"Bionic"

This brand new short film, from photographer/filmmaker Greg Williams (who won prizes a year ago for that Sergeant Slaughter short with Tom Hardy just discussed), gives newish meaning to the term Bionic Woman. The header says that a sex doll (played by French celebrity Zahia) exercizes her own free will... but it looks just like malfunctioning to me.

Bionic from Greg Williams on Vimeo.

 That shot of her with the banana is just painful (but funny), you know? Is it wrong to interpret her vacant eroticism as satirical commentary on Britney Spears's airheaded marionette carnality?

Android lovers are such a mainstay of science fiction, aren't they? Our two favorites have always been Blade Runner's Pris and A.I.'s Gigolo Joe. But maybe that's because they're two of the only ones in sci-fi movies. (Are they ever going to make a movie of Saturn's Children ... we're guessing no. Too weird and potentially NC-17)  We'll have cars that fly and maybe even teleportation devices before sexbots are a reality; sex is too complicated for scientists!

Speaking of Gigolo Joe... Williams shot Jude Law just last year for Madame Figaro.

We're always hoping that Jude Law has another Talented Mr Ripley in him. If so, when is it coming our way?

Top Ten: Tom Hardy's Back Side

A week ago I just couldn't get myself worked up over the first glimpse of Tom Hardy's back in The Dark Knight Rises. The new pic spread across the internets so fast you'd think his flesh was covered in Lady Gaga tattoos. I couldn't get excited because I'd seen it so many times before with better views; the back, not the shot of "Bane"! Bane once broke Batman's back so it's fitting that we'd see that side of him first. It all comes back to the spine.

So herewith an impromptu top ten random ten shots of Tom Hardy from the back.

10 THE CODE  (2008)
The Code, which often films Tom Hardy from the back as more important characters are viewed from the front while they chat is a prime example of the retroactive casting problem with rising stars. When you watch their pre-ascendance movies, it's totally distracting how little the director notes their presence... as if you should actually care more about the characters who share their scenes. As if!

Stop talking men in suits. Show us the Hardy!

09 STAR TREK: NEMESIS (2002)
One of Hardy's earliest roles was one of his highest profile parts as he puts the nemesis in Nemesis. When Shinzon (Hardy) meets the crew of the Starship, the room is dark and the camera is careful to only show him from behind (or cloaked in shadow) for minutes on end.

You're not at all what we expected you to be.

...Capt. Jean Luc Picard tells him and he doesn't even know how true that is. Turns out Shinzon is actually genetically identitical to Picard, a clone! The antagonist decides to stop playing coy. "Computer bring the lighting up four levels," he says for the dramatic reveal. The lights come up and I think you're supposed to gasp that Tom Hardy LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE Patrick Stewart.

If by exactly like you mean: also bald. Hollywood hates bald people! We all look the same to them.

08 THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Seen up top. The reason it's not higher is I actually prefer my Hardy with less steroid bulk. Where are the architectural details of a screen body when it's shaped like a brick wall? Give me "Handsome Bob" rather than "Bronson" is what I'm saying... even if Bronson is definitely the... uh... fullest... way to really enjoy your Tom, heartily. To date.

More on Bronson in a bit. Warning: nudity after the jump...

Click to read more ...

If The Elevator Tries To Bring You Down...

GO CRAZY !

Team Experience: Swim with Mermaids, Ride on Gaga

This week I asked the contributing Film Experience team how they felt about Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and I also wanted to gauge whether we had any Little Monsters in our midst via Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" droppings.

You refused to see Pirates 4. What would ever bring you back to this franchise?

Michael: It's hard to imagine what could bring me back to the franchise at this point, (I feel like I only just got done sitting through At World's End) but a a 90 minute running time would be a step in the right direction.

Andreas: If Disney ever wants me to shell out for another Pirates movie, they'll have to go down a really surprising route, like selling it as "Andrei Rublev on the high seas." Or maybe they could introduce interesting characters! Some outrageous twist like that. What if they solved all their problems by just making Pirates 5 into Dead Man 2? They could bring in Jim Jarmusch to guest-direct, and use William Blake quotes for all of Jack Sparrow's dialogue!

Craig: Can they get all the sequels over with in one go and amalgamate the whole lot: The Hungover Kung-Fu Transformers of the Caribbean in the City of the Deathly Hallows Parts 2, 3 & 4 will be showing near you THIS SUMMER! Either that or they just cast the muppets instead of Depp, Cruz and company. I could easily do with another Muppets Treasure Island, thanks.

You saw Pirates 4. What did you think of the Mermaids?

Jose: The mermaids were truly preposterous! Where were their nice sea shell bras and their fuzzy crab and fish friends?

Although on the bright side, if it hadn't been for Syrena, we wouldn't have had a chance to see Sam Claflin shirtless. Is it only me or should Pé have played the queen of the mermaids instead of being stuck with that crappy character?

Kurt: It's such a shrug of a movie. That said, I liked the mermaids -- collectively, they were one of the film's very few inspired elements. The mermaid attack was the first action sequence I actually paid attention to. The depiction is neither totally accurate nor blasphemous. Just a new interpretation. And thank god for it.

What if Lady Gaga's "Borth This Way" was a movie?

Who should ride her cyborg self?

Andreas: I imagine Born This Way: The Movie as a cross between The Terminator, Showgirls, and Un Chien Andalou, but with extra preachiness thrown in. To be honest, I've always wanted Gaga to branch out into large-scale filmmaking just on the basis of the "Bad Romance" music video, so if she made exactly that, I'd be perfectly happy. The weirder, the better.

Jose: It would be a freaking Heavy Metal like extravaganza. Only two passengers should ever ride Gaga: Hedwig (from the Angry Inch)... 

...and  the Governator himself. Can you imagine those two in an action movie together?

Though you didn't ask who are they chasing/is chasing them  but I'll answer. There is only one being who can do that: Madonna. She needs to find the one camp movie role to make her a cinema icon.

Craig:  The Gaga videos to date, all strung together, are like a kind of movie anyway, aren't they? But if Born This Way were a movie it would be directed by Alan Smithee. Burn (rubber), baby, burn! Edward Furlong would clearly have to ride on Gaga's mutant-motorcycle. And Gaga herself would have to talk in a weird robo-Austrian-motor dialect. Doesn't she already do that in some of her songs anyway? It's part of her charm.

Kurt: If Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" were a movie, it would, of course be Labyrinth 2, and on the back of Gaga's cyborg motorcycle would ride David Bowie's Jareth, clad in his signature wig and junk-hugging leggings. Together, Gaga and Jareth would rule over their combined armies of little monsters, and anyone who spoke against their doubly strong maze of fabulousness would be swiftly tossed into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

YOUR TURN

• Who would you pay to see riding on Gaga's mutant-cycle?
• Do you prefer your mermaids carnivorous or sweet and tuneful?

May Flowers: Eyes Without a Face (1960)

Robert G from Sketchy Details here. I'm drawn to the beautiful imagery hidden in horror films. There's something intriguing about the dissonance between something so beautiful in the middle of an otherwise disturbing feature. 

Eyes Without a Face is one of the more aggressive horror films from the Black & White era. The entire film concerns a doctor trying to restore his daughter's beauty after a car accident severely burned her face. He goes so far as to fake her death after a failed medical experiment to better control his wandering child.

Even with the graphic imagery and grave subject matter, Eyes Without a Face is ultimately a film about hope and the attempt to renew a young life. This is made quite clear in the funeral scene.

After all the guests have left, Dr. Genessier and his assistant Louise are left to tend to the large quantity of flowers left at the grave. The arrangements are traditional--white lilies--but seem unnaturally bright and alive against the foggy background.

Where Dr. Genessier is unwavering in his plans, Louisa is losing faith. She's the one who always has to clean up his mistakes. She loses her composure in the Genessier family tomb against a wall of perfectly white daisies. 

A slap across the face is all it takes to bring Louisa back to reality. Her patient, Genessier's daughter, deserves a chance to be beautiful again, just like the flowers at her staged funeral.