It's not quite New Year's Eve here, so unless I become momentarily psychic, I don't have anything to report just yet. The Barbarella report is here as promised. What an astounding movie! Some of my favorite things collided into one movie- utopian free love gibberish, 60's fashion, French auteurs, pop art and cocktail party psychology wrapped up in flying vulvas and other subtle sexual metaphors! Bliss! As if we needed proof that director Roger Vadim was one fucked up homme, this movie proved it in spades. He evidentally got off on filming his girlfriends being sexually tortured. (He wasn't alone..see "From the Journals of Jean Seberg"). Jane Fonda meet Marquis de Sade... One can only ponder the depths of fucked-up-ness in awe at the scene when a bound Barbarella is being attacked by a group of porcelein dolls with snapping steel teeth! The camera positively swoons over the tiny, red gashes that open on her skin with each snap of the dolls steel fangs. Good shit! Can you imagine how upset Henry Fonda was by this movie? Oh, the drama at the next Fonda Family reunion! In a weird way, Jane was incredibly brave to do this in 1968. Sure, the movie was dumb as a box of hammers, but she was only a year removed from "Barefoot in the Park" (put it this way: Neil Simon movies were like Ron Howard movies without the, uh, gritty edge and realism). In a time where showing your butt encased in plastic while holding a futuristic phallic-symbol weapon was revolutionary, Jane was, well, revolutionary in her own coquetteish way. Anyway, see "Barbarella" as soon as humanly possibly! Movie night suggestion: see "Barbarella" and the recent Roman Coppola film CQ and swim in the sixties version of the future!

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Season's, uh, greetings. I am not sure how jolly I feel right now, but my first New Zealand Christmas was quite nice. I can't say that I have ever played volleyball and ate shish kebabs in December before, but that was part of the appeal. The new familia were in good form...very hospitable with none of the usual (at least in my experience) passive-aggressive Guilt Trips From The Fifth Dimension that accompany family holiday gatherings. You know what I'm talking about? I like to think that family is about love, shared history and understanding, but I sometimes think it most efficiently works as an incubator of dumb ass arguments and decades-long resentments. Actually, a little of that family BS *did* come out (hatch?) this Christmas here in NZ, but since it wasn't *my* family it wasn't stressful at all. I must admit that when I noticed a little bitchiness flying between some of the people at the gathering I felt a little exhileration mixed in with the more socially acceptable feelings of embarassment. Maybe it's kind of like the little thrill you get (against your better nature, right?) when you see a car accident on the side of the road. You look for blood and thank god you're not in the middle of it. Er, something like that.
Next time: Barbarella and the New Year's Eve Report..stay tuned!

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