The Grindhouse Rules

I saw Grindhouse last night with one of my adventurous friends, who also went with me to see Les Anges Exterminateurs, and I laughed until my face was stained with tears. It was so over the top that I could not help myself. I laughed during Les Anges as well--because of the over the top sex in place of the violence.

Everything is over the top in the movies. At least Grindhouse was supposed to be. Someone was reading New York, the Sex and Love issue which of course I read (the coolest thing I discovered there was X Tube). The article about the rare species aka New York City virgins reminded me of an idea that is being fed to me in every "literary" book I read, and by other writers that the only way New Yorkers know how to connect is by being physical. This idea disturbs me, but as I am laughing my head off about extreme sex and violence in the movies I have seen, I think about a line from Joni Mitchell's song "People's Parties." "Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.”

Maybe those tears on my eyes were for the still that it is so easy in this city for people to feel awkward about sex. I am 32 years old, and I am talking to friends who still cannot have frank conversations about sex. Friends who cannot say fuck--what the fuck is that? In Grindhouse, there were fucks on top of motherfucks, and it was annoying because cursing is like a fine liquor--good in small doses. How can you not be able to say fuck, while fucking other people? Because to me getting to know someone’s body before getting to know that person is fucking. It’s not making love until there is love involved. Call me traditional or whatever. I am disturbed by people who can be so hypocritical. The people, who smirk and grin during gratuitous sex scenes on the screen as if they have never had it, cringe at real emotion and love seeing blood everywhere.

Is trying to connect with people in New York City really such a grindhouse drama?