sex comedy

THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR DOING SOMETHING HAS PASSED: is she going to be a loser?

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Photo caption: Babak Tafti and Joanna Arnow in THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR DOING SOMETHING HAS PASSED. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

You won’t see a more uniquely original film than the deadpan comedy The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed. When we meet the protagonist Ann (played by writer-director Joanna Arnow), she’s in a situation of literal dissatisfaction. Although she is particularly vulnerable in this moment, dissatisfaction seems to be the theme of her life.

Ann is smart and witty, but no one in her life SEES her. She’s so invisible to others, that her workmates award her a one year-anniversary prize, when she’s been there for three years. Her boyfriend is remarkably self-absorbed, selfish and distracted. Her parents are blissfully too far on the other side of the generational divide to relate supportively; (there’s a rollicking scene where they break into Solidarity Forever at a vacation cabin).

Ann decides to stop settling, drops her boyfriend and embarks on meeting new guys with a dating app. But her indignities, at work and on the dating trail, continue with deadpan hilarity. Will she reach a point of self-discovery?

I’ve been burying the gob smack lead, happily perverted as it is. Ann and the men she dates are into BDSM, and Ann is a submissive. When we see someone whom we think has low self esteem as sexually submissive, we may gasp at what looks like exploitation. But, we’re wrong about Ann’s self-esteem – she won’t let herself be victimized. She may be suffering the slings and arrows of life, but she is not going to see herself as a loser.

Arnow’s performance is remarkably brave and adept on several levels. Most obviously, Arnow spends much of the movie naked, and her body more resembles those of her audience members than those of most big screen leading ladies. She’s also frequently engaging in submission sex play, and all that “yes, Master” sounds silly to those not into BDSM.

The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed is the first narrative feature that Arnow has written and directed. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

I understand that this is not a movie for everyone. Some will put off by the BDSM sex play and by a woman constantly in submissive positions. But, uniquely, this is a story told from tha woman’s perspective, and I think the payoff makes the film worth sticking through any discomfort.

The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed is now tied for #27 on my list of Longest Movie Titles. Hopefully more significantly, it’s also on my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far.

This a droll masterpiece of transgressive originality. After a blink-and-you’ve-missed-it theatrical run earlier this year, The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV and Hulu.

ADVENTURES IN SUCCESS: sending up seekers

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Photo caption: Lexie Mountain in ADVENTURES IN SUCCESS. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

The broadly comic Adventures in Success traces the misadventures of a self-help retreat center led by Peggy (Lexie Mountain), a self-described energy transformationist. Peggy claims to have experienced a 12-hour orgasm. Her movement is centered on the female orgasm, the mantra is Jilling Off, and the sessions are essentially orgies where men are not allowed to ejaculate.

Of course, Adventures in Success sends up self-help movements, New Age affectations, and, especially, would-be cult leaders. As Peggy, Lexie Mountain projects a demented self-assurance.

The comic tone is set early – the opening shot is an impressive 28-second performance of urination art.

ADVENTURES IN SUCCESS. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

There some inspired LOL moments, but Adventures in Success is not a laugh-a-minute. It runs out of energy when the group takes a final, doomed bus trip to Vegas.

Cinequest hosted the world premiere of Adventures in Success; I screened it for the Nashville Film Festival. Adventures in Success is streaming from Amazon and AppleTV.

PEPI, LUCI, BOM AND OTHER GIRLS LIKE MOM: early, ragged Almodóvar

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A very young Pedro Almodóvar’s 1980 Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom. This is early Almodovar – zany and ribald, even transgressive. The filmmaking craft is very rough (and very low budget), but Almodóvar’s signature energy and vibrant colors are already there. Fun rock music sets the tone from the get go in the title credits.

The humor is outrageous, embracing that of the very first American gross-out comedies (The Groove Tube and The Kentucky Fried Movie) and taking a step (or a few) farther:

  • A penis-measuring contest as a party game;
  • The question of whether a cop’s wife can become a punk band’s groupie;
  • Panties that turn farts into perfume;
  • Cops baited into a narc raid on a plastic marijuana plant;
  • Perhaps the dirtiest pop pseudopunk song ever: I love you because you’re dirty; Filthy slutty and servile.

The protagonist starts out as the party girl Pepi, but the story evolves to center around Luci, the wife of a brutish cop. As Luci is debased by more and more characters, becoming a human piñata, it is revealed that she is a masochist who actually is attracted to and pleasured by the meanest behavior. [SPOILER: There’s even a Golden Shower early in this story thread.]

Viewing through today’s lens, the movie violence against women no longer works as comedy, even though the character who is debased is a masochist and the rape that spurs the revenge theme is clearly intended to be broadly comic.

This is Almodóvar having fun being naughty. His most profound work was still two decades in the future: Talk to Her, Bad Education, Broken Embraces.

I watched Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom on TCM, and you can stream it from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Stream of the Week: THREESOMETHING – original and cheeky

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Isabelle Chester and Sam Sonenshine in THREESOMETHING

In the cheeky and original comedy Threesomething, Charlie (Sam Sonenshine) and his buddy Isaac (James Morosini) invite Charlies’ friend Zoe (Isabelle Chester) to engage in a three-way sexual encounter. That pitch alone is one of the funniest three-minute, fifteen-second, openings to a film I’ve seen in years. But then Threesomething finds the ridiculous moments in both the sex itself and in the all-consuming passion of new infatuation. After a crisp 72 minutes, Threesomething‘s ending is very fresh and non-formulaic, posing just enough ambiguity about the characters’ futures.

Co-writers Morosini and Sonenshine have identified the comic possibilities within the notion that a threesome is more or less symmetrical. Let me explain it this way. What if your idea of a threesome is three participants, but it evolves into two participants and a spectator?

Lust and love are such ripe sources of comedy because we humans are our most ridiculous when we are the most absorbed and single-minded – and that is definitively the case while having sex. And everyone’s sexual fantasies and fetishes – even if shared with one’s sexual partner – are laughable or creepy to someone else. Threesomething reaps the laughs from these situations without being sit-commy.

This is the Are you good? generation. Threesomething’s commentary on the compulsive over-checking in and over-supportiveness is all very sharply witty. And over-sharing is the core of Charlie’s relationship with his mother (Dru Mouser, who steals all of her scenes).

Sonenshine is just about perfect in his reactions during the threesome. He is fantastically gifted at playing both awkward discomfort and contained frustration.

Chester’s performance has several highlights, beginning with Zoe’s takes on the initial proposition and a particularly ill-timed outburst of weeping (inspired). As the story concludes, watch Chester’s face as Zoe considers and reconsiders how comfortable she really is in her choice of partner(s).

Threesomething is Morosini’s directorial debut and the first feature screenplay for both Morodini and Sonenshine. Comedy is hard to write, especially comedy as smart and original as this. I saw Threesomething’s world premiere at this year’s Cinequest.  It is available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Cinequest: THREESOMETHING

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Isabelle Chester and Sam Sonenshine in THREESOMETHING

In the cheeky and original comedy Threesomething, Charlie (Sam Sonenshine) and his buddy Isaac (James Morosini) invite Charlies’ friend Zoe (Isabelle Chester) to engage in a three-way sexual encounter.  That pitch alone is one of the funniest three-minute, fifteen-second, openings to a film I’ve seen in years.  But then Threesomething finds the ridiculous moments in both the sex itself and in the all-consuming passion of new infatuation.  After a crisp 72 minutes, Threesomething‘s ending is very fresh and non-formulaic, posing just enough ambiguity about the characters’ futures.

Co-writers Morosini and Sonenshine have identified the comic possibilities within the notion that a threesome is more or less symmetrical. Let me explain it this way.  What if your idea of a threesome is three participants, but it evolves into two participants and a spectator?

Lust and love are such ripe sources of comedy because we humans are most ridiculous when we are the most absorbed and single-minded – and that is definitively the case while having sex.  And everyone’s sexual fantasies and fetishes – even if shared with one’s sexual partner – are laughable or creepy to someone else.  Threesomething reaps the laughs from these situations without being sit-commy.

This is the Are you good? generation.  Threesomething’s commentary on the compulsive over-checking in and over-supportiveness is all very sharply witty.  And over-sharing is the core of Charlie’s relationship with his mother (Dru Mouser, who steals all of her scenes).

Sonenshine is just about perfect in his reactions during the threesome.  He is fantastically gifted at playing both awkward discomfort and contained frustration.

Chester’s performance has several highlights, beginning with Zoe’s takes on the initial proposition and a particularly ill-timed outburst of weeping (inspired).  As the story concludes, watch Chester’s face as Zoe considers and reconsiders how comfortable she really is in her choice of partner(s).

Threesomething is Morosini’s directorial debut and the first feature screenplay for both Morodini and Sonenshine.  Comedy is hard to write, especially comedy as smart and original as this.  Cinequest will host Threesomething’s world premiere.

Turn Me On, Dammit!: wise, sympathetic and funny

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Alma is pushing 16 and lives in rural Norway, in a tiny community so remote that her mom works in a turnip factory.  Her hormones have been unleashed, and she can think of nothing but sex.  She spends her free time having poignantly innocent (and incomplete) sexual fantasies, masturbating and running up phone sex bills.  Her schoolmates misinterpret her encounter with a boy and ostracize her as the village slut.  So begins this wise, sympathetic and funny Norwegian coming of age comedy.

The humor comes from the film’s knowing view of human nature and, especially, of teenagers.  One of Alma’s pals aspires to move to Texas and end capital punishment by raising awareness.  For another, no amount of lip gloss can be enough.  None of them can figure out how to pilot their budding urges without embarrassing awkwardness.  And all the while, Alma’s beleaguered mom tries to figure out what to do with her.

The laughs are mostly chuckles instead of guffaws.  Turn Me On, Dammit! is only 76 minutes of long, which is just the right length for this story.  It’s a good-hearted and funny movie.