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Californication
(Season 1, 2007)
Showtime did a helluva job on this show. It's raunchy, titillating, and
fairly twisted, but also intelligent, funny, realistic, and heartfelt.
Duchovny was a perfect casting choice to play the amoral, burnt-out writer who
isn't quite as depraved and world-weary as he would like to imagine. The
casting of Madeline Zima as his underage, lover/step-daughter was a stroke of
sheer genius, because Zima possessed the perfect combination of adult and
child, with the looks and talent to play the perfect little scheming Lolita.
Rachel Miner was also consistently entertaining, edgy and sexy as the
fetishist secretary who turns out to be quite an opportunist.
The writers will have a hard time doing a second season because season one
seems like a completely self-contained story line, like a long film, with all
the major loose ends tied up in the final episode. If the creative team wants
to keep the show going, it will have to be with completely new conflicts and
storylines.
Season 1 is now available on DVD.
Most of the nudity in the series was concentrated in the first two
episodes, which I have summarized below (except, of course, for Duchovny's
ass):
Pilot:
Episode 2: Hell a Woman
In my next few columns I will continue the first season until all the
nudity has been exhausted.
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OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe
version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
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Slogan
(1969)
A director who creates commercials is in Venice to receive his award for
the best ad of the year when he accidently meets a new lover. They fall deeply
in love, despite the fact that he has a pregnant wife, and she has a
boyfriend. He eventually leaves his wife for her but, this being a French
movie, as soon as he does that, she finds someone she likes better.
The main actors, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, actually fell in love
during the making of this film, but none of that chemistry was apparent on
screen. In fact, it was hard to imagine anyone even liking Serge Gainsbourg's
character, let alone falling in love with him, and I found the other
characters almost as unsympathetic. In fact, their three major character
traits were: unsympathetic, boring and predictable. While it may be better to
go through life with those three characteristics than the famous Animal House
trifecta, the fact remains that "fat, drunk and stupid" make for much more
entertaining cinema.
IMDb readers say 4.9.
Jane Birkin shows buns in a dark scene, and one nipple.
An unknown shows breasts in the award winning
commercial.
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Notes and collages
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Right Now
(A tout de suite, 2008)
Shot in grainy black and white to create a dark atmosphere, this moody
2004 French drama tells an interesting story based on an actual event in
1970's France. A 19 year-old schoolgirl (Isild Le Besco) falls for a young
man who sweeps her off her feet. After hearing of a bungled bank robbery
in which a guard was killed, she discovers her boyfriend was one of the
robbers. After some soul-searching, she decides to hide him and his
cohorts.
They sneak out of the country and at first have a great time blowing all
the money. Then, tempers flare, and the group splits up. The girl ends up
alone in a foreign country, and must work her own way back home and deal
with the consequences of her actions.
Not too bad, although I could have done without the "atmospheric" black
and white, or at least the grain, which they seemed to have enhanced.
Otherwise, an OK flick, not great, but not bad.
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| Isild Lebesco |
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Pics
Jessica Biel with a hint of something
beneath her loose-knit top in Flaunt
Film Clips
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