Defend the Indefensible: psychologically raw films about sexual obsession

the dreamers = shit
nine songs = shit

I don't have the faintest what "cauterizing the senses" might involve but relationships that 1) were genuinely dangerous to my physical health and 2) did a fucking number on my identity, umm, yeah, anybody who hasn't had one or two of those hasn't really lived IMO

-- J0hn D., Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:32 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

OTM

OTOH trying to make a movie about that kind of experience is obviously a nonstarter

-- J0hn D., Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:33 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

OTM

don't forget 9 1/2 weeks.

what about Annie Hall?

Well I can certainly get on board with that. I think this is just a case where the conventions of narrative film are wholly inadequate to express what the filmmakers are trying to express and that they'd be much better off sticking to more non-representational forms.

xxxxpost

I am going to make one of these movies. It will be called An Excuse for Fucking.

i've dated crazy and been off the charts depressed because of it too. funny how the movies about this kind of experience never dramatize the crucial events: the long sequence of moments when you get the f out of that situation and finally forget about it.

i'm being a dick on this thread but hint hint i think there's something really suspect about this genre. there's a consistent misrepresentational through-line to all of them, and the attitude to sex and attraction itself really myopic and hateful

high brow tit flicks are okay

celebrity breast!

Celebreast

Night Porter worked out OK

the sequel to 9 1/2 weeks is beyond retarded

night porter is great!

i dont know, i find the idea of fucking immigrants a great plot twist - can't wait to see this film!

i suspect the problem with these movies is often that the director can't resist casting the most fuckable woman he can, regardless of whether or not she can act - which explains why night porter and the last mistress both manage to evade lameness and are in fact both great

high brow tit flicks are okay

yeh see? imagine a breezy, sun-dappled comedy where naomi watts takes her shirt off. you can't really, it could never exist. these movies are prurient garbage.

i've got ai no corrida in my netflix queue, guess i'll add night porter as well.

haha who's even in 10 1/2 weeks?

The film spawned two direct-to-video sequels, Another 9½ Weeks in 1997 and The First 9½ Weeks in 1998.

I hate movies where people have sex, and then SUFFER for it. It's just puritanism in disguise.

i liked in the cut

but it was more like In the Cunt, amirite?

akm I did see that one and it was pretty light on the psychology, I have to sa

y

imagine a breezy, sun-dappled comedy where naomi watts takes her shirt off. you can't really, it could never exist.

french movies to thread?

What, like Belle du Jour?

the sequel to 9 1/2 weeks is beyond retarded

if Adrian Lyne had actually directed a sequel to 9 1/2 weeks and called it Beyond Retarded he would be officially the greatest man of all times

tbh the conjection of the name "naomi watts" with "breezy" and "sun-dappled" and "shirt off" is causing my entire brain to seize up completely

i cunt even spell right

Most of these films are a step away from Skinamax, admittedly. I don't watch most of them because they embarrass me, even if I'm watching them with my wife. Even Swimming Pool made me uncomfortable (also, it sucked).

yes this is kind of an american pathology, but those people eat snails dude

i will grant you that the french definition of "comedy" often looks suspiciously like "cruel weirdness"

nothing wrong with films of this type, a lot of them are great.

I really rate Tinto Brass, who usually gets lumped in with this stuff, but his work contains no inexplicable misery - or puritanism - whatsoever.

http://www.reelingreviews.com/eaglevssharkpic.jpg

worst movie i have ever seen ^

imagine a breezy, sun-dappled comedy where naomi watts takes her shirt off. you can't really, it could never exist.

im just glad we can all agree on this breezy, sun-dappled comedy where naomi watts takes her shirt off and that vera farmiga looks exactly like marilyn manson

what is that still from?

oh I found it never mind

"the piano teacher" is good but it is strange even for haneke and strange even in the context of most of the films here (besides "ai no corrida"). i liked "in the cut" but i wouldn't try to defend it.

films about sexual obsessions can be good if the sex is only an excuse for a more profound idea.
such is the case of Last Tango, that though it aged, still has it's powers and Kubrick's Lolita,(or Nabokov's one) for example.

someone just tell me what movies with sex are legitimately good so i can have an excuse to watch them

The Idiots by Von Trier imo

john d madly otm.

a dangerous, unstable love affair that challenges identities and cauterizes the senses

News item: Relationships make you crazy. Sex makes you crazy. Shit gets intense. Regrets, had a few.

Have I ever engaged in ugly, repeated consensual rape with an anonymous French girl in an empty apartment because I'm trying to hurt myself because I am wracked with guilt and in the middle of a complete emotional meltdown because my mentally ill wife just committed messy suicide? No. No I have not. I cannot tell a lie. But I don't see how a movie about same is indefensible.

The Idiots was pretty awesome.

the thing is, Tango has more to what youve just said.otherwise it would be as bad as 9 and a half weeks\

xpost

someone just tell me what movies with sex are legitimately good so i can have an excuse to watch them

Eyes Wide Shut - but the actual sexing is separated from the character whose obsession we're following (or simply covered up in the American version)

I don't have the faintest what "cauterizing the senses" might involve but relationships that 1) were genuinely dangerous to my physical health and 2) did a fucking number on my identity 3) involved ugly, repeated consensual rape with an anonymous French girl in an empty apartment because I'm trying to hurt myself because I am wracked with guilt and in the middle of a complete emotional meltdown because my mentally ill wife just committed messy suicide, umm, yeah, anybody who hasn't had one or two of those hasn't really lived IMO

-- J0hn D., Tuesday, May 27, 2008 6:32 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

OTM

Are we talking about Crash here? I thought that was legit...well almost. The Idiots was great, it was fantastic. I can't explain why though.
Zeno sums it up.

plus The Dreamers, which is THE WORST MOVIE EVER

I think I liked this.

Idiots is the ultimate rebel against bourgeoisie and praising the individualism movie, thats why

xpost

i have seen this fear

It's like Urban Outfitters and the Gap fighting for this teenage girl's soul.

quite a roller coaster ride, as i recall

zactly, my man, that's a good sex scene.

i need to see late marriage again. not that it really belongs on this thread

woah it's molly parker in center of the world?! that's goin on the q

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"You want real? This movie shows you real." ... Read More

A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"The self-consciously rough, low-budget surface of The Center of the World can't disguise the slick cheapness at its heart." ... Read More

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"Mindless and prurient." ... Read More

i just netflixed it.

xp (late marriage)

"Center of the World" is credited From A Story By Wang, Miranda July, Paul Auster And Siri Hustvedt.

because of the Miranda July

woah it's molly parker in center of the world?! that's goin on the q

-- gff, Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:14 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i know i know the widow garret omg rawr

what's great about the sex scenes in Don't Look Now isn't the sex itself so much as how its positioned as a fond immediate memory Christie and Sutherland have as they're getting dressed afterward.

xpost

obv. we have two topics going here -- that of the thread title and just non-porn movies with interesting sex scenes

haha apptly molly parker has a whole career of this stuff

Kissed (1996)
Ever since she was a young girl, Sandra Larson (Molly Parker) has been fascinated with the darkness of death. But when she takes a part-time job as an embalmer at a funeral parlor, her obsession with the afterlife and the study of necrophilia begins to consume her every desire. As her boyfriend (Peter Outerbridge) struggles to relate to her new lifestyle, he jumps through hoops to prove he'll do anything for love.

Bliss (1997)
Joseph (Craig Sheffer) and Maria (Sheryl Lee) are a young married couple in serious trouble. Although they love each other, Maria has difficulty opening up to Joseph, and, after 6 months of marriage, he makes the unhappy discovery that she's been unable to have an orgasm with him. Enter Balthazar (Terence Stamp), an unlicensed sex therapist who agrees to initiate Joseph into the mysteries of tantric sex that could save his marriage.

In the Shadows (1999)
Cash-strapped waitress Cynthia (Molly Parker) takes a job caring for moneyed cancer patient Eleanor Dunston (Joely Richardson). When she shows an interest in Cynthia's boyfriend, Buck (Aden Young), Cynthia persuades him to pose as her half brother so he can seduce the dying woman into leaving him her fortune. Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

Suspicious River (2000)
A fatalistic hotel receptionist (Molly Parker) who exhibits many self-destructive tendencies is compulsively drawn into a dark netherworld of crime. After playing the prostitute to several willing guests in the hotel where she works, she spirals into a heated romance with a sadistic lodger who allows her to be gang-raped. Soon, it seems that her behavior might lead her to the same fate as her mother, who was brutally murdered.

jesus christ

Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

wow

ha

http://bestmessageboardever.com/style_images/1/folder_post_icons/icon74.gifhttp://bestmessageboardever.com/style_images/1/folder_post_icons/icon74.gifhttp://bestmessageboardever.com/style_images/1/folder_post_icons/icon74.gif
Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

totally. molly parker is terrible.

that list is like everything wrong with english-canadian cinema

still, would smash

BLISS is a movie every couple, married or not, should see to better improve their relationship with their partner on not only a sexual level, but an emotional and spiritual level as well. Many viewers will not go beyond the initial subject of sexual abuse plot setup and thus will miss the pure meat of this film. After the introduction of the sex therapist, dramatic and subtle secrets are revealed on how to woo and keep a partner intimately aroused. Anyone who has engaged in tantric sex knows that there is more to "the act" than just a localized feeling...that it can be experienced with the total body and for absolute endless hours! This is not orgy, but is rather arrived at with a slow hand and a controlled spirit. This is the first movie to delve into the God Power of the sexual act. Brilliantly written, exquisitely filmed, and supurbly acted, I would say this is one of my most treasured & recommended films.

107 out of 123 people found this review helpful.

shes good in deadwood

The mixed reviews say more about the viewers than the film. First, this is a film with sex in it, not a sex flick. It has excellent cinematography, score, acting, production values. And yes, a handful of sex scenes. The sex is grown-up, hot, emotional, and intense, but not explicit (no genitals). In short, it is serious. Can you handle it? Get past the sex to really appreciate it. I say rare because few films can handle sex directly without being voyeuristic or falling back to violence or juvenile humor to defuse the tension. Four stars for this film, and an extra one for breaking the tired old mold.

51 out of 55 people found this review helpful.

I think that if men could understand the deeper levels of sexuality that this movie demonstrates, there would be fewer divorces.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I know some of you disagree, but Bitter Moon is a terrible entry in this genre.

OK there the NFT over here appear to be doing a whole season of this stuff.

I've seen Realm of the Senses and Onibaba, both are very good.

ey thanks 2 everyone who talked up 'late marriage', what a great movie

Aren't *all* films w/ Sex in, stylised?

how many actual 'couplings' in a film, can you say reflects anything you have actually done to a greater extent?

I'm not saying 'none', there's just so few of them.

28

yeah 'late marriage' is great.

xpost OK, names!