Sexual Chronicle of a French Family, 2012, NR

Why do the French seem so comfortable about sex? Having traveled to France I have witnessed the many nude and topless beaches, the open display of erotic marketing and the beautiful women who yes, refuse to shave their armpits and elsewhere. This film continues the story of how the French are comfortable with their sexuality.

This is a stylish, high definition, erotic, explicit and romantic film with enough storyline to keep your intellectual interest. The explicit nature of the film certainly will keep your erotic interest. The characters are fresh. There is ample nudity and many real scenes of sexual intimacy. The story is about a 3-generation family whose members are each dealing with sexual discovery. The mother played by Valerie Mais is the center of the family. Her focus is to encourage members to accept their sexuality as something healthy. The issues of family members include prostitution, bi-sexuality, loss of virginity, masturbation, fantasy role playing, group sex and much more! This would seem chaotic yet the film’s storyline manages to hold these themes together. These issues are addressed honestly and with much explicate content. This is a good film but definitely not for children. 11/15/12

Conception, 2011, NR

This is a painfully funny film about the complexity of couples in love trying to have sex and either trying to become pregnant or trying not to become pregnant. The film follows 9 very different couples. It documents that sex often is so exciting during romance and then later becomes a chore. Sometimes it is even worse than a chore as it becomes the background for battle. The film is a catalog of events and conflict that drain sex of pleasure. However, they are all so painfully real. Connie Britton from Friday Night Lights, is excellent in this film. This is a funny, entertaining and provocative film. I recommend it. 11/15/12

Hope Springs, 2012, PG-13

Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones; Directed by David Frankel

Crediting the value of sex by its absence is the basis of Hope Springs, but there’s warmth, and, eventually, slow passion in this film that a friend concisely calls “cute, awkward, and predictable.” A couple (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones), married thirty-two years in a life that has become humdrum, are insistently coaxed, prodded, and provoked by a prominent sex and marriage counselor and author (Steve Carell) toward regaining intimacy. They come to see, that it is both essential to vitality and legitimately theirs to thrive on.

I completely agree with “cute, awkward, and predictable.” This film is recommended if you are not in a frame of mind for nuance, depth, glamour, or sexual tension and release. What’s left then? The humor of Streep and Jones to fit in their characters, sensory comforts combined with a reminder that simply co-occupying a long-term relationship can erase the erotic and passion of the heart.

Reviewed by DR 11/15/12

I enjoyed the film. It was predictable. But maybe trying to get sex back into a 31 year marriage is never really predictable. The film was heartwarming and romantic. These are good things that should not be reserved only for young couples.
Paul 12/24/12