Pasolini's "Arabian Nights": The less well-known tales told with penises and homophobia

Between 1971 and 1974, Italian filmmaker Piers Paolo Pasolini produced and directed three adaptions of famous Medieval stories.  The Arabian Nights (Il fiore delle Mille et una Notte) was the last, and the most ambitious, with filming locations in Yemen, Iran, and Nepal.  

If you've seen the other two (The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales), this one will be familiar; most of the same actors, especially Pasolini's lover Ninetto Davoli (left) and his protege Franco Merli, below, whom he discovered working at a gas station in Sicily.

Don't worry, he's 21 in this scene.

Some of the same annoying bits as in the previous movies: dozens of people sitting around singing for no reason; lengthy closeups of random people with bad teeth grinning idiotically at the camera; stories that merge into other stories, so you're never sure what you're watching.

Pasolini eschews the more familiar stories, like Aladdin and Ali Baba, to concentrate on Nur Ed Din (Franco Merli) who loses his favorite slave girl, and wanders around, crying and having erotic adventures while searching for her.

Inside that story is another, about Aziz (Ninetto Davoli), who depends on his girlfriend for advice on how to win The Girl of His Dreams.  It ends badly.

And a few others.  Prince Tagi (Francesco Paolo Governale) falls in love with a girl through hearing a story about her, but she doesn't like men. 

More after the break

Jeremy Renner: A gay serial killer, some gay subtext roles, some homophobia, and a j/o video

 

I wanted to do a profile of Jeremy Renner, the one-time roommate of Kristoffer Winter, who may or may not have dated my friend Infinite Chazz in West Hollywood.  But there are problems: few nude photos, not much beefcake, and he's extremely homophobic. 

Addressing the rumors that he's bisexual because he was living with a man and a woman, he cursed "they're not f*** true!"  Same thing when he dumped both to move in with Kristoffer Winters, who may or may not have dated my friend Infinite Chazz in West Hollywood: "Believe whatever you f*king want!"

By the way, his favorite movie is the deeply homophobic Braveheart, which he's seen 35 times.  

Jeremy will not be playing a gay character anytime soon -- God help the agent who suggests it! -- but oddly, there are obviously unintentional gay subtexts in some of his movies, beginning with the first, National Lampoon's Senior Trip, 1995: stoner Dags has a buddy.

And A Friend's Betrayal, 1996. He's not the one doing the betraying, but he does have a buddy, Brian Austin Green.

How about a fey vampire who preys on teenage boys in a 2000 episode of Angel?

Or a 2002 biopic of Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who preyed on teenage boys?  Why would the homophobic Jeremy accept such a role?

Jeremy gives us some rear nudity in Twelve and Holding, 2005:  "A 12-year old boy and his friends face the harsh realities of death, teenage hormones, and family dysfunction." 100 to 1 the "hormones" mean the 12-year old gets down with a girl.

More nude Jeremy after the break

Six degrees of Kevin's Bacon's penis. With Billy Crudup, Mickey Rourke, and others

I was trying to combine the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" game, where any actor in any random movie is six movies or less away from Kevin, plus a double-entendre on "bacon" meaning "penis."  

It didn't work, so I'll just post six penises, some of Kevin Bacon, some of his costars.

Born in 1958, Kevin graduated from high school at age 15, attended Bucknell University, and hit the New York theater scene in 1975.  He was in some plays and some New York-based soap operas, and he played one of the fratboy pledges in Animal House, 1978.  You know you saw it, and didn't notice anything problematic.  It was the 70s.

He bulged in the teen slasher Friday the 13th, 1980, but I just saw it recently, and didn't notice.  A few more plays, including Forty Deuce, which won him an Obie, and he was ready for fame in the angst vehicle Diner, 1982, with Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Roarke, and Daniel Stern.

Penis #1: Actually Mickey Rourke's.

Footloose, 1984, is an icon of the 1980s generation, where televangelists like Jerry Falwell were calling down God's wrath on America for such sins as teen pregnancy, the Equal Rights Amendment, and homa-sekshuls: a conservative preacher has banned dancing in his small town, I didn't see it, but there's a buddy-bonding gay subtext between Ren and Willard (Kevin, Chris Penn) in the play.

White Water Summer, 1987: Kevin plays a sadistic wilderness guide who almost sends Sean Astin to his death.  But there aren't any girls in it, at least.

Kevin shows his butt in He Said, She Said, 1991, a romance with the gimmick of showing every scene twice, from his and her point of view.

Another butt in Pyrates, 1991, which is not about pirates.  The hetero couple starts fire when they have sex.  

That reminds me of an old joke, either from Talulah Bankhead or Elvira, Mistress of the Dark: 

Guy: "Do you smoke after sex?"

Talulah/Elvira: "Darling, I don't know.  I never looked."

A Few Good Men, 1992, sounds like it is about soldiers fighting and dying, but actually it's a courtroom drama, with Tom Cruise defending two soldiers accused of murder. Kevin stars as the Captain.

Penis #2: James Marshall, playing one of the accused soldiers.

More after the break.  I swear, we'll see Kevin's bacon