USA,
2003, 75 min
Shown in 2004
CREDITS
- dir
-
Leslie Shearing
- prod
-
Leslie Shearing, Hans Hoffman, Alan Oxman
- scr
-
Leslie Shearing
- cam
-
Peter Olsen, John Kelleran
- editor
-
Lilah Bankier
- mus
-
Sabina Sciubba
- cast
-
Heather Smith, Hans Hoffman, Donna Klimek, Douglas Manes, Leslie Shearing
- source
-
Other Side Filmworks, 111 N 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY 11211. FAX: 718-302-5909. EMAIL: leshe@hotmail.com.
-
FILM POSTER
OTHER
The American obsession with sex and its related industries of sex toys, aids and counselings is hilariously sent up in this improvisation-based comedy from Leslie Shearing and the LabRats, a New York–based comedy troupe. Mary and Joe are a happily married upscale couple, nearly perfect except for one glaring flaw: They haven’t had sex in at least a month! Knowing that most all-American couples have far more frequent, satisfying orgasms (they’ve seen it on TV), they embark on a quest to cure their sexual malaise, even if it means trying everything from the psychological to the physical, the sensual to the mental, and a few things in between. Discovering “the sacred-spot massage” at the local Tantric Den on one (rather busy) hand, learning a few too many urology details at a medical office on the other, the couple may finally get their power-sex on, but possibly at the expense of their relationship, or their pocketbook. So unerringly truthful that test audiences believed they were actually watching a documentary, Shearing and the LabRats use a blend of farcical comedy and nearly uncomfortable realism to document the vast paranoias and wincing insecurities that rise from our culture’s obsession with, and repression of, sexual desire.
FACTOID #171
When Festival Executive Director Claude Jarman addressed journalists at the 1977 Festival press conference, he announced that the SFIFF was launching an ’important experiment’ by screening films at the Castro Theatre (at the urging of Mayor George Moscone to take the Festival to the neighborhoods) The experiment must have worked, as the Festival still has screenings at the Castro to this day, in addition to many other satellite venues.
