Far Out World of David Huggins certainly has an eccentric focus.

'The Duke Of Burgundy' Movie Review: A Small Story About Extremes

Forget 50 Shades of Grey, the erotic thriller you need to watch this month is Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy. The Berberian Sound Studio director is back with another lush, giallo-inspired offering that brings along a fair amount of Hammer influences just for the hell of it. Every syllable uttered, every frame of film, is sexually charged and full of meaning.

This 'R100' Clip Teaches You Not To Take Your Dominatrix Out For Coffee

I think the title of this clip from R100 says it all: “Never take a dominatrix out for coffee.” That’s a lesson the man in this clip from Hitoshi Matsumoto’s latest learns the hard way. We won’t spoil it for you, but when you sign up for a year-long dominatrix service that you can’t cancel, one that specializes in humiliating you in very public fashion, you should probably know what you’re getting yourself into. This is definitely one that you need to check out.

Blu-Ray Review: 'Spartacus: War Of The Damned'

The Starz Channel’s “Spartacus” may only have lasted for three seasons and a prequel miniseries, but they sure did manage to cram the show with enough blood, boobs, butts, and slow motion to last you at least one lifetime, maybe more. Now the final season, “Spartacus: War of the Damned,” is out on Blu-ray so that you can relive every last gore soaked frame and exposed nipple. Fans will already know what to expect, there is a certain formula the series follows, one that works very well for their purposes, and they don’t deviate from that here. That isn’t meant to sound derogatory in anyway, the show has always been a gleeful amount of fun, and that definitely continues through until the end.

'The To Do List' Movie Review

 

Maggie Carrie’s “The To Do List” aims to do for teen sex comedies what “Bridesmaids” does for the bachelor party film, and “The Heat” does for buddy cop movies. It takes a well-worn, male dominated genre, and tells that same story, only this time from a female perspective. And it’s really god damn funny to boot, which, for a movie like this, means that it’s mostly successful. Trying to do something different is laudable, but if this movie doesn’t make you laugh above everything else, and question the taste of everyone involved, then what the hell is the point?

'Spring Breakers' Movie Review

Admittedly I’m having a difficult time sorting through my feelings about “Spring Breakers.” To call it half incredible and half annoying sounds hyperbolic and doesn’t tell you anything real about the film, but walking out of the theater, that sums up my reaction. If it feels like indie auteur Harmony Korine (“Kids,” “Gummo,” “Trash Humpers”) made a modern sexploitation movie about bikini girls with machine guns in the vein of a Monte Hellman flick, then you’d be right, because that’s precisely what this is. The film alternately screams and whispers “Spring Break,” in both a literal and metaphorical sense, for the entire run time.

'Shame' Movie Review

Sitting in the theater watching Steve McQueen’s (“Hunger”) new film, the sexually charged “Shame”, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Outside after the screening, another reviewer asked what I thought.  Seems like a straightforward enough question, but in trying to quantify my experience I froze, mouth open like a slack-jawed idiot.  He took my hesitation to mean that I didn’t like “Shame”.  He said he liked it a great deal, and we wandered down the escalator and out into the harsh light of day. 

DVD Review: 'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena'

It feels strange to write a review of “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena” right now, just a short few days after the untimely passing of actor Andy Whitfield, who played the titular gladiator in “Spartacus: Blood and Sand”, the series that preceded “Gods of the Arena”. Despite the absence of Spartacus, and Whitfield, in “Gods of the Arena”, he looms in the background, largely because if not for Whitfield’s well-publicized battle with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, the six-episode mini-series likely wouldn’t have happened. When Whitfield was originally diagnosed he stepped down from the show, a huge hit for the Starz network. While producers of the show frantically searched for a new leading man, eventually selecting Liam McIntyre, the idea for “Gods of the Arena” first came about. It will be curious how the series carries on without Whitfield. The more I watched “Blood and Sand”, the more he carried the bulk of the workload, and he will be missed.

'Elephant White' Movie Review

Prachya Pinkaew is largely responsible for some of the best martial arts movies in recent memory. Films like “Ong Bak”, “Tom Yum Goong” (aka “The Protector”), and “Chocolate” are full to overflowing with flying knees, spinning elbows, and basically crazy Muay Thai freaks doing insane stunts, and that’s what makes them great. His latest movie, “Elephant White”, is his first English-language feature, and has just been released direct to video.

DVD/Blu-ray Review: 'Blue Valentine'

“Blue Valentine” garnered a great deal of buzz in December 2010 when it was slapped with an NC-17 rating. Eventually the Weinstein Company managed to release is with an R rating without having to make any cuts to the film. I honestly don’t see what the big deal was about, the sex scenes that were cited in the original ruling are way less graphic, and way more tame than what you get in a lot of standard R movies. The discussion about the arbitrary nature of the ratings system is a topic for another time, but “Blue Valentine” is now out on DVD and Blu-ray, so if you, like me, missed out on the theatrical release, you can check it out and judge for yourself.

'Swedish Sensationsfilms: A Clandestine History of Sex, Thrillers, and Kicker Cinema' Book Review

When you think of Sweden you probably imagine the picturesque Scandinavian countryside, universal healthcare, and buxom young blond women, who, at least as portrayed by every sitcom of the 1980, are ditzy and easy. What you may not know, however, is that Sweden also has a long history of underground, sex fueled, out of control sexploitation films. In 1911 Sweden established the world’s first national film censorship board, which set off a century long battle between proprietors of sleaze and mayhem, the public, and the government.