Showing posts with label 2010s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010s. Show all posts

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Short Takes: ‘Addicted’ (2014) ★★

Poster for the 2014 film 'ADDICTED'
Not to be confused with Addickted (click at your own risk), because this adaptation of Zane’s 1998 book is for the ladies and therefore above such crudeness. The dick is merely implied.

And lead character, Zoe Reynard (Sharon Leal) is all about the dick, though, as she explains to her therapist Dr. Marcella (Tasha Smith, acting like an Oprah-bot), she has a very fulfilling life, with a loving (and very hot!) husband, two beautiful children, and she owns her own successful business merchandising artworks of up-and-coming artists. Plus, all her employees love her! Her assistant Shane complements Zoe’s fashion sense the moment she walks in the door, and her best friend/…um, I’m going to say vice president, Brina (Emayatzy Corinealdi), is so devoted to her job that she dismisses the very idea of Zoe paying her more to do it. There’s no sex and I’m already getting a semi just thinking about this woman’s life.

But Addicted wastes little time getting to the sex, showing Zoe and that hunky husband of hers, Jason (Boris Kodjoe) enjoying some hot R-rated boning less than 10 minutes in. After they come, Zoe reaches beneath the sheet for Jason’s sticky dong, asking if he’s ready for round three(!), only to be disappointed when Jason drifts off to sleep. (Lady, give him a chance to recuperate from round two; you two aren’t 18 anymore.) Then, just like that, Zoe deems her sex life boring and goes to her home office to get off to Internet porn, which she evidently does frequently as she keeps a vibrator in a desk drawer. Lord help her if her children or her mother—who lives with them to take care of the kids and give her daughter “hmm-hmm” looks—goes hunting for a pen.

That all changes when she meets famed (but never photographed) artist Quinton Canosa (William Levy) at Atlanta’s High Museum. Quinton understandably sets her girlie parts a-tingle, so it’s no surprise that she readily fucks him. Well, “readily” might be overstating it, as Zoe does try to push Quinton away, telling him that what they’re doing is not right, a protest he quickly silences by going down on her.

But Quinton is not enough. Zoe hits the clubs, hooking up with the dangerously sexy Corey (hey, it’s Tyson Beckford from Chocolate City) in a suspiciously vacant (and clean) restroom and sneaking out to join him at artfully lit sex parties. Zoe is so hooked on cock that she begins to neglect her family and her business. She knows she needs to quit both these guys, but she’s too busy getting rocks off to worry about hitting rock bottom.

Though it’s not the trash treasure I hoped for, I kind of enjoyed this one. The acting is fair, though Levy often comes off as smarmy rather than seductive, and director Bille Woodruff at least knows his audience, meaning Leal’s body is decoratively covered while her male co-stars’ are frequently exposed (no full frontal, but a fair amount of man-ass). It was also fun to see familiar Atlanta locations on screen (I loved that the now-shuttered Radial Café, very much a casual dining spot, is presented as a restaurant so exclusive it requires strict punctuality for reservations). What stops the movie from being satisfying trash is its uneven Lifetime-y script. Sometimes it’s the fun type of Lifetime movie, but too often it’s just bland, and its portrayal of sex addiction way too sanitized. There’s sex addiction, where otherwise respectable people pull trains with hobos on their lunch hour and sneak off after putting the kids to bed to go writhe naked in urinal troughs, and then there’s “sex addiction,” an affliction (primarily male) celebrities diagnose themselves with when they’ve been caught cheating. Zoe’s problem falls squarely in the second category, and no amount of last-minute daytime TV psychodrivel can convince the audience otherwise. 

Saturday, February 17, 2024

The Bombs of Barbra

Posters for the movies UP THE SANDBOX_ALL NIGHT LONG and THE GUILT TRIP

Among the many problems critics cited with the 1976 remake of A Star is Born—and they cited a bunch of them at the time—was the preposterousness of Barbra Streisand’s Lite FM pop winning over hard rock audience (mitigating factor: the rocker in question was played by Kris Kristofferson). To Barbra’s fans, however, this makes perfect sense. How could anyone not be won over by one of the most talented women of our time? Her fans were sold—I certainly was—and so A Star is Born became another one of Barbra’s many hit films and another fuck you to her critics.

But Barbra’s fans didn’t line up for everything she did. Though most of Barbra’s films were successful—her track record is pretty impressive—she did have a few bombs. So, while Barbra’s successes are being celebrated in the wake of her recently published door stopper of a memoir My Name is Barbra (also a hit), I thought I’d revisit her few failures, which is far easier—and faster—than reviewing that autobiography. (Nine-hundred and ninety-two pages? Oh, fuck no.) 

I’m going to bypass Hello, Dolly!, which, similar to Cleopatra, was both a box office hit (No. 5 on the list of top grossing movies for 1969) and a financial disappointment (i.e., it cost too goddamn much to make), though 20th Century Fox, as it did with Cleopatra, eventually recouped its investment. Instead, I’m jumping to Barbra’s first real flop, UP THE SANDBOX.

Barbra Streisand in a scene from the 1972 film UP THE SANDBOX.
Margaret joins the other moms in Central Park.

Up the Sandbox just might be the closest Barbra ever got to making a small arthouse film. In this 1972 adaptation of Anne Roiphe’s 1970 novel, Barbra plays Margaret, a young New York housewife, married to a college professor (David Selby) who regularly escapes her stifling existence through vivid fantasies. Sometimes the fantasies are dark (joining a group of activists to blow up the Statue of Liberty), but most are played for laughs (Margaret pushing her nagging mother’s face into a birthday cake; increasing her breast size at will during a college faculty party).

Jane Hoffman_Barbra Streisand and David Selby in a scene from UP THE SANDBOX
Margaret's mother (Jane Hoffman) fights back.

Jocobo Morales as Fidel Castro in a scene from the 1972 film UP THE SANDBOX
Fidel Castro (Jocobo Morales) has a secret.
It's not a perfect film. The feminist messaging is a little too on-the-nose, some of the humor hasn’t aged well (“Oh, my god, you’re a fag.”), and its conclusion isn’t entirely satisfying, but I still count Up the Sandbox among my favorite Barbra Streisand films. It’s certainly one of Barbra’s best performances. One of Barbra’s stumbling blocks as an actress, especially in more dramatic roles, is she can’t let us forget she’s Barbra Streisand, so her performances are always bigger than the character she’s playing. She also tends to be too self-conscious, unable to pick up a glass of water without making sure she’s showing off her manicure (as any Barbra fan knows, Babs just loves showing off her nails on camera). It’s like director Irvin Kershner (the same one who directed this little sci-fi gem) told her to do what she usually does, just 10-15% less of it—and for once she trusted the director. As a result, she gives one of her most relaxed, natural performances.

Barbra Streisand in a fantasy sequence from UP THE SANDBOX.
Margaret prepares to blow up the Statue of Liberty, a scene
Barbra says likely would not be included were the film made today.
Paul Benedict and Barbra Streisand in a scene from the 1972 film UP THE SANDBOX.
Margaret journeys to Africa with musicologist Dr. Beineke 
(Paul Benedict), but the natives are less than welcoming.

Too bad not a whole lot of people saw it. Reportedly audiences at the time were put off by how the fantasies were introduced. Instead of doing the standard harps and swirling dissolves to announce fantasy sequences, Kershner lets them happen organically, as if they are part of Margaret’s reality. It’s usually pretty easy to tell when a scene has segued into fantasy, but apparently this confused 1972 audiences, which hurt word of mouth. (Christopher Nolan would have had a very different career trajectory if he started making films in the early 1970s.)

David Selby and Barbra Streisand in a scene from UP THE SANDBOX.
Paul (David Selby) and Margaret get real.
The movie’s box office was further hurt by the fact that it is difficult to categorize. In the movie’s DVD commentary, Barbra describes the movie as “a drama with some laughs”—so, a dramedy. But the movie was marketed as a straight-up comedy, with a painting of Barbra, pregnant and looking startled, tied to a giant baby bottle. I like the poster, but it’s selling a wacky comedy like What’s Up, Doc?, released earlier the same year, not “a drama with some laughs.” The trailer didn’t help matters. As we’ll soon see, this won’t be the last time mis-marketing helped tank one of Barbra’s movies.

Did it deserve to bomb? No. It’s definitely worth seeking out if you’re a Streisand fan. Even if you’re not, you might still want to check it out as it’s not a typical Streisand film. It’s available for streaming. Those who prefer physical media will have to be content with a DVD, but if you go that route avoid Barbra’s commentary track, which adds little beyond proving she’s as self-absorbed as her detractors say she is.

‘A Little, European Kind of Film’

If there was any justice in the world, the next movie on this list would be 1979’s The Main Event, which I think is Barbra’s worst movie (for her co-star, the late Ryan O’Neal, worst was yet to come), but, no, The Main Event made money. Instead, Barbra’s second bomb detonated in 1981 with the release of the non-com ALL NIGHT LONG.

Gene Hackman and Barbra Streisand in a scene from the 1981 film ALL NIGHT LONG.
George Dupler (Gene Hackman) and Chery (you know who)
enjoy dinner at sunset.

All Night Long was originally meant to be a modest little comedy about George Dupler, a middle-aged exec for a drugstore chain who, after reacting violently to being passed over for a promotion, gets demoted to night manager of one of the company’s 24-hour stores. George then begins having an affair with the wife of his fourth cousin, Cheryl, who is also having an affair with George’s son Freddie (got all that?). Gene Hackman was cast as George, and Lisa Eichorn as Cheryl. It was the American debut of Belgian director Jean-Claude Tramont.

Gene Hackman in the 1981 film ALL NIGHT LONG.
Gene Hackman wonders what the fuck happened
to his movie.

Unfortunately for the movie, Tramont was married to ’70s superagent Sue Mengers. Mengers represented Hackman, but her biggest client was Barbra Streisand. Mengers had wanted Barbra in the role of Cheryl from the beginning, but Barbra, then busily trying to get Yentl off the ground, passed. This didn’t stop Mengers, who began badmouthing Eichorn’s performance the moment she saw the early rushes (other people connected to the film said Eichorn was fine). Mengers’ behind the scenes fuckery is detailed fully in Brian Kellow’s biography of Mengers, Can I Go Now? (or you could just read an excerpt here), but the TL;DR version is that Mengers got Barbra to reconsider with a very persuasive $4 million payday, got Eichorn fired, and transformed her husband’s low-stakes project into A Barbra Streisand Film.

Loni Anderson says she was considered for the role Cheryl but was
beat out by Barbra. However, the one source I found that even mentions
Anderson in connection with this movie reports she was considered after 
Barbra initially turned the part down, meaning she lost the role to Lisa Eichorn.
Either way, she dodged a bullet (only to catch a much bigger bullet).

The cover to the 2004 DVD release of ALL NIGHT LONG
The 2004 DVD cover is closer
to the tone of the movie, but still
misses the mark. Also, did they
give Barbra a Photoshop nose job?
Except, All Night Long wasn’t A Barbra Streisand Film; Barbra was a co-star in a Gene Hackman film (All Night Long was the first time she got second billing). That didn’t stop Universal’s publicity department from making Barbra the focus of its marketing. “She’s got a way with men, and she’s getting away with it… All Night Long,” reads the poster’s tagline. Muddying the waters further is the accompanying art featuring Barbra sliding down a fireman’s pole with her skirt flying up à la Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, with Hackman, Dennis Quaid (as Freddie) and Kevin Dobson (as Cheryl’s hot-headed fireman husband Bobby) waiting below to catch her. A rollicking sex farce starring Barbra Streisand? This movie looks fun!

All Night Long is not a rollicking sex farce. It’s not that fun, or that funny. “It was really a little, European kind of film,” is how Barbra described it in Can I Go Now? She said she “felt totally betrayed” by the movie’s misleading ad campaign. Audiences also felt betrayed, and the movie quickly sank at the box office, making just under $4.5 million against its $15 million budget.

Gene Hackman and Dennis Quaid in a scene from ALL NIGHT LONG
Dennis Quaid might actually be stoned in this scene.

All Night Long isn’t that funny, but it isn’t unwatchable, either. I’d describe it as a neutered Middle-Age Crazy or a second-rate Starting Over. It’s a direct-to-video movie before those were a thing. Barbra, wearing a Rona Barrett wig and push-up bras, manages to pull off the role as ditzy suburban cougar Cheryl, and it’s fun to see her play against type. Unfortunately, Cheryl isn’t a character so much as she is a collection of quirky behaviors: she rides a scooter; she has a love of the color lavender so obsessive that even her cigarettes are that color; she meticulously picks the raisins out of a cinnamon raisin Danish because she read somewhere you shouldn’t eat fruit and carbs together. In fact, most of the laughs Cheryl gets hinge on the fact that she’s played by Barbra Streisand, such as a scene in which Cheryl, composing a country song on an electric organ, proves to be a lousy singer, which got the movie’s biggest laugh when I saw it in the theater (I’m old, y’all!) Would this scene have worked if Lisa Eichorn was in the role of Cheryl? Probably, but the laughs likely wouldn’t have been as loud.

Alternative poster mockups for ALL NIGHT LONG
These alternate poster designs I whipped up arent masterpieces of 
graphic design, but they better convey the tone of All Night Long than
what Universal came up with. I made Gene Hackman's character the
focus, while Barbra is featured but not emphasized. The lazier design
on the right also makes it clear that Barbra is not the main character,
though Im sure anyone presenting such a design in 1981 would be fired
on the spot. Sue Mengers and Barbra might even have the designer killed.

But most of the characters in All Night Long are underwritten, reduced to types rather than fully realized people, with only Hackman’s George getting fleshed out to any degree. In fact, the whole movie plays out like they were working from screenwriter W.D. Richter’s first draft. In addition to underdeveloped characters, there’s a satirical undercurrent about suburban malaise and the so-called American Dream that's never fully realized, either because Richter’s script never quite articulated it or Tramont never quite grasped it. In the end, All Night Long didn’t need Barbra to save it; it just needed rewrites.

Did it deserve to bomb? Yes, if only as an expensive middle finger to Mengers, who should’ve minded her own fucking business. (Mengers got an even bigger middle finger when Barbra dropped her as her agent shortly after. As for Tramont, he died in 1996 with only one other American directing credit, the TV movie As Summers Die.) I don’t dislike the movie—it’s way more watchable than The Main Event—but it’s hardly essential viewing. 

Barbra Streisand and Diane Ladd in a scene from 1981's ALL NIGHT LONG
Cheryl enjoys one of her lavender-tinted cigs while Diane Ladd,
as Georges wife Helen, seethes beneath her horrible granny helmet.

The Stars of Funny Girl and Pineapple Express,
Together at Last

Though Sue Mengers is the villain of the All Night Long debacle, she was reportedly one of the few people in Barbra’s life who could get away with calling the superstar out on her bullshit. And so, decades later, when the two women were again on speaking terms, it was Mengers who told Barbra to stop waffling and just accept the offer to star in THE GUILT TRIP, directed by Anne Fletcher.

Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand in a scene from the 2012 comedy THE GUILT TRIP
What do you mean youre not holding?”

Seth Rogen in the 2012 comedy THE GUILT TRIP
Seth Rogen is just as surprised as
you are that he is in a PG-13 movie.
The Guilt Trip was Barbra’s first starring role since 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces, which she also directed (can’t forget that detail!), and, to date, her last movie. Yet upon The Guilt Trip’s December 2012 release Barbra's return to the big screen was met only with mixed reviews and polite applause. That said, I’m stretching the premise by counting it as one of Barbra’s bombs. The Guilt Trip wasn’t a hit, but it did eventually make back its $40 million budget. It “underperformed” rather than flopped.

Barbra plays Joyce, a widowed mother who dotes on her adult son, Andy (Seth Rogen), a chemist and struggling entrepreneur. Though Andy finds Joyce’s attention stifling, he does worry about her being alone and invites her to join him on a cross-country drive from New Jersey to California, with him making stops at various retail chains along the way to pitch his environmentally friendly cleaning product, ScieoClean. Andy also has an ulterior motive: learning that Joyce's first love now lives in San Francisco, he plans a surprise reunion.

Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand in a scene from 2012's THE GUILT TRIP
Andy begins to regret inviting his mother along for the ride.

The opening fifteen minutes of The Guilt Trip suggest it’s going to be little more than a 90-minute Jewish mother joke, but the movie has a bit more to it than that. Joyce is annoying but well meaning; Andy finds her overbearing and wishes she’d just shut the fuck up and give him some space—except when he needs her. Naturally, their relationship is tested, but by the time they reach the west coast their bond is stronger than ever. 

Seth Rogen, Barbra Streisand and Pedro Lopez in THE GUILT TRIP
Joyce picks up a hitchhiker.

Barbra was perfectly cast as Joyce (she got a Worst Actress Razzie nomination for this movie, but like a lot of Razzie nominations, I suspect it was more than a little disingenuous, being more about taking Babs down a peg than it was about her actual performance). The wild card was Rogen, who in the early 2010s was known more for raucous/raunchy R-rated comedies like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express. Would people buy him in a role where he never once takes a bong hit or makes a crude sex joke? (This PG-13 movie’s one allotted f-bomb goes to Barbra.) Rogen’s persona at the time had me thinking that Bette Midler would be a more believable movie parent for him, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well he and Barbra play off each other. They’re actually believable as mother and son. If only they were funnier.

Seth Rogen_Barbra Streisand_Brett Cullen in a scene from the 2012 film THE GUILT TRIP.
Andy and Joyce celebrate her competitive gluttony victory. On the far
right is Brett Cullum as Ben, a cowboy who is apparently into older
women who like to eat.

It's not that The Guilt Trip is devoid of laughs, it’s just that Dan Fogelman’s script is more sentimental than funny (the story is based on a real-life road trip he had taken with his mother). Most of the humor stems from Andy’s sarcastic asides to Joyce’s babbling. Where this trip veers off course is when Fogelman shoves in goofy contrivances, like when Joyce and Andy are stranded in the parking lot of a Tennessee titty bar and Joyce excitedly runs for the club’s front door because she misreads “topless” as “tapas.” Then there’s the scene in which Joyce participates in a Texas steakhouse’s eating challenge, which seems to be banking on audiences finding the sight of Barbra woofing down over three pounds of beef side-splitting. Hmmm, maybe it would’ve been better if Joyce lost a karaoke contest instead? There are also some lines that just haven’t aged well since the movie’s release, as when Joyce calls Andy her “little Donald Trump.” Oy!

All in all, The Guilt Trip is the kind of movie that would be described as cute. I remember thinking it was merely OK when I first saw it, ranking it as better than All Night Long but not as funny as For Pete’s Sake, or even Meet the Fockers. I had a higher opinion of the movie after a recent rewatch. The overall sweetness of the story resonated more the second time around, possibly because I’d lost my mother a few years ago and was more receptive to the sentimentality. I also laughed more than I remember doing on my first viewing. I still consider it one of Barbra’s lesser films, but it’s a little better than I initially gave it credit for.

Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand in a scene from the 2012 comedy THE GUILT TRIP.
Fashion forward: a track-suited Joyce adjusts Andy’s rumbled jacket.

Did it deserve to bomb underperform?: No, but it’s not surprising that it did. This thing was never going to make Marvel money (though, as I write this, Madame Web is making Guilt Trip money), however Paramount could’ve picked a better release date (Mother’s Day weekend, anyone?) The days when people flocked to see a Barbra Streisand movie had long since passed (even I, who saw All Night Long on its opening weekend, waited until The Guilt Trip was streaming), and younger audiences likely only knew Barbra as Roz Focker or a South Park punchline. Rogen’s fans at the time probably just wondered what the fuck he was doing in a PG-13 movie. But ultimately, the movie simply wasn’t funny enough to make people pay $8 U.S. to see it, especially in 2012’s economy.

Barbra has said she likely won’t make another movie, which isn’t surprising. She’s in her eighties, after all, though I wouldn't be surprised if she took one final, low effort/big payday film role before she dies (Book Club IV: The Wizening). So, for a career spanning more than six decades, the fact that she’s only had three box office misfires is a remarkable record. However, she’s also not been the most prolific actor, having made only 19 films, eight of those between 1981 and 2012. She hasn’t taken a lot of chances, either, sticking to musicals, comedies (romantic or otherwise) and romantic dramas. That may be great for a studio’s bottom line and Barbra's asking price, but I feel like she would have had a more interesting career if she had accepted some of the roles she turned down. In many cases, I’m glad she said no (King Kong, Poltergeist, The Exorcist 😮), but there are other film roles I wish she had taken. Would The Eyes of Laura Mars, Bagdad Cafe, or Misery (holy shit, really?) possibly have ended up on this list if she had accepted the offers to star in them? Highly likely, but, goddamn, how fun would those movies have been if they had been Barbra Streisand movies? No disrespect to Kathy Bates—she totally owned the part of Annie Wilkes and deserved her Oscar® for it—but I would very much want to see an alternate version of Misery with Barbra in that role. 

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Short Takes: ‘Alpha Delta Zatan’ (2017) 1/2 ★

Poster for the 2017 movie 'ALPHA DELTA ZATAN'
Gay porn without the gay or the porn.

Alpha Delta Zatan, features a cast of hot men delivering performances that can charitably be described as amateurish (absolute shit if just being honest), so naturally I checked their filmographies to see if any of them had done porn. None had—at least according to IMDb—but many of them should. I didn’t have to bother checking the filmographies of director Art Arutyunyan or writer Armand Petri for porn credits, however. Alpha Delta Zatan makes it clear that they wouldn’t know how eroticism works if it slapped them in the face with its dick.

But Alpha Delta Zatan is supposed to be a horror film, and Arutyunyan and Petri don’t have much of a grasp of how that works, either. Or basic storytelling, for that matter. This is Alpha Delta Zatan in a nutshell: A hunky member of the ADZ house strips down to his skivvies, unaware of a knife-wielding guy wearing a black Zentai body suit and harlequin mask (not “Harley Quinn,” as one actor insists on calling it) doing poses in the hall. Hunky guy then steps out of his underwear and into the shower, whereupon he’s attacked by the harlequin-masked killer. Rinse, repeat. 

That’s it. That’s Alpha Delta Zatan’s story, man-ass and murder, played on a loop, with only the color of the lighting (Artyunyan fucking loves his gels) to differentiate them from each other. There’s some business about Frat Dad Brad (Jared Fleming) mandating these killings for possible “Zatanic” reasons, and a lot of the frat brothers are shown drinking blood, but none of it is fully developed, let alone explained.

As one would expect, Alpha Delta Zatan is about as scary as David DeCoteau film. Yet, DeCoteau—early 2000s DeCoteau, specifically—would at least play up the homoeroticism, even if the guys in his casts seldom take off their boxer briefs. The guys of Alpha Delta Zatan, however, are decidedly asexual, or possibly just autosexual. They are always admiring their own bodies yet show zero interest in sex with any gender. Admittedly, several of the ADZ’s cast’s bodies are quite admirable, and certainly more to my taste than the twinks DeCoteau favors, but I started getting bored by the third shower scene; by the fourth I was hoping at least one of the guys would go full frontal, just to break the monotony (spoiler: no penises are ever shown). You’ll derive more enjoyment from watching 30-minutes' worth of fitness inspiration” videos on YouTube than watching Alpha Delta Zatan. Or you could just watch the hard stuff [NSFW, but you knew that].

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Short Takes: ‘A Closer Walk with Thee’ (2017) ★

'A CLOSER WALK WITH THEE' Poster
David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer was released earlier this month to reviews ranging from meh to just don’t. I just didn’t and instead watched the 2017 gay-themed possession story, A Closer Walk with Thee, a movie The Exorcist: Believer is most definitely better than.

A group of missionaries belonging to a Christian denomination with very strict edicts against set decoration have set up shop in an East Los Angeles house with the hopes of bringing area residents to the Lord. They have their work cut out for them. Their first convert, Ascencion (Deborah Venegas), comes staggering back possessed by a demon within minutes of being baptized. (This is a horror film, after all, though it’s easy to forget that given the film is as moodily lit as the interior of a CVS.) Fortunately for Ascencion, Brother Eli (Gregory Shelby) is a crack exorcist and casts that demon out of her in time for her to be home for lunch.

But there’s a more insidious possession taking hold in one of the mission’s own members, sweet-faced organist Jordan (Aj Knight), who is not only cursed with Shane Dawson’s hairstyle but is also overcome with impure thoughts of Brother Eli (and, in one scene, the body of Christ). Jordan does his best to keep these feelings under control, but he’s powerless to resist his urges when he spies on Eli in the shower—urges that are so strong (because Brother Eli’s ass is that fine!) that he never once considers consequences of jacking off outside the bathroom door. He’s just asking to be caught by Lindsey (Kelsey Boze), the most judgmental of his fellow missionaries. But it’s going to take more than Brother Eli shouting, “Reveal yourself, you fag demon!” to turn Jordan straight.

It’s the treatment of Jordan’s possession where A Closer Walk with Thee goes from bad to patently offensive, and when my rating dropped from a star and a half to a single star. Had the writing-directing team of John C. Clark and Brie Williams chose to fully commit to satirizing the hysteria of religious fanaticism, as they do periodically in the movie’s first half, or base the horror in that same fanaticism, which, as we’ve seen again and again, is pretty damned terrifying, I might have been able to simply blame the movie’s shortcomings on a low budget and limited filmmaking experience. Unfortunately, Clark and Williams chose to literally equate being gay with demon possession, with Jordan becoming a rape-y, homicidal homo, making A Closer Walk with Thee more closely aligned with the shit peddled in an evangelical Christian “hell house” (albeit better acted) than a movie purportedly aimed at LGBTQ audiences.

And yet it’s distributed by Altered Innocence, a company “dedicated to releasing LGBTQ and Coming-of-Age [sic] films with an artistic edge.” I’d argue that A Closer Walk with Thee belongs with a different company, but faith-based outlets generally shun content with f-bombs and butt stuff. A shame, because A Closer Walk with Thee has the potential to be the best thing in PureFlix’s catalog instead of one of the worst in Altered Innocence’s. #PureFlixAfterDark.

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Short Takes: ‘From Zero to I Love You’ (2019) ★★

Poster for 2019 film FROM ZERO TO I LOVE YOU
Jack (Scott Bailey), one of the main characters of writer-director Doug Spearman’s From Zero to I Love You, has a nice life: a loving wife, two young daughters and a successful career of sitting in front of a computer screen (he’s a book editor, it turns out). It’s the life he’s chosen for himself, but it’s not authentic. Jack is gay, a fact the movie would have you believe he’s suppressed for a decade, until he gives in to cruisy cater-waiter at a friend’s birthday party, hooking up with him while his wife Karla (Keili Lefkowitz) is in the next room. And yet Jack bristles at his therapist’s suggestion that he’s gay or bisexual. Jack is adamant he doesn’t want to be either, so he goes on pretending he’s not.

Until he meets Pete (Darryl Stephens of Noah’s Ark: Jumping the Broom), a sexy magazine copywriter who we’ll just assume inherited the chic Philadelphia townhouse he calls home. It’s meant to be a one-night stand, until Jack comes back for a second night, and then a third. Pete’s been down this road before, Jack being the fourth “straight” married man he’s gotten involved with. “Stop fuckin’ around with these down-low motherfuckers!” bellows his bullying/supportive father (Richard Lawson). But no matter how loudly his father yells, Pete can’t say no to Jack, allowing the relationship to become a full-fledged affair, one the audience knows is doomed unless the two men deal with some shit.

This one has gotten a lot of favorable reviews, and I really wanted to love it, or at least like it a lot. Yet while the movie does have some worthwhile things to say—about being true to yourself, about how the best choice isn’t always an easy one, and, all-too-fleetingly, about race—I just never quite fell for it (hey, we can’t always choose what we love). Spearman doesn’t spend much time developing the central romance, instead focusing on the complications that arise from it. That’s fine, but I still wanted something established between zero and the first “I love you.” Instead, Jack and Pete are in love simply because the screenplay says they are. The movie isn’t helped by a script that liberally uses tropes from rom-coms and soap operas yet refuses to fully commit to them, resulting in numerous scenes ending without any comedic or dramatic payoff.

From Zero to I Love You is well made on a technical level, with Spearman getting the most out of a small budget. The movie also benefits from some good performances, especially from Stephens and Lefkowitz. The weakest link is Bailey, who goes through the entire movie looking surprised he’s in it. When Pete dumps Jack in the second act (this movie at least subverts the third act breakup trope) for a trust funded, tattooed muscle bear (Adam Klesh, who, sadly, hasn’t done porn but has modeled for some artistic nudes), I became more invested in the movie simply because there was so much more chemistry between Stephens and the charismatic Klesh. Alas, the movie isn’t titled From Zero to ’Bye, Bitch, so this more compelling relationship isn’t the one that lasts.

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Short Takes: ‘Jobriath A.D.’ (2012) ★★★ 1/2

Poster for the 2012 documentary 'Jobriath A.D.'
I first learned about Jobriath in the 1980s, when I checked out the book Kitsch from my local library. One of the chapters featured the cover to Jobriath’s failed self-titled debut album, which depicted the singer in profile, face down on the ground, nude, with his legs crumbling away like he was a classic sculpture being chipped away by the ravages of time. The book presented the album cover as an example of bad taste, but I thought it was cool. From what I recall, author Gillo Dorfles’ accompanying text about Jobriath was kind of dismissive: he was an openly gay David Bowie wannabe who never lived up to his hype.

However, Jobriath was more than a glam rock no hit wonder, as director Kieran Turner’s 2012 documentary Jobriath A.D. proves, with interviews from people who knew him as Bruce Wayne Campbell, a child prodigy growing up in Pennsylvania; as Jobriath Salisbury, the wildly talented (and just plain wild) cast member of the Los Angeles production of Hair; and, of course, as his most famous incarnation, Jobriath Boone—or simply Jobriath—“the true fairy of rock and roll.”

One thing that becomes clear as Jobriath A.D. goes along is that as badly as the musician wanted to be famous, he did not want to be known, making an intimate portrait a bit of a challenge. Most of the people interviewed are people who worked with him, or who are fans, like Ann Magnuson, who released a Jobriath tribute EP the same year as this doc, and Scissor Sisters’ lead singer Jake Shears. The recollections shared by Jobriath’s younger brother, Willie Fogle, give us a sense of what life with their emotionally distant mother was like, but he hardly knew his brother any better than anyone else. 

Much of the documentary is dedicated to exploring how this musician who, per Rolling Stone, had “talent to burn,” failed to make a spark on the 1970s music scene. Homophobia is brought up, but fingers are also pointed at the gay community, which at the time, according to Jayne County, “was very, very negative against the whole androgynous, gender-glitter movement of the ’70s.” Most of the blame for fucking up Jobriath’s career is directed toward his manager, promoter and club owner Jerry Brandt, who once upon a time also managed Carly Simon. Brandt has a lot to say on the subject of Jobriath in the documentary, which isn't surprising. One of the criticisms lobbed at Brandt is that he often commandeered interviews with Jobriath, with the singer barely given a chance to answer a question, and Turner provides the receipts. (Brandt argues that Jobriath wasn't comfortable giving answers, and some of the clips showing a somewhat stiff Jobriath responding to an interviewer’s questions suggest there’s some truth to that, as well.) What comes out is that Brandt seemed more enthusiastic about promoting the persona Jobriath had created than building an audience for his music, so by the time his debut album dropped people were more familiar with its cover than the music contained therein. It was like Jobriath was a vanity project, only it was Brandt’s vanity being served.

For all the finger pointing, I think timing might have been Jobriath’s biggest enemy. I don’t think he’d have fared much better if he had beat Bowie to the punch, but maybe, with some tweaking of his sound, he could’ve made a bigger splash in the New Wave era. Instead, Jobriath found success in the Manhattan cabaret scene, performing as Cole Berlin or Bryce Campbell, though he did sex work on the side when money was tight. But his second act was short-lived: Jobriath died from AIDS complications August 3, 1983. Singer Will Sheff summarizes Jobriath's career—and the arc of this documentary—thusly: “He got to be the mega star, then he got to be the joke, and then he got to be forgotten. And now he gets to be the beacon for so many great artists out there who didn’t get their due.” 

Saturday, January 7, 2023

Short Takes: 'Cola de Mono' (2018) ★★★

The poster for the 2018 film COLA DE MONO
A rare instance when the movie
delivers what its poster promises.
Spending Christmas at home does not always mean saving the family business, finding love and exploring the erotic possibilities of candy canes. While the characters of Chilean writer-director Alberto Fuguet’s Cola de Mono are also into sexual exploration—though not with holiday candy—their Christmas is primarily spent dealing with feelings of loneliness, alienation, and getting hammered on the movie’s titular cocktail.

It’s Christmas Eve, 1986, and Santiago teenager Borja (a very effective Cristóbal Rodríguez Costabal) is whiling away his time reading Stephen King, pestering his older brother Vincente (Cristóbal’s real-life brother Santiago Rodríguez Costabal) and irritating his embittered mother (Carmina Riego). “Pay respect to the occasion,” he tells her during dinner. “God was born today.” “And he was killed 33 years later,” his mother sniffs.

After Mama puts herself to bed with pills and booze, the brothers embark on separate sexual journeys. Vincente goes cruising in a city park, while Borja breaks into his brother’s locked room and riffles through his things, discovering Vincente’s poorly hidden collection of gay skin magazines. It’s all sexy fun until a sexual assault/bashing sends Vincente running home, only to discover his privacy violated and that he and his brother have a shared secret, a secret that Borja shows little interest keeping. “We’re alike,” Borja taunts. “We’re brothers. And we like cock.” Then Mama comes to and overhears her sons, at which point the movie suddenly becomes a thriller.

Cola de Mono, its title referencing both an eggnog-like drink and a gay slur in Chile, gets a lot of attention for featuring copious amounts of male nudity and explicit sex (including a brief unsimulated blowjob), but for me its appeal is largely nostalgic. The 1980s pop culture references, from Borja liking books by King and Robin Cook to the boys decorating their rooms with movie posters for Desperately Seeking Susan and the more obscure Willie & Phil, were a treat, as was Fuguet’s resurrecting adolescent memories of hoarding gay porn mags and ogling guys wearing tight polyester gym shorts, with the added bonus that this time I could do so openly if not guilt-free. (I’m sure Cristóbal Rodríguez Costabal is of age, but I felt a little pervy admiring the ass of what is supposed to be a 15- or 16-year-old, though clearly the movie’s marketing team weren’t as conflicted).

As much as I enjoyed Cola de Mono for artistic and prurient reasons, the movie veers off course in its final third when it jumps to 1999, following an adult Borja (now played by Santiago Rodríguez Costabal, sporting a full beard) in what’s essentially an extended epilogue. This part of the movie, which includes a long sequence set inside a gay bathhouse, is titillating, but it serves little purpose beyond adding some bonus sex and nudity. Fuguet hurts his movie further by giving it a shocking ending, then muddying the waters by suggesting it was a film within a film. As much as I appreciated the extra skin, Fuguet would’ve done better to confine Cola de Mono's narrative to 1986. 

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Toxic Relationships Build Self-Confidence And Other Unhealthy Life Lessons

Trigger warnings: This post includes references to sexual assault and abusive relationships. It also features photos of men kissing and Charisma Carpenter nude, but I cant believe either of those things is a problem for readers of this blog.

Posters for the 2015 movie BOUND and 2022's THE NEXT 365 DAYS
Goddammit! I thought I had a good six months before I’d have to review the third 365 Days movie, but that was, like a lower subscription price or fewer transphobic comedy specials, just too fucking much to ask of Netflix. So, on August 19 the streamer dropped The Next 365 Days, and now, because I hopped on the bandwagon of reviewers shitting on this softcore sludge, I feel duty-bound to review it.

But first, let’s check out one of the first Fifty Shades of Grey knockoffs, 2015’s BOUND, from the studio that brought us the Sharknado franchise.

The Asylum was so eager to capitalize on the Fifty Shades sensation buzzing between pop cultures’ trembling thighs that it not only released the first Fifty Shades-inspired knockoff, the studio released it a full month before the first movie adaptation of E.L. James’ tragically popular porno books hit theaters.

Now, just because a movie is released by the Asylum doesn’t automatically mean it will be bad. They did give us Stuart Gordon’s King of the Ants, which is actually good, and the company has put out a few Christmas-themed movies that have a gotten five-out-of-ten stars or (slightly) higher on IMDb. The fact that Bound’s story did not include any supernatural elements also gave me hope as it would not be hindered by any shitty CGI. Plus, Bound stars Charisma Carpenter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? After all, she was quoted in 2003 as saying, “I’m not going to just do anything simply because the money is good. If I can't love a project, then I’m not interested.”

Charisma Carpenter and Mark McClain Wilson in a scene from BOUND.
This is likely the expression Charisma had
when she got to page 5 of the script.

Then I watched the movie. Charisma lied. Or, maybe she agreed to take the part only knowing the movie’s title, thinking she’d be appearing in a remake of Lana and Lily Wachowski’s acclaimed lesbian thriller, only to realize too late that she’d been duped. But, most likely, her position changed as the years went by and the career momentum from Buffy and Angel began to wane. The only reason anyone appeared in Bound is the only the only reason the movie was made to begin with: to make a quick buck.

But while Bound is a cash-in on Fifty Shades, director and co-screenwriter Jason Cohn has done what he can to ensure that it isn’t a total rip-off. Michelle Mulan (Carpenter) is no naïve college student but a single mother with a daughter about to start college and a boyfriend, George (Mark McClain Wilson), who can’t make her cum.

Though maybe don’t feel too sorry for Michelle. Sure, she may have to use a vibrator to get off, but she also lives in a house the size of a Comfort Inn.

The house where the main character in BOUND lives.
This is Michelle’s house. I call bullshit.
Daniel Baldwin in the 2015 movie BOUND
Daniel Baldwin, delivering the performance
you’d expect of him.
How is Michelle able to afford a mansion, and in Southern California, no less? She’s an executive for a real estate development company run by her father Walter, played by Daniel Baldwin (OK, you can go back to feeling sorry for her). But the company is not doing so well, and Walter’s right hand man Preston (“that guy” Michael Monks, cranking it up to 11) is pushing Walter to accept a bid to be bought out by a rival. Michelle is opposed to the sale, but she doesn’t yet have an alternative idea and is immediately dismissed by Preston, who’s an asshole. Lest you think Michelle has her father’s ear, Walter says he’s “inclined” to take Preston’s recommendation. “You said you wanted to sit at the table with the big kids,” Walter tells his frustrated daughter. It should be noted that all the other “big kids” are men.

So, Michelle might live in a mansion (yes, I’m going to keep harping on it, because it’s fucking  ridiculous), but she’s not respected at work, and she’s got daddy issues. And George can’t find her clit to save his life!

Bryce Draper in a scene from 2015's BOUND
Ryan hopes Michelle will overlook his Big
Rapist Energy.
Then she meets Ryan (the late Bryce Draper, no stranger to Z-grade material), who makes eyes at her from the bar while she and her daughter Dara (Morgan Obenreder) are having dinner at what looks like a nightclub repurposed as a restaurant. Michelle ignores him at first, but only because she’s in the company of her daughter. After they get back home, she realizes she “forgot” her credit card and returns to the restaurant. Ryan’s waiting for her. After introductions, he invites her to have a cigarette with him. Michelle tells him she doesn’t smoke, to which Ryan responds: “Yeah, you do.”

Let’s discuss Ryan for a moment. I get that the character is supposed to be self-confident and arrogant, with an air of danger—all qualities someone with a shaky self-esteem and a hankering for excitement might respond to. But Bound has the same problem as Darker Shades of Elise: its male lead immediately comes off as creepy and repellent rather than sexy and mysterious. Draper isn’t bad looking, but he doesn’t project the sexual magnetism his role requires. He’s not so fuckable that one would overlook Ryan’s charmless personality. I can see the desire to fuck Jamie Dornan or even Michele Morrone (were his character not a kidnapper, that is) being so strong one would ignore the warning signs, for one night at least; Draper is easier to resist.

Michelle doesn’t resist, however, and is soon letting Ryan go down on her atop her father’s desk…

Charisma Carpenter and Bryce Draper in a scene from BOUND
“I can’t wait for him to ask where all the snail trails came from!”
… and accompanying him to a BDSM sex club, exposing her to the mild side of kink (no fisting, piss play or CBT here).

Charisma Carpenter gets a tour of a sex club in BOUND
Cordelia discovers the Bronze is under new management.
Ryan’s attempt to fuck her in the alley outside the club, in full view of a guy in a leather face cage, gets a hard no from Michelle. Ryan shows he’s open to compromise and takes Michelle back to his place, which looks like they just re-arranged the sex club set. Though Michelle is cuffed to a chair and blindfolded, the BDSM trappings do little to raise the temp of this lukewarm sex scene. At least Michelle liked it, and soon thereafter she’s ditching boring, stable George for a man who gives strong serial rapist energy.

Charisma Carpenter in a scene from the 2015 movie BOUND.
You just know the Asylum wanted to put a starburst on the
DVD cover, urging people to “See Angel’s Charisma Carpenter
nude!” Too bad Carpenter beat them to the punch by posing for
Playboy a decade earlier.
But Michelle’s improved sex life negatively impacts her career. She blew off an important meeting with the head of Elliot and Associates, one that could possibly stave off the sale of her father’s company, to take a tour of the wild side (“wild” if you think French vanilla is daring). A day or so later, she brings Ryan along to a company-sponsored fundraiser. Though the event appears to be held in the entranceway of Michelle’s home, they hire a chauffeur to take them there, and during the ride Ryan gives Michelle a clit vibrator that’s remote controlled, and guess who has the remote? 

Bryce Draper witnesses the embarrassment of Charisma Carpenter in BOUND.
“Oh, shit. This movie isn’t going to get any
better, is it?”
Ryan wastes little time abusing his privilege, revving up the sex toy during Walter’s speech about finding a cure for Alzheimer’s. Ryan later pulls her into a bathroom for a quickie, then insists she not fix her makeup before they rejoin the party, so she steps out of the bathroom with her lipstick smeared down one side of her face like “a messy whore.” And who should be standing in front of the bathroom door but fucking Preston, who introduces Michelle to Jesse (Noel Arthur), the head of Elliot Associates! It should be noted that Preston enjoys Michelle’s humiliation more than Ryan does.

Less amused is Walter, who chastises her for bringing a “drug dealing car thief” to the fundraiser (like Daniel Baldwin can talk). This is not only the first the audience learns of Ryan’s criminal past; it’s also the first time Michelle learns of it, and yet she never comments on this revelation or in any way seems concerned by her lover’s alleged criminal history.

Bryce Draper and Charisma Carpenter in a tender moment from BOUND.
This is Michelle and Ryan, two scenes later.
What ultimately brings an end to this toxic relationship is Michelle suggesting some role reversal. How about if she spanked Ryan? Ryan coldly tells Michelle to leave, then goes after someone even more vulnerable: Michelle’s daughter Dara.

Bound is neither as terrible as I thought it would be nor as fun as I’d hoped. Carpenter does what she can, but her performance seems less committed as the movie goes along, as if she realized midway through that there’s no polishing this turd, so why bother? Even with the f-bombs and nudity, it feels like a Lifetime movie, and not a particularly well-made one. The movie seems to have a particularly hard time grasping how time works: it’s nighttime when Michelle arrives home from work, but once inside her house the mid-day sun is shining through her kitchen window. Later in the movie, the camera shows the clock on Michelle’s office wall moving from 1:50 to 4:20 p.m., right before Michelle makes 2 p.m. lunch appointment for that same day. Michelle travels further back in time to drop by a Terrell Owens-hosted pool party (sure, why not) to see Ryan on her way to this 2 p.m. appointment, telling him she can only stay a minute because the restaurant where she has her meeting is 30 minutes away. It’s like a math word problem that only has wrong answers.

Charisma Carpenter teaches Bryce Draper a lesson in the 2015 movie BOUND.
The nipple clamps of vengeance.
To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t pretend its story is a romance, acknowledging that Ryan and Michelle’s relationship is abusive. In a scene in which Michelle returns to the sex club for some independent research, a dominatrix warns her that Ryan isn’t in for the kink; he’s a predator. “People like Ryan give people like us a bad name.” Bound’s messaging is still a bit dicey, suggesting that abusive relationships are merely character-building. Nevertheless, it was fun to see Michelle finally beat shithead Ryan with his own cat o’nine tails, though I still felt she was a little too merciful. It’s a scene that would’ve benefitted with the addition of a crocosaurus.

Torn Between Two Kidnappers

Bad as Bound is, it at least has a story to tell, with a beginning, middle and end within a compact 90 minutes. There are now three movies in the 365 Days franchise and there’s not a complete, cohesive narrative among them. THE NEXT 365 DAYS is like trying to fuck while drunk: it never gets good, and it never finishes.

In This Day’s climactic gun battle, Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) was shot by her husband/kidnapper’s ex-girlfriend Anna, whereupon Nacho (Simone Sussina)—not a gardener but the son of a rival Mafia family—shot and killed Anna. Massimo (Michele Marrone), a.k.a. Scowly, then shoots his twin brother Adriano (also Marrone), a.k.a. Twitchy. At the beginning of The Next 365 Days, it’s revealed that Adriano, who took a bullet in his shoulder, is dead, while Laura, whose liver was aerosolized, survived, suffering only a barely perceptible scar and a bad dye job. When Scowly checks on her, she wakes up and immediately she wants to fuck. 

Anna-Maria Sieklucka and Michele Marrone in THE NEXT 365 DAYS
Americans struggle to get insurance coverage
for insulin but Laura is provided false eyelashes
while recovering from a near-fatal wound. Healthcare
really is so much better in Europe.
Remarkably, Massimo urges Laura to cool it; she’s still recovering, after all. Laura storms out of the bedroom in a snit and joins her pal Olga (Magdalena Lamparska, even more annoying this time out) on the patio, because I guess Olga now lives with them permanently (for those who give a shit, Olga has “changed her mind” about marrying Domenico, though I don’t know if that means she is or isn’t marrying him and the movie never clarifies the matter). Olga tells Laura they were all afraid of losing her and Laura says she’s grateful to have a second chance. Then Olga says what I was thinking: “More alcohol! I can’t look at that hair sober.”

In stunning turn of events, a makeover montage does not follow. Instead, the movie cuts immediately to the after, when Laura, hair done and wearing a sexy black dress, interrupts Scowly’s meeting with his fellow gangsters and asks her beloved kidnapper to see her when he’s done. Though Scowly was just hours earlier refusing to give Laura a hot meat injection for fear it might put her back in the ICU, he immediately excuses himself from his meeting to go fuck the bejesus out of his horny wife (time code 10:20, but it’s not really worth it).

Anna-Maria Sieklucka and Michele Marrone in one of many sex scenes in THE NEXT 365 DAYS
What’s up with that tarp? Are Scowly’s loads so huge
the walls need protecting?
But just when it looks like the couple are about to rekindle that moment in Laura’s initial captivity when she said, “Fuck it, he’s hot,” she gets a call from Nacho, who, interestingly, also kidnapped Laura, albeit in a friendlier fashion. Laura later spots Nacho at a nightclub but is intercepted by Scowly before she can say hello. Later, Scowly accuses Laura of cheating on him with Nacho, plus he’s pissed that she didn’t tell him about being pregnant. Laura snaps that she lost their baby because of his enemies. It’s so sad to see a criminal and his victim fighting. 

Anna-Maria Sieklucka in a scene from Netflix's THE NEXT 365 DAYS.
Laura Torricelli: Businesswoman.
There’s an attempt at make-up cunnilingus later, but Scowly intuits (through taste?) that her thoughts are elsewhere, and he’s correct: Laura is fantasizing about Nacho eating her pussy. And so begins the cold war between the Torricellis. Since the lives of these “characters” revolve almost exclusively around fucking, Laura and Scowly must find other ways to pass the time while giving each other the silent treatment. Laura, remembering she was given a fashion house for Christmas in This Day, decides to throw herself into her business, while Scowly pursues other interests: jacking off in the shower and snorting cocaine.

The rest of the movie is devoted to Laura trying to decide between two kidnappers. Since those are the only two options (the third, more sensible option of escape, followed by intense therapy, is never on the table), it should be a no-brainer: Nacho. Sure, he kidnapped her, but he at least made it appear like he was rescuing her, and he’s way more pleasant, besides. Also, in all the sex scenes in which Nacho appears (three in fantasy, one real), he seems to be a more giving lover (Scowly fucks like he’s late for an appointment). Alas, The Next 365 Days can’t make it that easy, or that final. I’m saddened to report that this one also ends on a cliffhanger, meaning there could be fourth one of these things.

Michele Marrone beats it in THE NEXT 365 DAYS
Massimo Torricelli: Pud pounder.
That the possibility of a fourth installment of this supposed erotic franchise fills my heart with dread should tell you all you need to know. The Next 365 Days isn’t quite as offensive as its predecessors, but only because the movie brushes the circumstances of Laura and Scowly’s first meeting in 365 Days under a cum-stained rug and never acknowledges them. Plus, this franchise gets less and less engaging each time out so by this point I couldn’t even work up the energy to be mildly annoyed by its fucked-up sexual politics.

Magdalena Lamparska in a scene from Netflix's THE NEXT 365 DAYS.
If you think getting drunk and screaming a lot
is funny, then you’re in for a treat: The Next
365 Days
features 30% more Olga.
About the only thing The Next 365 Days has going for it is featuring more Nacho—or rather, more nude scenes from Sussina. If you were to just watch the scenes with him and Sieklucka together, you might even mistake this movie for being the erotic romance it’s pretending to be. It’s a good thing, too, because Marrone has noped out of doing any nude scenes for this one, and Sieklucka gets naked less frequently. Had directors Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes (really, it took two directors?) not included some sex scenes involving superfluous characters and/or extras the movie would be in danger of having a whole 20 minutes go by without any simulated humping. If you think that’s a complaint, it’s not. I’ll take gratuitous sex scenes over pointless montages—or “comic relief” from Olga—any day. Unfortunately, whether people are bumping uglies or slow walking into a restaurant, it’s going to be soundtracked to irritating Europop with godawful lyrics like: “Kiss me like a stranger/Come and taste my flavor/You don’t need no chaser/Just vibe on my danger.” There are no fewer than 27(!) songs featured on the soundtrack. The original cast recording of Evita only had 23, and that’s a fucking musical.

The “Good Parts”

THE NEXT 365 DAYS teases some girl-on-girl action.
Psych! This is as far as they go.
22:30: In the VIP room of a nightclub, Laura fondles Scowly’s crotch while an exotic dancer performs. She then joins the dancer on stage, acting like she’s about to treat Scowly—and the audience—to some girl-on-girl action, only to dismiss the dancer so she and Scowly can have some hard-pounding (but fully-clothed) sex.

Anna-Maria Sieklucka and Simone Sussina in a scene from THE NEXT 365 DAYS.
A box lunch with Nacho.
30:19: Laura dreams of Nacho going down on her, and the scene really does Sussina’s ass justice. The scene transitions into Scowly eating out Laura for “real”, but Marrone keeps his pants on for the scene.

Michele Marrone and Anna-Maria Sieklucka in THE NEXT 365 DAYS.
Scowly suspects this meal isn’t for him.

Michele Marrone in a scene from the Netflix movie THE NEXT 365 DAYS.
“Quack like a duck!”
39:00: Scowly goes with some of his Mafioso colleagues to a fetish club where lines of coke are served on trays like hors d’oeuvres. He makes out with a silicone-inflated club girl but can’t bring himself to cheat on Laura. The camera instead turns its attention to another guy in Scowly’s booth having a three-way with two latex- and leather-clad women.

41:35: Laura walks in on Emily, the lead designer at her fashion house, getting rammed from behind by a hunky model.

Yet another sex scene from Netflix's alleged erotic romance THE NEXT 365 DAYS
Emily and her boy toy pad the run time.
52:10: More fantasy sex with Nacho, this time featuring a full menu of positions: rear entry, missionary and cowgirl, all performed in smoke-filled studio under a tent of bamboo garden netting and lit by a flashlight.

Simone Sussina and Anna-Maria Sieklucka in a scene from THE NEXT 365 DAYS
Laura fantasizes of Nacho while the audience has fantasies
of the producers of The Next365 Days hiring a
lighting technician.
1:08:23: Real sex with Nacho. You know Laura is really with Nacho because you can actually see what’s going on.
Anna-Maria Sieklucka and Simone Sussina in one of the better sex scenes from THE NEXT 365 DAYS
Laura about to get covered in hot Nacho sauce.
1:19:08: Laura in the shower. No sex, just titties. (You’re welcome, straight male and lesbian readers.)

1:27:57: Laura is in a ménage à trois with Scowly and Nacho. The guys work their way down Laura’s body, then pause to look into each other’s eyes…and kiss! To the actors’ credit, they fucking go for it. Yes, there is tongue, and not just a little bit. Alas, just as the scene is getting interesting, Laura wakes up, because of course it’s just a dream. 

Anna-Maria Sieklucka, Michele Marrone and Simone Sussina surprise us in THE NEXT 365 DAYS
OK, now I’m interested.
If there is in fact going to be a fourth movie, I can only hope Scowly and Nacho will make my dreams come true by going all the way. But this is the 365 Days universe; nothing that interesting would be allowed to happen.

Anna-Maria Sieklucka and Michele Marrone sequel bait in THE NEXT 365 DAYS
The end? That’s about as likely as Sussina and Marrone fucking
on camera.