Tag: Movie

Monsieur Hire

Today’s post is a deep cut, triggered by reading of the death of the French actor Michel Blanc. He had a long career as a French writer, actor and director, but wasn’t well known outside that country. I only know him from the lead role in the 1989 movie that titles this post – Monsieur Hire.

He plays a lonely, middle aged man who spies on his young attractive neighbor (Sandrine Bonnaire). She catches him in the act but, rather than be angry, she is intrigued and becomes friendly with him. Matters are complicated by her boyfriend – a violent petty criminal – and an unsolved murder in their building.

I wouldn’t say it’s a femdom movie per se. There’s no explicit domination or kink. But I think it would appeal to the femdom fan. While he is clearly infatuated with her, it’s less clear what her motivations are and how she really feels about him. The movie turns around that ambiguity.

It looks like it’s available for rent/purchase via a few different stream services (e.g. Prime and Apple TV). Worth a watch if you like independent films.

Movie Recap

One of the things lost in the big blog blowup was some posts on mainstream movies with femdom themes. I got a question from a reader about one of them, which made me think it’d be worth recapturing them in a post here.

The newest is Sanctuary, starring Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott. When first featured here it was just playing the indie festivals. Now there’s a new trailer out and it’s due for widespread US release in May. It’s billed as a drama / dark comedy and the reviews for it are looking good.

They / Them / Us is a 2021 movie starring Joey Slotnick and
Amy Hargreaves as divorced parents exploring kink. I don’t think it ever got a widespread release, but Amazon Prime subscribers can stream it for free.  You can read a review of it here.

Finally, there’s Love and Leashes from last year. This got a fair bit of positive coverage and likes on femdom Twitter when it first came out. Good to see a positive and generally happy portrayal of femdom in a mainstream movie. Netflix subscribers can stream it for free.

Apologies for repeating past posts, but I figured it was worth recapturing the lost links, particularly given that some of the movies are now more accessible than when first featured.

Dominatrix Without Mercy

I’m continuing both the vintage and Jamie Gillis themes with this post. As I’ve written before, this movie popularized the title ‘Dominatrix’, despite being a really terrible movie. It was basically a regular 70’s porno with some weird sex acts thrown in.

What I admire in hindsight is the marketing of this kind of material. As a teenager it used to drive my crazy. I’d discover what I thought would be some hot kinky material, and it’d turn out to be 30 seconds worth of kink in 90 minutes of nonsense. Now, with more kinky material on the internet than I can shake a whip at, I can admire the chutzpah of the 60’s and 70’s porno salesmen. They repeatedly managed to sell the sizzle without the sausage being anywhere in sight.

Submission Possible

Anyone who has run out of Netflix and Hulu shows to watch might want to check out ‘Submission Possible’ by Madison Young on Revry. I’ve not seen it, so can’t offer a personal recommendation, but according to Madison it’s “a kinky queer travel show…exploring different kink and queer communities in different cities.” You can read a bit more background on it articles here and here. This isn’t a great time to be pitching a travel show, but after endless food and chef themed travel series, it’d be nice to see a kinky variation.

This is Madison Young shooting for kink.com. I love the look of predatory intent she has in this shot.

Dripping by Blonde Redhead

While I was browsing the stream of tweets paying tribute to Namio Harukawa I came across one that made reference to a music video inspired by his work. That obviously caught my eye, given how explicit his drawings are and the kinks they target. It’s the kind of subject matter that’d be niche even for porn, let alone a mainstream music video.

The track in question is called ‘Dripping’ by the alternative rock group Blonde Redhead. I was assuming the video would try and capture the lush and sensual feel of his work, while only making subtle allusions to the kinky elements. It turns out I was two thirds right.  The first part is very sensual and rich with the odd kinky motif. The final third is … well …. watch it for yourself.  I just can’t believe it’s been around four years, and this is the very first I’ve heard of it. There’s a bit of background on it here.

Art is obviously by the late great Namio Harukawa.

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants

Fans of mainstream movies that explore BDSM and take kink seriously might want to look out for the Finnish movie ‘Dogs Don’t Wear Pants‘.  You can read a variety review here, a cineuropa one here, and an interview with the director here. I described it as mainstream, in the sense its not porn, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope of catching it at your local multiplex. Web or streaming is probably your best bet to catch it when it has a wider release.

The storyline features a man who loses his wife to a drowning accident, and then is drawn to breathplay with a dominatrix to work through his emotions. Part of me dislikes the fact that it makes a connection between trauma and kinks. I love breathplay and yet have zero wet dead relatives. At the same time I understand that ‘normal man and normal woman have kinky fun because they enjoy it’ does lack something in dramatic tension and narrative drive. I’ll take interesting explorations of BDSM over the usual kink and sex work cliches.

Open for Submissions

A thoughtful reader sent me a link to an amusing short film – Open for Submissions.  It’s only 6 minutes long and was apparently made in just 48 hours for the Instant Films festival in 2001. It’s not laugh out loud funny, but has nice a gentle slice of life humor to it.

I suspect it might generate two different reactions between kinky and non-kinky people. The non-kinksters will smile at the intended juxtaposition of regular daily life with strange kinky behavior. There’s conventional romantic expressions played off against very unconventional behaviors. In contrast, I think a lot of kinksters might look at it and go – “Oohhhh, that’s so sweet! What a great dynamic. Why can’t I have a relationship like that one?”

I wonder if the original writer (Gerald McClanahan) intended that duality?

It was directed by Charles Papert and the actors are Amy Jo Traicoff and David Holcomb.

Kinky Food Porn

After two posts on serious subjects, I think it’s time for something more lighthearted. This video from Comedy Central has been popping up all over my twitter feed and made me laugh. It takes the conceit of food porn and adds a kinky angle, with a dominatrix who really does enjoy playing with dominating her food. It’s not often you see someone sensually sliding a butt plug into fruit. I particularly enjoyed the exploding watermelon trick. How have I never know about doing that before?

Breaking out the heavy equipment

A few months ago I blogged about the fact that German firefighters receive training in removing cock rings that have become too tightly attached. Apparently, as I wrote at the time, they can use an angle grinder in combination with bandages and heat resistant paste. Well now, thanks to the magic that is the internet, I can even share a video of that procedure. Check it out in this tweet. As I wrote in the re-tweet, I think it has to be the single scariest BDSM related thing I’ve ever seen.

It looks like he used some sort of heavy metal nut as a cock ring and then the trapped blood prevented it being removed. Either that, or he has a castration fetish, and this is his idea of a good time. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if your scene ends up featuring an emergency room and an angle grinder, you might want to reassess your interpretation of the Risk-aware bit in RACK.

Personally, I think its the kind of video they should be showing in schools as part of sex education class. I don’t think any teenage boy who saw it would ever forget it, or be tempted to experiment with his cock and whatever he can lay his hands on in the school metal shop.

This slightly more playful castration shot comes courtesy of the CBT and Ballbusting site.

The original video I re-tweeted was posted by Lady Ashley, who makes it clear that it was absolutely nothing to do with her. Professional dommes know what they’re doing and use the proper equipment.

The Things

Here’s a fun music video featuring artists I’ve never heard of (Sharam Jey and Tommie Sunshine), created by a write and director (Dan Brophy) I’ve no idea about. So I can’t give much background context. However, it is full of hot models of both sexes in underwear and lots of light femdom shenanigans. Which is definitely a plus. The aforementioned Dan Brophy claims it was loosely inspired by the Italian film Salo. I can only assume he saw a different Salo to the one I did, because this is about as closely related as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is to SpongeBob SquarePants.

Still from the music video ‘The Things’.