The Longest Foreplay in History! Did Bel Ami satisfy?

I know we're in the middle of Cosmopolis madness, but in the US next weekend, Bel Ami will be debuting in some theaters. A very few theaters, unfortunately. So it seems like the appropriate time to share some thoughts.

Was Bel Ami worth the wait, anticipation and aggravation? Did it make my loins burn with the heat of a thousand suns?

Well, not entirely...

It might have something though to do with high expectations. It's a period piece (my favorite genre), with Rob as the lead, having sex with multiple women. So that's a shitload of expectations!

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

The Good

- The beauty that is Rob - the camera just loves the boy. And the costumes were gorgeous on him, or off him. Just perfect.

- The scene where he first tries to have sex with Clothilde and they are kissing on the bed and he is obsessed with ripping off her dress to get at her boobs. Hot!

- Rob doing a film in a British accent. (I have issues with that in general regarding the film {see below}, but having Rob speak in his native tongue was a real treat).


- Uma Thurman never looked so good. I've never found her attractive, but she looked soft and lovely in this film.

- Rob's got game! I wasn't sure he could pull off seducing multiple women, but he was convincing.

- Rob had chemistry with everyone. Compared to his chemistry with Reese Witherspoon in Water for Elephants, I bought into each woman - regardless of their age or type.

- Rob and Christina (Georges and Clothilde) were so sweet together. They seemed like a real couple.

- Kristin Scott Thomas was appropriately pathetic.

- Angry DuRob! Vein popping out of head? Oh yeah! Rob saying "All along I was the one getting fucked!" Double oh yeah!

- Rob in long johns.

- Rob fixing a woman's hair.

- Christina Ricci - she was amazing. Perfect mix of vulnerability and resignation about the situation.

- Passed out, drunk, beaten Rob. For some reason, very yummy.

The Bad

- The character development. It didn't work. I didn't really care about anyone.

- Rob's weird mouth movements. Very strange.

- Georges' flashback/dream/crying sequence when Charles Forestier died. Just didn't work.

- Leaving out the visit with Georges' parents from the book. The whole film felt very claustrophobic. We needed some scenes with them in the coutryside.

- Having everyone speaking in British accents in a film based in France. Was a little distracting.

- Uma Thurman over-acting.

- Not enough of Rob's thrusting ass. More of this with lights on, please!!!!

The Ugly

- Every man in the film except Rob. You know, I noticed that in Water for Elephants as well. Are other men really that ugly in comparison, or is it deliberate casting decisions?

- The prostitutes. Seriously, the one he was attracted to was not attractive! The makeup, the hair, the clothes. Very strange if that was an accurate depiction of how prostitutes looked at that time in France.

Back to some of the "good":

In general, I was expecting to dislike Georges DuRoy, but I didn't find him any more of a user than any of the other players. They all seemed to be self-serving social climbers.

I hope to be able to see this in the theater. Thanks to Verizon, I never did get to see it in HD... bastards.

The frustration that is Bel Ami

Bel Ami has always been a frustrating roller-coaster ride of a film. Trying to watch it Friday night was just more of that same exercise.

I happened to wake up at 3 a.m. Friday morning and suddenly remembered that Bel Ami should have been available at midnight on Fios. Nope, not there. When I got up again later that morning, there it was. Yippity, dippity, do. Plan was to rush home after work to watch it. Calling in sick was, unfortunately, not an option.

But plans change. I didn't want to deprive Mr. Bitch of watching his team on the large TV that night, and he said he wanted to watch Bel Ami with me - so the plan was to watch it after the game. Hey, I figured, I've waited 2 years, what's 2 more hours? HA! The game went into extra innings, and innings, and innings. Great. Fuck.

FINALLY, the game was over and although half asleep, I went to the VOD page to order it. Saw there was a choice for HD - hooray. Ordered it and the screen says LOADING. And then up pops "VOD ERROR - we cannot process your request at this time."

Are you fucking kidding me?

So I tried again and this time it only had the Standard Def (SD) option. So I chose that.

Same.fucking.error.message.

Suddenly I was wide awake, with FURY, determined now to see the film.

So I hit the Interwebs to find out what the hell that error message meant and followed all the instructions I found - unplugging the DVR, rebooting, waiting, waiting. No change.

So I call Verizon at 11 p.m. and the first thing I hear is the recording "We are experiencing a VOD issue". Again I thought, "seriously, is this really happening?" I got an agent on the phone (which I admit was surprising at that hour) and he confirmed that it was a system-wide issue that wouldn't be resolved until SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I said to him "So what you are saying is that Robert Pattinson crashed your system." That got a laugh, but I was still without Bel Ami.

So I hit the Interwebs again to see where else I could watch it on my laptop. Now mind you, 2 days ago my laptop died. So it was a good damn thing I replaced it right away, or this wouldn't have been an option on Mr. Bitch's 10-year-old Dell. But, I didn't have the iTunes software installed on this laptop yet, so I had to do that first. I installed the software and then went to buy the film, and got all the way to "Put in password for billing" and it wouldn't take the password. It didn't say it was the wrong password, but it wouldn't leave that screen and let me make the purchase. So I reset my Apple password. Nothing. Reset it again. Still nothing.

Are you fucking kidding me?

So I went to the Interwebs again to find another option and saw Amazon. It wasn't the greatest connection quality (and I'm not sure why that was), but alas, I was able to watch Bel Ami at 1 a.m.

After 2 years, 1 day and 6 hours of frustration, I finally got to meet DuRob.

When I woke up late Saturday, there it was on Fios - they had corrected the problem. But it was in SD, not HD. And according to Verizon, there was no way to switch it.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I've spent much of the day watching Bel Ami, not in HD, over and over. Frustrated, as usual, when it comes to this film.

So, was it all worth it? The constant release date rumors, threats of never seeing it, the hurdles to watch it?

I'll tell you in my next post...

Oops, I saw it again

There are 2 theaters within a few miles of my home and work that have "Super Tuesdays". Every Tuesday, movies all day cost $6! So the plan was that I'd get my Breaking Dawn fix in on a few Tuesdays, without "breaking" the bank. $#(^@&# didn't happen! Those 2 theaters were done with the film faster than I could grow a demon baby with vampire semen.

Is it sparkling?
WTF? Why is it that you blink and movies are gone from the theaters? Could it have something to do with the greedy bastards that want the DVD profits? All I know is it sucks - for the once or twice a year I give a shit.

Soooooo...before Breaking Dawn left the big screen entirely, I got my ass over to see it one last time - sucking it up and paying the $11.25 for the honor. That honor included half an hour of irritating commercials and promos. (Although it was interesting to recommit to my original feeling that Kate Winslet looks too old for Leo DiCaprio in Titanic - 3D re-release anyone?) If it wasn't for the desire to get a good seat, I would always show up late to miss the annoyance of neverending trailers. I kept muttering "Another one????? Get to Rob already!!!"

A lovely mother and son moment from Titanic.
I think I liked Breaking Dawn better the second time around. And there was one scene that was worth the price of the admission to see again: The Wedding Kiss.

Let's just say I'm a self-proclaimed Rob movie-kissing expert - and I haven't always been impressed. In fact, I've worried that Rob is not a good kisser (((HORRORS)). Sometimes you can just tell from watching whether a guy knows what he's doing...or not.

See, here Rob is just doing it all wrong (but what a fucking lucky Anna Kendrick, regardless).

Up until Eclipse, I wasn't convinced about Rob's kissing skills. But then those opening scenes in the meadow with Kristen caught my attention. Hmmmm, I thought, Rob looks to be getting better at this. Now don't get me wrong, the Twilight first-kiss-bed scene was hot, but that was more about the anticipation of them locking lips, not so much the technique. Clearly Rob has gotten better.

I'm surprised this open mouth got past Stephenie Meyer.

I mean how amazing was the wedding kiss? It went on forever! This angle, that angle, no guests, guests, open mouth, closed mouth....full minute(s) of hot!

Kiss her Rob... wait, they're still going, oh my, you go Rob! Holy shit!

In addition to enjoying that kiss once again, there were a few other things I took note of the second time around:

Rob's Bod

I was a little hard on Rob's body (hee hee) after the first viewing. He was in better shape than I initially thought, although I still didn't notice any significant abs displayed in any of the scenes. His biceps were looking fine. And of course his back is spectacular.

Yup, I take it all back. Jockey Boxer Brief Rob for the win!

Rob's Wardrobe

I liked that we got to see lots of his skin. Shorts, tanks, t-shirts - lots of tight t-shirts - and jeans. And he pulled off the island leisure wear. Loved the boxers he wore in bed, in the scene where Bella tries to seduce him with the negligee.

Rob, tank, biceps, blergghhh...

And considering the wardrobe, it's even more obvious that he should have been SPARKLING in the Brazilian sun! Fail!

Um, hello CGI dept? Did you fall off a waterfall? Get lost in the rain forest?

Isle Esme housekeeper

I'm pretty sure the housekeeper on Isle Esme also played the First Wife in Eclipse. Can anyone confirm that? Of course that would mean she came back from the dead after stupidly killing herself, instead of just drawing blood. But I swear it's the same actress!

This is one of the images that came up when I searched for "First Wife New Moon".


Taylor

I thought Taylor looked kind of hot with his scruff. The scene where he came to the wedding was particularly appealing.

Gotta give hot credit where hot credit is due.

Kristen

Kristen was really in great shape. She looked so much more mature and toned. And she managed to create actual tears in a few scenes! I just wished she cried less over Jacob - and showed more tears over Edward throughout the series. I'm not usually one to care about films living up to books, but Bella cried a whole lot in the books - in the films, not so much.

I didn't mind her fake wedding dress.

It does look nicer without the blood.

And the real dress wasn't quite as low in the back as I initially thought.

No butt crack showing, I think.

The Wolfpack

Hated them just as much the second time around.

I refuse to post a photo of any of them. It would be an insult to these actual wolves.

I can't recall anything else of significance. Maybe that's because it was revealed this week that the next movie we'll see Rob in will include (SPOILER) a full view of his thrusting ass, doing it doggy style, in period garments.


I anticipate Bel Ami will blot out this Little Ashes "period-piece" nudity - thankfully!

Happy New Year to us!!

Robert Pattinson 2011 Calendar Giveaway!

Damn you, Groupon.

Here I am, now in POST-moving hell. (How the fuck do people work and move and set up a house and have time to take a shower?) But Groupon just had to offer a Shutterfly deal of two calendars for the price of one last week. Except I thought I could make 2 DIFFERENT calendars. Um, no.

So I used half of my precious Sunday last weekend to put together a Rob calendar - before freakin January is over. What a pain in the ass. For some reason my laptop - clueless as I am - has been saving my Rob photos in recent times as bitmaps instead of jpegs. And since Shutterfly only takes jpegs - and I didn't have time to rectify the problem - I wasn't able to use some photos I was planning on putting in the calendar.

But...I just got it in the mail and this thing came out FUCKING GORGEOUS! And I have an extra...



Screw those "professional" Rob calendars that have only ONE giant photo of Rob per month. MY calendar has many Robs per month. Let's just say this works out much, much better.

Trust me. If you are reading this blog, you want this one two of a kind calendar.

Although it's hard to make Rob G-Rated, since he's just naturally XXX, I kept the calendar work and kid safe. This would have been a WHOLE different piece if I was hanging it at home.

So how can you get it?

First, if you're not already, become a follower of this blog. Then, in the comments, tell me why you MUST have the calendar. Whoever makes me laugh the hardest, wins!

Deadline to enter is midnight Tuesday, January 11. (1/11/11 - cool!). I'll post the winner on Wednesday.

Here's a looky-loo (click on photos to enlarge):

The antidote...to January

Rob+Oscars=Love

Lucky Charm



Remember Me

Bel Ami

Now this is FIREWORKS!

Montauk, L.I.





Thankful for you



Now go forth and make me laugh. Please. I need a few laughs. And you need this calendar.

xoxxoxoxoxoxoxo

Is Robert Pattinson the Last REAL Man in Hollywood?

Probably not, but go vote for him anyway in this E! News Really Useless Poll, Who's the Last Real Man in Hollywood?

Vote Here

You can always be my last man, Rob. I swear. If you sleep with me, I won't ever sleep with another man, again. It really shouldn't be too hard for me to abstain, just ask my husband.

Uma Thurman has to be done with other men, after you did this to her on the set of Bel Ami. Where are my smelling salts?

Movie making looks b-o-r-i-n-g

but looking at costumed Rob isn’t…

I’ve never spent a whole lot of time watching footage of “real-time” film making – what actually happens on set throughout a day – but after watching Rob on the set of Bel Ami in Budapest, all I can say is WHAT A SNOOZE FEST! Seriously.

I don’t know how the hell the actors can stand waiting around hour after hour, day after day, for just a few moments of action. It’s just like a baseball game. And that doesn't even include all the hours in costume fittings, makeup, hair.

Not fun at all.

But what IS fun are the drawer-dropping, um I mean jaw-dropping (that was a real Freudian Slip, I kid you not!) photos of Rob that are coming from the set. It’s like the perfect storm of period-piece fantasies for me - and I’m sure many, many other Rob fans - who have always wanted their own Mr. Darcy.

I just can’t believe this gift that is being bestowed upon us. I am beside myself with anticipation for this film's release. Not only do we get 1800’s costumed Rob, but we get 1800’s costumed PERVY Rob. Mr. Darcy getting down!

Sigh…

I hope that Rob doesn’t find filming boring, and that it’s just me that would be driven crazy having to endure it. But just to amuse myself, I’m giving the stills of Rob from the Bel Ami set a little more entertainment value:



"Hold on. You have a booger."


Did you stumble onto the wrong set Rob? It's like the burning of Atlanta, Rhett.




Bel Ami tap dance number.




"Let me get that door to the 1800's for you, sir."


C'mon, give me a little smoochie-woochie...



I.GOT.NOTHING. I'm speechless




"You evil 21st century equipment! I spit on you!




"Stepping on horse poop was soooooo not in my contract."



"What am I supposed to do with this thing?"


"Oh, duh. It's rain effects today. I thought I left this crap on the Twilight sets."




"Please God, protect me from fans on the set today."




But it's the pelvic thrust...that really drives you insane...Let's do the Time Warp again!





If I had photoshop skills, Dean would be sooooo gone from this shot.




"It wasn't enough that I am so friggin beautiful in this tux, I had to stick out my tongue just in case I hadn't killed you yet."





I know, it makes you mad when I demand flowers Rob. But, awww, they're so pretty.




"I wonder ... if I wave this over my hat will a rabbit appear?"



"I..don't.. want..you..to..come."




"Move, boys. You're blocking the Sparkle Peen."


"Oh, crap. Rob's Bitch followed me to Budapest."

I want to be the one waiting in the carriage