GOOD PORN - A Woman’s Guide (2010)

RATING: 60%

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Not very insightful look at pornography that is at least amusing and easy to read.

By separating good from bad porn the author manages to sort the wheat from the chaff and dispel the myths that porn causes rape, child abuse and porn addiction. By doing so she can imply that because most Hollywood films, for example, are bad, that does not mean that Hollywood – as such - is. Similarly, because most porn is bad does not mean porn - as such - is bad. She thus also manages to engage with pornography rationally as a vehicle for the understanding and exploration of women's sexuality, generally, that the suppression of porn attempted to elide, culturally. This benefits both sexes as it holds out the promise of greater and more mutual carnal satisfaction.

The real downside here is that the book was obviously written too quickly and contains many factual errors - only some of which are corrected by the translator.

Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

PRECIOUS: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2008)

80%

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Apart from an interminably-slow pacing problem for its first half, this is an excellent movie about child abuse that will both make your blood run cold and fill you with hope for the future.

The excellence of the performances is universal, especially from Gabourey SIDIBE as the abused Precious and MO'NIQUE as her woefully-abusive mother. The movie is essentially about their relationship of mutual need and entrapment as well as of the fact that the need for an escape from it is as pressing as the actual need for it – the only escape being the facing of reality. That a woman could be so needy and neurotic that she would allow her boyfriend to sexually abuse a three-year-old beggars belief and almost justifies murdering her. Yet MO'NIQUE manages to get under the skin of her character to let us see that she is just as abused as she is frighteningly abusive; almost making her human. Still, like her social worker, we find it difficult to remain in the same room with her for an extended period.

Paula PATTON and Mariah CAREY are also very good in their supporting roles, aided by good dialogue and the expert direction of Lee Daniels. Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry deserve especial praise for bringing this to the screen – a gamble that paid off commercially.

Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Frozen (2010)

40%

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Calling-card movie that shows the director can put a movie together but is unable to tell a convincing story using interesting characters. This one wastes a great opportunity for a character study with a narrative where we never learn anything much about the characters and, thus, never really identify with their plight.

The contrived plot, itself, lacks credibility and the acting - apart from Emma BELL - is lackluster. Half-hearted and somewhat unconvincing gore punctuates this rather flat drama to vainly distract us from its fatal thematic lack. Just like Open Water, this film is unable to involve either emotionally or intellectually as something like Jaws did with its hybrid of Moby Dick and An Enemy of the People.

Because there is little for us to root for here, except the pedestrian desire to know how things work out, the technical deficiency of never seeing the actors breath - despite the wintry setting - grates in a way that it never did in the somewhat better, but also similarly technically-challenged The Shining.

Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Buried (2010)

80%

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Fascinating thriller with the simplest mise en scène possible - a single set and one visible actor trapped in a coffin for the duration of the movie. (If low production-values movies like this could be made on a regular basis, the skyrocketing costs of American film production would plummet. And one suspects that this is why they are being made in the wake of spectacularly successful cheapies like The Blair Witch Project.)

Ryan REYNOLDS offers a noteworthy performance that holds our attention throughout - he has to, since this is a one-man show which would otherwise fall disastrously flat for its 90 minute length. The pointed criticism of the War on Terror is well made as a conflict designed to enrich the already wealthy - much like the First World War was - REYNOLDS' character simply being a small, lower-class cog in a big wheel going to Iraq for the work he could not get at home in the US.

The director (Rodrigo Cortés) and writer (Chris Sparling) extract as much value as possible from the dramatic staging-limitations they have set themselves. They maintain a consistent level of suspense - with the sole exception of an out-of-the-blue snake entering the coffin that was not setup for earlier when we are clearly told that REYNOLDS is completely sealed in. His conversations on the cellphone left with him slowly reveal what has happened and why. Along with the fact that, ultimately, he has been left to die not only by his terrorist captors but by his employers and his government - the fate of all who enter a war zone for no benefit to themselves. His characterization of a man waiting to die makes this is as good as Tunnel Rats and Miracle Mile in its depiction of the essentially internecine and mercantilist nature of modern warfare.

Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Key to Sex (1998)

60%

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NICE GUYS FINISH LAST?

A variation on Risky Business, this soft-core sex-film has pretty White girls with insatiable sexual desirers. When the men are not fucking the women they are playing mundane power-games and office politics with one another.

The sexual intercourse lacks lustful intensity and the women, in particular, are unable to project their femininity over and above the usual sexual stereotypes inherent in Playboy, in such a way as to overcome and compensate for the lack of explicitness. The humping lacks real passion as if underneath it all there is a puritan aesthetic to denature sex. Yet no-one here embarrasses themselves artistically in this fun and stylish time-passer with good, scripted characterization.

Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.