Thursday, April 10, 2008

SEX AND DEATH 101 by jaiskizzy

the gist: an engaged dude's smooth life goes bumpy (or perfect, depending on perspective) when he receives an email containing a list of names of the women he'd had sex with in the past. but the list does not end with the name of his fiancee. there's even more names below it and soon he realizes that the rest are the ones he will screw in the future. how cool is that? of course, he does what any real man would do: call off the wedding and follow the list. meanwhile, a mysterious woman dubbed "death knell", played exquisitely by winona ryder (where have you been?), is going around town "killing" guys who have committed sex crimes. and so i ask, will this femme fatale and that fortuned fornicator find each other? but more importantly, where can i get my list?! come on!

the reaction: do you guys know the death clock? you know, the website where you do some inputs and it tells you the exact day you would supposedly die? if it's true, then mine's soon. it's still years away, but still pretty close. i oughta be doing some out of the country travels by now. anyways, i guess that's what the message of this movie is. what would you do with such knowledge? is it a gift or a curse? that polarity is well played in 101 as in one point, our horny hero has surrendered to his fate of fucking and then in another, buries the list in the ground to take back control of his life. and then there's the part where he's not through with the list, but he meets the woman he considers "the one". behind all of this is the oracle, the machine that sent the email, and the three men who run it, alpha, beta and fred. the oracle probably represents god who has given out predefined lives and the trio is the main character's conscience, although fred's the only one excited about what the list simply is for: sex with a lot of women. well, that's how i see it.

hmm. speaking of seeing, did you see good luck chuck? man, that movie sucked shitballs. despite having slightly similar premises (guy does a lot of girls), 101 beats chuck by acres. the only things good about chuck were jessica alba and the ridiculous amount of women that bared their bodies and bounced uglies with that lucky bastard dane cook. 101 doesnt have both. yes, there's some nudity but in a quantity too modest for a sex-oriented film. nice-assed natassia malthe covered her chest. there's even clothed sex. i guess the budget didnt suffice for more undressing. so cheers for sophie monk and the rest of the uninhibited ingenues for displaying the goods for the sake of perversion.

of course, 101 won't stand erect and mighty if not for the exceptional efforts of simon baker as the libidinous leading/ladies man. dont know who he is but when i watched the movie he kinda seemed familiar. after a quick trip to imdb, i found out that he was the guy in scorsese's hitchcock homage, the key to reserva. comparing the two entirely unalike roles, this dude's pretty good. and what about the actress named winona? she's terrific as death knell. she's hot and weird and silly and cute all at the same time. ive never seen her with so much cleavage. she really needs to resurface into mainstream and bring that with her. anyways, the one remember most in the movie is the guy who played fred. he's got great lines. he's like the guy at work or in school who always says something funny to break the tension and you're left with wishing you had said it. which is why i wonder how he landed that oracle job.

still cant point a phalange on what genre this film belongs. drama? nah. rom-com? probably. feel-good? yes. dark comedy? definitely. whatever, man. watching this is like hooking up with a nice girl you barely know, talking with her about the physics of life and then having slow, passionate sex afterwards. she may not be the best girl around but you sure had a great time with her.

the good: the story/script and the t&a.
the bad: the killjoys.
the ugly: the real cynthia rose.
the verdict: 7 names of women im gonna have sex with.


the one-winged angel of death (and sex).

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