John Waters Top 10 List: Fairy Tales, 3D Sex, Tasteful Trangression

John Waters with Patty Hearst at the "Carol" premiereAh one of our favorite bad taste good --no... singular taste traditions of year-end end look backs has arrived: the annual John Waters Top Ten List at ArtForum. Though the Baltimore film icon hasn't made a feature film in over ten years he still says active as a celebrity for which we thank him. Try and imagine the world without him; we never want to!

His top ten lists generally contain at least one or two titles we haven't even heard of (rare for us don'cha know) and that's true again with #1 and #9 right here. They're also always a mix of smart, beautiful, queer, and head scratching choices -- I'm sorry but Love is NOT a good movie even if it does contain, as John Waters raves, "heterosexual rimming -- in 3D!"

John Waters 2015 Top Ten List
01 HELMUT BERGER, ACTOR (Andreas Horvath)
02 CINDERELLA (Kenneth Branagh)

Yes, you heard me, Cinderella. I fucking love this Disney film.

03 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson)
04 TOM AT THE FARM (Xavier Dolan)
05 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (George Miller)
06 CAROL (Todd Haynes)

Maybe the only way to be transgressive these days is to be shockingly tasteful. This Lana Turner–meets–Audrey Hepburn lipstick-lesbian melodrama is so old-fashioned I felt like I was one year old after watching it. That’s almost reborn.

07 THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL (Marielle Heller)
08 TANGERINE (Sean Baker)
09 FLY COLT FLY: LEGEND OF THE BAREFOOT BANDIT (Adam Gray and Andrew Gray)
10 LOVE (Gaspar Noé)

when will Xavier Dolan movies ever get on a respectable US release schedule? Tom at the Farm an excellent 2013 movie was only just released in the states in 2015

His commentary is always great fun -- his take on Xavier Dolan's tense grief thriller Tom at the Farm is especially John Waters but hugely spoiler-filled -- so go read if it you're so inclined.

Interview: Gaspar Noé on Shooting in 3D and How 'Love' is Like a Musical

Karl Glusman and Aomi Muyock star in "Love"

Jose here. When I show up to meet Gaspar Noé, he offers me a cigarette. I gladly accept it and we sit by a window where we puff the smoke to the beat of the sounds of a construction site below us. For a moment I feel like a teenager and remember having to wait to have the house all to myself so I could watchIrréversible when I was 16, without having people constantly interrupt me. For all its provocation and controversy, Noé’s oeuvre isn’t as much about shock value as it is about finding deep connections between people. This is a filmmaker who literally goes under the skin to uncover the miracle of life, how we’re made, how similar we are to each other.

In Love, he takes this concept to a place of utter sublimity as he chronicles the ups and downs of the relationship between Murphy (Karl Glusman) and Electra (Aomi Muyock), two young people who despite being enraptured by all-consuming passion, grow apart due to jealousy and secrets. To bring us closer to the characters Noé shot the film in 3D and he uses the medium playfully and sensually. Squeamish audience members might find themselves wishing they’d brought a poncho during some of the film’s most explicit moments, but Noé also finds true beauty in the curves of breasts, the pearls of sweat that appear on the backs of lovers during intercourse, and in the alien-like quality of tongues tangled in a kiss. As much as his films shock and alienate people, he just wants us to get closer. As we sit by the window he says “we’re in closer company because of the cigarette”, then he smiles.

More on Love after the jump.

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TIFF: French Sexy Time Movies

Nathaniel, reporting from TIFF, where the French still love la petite mort. Due to the graphic nature of these films the reviews of Gaspar Noé's 3D explicit sex movie Love and the French teens-gone-wild Bang Gang: a modern love story (which is about exactly what it sounds like it's about) are both hidden after the jump where naughty things must go... Think of the children!

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Beauty Break: Will Karl Glusman Break Out at Cannes?

Cannes is as high profile as film festivals get so your first starring role in a buzzy feature could really make waves. Consider... Karl Glusman. He's the male star of Gaspar Noé's Love, the already buzzy sex film that gets a special screening at Cannes. He has a few credits in shorts and several on stage, plus voice work in a Starship Troopers film but he's still an unknown quantity. 2015 will be his first year in the movies proper so it could well start with a bang.

Gaspar Noé calls him

...the collest actor I have ever met. He is daring, joyful and intelligent. He has love scenes throughout the whole movie. He is the ultimate 3D baby maker."

Glusman photos (one NSFW) and videos after the jump...

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Penny Dreadful and Other (NSFW) Randomness

My mood of late has been 'fourgy with the cast of Ex Machina' That cast! Or at least a private moment with Oscar Isaac. When I'm not thinking of that movie I am thinking of The Avengers and when someone tweeted "Ava > Ultron" I immediately pictured a full two hour mash-up of those titles in which Alicia Vikander with all her little subtle whirring process noises seduces Scarlet Johansson in black leather and Mark Ruffalo in green muscles and Paul Bettany in fresh synthetic body and now I need a cold shower. My point is this: The Lusty Month of May is upon us.

In keeping with that mood, let's talk about the Penny Dreadful premiere tonight and 5 other not safe for work things after the jump...

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