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We
open, fully clothed, in the studio of some
nightly news broadcast, where sports anchor
George Bowman (Brad Grinter)
wraps up his segment, and then tosses it
back to the news desk.
No
longer live, Steve, the studio cameraman,
approaches the desk. Bowman asks how his
new marriage with Cindy is working out. He
says it's going great except for one
little hang up -- his wife freezes up
whenever they get nekkid, and that kind of
puts the kibosh on their sex life.
Thinking
Cindy must have had some kind of nude
traumatic experience when she was younger,
the sportscaster decides he's also a part-time
psychoanalyst; and his solution is some shock therapy
as he invites the
couple to come and visit a nudist colony
he belongs to. Bowman's logic is as
follows: If Cindy is the only one not
nekkid, then she will be different, and
uncomfortable because of it. And if she
wants to fit in, she'll have to lose her
inhibitions and go native. So it will
either cure Cindy, or finally provide the
psychotic break she needs and trigger a
mass murderer.
After
assurances that all the strange things
he's heard about nudists camps aren't
true, Steve thinks it's a great idea, and
gives Cindy the hard sell. Cindy doesn't
appear to be very stable as we zoom in on
her head and hear the magic voices that
lurk inside there (which
leads me to believe this will end in a nekkid
bloodbath.)
Wanting to save their marriage, Cindy reluctantly agrees to go. Steve thanks her
by promptly passing out on top of her.
The
following weekend, the newlyweds arrive at
the nudist colony. Steve has to drag Cindy
in; she's having second thoughts. Barrows
and his partner
greet them -- both buck-ass nekkid, and
judging by the way he poses, Barrows is
very proud of his *ahem* microphone -- and show them around.
We
spy several nekkid campers, of all shapes
and sizes, playing all kinds of games,
including golf, volleyball, badminton, and
one very interesting game of Twister. (Right
hand-blue. Left foot-red. Wedding
Tackle-green.)
Steve,
and the overwhelmed, Cindy go to their
bungalow. Steve quickly and happily strips
out of his clothes, but Cindy lags -- and
I'm not sure if the POV shots of her
looking around, that continually go in and
out of focus, are supposed to represent the
struggle in her mind over the nudity thing,
or just some ineptness on the cameraman's
part.
Cindy
finally discards her clothes but wraps up
in a blanket. George continues the tour
and takes them over to the barbecue pits (and
WATCH YOUR WIENERS, boys, that thing's hot!)
Cindy's internal voices have reached a
crescendo, and we finally decipher what
she's saying -- "cooperate
together."
As
the day progresses, Cindy's inhibitions
slowly melt away. There's a brief
self-realization that Cindy's mom was the
root cause of her hang-ups, but that
doesn't matter now because she's nekkid --
and there ain't a dang thing mom can do
about it. She kisses Steve, and they take a
stroll by the lake, and Cindy admits to
finally being free, thanks to the power of
nudity.
The
End
I
don't know where you all stand on the idea
of nudity and pornography, but to me they
are two very different things.
I
remember back to my freshman year in
college, and the monthly visits from some
old high school buddies; one of whom was a
hard-core porn enthusiast. I will freely
admit that I have no problems with the
teasing, and titillating kind of porn, but
hard-core does absolutely nothing for me.
Watching two people doing the horizontal
bop, to me, is the cinematic equivalent of
watching paint dry. Does that make me a
prude? Fine. Whatever. I'm not judging,
whatever turns your crank, turns your
crank, know what I mean ('cuz
we're not even gonna discuss my
proclivities.)
Anyways,
the hard-core porn enthusiast would always
bring a sample of this genre, encased in a
plain brown rental box, to my dorm for
Pizza-n- Porn night. This tradition only
lasted for three encounters, because each
time my buddy brought the same damn porn
film. No! I don't mean they had similar
plots and scenes. It was the EXACT SAME
MOVIE.
It
was through no fault of his own. He'd
rented the tapes on three separate
occasions, in three different rental
places, under three different titles; but
each time it was the same dang film about
a town's local "sex club" coming
under fire by the repressed and frigid
"ice queen" mayor -- who plans
to shut them down. So they kidnap her, sit
her on a vibrator, and put on a sex-show to
prove how vital the club is to the town's
economy -- or something like that. After
the show, forgive me, climaxes (and
the batteries run out),
the club is saved and the mayor turns into
their best client.
After
unsuccessfully protesting the repeated
viewings, and then sitting through this
fine film -- for the third damn time in as
many weeks, Pizza-n-Porn night died when I
made some excuse about not being around
for the next proposed get together (in
fear that I'd see it for a fourth time
under yet another, different title.)
There
is a big difference between art, nudity
and pornography. You can use art to defend
the former, but the later gets a little
prickly.
I
also was an art major when I first started
college, and I remember my first experience
with a nude model. On the first day, I
couldn't draw or sketch worth a poop. I
admit it. I was distracted by her very
nice breasts. But by the fourth or fifth
session, it was no big deal. Then
I happened to be dining with my mother,
who has very strong, negative opinions
about the subjects being one in the same:
both are pure evil. It just so happened
that our waitress that evening was the
nude model at the college, and she
recognized me. And of course, Mom wanted to
know how I knew her. This led down a very
rocky path and heated debate over our egg
rolls, where I finally convinced her that
there was, in fact, a difference, and not
all nudity was bad. Pornography, however,
was still the root of all things evil.
Sorry. I tried.
Watching
porn is almost a right of passage, but it
was a phase I quickly graduated from. The
staples of grindhouses and stag parties,
these naughty pieces of cinema have been
with us since the beginning. Grinter was a
full time nudist and film teacher, who
allegedly funneled money from his
student's projects to make his own nudist
camp films. He later went on to
crap-cinema infamy when he teamed up with
Steven Hawkes -- a nude-noir veteran
himself, for the all time classic Blood
Freak.
Today,
hard-core is a high profit industry with direct to
video sales. They're glossier, with higher
production values, and the full-body-tanned
actors and actresses are silicone and
surgically enhanced Barbie and Ken dolls.
Old
school titillating porn, like this screwed up nudist
short, on the other hand, is a world of
visible boom mikes, lost delivery boys,
skanky soundtracks, and lots-n-lots of
earth tones. They were populated by
tan-lines, fish-white beer guts, and
drooping *ahem* equipment. And I
miss them dearly.
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