This is a travel adventure comedy based (loosely) on one of Jules Verne’s series of Extraordinary Voyages. The voyages have been the source of many more famous movies, including Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, and the pioneering 1902 film A Trip to the Moon. This particular film is based specifically on Tribulations of a Chinaman in China.

Twenty Thousand Leagues was the first book I ever read from cover to cover. I thought it was the greatest story ever, and it launched me into a lifetime romance with books.

If you are reading this page, I think you probably know who Ursula Andress is. For the record, she was the original Bond girl and some still say the best. In addition to her famous appearance in Dr. No, she also appeared in the non-canonical Casino Royale, which was basically a Bond-inspired comedy.

This 1965 appearance may not seem like much nudity (you can’t really see it without the pause button), but it was a BFD in 1965, when there was little nudity in films

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You may not know that all of Ursula’s dialogue in Dr. No was spoken by a woman named Nikki van der Zyl. In fact, Nikki was every female voice in that film except Moneypenny and Miss Taro, including all of the English speakers. She also provided voices for many other Bond films. For example, she provided Claudine Auger’s voice in Thunderball, Mie Hama’s voice in You Only Live Twice, Françoise Therry’s voice in The Man With the Golden Gun, and Corinne Cléry’s voice in Moonraker. She couldn’t speak for Gert Frobe in Goldfinger, but taught him to speak his dialogue phonetically and more naturally because his English was virtually non-existent at the time. (Here’s an interview with Nikki, and here’s a biography.)

One more IG post

I like this Leray post even better

New series based on the Grisham novel.

It seems like a strange decision to create a series based on a novel already covered by a Francis Ford Coppola film with a first rate cast, especially on a middle-of-the-road network (USA) that is likely to make it as bland as possible.

One odd spin: Bruiser Stone was played by Mickey Rourke in the movie, Lena Parrilla (below) in the series! (It was a guy in the novel.) That works out for us, since nobody here wants to see Mickey Rourke naked.

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There’s no nudity, but she wins based on the camera angle alone. Where exactly was the photographer? Do they have an observer’s gallery for pube removal? (Not a bad spectator sport. Better than that TGL indoor golf league.)

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This is a low-budget Canadian dramedy written and directed by Sook-Yin Lee, adapted from the eponymous graphic novel by Chester Brown.

A very nice, nerdy cartoonist is told by his equally nerdy girlfriend that she wants to explore a relationship with somebody else, but doesn’t want him to move out. He accepts her decision, but hates his life as the ex-boyfriend and cuckold-in-residence. He has to listen to her have hot sex and sometimes violent arguments with the other guy. He ultimately decides to give up on romantic love and to satisfy his urges with … er … escorts.

I intended to capture the nudity and ignore the film, because this didn’t sound like the kind of film I would enjoy. I was wrong. I ended up watching every bit of it, even the cleverly illustrated closing credits (presumably images from the source novel).

From the first moments, it feels like truth. It seems to be an accurate account of the way things actually happened in Chester Brown’s life. Some of his experiences with the escorts were positive dalliances with pleasant, middle-class women making a better living than they could elsewhere. Other experiences were awkward and confusing. Still other experiences were depressing and frightening. He saw how escorts were treated by the police. He heard the life stories of damaged women from homes without love. He suspected that one woman he had sex with was in the brothel against her will, and recognized his own culpability if she was a victim of sex trafficking.

Meanwhile, the nerdy girl who dropped him goes through hell in a series of relationships that seemed at first to be promising and gratifying, but went sour for one reason or another. In other words: life. I wanted to reach out to her and say, “You know that nerd would have loved you forever, and would have been holding your hand on your death bed,” but the nerd himself resisted any “told ya so” impulses he might have had, and remained her close, supportive, platonic friend.

What makes the film seem even more real is that the nerdy girl who dropped Chester Brown in real life is none other than the writer/director of this film, Sook-Yin Lee.

Here is the Wikipedia entry about the graphic novel, which is really a graphic autobiography. Interesting story.

There is a great deal of topless nudity from the women in this film, but no more than that. No female lower bodies are in evidence. On the other hand, the cartoonist’s dick is seen in several scenes.

So I could have liked it a lot more.

Here are the videos

Here is Andrea Werhun’s mini-autobiography from IMDb.

Andrea Werhun is a writer, performer, and producer based in Toronto. She is the author & co-creator of Modern Whore: A Memoir (2022, Strange Light/Penguin Random House Canada) with filmmaker Nicole Bazuin. The book is soon to be a major motion picture, starring Andrea and executive produced by 2024 Palme D’Or winner Sean Baker. In 2023, Andrea co-wrote, produced, and performed in Thriving: A Dissociated Reverie, starring Black non-binary former sex worker Kitoko Mai, about their dissociative identity disorder diagnosis. The short film enjoyed its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and was selected as one of TIFF Canada’s Top Ten 2023. Andrea is also the subject, performer, and producer of the award-winning short films Modern Whore (SXSW) and the CBC short doc, Last Night at the Strip Club (Hot Docs). She has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian, CBC Radio, and is a regular contributor to The Globe & Mail.

Brazilian popstar Anitta looking sexy in a bikini at the beach for a photo shoot in Rio de Janeiro!

Sample:

Katie Cassidy showing nipples while posing braless in a sheer dress for a photo shoot!

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