[F4TFriday] Movies

This prompt is a bit outside my normal thought patterns.  First, the last movie I was interested enough to see in the cinema on its release was Close Encounter of the Third Kind (1977) – yes, it’s been 42 years since I’ve been in a cinema.  And, second, my general lack of interest in sex.  Or in the asexual lexicon, the lack of sexual attraction.

Which means this post is something of a whimsy piece.

I’d love to discuss some favourite porn movies, but my style of viewing has always been to fast forward to the “interesting” bits.  By which I mean the mechanics of something not seen before.  In the 90’s I had a German video tape called “4 Hour Perversions” that would take me about 20 minutes to get through.  Don’t get me wrong, the vastly younger me could be aroused by the “interesting” 20 minutes and masturbation might ensue.  However, I don’t think I can ever recall seeing a porno or even normal movie scene and saying to myself “that was hot !”.

I think that there are two hooks that make me fall for a movie and have a crush on the participant.  There’s that thing when I can empathise with a character and wish to know more, especially what’s out of shot or wondering about how the movie continues.  And the other, is that from such an early age my affinity with a character has often been determined by the response of “I want to be her”.

There are signature films that people talk about as seminal moments regarding sex in movies.  I quite enjoyed Jane Fonda in Barbarella, mostly because it was so whacky.  The concept of Barbarella breaking the “death by pleasure” machine due to her capacity for sex and pleasure more than intrigued me at the time and yes – I wanted to be her, in that predicament.

Indeed, that may have been the real start of predicament bondage, the pleasure / pain torture, as a full blown fantasy.

Just don’t bother asking me about Basic Instinct.

I think most males and females agree that there’s a special place for both Morticia Addams and ‘Miss Debbie’ from Addams Family Values.  I had a crush on being either of them – the passion of Morticia and the single-mindedness of Miss Debbie.  I’ll allow younger readers to have their crush on Wednesday Addams.  That’s pretty good going, three strong female characters from one film.

More abstract as a crush is Sean Young.  There are two roles of hers that are totally enigmatic, leaving so much to the imagination.  The more obviously famous one is as the aloof replicant Rachael in Blade Runner.  She just oozed all that hidden passion that left you wondering how it expressed itself if she did run away with Decker after the credits rolled.  The second role is as Chani in Dune.  A film lambasted at the time but now something of a cult classic.  It helped to know the book very well, which I did.  The passion between Paul and Chani was expressed just enough in the film for me to want to know everything they were to each other as these characters rather than the ones I knew from the book.

There’s one crush that many might consider unusual.  Rene Russo in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.  I love the classic style and elegance that she portrays.  The way that the professional demeanour conflicts with emotional desires and joy as the two of them joust in one world and become something else on another plain.  There’s a naturalness to the sex scenes that to some degree bypasses my asexual filters.  The final scene when he reveals himself as sitting in the plane seat behind her has me joining in her tears.

There’s something about passion that grabs at me.  Casablanca is a brilliant film, but it’s not Ingrid Bergman that catches my eye, it’s Madeleine Lebeau.  The passion in the close up of her singing La Marseillaise has me a) in bits; b) wanting to know all about her – it’s also the broken heart from being dumped by Rick.

To top it off, I am of an age where almost every film of the time seemed to include Kathleen Turner.  Forget all the RomCom dross, there’s an obscure film called Serial Mom.  She plays the ‘ideal’ suburban American Mom, who just happens to secretly correspond with Ted Bundy in jail, will readily kill anyone who threatens her family, especially her children.  And she makes a mean phone sex pest.  And to keep this close to topic, there’s a wonderful scene where the family break in to a house and into the bedroom of one of their friends.  There’s horrible noises coming from the bedroom where they think ‘Mom’ is killing their friend – he’s just having a rather energetic and noisy wank.

Serial Mom – now that’s a woman I’d love to be.