Saturday, January 06, 2007

Ah, men! Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a weener.

I swear that I have not done this on purpose, but the last several movies I have picked out at Hollywood Video in the last 2 weeks have contained full frontal male nudity. Full frontal, backal and sidal female nudity is fairly common (can I just make up words? Thanks. Might as well add "uppal" and "downal"), but it's much more rare to see the male equivalent. This might seem incredible, but I neither of us had ever seen "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976), and I was not expecting to see David Bowie completely naked (in one of the weirdest love scenes. Ever. It had to do with a gun, that's all I will say). I must admit that I prefer him in clothes. I mean, David Bowie IS clothing.

Another one was "The Quiet Earth" (1985) where Bruno Lawrence is naked in one scene, but it's arguably gratuitous. It's almost a prop, like a cup of coffee or a vase of flowers.

Then I come home with "Velvet Goldmine" (1998). This is a movie about fictitious characters that are VERY similar to David Bowie, Iggy Pop and others. Ewan McGregor plays Iggy... I mean... not Iggy... and gives an incredible stage performance singing an Iggy Pop song, "TV Eye" -- he is completely unleashed, and loving it. I've posted the video of it below, but be prepared, and don't look, Ethel. With no offence intended for Mr. Blueberry, People Magazine with its annual tribute to male beauty has missed the mark by not getting this guy on the cover. It's not the nude body, it's the darned smile. It reminds me of John Lennon's smile with the same look on his face. It's also his personality and the accent is nice too. I love a great smile, humor, and brains. I've since learned that Ewan is naked in a dozen or so movies... and another one is sitting here waiting to be watched tomorrow. This time I won't be surprised if someone's penis turns into a painting... or so I've heard (as opposed to creating paintings with a penis as in a recent post here).

I've got my TV Eye on you. There's some truth in that I suppose.


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6 comments:

Michael Bains said...

The nudity was fine, of course.

What turned my stomach was the kid strapped down and safety-balled and why. {shudder}

Oh the evil that men do.

Btw, I've always been partial to upsidedownal. {-;

Nava said...

He seems very happy, like a one-year old kid running around naked, ecstatic with freedom.
Nothing wrong with that, Eh?

Seems like anything you watch these days has the frontal blessing... If I were you, I wouldn't watch the news for a while, especially when Bush is on ;-)

Reel Fanatic said...

Even though I had no need to see Mr. McGregor waiving his willie all around, I thought Velvet Goldmine was a damn fine flick .. Can't wait to see what Mr. Haynes turns out with his upcoming Dylan flick

Blueberry said...

reel: I really liked it too. I was wishing that they would have actually made the movie about the real characters, but I get that gets a bit sensitive esp. when people are still with us and maybe the fictitious setting allowed more liberties to be taken with the story. I also though that Christian Bale might have made a good Bowie/Slade.
nava: everytime Bush appears, it's already a full frontal exposure, so it would be redundant. Frightening thought though. I met a guy who made him a belt buckle, and the thought of that was bad enough.
mb: I forgot all about upside-downal!

Bob said...

I once took an honors class about science fiction (freakin' sweet) and one of the books we read was The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis. If you liked the movie, read the book, because (and I'm sure you've heard this before) it's better. It's like a Sci-Fi version of Rumpelstiltskin.

Blueberry said...

Books do seem to surpass film versions in most cases, don't they?