I had a delightful time with my best friend K. down in the Springs. We’ve been having a lot of rain here so we didn’t venture out for fireworks until Sunday, the 5th, where they were putting on a show up in the mountains. It was fabulous. The symphony was there playing music and they had a couple howitzers to fire during the 1812 Overture, which were perfectly synchronized.

Earlier in the weekend we went out to Club Q, Colorado Springs’ only gay bar (I believe) and saw their Friday night drag show. I just went in guy mode myself and the drag queens put on a nice show, with varying degrees of talent. Some of the girls were really attractive and energetic and really belted it out. I’ve heard of Club Q for several years, so it was nice to see it. The gay bar in the Springs used to be the old Hide ‘N Seek Club, and there have been rumors that they were “forced” out of business by overly strict interpretation of building and fire codes. But who knows? It was a nice place and for years that was the only club in town if you wanted to dress and go out, so it’s nice to see that there’s a new one.

Synecdoche – We also saw the movie “Synecdoche, New York” on DVD and it was excellent, though very very sad. It’s another mindfuck movie from Charlie Kaufman, who wrote the screenplays for “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” It’s even more of the same, with a very complicated plot about a theater director who tries to capture all of life’s experience in his massive new production. It twists and turns and folds in on itself, with actors playing real characters, including one who stands in for himself. Anyway, it’s very hard to describe but incredibly imaginative and worth seeing if you like that sort of thing – but not something to see if you’re feeling emotionally fragile. It really is so very sad. There’s more about it and the trailer, which is very good, on this page.

I’m not normally a big fan of superhero movies but I went out the other night and saw Watchmen with my good friend K., and it’s really terrific. It’s dark and funny, and Malin Akerman, who plays Silk Spectre II, is really hot – heck, she’s wearing this latex fetish outfit with heels whenever she’s out fighting crime and in another scene wears this really nice skirt and belted sweater – a real knockout. All the other actors are really good too and some of my favorites were the actors who played the psychopath Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) and The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The latter’s very funny indeed even though he does some truly horrible things to people, including killing the pregnant Vietnamese girl who’s carrying his own child.

The movie itself is really clever and a lot of fun, set in the 1980s and presenting this alternate history where Nixon is serving his third term in office. One really funny aspect is that all the superheroes are troubled and in varying states of unhappiness, including big blue Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), who has godlike powers over space and time – and also relationship problems. So often I find the self-serious tone of superhero movies kind of tedious but this one was a real hoot, commenting on the genre in a fun way. Did I mention that the actress who plays Silk Spectre II is really hot?

I recently saw the new Mickey Rourke movie, The Wrestler, and it’s an excellent “feel bad” movie. It is rather shocking to see how bad Mickey Rourke looks, especially since he was, well, beautiful when he was younger (Hell, I would have had sex with him back then, and I’m not even much into guys). The movie is indeed grim – dealing with aging and decay and how life doesn’t turn out how we would have hoped – but it’s so well done and Mickey Rourke’s performance is so good that it wasn’t nearly as depressing as I feared. And there’s also a good song at the end – one of those hopeless-loser ballads by Bruce Springsteen. Definitely a good choice for a nice wallow.

The Wrestler website

Well, it’s been a busy couple weeks and a long time since I’ve done any blogging. But I finally got to see the remake of Funny Games on DVD the other night. It’s a really nasty little movie but has some decent, though ugly and gritty, bondage scenes. I feel like a total perv recommending it – did I mention it’s really nasty? – but if you’d like to see a beautiful woman (Naomi Watts) tied up and treated really really badly, then it might be your thing. It also stars Tim Roth in what has to be one of the most thankless movie roles ever. He basically just gets his kneecap shattered and is helpless to do anything to help his tormented wife and son. But okay, here’s some frame grabs off the TV screen…

I remember seeing the original German-language version of this movie about ten years ago when it first came out. It’s a very nasty little movie about a nice family being held hostage and tormented in their nice home by a couple of young polite psychopaths. I had seen some pictures online of the actress tied up, so of course I had to check it out. Like I say, the movie’s really nasty and dark and it’s supposed to be an indictment of how so many of us like to see nasty and dark movies as entertainment. I got that, but I just wanted to see the bondage and, yes, there were some pretty good, if overly grim, scenes in it.

So now the movie’s been re-shot with Naomi Watts staring in it, and apparently it’s nearly a shot-by-shot duplicate of the original. I’ll have to see it, though most likely when it comes out on DVD. And yes, again I get the director’s indictment of the audience and all that, but I don’t know where to go with it. Am I supposed to feel bad about myself because I like dark stuff? I mean, guilty as charged. And the fact remains that the director did choose to shoot all this dark stuff himself, so maybe it’s not just the audience. I don’t know – it’s probably not worth feeling defensive over. It is just a movie, after all.

As for the bondage, if it’s a shot-by-shot remake, then yes, there will be some – some really mean suffering-and-torment style bondage, but bondage nonetheless. Okay, it’s on my “to see” list.

Review on the NY Times

Movie website from Warner Bros.

I also got out today with a friend and finally saw There Will Be Blood, and was completely blown away by it. Like everyone’s been saying it’s absolutely amazing and Daniel Day Lewis is incredible. You gotta go see this one.

Website with trailer

It’s funny but when I travel my libido always goes through the roof. I don’t know if it’s just the stress of being away from home, as I’m pretty much a homebody, or if it’s (to be blunt) the fact that I don’t feel comfortable masturbating when I’m staying with family (pretty obvious why that might be weird), but I always find myself ready to peel paint off the walls with my fingernails after a few days.

I find too that when I’m at the airport, or just out and about, I’m always checking out the women, especially the nicely dressed ones, and feeling that familiar longing and desire. It’s the usual transvestite thing – I desire them AND I want to be them and be tied up being them, etc. etc.

Then yesterday I also saw with my family the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, which is very good and very funny, and also has some really hot women in it, including all the office secretaries who are so damn cute. There’s one shot of this adorable girl walking from behind with her high heels and legs and fitted suit and her ponytail swinging back and forth. Yikes! Well, I sound like a total perv but so it is. The lust and yearning just drive themselves into me like a screwdriver. It’s good to be back home and be able to get some relief from it.

I’ve noticed a few bloggers requesting images of the “Captivity” billboards that were recently taken down in L.A., so in the interests of contributing to the ongoing brouhaha, here are a few more pictures.

Here’s a poster, also quite disturbing and kind of artsy:

And something with duct tape:

I was out the other day and saw the billboard for this new movie “Captivity,” and thought, “Wow, that is really sick.” It was located right across the street from an elementary school, believe it or not. And later I saw another one at a city bus shelter.

Now I enjoy a good horror movie, but even I thought it was a bit much to have such a gruesome image inflicted on everyone who goes by, including children. I know if I were eight years old and saw this, I’d be thoroughly traumatized by it.

And I just heard on the evening news that there have been so many complaints about the ads here in L.A., that the studio has decided to take all the billboards down. It makes you wonder if it wasn’t just a very successful publicity stunt. They’ve gotten all kinds of attention for their movie, which is what you want.

The big question: Does it have any good bondage in it? I saw the trailer for it and it looks like it might have one or two tame moments – maybe hand gagging and wrists tied together. But of course, who knows? Early reviews seem to say that it’s pretty bad and basically a rip off of the “Saw” movies. Will I go see it? Well, yeah, I probably will – but I’ll wait till it comes out on DVD.

A friend recently sent me a couple of old Sally Roberts VHS tapes which I checked out the other night. I love that stuff from the late 70s and early 80s. Technically the videos are pretty bad, but as a model Sally Roberts was so good that she overcomes all the glitches and corny acting. She just nails that whole girl next door look and is really hot, with a super cute voice and that straight brown hair. There was one scene where she’s being held by Susan Blair (another regular from that period) and Sally asks in the cutest way, “I don’t suppose you have to gag me?” So, of course, she gets gagged – and very well, with a wad of cloth shoved into her mouth and a long white scarf wrapped between her teeth and wrapped twice around her head.

I’ve looked at way too many bondage pictures and videos over the years, which has kind of deadened the spark a little, so to speak. But I was amazed at how hot this scene was. It was simple but had a real charge, like back when I was 18 and went into my first adult bookstore and – holy cow! – saw this whole wall of bondage books and videos. My mouth went dry and I felt weak inside. It’s frustrating and a little sad that when you get older re-awakening those old feelings becomes so much harder. But every now and then something still really connects and takes me away.

Anyway, these tiny pictures are from some different Sally Roberts tapes, but still nice to look at.

I did tear myself away from the computer for a little while, though, and had a chance to see the DVD of this movie “The Descent,” about six women friends who go caving and end up in big trouble. I really liked this one. It’s super creepy. And has a rather cool website too.

Yesterday I went out to see the new David Lynch movie, “Inland Empire,” and I thought it was really great, and so freakin’ weird, and even scary in parts. It’s really long too – 3 hours. The first hour is the most straighforward part, in terms of having something like a story and plot, about a has-been actress named Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) working on a melodramatic movie called “On High in Blue Tomorrows,” but after a while it just goes crazy and much of it is like watching extra-long versions of the really strange scenes from “Twin Peaks” or “Mulholland Drive,” where you don’t know what the heck is going on but it feels like it sort of makes sense – or not – in an emotional sort of way. I tend to love stuff like that so found it thoroughly enjoyable. Apparently it was shot on regular ol’ DV video – not even the hi-def stuff – but it works surprisingly well on the big screen and fits the weirdness of the movie. If you like David Lynch, you’ll love this one; if you don’t, your patience will be thoroughly tried. It looks like it’s just in limited release right now so it may take a while for it to come around. If you have a chance to see it though, I’d definitely check it out.

Inland Empire Website

Yesterday I had the day off so I was able to help out on a little video production that was going on in North Hollywood. A friend told me that the guy making this short zombie film needed some bondage gear as props, and hoping for an interesting experience, I agreed to volunteer a day helping out. This had to be the slowest video shoot in the world. I arrived at 8:45 AM as scheduled, but was told by the Assistant Director – a very nice and able guy – that some problems had come up and they probably wouldn’t start shooting till 1:00 PM. So, okay, I went back home and edited some pictures for my website.

Later in the afternoon I went back and found that things were still running late. An actor was unavailable and someone was dispatched to Whittier to pick him up (a very long drive). At one point it was about 3:20 and I sat there on the set (the crew and actors wandering around, smoking, taking naps on couches) thinking, “Okay, I’ll give it till 4:00 PM and if there’s still no sign of activity, I’ll just leave. Fuck it.”

3:45 came and it was announced, “We’re very close to shooting.” “Damn,” I thought, “I’m stuck here.”

Well, things continued on. A couple actors in elaborate zombie makeup were with the director, working out the scene. Lighting was tweaked, the tripod lowered and raised, the lens on the camera was changed. It was pushing 6:00 PM and they still had not gotten to a single shot for the day – nearly nine hours.

I’ve worked before on TV commercials and the occasional doomed independent film back when I lived in Colorado, but this was a record for me for the amount of time to get something – anything – shot. Memories of those times came back and I remembered why I hated working on film crews. There’s endless waiting and hanging out, and I’ve never felt comfortable making chit chat with people I’ve just met. It’s like a situation designed for my social anxiety to come rushing out.

Finally when the camera did roll, the director was struck by how cool the actors feet looked walking into frame. So it was decided: they would shoot close ups of feet.

Okay, the director is actually a nice guy, whom I’d met a couple weeks before – a young film guy looking to get into the Hollywood scene – but he just seemed in way over his head. (And I sure hope he doesn’t read my blog.)

I was finally able to leave after 10:00 PM and I signed out some handcuffs and leg shackles for the next day’s shoot and let them know I was “unavailable” to return. I hope I get my stuff back Friday.

Well, I was out of town again this last weekend, visiting my parents in beautiful Atlanta, Georgia, where the weather was actually cooler than it had been lately in Southern California.

On the plane trip home they were showing the gender bender comedy, “She’s the Man.” It looked pretty lame, but did have the cute Amanda Bynes dressing up like a guy to play on the soccer team at her boarding school. It was apparently based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Thankfully the star of the movie is twenty years old, but she looks so young that I still feel like a total perv looking at her pictures.

I saw in the L.A. Weekly that there’s a 20-year anniversary re-release of Blue Velvet, one of my favorite movies. I remember first seeing it when it came out in ’86 and being completely blown away by it, sitting in the theater afterwards and going, “Damn, what was that…?” I can’t believe it’s been twenty years already.