tagged w/ eros
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The relationship between Salvadore Dali and filmmaker Luis Bunuel is well-known — their collaboration, UN CHIEN ANDALOU, is one of the landmarks of film history. Less well known is that the association began while they were students at a university in Madrid, and included radical poet and author Federico Garcia Lorca. Really less known — Dali only discussed it at the end of his life — was that, for a brief while, Dali and Lorca weren’t just friends, but lovers.
Director Paul Morrison focuses on that relationship in his new film, LITTLE ASHES. Spinning off actual events, Morrison builds a drama that explores three 20th century pioneers — with Matthew McNulty as Bunuel, Javier Beltran as Lorca and Robert Pattinson as Dali — as they struggle against the repression of pre-civil war Spain and make choices between their art, their politics, and their personal happiness. In the case of Dali, the film suggests that the flamboyant pose he offered the public concealed a long-held regret.
Here’s my interview with Paul Morrison.The relationship between Salvadore Dali and filmmaker Luis Bunuel is well-known... more
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Let’s get the hoary ol’ cliche out of the way right off: sex sells. That’s a formula relied upon by anyone involved in the media — including podcast producers hoping to up their hit counts (and thus, permit me a moment to address the search engines directly: sex, sex, sexity, sex, sex, sex. And, in conclusion, boobies) — and it’s certainly something wholeheartedly embraced by the practitioners of burlesque. Thing is, as revealed by director Deirdre Timmons in her new documentary, A WINK AND A SMILE, contemporary burlesque has started throwing a little post-modern self-awareness into the stew, making performances both the rip-roarin’ celebrations of undulating flesh they always were, and more knowing send-ups of the self-same celebrations, calling into question notions of beauty, eros, and the proper deployment of brightly dyed feathers.
Fortunately, Timmons — who herself has spent some time strutting the stage — knows enough to balance her doc’s intellect with the stuff that gets the (fully clothed) butts into the seats: performances that range from the genuinely erotic to the raucously satirical (better brace yourself for Ernie von Schmaltz, a cross-dressing female performer who flaunts a prosthetic pot-belly and prodigious faux chest hair). Come for boobs, hang around for the brains — now that’s what I call a full-service documentary.
Click on the above link to hear my interview with Timmons.Let’s get the hoary ol’ cliche out of the way right off: sex sells.... more
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Here's my CINEFANTASTIQUE ONLINE review of the dark, sensual German fantasy film, HOUSE OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTIESHere's my CINEFANTASTIQUE ONLINE review of the dark, sensual German fantasy film,... more
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