Mar 052009
 

>Slightly delayed by the lingering effect of–and subsequent recovery from– our ever-popular AfterGlow Party, here at long last are the CineKink awards for 2009!

“CineKink Choice” – AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS
CineKink Choice awards, which go to feature-length works in competition during the festival, were determined by audience balloting at the close of each eligible work’s screening. The 2009 award winners are:

CineKink Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature:
The Auteur” (James Westby)

CineKink Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature:
Graphic Sexual Horror” (Barbara Bell & Anna Lorentzon)
-tie-
Kinky” (A. Benjamin)

CineKink Choice Award – Honorable Mentions:
Happy Endings?” (Tara Hurley)
Sex Positive” (Daryl Wein)

“CineKink Best” – JURY AWARD FOR BEST SHORTS
CineKink Best awards, which go to short works in competition during the festival, were determined by jury deliberation and ranking. The 2009 award winners are:

CineKink Best Narrative Short
Kink, Inc.” (Casey Clark)
-tie-
Matinee” (Jennifer Lyon Bell)

CineKink Best Documentary Short:
Serving Madame Gina” (Gabriele Hoff, PsyD)

CineKink Best Experimental Short:
Erotic Moments” (Eva Midgley)
-tie-
Un Piede di Roman Polanski” (Lauren Wissot & Rosanne Kapitoa)

CineKink Best Animated Short:
Teat Beat of Sex: 8-11” (Signe Baumane)

CineKink Best Musical Short:
At the Porno Shop” (Michael Mehfield)

CineKink Honorable Best Mentions:
BDSM: It’s Not What You Think” (Erin Palmquist)
Belle de Nature” (Maria Beatty)
Rubberheart” (Brian Crano)

This year’s jury included Steven Speliotis, a photographer and CineKink alumni director, Viviane, ring-leader of the sex blog, “Viviane’s Sex Carnival, and Bill Woods, a film festival programmer and curator of the New Filmmakers series at Anthology Film Archives.

“CineKink Tribute” – FESTIVAL AWARD FOR EXTRAORDINARY DEPICTION OF KINK & SEX IN MAINSTREAM FILM & TELEVISION
Recognizing extraordinary depiction of kink and sex in mainstream film and television, the annual CineKink Tribute was presented to two works this year:

Swingtown” (CBS)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (CBS)

Honorable Mentions (aka the CineKink Nod)
Burn After Reading” (Focus Features)
How I Met Your Mother” (CBS)

Many thanks and congratulations to this year’s CineKink award winners – and to all of our ultra-talented filmmakers!

For more details on all of the award winning works…

Oct 102008
 

>Mazel tov to one of our favorite CineKinksters, Lolita Wolf, for her prize-winning suggestion in Violet Blue‘s recent competition to determine the best sex-related ad campaign. Lolita’s entry, last year’s “Dominate Winter” interactive campaign for the Cooper Mini, which featured a cat-suit clad dominatrix encouraging the user to put the car through its paces.

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Violet’s criteria for the competition were pretty inclusive – by “sex-related I mean just downright sexy and hot, or incredibly clever, controversial, or just plain fun” – and a slew of tasty examples can be found in both the comments to that post and in her follow-up announcing the winners. (Both of which we’ve bookmarked and will be pillaging far into the future.)

And this week, Violet moves on to the question of whether sex can actually sell a product, bringing in AdRant‘s Scott Hall to ruminate with her on how much of it’s a help and how much of it is just hype and sizzle.

Well, we’re not sure how many Aspvik units it helped move. And we’re way late for Violet’s deadline. But for our money, our all-time favorite sex-related – and sex-positive! – ad continues to be Ikea’s Neighbors.

Scratch that. We totally want an Aspvik, now!

Sep 032008
 

>Last night as we settled in to watch the Republic National Convention–nothing wrong with a little bi-partisan masochism!–we thought back to a favorite, short video that was once making the rounds.

For a presidential ticket dedicated to rolling back Roe v. Wade and a party that’s built abstinence-only education into its national platform, we can think of no better tribute than this semi-vintage gem, Future:

From the folks at the now-defunt TechnicalVirgin.com, who also brought us the similarly-themed Boys Can Wait, the video had a recent round of notoriety when the the actress was sacked from her hosting gig on a PBS children’s show because of her involvement in it.

Family values all around!

Aug 012008
 

>It’s summertime and – much to our delight! – they definitely seem to have sex on the brain over at SPOUTBlog!

Just today, there’s a round-up of The 10 Best Masturbation Scenes that will first have you questioning if there’s even that many. Then have you rushing to comment on your favorite glaringly obvious omission. (Um, hello. Secretary?!?)

Beyond that, we’ve been horribly remiss in mentioning the blog’s weekly posts by our provocative friend, Lauren Wissot, who began writing regularly for Spout back in June: “We wanted to call her column ‘Art Films To Jerk Off To,’ but in the end that might be too limiting––after all, who’s to say what qualifies as art?”

Since then, Lauren’s missives on the libidinous in indie and mainstream cinema have touched upon such natural candidates as David Lynch, the S/M classic Maitresse and the Five Unsexiest Movies About Sex: The Breillat Awards(!!). And they’ve incorporated some unlikely subjects as well, from the consideration of Charlie Chaplin as sexy rogue to the BDSM underpinnings of Hitchcock’s Marnie:

She was “always pulling her skirt down over her knees as if there were a national treasure,” Marnie’s lecherous employer-turned-victim Mr. Strutt mutters at the beginning of Hitch’s classic, introducing us to Hedren’s character as a trobbing cock-tease – who, of course, needs to be punished like the naughty little girl she really is deep down inside. Enter Connery’s controlling Master Rutland, immaculately dressed in suit and tie (I love a man in a uniform!), a big bad wolf smile on his face as he eavesdrops on Strutt’s report to the police. Is there any doubt that this is the perfect square-jawed, hairy-chest daddy for the B&D job?

We imagine she does – but we can’t wait to see if Lauren shares our take on The Sound of Music!

May 132008
 

>A sprawling, four-part documentary, Sex: The Revolution, takes on just that when it airs on VH1 this week.

We missed the first episode ourselves, but as with all things VH1, repeats are a-plenty and there’s still time to set your dvr! Or, if you’re feeling a little more highbrow, catch the encores when they’re broadcast on the Sundance Channel next week.

Starting with the sexual repression of the 1950s and moving into the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, the series promises to “… explore a time in American history that challenged centuries of traditional morality about sex. A time that eradicated people’s fear, loathing and ignorance about sex. A time that promoted unprecedented sexual honesty and expression. And in the end, a time when laws were changed and rulings made to end censorship and legal retribution for people’s private sexual behavior.”

How much of a back-sliding we’ve experienced since then we’ll try not to contemplate. And turn our attention instead to this clip from the series about Barbarella and the sexual trends that the movie exemplified:


video.vh1.com