Sex on the beach a brief history of Cannes and erotic cinema

The posters, the trailers, the teaser trailers, and the teaser-posters are all emerging. And though it is rash to generalise, there is a certain preponderance of flesh, lust and concupiscence at this year’s Cannes film festival. In Valérie Donzelli’s Marguerite and Julien, there is incest. In Todd Haynes’s Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, there is forbidden love. In the poster for Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, a somewhat haggard Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel appear to be ogling an unclothed young woman from the vantage point of their hot tub. And perhaps most startlingly of all, the great enfant terrible Gaspar Noé has revealed on the web a explicit “poster” for his quaintly titled Love, the 3D sex film that is showing as a midnight screening. It is not clear if this poster could possibly exist anywhere but online. Displayed in shopping malls and tube stations, it might mean that members of the public wishing to walk past it must present proof of age to a specially positioned squadron of police to show that they are 18 or over.

Even when there is no actual sex on the screen, there is always a great deal of intensely publicised sexiness at the festival. The gowns, the bling, the paparazzi, the swimming pool at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc – it is all suffused and perfumed with generalised sexiness, a concept that merges with being rich, famous and desirable. Cannes encourages a televised theatre of glamour on the red carpet every night, which is adored by L’Oréal, the festival’s major sponsor. In their hearts, some people believe that this kind of sexiness is sexier than sex.

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‘Blindspot’ & ‘The Player’ Trailers Reveal NBC’S Action-Packed New LIneup

Monday marks the start of upfront week in New York City, the time of the year when all the major broadcast networks (NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS and The CW) gather together to present their fall TV schedules to advertisers. This means that going into the week, most of the previous season’s shows will have already been renewed or cancelled (like NBC’s Constantine), paving the way for next season’s new crop of dramas and comedies.

NBC kicks off the event tomorrow at 11am eastern, and as such, they’ve already released their fall 2015 schedule, along with stills, artwork and trailers for their upcoming series. Fan-favorites Chicago Fire, Law & Order: SVU, Chicago P.D., The Blacklist and Grimm are staying put on their current air nights, but NBC will also premiere four new dramas this fall.

The first, Blindspot (above) – from executive producers Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl) and Sarah Schechter, writer Martin Gero, and director Mark Pellington – is getting the network’s coveted spot @10pm on Mondays after The Voice.

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Netflix’S Next Marvel TV Series ‘A.K.A. Jessica Jones’ Gets New Synopsis

It’s been a busy week for Marvel Entertainment as its film division prepares for the second weekend of box office returns in North America for Avengers: Age of Ultron and production begins on Captain America: Civil War. On the television front, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. prepares for its series finale this week as ABC greenlights a third season (and a second season of Agent Carter).

All of this happens just weeks after the Marvel Cinematic Universe expanded to Netflix as well with Daredevil proving to be a top original hit for the digital network, so much so that a second season was quickly confirmed while another series A.K.A. Jessica Jones was in production for a release this fall. While the Jessica Jones series nears the end of its shoot, Marvel has held back on revealing details of the show outside of revealing its cast.

Adding to that and unofficial set photos from various New York locations (the Marvel-Netflix universe takes place in Hell’s Kitchen), we finally have a more detailed synopsis for the series. On the official Neflix app and website listing for A.K.A. Jessica Jones, it simply lists three cast members (Krysten Ritter, David Tennant, Rachael Taylor), a “coming 2015″ window of release, and the following logline:

Working as a private investigator in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, a troubled ex-superhero’s past comes back to haunt her in the live-action series, “Marvel’s A.K.A. Jessica Jones.”

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‘Ex Machina’ Review

In the near-future, young computer coder Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), working for the world’s most powerful tech company, is selected to assist in an unorthodox experiment. Caleb travels far from his office job to an isolated homestead, and research facility, of the company’s reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) for a weeklong visit. However, when the eager employee actually meets his employer, Caleb finds that, in his isolation, Nathan has become unhinged and obsessive – rarely seen without an alcoholic drink in hand.

Nevertheless, when Nathan reveals to Caleb the purpose of his visit, the coder dismisses his initial discomfort (and fear) in favor of jumping head-long into scientific discovery. Hidden away in his compound, Nathan has been working on an advanced artificial intelligence named Ava (Alicia Vikander) – and has brought Caleb in as a consultant, hoping the programmer can successfully administer a Turing Test: intended to determine if an A.I.’s personality and self-awareness is equal or greater than a flesh-and-blood human (meaning the A.I.’s “artificial” intelligence is imperceptible to “normal” people).

Ex Machina marks the directorial debut of 28 Days writer Alex Garland – a name that should be familiar to viewers of other fan-favorite genre stories: Sunshine and Dredd, especially. While Garland didn’t spend much time in a director’s chair prior to his work on Ex Machina (depending on how much you believe about the upheavals on Dredd‘s set), the acclaimed novelist and screenwriter has collaborated closely with several high-profile filmmakers (including Danny Boyle). As a result, while certain moviegoers might be skeptical that a freshman filmmaker could deliver a thought-provoking, visually arresting, and outright haunting sci-fi story, Ex Machina is definitive proof of Garland’s talent on the page and behind the camera.

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Which Characters Get The Most Screen Time In ‘Avengers Age Of Ultron’

With Avengers: Age of Ultron, writer and director Joss Whedon brings back the six heroes known as “Earth’s Mightiest” from 2012’s record-breaking team-up epic, and adds to it with several new super-powered characters from Marvel Comics. With even more main characters, more supporting players, and even a few special cameos, how is the screen time divided between so many actors?

That’s part of the problem in servicing not just character arcs, but the desires of the talent bringing them to life onscreen, and fortunately this is what Whedon specializes in. You might be surprised however, in just how much time each character gets on screen for the Avengers sequel.

Joining Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk in the fray for the sequel are the twins, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, alongside the android Avenger known as the Vision. Here’s how their screen time was observed and measured thanks to an army of interns at Vulture who used stopwatches to time whenever each of Age of Ultron’s nine Avengers were on screen, even for brief appearances such as Quicksilver’s speedy movements. It may not be entirely accurate, but...

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DUNGEONS 2 REVIEW: UNDERWHELMING OVERWORLD

There’s just one slight issue with Dungeons 2: one half of it is bad. Any time a game attempts to split its attention between two entirely different modes, it runs the risk of having one side drag the other down. In this case, the entirely competent dungeon mode of Dungeons 2 is tied to a poorly made real-time strategy anchor and thrown out to sea, with no chance to swim home.

In theory, this is idea was clever! Moving into the endgame of a Dungeon Keeper-like management game has never been satisfying, so replacing it with an RTS battle might’ve been a good payoff--thematically appropriate too, as it connects the idea of an underground evil corrupting a totally different surface. The central idea of Dungeons 2 is a good one. As a personification of Ultimate Evil, you’re playing a Dungeon Keeper-like strategy game belowground — indirectly controlling your creatures to build rooms for efficiency, sending little imps out to find caves and gold, managing entertainment for bored creatures —all this stuff works. When you’ve got a decent little army, you send them above the ground, where it’s a conventional real-time strategy game in the Warcraft vein: direct control over troops, right-click to move and attack, and so on.

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WHO WAS MOST NAKED AT THE MET GALA?

For an event like the Met Gala — which is known as  "fashion's biggest night" — there sure seemed to be quite a few ladies not wearing too much of anything at all.

In a battle to out-naked each other, fierce competitors Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian and Dakota Johnson put everything on the line (and in front of the camera) to push the limits of tastefulness and test Anna Wintour's patience.

Here we break down their looks and answer the ultimate question: who wins the coveted title of Most Naked Met Gala Lady of 2015?

1. Dakota Johnson

Relative to her competitors, Johnson took the more traditional skin-baring route in an itty-bitty mini dress with a plunging neckline and bum-grazing hemline. However, the sparkling Chanel number, though risque in itself, was mild compared to the more sheer looks also spotted on this evening's carpet. Naked Score: 5/10

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