Year: 2010

Sofia Coppola: Not just for girls

Sofia Coppola: Not just for girls

It’s fitting that Sofia Coppola’s new movie is called “Somewhere,” an apt title for a filmmaker whose works are grounded in a sense of place and yet feel as if they’re taking place in their own hermetically sealed world. The same qualities that got “Lost in Translation” lauded for its dreamy atmosphere prompted attacks on “Marie Antoinette” for being cosseted and self-indulgent, which had more to do with critics’ sympathies toward the former’s melancholy May-December romance and their hostility to the feminine frippery of the latter than any profound shift between the two. (Anthony Lane’s New Yorker review of “Marie Antoinette” remains one of the most sexist pieces of criticism I’ve ever read.) A few of the same brickbats have been lobbed at “Somewhere,” but in the main the story of divorced action-movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) bottoming out at the Chateau Marmont has met with a warmer reception, winning the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. As he sleepily watches twin strippers gyrate in his hotel room and cops a fake smile …

Gay porn’s most shocking taboo

Gay porn’s most shocking taboo

Based on their YouTube channel, Elijah and Milo Peters just seem like your average, slightly awkward Czech teenage twins. They enjoy role-playing games and steak. They like frolicking around on the beach in their elaborately patterned underwear and taunting each other while bodybuilding. (“Hey you lazy-ee boy! Put some weight on eet!”) But the Peters twins aren’t quite as innocent as their goofy grins and adorable accents suggest. Over the past few months, they have become two of the most controversial performers to hit the gay porn world in a very long time. That’s because they’re willing to break a taboo that, even in an industry that thrives on extremes, is too extreme for many: twin incest (or, more succinctly, twincest). While the concept of twin performers is not new to the gay porn world, the Peters twins are notable both because of the extent of their popularity and the things they are willing to do with each other on camera. They French kiss; they perform oral sex on each other; they have anal sex; …