Sasha Grey Returns

It's the movie poster for Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience," starring Sasha Grey. I can't wait to see it. If you're looking for the Sasha Grey American Apparel ad, it's here.

Punch Drunk Wrestler

Top: "The Wrestler," 2008, Darren Aronofsky.

Bottom: "Punch-Drunk Love," 2002, Paul Thomas Anderson.

Click to see bigger.

What's That On My Doorstep? Oh. That Must Be My Fox Searchlight Anal Beads (TM)

So, a few weeks ago, I wrote about how Fox Searchlight was passing out anal beads to promote the fall release of "Choke." At the time, I emailed a Fox Searchlight VP of publicity, Melissa Holloway, who confirmed Fox Searchlight was, indeed, passing out anal beads to promote an upcoming movie--and she said she'd send me a set. My Fox Searchlight Anal Beads (TM) were in the mail! But then I didn't get my anal beads. Totally tragic, I know. Anyway, I figured that out not long ago, and I whined about not getting them, and then lo' and behold! I walked outside today, and there was a big UPS box on my doorstep, and I thought, oh, it's some godawful book from some craptastic publisher, and then I peered a little closer, and I saw the box read: "FSL -- CHOKE -- BOOKMARK BEADS VER. B (BLACK)." And I think you can figure out what was inside. Anyway, thank you, Fox Searchlight! You are my new BFF. Now if only Doubleday would send me their Snuff promotional lube, I'd be all set.

"Morning" by Daniél L.

Stockholm-based photographer/filmmaker Daniél L. sent me a link to his short, "Morning." I liked it. The girl is spooky. You can read his working notebook Tumblr here.

Tokyo Gore Police Hopefully Not Coming For You

The trailer for "Tokyo Gore Police" is deeply arresting. Where to begin? With the crocodile vagina? The removable face? The blood rain umbrella? I guess the one thing I would say is that it made me appreciate that some parts of the world attempt to deal with the harsh realities of inevitable death not by censorship but with humor.

"The plot: future Tokyo is plagued by bio-mechanical a virus. People who contract the virus turn into 'Engineers,' named so for their ability to assemble weapons out of their infected flesh wounds. A special privatized police force (the gore police, also known as 'Engineer Hunters') exists to wipe out these beings, but if they’re wounded by one of the engineers, they quickly join their ranks, horrific implements of death quickly spawning from their own flesh."

For another festival of violence, check out this Russian trailer for "Wanted," via Chatarra, which calls it "Porno de balas."

Mr. Pearl Documentary

Diane Pernet reveals that Michael James O'Brien is making a documentary about corset-maker extraordinaire Mr. Pearl. Pearl was raised in South Africa, inspired to corset by Fakir Musafar, and worked for Thierry Mugler. On the set of the doc-in-progress, Pernet snapped a few pics of Pearl's work on muse Dita Von Teese.

Man on Wire

Sarah May Scott on "Quid Pro Quo"

Reverse Cowgirl pal Sarah May Scott, a blogger with a T4/5 SCI, blogs "Some Thoughts on Apotemnophilism." According to Wikipedia, apotemnophilia is "the erotic interest in being or looking like an amputee," and the fetish is the focus of a new film starring Nick Stahl and Vera Farmiga: "Quid Pro Quo."

She writes: "I feel conflicted about this movie, because I am of the opinion that any depiction of wheelchair users as sexual is a good thing. Really, any depiction at all will do, because we are largely an invisible minority to a lot of people, and the only way to change that is to raise awareness. So for me a feature film that explores sexuality within a disability context is a move in the right direction, no matter how awful the subtext of the film might be."

Read the rest of her entry here. Meet Sarah here. Follow along as she trains her service dog Coco for certification here. Related: "My Own Private Rehab," "Melt Me Down into Big Black Armour," "Social Networking for the Disabled: Why?"

My Top Ten All-Time Favorite Movies And Ten Notes On The List

1. "Raging Bull"
2. "Orlando"
3. "Magnolia"
4. "The Wizard of Oz"
5. "Mulholland Drive"
6. "Apocalypse Now"
7. "No Country for Old Men"
8. "Cast Away"
9. "Sixteen Candles"
10. "Man Bites Dog"

1. I was torn between putting "Raging Bull" first and putting "Orlando" first. We're talking favorites, not greatest. "Orlando" speaks to me like no other movie, but "Raging Bull" is the greater movie, so there you have it.

2. A lot more black and white here than I would have thought.

3. "Magnolia" could have been in the number one position, too. Shares my obsession with the Valley. Father/son deathbed scene is unrivaled in cinema.

4. At my first pass on this list, I forgot "Apocalypse Now" and "Mulholland Drive." Embarrassing.

5. "Cast Away" is a movie I probably would have never seen if I hadn't been paid to review it when it came out. Christ. Beautiful. Plane crash scene? Phenomenal. Love the silence. The transformation. Can't watch it enough.

6. "Sixteen Candles." Um. Sorry! I'm a girl.

7. "Man Bites Dog." If you haven't seen it, see it. Faux serial killer doc. "CINEMA! CINEMA! CINEMA!" Unforgettable.

8. Wanted to include "flex" and "The Operation" but didn't because they're shorts.

9. Apologies to "Taxi Driver." And "Goodfellas." And Scorsese. My hero.

10. My list is weird.

Oh, FUCK

Last week, a couple things happened that I didn't blog about, and then that and some other things made blogging difficult this week, and then while I still can't talk about one of them, tonight I realized, well, I could talk about the other at least, and at this point in the story, I'm sure I've gone on so long that you've lost interest. Anyway, I got an email, oh, a week or so, I suppose, maybe more than that, from Mark Graham, who is a nice man and the managing editor of Defamer. Which is like the blackly opaque cinematic eye of the giant, blogosphere-eating robot that is Gawker Media. So, Mark wanted to know if I was interested in being in the running to become an addition to the Defamer team, or however you want to put it, you know, a Defamer editor. And I was, like, um, yeah. Because that's how I roll. Slutty. After all, I am not nor have I always been, uh, "just" a sex writer. I write about culture. (At least that's what I tell myself sometimes.) And once upon a time, thanks to David Poland, I was a movie critic, and for a while I was, like, a movie critic pundit on a FX TV show hosted by Chris Gore. And I guess you could look at my, er, "interest" in pornography as also being about movies. Whatever. Anyhoo, so I didn't blog about it, because, I don't know, maybe I figured I wasn't supposed to, but then it occurred to me no one told me not to, and then I started writing this. Actually, I started writing this because I saw this, which is some kind of Gawker internal memo in which somebody tells everybody to stop swearing so much on all the Gawker sites, from what I gather. And a part of me was like, Oh, shit. Because I'm already worried that everyone just thinks I'm a big pervert and can't bring anything to the table but a bunch of well-worn bukkakes tales. (I mean, you know, you never know.) As part of the auditioning process, I had to make a demo blog, with three demo posts, and two out of three of them were about sex. I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do or not, but then I thought about how Santino got all freaked out on "Project Runway" and lost in the finals because he lost himself, and then I was, like, fuck it. I yam what I yam. Now they're deciding if they're going to give me a test run as a guest blogger on the site--or not. So far, the only contender I know of is a soap opera writer. So, hey! You never know. Either way, not writing about things that are happening is never good for me. To be clear, this isn't the other thing that I blogged about obtusely last week, the thing that I said had made me so happy that I cried. I'd really, really like to write for Defamer, but, you know, I'm not gonna cry about it. Not yet, anyway. That other thing is something else. Something that is pretty great. Something that has kind of freaked me out a bit. These last three years were God's great kick in the teeth to me, and it hasn't been easy. But things like these make me want to take back the ball and throw it really hard at the back of somebody's head, like, I told you, motherfucker. If that makes sense, great. If not, I can't explain it.

Peter Bart Hearts Heidi Fleiss

Defamer points to Peter Bart's sorta-rave review of the upcoming Heidi Fleiss doc: "Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal."

"When Heidi refused to talk to Bailey and Barbato any more, Sheila Nevins stepped in to shoot the interview and did an impressive job. There Heidi is, on camera, speaking insightfully one moment and incoherently the next, explaining her weird view of life. In one moment she is comparing herself to Alexander the Great ('I, too, conquered the world in my twenties – the sex world'), then she’s talking about her 'three years in lesbian hell' (jail)."

[Ed. note: What the fuck? Is every post today going to be about prostitution? At this rate, maybe.]

Vera Farmiga So Hot She Makes Apotemnophilia Sexy

Defamer's got an interview with Vera Farmiga about her upcoming role in "Quid Pro Quo," a movie so strange that even I can't really figure out what it's about.

"Any time you sit down with an apotemnophiliac — actually, even that is probably an outdated term for it. Now it's like 'body image integrity disorder.' The only support system I could find was online. The only explainable thing is that the anguish of wanting to be paralyzed is greater than that of amputation."

According to Wikipedia, apotemnophilia "is the overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs or other parts of the body." Sometimes, I want to chop my head off, so I guess it's kind of like that.

The 50 Worst Sex Scenes in Cinema

IFC and Nerve have come together to pronounce "The 50 Worst Sex Scenes in Cinema." That's a lot of bad sex. Some choices I agree with, and some I don't. I don't get why "Irréversible" is #3. Harrowing? Maybe. Bad? No. "9 Songs" is #16. Since the actors were really having sex, does that make it a bad sex scene--or just bad sex? "Savage Grace" is #33. I haven't yet seen this movie, about the incestuous relationship between Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son, but just reading about it is stomach-turning: "No amount of prayers to the God of Timely Editing will cut short the squirmy agony, and when Barbara finally finishes, she's upset to learn that poor Tony didn't orgasm, so she beats him off until he does." And "Hollow Man" is #42. But it should be higher. Invisible man rapes woman. 'Nuff said.

Tucker Max Is Blogging the Making of "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell"

Fratire king Tucker Max is blogging the making of the movie version of his bestselling boobs-populated and booze-saturated fuckmoir, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. On location in Shreverport, Louisiana, Tucker and his production team post enigmatic photos of the film's stars, discuss working with Donnie Darko, and reveal exactly how many penises will be in the movie.

"From: 'Production Attorney'
To: Production Team
Re: IHTSBIH Actor Offers

Nils/Tucker/Bob - While I will need to have a longer discussion with Bob to get the full extent of how he plans to shoot the scenes that would require some nudity, for now I just need to put in a general description of the level of nudity and simulated sex scenes e.g. 'we will need the actor to perform wearing only a frontal covering in __ scenes and to engage in simulated sex in ___scenes'. We have to give them the scenes and [make sure they are] okay with showing their rear end and 'side buttock on screen'. If I can tell them we can agree that we will not show [their] genitalia or pubic hair that would be good..."

To which Tucker responds: "I will burn the movie to the ground before I put a dick in it."

Apparently, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" it is not.

Tomer & Asaf for "Waltz with Bashir"

Tomer and Asaf are two of my favorite artists. Together, they blog at Tropical Toxic. Their work is luminous, beautiful, alive. Wonderfully, they were part of the making of "Waltz with Bashir," an animated feature about the Lebanon War of the early eighties that Manohla Dargis called "stunning" and recently premiered at Cannes. In this entry, the twin brothers reveal some of their "Waltz with Bashir" work. Tomer created the breathtaking image you see here.

Choke On These Anal Beads

Yesterday, I wrote that Fox Searchlight is promoting its upcoming Chuck Palahniuk film, "Choke," by handing out anal beads. Today, Defamer's got the photo. HOT! The idea of that guy sticking those Fox Searchlight Anal Beads (TM) up his ass is... Well. Yes. Anyway. I bet Owen Gleiberman never dreamed his name would appear next to anal beads. Congrats, Owen! Relatedly, I emailed Fox Searchlight PR maven Melissa Holloway regarding this matter. She has yet to respond to my anal bead query. I'd like to say my "Choke" anal beads are in the mail, but I suspect they are not.

Hollywood Is Hard

Defamer picks up my earlier post--"Fox Searchlight Handing Out Anal Beads?"--with editor Seth Abramovitch adding a new twist.

"We're reminding of a recent Lionsgate promotion in which entertainment journalists across the country were gifted with Hostel 2-branded urethral sounding rods—a fringe S&M practice most of them were entirely unfamiliar with, resulting in the majority of the nonplussed recipients either tossing the stainless steel devices, or using them as makeshift letter openers."

I hate it when that happens.

New Heidi Fleiss Doc Screens This Summer

"Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal" debuts this summer. From Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato at World of Wonder, the madam doc makes its world premiere on Thursday, June 26, at the 2008 LA Film Fest. On July 21, HBO will air the movie as part of its summer Documentary Film Series.

"Infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss loves keeping exotic birds because Alexander the Great did, but unlike Alexander, she made it out of her 30s alive. With the same humor, sympathy and clarity that animated The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato follow Fleiss on her long, strange trip through the Nevada desert, into local politics and her burgeoning affection for those birds as she attempts to mine prostitution gold again by opening Heidi’s Stud Farm, the first legal brothel for an exclusively female clientele."

Since it's from the guys who brought us "Inside Deep Throat," I can't imagine it's an accident the movie is 69 minutes.

Previously, Radar reported Fleiss is supposed to be a cast member of the second season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew." "If I want my Vicodin I'm going to take my Vicodin. And if I want a little of that crystal meth..." she said.

Wherefore Art Thou, Gonzo?

This here is the trailer for "Gonzo," a Johnny Depp hosted documentary about the good Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

It looks really wonderful. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket of acid, toss everything all over again, and head West on a bus with a silver hound galloping along the side of it.

What does this have to do with sex? I don't know. Maybe if we all fucked the way HST wrote, we'd be happier.

Black Male Strippers in Baltimore Fight for Their Right to Wear a Thong

Reverse Cowgirl reader Brian sent a link to "Men at Work," the story of a group of black male strippers in Baltimore who are fighting for their right to run around in thongs and get paid by the ladies for it. If you want to see what guys with stage names like the Sexecutioner do for a living, there's a documentary about the dancers' right to strip, "Don't Hate: Strippers Fight the Government," which is being threatened by a local ordinance that seeks to stop the male dancer/female audience humping.