Blog

Oh! I know this is not the way to run a blog. I’ve gotten caught up in creating a third career and let things go for awhile. Lost in studies, I took a break to go see “Sex in the City 2″ with a girlfriend and it reminded me how much I love the movies and how much they add to my life.

Now, “Sex and the City 2.” Well, yes, it’s disappointing. I heard the director say he wanted to move the setting to somewhere where we didn’t have to be reminded of hard times but I think that is the main mistake of the movie. We just want to see “the girlfriends” getting by in The City and there wasn’t enough City (or Sex for that matter). But I still loved seeing the four girlfriends together and the men in their lives (if not enough of them either). It was also a little bittersweet to see them so much older (how long has it been? 1998?) but I still don’t care. I missed them. So take a girlfriend, go see it and go out for a drink together–it’s all about the girlfriends!

Also enjoyed the June issue of Rolling Stone with Robert Downey Jr on the cover–he can do no wrong in my book.

 Things to put on the radar–someone mentioned the movie The Arrangement to me–has anyone seen it? Am on the look out for more movies for the site. Right now I am working my way through a German movie called “Gloomy Sunday” in English. Not great enough to watch in one sitting but good enough to keep me watching in bits and pieces when I can find the time so that I have backed up on my Netflix queue. Not sensual enough for me but I am in love with the actor/character Joachim Krol–not handsome in the traditional sense but very appealing in his natural sensuality and appreciation for the good things in life. I love when an actor can carry that off!

 I hope to keep up with this from now on. I really need to feel the sensual in my life and movies really do play a part in that for me!

I just watched a Swedish film that was nominated for best foreign film in 2004, “As It Is In Heaven” (”Sa som i himmelen”), that blew me away and reminded me of how powerful a sensual force music can be. The story follows the life of a famous conducter who returns to his small hometown when ill health requires that he take a break from his career. He takes up the task of leading a small church choir and the results are incredible, both for him and the oddball collection of people he teaches. Just beautiful. Sensual overall? In a sense so you may see this as a Reviewer’s Pick in the future but, in the meantime, check it out for yourself (it is available on Netflix) and then listen to your own favorite music and sing along. As they say in the movie, “Find your tone!”

Yes, this year they were a bit “blah” and over-managed but the Oscars are the Oscars. If you love movies and all the fanfare that goes with them then, love them or hate them, you can’t miss the Oscars. For awhile, I couldn’t get ABC and so started a sensual tradition of a simple but wonderful girlfriend getaway that I continue to this day. Oscar night, another movie-loving friend or sister and I rent a room at the Hilton, order up room service and celebrate along with the stars. We start the evening off by catching up on an Oscar nominee that we haven’t seen (this year “Precious”–we try and watch as many as we can before the Big Night), then we watch Barbara Walter’s special (goodbye, Barbara!) and then we order dinner in time for the red carpet. In the morning, we catch up on all the post-Oscar complaints, behind-the-scene stories, and accolades in USA Today while we have breakfast in bed. Then we take the morning to get back on track, working out in the gym, going for a swim and finishing off with the hot tub. It ends up being about $100/person and it is worth every penny. A time to catch up with girlfriends or a favorite sister, a time to splurge and spoil yourself a little while you take a break from the every day, a time to share your love of movies and celebrate the glitz and glamor–but this kind of getaway could be extended to any event or non-event. Take some time for yourself and a friend and enjoy the sensual in your own way. As a friend told me, “This is one of your more fabulous ideas!”

 PS And just a quick note on what was sensual about the Oscars–Lauren Bacall winning a lifetime achievement award–that is one speech they should have spent some time actually airing in entirety–she is Hot!

A girlfriend told me she was planning to buy tickets for the movie theater HD satellite showing of “Carmen” at the MET and take her husband to the show as a secret destination for a date night. They had seen the posters of voluptuous Elina Garanca playing the seductive gypsy and discussed how fun it might be to go. I thought it was a fantastic idea for a sensuous evening to share with a husband or boyfriend.

Earlier in a blog posting, I mentioned a romantic sensual scene between Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney in Out of Site where they have “a moment” in a deserted bar while fat snowflakes fall outside their window and sleepy, jazzy music plays. Today we are up to two feet in a snowstorm and I can’t think of a more sensual setting. If it is going to be cold, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. We braved the roads to drive out to some girlfriends’ house in the country and snuggled in to eat good food drink wine and talk the night away. In the morning, we snowshoed out onto the frozen, snow-buried pond and then came back to put wood on the fire and have warm soup for lunch. A barn owl flew up into the trees weighed down in snow and kept us entranced until it flew off into the dark, snow-heavy woods. What a wonderful time. And if you are lucky enough to be with someone you love and make love late in the night with the room still warm from the fire and the blanket of snow all around your cozy home…well, someone needs to capture that sensual scene in a movie. Let me know if you know of one!

I went to see “It’s Complicated” with Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin tonight. I sat in the back row of the theater with a girlfriend and laughed hysterically. Not a great movie but a lot of fun with some great comic acting on the part of Alec Baldwin. Santa Barbara, California looked oh so beautiful in the opening shots. Meryl Streep was her usual competent self but Alec Baldwin was all too winning as the overweight bad boy husband who you end up adoring anyway. He is definitely not shy about exposing his big belly-ed body which makes him all the more winning. Not a sensual movie but it is always a warmly sensual experience to go to a romantic film with a girlfriend and laugh together at the same things. And, yes, it is nice to see the mom of three who can cook up a storm end up being more attractive than the flat-bellied twenty-something.

There was a little bit of Barefoot Aphrodite reviewer resistance to having to watch an entire series for the web site, the one series that we feature, Pride and Prejudice, but it is hard to exclude such a perfect example (my pick, mind you) of a sensual film for women. We may attempt another series down the line but for now, we will have to make do with some honorable mentions in the blog. My choice would be the entire “Sex and the City” series which I think I have mentioned earlier here–not for the sex and men so much as the “girlfriend” energy between the characters themselves and between them and the audience as you grow to know and love them. Teresa would choose “Nip and Tuck,” the entire series. A newer one that was discovered by Barbara is “Reckless” and here is her opinion:

      I don’t know how many Francescca Annis fans there are out there, but I am one. I first saw her when she was really young in the series Lillie, based on The Prince and the Lily, the story of Edward, the Prince of Wales and his long lasting love affair with Lillie Langtry. The next time I saw Francesca Annis was as an older but still very attractive woman when she played the rather scary mother in the series Wives and Daughters. Later I saw her as a much older woman in the new version of Jane Eyre and a very old woman in Cranston. I was therefore delighted to come upon her again in a wonderful little series called RECKLESS. In this series, Annis is sublime.  She has hit her stride as a woman in her forties who finds herself betrayed by her husband and madly pursued by a much younger man. Annis is absolutely gorgeous in this role. The whole cast is great, and the series well worth watching, but she is definitely the star. She carries the show beautifully.

Let us know if you have your own favorite!