Tuesday, July 8, 2003
I spent part of the holiday weekend chilling out in front of the TV with some rentals. Miranda -- a movie starring Christina Ricci as a mysterious dancer/businesswoman/dominatrix -- was abysmal. Adaptation was well-acted and very good but too self-consciously clever to be brilliant. Auto Focus was a fascinating portrait of Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane’s deadly descent into sexual addiction. But my favorite was a gay-themed indie called The Fluffer. It was about a young gay man who moves to Hollywood to become a camera man. He gets a job shooting pornos and ends up falling in love with and fluffing one of the hot stars Johnny Rebel. It turns out Johnny is actually “gay-for-pay” and has a stripper girlfriend. What I liked about the story was how it portrayed the fluffer and the stripper as psycho-sadomasochists who humiliated themselves sexually to gain the attention and affection of Johnny. I enjoy films with dynamics involving sexual intrigue. All that suffering, hand-wringing and betrayal. Though I try to keep high drama out of my own life, it is fun to watch. Just imagine, if these characters had discovered the joys of BDSM, they could place all of this in the proper perspective -- as play with negotiated limits -- and start enjoying life again ;-)