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I watched “Away We Go” the other night. It was pay-per-view and my husband and I were looking for something we could both enjoy that was not too serious but not too fluffy either and a friend had recommended it. A perfect choice. It was very funny but it also had some very touching moments and a glowy, feel-good ending.

Something I keep coming back to in my mind is the lead actress, Maya Rudolph, who I know mostly from Saturday Night Live. I can’t watch a film without asking myself if it qualifies as a sensual movie for women and should be selected for the Barefoot Aphrodite site. While this movie had it’s moments (it’s loving one or two shot summaries of the beauty of each place the couple visited, the love between the main couple, the dance of pain by the wife who has miscarried five times), it didn’t have enough depth for me to feel that it was really sensual overall. But something about Maya Rudolph’s eyes and her strength of character really connected with me. She was beautiful in a very natural way but also very beautiful in spirit in the way she loved her husband, sat by a child’s bed and sang her to sleep, let herself be held by her sister and moved to tears by memories of her parents. I could really feel her internal struggle throughout the whole film to figure out how to bring a baby into the world and how to find a place where she and her family would fit in. She really was quite lovely.

Another surprise sensual woman (for me anyway) that comes to mind as I write this is Jennifer Lopez. She shows up in two Barefoot Aphrodite picks: Out of Sight and Shall We Dance. Julia Child is not on the site but she would quaify for sure. Maude in Harold and Maude, Holly Hunter in The Piano…Actually, maybe it should not be a surprise after all. A woman who is who she is with no apologies…that’s sensual.

Yesterday, our nieghbors had a dessert party and I spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen baking an Apple-Cider Caramel Cake while listening to Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams. It was a rainy gray fall day outside and it was all cosy in the kitchen with the smell of hot cider and the warm kitchen light. In the context of this site, it reminds me of how sensual it is for women to be in the kitchen cooking but how even more sensual it is to meet a man who is comfortable in the kitchen as well. I remember a young French student impeccably dressed flinging pans around in the kitchen with ease at a school party and how sexy that was. In movies, I can think of many examples of men who are at ease and sensually present in the kitchen or with food. Imagine the the gnocchi rolling scene with Andy Garcia and Sofia Coppola in Godfather III or the blindfolded taste test scene in Mostly Martha where the character of Mario feeds a blindfolded Martha soup. Those are just two that immediately come to mind and I am sure there are many more. Any suggestions of other sensual food scenes with men in the kitchen?

Just a plug for Gail Sheehy’s book “Sex and the Seasoned Woman” in the context of Harold and Maude. Sheehy doesn’t mention this film but Maude could certainly serve as the mascot for all the women in her book as well as the movie reviewers on our site. Speaking of age, it’s interesting that the selection of Harold and Maude as a Barefoot Aphrodite sensual film for women was made by our youngest reviewer!

Well, I have to say, I was slightly disappointed in “Bright Star.” High expectations are often a problem when you go to see a film. The preview for Bright Star was breathtaking and, remember, Jane Campion’s The Piano is the number one sensual film for women on the Barefoot Aphrodite web site according to our reviewers. 

Bright Star is exceptionally beautiful in its images from beginning to end. The actors are all superb from the starring roles down to the cat, Topper. The poetry (especially the one read by Ben Whishaw–who plays John Keats–over the credits at the end) makes you want to run home, turn off all the noise and have someone read to you. But, honestly, I did not feel the passion between Fanny and John Keats. Part of me wonders if the director meant it to feel that way, if she wanted to portray them as poets in love with the torture of being in love rather than the banal reality (such as is played out by the scullery maid and John Keat’s friend, Charles Brown–played by a very sensual Paul Schneider) but I doubt it. And some might say that audiences are too used to the physicality of modern romance to be satisfied with the “chaste” version in this film but I don’t think that is the case either. After all, the “hole in the stocking” caress in The Piano is just as sensual as any blatantly sexual scene in something like Sex and Lucia. In my mind, the stunning young actors and the director just aren’t successful in portraying the sizzling chemistry and sensuality of forbidden attraction. A perfect example of what could have been can be found in the film version of Pride and Prejudice (A&E, 1995). What crackles between Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle without even a stolen kiss is what is missing from Bright Star.

All that said, go see it. It’s beautiful and the poetry of word and images will sweep you away. And then go home and have some poetry read to you…

Tonight I am going to see Bright Star with two girlfriends–I hope it is as good/sensual as I expect it to be!

When I first began this site, I thought the target age group would be about 30 to 65. When I mentioned this in a business workshop, all the women over 60 and under 30 wanted to know why they weren’t included. My thought was that with age came a certain comfort with sensuality and a certain knowledge of what satisfies the self rather than a constant need for affirmation from men and a constant effort to please the male sex at the expense of one’s own pleasures. While age may bring about a certain seasoning, the reaction to my attempt to qualify the need for a sensual source made it obvious that women of any age are open to the search for what can make their world more sensual and sexual.

But there is a certain seasoning that comes with age that definitely can contribute to sensuality. Yesterday I was searching for a quote to begin a new feature on the site called “Sensual Words of the Day.” I was definitely drawn to the films with older characters when I started looking for quotes and, sure enough, I was rewarded with one from one of the oldest sensual characters on our site. Maude, from Harold and Maude, a ripe 79. The quote? Well, I’m tempted to ask you to check back when the new feature is live but here it is:

“A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.”
 

It sounds like the new Keats movie and the new Coco movie may be a Barefoot Aphrodite sensual movie double feature for the fall. Here is a bit about the Coco movie from The New York Times movie review:

…an unusually vivid and convincing account of the historical past, composed in the present tense. Though its mood and methods are different, “Coco Before Chanel” shares with Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” — another new anti-biopic — a fascination, at once intense and dispassionate, with the lives of women in earlier centuries. Coco and Fanny Brawne, the heroine of Ms. Campion’s film, are not victims of oppression or paragons of resistance but rather individuals, made not of ideology or wishful thinking but of flesh and blood. And clothes of course. Both Fanny and Coco start out as seamstresses with an eye for novelty and a keen aesthetic sense. Coco disdains corsets, sometimes dresses in men’s garments, and adapts simple hats and fisherman’s shirts to marvelously chic effect. The blossoming of her ambition, as much as her love life, drives the story forward, and turns “Coco Before Chanel” into a costume drama worthy of the name. “Coco Before Chanel” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has sexual situations and a lot of cigarettes. No nudity, though, which would be a distraction from all those lovely clothes.   

In August, one of our Barefoot Aphrodites thought it would be fun to have a sensual movie club meeting to celebrate her birthday. The chosen film was “The Painted Veil” and we each brought a Chinese potluck dish supplemented by Chinese takeout. We met at a friends house out in the country and took time to stroll through her beautiful, playful gardens before the movie. After eating and opening presents, it turned out we didn’t have time to watch our full length feature so we watched an odd little 40s film instead, “I Know Where I’m Going.”

 I grew up watching old black and white films with my family and have very sentimental feelings about them. There is something very pure and straight forward about them and, yes, sensual. This film ended with the romantic but star-crossed couple about to part and just as the woman is to go off and get married, she says to the romantic lead, “Would you do one thing for me? Would you kiss me?” You have to love that for a romantic ending.

We haven’t looked at many black and white films for sensuality. For me, a lot of the sensual is in colors that create the mood. But some films actually use black and white to create a sensual mood such as “Terra Estrangeira.” The oldest film in our sensual movies for women archive was made in 1960–it might be worth going back to the 30s and 40s in search of the sensual…

A site visitor to Barefoot Aphrodite wrote asking if I knew the location of the swimming hole in Walk on the Moon where the Viggo Mortensen and Diane Lane characters have their illicit naked swim together. Even though it is rated as the “best swimming hole scene in a movie” on Swimmingholes.info , the actual location of the swimming hole was hard to find. As the movie was shot on location in Arundel, Quebec, Canada, I’m assuming that is where the swimming hole scene was shot. Tracking down the movie location made me think of some of the deliciously sensual locales of many of the movies on our list and how much fun it would be to track them down as well. With vacation time behind us in my neck of the woods and the colder months ahead, wouldn’t it be fun to plan a sensual getaway to some faraway place that was the location of one of our favorite sensual films for women??? More to come…

It’s a given that a movie about two women who love food would be sensual but what a surprise to find out how sassy, sexy and sensual Julia Child was. There was never any doubt that she loved food but she also has an incredible fun and loving relationship with her husband, Paul Child. From their first meal in France together (which Julia Child describes in her book “My Life in France:” “Paul and I floated out the door into the brilliant sunshine and cool air. Our first lunch together in France had been absolute perfection. It was the most exciting meal of my life.”) to their romantic but fun-loving valentine cards to friends to their love and support of each other in hard times, this is a truly sensual relationship between a man and woman. While Julie Powell’s husband, Eric (played by Chris Messina), is very sweet and appealing, their relationship is no match for the depth, wisdom and love expressed in that of the Child’s. It makes you wish someone would make a movie called “Paul & Julia!”