EROTIC TALES
runs Feb. 14-24 at Little Theatre
IF YOU DON’T have a valentine, you may be thinking to yourself, “Self, I have no love, but I can go watch some LOVIN’, and do it in the generally respectable atmosphere of the Little Theatre rather than, say, D骠 Vu or Club Seattle.” But assuming the German producers sent us the best of these 24 supposedly erotic tales commissioned since ’94, well, yikes. Three samples of the half-hour-long films actually induced sleep. (The series packages three titles into each sitting.)
In Hotel Paradise, Vincent D’Onofrio exhibits school-play-caliber acting while handcuffed to a bed; his role in Mystic Pizza was more erotic. A bride-to-be has awakened with him—and he’s not her betrothed! Banal, overwritten musings on the nature of love follow. She’s dressed in a sexy merry widow, and her breasts are shown, as are the two of them frolicking in a tub with (rather frightening) plastic swans (symbolism alert!).
Moving on to some girl-on-girl action (and the homo stuff looks to be sadly underrepresented here), Touch Me is about the blossoming relationship between an artist and her model. This was the sleep inducer; maybe it’s the bad classical music. Touch achieves eroticism insofar as one chick rubbing another’s glistening, shapely naked bum by firelight is erotic.
Hal Hartley fans would be forgiven for having hopes for his 2000 short Kimono. A bride—again with the bride! —wanders through the woods in a white merry widow—again with the merry widow! —and high heels. It’s an avant-garde Victoria’s Secret commercial, complete with the whole lingerie ensemble shown in another color (red! Symbolism alert!) as well as a simply lovely kimono.
Other shorts look to be torn from the pages of Penthouse Forum, including more brides, a milkmaid, a night nurse, and more hotel rooms—though, sadly, signs point to them being barely R-rated.
