Short Takes: ‘One from the Heart’ (1982) ★★

Critics and audiences didn’t like
it when it was released in 1982
and I don't like it now,

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 film One from the Heart stars Frederic Forrest, Terri Garr, Raul Julia and Nastassja Kinski, but the only credit that matters appears at the very end of the movie: “Filmed entirely on the stages of Zoetrope Studios.”

One from the Heart is set in Las Vegas, a place that exists in real life, but rather than just film the fucker on location like a normal person, Coppola chose to recreate, at no small expense, the city on his own soundstages. Coppola’s Vegas is dazzling, more fantastical—and significantly cleaner—than the real thing. Angelo P. Graham has art directed the shit out of this place! And each scene, often bathed in neon pinks, blues, yellows and greens, is lovingly captured by cinematographers Ronald Victor Garcia and Vittorio Storaro. If we watched movies to admire the sets and cinematography, One from the Heart would be a must-see. 

Most of us, however, watch movies for the characters and story, and One from the Heart doesn’t have much of either. Forrest and Garr play Hank and Frannie respectively, longtime lovers who get in a fight all of a sudden (something about Hank buying Frannie a house with their money and dragging his feet about taking her to Bora Bora). Frannie storms off to stay with her friend Maggie (Lainie Kazan), while Hank goes to his friend Moe (an under-utilized Harry Dean Stanton) to drown his sorrows. Hank and Frannie spend the rest of the movie trying to decide if they should get back together or start new lives with the new people they meet on the Fourth of July: Hank a beautiful young circus performer (Kinski), Frannie a charming waiter/aspiring singer (Julia). Except you won’t give a shit about any of them.

Had the movie been the musical comedy it’s labeled as, One from the Heart might’ve worked, yet it only looks like one. Though it’s got a pervasive (and pretty great) soundtrack supplied by Tom Waites and Crystal Gayle, I wouldn’t call it a musical. And comedies are usually funny; One from the Heart is only irritating. Audiences didn’t like it when it was released in 1982 and I don’t like it now, critical reappraisal be damned. Still, it looks great (80% of the reason behind my two-star rating), and at least it’s shorter than Megalopolis.

Short Takes: ‘Only Good Things’ (2025) ★★★

Is it enigmatic, or just pretentious? More
importantly, does either matter when you
get to see Liev Carlos and Lucas
Drummond naked?

It’s difficult to praise the work of Brazilian writer-director Daniel Nolasco without getting defensive. I liked his 2020 feature Dry Wind (a.k.a. Vento Seco), digging Nolasco’s 1970s-Joe Gage-meets-1980s-neon-noir aesthetic and how he presents gay desire like a 1980s queer teen-ager who just got his hands on a copy of Honcho. However, the explicitness of the movie—and I’m talking about the uncut version I wished I’d purchased when the DVD was still in print, not the edited version streaming on Prime and Dekkoo—makes it easy for cinema snobs (not The Cinema Snob) to dismiss Nolasco as just a high class pornographer, as if that’s a bad thing.

Nolasco’s 2025 film Only Good Things (a.k.a. Apenas Coisas Boas) has many of the elements of Dry Wind: vivid photography, attractive actors with an exhibitionist streak, and trans actress Renata Cavalho, albeit in a significantly smaller role. However, Nolasco’s narrative is less direct this time out, which makes it harder to embrace. I liked it upon reflection, but I can see it pissing off many viewers. My three-star rating is generous.

Only Good Things opens in 1984, when Marcelo (curly-haired and very cute Liev Carlos) crashes his motorcycle while riding through the Brazilian countryside, the cause of the accident as odd as it is startling. He’s discovered by a passing rancher, Antônio (Lucas Drummond, really selling that ’stache), who takes the unconscious biker back to his rustic farmhouse to tend to his injuries, as well as admire his cock and taste his blood (how Saltburn!). Later, when Marcelo is still impaired enough to require assistance undressing for a shower but healed enough to get horny, it’s Antônio’s cock that gets admired. And tasted (no money shot, though).

A romance develops, though Antônio is wary, certain Marcelo will leave him at any moment. “There’s nothing here for you,” he reminds Marcelo repeatedly, almost daring him to leave. But what threatens this relationship isn’t Marcelo possibly growing bored with farm life but by Antônio’s homophobic father stepping up his intimidation tactics in an attempt to force his son to sell his land, the escalation leading to tragedy.

Though the first half of the movie moves slowly, with a little too much time devoted to capturing Antônio’s routine (milking cows, herding cattle, cheese making), I was very much invested in his story. Then there’s a time jump to present day. Antônio, now played by Fernando Libonati, is in his sixties, living in a São Paulo high rise and seemingly inhabiting a completely different film. The switch is jarring, and it initially turned me against the movie, never mind that the second half also features some full-frontal nudity from Igor Leoni, as Antônio’s assistant Eduardo. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that Antônio is an unreliable narrator. That realization led to a kinder view of the movie. Still, I prefer the movie’s first half, even if it is belied by its second. 

Short Takes: ‘Scorchy’ (1976) ★½

Connie Stevens was never meant to
yell “Freeze! Police!” unironically.

I don’t want to suggest that police departments only hire women with voices in the Bea Arthur or Margo Martindale range, but if you’re casting a female detective in your crime drama and you want her to be taken seriously, it helps if she doesn’t sound like a 16-year-old girl. Of course, no one was taking the AIP movie Scorchy all that seriously to begin with, least of all its writer-director, schlockteur Howard Avedis, so maybe the ludicrousness of Connie Stevens as a tough-as-nails (yet bubbly and horny!) detective doesn’t matter.

Stevens plays Jackie Parker—supposedly nicknamed Scorchy but never once addressed as such—a Seattle-based narcotics agent out to bust a drug ring involving Philip Bianco (Cesare Danova) and Carl Henrich (William Smith, wonderfully nasty as always). Bianco fronts as an art dealer, importing rare sculptures that are stuffed with heroin, then having Henrich, acting as an art restorer, remove the drugs when they reach stateside, confiscating the sculpture from its new owner if needed, as happens when said sculpture is delivered to an aging film star played by Joyce Jameson. If that sounds unnecessarily convoluted, that’s because it is, but how else are they going to work in a joke about the film star being a closet lesbian?

Anyway, an undercover Jackie befriends Bianco’s wife Claudia (Marlene Schmidt, also in Avedis’s The Teacher) and gets enlisted to fly the drugs out of state (yeah, she’s a pilot, too), but then Henrich takes off with the smuggled smack. Henrich’s double-cross kicks off an extended chase sequence that almost makes Scorchy worth watching, if only to see a nervous-looking Stevens behind the wheel of a rally car (context doesn’t matter). The other reason people might want to see this movie is for a few scenes featuring the star of Parrish and Susan Slade topless, scenes Stevens clearly was not comfortable doing. She also has a sex scene with a young, tragically coiffed Greg Evigan in his film debut (and no, he doesn’t show any skin), though it looks more like Stevens is being restrained by Evigan than fucking him. Hot.

I have a weakness for seeing stars of the 1950s and ’60s in 1970s exploitation movies, which was why I wanted to see Scorchy, despite all the warnings against it. To her credit, Stevens, who’s like a Joey Heatherton with significantly fewer scandals, isn’t bad, she’s just miscast as someone who must yell, “Freeze! Police!” and expect to be obeyed (though still more believable than Melanie Griffith in 1992’s A Stranger Among Us). I might’ve given Scorchy another half star had it been 85 or 90 minutes, but it’s a heavily padded one hour and 39 minutes, the extra time used to kill Scorchy’s potential as cheesy ’70s fun and leaving the audience with a meandering muddle instead.

Short Takes: ‘Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso’ (2025) ★★½

Watching Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso (a.k.a. Homem com H) wasn’t the first time I wondered about the logistics of filming R-rated rim jobs (that would be when I watched the HBO series Looking), but it was the first time I was prompted to do some online research on the subject. And now I know that yes, there are modesty garments that cover actors’ buttholes, dashing any notions I had that Jesuíta Barbosa (as Ney Matogrosso) and Bruno Montaleone (as Marco, the tragic lover) were staring directly into each other’s naked assholes when filming their sex scene.

Sorry, I really shouldn’t begin a review obsessing about the particulars of filming simulated sex, but it was top of mind when I finished watching Latin Blood. The movie is not about actors tossing salad, however. It’s a biopic about queer Brazilian singer Ney Matogrosso, known as much for his outrageous costuming and androgynous appearance as for his voice.

That Matogrosso (né Ney de Souza Pereira) rose to such heights is a testament his determination as much as his talent, given that his father, portrayed in the film by Rômulo Braga, was a harsh, borderline abusive, disciplinarian who seemed determined to break the young Ney’s will at every turn. Then again, proving our parents wrong can be a powerful motivator. After brief stints in the military and performing in a Brasilia college choral group (and having an affair with an older man), Matogrosso moves to Rio de Janeiro in the late 1960s, where he ultimately joins the rock group Secos & Molhados (Dry Ones & Wet Ones), becoming its art director as well as its lead singer. The band is an immediate hit, yet while it owes much of its success to Matogrosso’s stage presence, the film suggests the Secos & Molhados’ founding members—both straight—wanted him to tone it down. Instead, Matogrosso goes solo, to even greater success.

Director Esmir Filho, who co-wrote the script with Laura Malin, has crafted an entertaining film, featuring some superb performances, especially from Barbosa, and a few questionable wigs. It’s not a very impactful film, however. The problem with biopics that go from cradle to grave—or cradle to present day, in this case—is they tend to play like highlight reels. Latin Blood rapidly cycles through Matogrosso’s life, from 1949 to present, barely allowing the audience time to get its bearings before jumping to the next decade, only slowing down for the 1970s. Characters appear with little introduction—perhaps, in the case of Cazuza (Jullio Reyes), because the filmmakers believe none is needed. But if you’re unfamiliar with Brazilian musicians of the ’70s and ’80s, you’ll think he’s just one of Matogrosso’s fuck buddies, until it’s revealed in another time jump that he was a famous singer in his own right, and an AIDS casualty a scene after that. There is no time for tears, however. Latin Blood quickly hops to another moment in Matogrosso’s life as it races to a finale concert by the real, present-day Matogrosso.

You may get more out of Latin Blood if you’re already a fan of Matogrosso’s music. If not, at least appreciate that, despite often playing out like a Wikipedia page with sex, nudity and a soundtrack album, it’s not some Bohemian Rhapsody PG-13 bullshit.

A Gay Man Watches Straight Smut #6*: ‘The Passions of Carol’

The original poster for The Passions of
Carol not only features some questionable 
illustrations (there’s something horribly
 wrong with that woman’s spine if we’re able
to see her full ass from a side-view pose),
it has absolutely nothing to do with the
actual movie. 

I meant to post this before Christmas, but then time got away from me, and then I got sick. So, like the protagonist in 1975’s THE PASSIONS OF CAROL, I’m hoping people will see the value of keeping the spirit of Christmas alive all year long, or at least keeping the holidays hardcore until December 31.

Set in New York City when it was at its grimiest (looking even grimier in the Video-X-Pix version streaming on adult sites), our story begins in the offices of Biva Publications, which produces Biva Magazine, a skin mag for women a la Playgirl (or Minx). But editor-in-chief Carol Scrooge (Mary Stuart, the Shelley Duvall of 1970s porn, billed as Merrie Holiday) is not happy with the layout her art director Bob Hatchet (Jamie Gillis) presents her on Christmas Eve, which she’s deemed “impotent.” None the men pictured for the year-end issue are hard.

“Today’s woman will not accept a limp dick in her bedroom, will she?” she rants. “And she will not accept a limp dick on a singles’ weekend, will she? Then she certainly won’t accept a bunch of limp dicks in her favorite magazine.”

She demands Hatchet re-do the layout, insisting the cocks pictured had better be “as big and hard as the Washington Monument,” not caring that its Christmas Eve. She even says “bah humbug,” albeit in a way that makes it clear that some expressions just shouldn’t be uttered by Americans.

A flattering angle of a pre-Predator,
 pre-Libertarian politician Sonny Landham 

After sending away her miserable art director, Carol interviews a prospective model Curt Reynolds (Sonny Landham, who went on to appear in legit movies like 48 Hrs. and Predator). Curt is something of an Elvis impersonator—well, Elvis-ish (I was going to write Elvish, but then I’d have the Lord of the Rings geeks on my ass, I’d rather not). Really, though, he looks more like a young Tommy Lee Jones portraying Elvis than the King himself, which was a relief as I was afraid Jamie Gillis was going to be as cute as the men got in this movie (though learning some of Landham’s extreme political opinions makes him retroactively less attractive). Carol is impressed when Curt peels off his skintight white pants, but she’s not quite sold. She summons her secretary Gina (Daniela di Orici, a.k.a. Day Jason), who happily fluffs the prospective model, because this office doesn’t have an HR department, and #MeToo is still decades away.

Carol (Mary Stuart) is a busy woman.

“You do understand, Mr. Reynolds, that even though my assistant is touching and caressing your penis, that this is only business,” Carol reminds him, before she and Gina take turns getting him as big and hard as the Washington Monument, their oral attention sound-tracked to the theme from The Exorcist.

Carol yells at her sloppy maid.

One would think this afternoon three-way in the office would put Carol in a better mood, but she returns to her apartment as bitchy as ever. She yells at her poofy-haired maid (Angela Dermer, a.k.a. Toni Scott, who struggles saying the simplest lines) for leaving her “cleaning apparatus strewn all about,” then denies the maid’s request to get off work early so she and her boyfriend can catch a Christmas show. With the maid sent back to work, Carol Scrooge gets ready for bed.

We know what happens next. Carol is visited during the night by the ghost of her former business partner, Lance Marley (Marc Stevens, hamming it up just the right amount, though he loses his place in his lines a few times). He tells her she will be visited by three spirits and then, after complaining that “there’s nobody who gives good blow jobs in heaven,” he pleads with Carol for one last worldly fuck. Next, we see Marley going down on Carol in startling close-up (it’s practically a jump scare) while a spritely Muzak rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” plays on the soundtrack. 

Marc Stevens gives Carol 10-and-a-half inches of Christmas spirit.

Child’s play.

The three spirits arrive shortly after Marley cums and goes. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Arturo Millhouse) takes Carol back to her childhood, when she manipulated her friends Barbie (Susan Sloan, billed as Rose Cranston) and Billy (Alan Marlow, billed as Alan Barow) into playing some very adult games (“OK, Barbie, I want you to kneel down and make Billy’s pee-pee hard”). Even though all the performers are adults, the fact that they’re dressed as and acting as children makes it a little cringe when Barbie starts blowing Billy, especially in a time when we hear the word “pedophile” in the news every fucking day. 

Then there’s the art on the playroom wall. Were
Carol’s parents ever investigated?

Still, Barbie using a doll’s arm as a dildo on Carol was a unique twist, especially funny when all you see is a tiny hand sticking out of Carol’s cooch. Pussy wave bye-bye!

Kevin André makes the Yuletide gay.

The next sequence features some of the best performances in the movie, starting with Kevin André as a drag queen Ghost of Christmas Present.

 “This reminds me of the baths,” the GCP sighs wistfully as they’re engulfed in fog (this is yet another porn movie that liberally uses a smoke machine).

“The Continental Baths?” Carol asks.

“My, my, we are tacky. I mean the original baths, at the original Caesar’s palace.”

The GCP shows Carol the scene inside Bob Hatchet’s apartment, where he and his wife (Kim Pope) are wrapping presents for their unseen daughter, Tiny Kim, whose existence is represented by a pair of crutches leaning against a chair. Besides being among the few members of the cast who do not use an a.k.a. (if you’ve got a non du porn, stick with it, goddammit), they are also among the few with genuine acting talent—a good thing, too, as they’re supposed to be a committed, loving couple, a rarity in this genre.

A committed, loving couple who fuuuucks.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Pope, and while Gillis wasn’t exactly hot (few of the men in ’70s straight porn were), he was one of porn’s best actors. I just wish I hadn’t learned about his proclivities later in life (they nasty). Knowing he went on to hire hookers for some very smelly fetish videos made it difficult to accept him in the role of a loving husband and father.

Becoming editor of Vogue is not 
in Carol Scrooge's future.

Speaking of hiring hookers, when the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come (Cum?) appears, Carol is shown a future where she’s a Times Square prostitute, a development that made me want some backstory. Wouldn’t she be more likely to fail upward? At the very least, land a copy editor job at Screw? Her going from editor-in-chief to ’ho just seems a little far-fetched, but I dunno, maybe she got into meth or something.

Anyway, Future Whore Carol, wearing a big yellow clown wig and harsh makeup, takes a john (Ashley Moore, billed as Stuart Dickerson) up to a depressing cheap hotel room. Moore, who looks like Marlboro model from the neck up and a fur-covered pear from the neck down, is appropriately shy (he’s never hired a hooker before, he has a wife and kids, blah blah blah), but Future Whore Carol has no patience for his bashfulness and hurries him into getting his clothes off. First order of business: washing his privates, which she does with all the eroticism of a nurse prepping a patient for surgery. This was way more verisimilitude than I expect from a porn film, as was the moment when Carol, after giving a very noisy BJ, unrolls an ill-fitting condom on her trick’s stick before mounting him. The scene is not sexy at all, but that’s the joke (I’m sure guys jerked off to it back in the day, though). Carol does all the work while her trick lies back, moaning listlessly, as if he can feel anything with a Glad Sandwich Bag wrapped around his dick. The scene ends with Carol informing her trick that he’s a rotten fuck.

A rotten fuck is all it takes for Carol Scrooge to embrace
the spirit of Christmas.

Not as Campy as Expected

The Passions of Carol may be spoofing the Charles Dickens story, but I wouldn’t describe it as a porn parody. Writer, director and Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come Shaun Costello (best known for Waterpower), using the pseudonym Amanda Barton, never lets the movie get that crude or that stupid. In its own porny way, it’s actually kind of respectful of Dickens. Still, I wish there was more effort made to camp it up. Imagine the fun the Amero brothers could have had with this material.  

Video-X-Pix's DVD (left) and Mélusine's Blu-ray covers 
are better than the original poster, but neither is exactly sexy.

The production values are impressive for a porn movie, with Costello using a lot of theatrical tricks to sell the spirits’ visits, hiding the cracks with the liberal use of a smoke machine. The above average acting of the cast helps, too, with André, Landham, Pope and, of course, Gillis giving the strongest performances. Stuart is OK, but her acting is inconsistent. She was reportedly pretty sweet in real life, and I can believe that, more than I could believe her as a hard-ass editor. As Carol Scrooge, she’s just not bitchy enough (the role would be a better fit for Gloria Leonard or Georgina Spelvin). Her performances as Future Whore Carol is spot on, however.

An unpaid advertisement: Though The Passions of Carol is available for streaming on
adult sites, Mésuline’s Blu-ray edition is the more watchable version,

All in all, The Passions of Carol was fun alternative to a Hallmark or Lifetime holiday movie, though I think I’d rather see the cast members of those movies naked. My Christmas would be a whole lot merrier if Chad Michael Murray or Luke Macfarlane agreed to go full-frontal, is all I’m saying. Until that Christmas wish comes true, I guess some Dickensian straight smut will suffice.

“You are a tacky bitch.” 

*The minor rebranding is an attempt to get the Blogger morality bots off my ass. It didn't work, the post still got flagged.