JUVENILE DELINQUENCY-LEZA PICS

THE 400 BLOWS
1959 Francois Truffaut

This is the original movie about delinquent youth. Before Animal House, before Ferris Bueler's Day Off there was a little film by the Cahiers Du Cinema film critic, Francois Truffaut. Inspired by his own turbulent boyhood on the streets of Paris, The 400 Blows follows Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud through various misadventures that get him into increasingly hot water, first with his parents, teachers, and ultimately, the police. Underage drinking, smoking and theft are some of the misdemeanors enacted by Antoine and his best friend Rene. All these adventures flow in a natural rhythm in one of the first films of the New Wave of French cinema. This movie is refreshingly honest and effortlessly brilliant. It is a movie about the sacredness of the human spirit. The message: resist conditioning at ALL COSTS!



HEATHERS
1988 Daniel Waters

Winona Ryder had just done Beetlejuice and wanted something interesting to do next. She fell in love with Veronica and the crazy world she inhabited. Her agent warned her not to do the film, fearing it would be too controversial. But she took the part anyway and the rest is history. Veronica is a girl who feels at odds with the environment she belongs to. Veronica hates her friends. Veronica hates her clueless parents. Veronica hates her school. But there's one thing Veronica does not hate, and that is new kid on the block, JD, played by Christian Slater. He's mysterious, wry and cynical. He represents everything that her surroundings do not. Together they target the demons of the status quo, as they see it. At first it's all fun and games, but soon Veronica realizes she is in love with a psychopath. The cartoonish characterizations in the Heathersverse are painted in very broad satirical strokes. It's expressionistic. Nightmarish.
This is my high school fantasy. I admit, I was one of those angry loners who would love nothing more than to see the whole goddamned edifice blown up, especially towards the end of senior year, when I'd about had it with everything. I'd go home and blast Antichrist Superstar in my room and gradually come back to normal. I'm a coward and am sufficiently socialized to never consider violence against others. But nevertheless, Marilyn Manson kept me from wanting to blow up and shoot all my classmates. Other people are not so lucky. Other people have easy access to guns and are learning to make explosives as kids. Other people do unleash their rage on their classmates. What I love about this movie is that, years before Bowling for Columbine, it deals honestly with the plague of bullying in high school and the toxic environment many kids are living in every day. It's not preachy, though, and that's the best part. In the end Veroinica needs to face up to the monster she has helped to create. It's quite a ride and it is a viciously hilarious youth culture satire.



A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
1971 Stanley Kubrick

Alex is just your average teenage boy. He loves Beethoven and his pet snake. He loves milk in the evening. Milk Plus, that is. He's got his own little gang of druges and they like to go out and have themselves a good old time. After milk dispensed from porcelain teats, they are good and ready for a little of the old ULTRAVIOLENCE as well as a little of the old IN OUT. He sleeps in and ditches school so he can go to the record store and pick up chicks to have marathon threesome sessions. Perfectly normal. Sometimes you gotta steal a car and go for a joyride with your fellow druges. Sometimes it leads you to a house out in the country and you assault the innocent residents, just 'cause you're bored. When you see something you like, you take it. This classic film, inspired by the great book by Anthony Burgess, is one that once seen cannot be unseen. The violence is the most stylized and operatic you will ever see outside of a Takashi Mikae movie and Malcom McDowell as Alex is magnetic, terrifying, fascinating and yes, sympathetic.
When his friends turn on him he gets put away, he decides to volunteer himself for a new revolutionary behavioral modification treatment. The outcome is tragic. The message powerful. This is still one of the most compelling studies of the human animal in all its brutal glory; RAW, REAL and DEADLY.




GIRLY
1970 Freddie Francis

There are many stories about naughty little boys and girls. Girly puts them all to shame. Sonny and Girly are brother and sister. They live with Mumsy and Nanny in their beautiful estate in the British countryside. They are rich, they are bored, they are spoiled. When these two come across a potential new plaything, at the park, the meddlesome girlfriend of the new toy must me done away with. When they bring the unfortunate man home, strange games and twisted sexual manipulations drive this surreal horror romp down a very dark rabbit hole. This movie's level of antisocial weirdness is truly unparalleled. This dark family drama is also a social parable about the idle and incestuous rich. This movie is definitely shocking, and it is extremely original. I recommend this dark fable of extreme naughtiness to the most jaded of delinquent movie lovers.



Least Favorite

THE DOOM GENERATION
1995

By all accounts I should love this movie. It's got Rose McGowan who's a hottie. It's got youth mayhem on a pretty grand scale. It's got crazy sex stuff. But I was unimpressed. Color me flaccid, bummed and bored. On the surface it's all teenage angst, rebellion and rage. But under the layers of cool visuals and some great gore effects, its got a sickly and negative energy that I find to be ANTI-LIFE ANTI-FUN ANTI-LOVE and ANTI-YOUTH.



GUMMO
1997

Hopelessness, angst and decay. All worthy subjects, I guess. Somehow, what this movie was aiming for and what it was never came together for me. The aimless kids of post-hurricane Xenia, Ohio have nothing to live for and while away their days sniffing glue and painting their nails. There are probably many towns like this in America. I was looking for more of a message. Watching this movie felt like watching a bunch of baby ducklings getting diarrhea poured all over them and then impaled on long spikes while they scream pitifully. I felt like I was getting my soul sucked out through a straw in the angst center of my brain. If you feel like a slow soul death sounds fun, this is the movie for you.

Garrett's Four Favorite and Two Least Favorite Juvenile Delinquency Movies

That Justin Grimbol sure knows his delinquency. Well, I am not without my own opinions on the subject, it being a subject and me being a film geek and one of this blog's two main contributors. What are these opinions? If you're here, I assume you've asked this question or you just click every link I post on Facebook. Either way, thank you and you're about to see what my favorite and least favorite films about juvenile delinquency are.

Fun

Told in black and white with color flashbacks, two teenage girls in prison (Alicia Witt and Renee Humphrey)remember the best day of their lives. They lie, they cavort, they joke, they snuggle in bed...and they murder an old lady for fun. Pretty big day. The transition between their harsh reality and the wonderful daylight world of their friendship leaves you feeling sympathetic for them, lets you see how much they've lost and what it felt like for two girls to have fun for just one fantastic day. Witt plays Bonnie, a pitch perfect psychopath, sexy, villainous, a wall of lies that even she can't penetrate. Humphrey is Hillary, her accomplice, sweet underneath a tough exterior and deeply in need of love and acceptance. This film is highly underrated and has every right to be ranked among the modern indie film classics. Fun is well shot, well acted, sad and tender and cruel and heartbreaking. I think it's a must watch. Nothing is more scary and poignant than seeing adults interviewing these kids and starting to get it...and seeing that maybe, just maybe, these girls had no choice.



Slacker

Another great independent film, not just about but made with the true spirit of youthful rebellion. It rebels against society, against conventional wisdom, against good taste and even against filmmaking itself. It's a film that, like the generation it's about, defiantly refuses to be any one thing. One viewing, it might feel like a horror film with occasional slides into comedy, another, a vicious black comedy, another a fun filled romp that just isn't afraid to make a mess. There's no better movie about being a young artist that feels infinite potential but is afraid to make one specific statement or bring anything to its terminus. This movie will try to sell you a Madonna pap smear, beg you to shoot your television, argue in favor of the McKinley assassination and explain how Smurfs prepare us for the coming of Krishna consciousness. It might not be about smoking dope or robbing convenience stores, but it's about things that society might think are even worse.





The Lost Boys

Run away from home. Go to California. Hang out on the boardwalk. Groove out to shirtless oily jazz musicians. Run your own business without adult supervision while waging a two kid war on the supernatural. Join a biker gang and feast on the blood of the living to survive. The adolescents in this movie are some of the worst influences in movie history. And they're having a good time. And you'll have a good time. Is there any better image of juvenile delinquency than immortal teenagers in black leather hanging out in a shrine to Jim Morrison? If there is, I don't want to see it. This movie flouts and plays with the conventions of the adult world to the point at which any observant child watching it would have to come to only one conclusion: that those conventions are bullshit and growing up is a dangerous stupid ordeal that you might not want to go through. This movie's just awesome.





Rock 'N Roll Highschool

This is another film about pale freaks in leather teaching young people to liberate themselves from good behavior. But the freaks in this movie are The Ramones. And their music makes mice explode. It's just that cool. Come on, weren't you worried about your physiological integrity the first time you heard Beat Up the Brat? No? I don't believe you. P.J Soles plays Riff Randell, a rebellious rock and roller who defies Mary Woronov's tyranny to give her school a much needed punk enema. Clint Howard is fixer savant Eaglebauer. You know that kid from high school who worked out of a closet and could procure anything you needed for a price? Well, that's him. Eaglebauer is one of the greatest characters in the history of juvenile delinquency. He defies logic and authority alike and makes a mockery of the adult world. And also there are The Ramones and Paul Bartel plays a teacher that decides rock and roll is good for the teenage soul. And also there are The Ramones. And The Ramones were there too. Gabba fucking gabba hey. Rock 'N Roll High School is a template for teen comedies, but is stranger and more gonzo than any of the films it influenced, none of which have The Ramones.



And my Least Favorites


Ghost World

The first time I saw this movie I loved it. It depicted a curvy beauty with alternative sensibilities falling for a loser that liked jazz and collected vintage everything. It was more than likely I would one day become someone like Steve Buscemi's sad loner Seymour. And maybe I'd win the love of a free spirited curvy teen goddess with a fuck-the-man attitude. On the surface, that makes this movie an awesome geek love story and a beacon of hope. But after reading the graphic novel this movie was based on and giving it several more views, I discovered that Thora Birch's Enid no longer struck me as a way cool free spirit, but a snarky sociopath with an urge to break everything she loves to liberate herself from the wheel of reincarnation or something. She's less a girl that you would fantasize about dating but more a girl that you thank God you broke up with. The delinquent glee is short lived, the rebellion is shallow and empty and in the end nobody is happy. I'd take Alicia Witt's vivacious Bonnie over the disappointing poster child for Borderline Personality Disorder that's at the center of this narrative.




Igby Goes Down

I love the title of this movie. I love saying Igby. But now, I love saying "fuck Igby and everything about him." If somebody forgot to roll cameras for or sell tickets to the All Star Game, it would waste less talent than this painfully dry indie snooze fest. Susan Sarandon is great as Igby's very depressed mother, but the story doesn't really lead much of anywhere. This movie is icy and it doesn't make delinquency look like fun. I can't remember entirely why I hated this movie so much, but I did. Maybe I expected Igby Goes Down to be as much fun as saying Igby Goes Down. It's not.

Justin Grimbol on Juvenile Delinquency

New Bizarro Author Series author Justin Grimbol knows juvenile delinquency like the back of his hand. His book The Crud Masters is a fun story about a gang of loveable teen miscreants who have to overcome giant robot adversity with only the help of a giant monster and a bear with gigantic breasts. It's a great read and it's very pro delinquency. So, we asked Justin, "what are your favorite and least favorite films about juvenile delinquency?" Well, Justin gave us this list.


THE OUTSIDERS
This movie is a classic. Each character is so loveable. They’re rough and sleazy, but, at the same time, very affectionate with each other. That’s what makes the movie so great. It does an incredible job showing the affection between these boys.
And then there’s the brawl at the end. It’s epic as hell. It gets me so hyped. Watching this movie makes me want to get drunk and cry and hug/wrestle with my buddies.
My only problem is that it spends too much time showing how tragic the Greaser’s lives are. There are not enough scenes showing them just hanging out and partying and being rascals. There’s also no sex in the movie. I hate it when movies don’t have sex scenes.
Still, it’s a classic. It gets sappy. But I like that. I’m sensitive.




FREEWAY
This movie stars Reese Witherspoon. She plays Vanessa, the most misunderstood teenager girl in history of cinema. She’s a sweety pie, and has nothing but the purest intentions. But she constantly gets fucked over.
At one point Keifer Sutherland gives her a ride. They bond. He gets her to open up about her dysfunctional family life. Then he turns on her. He tells Vanessa he’s going to kill her then fuck her dead body. Vanessa’s not as innocent and vulnerable as she seems. She ends up beating the shit out of him and leaving his body shot-up and mangled. Somehow he survives. Vanessa gets arrested, but escapes from prison. The rest of the movie is one long ass kicking.
This movie isn’t just a great movie about juvenile delinquency. It’s a great revenge flick. Vanessa is the most badass femme fatale---ever.
There’s a sequel to this movie. It stars Natosha Leon. She plays a fifteen year old prostitute named White Girl. She’s not as misunderstood as Venessa. White girl is just violent. This movie’s is not as good as the first movie, but still really fun---that is, if you like watching teenage girls killing people as much as I do.



Dazed and confused:
This film has inspired more pre-teens to smoke weed and party than any movie ever made. I was straight edge when I first saw this movie. What a waste of hormones. I didn’t start to truly appreciate this movie until I was much older.
What I love about this movie is that every single kid in it is a complete delinquent. None of them have any respect for authority. They are all born to party. The nerds, the jocks, the pot heads, all party together.
Partying is an important part of being a kid. This movie should be part of everyone’s early adolescents. It teaches kids how to be kids.



YOUNG GUNZ
Emilio Estevez’s depiction of Billy the Kid makes Clint Eastwood look like about as tough as Ellen Degenerous. He’s such a rascal. And he’s so charming. His role in life is to make everyone else in the world seem like complete wussies.
His whole gang is great. It’s like the kids from Breakfast club were all given revolvers and told to kick ass.
I first saw this movie when I was ten years old. I fell in love with it instantly. My parent’s friends would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I would tell them I wanted to be an Outlaw, like Billy the Kid.




KIDZ.
A good delinquency movie should make you want to party and break shit. This movie did the opposite for me. It was soulless and dark. The characters were despicable. Each scene made me cringe. I saw this movie when I was young. It made me want to hold on to my innocents with all my strength. It made want to hide at home, and watch Full House and eat popcorn and hide from the scary world of adolescents. Any movie that makes me watch to watch Full House is a product of the devil.
It was written by Harmony Korine. I loved his movies. His movie Gummo is amazing and a runner up for my list of great Juvenile Delinquent movies. But KIDZ is a scare flick. Most juvenile delinquency flicks are. I like the kind of movies that glorify the being a delinquent.



BASKETBALL DIARIES
This movie had so much potential. It starts a young Leo DeCaprio and Marky Mark. They are so good at acting like delinquents. I love the scene where they huff spray paint and then barf on that old guy. It’s hilarious. Glorifying inhalants takes some real skill. But they rushed into the heroin shit too quickly. It’s another scare flick.
The book is better. Jim Carrol was a bad ass kid, filled with tons of mischief and poetry. I love that book. Most of it is just him bragging about his exploits. It’s not as sappy and tragic as the movie. The kid just took on being a teenager like it was an extreme sport. Which it is, if you do it right.



So there you have it. Justin Grimbol clearly knows how much fun juvenile delinquency should be. Keep this in mind when you're wondering if you should buy The Crud Masters. The answer is yes. Buy it HERE.

LEZA'S OWN ROMANCE SPECIAL

Here's the movies that have reached out and grabbed me by the heart and then the ones that made me piss myself with rage!

LOVE:

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND-2004
-Michel Gondry

The fragile and ever fluctuating atmosphere of the psyche is beautifully depicted with blazing colors and a graceful, whimsical touch in this super romantic movie. If you want to see what memories look like, through the funhouse mirrors of subjective distortion and fantastical visuals, this is the thing. What begins as an interesting what if? blossoms and unwraps into a beguiling and enchanting love story that will keep you at the edge of your consciousness. This movie somehow pulls off the extraordinary feat of being so real, moment to moment, while sweeping you off, further and further into the unraveling mental labirynth of a man who has decided that the pain of remembering someone who has left him is too much to bear. This brings up great questions about the pain love often brings. You come to realize what a treasure the negative as well as the positive aspects of a person you love truly are. Unconditional love seems near impossible most of the time. But nobody is perfect. Sometimes the things you love most about someone end up being the things you hate most, once you get sick of their perpetual presence. It's all relative. But there is a message of hope and a warning to not judge the person you're with before you have taken a good look at yourself. Also Kate Winslet looks fucking awesome and hot in all those crazy hair colors!



SECRETARY-2002
Steven Shainberg

This is the sweetest movie about S&M you'll ever see. It's also extremely hot, surprising and unique. The characters, played by James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhall are painfully real and flawed. He has near crippling OCD and she's a recovering cutter. Each in their own position, attempting to fit in to a socially prescribed behavior, they collide and challenge what each has come to accept as possible, acceptable and fun. There is a real tension in the push and pull between them, which is psychologically profound and pretty damn erotic. At its core, this is an old fashioned love story. If you think of Clark Gable smacking all those ladies who would just not behave and sassy charmers like Caudette Colbert giving him a run for his money, you see a similar dynamic. But this movie is honest, challenging, and ultimately raw and poetic. A must see for adventurous hearts.



THE NIGHT PORTER-1974
Liliana Cavani

This is a movie that walks the PC line of acceptability and flat out taboo. An unlikely romance between a young woman in a concentration camp and the guard who favored her blossoms in the most bleak of circumstances and is re-kindled after the war when she ends up in the hotel where he is now the night porter, with her conductor husband. He is living in hiding and has a network of fellow Nazis who must lay low now that their time is passed and war tribunals are hot on their tails. This love story is so wrong and yet it makes sense. It is a raw, beautiful, heart-wrenching battle for love against ALL odds. After all that has happened, it is his turn to prove his loyalty and devotion to her in any way he can. This movie blew my mind, and turned me on despite all that decency proclaims to be acceptable.



NEKROMANTIK-1987
Jorg Buttgereit

Best for last. Ahhh necrophilia. Romantic? Oh yes!
What do you do when your day job is crime scene clean up and you decide to give your girl a nice little surprise? You bring her a corpse she can play with of course! But then what happens if she likes her new toy more than she likes you?
This is the ridiculous premise of this moody German film by the questionably sane Jorg Buttgereit. Questions of insanity aside, this movie pulls off its premise with flying colors. True eroticism lies on the fault line between life and death. When I had finished watching the final scene of this surprisingly profound movie, I felt more alive than I ever had before. It was like drinking warm blood from the neck of a freshly slaughtered chicken, it was like shooting heroin must feel like the first time, like bungee jumping, like driving a racecar and barely surviving with your life. Man, what a hit. I'm not endorsing necrophilia. It seems unsanitary. But this movie uses a corpse as a fabulous metaphor for the need people have for true intimacy. This is a lovey film and is absolutely beautifully shot, but definitely not for the faint of heart.




HATE:

LOVE ME IF YOU DARE-2003

What begins as an adorable lover's romp darkens and twists in the most unpleasant ways and before you know it, the two kids who had performed casually escalating pranks on each other have become adults and are actively ruining each other's entire lives without mercy, all in the name of their DARE based interactions. Dying for love was never depicted this literally. Please don't see this. It is a HUGE bummer and not sweet or cute or awesome at all!




TITANIC-1997

Have you ever been raped by a movie? I was. I am a Titanic survivor. I was only 16 and still technically a virgin (I think). I sobbed a third of my weight in water that night. And the night after that. And the night after that. My boyfriend, brave soldier that he was, sat by my side, stifling laughter, as I got repeatedly skullfucked by this piece of sappy ass nonsense. I even bought the soundtrack!
Finally I woke up out of my trance, after the thousanth time they tried to soak my ears up with Celine Dion's Oscar winning hit, My Heart Will Go On, on MTV. (I guess watching MTV WAS kinda my choice, but again, I was 16)
I felt debased and made a fool of. There is no way to recover from that shame. But I take it one day at a time. Each day, the memory of why I ever cared about some rich bitch letting her boy die and not caring about all the people who died on that boat, fades a bit more. Maybe one day, I will be human again.

Romance Special continued: Garrett's top romantic movies

You've read about Spike Marlowe's favorite romantic movies, and here are mine, some traditional, some unorthodox, but all, in my opinion, the best.



1. Vertigo

The sexiest Hitchcock movie. A film that's intense and nuanced at the same time with no simple explanations or easy solutions for any of its characters. Jimmy Stewart losing his mind is a beautiful thing. Kim Novak driving him to distraction is an even more beautiful thing. It's a film that poses questions that are important to answer in any relationship. Questions about whether we can actually love someone or we can only love the self they project and if the self we project can break a lover's heart and our own heart alike. If you haven't seen this, you're losing out on a great, tragic romance.




2.Say Anything

Lloyd Dobler (Jon Cusack)is a likable but shiftless slacker. Diane (Ione Skye) is the valedictorian. Their relationship is a teen movie cliche, but there's a lot more to it. Say Anything is about two young people discovering life and love and what they find out isn't what you'd expect and isn't what other romantic comedies would tell you. Say Anything is about how there is no outright solution to life, how the answers and the values instilled in you aren't necessarily the be-all and end-all. It's ending, a sort of riff on that of The Graduate conveys how relationships take you to scary places, how growing up brings you to scary places, but together a couple can survive them. In a genre that thrives on everything being just so, this is a movie that stays romantic but tells it like it is in regards to life's uncertainties.



3.The Abominable Dr. Phibes

You're probably going to think I've gone out of my fucking mind. This violent cult curiosity and horror masterwork seems an unlikely choice for one of the most romantic movies. This is a movie about real devotion. A mute beauty's devotion to her misshapen master. A man's devotion to his dead wife. There's nothing more romantic than avenging your loved one's death in ludicrous, gory ways like having them devoured by locusts and exsanguinating them completely. Every time I see this movie, it makes me wish that I could buy vendetta insurance so anybody who accidentally kills someone I love will have to face my impractical steampunky vengeance.






4. Bringing Up Baby

One of the great screwball romantic comedies. Cary Grant is a paleontologist. Katherine Hepburn is a nuisance. They seem like an unlikely couple. In fact, as charming and sweet as Hepburn's character is, Grant would have to be out of his mind to fall for her. But somehow in spite of everything, these two end up together, having survived a ridiculous ordeal and seen the best and the worst in each other. And that's one of the things that love is really about. It might have been a prototype for a lot of stupid and cliche romantic comedies in the future, but it's message, its entertainment value and you know...a fucking leopard make it one of the best and most entertaining romances.



My Least Favorite

And here are two movies that I don't recommend bringing anywhere near your special romantic evening. These two nasty pieces of work from great directors leave me with a bad taste in my mouth and an ache in my heart.


1.Matchpoint

Is there anything more erotic than watching a sociopathic dick get away with murdering an innocent young woman? Murder can be sensual. Murder can be an exciting transgressive meeting of Eros and Thanatos. Or it can be disgustingly banal and sad, the sort of shit that's "ripped from the headlines". This movie is about as erotic as sitting on a hot steampipe and watching this movie, it feels like Woody Allen's parents made him sit naked on this very steampipe. This is not a sultry noir full of Scarlett Johannsen sex. This is about an awful person who does awful things and ends up killing to maintain a life of respectability. If this film gets your heart or your hardon aflutter then you might want to consider committing yourself.



2.Talk to Her

Ah, Almodovar. A master of bad romance. Until seeing Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down! I hated this director like I hate broccoli and fascism. And I hate broccoli and fascism. The reason I developed this hatred was Talk to Her, a harrowing film about a man who is in love with a matador in a coma. Makes you want to rush out and buy it right now, huh? Sounds like an exciting, sexy time. It isn't. It seems to say that the ideal relationship paradigm is nonparticipation. Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down! is a claustrophobic romance as well, but not nearly so claustrophobic as Talk to Her and has the charm of Antonio Banderas to keep it afloat. Talk to Her does not. By the end of the film, I felt like I was about to fall into a coma, or would be better off being in one.




If you'd like to further make use of my expertise in the arts of romance,you can order a custom sonnet from me. Tell me the name of your loved one and two things about them and for only five dollars, you can get your own one of a kind sonnet. FIND OUT MORE

Romance Special featuring Spike Marlowe, author of Placenta of Love.

Wow. 4 Months. This post is certainly a prompt one. We waited and waited for Jordan Krall to watch The Manipulator and he never did. Then some stuff came up. Yeah. We just flat out dropped the ball. Hopefully, this will not be the case in the future. More Dollarbin Massacre and everyone will finally get their fucking jetpack. Be prepared. Anyway, it's February and it's time for romance. And cold weather. And candy. And amusing ads for used car dealerships featuring nonactors dressed as Abraham Lincoln. And for Dollarbin Massacre to discuss romance in the cinema. To help us out, we have with us sultry adventuress, street performer and author Spike Marlowe, author of Placenta of Love, a weird and excellent romance involving a robot pirate, a spankloving cat, an amusement park on Venus and a giant placenta. It's one of the finest Bizarro books ever written and it would be a great idea to buy it now. It's full of romance, laughter, pathos and poetry. Buy it HERE if you're into romance and weirdness and eccentric genius.

I asked Spike to tell us about her four favorite romantic films and two least favorite romantic films. And she did. Cause that's the kind of Bizarro adventuress and street performer she is. And here's her response:

My Four Favorite, and Two Not-So-Favorite, Romantic Erotic Films, or How to Get the Lovin’ on this Valentine’s Day

What makes a movie romantic and erotic varies from person-to-person. Some people think gore and death are romantic and erotic, while others swear by those movies Cinemax used to show late Friday nights in the 90s.

Me? I like lots of sexy, implied erotica. Sure, I like to watch, but I like to imagine even more, especially when the characters and world lie on the fringes or go completely over the edge of our reality.

Favorites:

La Belle et La Bête (1946). Sure this film is essentially the classic French fairytale, which in itself is quite romantic and erotic, but what really makes Jean Cocteau’s version of “Beauty and the Beast” are the delicious bizarre, creepy details throughout Beast’s castle: disembodied, bare arms holding lit candelabras; live carvings and statues that breathe smoke and watch the characters; gorgeous décor, including gauzy curtains and a room that looks more like the Garden of Eden than a bed chamber. Growls and screams throughout the night.

And then there’s the beast himself. The beast is not maybe-sorta-dangerous. No, menacing and powerful -- the beast IS bad-ass. And Belle? Once she moves into the beast’s castle, and she and the beast have their hawt power exchange (“May I watch?” “You are the Master.” “No, you are.”), she’s even more of a bad-ass.
And this is before you think about what goes on behind the closed doors.



King Kong (1933). While we’re talking about beauty and the beast and bad-ass characters, let’s chat about King Kong, one of the hawtest, sexiest, most romantic and incredibly erotic movies ever made. Ever.

Just for starters, what’s more romantic and erotic than setting sail to exotic, mysterious locales, when adventures you can’t even imagine are waiting for you? And then there’s the men. King Kong is full of strong, determined men. And then there’s Ann Darrow. Gorgeous, strong, determined, and incredibly sexy in her flowing, gauzy gowns. Who wouldn’t get hot, watching her stand on the ship’s deck, as the sea breeze blows through her hair and shifts the sheer fabric of her dress?

But best of all is Kong, and his innate, animalistic desire to possess Ann Darrow.
Can you see it? Ann Darrow, in her white, sinuous gown, has been tied up by the inhabitants of the mysterious island as a sacrifice to satiate Kong’s lusts. And then Kong comes to her, revealing his massive canines. And then Kong takes Ann, holding her gently in his mighty hand, and disappears into the jungle. Kong fights a T-Rex, and giant snake, and a pterodactyl when they show too much interest in Ann Darrow. And then, the beastly, mighty Kong -- always gentle with his intended -- strokes Ann, exploring her body and her dress… Until she’s retrieved by Jack, the guy Ann thinks she belongs with. (She’s wrong. I’m telling you – SHE BELONGS WITH KONG!)

Of course, we know how the story tragically ends. But we also know this: “It was the beauty that killed the beast.”
*swoon*



Lili (1953). Just beneath the charming, innocent surface, of both the title character and the film, is the intense, erotic juxtaposition between naivety and desire.

Lili is set against the background of the Cabaret de Paris, a carnival where Lily, a young girl with no family or prospects, finds work, first as a waitress and then as a live performer in the carnival’s puppet show.

Though the scenes where Lily desires the magician, imagining herself as a sexy, adult woman, are lovely and sensual, the story’s true erotic heart lies in the relationship between Lily, the puppets she performs with and the carnival’s puppeteer, Paul.
Paul the puppeteer also owns the Cabaret de Paris, and he’s a man with a difficult past. Though he is immediately drawn to Lili, he pushes her away because of this past. Because of how he treats her, Lili has no use for Paul, though she’s in love with the puppets he operates: Carrot Top the boy puppet, Renardo the fox, Marguerite the dancer and Golo the Giant.

Once innocent Lily learns the sometimes harsh realities of love, sex and desire, she decides to flee the carnival. However, the puppets come to her as live, full-sized creatures; Lily dances with them in a gorgeous, magical sequence. They reveal that each of them is a piece of Paul the puppeteer, and that, by loving them, truly Lily loves him, as well. Lily returns to the carnival, and falls into Paul’s arms.
Delicious.



Labyrinth (1986). I see you. You’re laughing, aren’t you. You shouldn’t.
I first saw Labyrinth at the cheap theater in my hometown of Provo, Utah. It was a double feature matinee with Short Circuit, another romantic and erotic film.
This film stirred me in a way no film had stirred me before, and only partially because of David Bowie’s tight pants.

The settings are lush, Sarah is beautiful and wears gorgeous, sensual clothing. The characters are fantastically created. And then there’s the Goblin King.

Oh, Goblin King. With your long, spiky hair and sexy makeup. With your cloak and black leather gloves and pirate shirt and boots and crystal contact juggling ball. Your self-confidence and strength. And how you expose yourself and become weak, purely because of a beautiful young girl.
Dear reader, how can you not find the ball scene romantic and sexy? How can you not find the final scene where Sarah overcomes the Goblin King lovely and erotic?
Go and watch it, and tell me that the struggle for power between Sarah and the Goblin King doesn’t have you biting at the bit.



Least Favorites:

Hansel and Gretel (An Opera Fantasy) (1954). You think it’s a children’s film. You think it a gorgeous stop motion animated classic of a classic opera.
Sure Hansel and Gretel (An Opera Fantasy) is those things, but it’s also a story about a love triangle between a witch, and a brother and sister.
And sure the setting is lush and gorgeous. And sure Rosina Rubylips is a witch who has got it going on. Sure, the love story between Hansel and Gretel is sweet and romantic. Sure the coming of the Sandman and restoration of the children is romantic. And sure that striptease Rosina does for Gretel is hardcore erotic. And there’s some pretty good BDSM between Rubylips and Hansel.

What keeps this movie from being a romantic, erotic favorite?

The main characters.
Hansel and Gretel are beyond annoying. They are the epitome of what’s wrong in children’s film. They’re whining, twee and obnoxious. Saccharine and entitled.
Now, if the Rosina had finally stuffed Hansel and Gretel full of raisins and almonds, and THEN eaten them all up? That could have been a good romantic, erotic film with a satisfying ending.



The Saragossa Manuscript (1965). I love this movie. I love this movie hardcore. This movie is full of romantic and erotic elements: gorgeous women, sexy men, strange setting and weird events. Charged music. Gorgeous costumes. You can feel the romance and the eroticism seeping through the DVD sleeve.
So what’s my gripe?
This movie is all promise and no fulfillment. It’s all tease and no follow through.

But Spike, you say, I thought you liked to use your imagination.
It’s true – I do. And The Saragossa Manuscript doesn’t let me use my imagination to create romantic, erotic content based on this movie. It seems each time a character is going to find love and romance, a yummy night full of erotic delights, all the promise is cut off by conniving and manipulating ghosts. Or maybe not ghosts. It’s hard to say.
Still, watch the movie. Watch it several times just to ensure you catch all the weirdness this movie embraces. As long as you’re not looking for hawt, Valentine’s Day fun, it’s a great film.




Spike Marlowe everyone. Buy Placenta of Love. Buy the Kindle version too. And then you can participate in the fan fiction contest.

But that's not all for the romance special. There's more romance to come later today. Find out what my favorite romantic films are. Find out about Leza's favorite romantic films. Find out just how much fun mayhem can be visited on a porno set and how you or your lover can be the proud owner of a personalized Petrarchan sonnet! It's gonna be VERY sensual.