« November 2004 | Main | January 2005 »

December 03, 2004

Upon Further Review: Holiday Spirits All Around

You ever get something off your chest and immediately feel better about it?

This is the benefit of having a blog – even one updated as rarely as mine. You bitch, you feel a bit better, mission accomplished. The bottom line, I suppose, is that I don’t know what the next four years will mean domestically. I don’t know how far this push on behalf of the religious right is going to test our civil rights and our sexual freedoms. I do know that they’re fighting against progress and if history teaches us anything, it’s that fighting social evolution is a losing battle. I’m not giving up any of my rights, or those of others quietly. And I will not tolerate it without making a little rumble of my own. All the FCC fines in the world won’t change the fact that we have advanced in our social behavior from the 1950s and trying to turn back the dial is dangerous and impracticable. So, you know, hope springs eternal and all that. If you feel like I do, join the ACLU. Write your congressperson. Don’t sit quietly and politely when someone chips away at things you hold dear. We’ve all been tolerating too long. Agreeing to disagree. It doesn’t work. Those of us that have the decency to live and let live have been losing ground to those who want to dictate morality. We’ve got some catching up to do. It’s easy to effect change by censoring and suing and fining. The hard work involves processes like education, treatment, communication. Yeah. It’s going to be an interesting four years. We’ve got our work cut out.

But for now, enough of that. I’m not Wonkette. My politics are personal and hardly the main thrust of my life. I’m just a phone sex slut, and what’s a phone sex slut going to do? Mope all thru December? Na.

Okay. So it’s the start of December. Salt over my shoulder. Black cats off my porch. Joy juju and happy thoughts engaged. I’ve decided to make an effort to get into the swing of the holidays. I’m flighty like that. Woman’s prerogative. Besides, it’s no fun being Ebenezer Scrooge. Sure, it’s been a wickedly twisted year. Between hurricanes and election results a little jingling of bells here and there is definitely due.

As I sort of muttered at the end of Tuesday’s entry, I’ve vented some of my frustrations in writing An XXXmas Karol. It’s sarcasm-laced political farce and full-fledged Daddy’s girl incest all rolled into one. Beat that with a stick.

For those of you looking for other holiday erotica there is my delightfully warped and somewhat cruel Boxing Day tale as well as a few selections on Satin Slippers that are top-notch. These include the roguishly semi-non-consent of Karl’s The Man With The Bag, Circe’s rompishly wicked non-consent Bringing Down Santa, and Kerrie O’Keefe’s sentimentally sweet The Nice Older Man. Hopefully there’s something there to offend and titillate everyone.

And, hey, what’s up with there being no Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Winter Solstice smut stories?

Oh. That reminds me. Yes, I decorate my site for Christmas, but that’s because it’s the flavor of holiday I celebrate this time of year. Please don’t waste time being offended or feeling left out if your culture isn’t represented by my sluttly little site. I just feel it’s hypocritical to try and be all-encompassing. You attempt to please everyone and you end up with hot water instead of soup (anyone else remember that story?). I’m not a Hanukkah girl (although I have friends that let me eat their food -- soofganiot and latkas are nummy). So, you know, it would feel white-bread offensive to toss a few dreidels here and there just for show. /political correctness disclaimer.

Speaking of the decor, some of you may have noticed the succulent window dressing draped on the home page and the logo area of PSD. My Doxy Toons are provided courtesy of Sinai Tendergal. I’m setting up a page for anyone else that might be looking for a little Custom Comix of their own, although to be honest I’d rather keep her all to myself.

Oh, and speaking of art: I WANT I WANT I WANT!

Jack Henslee has managed to get his print gallery back online for Christmas after payment problems earlier in the year forced him to shut down for a while (Do we hate PayPal? Oh, yes we DO!). And there is some major new eye candy to make us cream. I know many of you enjoy his pretty ladies and will likely buy for yourselves and loved ones. Anyone *ahem* wishing *ahem* to put a little tinsel on my tree can just select one of the below and instruct Jack to ship to Doxy – trust me, he knows the addy.

/end annual shameless pleading for mouthwatering masterpieces.

In other holiday shopping news, I’ve added some new reviews for My Pleasure items including the Micro Rocket and Forbidden Fruit. Because, we all need to buzz the ones we love (and don’t forget to love yourself!) ;-)

*sigh* I want some Farm Stores eggnog. God I miss civilization. Eggnog and homemade snickerdoodles. Ungh.

Okay. No more food fantasy moments. On to phonesex slut movie reviews.

Recently, I bought and watched three different movies based on Koji Suzuki’s book, The Ring. The American film incarnation of The Ring, the Japanese version, Ringu, and the Korean version, The Ring Virus.

I like foreign films. And, unlike other genres, mainstream thrillers in different markets really reflect interesting aspects of their respective cultures. Art films are often about a guise. Thrillers can encompass more nitty gritty everyday matter.

To start with, I re-watched the American version that most are familiar with. I consider it an all-around good film. Creepy in the right places, dreary and somber on the whole for a perfect sense of atmosphere. The jump-out-and-getcha parts were reserved for the right moments. Not quite horror, not quite thriller. Mostly compelling if not completely unique in style. The horse drowning element felt awkward to me and the middle of the movie lagged because of it, especially during some of the “put the pieces of the puzzle together” steps that came off as forced. But, I thought upon this viewing as I had when it first came out, that it pulled off what it attempted to accomplish. The sophistication of the character relationships was its greatest strength. Underplayed and developed at a slow boil.

In contrast, Ringu was the most disappointing of the three for me. The Japanese counterpart of the main female character played by Naiomi Watts in the American version is a very different woman. Reiko Asakawa is more a damsel in distress than a strong, single working mother and hard-edged journalist. Even her beyond-his-years son seems more respected than she does. As such, she comes off as much more dependant upon her ex-husband to walk her through solving the mystery. Apparently, being a smug, superior, absentee father still allows one to be a hero in Japanese cinema. It didn’t work for me. And when this culminated into a scene where the male character had the obligatory slap-the-hysterical-woman sequence I was annoyed out of any enjoyment I’d gleaned from the film. I’m not sure if that’s a statement about the Japanese culture or the lack of understanding toward it on my part, but the dynamic of the main character relationships suffered greatly because of this in my opinion. This version also incorporated the pseudo-science “ESP experiment” subplot that the US version abandoned. To me, I felt the US screenplay was better for getting rid of this clumsy ploy, but it did lose an interesting social element in the process. In the Japanese film, the relationship of man and water (especially the ocean) is far more intimate than the US version. You get a sense that this is a culture with a firm relationship toward the sea. Indeed, it is considered a force all its own to be respected and not toyed with – and there is punishment for taking pleasure in the water. The punishment in this case is a supernatural, arguably malevolent child that is implied to be of demon descent. This parallels the non-supernatural aspect of the story; the child that belongs to the main characters is a punishment of responsibility. However, in weighing the pros and cons of the subtext, I’d have to say that it was worth losing this in order to avoid the cheese factor of the ESP subplot.

The Ring Virus, the Korean take on this story, was surprisingly much more sophisticated than the Japanese version came off (although, as mechanics go, the subtitles were badly translated in areas on my DVD). The main female character, Sun-Ju, has a daughter instead of a son which was a nice twist since there is a very female focus within the story in all incarnations (the main character, the first character to die, the source of the supernatural events, etc). Also, the environment of this film was far more Westernized, which I wasn’t expecting. In one scene, two characters even meet at a McDonalds. Sun-Ju is far more complex than Reiko, but she’s sexually harassed in every aspect of her life. The film starts with her conducting an interview about ancient beliefs on sexuality at an art museum for reasons later explained in the film. Her partner at the newspaper office she works for is a sex-obsessed goofball. Her ex (who is not presented as the father of Sun-Ju’s daughter unless I missed something) is a sexually predatory “I’m so smart everything in life’s a game to me” asshat of the first water. She even has to deal with a creepy run-in with a sexually inappropriate coroner (yes, it’s as twisted as it sounds). All of this together manages to make a statement about the misogynistic slant of sexuality that still prevails in many modern cultures (especially Asian cultures), as well as offer poignant testimony regarding the danger of degrading and closeting those of alternative or minority sexualities (personified by incest and hermaphrodite subplots). Unfortunately, introducing these sexual subplots into the already clumsy mix of supernatural events, renders the overall storyline as overwhelmingly and unnecessarily complicated. On the plus side, this version also preserves the cultural relationship with water. In a choice between this one and the Japanese version, I’d take the Korean flick anytime.

So, if you’re considering placing one of these in the stocking of a movie buff pal, consider Korea’s The Ring Virus in lieu of, or in addition to the much-venerated Ringu. At least that’s my two cents ;-)

I guess that’s all for now. Glad I updated again. Would have hated to leave things on the sour note of my last entry. Ho ho ho and all that jazz.

Blather d'Art | Idle Prattle | Internal Combustion | Naughty Bits | Poli-Sci by Doxy at 02:30 PM | permalink | talkback (0)