By James Hollis Smith
May flowers, my ass! Wind, rain, and clouds may still be darkening our spring, but we don't care because there's a treasure trove of scintillating DVDs headed our way in May. Like what? Does the name Howard Hughes mean anything to you? How about Dr. Kinsey? We've got animated jaguar sharks and prurient puppet patriots! We've got strip-club sexbombs and classroom cooze, full-frontal foxes and sex-starved entities, salami-sucking pornographers and even Salami from The White Shadow! So without further ado, good doctor, let's talk about sex ...
Out on May 3
The Entity (1981, Anchor Bay)
Drop your pants and grab your Hoosiers, Barbara Hershey (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3) fans, because here comes your favorite candy-coated starlet in all her full-frontal glory! Well, kinda. You see, The Entity features Babs's beautiful boobage, but a body double was used for the mufftastic full-body shots. But we'll get to that later. The Entity is about a young woman named Carla Moran who is set upon by a demon. No, not Ron Silver; he's only trying to help. Anyway the invisible specter tosses Babs around and has unbridled sex with her while she's in bed. Well, this spook may be paranormal, but it clearly has its human side. In any case, Ms. Hershey's hair pie may be courtesy of a body double, but we get boobs and bunnage from the real article. Incidentally, this movie is based on a true story. I wonder if the real Carla Moran used a body double too?
Out on May 10
Entourage: The Complete First Season (2004, HBO)
The HBO hit show Entourage is about a young actor, Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), long on looks and short on depth, who stalks Los Angeles nightclubs with his posse of hanger-on friends looking for chicks. Now who would have guessed that the show's executive producer is our old pal Mark "Don't call me Marky!" Wahlberg? Everyone? That's what I thought. In any case, there's a pleasantly surprising amount of nudity in this first-season set. Puerto Rican beauty Charlotte Ayanna (Picture: 1) has an ass so nice she shows it twice, first in a two-dimensional picture she sends Vince to get his attention, and second while out at the bowling alley, bending over to roll a gutterball--even though her thong-clad booty comes up strikes! EI Cinema staple Julian Wells plays a stripper giving Vince a lap dance at the strip club. Topless and tasty as ever, Ms. Wells definitely deserves more dollar bills than are sticking out of her tiny thong. She grinds and gyrates against Vince's package with the intensity of a straight gal who just made fifty lesbian sex films in a row. Oh, wait a second, she did! Lustbomb Beau Garrett (Picture: 1 - 2) delivers a double dose of delicious derriere, first while sitting with Vince in yoga positions and trying to convince him that "not touching each other" is somehow beneficial. The second backside baring occurs as Beau bounces out of her chair and de-robes for a dip in the pool. What's hotter than flawless skin on a long-legged blonde bombshell? That same girl with tan lines, of course! There's some good comedy on the series, especially by master of smarminess Jeremy Piven as Vincent's manager, Ari Jacobs, who delivers lines like, "Let's hug it out, bitch," with just the right amount of tenderness.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004, Criterion)
Everyone's favorite (living) SNL alumnus, Bill Murray, plays oceanographer extraordinaire Steve Zissou, who plans to track down the elusive jaguar shark that killed his partner years earlier. With begrudging funding from his estranged-wife/patron (Anjelica Huston) and equipment stolen from his mincing oceanographic-rival (Jeff Goldblum), Steve and the rest of Team Zissou set out to accomplish his mission. During the trip, Zissou tries to romance a very pregnant journalist (Cate Blanchett), massages the bruised ego of his right-hand man (Willem Dafoe), attempts to patch up his rocky marriage to his wife, struggles to bridge a gap with the young man who may or may not be his son (Owen Wilson), and fights to the death with the pirates who have kidnapped his team member. The Life Aquatic faced some harsh reviews upon release, but what stands beyond criticism are the twin talents of Team Zissou's "script girl", Robyn Cohen, who spends her entire screen time as topless as a mermaid--with a much hotter tail! Shown standing on deck, sunbathing, and even jogging, Ms. Cohen's cones are the perfect bait to get our poles in the water.
The Pornographer (2001, Koch)
A director named Jacques who made arty blue-ribbon adult films in the 1960s and 1970s gets roped into making a modern-day porno and finds out just how much the business has changed. In the old days he'd use intimate directorial suggestions to heighten the dramatic tension and subtext of the love scenes. Today he sits with his head in his hands while the producer behind him shouts out directions like "Louder! Make more noise! Now lick her!" The good news--for us, not Jacques--is that the film within a film is jam packed with straight-up sex and plenty of it. French beauty--and Euro porn star--Ovidie (Picture: 1 - 2) plays her part in the fuck flick perfectly, giving us full penetration plus a blowjob--including facial! Another starlet is out on the range, looking for her lost horse, but when she gets tired she has a lie down with two cowboys. Getting cowpoked from both ends doggy-style will send that horse running back home. If you can ignore those interminably long skintermissions where Jacques walks around feeling sorry for himself--and during which starlets aren't either knob-slobbing or kebab-hopping--you've got quite a hot little film-within-a-film freak-fest on your hands.
Out on May 17
Kinsey (2004, Fox Searchlight)
How can a movie that's entirely about sex show so little skin? Because of the two most variable words in cinema: art film. Art film means either wall-to-wall nudity and orgiastic sex scenes or finely crafted stories using occasional nudity in tastefully nuanced collages. You guessed it, faithful reader. Kinsey goes for the latter. Yet it is still a good film. Schindler's List altruist Liam Neeson plays Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who started out studying insects and wound up battling uptight academia for truth in sex education. Essentially this film answers the existential question, "What if Oscar Schindler saved Gall Wasps instead of Jews?" No, in all seriousness, the film is a very timely statement (given the frighteningly conservative state of current affairs) about the importance of accurate sex education for both young and adult alike. What nudity exists in the film--classroom projection slides and Peter Sarsgaard aside--is provided by Kinsey's wife, played by Laura Linney. She may have gotten a later start in film than most screen queens, but nobody walks the fine line between mainstream and indie--not to mention the line between girlish and mature--as well as Laura. Ms. Linney hasn't been shy about shedding for a good cinematic cause from the first, and, yes, her breasts are on display in Kinsey--one breast, to be exact. The sexiest moments in the film come to the fore when Laura and Liam are playing the "newlywed Kinseys", fumbling through their initial gropes and her attempt to accommodate the oversized Kinsey kielbasa. Incidentally, if it weren't for Dr. Kinsey's work, this website might not be here today. Now that deserves a DVD rental!
Class of 1984 (1982, Anchor Bay)
Remember when the toughest kids in school had purple hair and wore make-up? No? Well, let's pretend they did for the purpose of Class of 1984. We know what the film execs were thinking: "Hey, let's take the basic premise of Blackboard Jungle, cast a few up-and-coming actors, throw in some nudity and parachute pants, and get the guy who did the music for Dirty Harry and Cool Hand Luke to do the soundtrack! The friggin' script will write itself!" Well, not quite, but it is one of the more entertaining juvenile-delinquents-gone-wild flicks. It falls somewhere between an after-school special and the Bizarro-world version of Beverly Hills 90210. Mild-mannered high-school teacher Perry King has a problem: a gang that runs the school with an iron fist. Girls get attacked, teachers get beat up, drugs are dealt on campus--and even a young Michael J. Fox gets stabbed! The leader of this gang of terrible teens is none other than the toughest of all the Van Patten kids, Timothy Van Patten. You may remember him as Salami on The White Shadow. Little Timmy even runs his own prostitution ring, which is where the lovely Helena Quinton comes in. She has to audition for a job with Tim's tarts, and she strips to reveal all three B's in the process. Her nubile nakedness ensures that all those punk-rock haircuts aren't the only things stiff as hell.
Team America: World Police (2004, Paramount)
Surprise, Cockfags! The creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have turned their jaundiced eye to world politics. Team America is a love letter to anyone who has ever had, unsuccessfully looked for, or plans to acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction. Using cutting-edge puppetry techniques from the 1960s TV show Thunderbirds, Team America follows undercover agent--and Broadway star--Gary Johnston as he and his team try to put an end to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il's plan for global destruction. This flick's got it all: a song about how much the movie Pearl Harbor and Ben Affleck both suck; the difference between dicks, pussies, and assholes; how much Kim Jong-il hates Alec Baldwin; projectile vomiting; and finally, that there's no "I" in Team America! Oh ... wait, there is. Anyway, I know what you're thinking, and, yes, you get puppet love. In fact, the musky marionette love interests engage in a sex scene so raunchy, so delectably dirty and even salaciously scatological, it must escape full description here. Suffice it to say, if seeing wooden puppets partake in round-the-world circus sex isn't your thing, then this scene definitely has some strings attached! America, fuck yeah!
Out on May 24
The Aviator (2004, Miramax/Buena Vista)
What happens when you team gritty, obsessive New York director Martin Scorsese with pretty-boy Hollywood man-child Leonardo DiCaprio? Well, you get a gritty-yet-pretty picture about an obsessive Hollywood man-child, of course! The Aviator tells the story of maverick pilot/millionaire/filmmaker Howard Hughes. Yes, his pioneering plane-building mojo is well documented here, and, yes, plenty of his battles with rival airlines and business associates are depicted, but the real reason Howie was "the man" is because he laid more pipe in Tinseltown than Beverly Hills Plumbing! His bedpost notches read like a Who's Who of Hollywood hotties, and they're all played by current-day lustbombs who crank up their sex appeal to eleven. Gwen Stefani plays Jean Harlow, Kate Beckinsale is Ava Gardner, Cate Blanchett plays Katharine Hepburn, and up-and-coming crazy-curved Kelli Garner is on hand as Faith Domergue. Okay, okay, now the bad part: the "brief nudity" featured in the film is Leo's ass. Hey, don't shoot the messenger on this one! Just concentrate on how succulent and slinky the retro babes look in their throwback wardrobes. These ladies will make obsessive-compulsives of us all.
The Big Town (1987, Columbia/TriStar)
Remember back when actresses would portray strippers and actually take their clothes off? Yes, Jessica Alba and Natalie Portman, I'm talking to you! Well, The Big Town was made in those good old nude days, and lucky for us mega-babe Diane Lane (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3) made the casting cut. She plays the boss's woman who gets seduced by craps player Matt Dillon, which gives you an idea of how lucky Matt must be at the craps table. Tough guy Tommy Lee Jones is out to break the young "arm" at his own game, but his time would be better spent keeping his eyes on his own wife. As for dirty Diane, she shakes and shimmies onstage like a pro--a deliciously tight and toned twenty-two-year-old pro--and is as sexy offstage as on! We're treated to a pasty-spinning, thong-clad, dice-tightening fan dance that's sure to stack your chips. A sex scene follows that reveals Diane's full-bodied bazooms and perfect puffies. You craps hounds had better rest up that throwing hand, because Diane's got enough T&A credit to keep you playing all night long!
