(From “Matt and Khym: Better than Ever”)

In the book “The Conversations” master film editor Walter Murch talks about “reality closely observed” being an essential aspect of cinema. He traces this back to Proust and other ninteenth century novelists who turned their creative attention away from history and heros, and toward the drama of everyday life; taking note, for example, of how the elbows of a man’s coat might be worn shiny from wear.

In cinema, these obervations are expressed through the use of the close-up. Small, telling details, used to give the audience cues about what’s important in a scene, in a story.

The history of cinema is filled with close-ups of mouths touching mouths. In the days of movie palaces images of kissing filled screens four stories high. Those images said kissing is important, kissing is good, kissing is beautiful.

I found the below on the Freddy and Eddy forums. Kissing is not the only way that lovers can touch one another that is important, good, and beautiful.

I also like to keep the lights on to see my man’s glistening cock repeatedly plunge into me slowly to the hilt and then just as slowly withdraw. That’s such an awesome tease, and it’s slow enough for me to touch his cock and balls in between strokes. Really makes me beg for more. But the greatest thing is that the visual image stays in my mind, so when the thrusting gets more serious, I can revisit that image when the in-and-out is being intensely felt, but not seen.

The the persistant image is the technological basis of cinema. How lovely it is in love-making as well!

No surprise, parasites of all stripe have attached themselves to the killings at Viginia Tech. If you feel like your blood pressure needs a boost, read Judith Reisman’s explanation “Cho’s Erototoxic Addiction”. For my money, this is her most dizzyingly offensive line:

“Sit him at the Internet every night, angrily lusting after naked young blondes who provoke his loins.”

Blonde-bashing, gynophobia, and erotophobia, all in one tidy sentence. And speaking of money, like most parasites, Reisman sees dollars signs at Virgina Tech:

“Meanwhile, a major lawsuit waits in the wings if Virginia Tech has been a pornographic/erototoxic tolerant environment.”

Porn addiction is real, and it’s dangerous, and there’s no telling what hideous, depraved, selfish act it will drive Ms. Reisman to next.

Block Busted

New York Times, yes.

IMDb, no. (still)

Au Lys la Boutique de Lingerie Libertine

IMDb says they’re just trying to protect their more sensitive viewers from stumbling across their listing for DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER by accident. These sort of explanations always leave me scratching me head. Protecting them from what?

Two Guys Kissin’ Ruined My Life

Thanks to Tom Smith, now I know!

We were super excited when the Amazon.com listing for DAMON & HUNTER went live last month. But within days, Amazon had sold out their initial order, and then through some weird cascading/interlocking database propegation phenomenon, it dissappeared from the site altogether.

Fearing the worst (de-listed because of the hot man on man action) but hoping for the best (de-listed because Amazon.com stocks about a bizillion items and D&H just got lost in the shuffle,) we’ve been patiently sending Amazon notes to find out what we could do to get the title re-listed. Well finally, after sending them a big box of DVDs, and writing them about 10 times to follow up, the listing for DAMON & HUNTER is live on Amazon.com again.

DAMON AND HUNTER: Doing it Together on Amazon.com

Of course if you’ve seen this film and you have some nice things to say about we’d love love love it if you logged into Amazon and left a nice review!

When I was 10 I got a black cat and I named him “13″. 13 turned out to be a very lucky cat, living well into his late teens and even getting photographed with a vice-presidential candidate (Long funny story I won’t bother you with now.)

When I was in high school, I wore 13 on the soccer field and 52 (4×13) on the football field (13 is not a lineman’s number.)

Today, on Friday the 13th, I found that DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is going to be playing at the 13th annual Out Take Reel Queer Film Festival in New Zealand:

“We very much enjoyed it and I’d like to confirm our interest in screening “Damon & Hunter” in Out Takes 2007 in New Zealand…I look forward to hearing from you soon - and thanks again for sending the screener. It was a real pleasure to see something different in the genre - a well-made, fun film. I’m sure it will be a hit with our audiences.”

–Simon Fulton, Chief Programmer, Out Takes 2007

No word on the schedule yet, as I only just written back to them to confirm that yes, absolutely I’d like to have our film in the festival. But as soon as I know more, you know I’ll be posting it here!(And yes. Take that you IMBb mutherfuckers!)

Triskaidekaphobia? Triskaidekaphilia!

Don’t worry. I’m not in jail, and I’m not going to jail. More soon.

If you’re not a registered user with your super-secret “adult titles” search enabled, you can’t.

You can find 9 SONGS, a film about a fictional pair of rock-show going, coke-snorting lovers, that famously features explicit footage of felatio, cunnilingus, coitus, and even a pop-shot.

You can find PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, the film that shared the Best Documentary prize with DAMON AND HUNTER at the 2006 Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

You can even find MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, our first erotic documentary title.

But you can’t find DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER.

Says IMDB:

“The IMDb contains over 400,000 different movie titles. The aim of the database is to cover as many titles and genres as possible. As a result, some of these titles contain words or expressions that some of our users may find inappropriate and some movies themselves may also fall into this category. To provide some level of control for those of a sensitive nature some adult titles have been made searchable only by users who are registered with the IMDb and have requested access to this material.”

“Inappropriate.” Apparently an intimate film about two young men in love, and loving one another is “inappropriate.”

Caligola,, Bob Guccione’s notorious bait and switch production isn’t “inappropriate.”

Neither is Love Camp 7, the infamous Nazi exploitation flick. (From the IMDB listing, “The film contains numerous scenes of women prisoners being abused, tortured and humiliated by their Nazi captors. Indeed the whole purpose of the work is to invite male viewers to relish the spectacle of naked women being humiliated for their titillation. LOVE CAMP 7 contains both eroticised depictions of sexual violence and repeated association of sex with restraint, pain, and humiliation.”)

Apparently Pink Flamingos, which (among other things) features an actor eating dog shit, isn’t “inappropriate” either.

But according to IMDB, DAMON AND HUNTER, an award-winning documentary film featuring a consentual love-scene between committed lovers is “inappropriate,” and viewers with more delicate sensiblities must be protected from the pain they might feel should they accidentally stumble across DAMON AND HUNTER in the course of browsing through IMDB.

We’ve been here before.

Last Summer, the Australian OFLC “protected” the good people of Sydney from accidently stumbling into the queerDOC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and being exposed to DAMON & HUNTER.

Last Fall, a printer in North Carolina refused to print the above poster for DAMON & HUNTER, lest anyone in their plant be exposed to the image of two men about to kiss.

IMDB’s been here before too. Last January, IMDB hid John Cameron Mitchell’s SHORTBUS in the section for “inappropriate” films. (An uproar ensued across the indie film world prompting IMDB to move SHORTBUS from the “inappropriate” section to the “appropriate” section” by the end of the day.)

Of course compared to us SHORTBUS and ThinkFilm are a marketing juggernaut. John Cameron Mitchell’s been quoted in a hundred places pronouncing that SHORTBUS isn’t arrousing and isn’t porn, where I’m quite proud of the fact that (at least for some people) DAMON AND HUNTER is quite arousing, and I’m ambivalent about the p-word. (Short version, it tells you more about the person saying it than it does about the film they’re applying it to.)

I’m also ambivelent about trying to get IMDB to change the listing. Not because I’m happy to have DAMON & HUNTER hidden away, but because I know that trying to get IMDB to change it will take a lot of time and effort. Comstock Films is me and my wife Peggy, there’s only so much of us to go around. And after financing, producing, editing, and marketing these films, there’s not always that much left over for fighting battles with people like the OFLC or IMDB. Sometimes I feel a little ground down,

What I am not ambivalent about is that Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together is not “inappropriate” film, and if “sensitive” IMDB users don’t need to be protected from stumbling across listings for CALIGOLA, LOVE CAMP 7, or PINK FLAMINGOS, they most certainly don’t need to be “protected” from accidentally seeing the listing for DAMON & HUNTER.

UPDATE

You can also find HONEY AND BUNNY, which played along side DAMON & HUNTER at the New York CineKink Film Festival, and features close-up shot of a half-eaten peach lodged in a woman’s vagina, as well as FILTHY FOOD, which also played with D&H at the CineKink Film Festival, and features close-up footage of a woman performing “oral sex” on a variety of foods in the place of penises, vulvas, and breasts.