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The Carrier (1988)
I'm sad to see that the talent in this film didn't go father...
For a small budget film, it has more heart and interest and originality than 90% of what passes for drama or horror coming out of Hollywood. The young actor, Gregory Fortescue, is attractive on many levels and effectively carries the film. Yes, it can be seen as an AIDS allegory....but it also presents a different take on the disaffected and confused young man...Gregory's character Jake can be seen as an AIDS victim....or as James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause...or as the Werewolf in American Werewolf in London. Unusual, original, recommended...just a little confusing at times.
I found it on a bit-torrent site.
Otherwise...hard to find.
Sonny Boy (1989)
No, it ain't "The English Patient"...it is so much better.
If you have ever appreciated any movie containing violence and depravity...SEE THIS FILM.
The acting is WONDERFUL...the writing is WONDERFUL...the direction is WONDERFUL.
Denouncing the violence and depravity in this film is on par with denouncing the violence and depravity in Shakespaere's "Richard III" OR "Titus Andronicus."
It is sad to learn that the director of this movie lost his career over it...and that the movie is forgotten...when snooze-fests like "No Country for Old Men" are now heralded and have awards hurled at them as though they were something new.
This movie is simply better in every way than "Pulp Fiction"..."No Country...." or so many other ultra-violence-and-depravity-as-art films. I notice that Reservoir Dogs (1992)and then Pulp Fiction (1994) came out 3 years after this film. How tragic for all the talent associated with this movie. It is interesting, and a little sad, to contemplate the reception this movie might have received in a post-"Pulp Fiction" America. With our squeamishness for "depraved violence" mostly behind us....this film might have been recognized as the masterpiece it is.
Flash Gordon: Thicker Than Water (2008)
Terek, King of the Deviants, (Craig Stanghetta), may save this series
If Flash Gordon is able to develop into something that fans care about...I think the addition of Craig Stanghetta to the show will be the turning point. The man has star-power...a real charisma that the show has been searching for...and it seems to be rubbing off on the other characters and actors.
And not only does young Mr. Stanghetta have it all...but the writers have introduced his character as a pivot point to turn the series in a whole new direction. Ming is finally becoming truly evil...Flash is developing a solid spine...and the show seems to have figured out it is about POLITICS more than about teen angst and romance. I think the Smallville influence was too heavy for the first 10 episodes, but with the development of the Joe Wylee character in Possession (played by the magnetic Giles Panton) and the further character developments for many of the secondary characters...I find I am enjoying the show and caring for the characters in a way I would not have expected given the first 5 episodes. If you've given up on this series....it might be time to give it another try. I just watched the penultimate episode...and the whole seasons story is shaping up into something worthwhile.
Saugandh (1991)
First Movie - Good shirtless scenes
This is the first movie that Akshay appeared in.
I have only seen a bad VHS version, but the upside-down shirtless sit-ups are extremely memorable.
A good first outing for one of the hottest bodies ever in Bollywood.
The story is easy to follow, even without subtitles. Boy meets girl. Boy meets bad guys. Boy trains (shirtless) to fight the bad guys with his trusty sidekick. Boy kicks a** of bad guys. Boy gets girl.
As this is a Bollywood movie, everybody inexplicably breaks into song and dance from time to time. The numbers are serviceable.
For good shirtless Akshay in bondage and mild torture, see Waqt Hamara Hai (1993)OR Main Khiladi Tu Anari.
Both of these are available on reasonably good DVD transfers.
Bollywood male bondage is an overlooked category.
Bollywood has produced some of the hottest, masculine, hairy chested stars ever on film. They are sometimes, but not often enough shirtless.
Check out my public category Bollywood Male Bondage and email me with any additions.
I am especially looking for shirtless scenes of Sunil Shetty.
NancyboySF
Capote (2005)
Hoffman's Truman is at most a 2-note wonder
I wish this were overall a better movie.
If you are not very familiar with Truman Capote, Nell Harper Lee, The New Yorker, To Kill a Mockingbird, or In Cold Blood, this film does not provide enough context. If you are, the movie feels incomplete and not very illuminating.
This is an actor's movie. Screenplay by an actor (Dan Futterman of Urbania and Angels in America on Broadway), produced by Futterman and Phillip Seymor Hoffman. All of the roles are played by actor's actors...people who are more well-known and respected among their fellow actors than the general public.
But all of the performances and the movie overall are just too somber and subdued. Hoffman's range runs the gamut from witty and subdued, sensitive and subdued, curious and subdued, and depressed and subdued. To gauge by what's on screen, Truman spends almost five solid years in an unrelieved state of quiet depression...apparently much of it laying in bed. No one in the movie ever shows anger or elation or grief or barely a hint of any passion of any kind.
Capote was larger than life and an important trail-blazer for gay Americans and for sissies in general. Unlike his contemporaries and sometimes rivals Tennesee Williams or Gore Vidal or James Baldwin, no one could ever, even for a second, pretend that Truman was anything but a flamboyant, very fey, homosexual. He was so overly and unmistakeably gay and sissified and yet so successful in New York and Hollywood literary circles that he likely did more for homosexual visibility than any other American during the fifties. He was a very passionate man...with enormous energy and love of life. He loved deeply, including his partner, the never successful writer and straight-appearing Jack Dunphy, he cackled, he loved beautiful places and interiors and worked hard to create comfortable environments for himself, he was a darling of some of the wealthiest socialites in New York and Hollywood...in all, an amazing life. We get barely a hint of any of that in Capote. Thus, the picture presented by the film is baffling...a man so consumed by his "art" that for five years he thinks about little else, never makes love, never enjoys anything...just broods.
Thus, the movie does not explore, I believe, some of the most interesting aspects of the creation of In Cold Blood. That anyone wrote that book at that time is astonishing. That Truman Capote...the creator of Breakfast at Tiffany's, the man who threw the most successful high-society party in New York, a best friend of Elizabeth Taylor...is triply so. The movie doesn't explore that contrast and barely gives the audience a sense of it. It would have been exciting to see Hoffman portraying Truman having a temper tantrum, or a really good time, or planning a party, or expressing love or affection for his partner, or enjoying life in some way.
All that said, Dan Futterman, after this film, should be named Fag-Stag of the year. I am gratified that even after playing gay for years on Broadway and playing gay in his most successful leading-man film (Urbania) and playing the son of two queens in The Birdcage, Dan, a straight man, remains interested enough in gay men to write a screenplay about Capote. However, while the choice to never directly examine or refer to Capote's homosexuality or anyone's reaction to it was an interesting one, it was the wrong one. While In Cold Blood has had no lasting effect on how Americans feel about prisons or criminals or Native Americans or the death penalty, Capote life and TV persona had a major and lasting effect on how many Americans viewed homosexuality. In a film named "Capote," not dealing with those aspects of his life is a major omission.
Supernova (2000)
The best thing about the movie is that everyone gets naked in this film...
Everyone. Though there is no full frontal, all the men and the two women are shirtless, and Facinelli but in an earlier age would have inspired the likes of Michelangelo. It is wonderful to see a film that truly exploits its actors assets. In this case, the shirtless scenes of James Spader and Peter Facinelli make the movie worth renting, in fast forward at least. Facinelli's read nudity is over the top beautiful. Nice to see Rober Forster doing a shirtless scene at his age and looking hot. The girls are hot too, though only above the waist shots.
While the movie as a whole kinda stinks, several of the early scenes are good. The early scenes with Spader and Angela Bassett are very fun.
After the first 45 minutes are so, however, turn it off. Once you've seen Spader's shirtless medical examination, everyone stripping for the dimensional jump and the jump itself, and Facinelli's nude medical scan, the movie is basically over. Too bad they don't hire writer's in Hollywood much anymore. Just a little creative plot here at the end could have made a world of difference.
Alien Predator (1986)
Martin Hewitt shows no skin...
Amazing that actors that had appeared in such huge films wound up in this garbage.
I like bad SciFi. This was dull and boring SciFi. Very different, not interesting.
Also, Martin is one of the most beautiful men to ever be put in film.
Why a film maker would have someone with his physical appeal in a movie and not exploit it, even just a little bit, is so beyond me.
Similar problem with Yellowbeard. Martin is a PIRATE! is tied to a chair. Is on a ship. But is never shown shirtless.
Though some promotional photos did show him shirtless.
It makes you wish David Decouteau was in charge of all of these movies.
There is a director who knows how to make use of a pretty male.
The Punisher (2004)
Good, ADULT, mindless, dark actioner...Jane is WONDERFUL
I REALLY needed a movie fix last night and saw this. I an not a bit action or comic movie fan, but I really liked the dark comedy here. Thomas Jane was very well used and very generous to the audience. An intelligent, pretty, manly, actor. I hope he breaks through with this one.
Travolta should be taken out and shot.
I have to write more, so I will.
The set up of the family was a little long, but it did make the violence and murder of the family REALLY palpable. Even though this was a comic book movie, I had an emotional attachment to the family, which added more realism to the violence than many realistic violent movies.
I also keep wondering if Hollywood will ever have a position that is basically "Story Editor in charge of reducing STUPIDITY."
In this movie, there was a little too much of it. Would it have been so hard to give some explanation of why the hero survices a point-blank bullet to the chest and several other bullets by six man execution squad. Why didn't any of the killers in the last scene stop pumping bullet after bullet into Jane's kevlar vest and shot for his exposed face? If Saint couldn't find Jane, then how did the killer's keep showing up at his apartment.
While this did diminish my enjoyment, overall the movie still delivered.
Hellboy (2004)
Not sexy, not funny, not smart, not scary, not fun....
No, no, no, no, no...this is not the way to make a movie, even a comic book horror one.
One feels nothing for hellboy, nothing for the sidekick, nothing for the FBI agents...only the fire controlling girlfriend and fish man were somewhat interesting and sympathetic and John Hurt was wonderful...but everything else was muddled and so much dreck. If Hellboy can't get hurt no matter what, how can I care what happens to him. Once the gates of hell start to hope and the demons therefrom enter the sky, don't tell me everything gets all better just because someone doesn't put the final key in the extra lock...and don't forget to tell me beforehand that there is more than one lock so that I don't realize there is even any dramatic tension left to resolve after the first lock is opened....
anyway, I really don't get the positive reviews this one got on NPR and other places. Even "The Core" was more campy fun, and that is sinking rather low...
Graveyard Shift (1986)
Hot, shirtless, hairy-chested, nude Italian vampire
Silvio Oliviero has got to be one of the sexiest actors every to portray a vampire. His John Travolta SNF hair, muscular hairy chest, and ascent all add tremendously to the sex quotient of this film. So much hotter and more humane than any portrayal of Lestat could possibly be.
Killer Workout (1987)
Ted Prior never removes his shirt!
For fans of Ted Prior's fantastic Playgirl layout, Ted looks great in this movie, but keeps his shorts and tank top on throughout.
This could have been a nice sexploitation flick, except none of the cute guys go shirtless, and almost all the women keep their clothes on as well. If REALLY BAD eighties fashion and spandex on women turn you on, however, go for it.
I hope one day someone tackles the biographies of Ted and David Prior!
Cajunsteve
Tomcat: Dangerous Desires (1993)
Richard Grieco slowly becomes a nasty stray kitty cat
I have to confess that this movie is a guilty pleasure for me. Richard looks wonderful and the idea that his evil is the result of getting an ornery cat's brain kinda works. The shirtless dance scene that he is doing for a film where a women friend teasingly wets him and he FREAKS is kinda fun, as is the final cat-and-mouse chase with the woman.
His acting in this movie is actually interesting. You can tell he is a bit of a cat lover. If you like Richard at all and don't mind seeing him play an off-beat, almost Hannibal Lecterish villain (whose is really a tomcat), check it out.
Cajun
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Unique, wonderful, moving film with great original songs.
I highly recommend this film. Very unique vision. Lot's of fun. Will keep you thinking. May not be for everyone, but if you like something original or have any interest in films about identify, fame, or sexual identity, see this movie. Manages to be very sexually transgressive without having any really overt sex scenes.