Final Destination 3 (2006)

In this long-running franchise series about ingenious ways to be killed, survivors of a rollercoaster ride accident were eliminated, one by one - this time in a tanning bed salon freak accident.

Blonde, head cheerleader Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons) and beauty queen Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe) were positioned next to each other in two tanning beds. When Ashlyn announced that she had forgotten her iPod, Ashley reminded her that the tanning salon had CDs. When Ashley reached for a CD, she unwittingly loosened the wall bracket supporting the wooden shelf/board.

Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe)	Ashlyn Halperin (Crystal Lowe)
Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons)	Ashley Freund (Chelan Simmons)

They both took off their tops and reclined in the beds, when Ashlyn asked: "Why are you wearing underwear?" Ashley responded: "Simon gets off on tan lines."

They were keeping rhythm to the song: "Love Rollercoaster," when due to Rube Goldberg circumstances (a loosened wall bracket and a falling CD shelf/board), they were literally electrocuted and barbecued alive when trapped inside.

.45 (2006)

Model-turned actress Milla Jovovich starred as Kat in this straight-to-video drama thriller, a revenge film with the tagline:

"Nobody Does Revenge Like a Woman."

Writer/director Gary Lennon's R-rated crime film opened with Kat's long monologue during an interview, bragging:

"Big Al has a huge cock. I'm serious, I'm not f--kin' with you. The thing is humongous, ok, it's like it's got little arms and legs and s--t, looks alive. Looks like I could put it over my shoulder and burb it, you know what I'm saying? It's like a plumbing tool, or something. The first time I saw it, I was like, put that thing away. You ain't coming near me with that monster, but Big Al, you know, he kept comin' at me. He looks at me and he says: 'Hey, you think you can handle that, huh? You think you can, huh?'...Big Al is a great f--k!"

She was referring to the formidable genitals of her brutish, gun-selling, long-haired Scottish American boyfriend and petty crook Al (Angus MacFadyen) in NYC. The film began with a hip montage introducing her menacing partner-in-crime Big Al on the town and having sex with Kat. She was also frequently naked (displaying her prominent nipples) until in a lengthy sequence, Al battered and abused her, drunkenly jealous and suspicious about her relationship with Puerto Rican Jose Vargas (Vincent Laresca).

The premise of the film, told in flashback and with fourth wall dialogue directed to the camera, was that the promiscuous and manipulative Kat seduced four of her friends (two males Reilly (Stephen Dorff) and Jose, and two lesbian females: Vic (Sarah Strange) and black domestic abuse case-worker Liz (Aisha Tyler)) to help her exact vengeance upon the deserved Al.

The film's plot eventually revealed how they set Al up for the murder of Clancy O'Hara (Tony Munch).

The film also had upfront and frank sexy dialogue, such as this line from Vic:

"I mean, sex with men is like snow. You never know how many inches you're gonna get or how long it's gonna last. You know the differences between men and women are just too great for me to even begin to comprehend. Like, okay, a woman - all she wants to hear from a man are three words, right: 'I love you.' A man - all he wants to hear are three words too, but they're different: 'It's so big!' Right? Assholes!"

And Liz advised Kat: "You are a woman and you have power, and you need to use it. Lips, tits, hips. All woman. You gotta think about it that way. Use your power as a woman to change your life."

In the film's twisting plot, Reilly ended up with bi-sexual Vic, and Kat changed her mind about hooking up with conspirator Liz after having sex with her ("You're the best sex I've had") and using her. Liz was shocked by the betrayal: "I thought with Al out of the way that we'd be together," but Kat insisted: "I need to be alone" and began gun-dealing on her own.

In the film's final line, Kat finished her opening interview with a confident and self-reliant line delivered to the camera:

"Life is like sex. If you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself. Going out with Big Al made me realize the best feeling in the world is taking care of number one. It's me."

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2007)

This film was a fictional biopic (loosely based on Patricia Bosworth's 1984 biography) by screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson and director Steven Shainberg about a controversial photographer, Diane Arbus. The tale combined elements of Through The Looking Glass, Elephant Man, The Phantom of the Opera and Beauty and the Beast.

The story "imagined" the three months of Arbus' life in 1958 just before she became a controversial artist, including one of her relationships:

• Diane Arbus (Nicole Kidman), a Manhattan housewife
• Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey, Jr.), her reclusive fur-covered upstairs neighbor

Lionel introduced Diane to an unknown world of artistic photographic expression and erotic obsession. He mentored her and transformed her into a dark and visionary photographer of society's freaks and grotesque outcasts before her suicide at age forty-eight in 1971.

In one of the film's more memorable and prolonged scenes, Arbus shaved the fur off Lionel's entire body (he suffered from hypertrichosis, or excessive hair growth) with a straight razor and lather.

Toward the end of the film, they inevitably made tender love together.

Le Grand Appartement (2006, Fr.) (aka The Very Big Apartment)

This wacky French comedy by director Pascal Thomas was about a very large, 3,000 sq. foot Parisian apartment, that was formally leased out to a grandmother Marie-Antoinette (Gisele Casadesus) who didn't live there.

Due to a 1948 law, the rent was capped, and the bitchy landlord Charlotte Falingard (Noemie Lvovsky) wished to evict everyone, including Francesca's family and other eccentric communal residents:

• Francesca (Laetitia Casta)
• Martin (Mathieu Amalric), Francesca's film-critic husband
• their daughter
• Francesca's sister
• two of her sister's inseparable girlfriends
• another ditzy grandmother (Carmen Durand)
• Adrien (Pierre Arditi), an egotistical, philandering indie filmmaker who used the apartment as a film studio

Ex-law student Francesca had some law training and was tenacious about remaining in the dwelling and proved so in court.

To complicate matters, Martin was seduced by lustful Veronique (Stephanie Pasterkamp) while he was at an Italian film-festival. Part of the film's comedy involved his efforts to keep secret his adulterous and erotic behavior with the passionate vixen.

The film's nudity included bespectacled Francesca shedding her clothes, and Veronique's tryst with Martin.

Grandma's Boy (2006)

• in this crude R-rated comedy, intoxicated and wasted gaming expert/project manager Samantha (Linda Cardellini) delivered a sexy karaoke rendition of Push It at a party; when she ended the song, she attempted to lick her own clothed breast, and then collapsed; boyfriend Jeff (Nick Swardson) screamed out: "I f--kin' love this girl"

Samantha's Sexy Karaoke Song "Push It"

• during the "Milk Maid" sequence at the same celebratory drinking/drug party, heavily-endowed Milk Maid (Heidi Hawking) revealed her huge breasts to Barry (Jonah Hill): (she enticed him: "Look how young and cute you are...Baby wants some milk?") and allowed him to nuzzle his entire head in her chest (he told her: "Baby loves milk") - for hours; friends cheered him on as he gave a thumbs-up: "Yeah, suck those jugs, kid"; later, his friend Jeff noted: "So Barry sucked on his first boobie last night" and Barry proudly responded: "For 13 hours"

The Hottest State (2006)

Writer/director and actor Ethan Hawke helmed this quasi-autobiographical coming of age, love-struck romantic drama - an adaptation of his own 1996 novel.

It told about an intense, quickly-developing, often idealized first-love relationship between two people in New York:

• William Harding (Mark Webber), an aspiring and intense 20 year-old Texas actor
• Sara (Catalina Sandina Moreno), a gorgeous singer/songwriter

Their relationship quickly disintegrated into a painful breakup for him when she told him she didn't want a boyfriend, leading to anger and recrimination.

Although she resisted sex at first, they consummated their love during a whirlwind, sweaty, week-long Mexican tryst, with the scenes of Sara sensually photographed in golden light.

House of the Sleeping Beauties (2006, Germ.) (aka Das Haus der Schlafenden Schonen)

Writer/director Vadim Glowna's unrated, pretentious meditational fantasy film, inspired by a 1961 novella by Yasunari Kawabata, told of a dying, depressed 60-ish widower-businessman named Edmond (67 year old director Vadim Glowna himself). He had lost his wife and young daughter 15 years earlier in a car accident.

His life in this self-indulgent, misogynistic and voyeuristic film consisted of visiting a small brothel run by sinister Madame (Angela Winkler).

At night, she provided him with unconscious-comatose (from drugs), beautiful young naked women to prostrate himself next to on silk sheets.

He fondled, kissed, hugged and caressed them, yet was told there was one major rule: no penetration:

"You are not to do anything in bad taste. You must not put your finger into her mouth or do anything of that sort."

More Sleeping Beauties

All the while, he delivered a nostalgic, lamenting, voice-over soliloquy about death, old age, mortality, and eroticism next to the sleeping bodies - representing the various females in his life. The result was his own emotional self-obsession and painful salvation.

In A Dark Place (2006, UK/Luxemb.)

This confusing horror-thriller wasbased upon Henry James' The Turn of the Screw 1898 novella.

It told about a disturbed art teacher Anna Veigh (Leelee Sobieski), who after being sexually-harrassed and fired by her previous boss, was hired as a nanny/governess for two troubled and orphaned children:

• Flora (Gabrielle Adam), niece
• Miles (Christian Olson), nephew

She worked for their mysteriously absent and wealthy uncle Mr. Laing (Jonathan Fox) in a remote country English estate named Bly House that was managed by unusually icy Ms. Grose (Tara Fitzgerald). She heard of its ominous past history (a drowning and hanging of two previous employees, and possible child abuse), and experienced nightmarish and supernatural disturbances (ghostly whispers and menacing strangers).

The often nearly-nude, mentally-fragile Anna (who was possibly sexually abused herself as a child) also learned that Ms. Grose was lesbian and in love with the previous dead nanny named Miss Jessel (another art therapist who was three months pregnant and found dead in the lake), while hating Miss Jessel's lover - housekeeper-butler Peter Quint (who had hanged himself).

The increasingly delusional and bizarre-acting Anna, seemingly with repressed memories, found herself the object of Grose's affection, and they slept together. A lesbian subtext was introduced and added to the Henry James plot - when Anna let herself be seduced and kissed on both the lips and breast - and more off-screen.

There was also a crazed masturbatory scene in which purple robe-wearing Ms. Grose played a violin, then spun around with her eyes shut, and dizzily fell backwards onto a bed where she opened her robe and began wildly fondling her own naked body.

The film concluded with hints that Anna was abusing the children herself (the victim had become the abuser). At night in the snow, she chased the fearful Miles into suicidally wading into the nearby semi-frozen lake where he drowned.

Jimmy and Judy (2006)

Co-writers/directors and first-time filmmakers Randall Rubin and Jon Schroder helmed this R-rated, low-budget independent crime/drama - an edgy film misleadingly compared to Kalifornia (1993), Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), and The Doom Generation (1995) - and filmed in the style of The Blair Witch Project (1999).

It told a tale of teenaged love, obsession, and murder between two young people, who met in the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati:

• Jimmy Wright (Edward Furlong), a 21 year-old junior college drop-out and social misfit - in therapy and hospitalized for mental illness, presumably over witnessing anal-dildoing between his mother and closeted-transvestite father
• Judy (Rachael Bella, a former child actress), a high-school senior

[Note: The two young stars were a real-life couple who met on the set and married in 2006 - but later divorced in 2009.]

The two were disenfranchised, unbalanced losers who took to one another after Jimmy saved Judy from tormenting high-school bullying and punished her oppressors. Jimmy documented everything with his video camcorder. In fact, the entire film was shot by his camera - the film's major gimmick - as they became psychopathic lovers-on-the run.

Judy was often nude for long stretches of the film, including a few topless flashes for the camera after she boasted she was not flat-chested and wore a "full B cup" bra. Jimmy taunted: "I showed you mine, now show me yours." After displaying her breasts, she expressed uncertainty:

"I showed you my breasts and I've seen your penis. And we haven't even kissed yet. You haven't even asked me to be your girlfriend."

He filmed her as she fondled his shotgun between her breasts and seductively kissed its tip. They performed a naked grassy-field romp together, after which they made love on a blanket:

"What if we lived here together, forever?...I never want this to end....I want to feel the air on my body, and I want to be naked, and I want to feel free. And I want us to f--k our brains out every single day."

He also filmed her when she went skinny-dipping at a commune and he called her "sexy."

The misfit outcasts went on a vengeful, destructive crime spree after accidentally hitting a pedestrian (and stuffing his body in their trunk) and shooting a law enforcement officer (off-screen) during a frantic getaway. Their violent and sexy cross-country escapades in Kentucky were continually viewed through the lens of Jimmy's handheld camera and from their point-of-view. There was also an ugly rape scene in which Jimmy murdered his "faggot rapist" crystal-meth friend Dinko (Chaney Kley) who was assaulting a white crank addict - with Judy also holding the gun for the second lethal shot.

At the commune of "undesirables" run by charismatic cultish leader Uncle Rodney (William Sadler), more depraved sex and violence forced them to flee after a threatened rape-abduction of Judy caused Jimmy to kill Uncle Rodney.

The film ended with the predictable Thelma & Louise demise of the two when Jimmy pleaded: "We can't f--king be together" and Judy suicidally crashed their van into a police barricade. A freeze-frame image of deceased Judy's face and a circling helicopter shot of the death scene ended the film.

Kisses and Caroms (2006) (aka American Balls in UK)

Director and cowriter Vince Rocca's quickly and cheaply-made independent film (shot on digital video) was a sexy comedy about relationships.

It was remarkably similar to Kevin Smith's Clerks (1994), although it was set inside a billiards supply store rather than a video store.

The film opened with a definition of a carom:

A shot in billiards in which the cue ball successively strikes two other balls.

The movie, centered around the "Breakingtime Billiards" store (that marketed pool tables and game room supplies) in the Los Angeles area, followed the romantic dilemmas and aftermath of an ill-advised sexual threesome (suggested by Jennifer) that occurred the night before on a waterbed - seen together in the film's opening:

The threesome included:

• Zack (Drew Wicks), the store owner
• Jennifer (Nikki Stanzione), Zack's fellow employee and girlfriend
• Tara (Nicole Rayburn), a pretty blonde, bisexual hedonist and co-worker clerk at the billiards store, also Jennifer's friend

Lady Chatterley (2006, Fr.)

Director Pascale Ferran's lushly filmed and unhurried French-language adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's 1928 book was about scandalous and forbidden love and sexual awakening (between an aristocratic woman and a working class man). [Note: This film was actually mistitled, since it was based on its second version of three versions, titled John Thomas and Lady Jane.]

The novel had been filmed many times before, but never as sensually or as earthy as this one:

• Lady Chatterley's Lover (1955, Fr.) (aka L'Amant de Lady Chatterley)
• Young Lady Chatterley (1977)
• Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981)
• Young Lady Chatterley II (1985)
• Lady Chatterley (1992, UK)
• Lady Chatterley's Lover (2015, UK) (TV)

In 2007, from nine nominations, the film won five Césars (the equivalent of the Oscar award in France), and a Best Actress award for Marina Hands at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Pretty and slim Marina Hands starred in this romantic fantasy and costume drama as the main title character:

• Lady Constance Chatterley (Marina Hands), a delicately beautiful, young married woman
• Sir Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot), her aristocratic husband, wheelchair-bound, and impotent; an invalid (paralyzed from the waist down)

Because Sir Clifford was incapable of satisfying or stimulating her sexually, she began a slowly-developing and eventually blossoming love affair with an estate employee - burly, taciturn, timid, and sad-faced gamekeeper Oliver Parkin (Jean-Louis Coullo'ch) who lived nearby the Wragby estate.

In the film's half-dozen sex trysts (which began fully clothed on the floor of his shed, but became increasingly more revealing to the performers - and the audience - including full-frontal but not pornographically-explicit shots of stark nudity), their relationship transformed and deepened as they found intimacy and fulfillment after making love numerous times. During one sexual encounter, the curious Constance asked the naked Oliver to turn around and display his aroused, semi-erect penis to her - and then after sex commented about how he had become tiny.

Toward the film's conclusion, during a rainstorm, they both stripped off all of their clothes and ran joyfully through the forest and ecstatically spun around in a meadow in the rain. They collapsed into each other's arms in the mud, made love, and then in his gamekeeper hut before a fire adorned and decorated each other's genitals (and bodies) with wildflowers and wore green crowns of vines.

Lady Chatterley (Marina Hands) Wearing Only Flowers

Although she left for awhile and traveled throughout France with her sister Hilda (Hélène Fillières), she returned to the estate, where the couple now confided their steadfast love for each other (Oliver Parkin: "I love you, if you only knew how much") with plans to live on a farm, and she told him that she was pregnant.

Little Children (2006)

The Alliance for Women Film Journalists awarded Kate Winslet the Best Depiction of Nudity or Sexuality Award for this melodramatic film during the EDA 2006 awards. She received the honor for her nude portrayal that was "tastefully filmed and in service of the story, rather than feeling tacky, sensational or exploitative."

In her Oscar-nominated performance in this Todd Field film, Kate Winslet took the main role of an adulterous woman conducting an affair in a small Massachusetts town:

• Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet), a bored, unfulfilled suburban wife and mother
• Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), an underachieving "Prom King" neighbor/house-husband, married to Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), a beautiful documentary filmmaker

Both Sarah and Brad wished to recapture their lost adolescent innocence in a fantasy reality. When he leered at Sarah's bright, one-piece red bathing suit while she was sunbathing in the summer heat next to him at the pool, she flirtatiously asked about the weather - and herself: "Hot enough for you?" Their double-entendre conversation continued when he told her: "I'll be careful" - and she asked: "Honest?"

After a platonic relationship at first, in one of the film's hottest scenes that occurred after a rainstorm, while sweatily coupling and thrusting on the laundry room sink in Sarah's basement, he asked her: "Do you feel bad about this?" - when she responded: "No, I don't," he countered: "I do. I feel really bad."

Later, she worried about their illicit relationship:

"What are we doing?...It's not real, Brad... Yes, it's wrong and it's weird. How long are we gonna sneak around together? How long can that last? I can't do this anymore."

When he suggested a romantic getaway to figure it all out together, she was disbelieving but agreed to meet at the park the next night to run away - although unforeseen circumstances prevented them from carrying out their plan. Parallels between Sarah's book club discussion of Madame Bovary as a feminist and her own trapped life were brought out in the film.

[Note: Remarkably, Winslet has appeared naked in more films than any non-porn star of her generation (previously, she was also nude in Heavenly Creatures (1994), Jude (1996), Titanic (1997), Hideous Kinky (1998), Holy Smoke (1999), Quills (2000) and Iris (2001), and she was fully nude in The Reader (2008)).]

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

The conclusion of this quirky, Best Picture-nominated light comedy/road movie about an oddball, dysfunctional New Mexico family on a cross-country road trip in a VW involved the daughter:

• Olive Hoover (Oscar-nominated Abigail Breslin), a plumpish, bespectacled 7 year-old

She was competing in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in Redondo Beach, California.

The film satirically portrayed the pageant as a sexually-provocative event for the pre-pubescent contestants (who wore garish makeup, styled hair, and raunchy clothing along the lines of Jon-Benet Ramsay).

The other young competitors performed sexy night-club songs and dances - but the sweet wannabee Olive performed an over-sexualized dance to Rick James' Superfreak, a cringe-inducing pretend striptease routine (taught to her by her rakish but loving grandfather Edwin Hoover (Oscar-winning Alan Arkin)).

Even though she kept her clothes on, she crawled like a cat in heat, and threw articles of clothing off the stage - horrifying the audience and repulsing the contest organizers who were forced to admit the actual sexual sub-text of their exploitative event.

The Lives of Others (2006, Germ.) (aka Das Leben der Anderen)

This German film deliberately juxtaposed scenes to show how sexual relations were seriously affected in 1980s East Germany during a time of Stasi (secret police) surveillance on its citizens before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In one scene, Cultural Department head Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) forced himself in the back seat of his limousine on beautiful actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) - the devoted lover of successful Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). She acquiesed to the blackmail in order to protect her lover and as a way to procure prescription drugs for herself.

She cleansed herself of the filth (both physically and emotionally) afterwards in the bathtub/shower.

In the following scene, Christa-Maria, curled up in a fetal position on their bed, tenderly asked Dreyman: "Just hold me."

There was also the desperate, unfulfilling scene set in the barren and drab apartment of Stasi survelliance agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe). He was a sympathetic "guardian angel," who vainly attempted to emulate what the couple's closeness was like. He asked an overweight prostitute (Gabi Fleming), on a rigid schedule, to "stay awhile" with him after having impersonal sex with him.

Love For Sale (2006, Braz.) (aka O Ceu de Suely, or Suely in the Sky)

Brazilian writer/director Karim Ainouz' drama was not rated by the MPAA, and contained very strong sexual content, nudity, mild violence and language. The main character was a young, unaccompanied shapely woman from the remote desert town of Iguatu in NE Brazil who wanted a better life and had a daring plan:

• Hermila (Hermila Guedes), a 21-year-old trashy blonde and single mother, aimless and penniless after spending two years in Sao Paulo

Living with her hard-working grandmother (Zezita Matos) and closeted gay Aunt Maria (Maria Menezes) in the small village, she was awaiting the arrival of 20 year-old, deadbeat and disinterested father Mateus of her infant son from Sao Paulo.

Meanwhile, she took on a tentative new lover Joao (João Miguel), an ex-paramour.

Hermila (Hermila Guedes) With Joao

She found work washing cars and hotel rooms, and friendship with prostitute Georgina (Georgina Castro), and sold lottery tickets to hopefuls who wanted to win a bottle of whiskey.

To fund her escape from the small town, she decided to exploit her curvaceous body by prostituting herself and raffling it off. The entrapped, rebellious and desperate female came up with a risky idea - sell lottery tickets for "one night in paradise" with her - and she renamed herself Suely. The tough-minded Hermila rationalized that it wasn't prostitution or promiscuous behavior, since she would only sleep with the winner, but she was met with vicious disapproval and disdain.

The lucky winner of the raffle, awarded with a night next to naked Suely, wanted to prolong the experience and made her dance naked to Wham!'s "Careless Whisper."

National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj (2006)

This was a very inferior, tiresome and mostly unfunny sequel to the first Van Wilder film in 2002 - another tale of 'misfits vs. elitist frat boys.' The film bombed when it played in theatres, and should have been relegated to a direct-to-DVD release as many other films of its ilk.

It was without any of the original stars (Ryan Reynolds and Tara Reid), except for Van Wilder's large-scrotumed English bulldog (now named Balzac) and his Indian personal assistant Taj Mahal Badalandabad (Kal Penn).

It was set in England at Camford University (a cross between Cambridge and Oxford, although filmed in Bucharest, Romania). Upon arrival, grad doctorate student/teaching assistant Taj was outcast to "The Barn," where four other socially-misfit nerds were living, quartered in dilapidated, off-campus housing:

• Seamus (Glen Barry), an angry and drunken Irishman
• Sadie (Holly Davidson), a salty-tongued, busty Cockney sexpot
• Gethin (Anthony Cozens), a brainiac numbers geek obsessed with mathematical calculations about sexual compatibility
• Simon (Steven Rathman), an X-Box playing mute

The blueblood Fox and Hounds frat boy rival was Pip Everett (Dan Percival), whose girlfriend Charlotte ("Charlie") Higginson (Lauren Cohan) was predictably stolen by Taj in the film's conclusion, when he sacrificially took the blame for a cheating accusation, but was found to be innocent.

The tale with the theme of gaining self-respect centered around another frat competition -- this time between Taj's group, called the Cock and Bulls, against the Fox and Hounds (and other teams) for the school-sponsored Hastings Cup. The teams challenged each other in a game of badminton, a Mastermind trivia game, and a one-on-one fencing duel. Other activities included a school dog show, a paint-ball war game, and a beer guzzling contest in a pub.

Everything was mingled with the typical T&A required for this kind of story (although extremely mild), with inserted body-double breast reveals during the badminton game by Sadie to distract the players, and another from "Beautiful Coed" (Elena Tecuta) who stripped down for Simon, but collapsed at the sight of his well-endowed genitals, and then was knocked out by his "schlong." Plus there were loads of ethnic stereotypes and genitalia-euphemisms.

Notes on a Scandal (2006, UK)

Director Richard Eyre's heated British melodrama was rife with sexual politics in its tale of an unusual love triangle. The three individuals were:

• Bathsheba "Sheba" Hart (Oscar-nominated Cate Blanchett), a bohemian bored housewife and North London high school art teacher
• Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson), Sheba's sexually-aggressive under-aged student
• Barbara Covett (Oscar-nominated Judi Dench), a blackmailing tenured, older, spinster lesbian co-worker

Sheba became enmeshed in an affair with Steven.

At one point, she exclaimed with sneering incredulity at Barbara's girl-crush on her: "You think this is a love affair?!" during a tense climactic confrontation.

Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders (2006)

Writer/director Chris Fisher's fictionalized, straight-to-video crime drama thriller was based upon the 1978 Los Angeles area strangulations committed by one of the men convicted for the crimes:

• Kenneth Bianchi (Clifton Collins, Jr.) - the serial killer

Although told from the murderer's point of view (with a constantly-moving hand-held camera), in fact, the film had only one scene in which the two killers murdered one victim.

Brittany Daniel played loose-living, dope-using Samantha Stone in a completely fabricated role. Her character was a speculative composite of five different mental health professionals from the original case, who interrogated Bianchi (the killer claimed insanity with multiple personality disorder).

In one scene in this wildly creative film that tried to create the atmosphere of late 70s sex and drugs, Bianchi was involved in a lesbian threesome with two others in a red-lighted bedroom (filmed with the circulating hand-held camera):

• Samantha Stone (Brittany Daniel), Bianchi's own blonde-haired psychiatrist
• Nicole (Michelle Borth), dark-haired

Threesome Scene Between Bianchi, Samantha, and Nicole

Saw III (2006)

This third installment of the popular grisly and gory horror film franchise was a similar tale - serial killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) was devising further horrible death traps for his various victims.

The full frontal nude view of one struggling, hapless female victim led to charges of misogyny, dehumanization, sexual objectification, and abusive exploitation.

• Danica Scott (Debra Lynne McCabe), strung up by her wrists in a frigid, walk-in freezer locker

During her torture, a cold mist was sprayed or showered from nozzles on vertical poles at her side onto her naked body as she hung there, eventually encasing her in a thin sheet of ice and killing her before she could be saved.

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Philip K. Dick's science-fiction novel was adapted by director Richard Linklater for his visually-incredible, black comedy and fantasy sci-fi thriller about the semi-distant dystopic future where a drug called Substance D had caused many users in the society to become intensely paranoid.

Keanu Reeves took the role of undercover narcotics cop Agent 'Fred' (his street name was Bob Arctor) to investigate himself and his drug-dealing friends with 24/7 surveillance cameras installed in his own house in Anaheim, CA (Orange County). As he viewed the tapes and served as undercover agent 'Fred', he wore an identity-blurring 'Scramble Suit' to conceal his true identity.

Filmed in computer-rotoscoped style, the film was unusual for its graphic depictions of sex and nudity. In an early scene set in a coffee-shop, two of Arctor's housemates - evil, menacing and sinister Jim Barris (Robert Downey, Jr) and deranged, heavy drug user Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane) were discussing random issues. To illustrate Freck's distracted and confused mind, when asking about dessert choices from waitress Betty (Natasha Valdez), he imagined her stripping off her uniform and revealing her breasts to him.

Later in the film, Arctor's drug-dealing and coke-addicted girlfriend Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder) picked him up after his shift at the police precinct, and was assured that he had the money for the drugs he wanted. She drove to her place for a drug exchange and he "dropped" some Death pills (Substance D), plus they had some Tequila; but then she coldly refused his overtures for sex and physical contact with him, claiming her rejection was due to her own excessive coke use; Donna asserted:

"Look, I do a lot of coke. OK. And I just have to be really careful because I do a lot of coke, so just leave my body alone. OK?...I just don't like it when people grope my body and I have to watch out for that because I snort so much coke."

He was upset with her: "That's f--king lame. I gotta go." Outside, she apologized for hurting his feelings; when he asked how much coke she was doing, she replied: "Not that much," but then confessed she had a "habit" but was "happy" nonetheless.

Instead, Arctor pursued sex with a young "Substance D prostitute" or blonde junkie named Connie (Lisa Marie Newmyer) after being rejected by Donna; before sex, he shared three red pills with her and took a handful of pills himself; as he rolled over in bed after having sex with Connie, he momentarily freaked out when he imagined not Connie, but dark-haired Donna next to him - and he began to question his sanity.

Arctor After Sex with Blonde Junkie Prostitute Connie (Lisa Marie Newmyer)	Arctor Freaked Out Momentarily - Dark-Haired Donna Was in Bed With Him	Donna Reverted Back Into Blonde-Haired Connie
Fast-Forwarding of Scanned Surveillance Footage of Arctor's Sexual Encounter with Connie

Later, at work in front of his surveillance monitor, Agent 'Fred' scanned fast-forwarded footage of Arctor's sexual encounter with Connie on his six surveillance screens that showed him (in the top three screens) having sex in multiple positions with Connie in fast-motion; fascinated, he was able to grab some of the footage, enlarge it, and create a short looped movie of Connie morphing into Donna and then back to Connie.

Sherrybaby (2006)

This was the independent feature film debut for writer/director Laurie Collyer. Golden Globe-nominated Maggie Gyllenhaal took the down-to-earth role in a gritty, fearless, sexually-raw blue-collar portrayal:

• Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal), 19 years old, recently paroled from a three-year jail term for robbery (to support her drug use)

She was hoping for a second chance and an opportunity to re-connect with her eight year-old daughter Alexis (Ryan Simpkins).

Wearing cheap-looking and ill-fitting inappropriate clothing, she invited sex in order to get what she wanted.

Living in a half-way house, she experienced a strained relationship with her brother and sister-in-law who were raising her daughter.

Baring both her physical and emotional self, she had sex with the half-way house program director (Rio Hackford) to reduce her curfew requirements, offered oral sex to her employment counselor to get a job in a Head Start program (instead of a factory), and often chose the wrong people to associate with.

Shortbus (2006)

Writer/director John Cameron Mitchell (director of the cult classic Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)) brought out his second arthouse feature film titled Shortbus (aka "The Sex Film Project"). It was screened both at the Cannes Film Festival, and at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It was the "most explicit" or sexually-graphic film ever screened and pushed boundaries the furthest. It also had the widest release of any film showing unsimulated sex. This highly controversial film - named for the underground Brooklyn sex salon ("for the gifted and challenged") in the unrated film, contained many unsimulated, hardcore images of sexual intercourse (gay and straight), masturbation, ejaculation, a dominatrix S & M sex whipping, an orgy scene and a gay menage a trois scene (with oral sex) accompanied by a rousing singing of the national anthem: "The Star Spangled Banner."

Gay Threesome	Masturbation - Self Stimulation
The Orgy Scene

The sex was encased within a non-pornographic dramatic narrative about emotionally-challenged post 9/11 New Yorkers searching for sexual happiness and self-discovery.

The opening sequence - which cross-cut between three scenes - set the tone.

• Gay man and ex-prostitute James (Paul Dawson) in a bathtub filmed his genitals (while peeing into the water) with a hand-held video camera. [Spoiler: He was making a video suicide note.] Then, he performed a yoga-like backwards flip, with his penis suspended above his mouth - and attempted oral sex on himself. (A peeping tom stalker named Caleb (Peter Stickles) was photographing him from an across-the-street window.)
• In another NYC apartment, a costumed, spike-haired dominatrix (also an aspiring artist) named Severin (Lindsay Beamish) was whipping one of her male clients as he masturbated while lying on a bed.
• In a third residence, Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee, host of CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera), a married couples sex counselor, was having "incredible" sex on a piano with her husband Rob (Raphael Barker), and then trying multiple positions on their bed and throughout their living areas. All of the males orgasmed and ejaculated at the same time - one onto the paint drippings of a Jackson Pollock painting.

3rd Setting: Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) Having Unsimulated Sex with Husband Rob in Their NYC Apartment

Sofia told her husband that one of her patients named Cheryl (Miriam Shor) was urged to continue faking orgasms with her male partner Brad (Justin Hagan): "It's a completely legitimate strategy to buy time...An orgasm isn't something Brad can give her. She has to claim it for herself." In fact, Sofia was speaking about herself - she finally admitted that she was pre-orgasmic ("I never had one") during one of her counseling sessions with client James and his male partner Jamie (PJ DeBoy), an ex-child star.

The film's characters, Sofia, Severin, Rob, and James (among others) met regularly in the Brooklyn sex salon (titled Shortbus). There were a number of interlocking relationships that developed:

• James and Jamie with Ceth (Jay Brannan) - forming a gay threesome
• Sofia with Severin - a same-sex coupling
• James with Caleb - including sexual penetration
• Rob with Severin - another dominatrix scene

The film's conclusion occurred during a blackout in the city, happening simultaneously when Sofia was again unable to reach orgasm. At the Shortbus club during the rousing singing of "In the End" by the cross-dressing Mistress (Justin Vivian Bond) of the club, Sofia became excitedly engaged in a kissing and sexual threesome with another couple: Nick (Jan Hilmer) and Leah (Shanti Carson). As she finally achieved orgasm, the lights of the city were simultaneously restored.

Lights Restored in NYC With Sofia's Electrifying Orgasm While Seated Between Nick and Leah for a Bisexual Threesome

Surf School (2006)

This derivative teen comedy from writer/director Joel Silverman has been soundly criticized for its inane, predictable plot about a group of wave-riding high school losers-outcasts. It also had lame, tired jokes about sex with a monkey similar to the comeback of the nerds in Revenge of the Nerds (1984) and all of its sequels. Its tagline was:

This summer get wet!

A group of Laguna High School seniors traveled to Costa Rica (in advance of other invited students), where they learned how to surf from drunken ex-surfing legend Rip (Harland Williams), and beat the school jocks and bullies led by Tyler (Ryan Carnes). The non-surfing teen outcasts included:

• Jordan Sullivan (Corey Sevier), a handsome athletic lacrosse player, transplanted to California from the East Coast
• Taz (Miko Hughes), a spiked purple-haired freak named after the Tasmanian Devil
• Mo (Sisqo), a wannabe black hip-hopper
• Doris (Laura Bell Bundy), an introverted, quiet Goth chick who became inexplicably - by the end of the film - blonde, oversexed, and popular
• Larry (Lee Norris), a clean-cut, virginal nerd-boy

About the only redeeming part was that "virgin Larry" became involved with three topless blonde Swedish girls (Rikke Moegelhoej, Annika Svedman, and Aubrie Lemon). Their gratuitous nudity was shown while they were meditating nude poolside, or when topless sunbathing. The Nordic females bragged: "Breasts are no big deal. Just skin," and "We have nipples, you have nipples. American men seem to get so crazy over breasts."

The Three Blonde Swedish Girls

Venus (2006)

Peter O'Toole's Oscar-nominated role as dying, impotent, septuagenarian has-been actor Maurice Russell told about his warm March-December platonic romance with the nicknamed title character:

• Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), a feisty, precocious teenaged fellow actor, Ian's (Leslie Phillips) grand-niece, aka Venus

He carried on the relationship with the teen much to the bemusement of his sardonic, disheveled, estranged wife Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave).

Most notable was randy Maurice's dreamy, murmured, courtly and fearless reply to Jessie's question about which of her body parts he thought about:

"Your hair, your feet, your legs, your behind, your eyes...your elbows, (pause) your cunt."

She also briefly exposed her breasts to him at the foot of his bed by pulling up her shirt to rouse him while he was lying deathly ill.

When gazing at the famed reclining Venus painting (the name he then adopted for Jessie), Maurice and Jessie spoke together about contrasting gender views on beauty:

Maurice: "For most men, the woman's body is the most beautiful thing they will ever see."
Jessie: "What's the most beautiful thing a girl sees? Do you know?"
Maurice: "Her first child."

The film closed with Jessie returning to her modeling role, now as an accomplished naked figure for art students in the life-class. On the first occasion she had posed, she was 'naked,' but now she disrobed confidently in the 'nude'.

After stripping, she assumed the famous reclining pose of La Venus del Espejo (aka the Rokeby Venus, The Toilet of Venus, or Venus at Her Mirror) painted by Diego Velazquez. The image of her then dissolved or melded into the actual picture itself (as she metaphorically became Venus) - an easel was replaced by the goddess' mirror, and cupid replaced one of the art students.