Category "Music, cinema, TV, books..."
In the comments of my post on gay porn's new generation, I was joking about how porn would get included in soap operas. I also said that soon you'd have to be a sexy beast as well as a good boyfriend, and even maybe an intellectual. Well, here, it's not a soap opera, but a small budget movie, that is not even finished, that tells the story of a gay guy in San Francisco and sometimes there's sex, and you can see everything! It's called I Want Your Love and you can already watch the scene on the movie's website. Go and have a look, it's worth it.
OK, you've seen it?
So, it's interesting, it starts like a mainstream movie, with two people talking and then they have sex, like a mainstream movie, except that you see everything. First, in many movies, you have people having sex, it's just that the actors are not really doing it. Then, there have already been movies in which actors were really fycking, like In The Realm of the Senses or Catherine Breillat's movies. So it's nothing new, but what I find strange, is that most movies are only erotic. The characters should be fully fucking, it's part of the story, and then it's a bit hypocritical these movies where you can see the actors are moaning of pleasure but not their genitals.
In this movie, you can feel the character's intimacy (it's actually a very strong acting performance), so much that you wonder whether you're watching an actual couple, or amateur porn. The whispered words, the laughters, the hairs stuck in the mouth after the blowjob, everything that happens when you fuck with someone and however never happens in porn, where everything is choregraphed and overacted. It's the first time I see that on screen and somehow it reassures me. I thought I was the only idiot making jokes during sex.
I was reading the comments on porn actor Colby Keller's blog and a reader was saying he felt depressed after watching the movie, because it reminded him how lonely he is as a long-term single. I wondered whethere, when we were looking for a one-night stand, are we not looking, as well, for some intimacy with someone? That may indeed be the limit between porn and romantic comedy. Rom-coms are supposed to make you dream and idealise the great love and stuff, whereas porn only excites you. So the best thing is to get both! But I think it's a bit worrying as well. A study claims that people addicted to rom-coms have a very bad love life. Why? Because they would idealise too much what they see in movies, and would then get let down in life. I guess then that if porn was added to rom-coms, where perfect people with perfect bodies have perfect sex in a perfect house, blah blah blah, we would reach an idealisation level even higher, so an unreachable ideal. I think that if I Want Your Love ever ends on a perfect love relationship where the guys have a simultaneous orgasm, I'm gonna feel very lonely myself.
Anyway, I find it very interesting and I starts reading all the articles on what is already called "cuddle porn". I would have called it, after romantic comedy, romantic sodomy.
I FINALLY could get the new Midnight Juggernauts album, ha ha!! And I was so lucky because even though I got it two months after its release, the shop had limited and signed editions, yeah!
I really liked the first single This New Technology, but I was rather disappointed by the second one, Vital Signs. And actually, I really liked the album, the first time I listened to it.
The 3 Aussies have kept in line with the previous album, it's rock with a space disco flavour. The first half of the album is really good, the second one, less. Many fans seem to say they have taken too different a direction. I don't think so, not at all actually. Their sound got more perfect. As a result, it may be less... fanciful, let's say. But it's still good.
The song The Great Beyond deserves its name given how high they go in it. Lifeblood Flow, Lara Versus The Savage Pack are very punchy. Regarding The Final Goodbye, I just regret it's not a bit longer, and I hope it's not self-fulfilling.
The lyrics tend to be different from the previous album, Dystopia, as they speak less about galaxies and stars, and more about life itself. You know, when you're a fan, they can talk any bollocks, you're still gonna like it and be much more merciful than with others. For example, when Ke$ha talks about love, I don't buy it, I think it's easy, silly and/or hypocritical and I hate it, but when it's Midnight Juggernauts, then I'm all like... sweet like honey. The chorus of Vital Signs is:
You've got to open up your mind and feel the love in your life
You've got to open up your heart and feel the love in your life
And, yeah, I totally understand what they mean.
I really like these ones from Lara Versus The Savage Pack, I was repeating myself this kind of stuff when I was travelling around South America:
Keep on building
Chasing that feeling
If we make it out of here alive
We'll get through anything
This title is a bit shit but you're gonna understand.
I came back in France so I watch all the shitty TV shows. I'm following L'Amour est dans le Pré ("Love is in the Meadow") and mind you, can't even think it's a shitty TV show, my brain is really getting fucked up. For those who don't know this show, it's about 10 single farmers who get the chance to pass an ad on TV and get to meet suitors. After a quick selection, two people can go ahead and spend a few days at the farm. If the show can sometimes be cynical or cruel with some, it also shows another side of the farming world that urban people like me don't know or have forgotten. I think the image of the farmer's job is being restored with that show, it's crazy! I don't think they have this show in other countries.
I've followed for the first time this year and I was rooting for the Philippe & Margarida couple!
Still, it would be really funny if they had a gay version! I can already imagine the guy: "Looking for young man who wants to get on my big truck". And I would apply to meet my big gruff man lost in the Limousin region, I would work hard to clean the cows' shit, and I would scream when he tells me he doesn't Björk's Homogenic. My rival would probably be a young, slim, hairless guy and I would have to fight to make him go, even if I have to burn his Dolce&Gabban bag!! And then I could make an unglamourous but M6-audience-known couple and, this way, make LGBT rights in the countryside progress.
Obviously, this show really fried my brains. Or it's due to the lack of sex. Or both. Shit, I'm fucked.
Ah, Boards of Canada... And that video is really beautiful.
I read Sartre's Nausea. Yes, I'm blogging it only to show I read some intellectual stuff! (I'm trying to fix my lack of culture.)
I liked the first third of the book, the second third nearly killed me with boredom, the last third though was interesting. In this book, Sartre tries to explain existentialism but it's still very blurry for me... I read some parts with perplexity and I thought he would articulate his thoughts further on... But no. In that respect, I was disappointed because I didn't manage to understand. As a result, I didn't memorize much.
Nevertheless, as much of a paradox as it may sound and despite the very boring second third of the book, I liked this novel. Probably because I identified with the main character when he had these strange experiences that he calls Nausea and that reminded me of things I may have felt (but that I found ecstatic and that I called vertige, or vertigo).
I had watched True Blood once, and I wasn't convinced. But when I connected this morning on the Internet, the whole homosphere was buzzing on the episode broadcast yesterday in the USA. I did a quick search on Youtube and I understood why:
Even gay porn is not as exciting, I'M A FAN!
However, this scene reminds me of that scene in Six Feet Under (a series by the same creator, Alan Ball) in which a pregnant Brenda was dreaming she was kissing her brother.
Alan Ball is mad, I love him!
So, despite the disaster that the first one was, they still managed to find money to make Sex and the City 2. I'm blown away.
Is it gonna be like these terrible endless slasher series, falling into the screenwriting depths of hell? Like Halloween, whose last episode was happening in a reality TV show? Or like Friday 13, whose Jason X was occurring in a spaceship?
In Sex and the City XIII, Samantha would become an ACTUAL maneater. Miranda would castrate her husband, Charlotte would turn into a giant marshmallow and marry the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And Carrie would become crazy, run out of money to buy shoes, sleep on the streets and kill poodles with her Manolo Blahniks to eat. And I would go and see that!
I don't know for you, but I have the feeling that the entire world is getting more and more nervous... Maybe it's the economic crisis and the foretold cataclysm that are heating up the minds.
In her latest interview with NME, Sri Lanka singer M.I.A defends her video Born Free, directed by Romain Gavras, who is far from anonyminty. It shows armed members of the american authorities kidnapping young red-haired men, taking them to the desert and then forcing them to walk on a minefield. While the bodies are exploding of blood and flesh, M.IA can be heard singing "I was boooooooorn free!" Have a look.
So, in her interview, M.I.A defends her video, saying that Justin Bieber, the new marshmallow idol (a 16-year-old American), had made far more atrocious material. I understand what she means.
She also said that she "was rich enough now to have you killed". She's hilarious!
Since it's Lady Gaga's concert tonight in France, a quote by Joanna Newsom:
Fair enough: she is the new Madonna, but Madonna's a dumb-ass!
Yesterday, I saw the worst reality TV show ever. It's called Miss Swan, it's about choosing women with a physical complex and turn them into beauty queens.
So they choose the most lost women, who are not even ugly, lock them up in a castle and deprive them of mirrors and food. For 3 months, they are on a diet, see a psychotherapist (who must have sold her soul to the devil to take part of this show) and, worst of all, make them go through A LOT of cosmetic surgery. I don't know why but they all needed a rhinoplasty, inflating their upper lip, a lifting (even if they're 30!) and liposuccion (what's the diet for then?!).
As three months of extreme makeover end up boring the spectators, the production team found some tricks to add some drama, even if they have to torture the candidates. So, you see the presenter, who looks like a caricature, going after the most obese candidate and make her see that she doesn't get into her fancy black dress and that if she doesn't want to look like a fatty, she'd better make some efforts with food, blah blah blah... For the other one, we get shocking revelations: "My husband cheated on me and that's why I think I'm ugly!!" The most horrible thing is that these poor women went through heavy surgery and start crying although they can hardly move their face muscles because of the bandages of the lifting and the rhino... It's nearly cynical.
At the end of the show, all the beauty experts meet in the main room (they all look like Ken and Barbie, most of them went through cosmetic surgery as well) and congratulate themselves about the work they've done on each candidate: "Oh yeah, she really needed that nose job!" Then, they let the woman they're talking about come in and so we see the result of the transformation... Suspense!
That was so horrible, she looked like the very stereotype of the american dumbass. (I have nothing against Americans, just dumbass.)
The women were then, one after the other, placed in front of a mirror, a thing they had not seen for 3 months, and they started crying and stuff. The experts surrounded them to congratualte them and accept them into what looked like the kingdom of beautiful people, or some sort of superior caste. The dumbass presenter dared ask a candidate: "Don't you think that, now, the outside honours the inside?"
Every candidate said she now felt much better about herself, blah blah blah... giving credit to the idea that cosmetic surgery can fix every problem. The shrink siad though that her work helped the girls accepting themselves as they were. Shame they are not "as they were" anymore!
And then, they made the candidates compete against each other and chose the best, the most beautiful. It was a terrible slap in the face for the loser: you've been given shit for 3 months, but you're still uglier than somebody else! Bam!
Now I will let you meditate this quote of Margaret Cho:
I get really upset when I see young women getting liposuccion and breast implants. How is it that any different than foot binding? How is it? I don't know, plastic surgery is supposed to do something for your spirit, to make you feel good about yourself, but to me it's just brainwashing, manipulation and mutilation of women! I'm still gonna get it, but I...!
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