sex
The Mikvah Project, The Yard, HackneyThursday, 26 February 2015
In the beginning was the Word and, not long after, came a need for ritual purification. “When Adam was banished from Eden, he sat in the river that flowed from the garden. Adam immersed in the water, in the very first Mikvah …”.Goyim audience... Read more... |
It FollowsWednesday, 25 February 2015
David Robert Mitchell's second ode to innocence lost is a rather more twisted take on the subject than his first film, The Myth of the American Sleepover. That was a beautifully judged ensemble coming-of-ager which merely teased us with horror... Read more... |
Fifty Shades of GreySunday, 15 February 2015
Fifty Shades of Grey is upon us, more or less literally. It's a bit like the clamber-cam POV shot of Jamie Dornan materialising through Dakota Johnson’s spread legs. The teaser campaign has completed its titillating foreplay, and this weekend the... Read more... |
Two Night StandWednesday, 11 February 2015
A New York blizzard so intense that people can't get out the front door traps a random couple who have hooked up online into a rather longer mating dance than they had anticipated. That's the essence of Two Night Stand, the debut film from director... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Bad TimingFriday, 30 January 2015
With its combination of a Tom Waits lament and visuals tracking over art works by Viennese modernists like Klimt and Schiele, the opening of Nicolas Roeg’s 1980 Bad Timing stays in the memory – its mood remains just there. The territory is defined... Read more... |
Sex Party Secrets, Channel 4Thursday, 08 January 2015
Let's face it, we're all fascinated by orgies. The idea of them gets the blood up. Sex Party Secrets promised a window into this netherworld, advising that such events are increasingly popular, that we're becoming a more liberated nation. At least,... Read more... |
The Institute of Sexology, Wellcome CollectionSunday, 23 November 2014
There is nothing erotic or titillating about The Institute of Sexology, an exhibition the Wellcome Collection plans to keep open for a year. Those expecting a display of fertility symbols, fetish objects, kinky clothing or sex aids down the ages... Read more... |
Effie GrayWednesday, 08 October 2014
A peculiar slice of 19th-century cultural life is mined to minimal effect in Effie Gray, a stillborn labour of love that doesn't justify the long slog from screenwriter and supporting player Emma Thompson required to bring this tale to the screen.... Read more... |
You and the NightFriday, 03 October 2014
At the risk of endorsing national stereotypes, I’ll still describe Yann Gonzalez’ feature debut You and the Night as a very French film. Its appearance in Critics’ Week at Cannes last year brought comparisons with Francois Ozon and Pedro Almodovar... Read more... |
Immoral Tales: When Art Met PornographyWednesday, 10 September 2014
The release of a restored version of 1974’s Immoral Tales on Blu-ray raises inevitable and unavoidable issues: whether the film is pornography, art or arty pornography. Then, there’s the matter of whether its director Walerian Borowczyk was a... Read more... |
DVD: Venus in FurMonday, 28 July 2014
Action film fans should stay away from this Roman Polanski duet. But those who like their sexual politics served in symbolic form will be delighted. Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner stars as an actress, Vanda, and Polanski-lookalike Mathieu... Read more... |
Beauty Queen or Bust, Channel 4Friday, 27 June 2014
Wolverhampton today, tomorrow the world. As unlikely as it was, that was the incentive for aspiring prize-winners in this first of three stories from Channel 4 looking at regional beauty pageants which in turn lead to Miss England and beyond.The... Read more... |
