The Assignment (2016, Fr./Can./US) (aka Re-Assignment, or Tomboy: A Revenger's Tale)

Co-writer/director Walter Hill's crime thriller (a B-movie revenge noir) was the first lead role for star Michelle Rodriguez since Girlfight (2000). It resembled Hill's earlier film Johnny Handsome (1989), and Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In (2011), and was regarded by some as offensive to the trans-gender community.

The extremely-violent film (with 27 total kills) was about sex change surgery as a punishment. It attempted to convincingly portray tough chick Michelle Rodriguez at first as a long-haired, bearded San Francisco hit man - a professional killer named Frank Kitchen, who emerged from a shower with a flat hairy chest and full-frontal genitals (full body prosthetics).

A gender reassignment operation or "butcher job" on Frank Kitchen ("a completely unknowing and unwilling patient") to inflict "enormous psychic pain" (an "unnecessary radical surgery") - was regarded as pay-back for Kitchen's murder in San Francisco two years earlier of debt-riddled, playboyish Sebastian Jane (Adrian Hough), the brother of megalomaniacal surgeon/physician Doctor Rachel Kay (Sigourney Weaver).

Subsequently after losing her medical license for Kitchen's surgery and other crimes, the "medically unfit" and discredited Doctor Kay was bound in a strait-jacket in a Mendocino, CA psychiatric facility. There, she was periodically questioned (and psychologically evaluated) by Dr. Ralph Galen (Tony Shaloub) for having run an illegal, black-market, plastic surgery medical clinic, and was still liable to be brought to trial.

The film opened, during the title credits, as Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) was bandaged and lying on a bed - and spoke in voice over:

I killed a lot of guys. They were worthless pieces of s--t, but I killed them, and you're not supposed to kill people. So what happened to me? I guess maybe in the end, it was a lot better than what I deserved. But it takes a long time to work that out. In the meantime, you just want to get even.

The scene in a seedy hotel room was spell-binding - as Frank awoke and became more and more enraged, he-she realized in a mirror reflection that she had female breasts and genitalia as she tore off her bandages.

The Revelation of Frank Kitchen's Sex Change Re-Assignment Surgery

Later, as she taped up her breasts, and vowed vengeance, she told herself (in voice-over):

It's hard to go back to bein' Frank Kitchen when you look like a chick. I had to tape my swollen tits. I had to sit down to take a piss. And the god-damn hormones were making me soft. If there was anything left of Frank Kitchen, it was his point-blank aim, and I couldn't wait to use it.

She stood and contrasted her body next to flirtatious nurse Johnnie (Caitlin Gerard), 'his' former lover, who was exiting a shower naked.

'Frank' With Girlfriend Johnnie (Caitlin Gerard)

Kitchen realized that he couldn't "go back to being a guy" - it was "medically impossible":

So that was it. This was the way it was gonna be. I was gonna be a chick except for in my head, so get used to it. Two people. One's a beauty and one's an I-don't-know what.

Johnnie responded:

I'm still tryin' to figure you out, and I don't get it. But, you know, look at the bright side. The cops are never gonna come looking for you being a guy, so maybe being a girl's the best way to stay out of prison. I've been thinkin' about this. You could change your name. Get a fake passport, papers, go to Mexico or Costa Rica or Brazil, some place where people hide out, you know? Nobody would find you. I'm sure you know somebody who can get you a fake ID.

Later in the film, the surgeon confessed more about her motivations for the "unwanted and unnecessary radical surgery" on Kitchen. Her intent was to rid Kitchen of his penchant for homicidal violence, release him from his "macho prison", and give him an "opportunity for redemption":

I decided I wouldn't and couldn't do something simply for revenge, so I also performed the surgery partially as an experiment. I wanted to reinforce the theory that, if gender is identity, then even the most extreme surgical procedure will fail to alter the essence, and this proved to be true. Frank Kitchen is still very much the man he was because he believes himself to be the man he was. So you see, my experiment was a success and a failure. My sincere hope for his redemption was naive. Frank Kitchen went right back to the gun. He went right back to killing.

When 'Frank' discovered that Johnnie had been hired by Dr. Kay to look after her, he was tempted to put a bullet through her head, but then changed his mind, and sent her away forever:

"The safe thing to do is to kill you. I didn't kill her, but it was goodbye Johnnie. I gave her some dough and I put her on a bus to Reno the next morning. She had some friends there. I told her to give me three weeks. If she didn't hear from me, she could come back to her place and I'll be long gone....(later) She stayed working in Reno. I think it was the best thing for her. A new city, new place to live, a fresh start. Yeah, I think it worked out for the best."

'Frank' also pursued after Doctor Kay, killed her four associates and bodyguards, and severely wounded the doctor. Two years later, the doctor was still incarcerated in a prison/psychiatry cell. Because she remained mentally unstable, she realized that she would never be granted a trial.

It was revealed that 'Frank' had severed the doctor's fingers with a scalpel after wounding her, so that she could never practice again. 'Frank's' voice-over ended the film:

I used to be a guy. A real bad guy. Then things changed. Now I look at the cards I got dealt in a different way. One thing's for sure. Change is gonna come.

Bad Moms (2016)

From the writers/directors (Jon Lucas and Scott Moore) of The Hangover (2009) came this R-rated, feminist chick-flick comedy, with the tagline: "Party Like a Mother." It was the latest in a long line of films with similar negative titles, such as:

• Bad Santa (2003) and Bad Santa 2 (2016)
• Bad Teacher (2011)
• Bad Grandpa (2013)
• Bad Neighbours (2016, UK) (aka Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising)

The comedy told about three overworked and under-appreciated moms in Chicago:

• Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis), a 32 year-old suburban housewife, with lazy man-child husband Mike (David Walton) (engaged in an online affair) and two tween kids
• Kiki (Kristen Bell), an uptight and meek stay-at-home mom, married to Kent (Lyle Brocato) with four kids
• Carla (Kathryn Hahn), always-horny, rebellious, foul-mouthed, and irresponsible

They decided one day over drinks to be "Bad Moms":

Carla: "We're killing ourselves trying to be perfect, and it's making us insane."
Kiki: "In this day and age, it's impossible to be a good mom."
Amy: "Screw it!. Let's be bad moms."

In one scene, Amy's friends criticized her unsexy Mom bra as she was trying on dresses:

Carla: "Holy f--k! Look at your mom bra! Ooh. There is so much surface area. You'd make three regular bras out of this one mom bra."
Amy: "This isn't my mom bra. This is my sexy bra..."
Carla: "That looks like you just got out of surgery...Yeah, there's just one boob-log....You don't even have two tits."
Kiki: "...This bra will be the death of your vagina."

Later in front of a mirror, Kiki explained to friends Amy and Carla (as they were primping before going out) about how her husband Kent often had a limp penis during sex:

Amy (worrying): "You guys, I've only handled one penis my entire life."
Carla: "Oh, honey!"
Amy: "What do I do if I get a guy with a weird dick?"
Kiki: "Kent is a never-hard."
Amy: "Ooh. What's a never-hard?"
Kiki: "Oh, he never gets fully hard. So I just have to kinda fold his penis up like a balloon animal and shove it up in my vagina."
Carla: "That sounds horrible..."
Kiki: "Sometimes, I take the balls and shove 'em up there too because at least, you know, they're firm."
Carla: "Honey, that is a lot of s--t to shove up your cooter."
Kiki: "I mean, I'm just happy he's circumcised."
Amy: "Agh! What if I get somebody who's not circumcised?"
Kiki: "Run out of the room screaming. It's like finding a gun in the street. Just scream and get out of there!"

But then, Carla argued that sex with uncircumcized males was better:

"No way, you guys, uncut guys are great...Oh, they're always so nice to you, because they know their dicks are gross."

Carla chose to demonstrate to Amy how to handle an 'uncut' penis, while using Kiki's pink-hooded sweatshirt as a model:

"Just imagine for a second that this is, this is the hood of the uncut cock and then this is the penis face. Okay?...So, what you would do is very gently, you would just kind of try to peel it back over like that to expose the head of the cock (She gently pulled the hood down from Kiki's face)....And then you would just, just gently (She unzipped the front of the sweatshirt), you wanna, I'm sorry, honey. You just wanna kind of, like it gets a little tight, and you gotta kind of work it, you know. You gotta work it off. (She pulled the sweatshirt down over Kiki's body) And then you just go to town, like it's a, you know... (Grunts) You know, you jerk it off till you wanna sit on it...(She then demonstrated what to do with the extra hanging skin, or hood) You can flick it, suck it, you know, rub your face on it...OK, well, take care of this, though, 'cause this is like a big giant man clit. (She pointed to the hood) This, right here. If you work this, it's gonna be like...(Sound of orgasmic explosion). Does that make sense, honey?"

Then Kiki noted: "I'm not gonna wear this sweatshirt ever again."

Below Her Mouth (2016, Canada)

Canadian director April Mullen's lesbian-romance film, set in Toronto, was shot with an all-female crew. It followed along the lines of a number of similar films:

• Imagine You & Me (2005, UK/Germ.), asexual
• Room in Rome (2010, Sp.)
• Elena Undone (2010)
• Blue is the Warmest Color (2013, Fr.) (aka La Vie d'Adèle)
• The Handmaiden (2016, S.Korea) (see below)
• The L Word (2004-2009), the cable TV show

The film was considered a perfect example of glamorous softcore pornography by many viewers, with a number of lengthy, lustful scenes of fully-nude and explicit lesbian sex comprising about two-thirds of the film.

In the film's opening under the title credits, two of the main characters were introduced having lesbian sex together, with Dallas on top:

• Dallas (26 year-old Swedish newcomer and model Erika Linder), blonde
• Joslyn (Mayko Nguyen), Dallas' lover

They both collapsed onto their backs in exhaustion. Joslyn asked: "Did you come?", but Dallas only stared off and answered bluntly: "A bit." It was clear that their relationship was deteriorating, one-sided and toxic, and Dallas had commitment issues. She told Joslyn: "You're over me."

Dallas casually announced that she was moving out and had put a deposit on her own apartment. She ended things by saying: "You're better off without me." Shortly later, over a cell phone, Dallas told Joslyn to throw out any belongings she left behind in the apartment. Joslyn responded bitterly: "Even inanimate objects are not safe from you."

Dallas (Erika Linder) - At Various Stages

Dallas was portrayed as a self-absorbed roofing contractor who was aggressively butch (wearing androgynous tomboy clothes, and later claiming: "I'm not a tomboy. I'm more legit than that"). Working on a roof with a male crew, Dallas noticed an attractive brunette arriving home in the townhouse complex in a dark-colored convertible sports car. She quipped under her breath: "I'd take her for a ride." One of the men asked provocatively with a cat-call: "Why do ladies love roofers?" but was ignored.

Dallas vowed to re-energize her dating life - by purchasing a black strap-on dildo, and showing it off to her new roommate/friend Quinn (Tommie-Amber Pirie). The two attended a "girl party" in a lesbian bar. Coincidentally, Dallas happened to meet the brunette in the restroom, who had been convinced by her friend Claire (Melanie Leishman) to go out on the town during her fiancee's absence (a business trip in Arizona). The brunette realized that she had seen the blonde roofer earlier in the day.

The brunette was Jasmine (Natalie Krill) - a prim and proper Toronto fashion magazine editor. Dallas explained the origin of her name: "Named after the American television show my parents fell in love with in Sweden." Playing curious, Jasmine asked the identical question posed by the male roofer: "Why do women love roofers?" Dallas replied with a come-on: "You have to go out with me if you want to find out." When asked about her ring, Jasmine explained how she was newly-engaged to boyfriend Rile (Sebastian Pigott).

And then, Dallas repeated the frequent question: "Why do women love roofers?", and then answered her own question (and offered to demonstrate) - with obvious sexual innuendo:

Because they strip 'em and nail 'em all day long.

As they talked, Dallas admitted: "I've got no emotional stamina for intimacy...But I think I might be different with you," although Jasmine claimed she knew how to keep a man interested. Dallas hinted that Jasmine was "the right girl" for her - and they came close enough to kiss each other. It was clear that Jasmine was feeling some uncertainty and ambivalence about her own sexual preferences and identity. Leaving the bar, Jasmine confessed to Claire that she had kissed Dallas, felt sick and weird because she was engaged, and was only curious. She vowed: "It will never happen again."

However, it was the start of a sexually-frank same-sex relationship between the two star-crossed females that would slowly develop, while Jasmine's boyfriend Rile was gone. It was convenient for the two that Dallas' roofing job was at the complex where she lived.

During a bathtub scene with the water running, Jasmine let the water pleasure herself as she listened to Dallas' roof hammering outside nearby - a case of metaphorical love-making. They spoke again briefly as Jasmine left for work, and later Jasmine agreed to "One drink, one. And we're done."

Jasmine eventually succumbed to Dallas' pressure to experiment sexually (first with intimate touching in an alleyway, then with oral sex and female crotch-grinding, and finally with the implementation of Dallas' strap-on dildo, when they were embarrassingly interrupted by Rile).

Lesbian Sex Between Dallas and Jasmine

There were intermittent scenes of blunt discussions between the two females about their sexual experiences (the more vulnerable Jasmine had one unfulfilled lesbian experience when she was younger, and Dallas had adopted a 'masculine' love-em-and-leave-em, inscrutable mentality).

Eventually, Rile confronted Jasmine about her sexuality when he found out she was lesbian, and she pleaded: "Tell me what I need to do to fix this to put us back on track" as she also said: "Nothing has changed between us." He threatened to leave unless she ended it: "End it.... In person or you'll never see me again." In a tearful scene between the two female lovers, Dallas admitted that they should break up: "You have to. I shouldn't have put you in this position."

During their break-up period, Dallas resorted to being entertained by a strip-club dancer at the Filmores Hotel, named M.J. (Andrea Stefancikova) - with a traditional male-type lap dance.

Soon after, Jasmine apologized to Rile ("I'm so sorry for what I did"), but also realized her deep sexual and personal dissatisfaction with him. She began crying and had brief uncomfortable sexual contact with him after they shared a bathtub together naked. In a final short coming-out scene set in a park by a river, Jasmine met up with Dallas again and confessed:

Jasmine: I told some of my friends at work about you.
Dallas: What did you tell them?
Jasmine: Everything.

The Bronze (2016)

Although first debuting at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2015, this bold and raunchy R-rated comedy-drama was a 2016 theatrical release (and a major box-office flop). It was directed by first-timer Bryan Buckley and written by a married couple, Winston and star Melissa Rauch (the nerdy but sassy Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory TV show).

It told about Hope Annabelle Greggory (Rauch), a foul-mouthed, hostile and cruel ex-Bronze medalist gymnast from a past international athletic competition ('Olympics' - in Rome in 2004). After a career-ending balance beam injury at age 17 during the finals that damaged her Achilles tendon, the late 20-something was now living with her mail-carrier father Stan (Gary Cole) in her hometown of Amherst, Ohio (near Cleveland) (where most of the film was actually made) - "The Sandstone capital of the world." He gave her an allowance of $500/week. She was still playing upon her small town's hero-status by obtaining free food, products, some drugs and notoriety - and was often stealing mail from her father's route to make ends meet.

The first view of the narcissistic, teeny-bopper-banged, pony-tailed Hope was in bed wearing her Team USA warm-up suit with the bronze medal hung around her neck, masturbating under the covers while watching a 'glory days' video of her own medal-winning athletic performance. Afterwards, she snorted pain-killer pills (crushed into powder by one of her trophy bases), and ritually taped down her breasts.

She found herself coaching new local prodigy Maggie "Mighty" Townsend (Haley Lu Richardson), a hopeful upstart for the upcoming Toronto competition. At first, she attempted to sabotage the young and innocent 'Olympian' with fatty foods, promiscuity, and cannabis smoothies, but then took her responsibilities more seriously. Hope also entered into a relationship with an ex-high school classmate Ben (Thomas Middleditch) (whom she nicknamed "Twitchy" for his blinking-tic habit), the low-key co-manager of the practice gym and an assistant coach.

The most unique and epic sex scene in the film came toward the end - an acrobatic display of gymnastic sexual positions (spins, rolls, hand-stands, etc.) during a one-night stand by a drunken Hope (performed by Rauch's body double Michelle Derstine) with arrogant gold medalist Lance Tucker (Sebastian Stan), her former teammate and an ex-boyfriend. The sequence paid homage to the numerous puppet sex acts found in Team America: World Police (2004). Hope urged her stripped partner on to have sex after seeing a tattoo on his lower-abdomen and testicles representing the gold: "Give me that gold!"

The Epic Acrobatic Sex Scene

By film's end, Hope had reformed herself after leading Maggie to a Gold Medal win in Toronto in 2016. She told a mall crowd:

"Throughout history, those who are truly great have stepped up. Just like all of you. You give me a smile or a wave. Or sometimes you break the celebrity boundary and come up to me, tell me about where you were on the day I made this country proud. There is a reason I call this town my home. 'Cause you f--kers remind me of who I am. And who I can be. I am - Coach Hope."

She continued to coach up-and-coming young gymnasts with new boyfriend Ben at the Pavleck-Greggory Gymnastics Center (named after Hope's former Russian coach, “Coach P” Pavleck (Christine Abrahamson) who had suffered an unexpected suicide earlier in the film).

But Hope had lost her star pupil to coach Lance in Los Angeles. Ending title cards revealed: "Maggie Townsend was unable to compete for another gold. She got knocked up with Lance Tucker's baby."

Cabin Fever (2016)

This pointless horror remake from director Travis Z (Zariwny) was scripted by Eli Roth, who had directed the original 2002 film in the series:

• Cabin Fever (2002)
• Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009)
• Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero (2014)

In a unique fashion, this remake used the same exact script of Roth's film, although it was condensed and simplified. But it retold the same story, with the expected sex and gore required in the telling of the "cabin fever" - although more graphic special effects and with greater production values.

A group of five college grads took a week-long vacation in a cabin in the mountainous woods (without TV or cellphone wifi reception).

• Karen (Gage Golightly), a pretty blonde, girl-next-door
• Paul (Samuel Davis), secretly in love with classmate Karen
• Jeff (Matthew Daddario), a self-absorbed egotist
• Marcy (Nadine Crocker), Jeff's girlfriend, uninhibited
• Bert (Dustin Ingram), the fifth wheel, beer-obsessed, with a semi-automatic assault rifle

One by one, the group was soon infested with a horrifying, water-borne flesh-eating virus (first passed on by a melting, disease-infected hermit (Randy Schulman) and his decaying, ravenous dog):

One notoriously scene retained from the original ("finger-banging") was the love-making infection scene between Karen and Paul, when he went to touch her privates, and he raised his hand in horror from her crotch - bloody and oozy. She was quarantined after being moved to the adjacent woodshed, where she slowly deteriorated.

The "Finger-Bang" Sex Scene

Feeling like it was a catastrophe that meant imminent death for everyone, Marcy proposed a final wild sexual hookup with Paul, the film's most explicit sequence - sex on a kitchen counter:

Marcy: We're all gonna get it. We're all gonna get sick...It's like being on a plane when you know it's gonna crash. And everyone around you is just screaming: 'We're goin' down! We're goin' down!' And all you wanna do is just grab the person next to you, and f--k the s--t out of 'em, 'cause you know you will be dead soon anyway. It won't matter.

After having prolonged sex in the kitchen, Marcy took a bath. In the second notorious scene from the original film, as she shaved her leg, her skin peeled away. She bloodily staggered from the front door, fell to her knees, and found herself face-to-face with a ravenous wild dog and was torn to pieces (off-screen),

Deadpool (2016)

Director Tim Miller's comedy/sci-fi-action superhero film about the anti-hero Marvel Comic character was actually part of the X-Men series. The hit movie was the highest grossing R-rated film of all-time, and the most successful of the X-Men franchise.

The black comedy often broke 'the fourth wall', was self-referential and non-linear, and featured a tagline that spoofed Spider-Man:

"With great power comes great irresponsibility."

The title character was Wade Wilson (aka Deadpool) (Ryan Reynolds), a mercenary whose life was significantly altered when a top-secret experiment (to cure terminal cancer by injecting him with a serum and torturing him) left him scarred and disfigured, but with rapid healing and regenerative powers.

To take advantage of his newfound latent abilities, the sociopathic Wade became Deadpool, a joking, fast-talking, masked, red spandex-clad, anarchic vigilante, intent on hunting down Ajax (or Francis Freeman) (Ed Skrein) who was responsible for Deadpool's condition (and falsely promised a cure).

Deadpool/Wade was unique as a super-hero in that he had sex with Vanessa Carlisle (Morena Baccarin), originally an escort-prostitute in a bar who became his fiancee. When they first met, they one-upped each other with memories of their horrible and tragic pasts.

While having exhaustive sex together (to the tune of Neil Sedaka's Calendar Girl), seen in a time-lapsed montage of brief holiday-themed sex scenes, they had a string of humorous lines:

Vanessa: "How long can we keep this up?"
Deadpool: "All year?"
Vanessa: "Happy Valentine's Day."
Deadpool: "Happy Chinese New Year."
Vanessa: "Year of the Dog. Relax, and Happy International Women's Day." (She was wearing a leather bikini and was positioned behind him for rear-entry, attached to a strap-on dildo, while Wade was wincing in pain and groaning: "No, no!")
Deadpool: "Happy Lent."
Vanessa: "Ow, ow, Wade!" (He was administering oral sex to her while wearing fake vampire teeth)
Deadpool: "Sorry. Happy Halloween!"
Vanessa: "Happy Thanksgiving." (They were making love on a Thanksgiving Day food table and stuffing each other's mouths with mashed potatoes)
Deadpool: "I love you. If your left leg is Thanksgiving, and your right leg is Christmas, can I visit you between the holidays?"

Afterwards, he told her why they were still together (while they were both wearing ugly Christmas sweaters) :

Deadpool: "Oh, that sweater is terrible. But red looks good on you." Vanessa: "Red's your color. Brings out the bloodshot in your eyes...."
Deadpool: "Listen. I've been thinking."
Vanessa: "Really?"
Deadpool: "'Bout why we're so good together."
Vanessa: "Why is that?"
Deadpool: "Well, your crazy matches my crazy. Big time. And, uh, we're like two jigsaw pieces, you know. The weird curvy edges."
Vanessa: "You put them together and you can see the picture on top...Wade, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. But only because you haven't gotten around to asking me. Will you, uhm, stick it in my..."
Deadpool: (interjecting and holding up a big ring) "...Marry me?"
Vanessa: "Uh, JINX!"
Deadpool: "Huh?"
Vanessa: "Where were you hiding that?"
Deadpool: "Nowhere."

He was revealed to be butt-naked.

Dirty Grandpa (2016)

Director Dan Mazer's raunchy, spring-break sex comedy had two taglines:

"Lose your way. Find your manhood."
"What did you learn from your grandparents?"

A third tagline (with accompanying poster) was created in homage to The Graduate (1967):

"This is Jason. He's a little worried about his grandpa."

Its unlikely star was veteran actor Robert De Niro as the 72 year-old titular character - 'dirty grandpa' - a widowed Army vet, and the estranged, recently widowed grandfather of uptight, preppy, Atlanta corporate lawyer Jason Kelly (Zac Efron). Jason was about to be married to his shrill and over-controlling fiancee Meredith Goldsmith (Julianne Hough).

The odd-couple comedy brought Jason and his grandpa together during a road-trip from Georgia to Boca Raton, Florida, when Jason was convinced to take his grandpa to Florida for a well-deserved golf vacation. They actually detoured and ended up partying for Spring Break in Daytona Beach, at his grandpa's urging, with a group of college students - a great excuse for the film's plentiful, foul-mouthed sex jokes and run-ins with the law and drugs. In a predictable switcheroo, the conservative Jason was soon serving as the chaperone for his party-hardy Grandpa.

One major concluding scene was of horny Lenore (Aubrey Plaza) finally able to proposition the fumbling, 'dirty grandpa' Dick Kelly (De Niro), after she presented herself to him in his oceanside, Boca Raton retirement apartment in a black bra and his own oversized pants belted around her waist. She told him: "I'm just a girl from Long Island City who likes to f--k old people."

In the bedroom, she struggled to remove his pants by wriggling around on the bed - to reveal her black thong panties ("Whoops, I guess they just slipped off"). To turn herself on, she proposed lines for him to say to her, while grinding her genitals into him:

• I want you to tear open my bra like it's a Social Security check.
• Tell me you've fallen and you can't get up.
• Now fumble around and pretend like you're trying to find your glasses.
• Tell me it's four o'clock and you want to eat dinner.
• Tell me the buttons on your remote control are so small that you can't find FOX News.
• Tell me how this neighborhood used to be safer.
• Tell me how things were better under Eisenhower.

And then she asked when he began moaning: "Are you coming or dying?" - and he responded: "I'm not sure, maybe both!" as the camera panned to the outside.

The Exception (2016, UK/US)

Theatre director David Leveaux's war drama (his film debut), with the tagline: "One duty. One desire. One decision," was an adaptation of Alan Judd's novel The Kaiser's Last Kiss. The film shared some similarities with director Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (aka Zwartboek) (2006). The film's title referred to the overriding question: Was a good German citizen the exception or the rule under the Third Reich?

The fictionalized historical drama - both a spy thriller and an erotic love story, began with the exile of Kaiser Wilhelm II (Christopher Plummer) after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 ending the Great War. He was sentenced to live in a palatial manor on an estate in Netherlands/Holland for the next two decades with his fiercely-loyal wife, Princess Hermine (Janet McTeer). By 1940, the Nazi Party had taken over and invaded Holland.

Wounded while on the Polish front, young Wehrmacht officer Captain Stefan Brandt (Australian actor Jai Courtney), with an Iron Cross second class rank, was commissioned to protect the Kaiser and command his military guard. There were concerns that the Kaiser's popularity was rising amongst the nationalistic Germans. Brandt was warned that if anything happened to the Kaiser, Brandt would be shot. There were rumors by the Nazis of a British Secret Service agent-spy relaying radio messages from the town.

On his first night in Utrecht, Brandt received an unannounced visit in his quarters from one of the Kaiser's beautiful Dutch maids, Mieke de Jong (Lily James). Her first words were:

The Kaiser presents his compliments. He'd be pleased if you'd join him at dinner tomorrow night.

After staring at each other knowingly, he simply ordered: "Take your clothes off. (pause) Please." She stripped down naked, stood before him, then steadied herself on her elbows on a nearby table and let him take her from behind, although urged: "Gently." He abruptly ended the sex by grabbing his pained abdomen (from shrapnel fragments still embedded), and responded: "Please. Tell the Kaiser I would be honored to accept his invitation."

[Note: It was notable as the first nude scene for English actress Lily James, who was better known for her roles in the long-running Downton Abbey, and in the live-action Cinderella (2015).]

She returned to his room for more intimacy the following evening, where she appeared in the dark after he entered, and used the same greeting: "Take your clothes off." She watched him strip in front of him (with full frontal male nudity), then pushed him back onto the bed and sat astride him for sex with her dress pulled up. After as she prepared to hurriedly leave, he requested: "Wait. Stay. Stay the night" - but without a word, she departed.

Only later did they introduce themselves to each other formally and learn each other's names. She cautioned against them becoming too familiar with each other: "Copulation is strictly forbidden among the staff. I would lose my position. You might lose yours." Thus began the main point of the plot: Brandt's secret romance and torrid affair with her - it was an illicit and forbidden pairing. Although relations with her were strictly against orders, Brandt continued the affair and risked his position.

During another encounter in her bedroom, he apologized for being so forward: "Mieke, I wanted to apologize for how I was the first time we met." She kissed him and then responded: "I wanted you." She admitted that she was Jewish - causing a long moment of silence between them, before he said: "I don't care." He cautioned her: "What you told me about yourself. Don't tell anyone else." Later, he recalled witnessing the SS Nazi machine-gun slaughter of Polish women and children in a village:

Brandt: It was a beautiful day. And I thought, God made this. God made all of it. There was a girl. She was still alive. I tried to help her, but she died. I beat the officer senseless in front of his unit. It's men like that - they shame the SS. They shame us all.
Mieke: But they are not the exception, they are the rule.
Brandt: I don't believe that.

Then, he suddenly proposed marriage to her ("now, today") and vowed to protect her, but she refused: "Are you serious?...But I'm a Jewess." She claimed that no one could adequately protect her, under the circumstances. And then they were caught together - creating a massive scandal for the Kaiser's wife: "This girl has been caught in flagrante in this officer's bedroom...They have been caught fornicating under our roof. This girl is no better than a common slut. This officer has disgraced his uniform." When Brandt asserted that he was to blame, the Kaiser announced that he would speak to both of them, in private, to make a judgment on their fates: "I may not rule in Germany, but, by Christ, I rule in my own house!" He was willing to overlook both of their indiscretions: "You will resume your duties, but this time, you will be more discreet." He rationalized that in his own past, he had fathered two illegitimate children prior to meeting Hermine.

Soon after, the local pastor in town Pastor Hendriks (Kris Cuppens) was discovered transmitting radio reports about the Kaiser. He was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo - and admitted that Mieke was a British spy. Brandt now realized that his lovely partner Mieke had been working with the Pastor. (Earlier Brandt had followed her and witnessed them meeting together.) She was also planning to assassinate Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler (Eddie Marsan) who was scheduled to visit the town.

Conflict arose because Brandt had promised to protect and marry her. Could she trust him to not interfere, or would he obey his military duty and turn her in to the Gestapo?

Brandt: "Do you expect me to betray my oath, my country, for you?"
Mieke: "I expected nothing from you, Captain. You must do your duty. And I will do mine."

Frank & Lola (2016)

Director/writer Matthew Ross' debut feature film was this moody, neo-noirish romance, with four key words for its tagline:

LOVE, OBSESSION, BETRAYAL, REVENGE

The two title characters were:

• Frank Reilly (Michael Shannon), a divorced, brooding chef working in a trendy Las Vegas French bistro (Rue Galilee), originally from Queens, NY
• Lola (Imogen Poots), Frank's alluring, younger girlfriend, an aspiring fashion student designer after recently graduating, a dirty-blonde

The opening scene of the psychosexual drama was of the two apprehensively having first-time sex in a high-rise bedroom in view of the Las Vegas Strip at nighttime. Lola's first words urged Frank to skip over oral sex and have intercourse: "Come on, just f--k me." When he pondered: "Maybe we should wait?", she responded: "And wait for what?" He responded: "The next time we see each other." She said she felt like a whore, but he vowed he wasn't playing a part: "I never said I was a gentleman. But I'm not playing games." She replied: "Oh, sometimes games can be fun." Then, he changed his mind and suggested: "OK, let's do it. Let's f--k," but then she teased: "It's too late. I think you're right. Let's wait. That's a great idea." Moments later, she again changed her mind and encouraged him to have rough sex with her: "Maybe you could hold me down while you do it? Tighter!"

Shortly later in his restaurant, he cooked an omelette (laced with caviar) for her and she complimented him on his cooking and personality: "You're pretty cool, Frank."

During their intense and passionate (yet apprehensive) love affair in Las Vegas, one night (about 20 minutes into the film), Lola came crying to Frank to confess that she had been unfaithful to him and sexually betrayed him: "I think that I made a mistake." She said it was just a "guy from California" who had already left town. Bitterly hurt, even though she claimed, "it was awful, it was nothing. It meant nothing," Frank wanted to drop her.

However, he had a slight change of heart when she told him that she had been raped the previous summer by one of her mother's former live-in boyfriends, a wealthy, married, philandering French best-selling author in Paris named Alan Larsson (Michael Nyqvist) who was from a Swedish family. She didn't directly blame her recent promiscuity on her past, but explained:

"I'm not making an excuse for what I did. It's just what happened had an effect on me that I can't understand...It definitely f--cked me up, though."

In the story defined by infidelity, toxic relationships, self-destructiveness and tragic sexual circumstances, Frank was troubled, suspicious and compelled (and also propelled by male jealousy toward Lola's new designer-employer Keith Winkleman (Justin Long)) to seek revenge in Paris (during a chef job audition/interview) against the man who had wronged Lola. As he was leaving for Paris, he told Lola about his wish to make their relationship whole:

"I just wish I could go back in time, protect you from that f--kin' scumbag. Then we'd be fine, I know it."

In Paris, Frank stalked and confronted Alan with a knife in his apartment, then had a change of heart when he viewed a sex tape of Lola with another female, while off-camera, Alan ordered her to perform degrading sex acts. Alan also confirmed that Lola could be very "convincing" with any man she was with. Then, Alan invited Frank to join him in a late-night Parisian sex-club, where with the aid of alcohol and drugs, Frank was approached by a rich female pimp who arranged a friend (prostitute) for him in a nearby house. The next day, Frank learned that he had been hired to be the chef in a new Vegas hotel-restaurant (the Encore).

When Frank returned to Lola in Las Vegas after many untruths had been revealed in Paris, he described his meeting with Alan, and asked:

Do you have any idea what it's like to watch somebody you love take orders like a little whore, down on her hands and knees?

He then admitted their mutual indiscretions and his own desire to break up with her: ("So now I'm rotten. So are you. So is this. I'll come back and get my s--t tomorrow"). The next morning, when he asked Lola for the truth, she claimed: "He played you. You got played." Lola identified the woman who picked him up in the club as Claire (Emmanuelle Devos), Alan's wife. Alan and Claire had a mutual understanding that they could live separately and have other sex partners. Then Frank put two and two together - Alan was "the guy from California" that Lola had cheated with: "He's the one you f--ked in the hotel, right?"

In a tearful confession, she described her past, and how Alan had invited her into his place when she was a student in Paris. By the first morning, he had tied her up on the bed (with ropes binding her hands and feet):

"It wasn't the rape - and he did rape me - that turned me into this crazy person. What f--ked me up was that I didn't leave. I stayed with him. What f--ked me up was that I fell in love with him. I found out that I was pregnant and he just disappeared. I freaked out and started calling the house, and his wife said to me that if I got an abortion, if I left France immediately, she was gonna write me a check for $400,000 dollars. So I came here a week later and that's when I met you. And that morning, he called me, and he was begging me to let him apologize, and I had no intention of f--king him. And then I think I just, I think I shut down. I just let him do it. And when it was over, he started to panic because all I could think about was you, and (he) wanted us destroyed."

Lola was surprised that Frank had taken her back, although dismayed that he called their relationship "rotten." He apologized, and then she concluded "it's time that we let each other go." Frank couldn't let things drop without confirming Lola's version of the story, so he returned to Paris to discuss everything with Claire. She verified that Lola became pregnant and was given money. However, Claire emphasized that Alan still loved her ("His heart is with me") and that he had gone to Chicago on business, not Vegas, so he couldn't have resumed a sexual relationship with Lola. (It was fairly obvious that Alan was lying to Claire about his whereabouts, and the status of his relationship with femme fatale Lola.)

Back in Vegas, Frank witnessed a short rendezvous between Lola and Alan (who was again there "for business"). She sent him a note about secretly meeting up with him ("I have to be careful" she wrote) in the new unopened restaurant on the second floor of his hotel - and enclosed a sexy Polaroid photo. However, when Alan arrived to see Lola, it was a set-up, and Frank confronted a very incalcitrant Alan - and ordered him to leave Lola for ever. He roughed him up in a vicious fist-fight, and then stated: "I'm gonna drive you to the airport, and you're gonna f--kin' disappear."

In the final sequence, Frank met with Lola at his new job in the newly-opened restaurant, and he chillingly and calmly delivered his own style of verbal irateness to her. He told her that he was back and now sane:

Frank: "I'm back to bein' me. That psycho, I sent him home."
Lola: "That's 'cause I'm not around."
Frank: "That's not true. Lola..."
Lola: "Why, did you want me back?"
Frank: "Because all the reasons to stay away, they don't work. And every day I tell myself, eh, you blow it. Get over it. And every morning when I wake up, the first thing I think of is you. Do you still love me?"

She claimed that she wouldn't be there if she didn't love him. She complimented him on his first day of work - his well-deserved triumph in his job. He told her that he would briefly leave and change his clothes, and in the meantime, she should think about their relationship. If she was there when he returned, he would have his answer. In a few moments, he came back - and she wasn't visibly there - although a sliver of her reflection watching him was seen on the wall behind him.

The Handmaiden (2016, S.Korea) (aka Ah-ga-ssi)

The masterfully-edited beautifully-filmed romantic arthouse thriller by S. Korean director Park Chan-wook combined both a linear narrative and replayed extended flashbacks from new angles to reveal its story, set in 1930s Korea during Japanese occupation. The themes so clearly realized in the exquisitely-produced period piece included duplicity, trust and betrayal, abuse and misogyny, calculated manipulation and sexual tension, and female seduction and liberation.

The graphic lesbian sex scenes were even more explicit than scenes in the recent French film, Blue is the Warmest Color (2013, Fr.) (aka La vie d'Adèle).

The two main characters in the sexy feminist revenge plot were:

• Lady Hideko (Min-hee Kim), a noblewoman, a Japanese heiress, who lived secluded in the large country estate of her self-loathing, porno-bibliophile Uncle Kouzuki (Jin-woong Jo), a domineering, abusive and rich man
• Sook-Hee (Tae-ri Kim), the noblewoman's personal servant, housemaid or handmaiden, known as 'Tamako'

Told in three conflicting parts, the first was from the perspective of Sook-Hee, the second from Lady Hideko's perspective, and the third part was more directly objective and conclusive.

The main twist was that the thieving handmaiden was working in tandem with a gold-digging, deceitful con-man partner who was masquerading as Japanese aristocrat "Count Fujiwara" (Jung-woo Ha) from Nagoya. She was paid $100,000 plus dresses and jewelry by Fujiwara to swindle Lady Hideko out of her fortune by coaxing her to marry the Count (and take her away from Kouzuki, who had become her uncle by marriage and also wanted to marry her).

After marriage, Count Fujiwara's plan was to declare Lady Hideko insane and lock her up in an asylum. It was also possible in another of the story's reversals that the handmaiden might be double-crossed and take Lady Hideko's place in the asylum.

During the evolving plot of well over two hours, Sook-Hee soon fell in love with her virginal-appearing employer Lady Hideko. There were three very explicit sex scenes between them involving a number of sexual positions. Their first pre-sexual encounter was during an early bath scene, when Sook-Hee admired the breasts of Lady Hideko. Sook-Hee gave the noblewoman a sweet lollipop (she explained: "You are my baby, Miss. Auntie gave the babies candy during baths, to teach them that bath time is sweet"). She also gently smoothed down one of Hideko's sharp teeth by wriggling her finger inside her mouth - a very sensual moment. The two also became better acquainted when playing dress-up with a corset, and by switching roles.

When the two slept in the same bed one night, they began kissing, and pretended that Lady Hideko was making love to the Count in the same way - Sook-Hee initiated oral sex:

Lady Izumi Hideko (begging): "Keep doing it like the Count would."
Sook-Hee: "And this is what he'll say. It's so soft, warm, wet, and spellbindingly beautiful."

Later, they experienced masturbation, '69', scissors-position sex, and lastly penetration involving foreign objects (metal silver Ben Wa balls strung together). During one sexual bout, Sook-Hee commented as she laid her stripped female partner back on the bed, and then touched her nipple:

"It's so cute."
"If the Count sees this. Will he really be so tender as this?"
"Of course, and he'll touch you like this, and like this."
"Tamako, keep doing it. Like the Count would."
"The Count, the Count - he'll go crazy over this. And this is what he'll say. It's so soft, warm, wet, and spellbindingly beautiful!"
"I wish that I had breast milk so I could feed you."
"Do you like it when I do this? Do you like me? Can you promise that you won't betray me?"
"I'll never, never, ever."
"Miss, how could such an innocent. You must be a natural."

First Kisses	Masturbation	Oral Sex
More Oral Sex	'69'	Penetration with Foreign Objects

Together in part three, they planned to trick and seek revenge against both Lady Hideko's Uncle and the Count, and then flee the country for freedom. The two males in their lives returned to the estate, where the lecherous Uncle tied up the Count and administered torture and mutilation (including castration) to make him reveal detailed sexual secrets about his niece Lady Hideko on her wedding night:

So how was Hideko?...So where did you touch first? Her face? Her breasts? Or straight for her cunt? Was it soft? Did it tighten up? Did it have many wrinkles? Was it sufficiently wet? The viscosity and transparency of her vaginal secretion?... A story is all about the journey. You should know. Did she resist? So did you pinch her ass as punishment? Or did she spit at you in contempt? Or else, did she beg you to do it? Like the lady in 'The Widow's Lapdog?'

The two males ended up dead from the deadly smoke of mercury-laced cigarettes provided by the Count during the interrogation. Before expiring, the Count was gratified: "At least I will die with my cock intact."

The two females successfully eloped on a southbound ferry-cruise to Shanghai, having sex once again (with the aid of Ben Wa balls).

Hands of Stone (2016)

Writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz's dramatic R-rated sports biopic followed the life of Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran (Edgar Ramirez) - a professional fighter from 1968 to 2001 (from 16 to 49 years of age). Robert De Niro's casting brought back thoughts of his appearance in Martin Scorsese's definitive Raging Bull (1980).

The film opened with Duran's September, 1971 debut US bout against Huertas at Madison Square Garden, attended by veteran boxing coach-trainer Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro), who watched from a seat close to the ring, and provided the voice-over narration:

Ring sense is an art. A gift from God that flows out of a fighter like a painting flows out of an artist. You're either blessed with it from the day you're born, or you're cursed without it till ya die. In 66 seconds, Roberto Duran changed my life.

It was quickly over - Duran's 22nd knockout in 25 fights. In flashback, the film showed pig-headed, hot-tempered Duran's rise to prominence as he was disciplined and coached-trained by the legendary Ray Arcel. Sexual violence was evident in Duran's volatile treatment of his own wife, and threats against opponent Sugar Ray Leonard (singer Usher Raymond IV) and his wife Juanita Leonard (Jurnee Smollett-Bell): ("I'm gonna f--k your husband in the ring and when I'm done with him, I'm gonna go and f--k you all night, baby").

During his life outside the ring, in the sex-drenched decade of the 70s, he picked up blonde, teenaged high school student Felicidad Iglesias (Ana De Armas) and married her after his boxing career boomed. During sex, she challenged him:

Felicidad: "You wanna see the real Panama canal?"
Duran: "I've seen that tiny canal a million times."
Felicidad: "You say that because all you have is a sail boat."
Duran: "A sailboat? I got the Titanic here."
Felicidad: "Sink it then."

A second sex scene between Sugar Ray and his wife garnered even more publicity, because of the sight of singer Usher's bare and flexed butt during a soft-core sex scene with his wife Juanita.

Manhattan Night (2016)

Colin Harrison's best-selling 1996 novel "Manhattan Nocturne" was the basis for writer/director Brian DeCubellis' tense, film-noirish crime-drama and murder mystery (his feature film debut). It was a tale of sexual obsession, murder, missing videotapes and scandal.

The main character was NYC "old-school" tabloid writer Porter Wren (Adrien Brody), who described his sleazy profession in the opening's cynical, weary-voiced and dark narration, as he arrived at the scene of another tragedy. He had become famous years earlier for finding a missing girl in the woods, but now his acclaim has faded in the age of the Internet with the demise of newspapers:

I sell mayhem, scandal, murder and doom. Oh, Jesus, I do. I sell the newborn and the dead. I sell the wretched, magnificent city of New York back to its people. I sell newspapers....I'm always runnin' to the place where the bad thing just happened, arriving just after the danger has passed, watching from a safe distance, searching for an angle, that little wrinkle, the kick to the heart that makes you want to put down a dollar and pick up the paper. With three deadlines a week, I'm always lookin' for a good story...I write a column for a daily newspaper. In other words, I'm an endangered species. I used to think my stories could make a difference. Now I just hope they are enough to feed my family. These days, eight million kids have iPhones and post their videos on YouTube like they're actually reporting and commenting on something. Eh. My wife says I sound old.

He was married to loving wife and surgeon Lisa Wren (Jennifer Beals) and had two children, but then became involved in the investigation of the suspicious, unsolved murder of filmmaker Simon Crowley (Campbell Scott). Simon was the husband of widowed blonde Caroline Crowley (Yvonne Strahovski) - the noir's seductive femme fatale who ultimately was discovered to be involved in his mysterious death. Porter's media mogul boss/owner Sebastian Hobbs (Steven Berkoff), a Rupert Murdoch-like villain, was also involved in attempting to keep Simon Crowley's videotapes out of circulation.

She would ultimately wreck his marriage after he engaged in an affair with her. When Porter entered Caroline's apartment to retrieve his phone, he peeped on her showering (and noticed that she was masturbating behind the frosted window-door). Although she was surprised ("You were watching me just now?"), and he was truly embarrassed ("I'm sorry"), she was also encouraging: ("You liked watching me, didn't you?...I was thinking of you...Glad you got a good view"). She invited him to have sex in the hallway when she flashed her bare butt at him and told him: "You know, you were right. Opportunity really only does knock once." They engaged in intercourse standing up, when she was taken from behind.

Porter Wren (Adrien Brody) with Blonde Femme Fatale Caroline Crowley (Yvonne Strahovski)

After having sex with her another time, she asked him about sex with his wife in an intimate and revealing conversation, when he ultimately confessed that he loved Caroline:

Caroline: "Have you been with her since our last time?"
Porter: "Yes, last night."
Caroline: "Did you think of me when you were with her? (Yes) I mean think of me not just 'cause you felt guilty. (Yeah) I mean, you were f--king her, but actually thinking about f--king me. (Yes) Do you look down at your wife when you're f--king her and think, 'I'm going to be with you until I die'?" (Yes)

In the conclusion, Porter drove by Caroline's house and glanced at her from afar - as he delivered the film's final lines about how his marriage had ended:

The ugliness of who I've been and who I am now is strongest when I get to see my wife and children. I never told Lisa the truth, choosing instead to let her imagine the worst of me. I think she decided that whatever was in me now was dark and ugly and better left where it was, as long as it was not near her and the kids. What was I doing here? Maybe because it made me feel safer to know Caroline was far away from me, as if I alone were not responsible for the wreckage to my marriage. Maybe to see her in a new life would bring me some kind of closure. Maybe I'm just feeling stupidly sentimental, like the asshole that I am. As the old reporter told me on my first day, 'It's all one story, kid. It's all one big story.'

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)

Director Jake Szymanski's (his feature film debut) dirty-mouthed, shock-value, disjointed R-rated romantic comedy had the tagline:

"They needed hot dates. They got hot messes."

It was describing the film version of a real life tale of two brothers - Mike and Dave Stangle - who placed a Craigslist ad to find dates for their cousin's wedding in October of 2013 (in Sarasota, NY), and found that they had 6,000 responses.

In this "sort of" adapted tale more outrageous than funny, the two hapless Stangle siblings (both employed as alcohol salesmen) were looking for dates for their younger sister Jeanie’s (Sugar Lyn Beard) wedding to Eric (Sam Richardson) on Oahu in Hawaii:

• Mike Stangle (Adam Devine), crazy and loud, with sublimated rage
• Dave Stangle (Zac Efron), a second-banana brother

A video montage illustrated that they both had a bad reputation for ruining past family weddings (with unexpected fireworks and induced heart attacks among the elderly guests). Their father Burt Stangle (Stephen Root) had issued a stern ultimatum that they must bring "nice, respectable, smart girls" and not ruin the family event.

Two females (both drugged-up, weirdo, burned out party-girl waitresses who pretended to be "nice girls") who answered the Stangle's Craigslist ad for an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii succeeded in convincing the Stangles to choose them:

• Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza), a real sex-crazed 'bad-girl'
• Alice (Anna Kendrick), naive, recently dumped at the altar, supplied with Ecstasy stashed in her bra

(l to r): Mike and Dave Stangle	Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza)	Alice (Anna Kendrick)

The most memorable scenes were:

• The Massage Parlor: injured Jeanie visited a massage parlor for a special "I Am Blissful" massage, paid for by Alice to help Jeanie "let loose"; during the naked rub-down, the Indian male masseuse oiled himself up and announced: "No emotions... Breathe... There is no penetration, only vibration"; she screamed out in delight: "What is happening?"; he used a variety of semi-Kama Sutra poses as he repeatedly bounced on and kneaded Jeanie's posterior, culminating in her explosive orgasm; her 'happy ending' was witnessed by a horrified Mike who happened to enter just at the wrong time and asked: "What are you doing to my sister?"; during the massage, the masseuse had hilarious names for all the positions: The Bent Penguin, The Ham and Eggs, When Moons Collide, The Angry Hummingbird, House by the Airport, Happy Doll, and Taking a Break.
• The Sauna Room: in a sauna, towel-clad Terry (Alice Wetterlund), the guys' bi-sexual, lesbian-leaning cousin, suggested that Tatiana could acquire backstage tickets to a Rihanna concert by touching her, as she hinted: "Steam rooms open up your pores, you know? They just open up everything" as she spread her legs; Tatiana dumbly asked: "Are you sayin' you want me to, uh, get in there for the tickets?" Terry nodded yes while saying "No, no, no"; as Tatiana intimately touched Terry, she asked: "So, are we, like, close, or...? Let's put the washing machine on spin cycle. There we go"; suddenly, Mike barged in and angrily wrestled with Terry, who put him into a headlock next to her left breast: (he gasped: "Oh God, I can see your nipple!")
• The Stable Scene: Jeanie and Alice, both stark-naked, were hallucinating on Ecstasy, and seeing sounds and hearing colors (Alice admitted later that she was "super f--ked up"); when Dave appeared, Alice covered her bare breasts with a pony's mane, then non-chalantly asked: "What's up with you?" She explained to the shocked Dave: "There was a tsunami and it took away our clothes but it brought these horses...We wanted to get naked cuz of Lady Godiva, but then horses can't eat chocolate, they'll - they can have an aneurism"; Jeanie arrived (with an overgrown bushy merkin) and forced Dave to scream and cover his eyes as she asserted: "Hey, don't yell at her just because she's the one that told me to go to Seattle... It is not her fault...What's the matter? Stop yelling. Why are you yelling? David, stop yelling. You're being loud and this is a happy time. This is a really great time. There's nothing's wrong. So who's at fault?" Alice strangely interjected: "Did you know that Hitler's parents were second cousins?" Then, after David ordered: "Put your clothes on," Jeanie retorted: "I'm a woman, Dave. Deal with it. Because this is the bush that you came out of." Dave disagreed: "I didn't come from that bush. I came from Mom's bush. And you know that."

The Neon Demon (2016, US/Denm./Fr.)

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's unusual and visually-colorful horror-thriller with an electronic soundtrack, was advertised with the tagline: "The wicked die young." The vampire-themed shocker was a tale filled with ultra-violent brutality - including murder, necrophilia, rape and cannibalism!

The opening sequence was stunning: a model was lying - possibly dead, on a sofa, covered with blood. It was revealed to not be a murder scene, but a photography set.

It stylishly told the story of an extremely-young 16 year-old aspiring blonde model Jesse (Elle Fanning), a virginal, natural beauty who had come ("with big dreams") to beauty-obsessed Los Angeles to find a fashion career. At first, she was living in a junky Pasadena motel room, managed by creepy Hank (Keanu Reeves).

She met three other females (including two slightly older models) who helped Jesse audition for a talent agency, run by Roberta Hoffman (Christina Hendricks), and introduced her to others at a party:

• Sarah (Australian fashion model Abbey Lee), growing older and threatened with being replaced by younger models
• Gigi (Australian actress Bella Heathcote), very artificial with extensive plastic surgery, including liposuction and lots of facial reconstruction (a "bionic woman") - "Anything worth having hurts a little. Besides, nobody likes the way they look"
• Ruby (Jena Malone), a lesbian make-up artist for models, and for a morgue

Eventually, Jesse's success as a doe-eyed ingenue, and her transformation (and loss of innocence) into narcissistic behavior ("Women carve and stuff, praying that one day they'll look like me") only intensified the jealousy of the other females in her life. One of the key phrases of the film was: "Beauty isn't everything. It's the only thing." Her labeling of herself as "dangerous" was coming true, and she was also becoming endangered by the competitive and hostile LA world of objectified modeling.

In the film's most infamous scene, Ruby touched and kissed a female corpse in the morgue where she worked, after Jesse refused her sexual advances. She imagined that the female corpse was Jesse in order to pleasure herself through masturbation.

The Infamous Morgue Scene: Ruby with Embalmed Female Corpse (Cody Renee Cameron)

Toward the film's conclusion in the large mansion that Ruby was house-sitting, Sarah, Gigi, and Ruby jealously attacked Jesse with knives, and Ruby pushed her into the deep end of an empty swimming pool. Bloodied and lethally injured from the fall, Jesse died from a major head injury. After cannibalizing Jesse, Sarah and Gigi showered together to remove Jesse's blood from their naked bodies, while Ruby bathed in Jesse's blood. They were all revealed to be Elizabeth Báthory-like vampires.

Bloody Shower Scene (l to r): Sarah and Gigi

The next day, Ruby appeared by the pool, topless with tattoos on her upper torso, as she watered flowers with a hose and attempted to wash away blood from the pool. Later, she laid down in Jesse's freshly-dug, unmarked dirt grave, then reclined in the mansion's living room in the moonlight (on her back with her legs spread and her knees bent in front of her), as blood gushed from her genital area and onto the floor. The camera angle was directly in front of her.

During a photo-shoot with photographer Jack McCarther (Desmond Harrington) after Jesse's death, Gigi had to leave the set, experienced painful stomach spasms, and soon vomited up one of Jesse's eyeballs onto the floor. She anguished: "I need to get her out of me", and horrifically stabbed her own stomach with a pair of scissors to cut open her abdomen before dying.

Gigi's Vomit	Gigi's Suicide	Sarah Picking Up Jesse's Eyeball Regurgitated From Gigi's Stomach

Sarah calmly witnessed Gigi's gruesome death, then ate the regurgitated eyeball before the film abruptly ended.

[Note: The scene was obviously a nod to Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's surrealist short film Un Chien Andalou (1929).]

Orpheline (2016, Fr.) (aka Orphan)

Writer/director Arnaud des Pallières' composite thriller-like film was a complex and fractured drama. It was not to be confused with the horror film Orphan (L'Orpheline) (2009).

It told the interlocking, cross-cutting and interconnected stories of four different protagonists who were actually the same individual (but with different names at various stages or time periods). None of the four lead actresses resembled each other, making the film a somewhat disorienting experience:

• Renée (Adèle Haenel), a 27 year-old schoolteacher at a provincial school, interested in becoming pregnant with her boyfriend Darius (Jalil Lespert)
• Sandra (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a flirtatious and loose 20 year old female, who responded to a website personal ad from Lev (Robert Hunger-Buhler) an older gentleman who was a professional horse-race gambler that wanted to adopt a daughter; he helped her find a job as a cashier "shuttle" at the racetrack - an ultimately destructive and tempting position
• Karine Rosinsky (Solène Rigot), a precocious 13 year-old teenager who was abused and beaten by her violent and disapproving father (Nicolas Duvauchelle); she often ran away, and also sought love and affection by having sex with various older men at a nearby nightclub, including Maurice (Sergi López) and François (Olivier Loustau)
• Kiki (Vega Cuzytek), a 6 year-old child who often played hide-and-seek in a scrapyard, and was engaged in a troubling search for two young neighbor playmates who suddenly disappeared

Renée (Adèle Haenel)	Sandra (Adèle Exarchopoulos)
Karine (Solène Rigot)	Kiki (Vega Cuzytek)

In the opening sequence, embittered Tara (Gemma Arterton), wearing a stylish white suit, was released from prison. The ex-con sought out Renée at her school concerning a past deed - to seek compensation. She demanded her share of money (35,000 euros) they stole together 7 years earlier from the racetrack. Tara was arrested by police and served jail time, although Renée (with the money) wasn't suspected. In a later sequence (of an earlier time), Sandra was employed as a racetrack cashier, and was seduced by the very scheming Tara to abscond with the money. Her seduction was accomplished by gifting Sandra with an expensive necklace and lying naked with her, in order to get her to rig the betting system at the racetrack.

Sandra Being Seduced by Tara (Gemma Arterton)

In her apartment with Darius, Renée was arrested by police and taken away to prison, claiming her name was Karine, while Darius stood by confused. In the final scene after the delivery of her baby, Renée was so overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a mother that she left home, but she made a promise: "I'll come back, I promise. And I'll take care of you.".

Personal Shopper (2016, Fr./Germ./Czech.)

Writer/director Olivier Assayas' dramatic, suspenseful, supernatural 'ghost-story' and psychological thriller was headlined by Kristen Stewart as Maureen Cartwright - the title's "personal shopper." A 27 year-old American, she worked in Paris (and also took round-trips to London) - employed by A-list celebrity, German supermodel Kyra (Nora von Waldstatten) - mostly elusive and unseen - to do her shopping, update her computer, stand-in for fashion shoots, and conduct errands.

Her routine as a shopper, to which she took a desultory attitude ("I hate this job actually. I spend my days doing bulls--t that doesn't interest me and it keeps me from what does. It drives me f--kin' crazy"), meant that her job was to try on extremely expensive, elegant dresses (necessitating one sex-free topless scene), and look for handbags, shoes and jewelry in luxury boutiques and ateliers. She communicated with Kyra mostly through notes and text messages, as she motorbiked around Paris in grungy clothes.

She was living a troubled and haunted life in a void -- sad, lonely and mourning the death (off-screen), three months earlier, of her twin brother Lewis (a carpenter) from a heart attack - a congenital defect that could also affect her sometime in the future. Theoretically, it was possible that the stress and extreme grief emotions that she had suffered brought on her own suffering (or at least her ghostly hallucinations), and the entire film was either an afterlife hallucination or a manifestation of her fractured identity!

In the opening scene, she arrived at her brother's now-abandoned country mansion. Her brother's girlfriend Lara (Sigrid Bouaziz) was only interested in exorcising the house of ghosts before selling it. Maureen was "waiting" for some paranormal sign from Lewis, hoping for some indication of his presence that was promised by the first one who died: ("We made this oath. Whoever died first would send the other a sign"). She wandered through the gloomy hallways of the house in the dark, searching. She did find some evidence of a ghostly presence -- an opaque and floating object, unexplained noises, and a large cross scratched on the wall above the staircase. (At one point, an ectoplasm-spewing CGI she ghost-banshee appeared on a chandelier.)

The only communications that the personally-disconnected Maureen had with her own boyfriend, computer programmer Gary (Ty Olwin) working in Oman in the Middle East, was via Skype. She felt somewhat guilty for not being as tuned in to the spiritual world as her brother had been. She was conducting solo-seances, and also receiving and responding to a series of text-messages, some ominous, provocative and frightening, from an anonymous yet intuitive source ("Unknown"), who knew her inner thoughts and feelings. In one prolonged sequence, there was a lengthy back-and-forth exchange of messages. The film asked the metaphorical question: Were these messages only in her head, really from the afterlife, or actually happening - from a stalker or ghost?

At one point, she suspected that the texter was client Kyra's spurned German boyfriend, Ingo (Lars Eidinger). To find answers, she explored the work of Swedish artist/mystic Hilma af Klint, and viewed a TV movie about French author Victor Hugo ("Victor Hugo in Jersey") and his thoughts on spirit communication (by knocking raps on a table).

In one memorable sequence, Maureen spent a night in her employer's house - she drank, heard a Marlene Dietrich song about death on the soundtrack (the Viennese folk lyric The Planing Song), play-acted by impulsively trying on one of Kyra's bondage outfits in her massive closet (something she promised not to do and considered taboo), and while texting, she masturbated herself (non-explicit) before sleep in Kyra's bed. She confessed that she felt "ashamed" to her phantom digital companion, who asked: "Do you want to be someone else?"

In the ambiguous plot, she also became a murder suspect, in a potential frame-up, after the unexpected death of her employer. She found Kyra's bloodied body in a hotel room, followed by a lethal shoot-out between the presumed stalker-killer Ingo and the police.

And the film ended abruptly - with no closure, as Maureen traveled to Oman, where she again encountered an ambiguous ghost-like presence (her brother?) who communicated with simple knocks.

Toni Erdmann (2016, Germ./Austria)

Director/writer Maren Ade's dark, lengthy German-language comedic drama was about the relationship between a father and daughter:

• Ines Conradi (Sandra Hüller), an uptight, high-strung, neurotic, workaholic, joyless consultant daughter, employed as a corporate strategist in Bucharest, Romania
• Winifried Conradi (Peter Simonischek), her aging, free-wheeling prankster divorced father, a rumpled, shaggy-haired music teacher living in Germany

To loosen up his daughter during a visit, Winifried assumed the alter-ego of Toni Erdmann, wearing a tacky cheap suit, wig and fake teeth, and claiming to be a life coach - the premise for the remainder of the cat-and-mouse game between the two of them. She decided to begrudgingly play along with the deception, rather than expose him in front of her friends and co-workers.

The film's most outrageous, cringe-worthy scene was voted the "nude scene of the year" by Vulture.com. The setting for the climactic scene was a catered business birthday brunch that Ines hosted for herself in her own apartment. On a whim, she answered the door naked (after struggling to get into her tight-fitting cocktail dress while the doorbell incessantly rang). Then, she announced that it was mandatory to be naked to attend. The symbolic gesture implied that she had come to the realization that it was futile to keep up the pretense of the life she had made for herself.

The earliest guests refused to strip down and enter, although Ines' devoted, eager-to-please young personal assistant Anca (Ingrid Bisu) did decide to enter naked.

Ines' Personal Assistant Anca (Ingrid Bisu)

Ines' boss Gerald (Thomas Loibl), who refused to enter earlier, returned and joined in being naked, although appeared to be embarrassed and perplexed.

Her father also arrived, wearing a scary monster costume (a shaggy, traditional Bulgarian 'kukeri'). Ultimately, Ines and her father were reconciled together.

The Untamed (2016, Mex.) (aka La Región Salvaje)

Mexican co-writer/director Amat Escalante's odd, bizarre and erotic sci-fi horror film featured a tentacled creature. It was the provocateur director's fourth unusual film - and its allegorical focus was misogyny, homophobia, sexual identity and exploration, and domestic violence.

Deliberately, it paid homage to a similar work years earlier by Polish auteur director Andrzej Zulawski, titled Possession (1981, Fr./W. Ger.), also with an amorphous, wriggling, tentacled creature used for sexual purposes.

In this domestic drama tinged with erotica, the space alien or extra-terrestrial creature, was deposited on Earth by an asteroid that carved out a crater, where wild animals (dogs, ducks, snakes, etc.) were drawn to primally copulate. The creature had giant earthworm-like tentacles that could provide painful (or fatal) wounds or ecstatic blissful pleasure.

The strange lifeform lived in a remote cabin in the countryside tended by an older hippie couple, wife Marta Vega (Bernarda Trueba) and husband-scientist Sr. Verga (Oscar Escalante).

In the opening disorienting sequence in a wooden country shack, an unidentified nude young woman was moaning as she leaned back and pleasured herself with one of the creature's slippery, reddish, flesh-toned tentacles held inside her crotch. After the encounter, she left the foggy, wooded area on her motorcross bike while holding her bloody, wounded right side.

The Opening Scene in a Shack: Veronica (Simone Bucio) with Creature

A parallel story of a destructive love triangle and marital infidelity began in the small Mexican town of Guanajuato. There was conflict in the toxic, dysfunctional marriage of Alejandra or "Ale" (Ruth Ramos), who worked in the sweets factory of her mother-in-law, to her boring, coarse, drunken, sullen and macho husband Angel (Jesús Meza), a civil engineer. Together, they had two young boys. Angel was also engaged in an abusive, secret, hateful and homophobic affair with Alejandra's openly gay brother Fabian (Eden Villavicencio), a sensitive medical nurse.

Fabian befriended lonely, mysterious and emotionally-vacant Veronica (Simone Bucio), whom he met when she entered the emergency room with the strange bloody wound in her side - she claimed it was a dog bite, but it was actually from a sexual mishap with the alien. The plot became more involved when Fabian was introduced by Veronica to the countryside creature - and was later found naked and comatose in a watery ditch after a vicious act of sexual assault. Angel was subsequently arrested for the suspected crime.

Later, sexually-frustrated Alejandra's friendship with Veronica led to her discovery of the creature and the decision to use its services - in an unforgettable sequence. She experienced a sexual tryst with the octopus-like creature, after being left in the barn on a mattress. The alien tentatively approached and slithered closer with, at first, one long phallic-shaped tentacle reaching out. Soon, the alien had completely enveloped and wrapped around her with all of its tentacles - taking her both vaginally and orally.

Later, Ale realized that the creature had put her brother Fabian into a life-threatening coma. Predatory and destructive impulses of the menacing creature ultimately put everyone's life in danger.