All Good Things (2010)

With a dark-toned, lurid story drawn from real-life, first-time feature film director Andrew Jarecki told a docu-drama tale of the "perfect love story" until it became the "perfect crime." The crime drama was based upon the actual case of troubled New York real estate mogul Robert "Bobby" Durst, dubbed "The Millionaire Murderer," who was suspected of murdering his wife Kathleen McCormick - she had disappeared in 1982 from their Westchester home.

The two main characters were:

• David Marks (Ryan Gosling), the Durst character
• Katie McCarthy (Kirsten Dunst), pert, middle-class blonde

The two met in 1971 when she was a tenant in an apartment dwelling owned by his father Sanford Marks (Frank Langella).

The young married couple ran a health-food store in Vermont (named "All Good Things") during happier times of their marriage, but then returned to NY where cocaine and increasing anti-social and bizarre behavior by pot-addicted, reluctant heir David led to abuse, the couple's disintegrating demise, and a trail of crime scenes.

[In the midst of the film, Kirsten Dunst performed her first topless film scene, a shower scene, with Ryan Gosling.]

The film was told in a narrated flashback, as Marks (in 2003) recited his autobiography from a trial courtroom in Galveston, Texas. He was known to experience sudden rages of anger, due in part to childhood trauma when he watched his mother commit suicide.

All That I Love (2010, Pol.) (aka Wszystko Co Kocham)

Director/writer Jacek Borcuch's coming-of-age dramatic tale was set in Poland in the early 1980s, during the Solidarity era of social turmoil and Communist martial law. The film was Poland’s unselected entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

The main two teenaged characters were:

• Janek (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz), a rebellious, yet bashful 17 year-old lead punk rock band singer in a band named 'All That I Love'
• Basia Martyniak (Olga Frycz), daughter of a political activist (Grzegorz Gzyl) who supported Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement

After having fairly-explicit sexual intercourse at the beach, they both languidly laid there topless, before he strode off.

Janek's father (Andrzej Chyra) was a Polish naval officer. Problems ensued between the two of them when Basia's father was arrested by military officials as an anti-Socialist, and she blamed Janek's father.

The American (2010)

In director Anton Corbijn's slow-moving yet taut, stylistic espionage crime thriller/drama (more an existential retro-Euro arthouse film with only three action sequences), George Clooney starred as wary and brooding hired American assassin Jack/Edward. He was hiding out in a rustic, mountainside area called Abruzzo in Italy after a brutal assignment in snowy Sweden required him to kill (with a shot to the back of the head) his innocent, post-coital Swede companion Ingrid (Irina Bjorklund).

In the town of Castel del Monte, where he posed as a photographer and read butterfly guide-manuals, the laconic arms expert's next and "last job" for his ominous boss Pavel (Johan Leysen) was to construct a custom-made, untraceable high-speed rifle (to the sounds of the Madame Butterfly opera) for lethal female Belgian assassin/blonde beauty Mathilde (Thekla Reuten).

He hesitantly engaged in a relationship with often-nude, voluptuous 'heart-of-gold' prostitute Clara (Violante Placido in her first English-language role), although he was cautioned to not make friends with anyone. Paying for her services, he offered her oral sex (off-screen) before they had sex, and she went skinny-dipping (in transparent panties) while picnicking - when he wrongly suspected that she was working with pursuing gunmen.

The American (George Clooney) with Clara

An expert also on endangered or extinct butterflies (totemically like himself), Jack possessed a butterfly tattoo in the center of his back, and was referred to by two women as "Mr. Butterfly" (Mr. Farfalle) - one of the film's recurring symbols.

With a screenplay adapted by Rowan Joffe from Martin Booth's novel "A Very Private Gentlemen," the stately and meditative film ended with a predictable plot-twist: he had been set up when the Belgian Mathilde attempted to kill him with the gun, but because he had sabotaged and modified it at the last minute, it blew up in her face and killed her instead. Before expiring, she confessed that Pavel had wanted him dead.

Lethally wounded in the abdomen during a final deadly gunfight with Pavel, he sought to rendezvous at the picnic spot with Clara and run off with her - she had earlier asked: "Take me with you." As he arrived, he collapsed over the steering wheel and died, as a white butterfly took flight.

Black Swan (2010)

Darren Aronofsky's great psychological thriller portrayed damaged, fragile, severely repressed and sadomasochistic ballerina dancer Nina Sayers (Best Actress Oscar-winning Natalie Portman). She was competing for the role of the Swan Queen in an upcoming NYC Lincoln Center performance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. The former prima ballerina and director's lover, Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder), was forced out to be replaced with someone younger, after auditions.

As she underwent a mental breakdown, Nina suffered at the hands of her smothering, infantilizing, overbearing and resentful stage mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), and found herself a rival of free-spirited, sexually-confident, tattooed, sexy SF dancer Lily (Mila Kunis), her understudy.

The film teetered on the edge of sexy melodrama, especially blurring the lines between reality and hallucination. Her domineering, lecherous and sleazy ballet director Thomas (pronounced 'Tomah') Leroy (Vincent Cassel) seduced the virginal Nina (and kissed her although received a bloody lip bite in return). An intoxicated and psychotic Beth suspected that Nina was chosen by Thomas after assenting to sex with him when she asked: "What'd you do to get this role? Huh? He always said you were such a frigid little girl? What did you do to make him change his mind? Did you suck his cock?" Nina quipped back: "Not all of us have to." Beth yelled out: "You f--king whore! You're a f--king little whore!" At his apartment, Thomas asked if Nina was a virgin, and if she enjoyed making love ("Sex, do you enjoy it?"). He then encouraged her, as a "little homework assignment," to free herself for the role of the dark Black Swan by sexually touching herself at home ("Go home and touch yourself. Live a little").

The troubled dancer went ahead with a masturbatory session in solo, although was startled to see her mother sleeping nearby as she finished. To loosen her up for the part, Thomas also danced with Nina - including kissing her again, touching her breasts and crotch through her clothes to arouse her, but then stopped, counseling: "That was me seducing you when it needs to be the other way around." To spite her mother, Nina went out on the town with the sensual Lily.

At dinner, Lily predicted that it would only be a matter of time before the ballet director would be calling Nina his "little princess" - as he did with Beth. She then advised: "You just gotta let him lick your pussy." Afterwards, they experienced an ecstasy drug-filled, illusory bisexual night ("lezzie wet dream") together, including sexy dancing, ending with Nina receiving girl-on-girl oral sex in her bedroom, although it was unclear whether it had occurred or not.

Nina's "Lezzie Wet Dream" - Sex with Rival Dancer Lily (Mila Kunis)

In one of her delusional hallucinations, Nina imagined Lily backstage making out with Thomas (who transformed into a costumed swan figure).

In her climactic delusional performance as the Black Swan (which she morphed into), Nina took self-destruction to the limit, stabbing herself in the abdomen with a mirror shard (although she imagined herself murdering Lily in a blood-soaked gory scene in her dressing room), and dying in the swan song finale as the White Swan. As she was congratulated and received thunderous applause, she admitted that she had found ultimate freedom - she had attained her tormenting goal of being perfect, as she affirmed in the film's final line to Thomas: "It was perfect."

Blue Valentine (2010)

A working-class marriage was the major subject of writer/director Derek Cianfrance's downbeat, indie romantic drama. It first premiered at Sundance, and was a hit at the Cannes Film Festival.

The story was about a couple in rural eastern Pennsylvania with 5-year-old daughter Frankie (Faith Wladyka), a daddy's girl. [Note: Frankie was actually fathered by her mother's past high-school boyfriend Bobby Ontario (Mike Vogel), when they had rear-entry sex and the condom broke.]

In a series of cross-cutting, non-linear scenes set over a six year period, the emotionally-authentic film told of the highs and lows in the troubled, whirlwind relationship and disintegrating marriage between the two struggling spouses:

• Cindy Heller (Michelle Williams), a medical assistant working in a clinic
• Dean Pereira (Ryan Gosling), a charming blue-collar worker/slacker who was part-time employed as a house painter

Their initial courtship was very loving, although stresses and strains began to develop in their marriage, including the issue of Frankie's conception, Dean's lack of ambition and frequent drinking, their caring for elderly relative Jerry (John Doman), and the death of their family dog Megan (blamed on Cindy's negligence) To reconcile with a romantic getaway, they visited the blue-lit "Future Room" (with a rotating bed) in a couples-oriented themed pleasure hotel in the Poconos, but the night turned out to be a disaster. After showering naked together, she rejected Dean's efforts to make love, role-play rape, and his request to make a baby.

The next morning at Cindy's place of work (where she had just learned of her boss Dr. Feinberg's (Ben Shenkman) salacious interest in her in exchange for a job advancement), Dean barged in. The destructive encounter began with a heated argument with Cindy that led to Dean's physical assault on Dr. Feinberg, and Cindy's firing from her job. Plans were immediately made for a divorce and a final split between the two, although the fate of their marriage was left ambiguous.

It was originally given an undeserving rating of NC-17, allegedly for an early, questionable scene involving "explicit sexual content" - namely, cunnilingus and female gratification. In fact, all of the frankly-depicted sex scenes between the two stars were non-explicit, discreetly shot, and non-gratuitous. However, one other intense and honestly-depicted sex scene brought up the issue of marital rape - a more likely candidate for the MPAA's uneasiness.

When the MPAA rating was appealed by Harvey Weinstein (of the Weinstein Company), his side argued that the ratings association was following a double standard. There were similar scenes in R-rated films such as A History of Violence (2005), Black Swan (2010) and Basic Instinct (1992). The controversial threat of an NC-17 rating was ultimately dropped or rescinded by the MPAA without a single cut required, bringing the film much needed notoriety, extra publicity, and an Oscar nomination for Michelle Williams.

To possibly spite the MPAA, Weinstein then released a provocative poster to advertise the sexually-frank film, highlighting a steamy outdoor embrace between the two leads. When the DVD was released and advertised as "Uncut and Uncensored," it was actually unchanged from the theatrical version.

Elena Undone (2010)

Writer/director Nicole Conn's romantic lesbian drama told of an unfolding relationship between two female Los Angeles soulmates:

• Elena (Necar Zadegan), an unhappily-married pastor's shy Indian wife
• Peyton Lombard (Traci Dinwiddie), an agoraphobic, self-help lesbian writer who was grieving the recent loss of her mother

In one of their early awkward conversations, Peyton revealed that she was lesbian to the "straight" Elena, who immediately confessed that she had voted "the right way" on Proposition 8 in California. Soon, they were working together professionally, with Elena becoming Peyton's photographer.

Longest Lesbian Kiss

In the film's most tauted scene (and possibly the longest lesbian kissing scene ever, but not the longest kiss ever), they engaged in a very lengthy 3.5 minute kiss, beginning at the front door. The camera circled around them as they continued kissing into the living room, and then onto the sofa, in the semi-indulgent passionate moment. The kiss involved lipsmacking, sucking, licking, and culminated with additional body grinding as Peyton laid atop Elena on the couch.

Ultimately, Elena proposed: "Make love to me, Peyton," and they became intimate with each other in a number of make-out scenes involving oral sex (Peyton confessed: "Everything's so different with you"), but their forbidden love was subject to controversy and conflict, predictably, under difficult circumstances.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Although rude, raunchy and crude with a few gross-out moments, and a hybrid rip-off of The Hangover (2009) with a Back to the Future time-travel twist, this "high-concept" comedy starred John Cusack, and other familiar actors such as Crispin Glover (Marty McFly's dad in BTTF) as surly one-armed bellhop Phil, and Chevy Chase as a hot-tub repair man.

It told about a trio of burnt-out middle-aged high-school buddies experiencing bad luck and depression who took off for a nostalgic, male-bonding weekend at the Kodiak Valley Ski Resort, a place they had spent debauched days many years earlier. It contained gross dialogue, as evidenced early by bald, angry foul-mouthed misogynist Lou (Rob Corddry) ordering three prostitutes by phone (at $1,000 each) once they arrived:

"Yes, uh, I would like to get a hooker to f--k for me and my friends...Whatever, semantics. I want an escort to escort our penises into her vagina."

They spent a night of carousing and dipping in a hot tub (toasting "to the good times" and spilling illegal Russian soda on the machinery), and afterwards ("What the hell happened last night?"), the three found themselves in the year 1986 during a Winterfest '86 celebration. They discovered they had gone back in time when they looked at their images in a mirror, and asked themselves: "Why are we in our young bodies...?" They were surprised that a tag-along fourth member - Adam's (John Cusack) nerdy nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), was the same age as before (he didn't even exist in 1986!).

Jacob stressed that they must avoid the "butterfly effect" (he was stressed that his own conception would be imperiled) and Adam speculated: "If we're gonna beat this thing, we've got to do exactly what we did 20 years ago." Obviously, the most pressing question was whether they should (or would) alter the future and space-time continuum by their actions.

Faithful to his wife and feeling guilty about cheating, African-American Nick (Craig Robinson) wept while treated to a Jacuzzi with nude Jessica Paré (as Tara), while Adam was required to break up with his then "great white buffalo" teen girlfriend Jenny Steadmeyer (Lyndsy Fonseca), knowing she would stab him with a plastic fork. Crystal Lowe (as Zoe) appeared topless, and Lou went on to fathering future Jacob with Adam's sister, among other ugly sex scenes (including a high-stakes bet involving oral sex).

Kaboom (2010)

A bad boy of New Queer Cinema, writer/director Gregg Araki premiered Kaboom (2010) at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the first-ever Queen Palm award.

This unusual, fantasy-driven (Zen-like), garish film was a wild and sex-drenched science-fiction horror-sex comedy thriller, with a number of extended sexual interludes. The occult mystery told about ambisexual, dazed 18-year-old college freshman Smith (Thomas Dekker), who was attending the "College of Creative Arts" in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town, and majoring in cinema-studies. He mostly spent his time with his long-time best friend, arty, cool and bitchy-sarcastic lesbian Stella (Haley Bennett). Smith lusted after his hunky, often-naked surfer roommate Thor (Chris Zylka), who was allegedly straight, but was seen trying to suck his own penis ("He likes having his sword swallowed. Not exactly a revelation").

[Later, his sexual orientation was questioned by London: "Aside from putting a dick in your mouth while listening to Lady Gaga, that's about as gay as it gets."]

Smith went to a campus party accompanied by Stella, and consumed a life-changing, hallucinogenic magic cookie (transforming his reality, similar to what happened to Alice in Alice in Wonderland). Stella hooked up with a "hot girl" from her Emotion Painting class named Lorelei (Roxane Mesquida) (named after the "legendary siren luring helpless sailors to their doom," and later revealed to be a sexually-ravenous rogue witch). After orgasming, Stella told nymphomaniacal Lorelei: "If I come any more tonight, my cooch is gonna break." Ultimately, Lorelei took supernatural revenge upon Stella after being jilted, and was melted down (paying homage to the demise of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939)).

In the meantime, a mysteriously-enigmatic Red-Haired Girl (Nicole LaLiberte) vomited on Smith's shoe at the party, and he was picked up in a toilet by free-spirited honey-blonde haired British student London (Juno Temple). She bluntly asked to have sex with him, and they continued to meet for casual sexual relations. During one encounter, she offered him advice on cunnilingus: "Pay attention to how she's reacting: it's about finding a rhythm she likes and sticking to it until the job is done."

Smith was experiencing a haunting series of nightly dreams (the "same f--king bizarre dream") featuring the Red-Haired Girl, who led him down a corridor to a red dumpster behind a black door:

It's always the same dream. I'm wandering - naked, in this strange maze of hallways, and I feel this creeping sense of impending doom, like something terrible is about to happen. I pass my roommate, my Mom, my best friend Stella. Basically every significant person in my life. And they're all just staring at me like I'm some kind of museum display behind glass. And then I see two people I have never met before: a mysterious, unearthly, beautiful woman, and this red haired girl. And they both seem to be leading me deeper into the corridor. This is when I notice the black door. And I'm not sure why, but some how I know that I've got to find out what's behind it. So I grab hold of the knob, open the door and discover...A dumpster.

Smith was convinced that the Red-Haired Girl was abducted, gruesomely murdered and beheaded after being chased by college boys wearing animal masks. A monstrous conspiracy was revealed when it was learned that Smith's supposedly-deceased father (who died when he was a baby) was the head of a secret, sinister doomsday cult, and the adventurous London was his half-sister and apparent soulmate. Both had latent psychic powers.

The film ended with a head-scratching abrupt apocalyptic conclusion: Smith's father blew up Earth with the push of a button (referencing the "kaboom" of the title).

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore starred as lesbian couple Nic and Jules respectively, living in Southern California, in writer/director Lisa Cholodenko's acclaimed and compelling comic romantic drama about a modern unconventional family. The tagline described the romantic triangle: "Nic and Jules had the perfect family, until they met the man who made it all possible."

Driven, controlling, and workaholic obstetrician Dr. Nicole 'Nic' Allgood (Annette Bening) and open-minded, eco-conscious landscape-designer and housewife Jules (Julianne Moore) were 'married' with two children, both fathered by the same unknown sperm donor. The same-sexed couple's teenaged children were half-siblings:

• Laser (Josh Hutcherson), Jules' 15 year-old son
• Joni (Mia Wasikowska), Nic's 18 year-old daughter named after singer Joni Mitchell

It was revealed that free-spirited, bohemian life-styled Paul (Mark Ruffalo), motorcycle-riding owner of an organic foods restaurant/farm, was their biological father (an anonymous "donor dad"), who was soon introduced to the entire family (he exclaimed good-naturedly: "I love lesbians!"). Inevitably, Jules began a lustful affair with Paul when she took on the job of weeding his "fecund" terraced backyard, telling him: "I keep seeing the expressions of my kids in your face."

It was devastating for Nic when she learned about it, although their long-running committed relationship survived the incident, as Joni went off to college and Laser told Nic that his 'parents' were "too old" to break up. In another portion of the film, Jules explained to Laser why she preferred to watch vintage gay-man porn on DVD, rather than lesbian porn.

The Lake Placid Films (1999-2012)

A series of American monster horror comedies, killer crocodile films, began with Lake Placid (1999), starring Bridget Fonda and Bill Pullman. It was followed by three, low-budget, R-rated, made-for-TV sequels with completely different casts, each with increasing amounts of nudity (on the unrated DVD versions) from mostly unknown actresses:

• Lake Placid (1999)
• Lake Placid 2 (2007)
• Lake Placid 3 (2010)
• Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012) (aka Lake Placid 4)

Lake Placid 3 (2010) (below)
April (Roxanne Pallett)
Tara (Angelica Penn)	Ellie (Kacey Barnfield)	April (Roxanne Pallett)
Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012) (below)
Girl # 1 (Borisa Tutundjieva)	Girl # 2 (Marina Gerganova)	Brittany (Scarlett Byrne)

Leap Year (2010, Mex.) (aka Ano Bisiesto)

This potent independent film, the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Camera d'Or winner, was directed by Australian-born Michael Rowe (it was his directorial debut film). It was often compared to Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972), and Cronenberg's Crash (1996) and Secretary (2002), for its themes of sexual delusion, obsession, and self-destruction.

In this intense, claustrophobic, highly-charged character drama set in Mexico City, Monica Del Carmen starred as the single, sexy, and sad character of Laura Lopez, a chubby, dark-skinned, twenty-something freelance journalist, who longed for affection. Depressed, lonely and craving emotional intimacy (and often masturbating while watching her affectionate neighbors across the way), she chose to have meaningless and anonymous one-night stand sexual encounters in her cheap apartment with men she met at a local bar.

Suicidal and troubled, she also vowed that she would kill herself on the leap year day, February 29th, at the end of the month on the same day that her father had died four years earlier. On her wall calendar, she began crossing off the days of February with black X's, and placed a red box around the last day of the month.

Then she met aspiring actor Arturo (Gustavo Sanchez Parra), who at first was interested in carrying out his own demeaning, humiliating and aggressive sexual fetishes on her (including sado-masochism, spankings and whippings, urination on her as she masturbated, cigarette burns), and the couple engaged in many intense, consensual sexual sessions together. She interpreted his sadism as her coming salvation. Post-coitally, they would tenderly cuddle together on her couch, where she confided her deepest traumatic secrets, including the fact that she lost her virginity when she was twelve.

During one of their later encounters, Arturo confronted her with a kitchen knife, and she requested that he cut her. While they chatted in bed, she masturbated him, while he described how it would feel to mutilate her while making love. She suggested that he could even cut her throat, and ejaculate inside her dead body. Laura graphically and horrifically described the plans she had for her own murder/suicide, to take place at his hands on leap year day.

Love & Other Drugs (2010)

Director Edward Zwick's comedy-drama was based upon Jamie Riedy's memoirs/book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, an expose based upon Riedy's work as a drug representative in the 1990s. It was remarkable for a mainstream romantic comedy to be so frank and to display such abundant nudity, especially from its up-and-coming young female star.

Set in the year 1996, the film's two main characters were:

• Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal), a handsome, smooth-talking womanizer, and a Pfizer pharmaceutical-sales representative (promoting Zoloft rather than Prozac for depression)
• Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a free-spirited 26 year-old artist/diner waitress

She was the prescription pill-popping patient of one of his clients, Dr. Stan Knight (Hank Azaria). She was suffering from Parkinson's Disease (she called it a "major degenerative disorder").

The adult-styled romance contained a number of nude sex scenes - highly publicized in the film's advanced marketing - between the two overexposed main stars-characters as their passionate relationship evolved. One of the film's earliest scenes was an impromptu, semi-emergency doctor's office visit where Maggie's left breast was examined for a "weird blotch" near her nipple (determined to be a spider bite), while Jamie (who had bribed Dr. Knight with $1000 to shadow him for a day) posed as the doctor's intern.

When she found out about his duplicity as a drug rep, she confronted him in the parking lot shortly after for seeing her disrobing. Maggie clobbered him in the face with her handbag ("You let me take my shirt off, you f--king creep!") and demanded an apology. He acquired her number from the doctor's receptionist and called her to apologize:

"Look, I'm sorry that I stared at your tits, but they're really nice."

He compelled her to accept a date. When they were able to talk, he immediately propositioned her, suggesting sex: "Your mind's telling you one thing, and your body's telling you something else." She agreed: "Let's go....You wanna close, right? You wanna get laid?" When he hesitated to accept, she replied:

"Mmm. Oh, right, right, right. I'm supposed to act like I don't know if it's right, so then you tell me that there is no right or wrong, there's just the moment. And then I tell you that I can't, while actually signaling to you that I can, which you don't need, because you're not really listening, because this isn't about connection for you, this isn't even about sex for you. This is about finding an hour or two of relief from the pain of being you. And that's fine with me, see, because all I want is the exact same thing."

They made mad and passionate love in her artist's studio, after which they were left panting on the floor, and she voiced:

"And now you're thinking: 'Will I stay five minutes or ten?' and 'Where did I throw my pager?'"

They made stand-up love in an alleyway and had sex in other quickie encounters.

She also appeared in his apartment at 2:05 am and doffed her overcoat to reveal her nakedness underneath - although completely embarrassed that she didn't realize friend Josh was sleeping on the couch. After sex, she admitted:

"The thing is, I really like having sex, and I actually really like having sex with you, so let's just keep it simple."

She expressed doubts too: "There's just alarms going off in my head that you're not entirely what you seem." He concurred: "I'm a s--t-head, believe me, through and through."

After having many instances of casual sex with Maggie, both in his apartment and hers, Jamie began taking one of his company's own popular erectile dysfunction drugs, Viagra, to help him sustain erections. Their relationship was also continually challenged by the fact that she was suffering from an early-onset of Parkinson's Disease, and everything followed the typical melodramatic route of romantic comedies by having them break-up, threaten to separate, and then eventually reconcile to live together in an authentic relationship.

Machete (2010)

In his first starring role, Danny Trejo portrayed title character Machete Cortez, a vengeful, blade-wielding ex-Federale and illegal Mexican immigrant outlaw in co-director/co-writer Robert Rodriguez' "Mexploitation" gorefest grindhouse action film, filled with gratuitous (yet cartoonish, over-the-top) violence including numerous decapitations. A sequel followed, titled: Machete Kills (2013).

The revenge film (with some political discussion of domestic immigration issues) began as a phony 3-minute trailer for a non-existent film in Quentin Tarantino's/Rodriguez' Grindhouse (2007). The stringy-haired, ugly, pock-mark faced hitman realized he had been double-crossed, framed and set-up during an assassination attempt on corrupt, anti-immigration, hate-spewing ("immigrants are cockroaches"), extremist Texas state senator candidate McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro).

McLaughlin was in league in a calculated effort with slick-haired, white vigilante, racist boss and drug-trafficker Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey) to encourage sympathy for martyred McLaughlin's views.

While Machete became a fugitive as a 'good-guy' illegal being chased by sexy US Immigration and Customs enforcement official Sartana Rivera (Jessica Alba) (who eventually went rogue and converted to Machete's views), he became a righteous warrior.

The sex-filled film was definitely created to feature topless women, including in its explosive opening the rescue of kidnapped naked girl Chica (Mayra Leal) - completely nude for almost seven minutes and actually a hired villain ("It's too hot for clothes," she told Machete before he slung her over his shoulder).

When they were standing close to each other, she stroked his machete and asked: "What's this long hard thing?" She withdrew it from his holster and stabbed him, then removed a cellphone from her vagina and announced: "I got him." For her "excellente" work, however, she was shot in the head from behind.

Machete became allied with two other females:

• Luz/She (Michelle Rodriguez) - his love interest, a leather bra-wearing taco-truck operator as well as an illegal immigration network operative
• April Booth (Lindsay Lohan) - his enemy's kidnapped socialite daughter, a blonde-tressed, drug-addicted, spoiled slut

April (a body double?) was seen topless kissing Machete in a tropical-themed swimming pool next to her own redheaded mother June Booth (Alicia Rachel Marek) - all videotaped to anger Booth.

April ludicrously dressed up in a nun's habit with a gun (Ms .45 style), and Jessica Alba's nude shower scene reportedly was digitally-created.

The Names of Love (2010, Fr.) (aka Le Nom des Gens)

Co-writer/director Michel Leclerc's autobiographical 'romantic' comedy (slightly Woody Allen-esque) provided incisive commentary on political prejudices, racial and national identity, disparate cultures and culture clash, sexual politics, the significance of names, and political activism.

Various techniques were used to fill in the backstory of the protagonists: narrated childhood flashbacks by the adult characters (sometimes in black and white or color newsreel footage), direct addresses to the camera, and younger teenage versions conversing with their adult selves.

Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin)	Baya (or Bahia) Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier)

There were two main characters in this "opposites" or "mismatched" odd-couple sex farce - between a self-described "political whore" and a 'mild-mannered, strait-laced' male:

• Baya (or Bahia) Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier) a 20-ish, free-spirited, flighty, extroverted, and seductive French woman, the hippie daughter of sweet and gentle Algerian refugee-immigrant Mohamed (Zinedine Soualem), a handyman, and blue-blooded, outspoken Parisian mother Cécile (Carole Franck); Bahia was a left-wing crusading activist who strategized converting her male political opponents (considered fascists) by sleeping with them (and whispering radical mantras in their ears during intercourse); she attributed her sexual proclivities to abuse by her piano teacher when she was younger; the quirky Bahia was also prone to buying expensive live crustaceans in order to set them free at the beach
• Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin), a non-practicing Jewish, middle-aged, repressed, conservative middle-of-the road individual; he was employed at the Office of Animal Epidemics (in the French government) as a forensic ornithologist specializing in infectious diseases (bird flu); his morose, guilt-ridden Jewish mother Annette (Michèle Moretti) survived the Holocaust, but his maternal grandparents were killed in the camps; his French Roman Catholic father Lucien (Jacques Boudet) was manager of a nuclear power plant, and in the past served with the French Army in Algeria; in an amusing side-scene, Arthur's parents routinely adopted outdated and ill-fated technologies (Sony's Betamax, and LP-sized Laser Discs); Arthur's changed last name was 'Martin' - and he was the continual butt of jokes since his name matched a very popular name for a French washing machine

In the opening sequence, the uninhibited Bahia, a radio station's new production assistant (answering the phones of callers), burst in on guest Arthur during a live radio interview while he was speaking about H5N1 Avian flu. Afterwards, she urged him to join her for a drink, and then announced her approach to dating - her rule was sex on the first date. He declined her offer of a tryst by claiming he had to perform an autopsy on a bird.

Later, when she learned that Arthur had a half-Jewish heritage, she exclaimed: "That's so cool! The two of us embody France. We';re the future of humanity!" To her, their relationship epitomized the most persecuted or oppressed people in the world.

It often happened that Bahia found that her breasts continually popped out of her low-cut blouses. In an early sequence, Bahia was so scatterbrained, absent-minded and distracted that she forgot to get dressed. After taking a shower, she left her home naked (except for her shoes), walked down a Parisian street to the Paris Metro while chatting on her cell phone, on her way to meet her Arthur in the checkout line at a supermarket. When he finally met up with her as she exited the train onto the platform, she frantically explained as he covered her with his coat:

The phone rang and I was putting on a T-shirt, then my cellphone rang, and I dropped the T-shirt. I'm so muddle-headed. I lack rigor. I can't multitask. One thought just leads to another.

Oblivious Bahia on a Parisian Street and on the Metro

After the embarrassing incident, she invited him to her apartment for wine, and appeared fully naked to serve him, and they made love together.

Piranha (2010) and Piranha 3-D (2010)

Director Alexandre Aja's R-rated exploitative action thriller (with lots of bloody violence, horror and terror), available also in 3D, was a reworking or reimagining of Joe Dante's original cult horror film Piranha (1978). The LA Times claimed that "amid all the gore, and endless bloodbath of bare naked ladies...it completely forgets to frighten anyone." It added that the gory horror film should have built "a better scare factor rather than figuring out how many 3-D boobs can be captured in a single frame."

In the town of Lake Victoria which expanded in size during spring break (filmed at Lake Havasu, AZ), 20,000 drunken revelers arrived in huge numbers for sun, sex and carousing. A vulgar "Wild Wild Girls" semi-porn videographer Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) - a takeoff on Joe Francis and his "Girls Gone Wild," and his big-boobed assistant Danni (sexy UK model/star Kelly Brook) were in attendance. She described herself as a "Wild, Wild Girl." [Brook appeared on the cover of Playboy at the same time as the film's release to promote the film. She was often naked in the film (although usually popping out of her bikini top).]

An underwater tremor ("heavy seismic activity") caused pre-historic man-eating, razor-toothed fish to erupt from a subterranean lake and cause havoc amongst the town's inhabitants, including the coeds, who were celebrating with a Lake Victoria Wet T-shirt Wild-stravaganza at 4pm. The competition with lots of random topless college girls was hosted by a sleazy emcee (horror film director Eli Roth), who sprayed water on the contestants' so-called "weapons of mas-turbation." He encouraged the girls: "Break open those coconuts and drink from God's milk jugs. Get the girls out. Let's see 'em. What are ya hidin' under there?" In keeping with its horror roots, the ones who were the most hedonistic were punished the most in this over-the-top gorefest.

Included in the mindless popcorn "guilty pleasure" film were the following deaths:

• a well-endowed parasailing topless female (Gianna Michaels) had her legs chewed off during her ride
• two blue bikini-clad cheerleaders (Ashlynn Brooke on the left) were severed diagonally by a snapped cable
• the sleazy emcee was rewarded with cranial explosion and decapitation when crushed by a passing boat motor
• a female's (Genevieve Alexandra) hair/scalp was caught in a boat propeller and ripped off when restarted
• when their rented boat Barracuda was caught on rocks and seaweed, the underwater viewing glass was shattered and the boat filled with water - Derrick and blonde semi-porn star Crystal (real-life porn actress Riley Steele) were thrown overboard; one of the piranhas ate through her stomach and emerged from her mouth
• Derrick's legs and sex organ (later regurgitated by one of the fish) were gnawed off, and caused him to die of blood loss
• another female was separated in half as she was carried to the beach

One of the film's sexier highlights was a shared, lengthy slow-motion underwater/naked lesbian kiss and balletic embrace (wearing only flippers) between brunette Danni and blonde Crystal to the tune of Leo Delibes' operatic Lakme ("Flower Duet") on the soundtrack.

The Underwater Nude Ballet Between Danni and Crystal

For respectability, Elisabeth Shue starred as single-mom Sheriff Julie Forester, Christopher Lloyd as Henry Goodman - a local fish expert and aquarium store owner, and Ving Rhames as Deputy Fallon. And Richard Dreyfuss (with nods to the original Jaws (1975)) in a funny cameo in the opening scene portrayed drunken fisherman Matthew Boyd. After discarding a beer bottle into the water, the entire debacle began - he was shown suffering an early demise when he fell in a massive whirlpool of water caused by the subterranean quake and was devoured by the emerging piranha.

Rio Sex Comedy (2010, Fr./Brazil)

In writer/director Jonathan Nossiter's 126-minute unrated, semi-improvised, haphazard sex comedy (with lots of gratuitous nudity), a group of expatriates found misadventures in Rio de Janiero. The main characters (using their real-life first names) in the confusing, free-form, unfunny and bewildering ensemble film included:

Charlotte Jones (Charlotte Rampling)	Will (Bill Pullman)
Irene (Irène Jacob)	"Fish" (Fisher Stevens)

• Charlotte Jones (Charlotte Rampling), a liberated British plastic surgeon visiting Brazil to tour local surgery clinics; she warned potential clients about the dangers of plastic surgery in the midst of a cosmetic surgery craze
• Will (Bill Pullman), the reluctant new US Ambassador, a prominent oil family heir, escaped from his Rio limousine after a week, and disappeared into the city's slum areas (favelas) at Vidigal - a hilltop ghetto plagued with crime, prostitution, and black market activities
• Irene (Irène Jacob), a French anthropologist (or ethnographer) was interviewing, videotaping, and studying dark-skinned servants-maids in the lower-class slums about the inequalities of life; she also bedded down her French husband Antoine's (Jean-Marie Roulot) irresponsible cameraman-brother Robert (Jerome Kircher, Irene Jacob's real-life husband)) - unsimulated sex scenes
• "Fish" (Fisher Stevens), a free-spirited, sleazy tour guide took open busloads of large groups into the favelas, and fell in love with earthy native girl Iracema (Daniela Dams); his romance with her included relocating her family from their village to Rio to be with him

Native Nudity
Tribal Girl Iracema (Daniela Dams)

Room in Rome (2010, Sp.) (aka Habitación en Roma)

In theme, this NC-17 rated lesbian relationship character study was similar to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), and Chilean director Matias Bize's En la Cama (aka In Bed) (2005). However, in contrast, the two beautiful leads (both females) were comfortably naked for almost the entire film, and engaged in numerous sensual sex scenes. The film, banned in some areas, received four 2011 Goya Award nominations (the Spanish 'Oscars') for Best Actress (Elena Anaya), Best New Actress (Natasha Yarovenko), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Song ('Loving Strangers').

One of the unique things about this erotic, beautifully-photographed Julio Medem-directed film was that the entire story was shot from or within the "four walls" of the hotel room. Even the beginning when the two protagonists met outside a Rome hotel, the camera's vantage point was from the hotel's balcony.

The two who shared a room in Rome were:

• Alba (Elena Anaya), Spanish, dark-haired, thin, lesbian, on a business trip in Rome; actually a mechanical engineer/inventor, currently living with a woman in Spain
• "Natasha" or Dasha (Natasha Yarovenko), Russian, blonde, on vacation in Rome; about to be married; she was actually a lowly art historian

After drinks late on the day of the summer solstice, the shortest night of the year in the Eternal City, Natasha was invited by Alba to her elegant hotel room (although they at first debated spending the night together). Natasha was understandably nervous, inexperienced and uncomfortable at first (and actually left but returned to retrieve her cellphone).

What followed was a long night of love-making, talking, singing, pillow-fighting, dancing, bathing (and showering to the tune of 'Volare'), and the exchange of intimacies (physical and emotional) and personal stories. Paintings, frescoes and other architectural features of the hotel room frequently mirrored their conversations. During one surreal incident in a bathtub, Alba's bath-water turned red to symbolize the hurt of love's arrow in her chest.

At first, they both invented falsehoods and shielding facades about their backgrounds, before they began to confide in each other. For example, was Alba the fugitive wife of a Saudi prince? Or was Natasha a tennis player, or an actress, with a twin sister? What were their real names?

In the film's conclusion after a one-night stand, they ran back to each other after initially departing.

Splice (2010, Can./Fr./US)

In this very unusual and erotic sci-fi thriller (similar to various David Cronenberg films and the Alien and Species films), a young and rebellious, romantically-linked scientist couple, Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) were conducting genetic engineering experiments for their splicing company, N.E.R.D. (Nucleic Exchange Research + Development). The hipster duo neglected their regular work and began to conduct a secret, sophisticated genetic cloning 'experiment' in which they spliced together human and animal DNA, creating a hybrid creature.

While Elsa mothered and protected the humanoid female that was generated, Clive strongly desired to destroy it. Elsa named it DREN ("NERD" spelled backwards), the name of the couple's company. Soon, it evolved into a bald, partly-human mutant adult female (Delphine Chaneac) - a fantastical creature with striking slanted eyes, pointed tongue, a toxic tail-stinger, and bird-like, multi-hinged legs. With her maternal instincts enlivened, Elsa seduced Clive on their couch one evening (with DREN observing from afar), and declined to have him use a condom (she remarked: "What's the worst that could happen?").

As the film progressed, the uncontrollable, troublesome and 'monstrous' female DREN was hidden at Elsa's childhood farmhouse home, where It was revealed that Elsa had used samples of her own DNA to create DREN. When DREN became more troublesome and unstable, Elsa reverted to scientifically studying the creature, and bound DREN on a table. She stripped DREN of her 'human' elements, including clothing, and surgically removed her tail-stinger.

In the film's most remarkable scene of alien-human sex (with hints of bestiality and incest), Clive was attracted to the infatuated DREN, and had unconventional intercourse with the creature when she wrapped her winged-arms around him, naked. She voraciously kissed him, and persistently and eagerly sought sex with him by getting on top and orgasmically expanding her retractable wings - and he possibly impregnated her. During the sex act in which she moaned and cooed, she regenerated her phallic-like stinger - just as Elsa arrived and caught them in the act.

The film was a hybrid of its own, mixing a semi-serious examination of the ethical and moral dimensions of genetic experimentation with a bloody B-grade horror film (in its final 15 minutes). After sex, the female creature appeared to die and was then buried, but regenerated into a male and became extremely violent. The male DREN swooped down and killed both their boss Bill Barlow (David Hewlett) and Clive's brother Gavin (Brandon McGibbon), raped Elsa (the creature demanded: "Inside you"), and when Clive attempted to rescue her by stabbing the creature in the back with a stake, he was stung to death in the heart with DREN's stinger. Elsa was finally able to crush the creature's head with a rock and kill it.

In the final scene, Elsa was in the office of CEO Joan Chorot (Simona Maicanescu) of giant corporate funder Newstead Pharmaceuticals, Inc., learning that she would be paid well to lead the profitable company to "the next stage" if she kept silent forever about DREN. She was pregnant, repeating the line: "What's the worst that could happen?" when asked if she wanted to walk away -- the question remained: was her future offspring fathered by the male DREN or Clive?

Tuesday, After Christmas (2010, Rom.) (aka Marti, Dupa Craciun)

Romanian writer/director Radu Muntean's well-crafted drama told of adultery, infidelity and a threatened marriage, seen in long uninterrupted takes.

The main character, middle-aged banker Paul Hanganu (Mimi Branescu), was introduced lying behind a naked lover after coitus - in a very tender, happy and realistic apres-love scene. She was eventually revealed to not be his wife, but younger blond dentist-orthodontist Raluca (Maria Popistasu), his mistress.

He was kissing her shoulders, and their lengthy pillow-talk conversation gradually revealed their intimate closeness to each other. In contrast was his unfaithful and unhappy relationship to his wife of ten years, dark-haired, glasses-wearing Adriana (Mirela Oprisor), with whom he was obviously dissatisfied.

Tensions rose in the pediatric dentist's office when during another long scene, Paul and Adriana took their precocious 10 year-old daughter Mara (Sasa Paul-Szel) to an appointment for braces with Raluca. Adriana was unaware of the affair as Raluca repressed her feelings for Paul while tending to Mara's oral condition. All of them were tightly brought together during the office's evaluation.

When Paul suddenly admitted his indiscretions to Adriana, she responded to the news of betrayal and abandonment with uncontrollable hurt, fury, resentment, jealousy, and misery. Eventually, Paul was forced to choose between his wife and mistress.