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Naughty, Naughty: Carey Mulligan’s nude in “Shame,” too

October 7, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Carey Mulligan, Best Supporting Actress,Shame,Michael Fassbinder,Full Frontal

Mulligan, bare shoulder

I’m feeling a little bad for Carey. After seeing Shame, all the fuss seemed to be about her co-star Michael Fassbender baring his junk, swinging the thing like a patrolman with a billy club.

But what about Carey? What about her needs? What about her risks?

Mulligan’s character makes her entrance stark naked, in a shower stall, bare-breasted (they’re perky!), bottle-blond hair soaked to reveal dark roots, darkish pubic hair. This is not your BBC Mulligan, nor the mother on the pedestal of Drive. Not only does she dressĀ  and sing like Marilyn Monroe, she has that bruised blond Bus Stop attitude, the beauty of the butterfly about to be stomped by the steel-toed boot of male brutishness.

Full-frontal nudity is a rite of passage for actresses. And so Mulligan’s Sissy enters the frame, like brother Brandon, naked as birth, but not nearly so daring.

And, yet, Sissy may as well be clothed for all that is revealed about her character, despite her physical nudity, her painfully slow rendition of “New York, New York,” and what definitely amounts to a genuine and wrenching performance. Again, it’s the Jessica Rabbit problem: “she’s not bad; she’s just drawn that way.”

Mulligan’s abused, possibly incestuous, self-mutilating sister has a character arc that goes from bad to worse. She’s just a plot punching bag. While she shares the screen with Fassbender’s Brandon, it’s her impact on him that commands director Steve McQueen’s full attention, as if he were the parent who only has enough love for one child.

And, stripped bare, what’s Brandon’s takeaway? To quote Babs, “people, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.”

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Carey Mulligan, full-frontal nudity, Michael Fassbender, Oscars2012, Shame

“Shame,” Shame, Shame

October 6, 2011 By Thelma 4 Comments

Shane, Michael Fassbender, Full-frontal,penis,Oscars, Best Actor

Classical full frontal

It’s the end of a long day. Three movies. Three males full-frontal. Shame, Policeman and Another Happy Day all had various moments of flash appeal. Michael Fassbender wins best actor in that category, although every body who has seen the movie will know he had the biggest part. Male sex organs are not necessarily the most reliable actors. Fassbender, who plays the sexually repressed Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, does a 180 here to play a sexaholic named Brandon. In my neighborhood, we call that a guy who can’t keep it in his pants. Go figure. There are definite hints that Brandon’s carrying some heavy baggage, which he deals with by screwing every thing that moves, and his damaged sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) deals with by cutting herself and impersonating Marilyn Monroe.

I like Fassbender; I may even love him. Not only is he easy on the eyes but he has a magnetic intensity that can make a situation appear weightier than the script or story deserves. I’d watch him do just about any thing, but even I have to say that stops at repeated toilet & shower masturbation sessions. Am I being prudish to say that, despite his muscular butt, I’m not that into watching him pee in a way that makes it clear — as if there was any doubt — that he has one big member of the press?

Shame is a well-shot, well-acted mood piece about the “Loneliness of the Well-Hung Humper.” I guess I’m way old school to say that I found the buttoned-up Jung so much sexier, and more mysterious, than the endlessly unbuttoned Brandon.

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: best actor, Carey Mulligan, full-frontal nudity, Michael Fassbender, Oscars2012, penis, Shame

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