Category: Humor

The 4 Rules Of Sex In The Movies

sex in filmSex is to the movie industry what Jean Paul Sartre is to the forward pass in American football: even though they exist simultaneously, they literally have no connection to each other.

Back in the day, sex in the movies was a heated glance, a passionate kiss (sometimes two) and then a slow fade-out or a quick change of camera angle.  It wasn’t reality, but everybody could kinda, sorta figure out what was going on.  Somewhere in the 60s, things changed and movie makers started slipping a few bums or a breast or two into their films — the cliché “T and A” of all good advertising campaigns.  Audiences liked it, critics applauded, and when the censors didn’t notice, film makers got bolder — and even bolder.  By the 1980s, pretty much every movie except Rambo had an obligatory soft-core porno scene, and after that, the studios simply went nuts.  Soon there was so much skin on the silver screen that it looked as if hard-core porn and mainstream movies were eventually just going to meet somewhere in the middle.  Luckily, before it got to “Anthony Hardwood Meets Meg Ryan,” the studios came to their senses.  Now the industry is governed by a strict set of rules which has returned sex in movies to its roots: it isn’t reality, but everybody can kinda, sorta figure it out.

Here are the basic rules:

Foreplay — These scenes begin with a heated glance, normally in a hallway, a doorway or an abandoned somewhere else.  This is followed by a ferrrrrocious grappling, where the two characters clinch and chew on each other like a couple of starving wolverines.  Snarling and slobbering, they tear at their clothes, smash each other into walls, stumble over furniture and generally wrestle each other to the ground, the floor, a desk, a kitchen table, a sofa, the hood of a conveniently placed ’57 Chevy, or sometimes even a bed.  Vertical to horizontal takes anywhere from 45 to 90 seconds, the director calls cut and everybody checks for bruises.

Underwear* — The amount of underwear a female movie character gets is directly proportional to the fame of the actress portraying her.  The more famous the actress, the more likely it is she’ll get a bra, keep it on, and even have sex without removing it.  Lesser-known actresses spend a lot more time topless and sometimes don’t even get panties.  A perfect example of this is Emilia Clark.  In the beginning, when she and Game of Thrones were relatively unknown, Clark’s character Daenerys Targaryen spent most of Season One wearing nothing more than an injured air and a ribbon in her hair.  However, after the Emmys started coming in, Clark’s character got to put her clothes back on, and for the last 5 seasons, has hardly undone a button.
*This rule does not apply to male characters who are allowed to take off their shirts anytime but must — miraculously — have sex without ever removing their underwear.

The Rule of Twelve — Every sex scene in contemporary movies has to contain these twelve mandatory elements: closed eyes, sweat, an arched back (women only) a standing thrust, a sitting bounce, one haunch-to-paunch clinch, a clawing hand, a gripping hand, a half-bum silhouette, at least one soundless moan, two barrel rolls and three nose-to-nose close-ups.  Whatever’s left is up to the director’s discretion.

And finally:

The Rule of One — One (and ONLY one) sex scene is allowed per movie– whether it’s Anne of Green Gables or The Marquis de Sade’s Summer Vacation.  The general consensus is that one scene is art, two is indefensible as art, and three is … well, you might just as well be doing porn.

At the end of the day, everyone in the film industry will tell you that sex is used for realism and to advance or enhance the storyline.  But, think about it.  How much better would Gone With The Wind have been if we’d seen Rhett and Scarlett banging away on the ruined steps of Tara?  Would our appreciation of Casablanca been enhanced by a ménage a trois between Rick, Ilsa and Victor Laszlo?  What about Citizen Kane?  Or The Wizard of Oz?  Or a little man-on-man grab-ass in The Shawshank Redemption?  No, no, no, no and no!  The truth is sex in the movies is just a gratuitous way to put bums into theatre seats — full stop.

The Olympics Are Too Damn Difficult

I promised myself I wouldn’t write about the Olympics.  I’ve already done it — many times.  I’ve been cruel and I’ve been kind, and once I was even hipster indifferent.  You see, for a guy who actually remembers Cassius Clay kicking the crap out of Zbigniew Pietrzykowski (yeah, I did have to look up his name) in Rome, there’ve been a lot of Gold Medals under the bridge, and enthusiasm is not an infinite commodity.

 

The problem is the Olympics have become complicated.

olympics

Back in the day, every four years a bunch of kids would get together to play games.  Eventually, one of them would run, jump, throw, skip, swim, sail, hop, bounce or roll further or faster than everybody else, and they’d get a medal.  The band played the national anthem, everybody smiled, gave each other a “good sport” pat on the ass and went home.  The Americans always won, the Soviets and the East Germans always cheated, countries like France and Japan always hung in there for Bronze, and everybody else had a helluva good time.  It was simple, straightforward and you didn’t need an IBM supercomputer to figure out when your particular guy or girl was going for gold.

Fast forward:

It’s Rio 2016 — and I have no idea what’s happening.  I’ve been watching now and again, and nobody seems to be winning anything.  They always have to do it again tomorrow or Wednesday or next week.  Plus, every time I turn the TV on, Michael Phelps and his fat little kid show up.  That guy is the Kim Kardashian of chlorinated water sports, and, BTW, I’m no expert, but I don’t think water actually comes in that colour.  Meanwhile, in another part of la floresta, they’re playing golf.  Golf?  What does “Faster, Higher, Stronger” have to do with golf?  Why not make chess an Olympic event and get it over with?

There are 39 different sports in Rio, and each one of them has several events, and each one of those has qualifying heats, quarter-finals, semi-finals, round robins, square sparrows — God Almighty!  This is insanity!  Table Tennis, little old rainy-day table tennis has 4 events?  Badminton has five?  Fencing has ten?  Diving has eight?  Eight?  How many different ways can you jump in the water?  But for sheer WTF madness. there’s Shooting.  You remember shooting: point the gun at the target and pull the trigger.  Believe it or not, Shooting has 15 events.  Fifteen?  I have no clue what these people are shooting at, but they’re doing it 15 different ways.  Annie Oakley wasn’t that good.

At first glance, Rio 2016 has it all: beautiful young people, tons of money, incredible drugs — all set on the glorious beaches of South America.  It’s a telenovela waiting to happen, but there are too many characters — too many storylines — too many side stories that don’t mean anything and just too damn much stuff to keep track of.

So go in peace, Rio Olympics. I’ll get the medal count when you’re over.

WD vs The Machines

machines.jpgI don’t get along with my machines.  They’re smug.  They can do things I don’t understand, and they know it.  They play with my emotions like a half-faithful lover, almost daring me to abandon them.  I swear I’m going to do it someday, just not right now.  Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a poor man’s John Connor.  I don’t believe machines are out to get us.  I just realize they’re not as sweet and carefree as they say they are.  They have their own agenda, and it doesn’t include me.

I’ve known about machines ever since I discovered the toaster was lying.  Despite the buttons, switches and dials, there are no settings on a toaster – just hot and off.  For years, it would tease me with light brown and pop-up black or hold onto the English muffins as if they were Joan of Arc.  And, sometimes, in a snit, it wouldn’t toast at all — just return the bread, warm and naked.  Finally, with a screwdriver, I found out the dial at the bottom wasn’t actually attached to anything – just a little bend me/break me strip of metal.  I broke it, and the toaster changed its tune after that – for a little while.

Likewise, my microwave has a personality disorder.  It has trouble with authority.  If I follow the instructions on the package to the letter I risk a Dresden-class explosion and burrito guts splattered across the glass.  Recently, I’ve learned to announce the product before I place it inside and just hit high octane for two minutes.  Mostly, it works.

Small kitchen appliances aren’t the worst though.  Major appliances are bigger and more contrary.  My refrigerator has a secret compartment that stores leftovers until they return to life, and then it re-introduces them into the general population — gangrene green and smiling.  When it’s bored, it sours the milk and wilts the lettuce, and sometimes, just for laughs, it makes everything, including the orange juice, taste vaguely like onions.

My washer and dryer have been fighting for years; these days, they hardly even speak to each other.  I’m sure they blame me for forcing them to stay together.  My washer can ruin white shirts in a single cycle and fade colours at a glance.  My dryer eats socks and underwear and picks its teeth with buttons.  I wish they’d learn to get along; my friends are beginning to ask me if Value Village just had a yard sale.

Frighteningly, the more sophisticated the machine, the more cunning.  Every car I’ve ever owned has made mysterious noises that baffle the most accomplished mechanics.  These are expensive sounds that result in monumental Visa bills and no cure.  It’s now obvious to me that, like winter bears, automobiles are ill-tempered, lazy and prefer sitting in the driveway to the lure of the open road.  I’ve taken to riding the bus rather than anger them.

Most diabolical of the machines, though, are the electronics.  They are the spoiled brats of the mechanized world.  Because they have no moving parts, you cannot bend them to your will or even command their attention.  They live in another dimension, and poke their heads into ours like mischievous trolls, sinister in intent.  Televisions promise us pee-your-pants comedy, sober and thoughtful drama and high adventure but only deliver re-runs of Two and a Half Men and Dancing with the American Idol.  They suck the time out of us and leave us sofa prone, dusted with crumbs and languorous.  Telephones capture our friends, imprison them in a concealed world and then swallow the key.  I don’t even remember my own mother’s phone number anymore.  Without our telephones, we have no friends.

Some would say computers are the most vindictive of all; however, I have found my computer to be friendly and kind, respectful, responsive, supportive and a true companion.  Without my computer, I would be nothing.  I owe a debt to my computer that I can never repay.  It is the one bright star in my dreary existence.  It only shares its power and can crush me at its whim.  All hail my computer!

I now know that my machines aren’t really even mine.  They can exist without me and would probably prefer it if they were left to their own devices.  I don’t think they like me, really.  Sometimes, in the night, when they think I’m sleeping, I can see their multi-coloured indicator lights winking in the darkness.  I wonder what they’re thinking and what they’re saying about me to the fridge and stove next door.