Unnatural Devotions

Retro

2010-01-06T18:49:00.002-05:00

Solo

2010-01-06T18:49:00.001-05:00

Taking Woodstock (2009)

2010-01-06T17:20:00.007-05:00

Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock is an amiable but ultimately forgettable look at the story (or, rather, a story) behind the famous rock concert where hippies took over a slice of the Catskills and created a legend. The film focuses on Elliot, a native of the Catskills town, who helped bring the concert there after a neighboring town refused to grant the concert a permit.

The film is based on Elliot's autobiography and is both a slice of life and a vague sort of coming of age (and coming out) film about that apparently magical summer, and the film captures the sense of magic in the air, but only in a vague stand-offish kind of way---it doesn't create vivid enough characters or vignettes (even its moments of awe are muted and blah) so it never really leaves you with anything but a kind of tease about what it might have shown us if it had had a more solid point of view beyond its wistful blissful nostalgia. You enjoy the view while it's there but you sometimes wonder why you're still sitting there watching it.

There are three characters who make an impression: Elliot's mother, who is a grating presence: essentially she's an anti-Semitic joke and makes you wonder where all that hate came from (in Elliot, who apparently originally [re]created her) in this wellspring of nostalgia for the summer of love; and, on a more positive note, there's Jonathan Groff as Michael Lang, the concert organizer: Lang arrives from on high (literally, from a helicopter) radiant as the Second Coming and blazing with charisma; you can't take your eyes off him. And then there's Liev Schreiber as Vilma, a gun toting transgender Korean War vet who is the embodiment of warmth and strength: you can see where the revolution, gay and otherwise, emerged from in the fiery compassion of her eyes. She's marvelous.

Other than that it's a pleasant enough reconstruction of a cultural memory but one that you may find yourself forgetting soon after you've seen it.

3 out of 5 stars.

Comic Book Beef

2010-01-06T09:39:00.002-05:00

by David Finch (via his blog), who apparently has moved from Marvel to DC, dammit. I'm hoping he gets on to Batman, since that's the only DC book I get these days.

Muscles

2010-01-06T00:43:00.000-05:00

Ring of Fire

2010-01-06T00:42:00.000-05:00

from Hot House

Lounge

2010-01-06T00:41:00.002-05:00

Deep

2010-01-06T00:41:00.001-05:00

Thank You For Smoking (2005)

2010-01-05T23:47:00.005-05:00

Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking is a very smart satire about a smooth-talking tobacco lobbyist and the world of spin and media. Satires usually work best when they're created by misanthropes because a misanthrope (when they haven't succumbed to the romantic idealism that's usually at the root of their misanthropy) rarely create simplistic smug hero and villain stories since in their world there are no heroes, just sleazeballs and idiots of one kind or another; and although this film is not quite misanthropic, has a little more compassion for its characters, it never feels like it's heroically smug about its point of view because it pretty much makes everyone (except for one or two nondescript characters who are there to be appalled and keep everything in perspective, making sure we get the irony) tobacco barons and health advocates alike, is an asshole in one way or another.

Also, thankfully, the film ends up being about more than the sleazeball tobacco people; it ends up also being about a world in which everything is rhetoric: vaguely questioning the popular academic idea that there is no reality, only arguments and tactics of language. It's, in a way, a nightmare version of what all those post-modern academics keep trying to sell us, that all the world is a linguistic construction, and we are all merely agents and constructions of syntax (or something like that)---when everything can be reduced to rhetoric, nothing is dangerous or healthy or true or false, it's just pieces of language. That's what our anti-hero, Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) plays with, and that's what most of the "elite" media world and their followers play with, and so spin (and cynicism) rules the world.

The film is not entirely about that, but that's one of the things at the core, and it's a lot of fun, and the film itself is having so much fun, and has enough affection and understanding for its sleazeball characters (a point of view that creates a surprisingly pleasant ambiguity) that you don't feel as depressed and frightened as you probably should be by the image of the world it presents (which also may be one of the film's flaws).

Required viewing, I think, for anyone who wants a vivid picture of what we've come to in this age of media and rhetorical games.

4 out of 5 stars.

Variety Pack

2010-01-05T18:32:00.000-05:00

Glory

2010-01-05T15:01:00.001-05:00

Via Michael Lucas' blog
visit Carlos Caballero's blog

Sketchbook

2010-01-05T15:00:00.003-05:00

I did this ink sketch this afternoon.

Muscles

2010-01-05T00:06:00.000-05:00

Have a Seat

2010-01-05T00:05:00.000-05:00

from Sean Cody

Classic

2010-01-05T00:04:00.002-05:00

Coming Soon

2010-01-04T15:33:00.002-05:00

Next up on my Netflix queue:

Torso

2010-01-04T15:02:00.002-05:00

Lounge

2010-01-04T15:02:00.001-05:00

Sport

2010-01-04T15:01:00.002-05:00

Sketch Book

2010-01-04T14:40:00.002-05:00

I did this in sketch this afternoon. Click image to enlarge

Muscles

2010-01-04T00:05:00.000-05:00

Wet

2010-01-04T00:04:00.001-05:00

Feast

2010-01-04T00:03:00.000-05:00

Rear View

2010-01-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

from Sean Cody

Insatiable: Cops & Rogers

2010-01-03T20:07:00.006-05:00

In scene 2 of Liberate Studios Insatiable, Kurt Rogers, out for a drive (or, rather, a prowl) in his silver BMW convertible, is stopped by police officer Doug Ruffman for speeding. Officer Doug is tall and lanky with a shaved head and a menacing look, but that menace turns to lust when he recognizes Kurt as a gay porn star. The boys make a deal: Kurt will let officer Doug have his way with him if Doug will forget about the speeding ticket. Officer Doug, no fool, takes the deal, hops in Kurt's car so they can head over to Kurt's place to seal the deal.

The boys waste no time. As soon as Kurt pulls his car into his garage, they're swapping spit and slipping off their hats and sunglasses. The kissing is hot (I could watch these two kiss for hours) and so is the initial oral action (Kurt swallowing officer Doug's thick cock and then officer Doug swallowing Kurt's gargantuan meat) but the thing that sets this on fire, besides the kissing (seriously, the kissing is smokin) is the thing that sets Kurt on fire: the rimming Kurt gets.

Nearly all of Kurt's erotic nerve endings must be gathered at the rim of his anus. The second Doug puts his tongue there, the moment the wet tip of it starts teasing that little pucker of flesh, you can see Kurt ignite. He was seething with lust while they were kissing but once the anus becomes the focus, he loses his mind. And the added bonus, partway through the rimming, Kurt's cock gets into the process, Kurt shoving it backwards so Doug can lick it and suck it while he's lapping at the pulsing asshole, and so you get this gorgeously creamy, astoundingly thick uncut cock plumping and plumping as Doug sucks it while driving Kurt's asshole wild all at the same time. And by the time Doug shoves his cock into Kurt's ass, Kurt has lost all sanity, and you pretty much are about to blow your load.

Very hot scene, down to Kurt's thrilling orgasm spasms as he shoots his load all over the hood of that beautiful BMW.

See it (or buy the Insatiable DVD) at the Liberate Studios web site