"Sex. Sex. Sex." That's a far more accurate and truer statement than the clichéd "Sex Sells" isn't it? Sex often emphatically doesn't sell. Sometimes it severely limits your market penetration... excuse me, saturation. So "Sex Sells" is an overstatement with lots of conditional clauses. But "Sex. Sex. Sex." that's just true, unequivocally! I'm not saying this because of this Kill Your Darlings trio's photo op I've just posted...
Daniel, Dane, and their Director John
...even though yes, director John Krokidas is totally 100% sexable based on this photographic evidence. (Tangent: Dane DeHaan turns 27 next month. Is he going to look like he's 30 when he's 60?).
I began this post with "Sex. Sex. Sex." because that's all I keep reading about from Sundance. Yesterday we covered the Cougar Island sexcapades of Two Mothers but apparently Sundance just keeps presenting the world with future MPAA challenges. Quoth Carpetbagger:
“I’ve seen five movies today, and it has been nonstop,” said a senior executive at a major Hollywood studio on Saturday night. “I’m no prude, but it’s a little much.”
NSFW James Franco, Amanda Seyfried, and Gay blah blah blah after the jump...
Person That Gets People Talking:
James Franco. Not that they're always saying nice things about him. I'm not sure what TFE readers think but among people I know opinions vary and are often ungenerous. The Boyfriend, for example, works in the art world and disapproves of Franco's overtures at becoming some sort of pseudo intellectual avante garde art star. And maybe he's right. I mean we already have a movie star (Tilda Swinton) who is also a genuine avante garde icon so why do we need him? Recently Franco has been stealing much of his art cues from the gays that I'm surprised that Madonna and Gaga haven't taken out a hit on him. At first, to be honest, I thought it was cute. A straight star who fixated on My Own Private Idaho and Sal Mineo and other teen heartthrobs and gayish things and made little art pieces or movies about them? Sure. But lately it's bugging me. He has two films at Sundance, one called Interior. Leather Bar which looks at the infamous William Friedkin movie Cruising (about the serial killing of gay men) and attempts to recreate scenes that had to be cut from the movie in its initial controversial release. He's cast his friend Val Lauren (who I saw first in True Love which no one else saw but whatevs) in the Al Pacino role. Franco also made the documentary Kink which is about BDSM themed porn.
Val Lauren in dancing motion in a scene from "Interior. Leather Bar" and Franco filming another scene
Between Franco's straight man-gay hobbyist approach to his career and Daniel Radcliffe's PFLAG-IDOL persona and co-starring Allen Ginsberg role in the Beat drama Kill Your Darlings, which has prompted the press to ask him lots of questions about his gay sex scene (basically he gets a simulated blow job -- big whoop) I'm getting uncomfortable.
Why are these two straight men the epicenters of discussions about gay sex in the movies? Is this how African-Americans used to feel when all civil rights movies were about the kindly white person who took a stand? (I realize this is partially a false equivalency but the point is it's not their story) If I have to listen to actors going on and on and on about "gay this and gay that" I'd really prefer it to be gay actors thank you very much. Asking straight actors in the movie making community what they think about THE GAY constantly when the move making community is still not supporting out male actors in the starring roles is just a new kind of tolerant tourettes for a nation of reformed homophobes. It's progress but it's ob-nox-ious. I have a solution: Hollywood - start casting openly gay stars; LGBT community - stop worshipping straight stars who are nice to us and start worshipping each other. If both sides do this we can hurdle this uncomfortable moment together. Then we'll all just be free to tell our own stories and enjoy each other's stories without all this us and them labelling. Please and thanks.
Radcliffe and DeHaan filming a scene for "Kill Your Darlings"
Regarding Kill Your Darlings ... I haven't read any of the reviews yet but my only question really is "how does it compare to On the Road which, for all of its flaws, was pretty overtly horny. Tom Sturridge was beautiful as Ginsberg in that so I'm curious how Radcliffe, who has previously lacked anything like Sturridge's onscreen sexuality, can measure up.
Speaking of sex.sex.sex. and other people's stories...
Here's Amanda Seyfriend as "Linda Lovelace" in the biopic Lovelace which is also at Sundance (premiering tomorrow and many eyes in Utah will be on it). Remember when Lindsay Lohan was going to play Linda Lovelace (though I don't remember if it was a competing movie or this one)
What'cha think? Do you find her believable? Also what's with that score... I can't hear enough of it to tell but is it maybe a brilliant homage to bad 70s scoring (non-porn variety)?