Anon (2018, UK)

Netflix teamed up with writer/director Andrew Niccol to create this mind-bending, noirish, cyberpunk science fiction thriller from the UK. The intriguing murder mystery paid homage to Total Recall (1990), Gattaca (1997) (Niccol's own debut feature), and Minority Report (2002) with its futuristic advances in technology. In the dystopic world portrayed, a visual record was made of everything that had taken place, via the recorded memories of every individual. That meant the world portrayed disallowed anonymity and privacy, with pop-up IDs for everything.

In the provocative, visually-striking story set in a world of constant surveillance (via neural implants in the 'Mind's Eye' that stored one's memories in the Ether), lone, hard-drinking, divorced and world-weary detective Sal Frieland (Clive Owen) was tasked with investigating cases, although in his work, he could easily pull up recorded visual memories of violent or homicidal incidents and determine what had happened. But then, a series of unsolved murders by a serial killer only provided recordings from the gunman's POV. Somehow, the victims' visual records were being hijacked or erased, thereby leaving no 'digital footprint.'

To solve the 'who-dun-it,' Sal invented an undercover character for himself (by creating an artificial set of memory records) - he would pose as a wealthy stockbroker and fiancee named Sol Grayson, who needed to find a hacker to alter his recorded memories after visiting with a prostitute named Krystal (Alyson Bath).

In the process, he met up with the shadowy and elusive Girl (Amanda Seyfried) (aka Anon, her hacker alias) who was an 'off the grid' hacker - she became a prime suspect because she was able to erase herself from people's memories or remove incriminating evidence from the Ether for a high price paid by wealthy clients. She made it almost impossible to track her by never looking at her surroundings. She was also able to create new VR mirage-like scenarios in a person's mind. In one intense sequence during their cat-and-mouse game encounters, she employed real-time hacking that compromised Sol/Sal's fully-conscious mind and caused intense hallucinations (in a train station and on a stairway).

In the end, she hacked into Sal's mind and erased his memories, leaving him confused about whether he was in reality or illusion. But she wasn't the serial killer - instead, it was revealed that sinister security expert Cyrus Frear (Mark O'Brien) was the prime hacker responsible for the murders. In the conclusion's last lines, the Girl quipped to Sal: "It's not that I have something to hide. I have nothing I want you to see."

In the course of the film, the female characters were mostly femme fatales or sexy corpses - there was lots of nudity and some sex scenes, including Sol's sex with a prostitute. In a violent scene, two other prostitutes Elaine Selak (Jordan Claire Robbins) and Amanda Volz (Sierra Wooldridge) were filmed from a gunman's POV as he pulled the trigger on both of them.

Murder of Two Prostitutes - POV of Gunman

Blockers (2018)

Kay Cannon's directorial debut film was a witty (and raunchy) teen sex comedy with a feminist twist on the over-used 'lose virginity' theme. It followed on the heels of other similar films, including Bachelorette (2012), Trainwreck (2015), and Girls Trip (2017). The full name of the film was implied to be "C--kBlockers" - some posters had a prominent rooster above the title.

On their prom night, three female high school seniors (who had been friends for their entire childhoods) pledged and agreed to give up their virginity for the first time:

• Julie Decker (Kathryn Newsom), daughter of single mother Lisa (Leslie Mann), with boyfriend Austin (Graham Phillips) whom she had been dating for six months
• Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan), daughter of Mitchell (John Cena) and Marcie (Sarayu Blue), with long-haired prom date Connor Aldrich (Miles Robbins) ("with a 'man bun'")
• Sam (Gideon Adlon), a closeted-lesbian (interested in Angelica (Ramona Young)), daughter of divorced and estranged father Hunter (Ike Barinholtz), with chubby, pork-pie-hat-wearing prom date Chad (Jimmy Bellinger)

Julie (Kathryn Newsom)

Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan)

Sam (Gideon Adlon)

Julie was in the most serious relationship - with Austin, and confided with her female pals at a school lunch table about how she was dreaming for a perfect night of sex and loss of her virginity on prom night with him:

"I'm having sex....Tonight with Austin....I mean, you know, we've been dating for six months, and we love each other, and I just awkwardly got my pediatrician to put me on birth control. She gave me a sticker. Two because I was good, so - I know it's, like, kind of corny or whatever, but it just seems like prom night - it's kind of perfect, you know? We're gonna have, like, dim lighting and rose petals on the bed and the scent from that candle that gets me horny every time I pass it in Walgreens.... I'm gonna look into Austin's eyes, and then he's gonna look into mine, and then we're gonna, like, touch each other's faces, you know? For, like, a long time. Like, a long time. Just to, like, connect. And then we're gonna - Kapow!"

Impulsively, Kayla agreed: "All right, f--k it, I'm in....I'm in. I'm having sex tonight too...(to Julie) Yours can be special and perfect. Mine is gonna be tonight and with - that dude." (She gestured to Connor, her lab partner, who was seated at another table). Sam was flabbergasted: "You haven't even hooked up with him. You haven't even seen his thing yet. What if he has a weird one?" Kayla counter-argued: "They're all weird. Penises are not for looking at. They're for use. They're like plungers. Listen, my student athlete days are over. Tonight is the beginning of my adult life, and for the first time I can do whatever I want. So I want to go to prom, get drunk, get potted up on weed and lose my god-damn virginity." Julie announced that they could celebrate together:

Julie: We're gonna have the same first-time-sex anniversary.
Kayla: We can go to dinner every year and commemorate it...Yes, Olive Garden. Breadsticks for life, bitch.

Sam felt further behind than the other two girls and admitted: "I just don't think I'm there yet. You know, maybe something might happen tonight with me and Chad, but, uh, I don't think sex is gonna be that thing....(She glanced over lovingly at a female student named Angelica) But you never know what could happen. I mean, maybe my inner sexual Smaug will emerge from its keep and spread its mighty wings."

All of the girls had over-protective parents who learned about their sex pact (by eavesdropping on the girls' emoji-laden, phallic text messages on the way to the prom in a limousine) (i.e., "Eggplants are dicks...trees are weed, and snowflakes are cocaine, and that thing is 'yas queen'"). They decided to take extreme measures in a crusade to prevent their offspring from carrying through on their vows (Julie's mother: "Let's cock-block those motherf--kers"). As the parents stalked and tracked their daughters, the teens did engage in some sexual activity.

During the sex scene between a drunken Sam and Chad, they first discussed having actual intercourse, but then declined before he became overexcited and prematurely ejaculated - afterwards, they chuckled over the embarrassment:

Chad: "So, you, uh, sure you want to do this?"
Sam: "Yeah. Yes. F--k yeah. You're gonna, you're gonna penis me...First, I'm gonna - I'm just gonna touch it"
Chad: "You want to touch it? Yeah, you can touch it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, go for it. Yeah. Okay, just, like, Oh! Wow! Okay. That is, like, the greatest feeling I've ever had in my entire life..."
Sam: "It doesn't just feel like a super dry hand of a friend?"
Chad: "No, no. Okay, so, do you wanna, uhm, put it in?"
Sam: "No."
Chad: "Okay."
Sam: "I can't."
Chad: "You know what? Look, we don't have" --- (Moaning loudly as he came)
Sam: "Oh, my God. Oh, my God!"
Chad: "Holy s--t. Right there! Look at all of it. Oh, my God. I gotta get over. Okay.... I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry....I was thinking about it and you, and then it just, I'm sorry....You're amazing. I know we're still virgins, but I feel different, you know?"

Julie and Austin, truly in love, had sex together in a hotel room before which he told her: "Now, I'm just warning you, I've practiced a few times, but this might not go that well" - he was right - it took a few condoms to get it right; later, her gal-pals congratulated her: "You're a woman amongst girls. Congratu-fuck-ulations"; Julie described the experience: "Honestly, it was a little painful, kind of fast and kind of awkward, but absolutely perfect."

Kayla and Connor mutually decided not to engage in full sexual intercourse; later, she admitted: "I couldn't go through with it," but then added that she enjoyed oral sex: "You guys, so much, so much went down tonight, including Connor...Let's just say The Chef went out to eat my pussy. It was good."

Sam revealed her lesbian leanings toward Angelica, and they kissed each other to prove their attraction to each other.

Elizabeth Harvest (2018)

Writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez' talky, science-fiction thriller and time-tripping, non-linear horror film was a modern-day retake on the 17th century Bluebeard French folk-tale by author Charles Perrault. The unpredictable gothic plot was similar in some respects to Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2014), Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), and the classic Frankenstein (1931) tale (Frankenstein's wife was named Elizabeth).

After the fairy-tale wedding of Elizabeth (Abbey Lee) to her much older, wealthy, Nobel Prize-winning yet creepy, widowed research-scientist husband Henry (Ciarán Hinds), she was brought to his isolated glass house in a mountainous region - his "secret world." At the mansion were two helpers: secretive, ominous and mysterious housekeeper Claire (Carla Gugino) and Henry's visually impaired son Oliver (Matthew Beard), adept at flower-arrangements.

The imprisoning state-of-the-art estate, containing all of Elizabeth's dreamed-of material possessions (wardrobes, jewelry, etc.) also had fingerprint recognition locks and security systems. She was cautioned and forbidden to enter an off-limits basement room. Before Henry left for the day, he tempted her: "You'll be a good girl, won't you?" -- but of course, her curiosity led her to disobey in his absence.

The Off-Limits Room	Elizabeth with Henry

Inside the room in the film's early plot-twist reveal, in a reddish-tinged lab, she discovered a drawer with a cryogenic tank holding a naked clone of herself (later revealed to be the 6th clone of Elizabeth!) submerged in an amniotic fluid. When Henry discovered her disobedience, he chased after her and murdered her with a large knife....and then the film's confusing plot would begin to repeat itself 6 weeks later, with various revelations, some of which stemmed from a backstory in Claire's detailed diary-journal:

• the first Elizabeth in the film was the 4th version (or clone) of Elizabeth; after being murdered by Henry with a knife, the current Elizabeth was then the 5th version
• in the second replay of Henry's return and the discovery of Elizabeth's disobedience, Henry was murdered by Elizabeth (5th clone)
• two decades earlier, Henry was involved in the cloning process, to clone his dead wife Elizabeth; she had allegedly died in childbirth due to a rare genetic condition called Werner's Syndrome; grief-stricken, Henry re-engineered (or 'harvested') Elizabeth's DNA to generate 6 copies of the original Elizabeth; allegedly, he was assisted in the recreation of his wife by the child named Oliver
• the most shocking revelation was that Oliver was not Henry's son, but actually a clone of Henry himself
• in the film's conclusion, both Oliver and the 5th cloned Elizabeth were shot and killed by the 6th cloned Elizabeth

The Favourite (2018, UK)

Director Yorgos Lanthimos' and Fox Searchlight Pictures' UK/US period-piece melodrama was an R-rated, dark and ascerbic chronicling of intrigue (and sex) in the court of the volatile, yet ailing and vulnerable Queen Anne (Best Actress winner Olivia Colman), the last Stuart monarch during her early 18th century reign in England. The Queen kept 17 pet rabbits in cages in her bedroom (one for each of her dead children).

Her relationships involved two rival female cousins vying to be court romantic 'favourites' - a three-way love triangle:

• Lady Sarah Jennings Churchill (Rachel Weisz), the Duchess of Marlborough, the Queen's confidante, secret lover and close friend-adviser
• Abigail Hill/Masham (Emma Stone), the newly-arrived, charming, ambitious yet fallen and impoverished servant-maid who also vied for power and prestige and was soon held in high regard by Queen Anne; Abigail ingratiated herself to the Queen by tending to her gout-inflamed legs with herbs, massages, and mud-baths

In competition with Lady Churchill for the Queen's affection, the social-climbing Abigail was seen topless in bed and sleeping next to the Queen after having intimate relations (remarkable as Emma Stone's first semi-nude scene on film). She was discovered by a shocked Lady Churchill in the light of a candlestick.

In another scene with ribald dialogue, Lady Churchill requested, while bending over, to fire the Queen's bed-chamber maid Abigail for being a liar and thief: "You will dismiss her." The Queen refused, noting: "I don't want to. I like it when she puts her tongue inside me" - referring to cunnilingus.

Shortly later, in a mud-bath scene, the two rivals bickered with each other in the Queen's presence. The Queen cautioned Lady Sarah Churchill: "Do not scratch at her" - causing Sarah to scoff back.

In an intimate scene, the scheming Abigail was in a bedroom with her newly-married husband, Baron Samuel Masham (Joe Alwyn). When he told her, "I am as hard as a rock, and it is our wedding night," she sat in bed with her back to him, commanded him: "Lie still," and then reached behind and sexually stimulated him, in a scene of implied masturbatory sex. As he was stimulated and orgasmed loudly behind her, she expressed her concern about Sarah's absence (after poisoning her tea) and loss of control over her:

"Now that she is gone, I find myself more concerned than when she was here. For it is like she could strike from anywhere at any time, and I will not see it coming. I must be calm. She's gone. I'm married. But I must be ready. And yet, how to be ready when I do not know where my enemy is? My life is like a maze I continually think I have gotten out of, only to find another corner right in front of me."

In the next scene set in a brothel (where Sarah temporarily ended up), a rich gentleman customer surveyed the ladies available to him, who bared their buttocks and breasts to him. Sarah was incensed by Abigail's deadly rivalry: "That cunt, Abigail, poisoned me."

The manipulative actions and love-power struggle between the two eventually reached a head, when Sarah threatened to ruin the Queen by revealing their forbidden sexual relationship, by publishing their secret love letters:

"I started looking over some of the many, many, many letters you've written me. 'I long for your embrace. I long for the heat from your naked body on mine.' It's very intense, very explicit. I thought I'd misplaced some of them the other day. It was quite a fright. What if, say, that son of a bitch, Jonathan Swift, got his hands on them? In his newspaper the next day. You would be ruined....You have no idea what I would do for my country - and for you....I will use these letters, unless you announce the tax rise, change the cabinet as I wish, and get rid of Abigail."

Although later regretful (she burned the letters), Lady Sarah was exiled from the court. Now left with the power-hungry Abigail, the Queen soon realized that Abigail was also becoming treacherous and dangerous.

Fifty Shades Freed (2018)

In this dull and inept final installment of the entire trilogy (from 2015-2018 - all released on Valentine's Day) by director James Foley (adapted from E.L. James' novels), naive book editor Anastasia "Ana" Steele (Dakota Johnson) and her troubled, emotionally-damaged, authoritarian, wealthy lover Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) were bonded together (married) under the credits, with suitable vows:

Christian: Anastasia, I vow to love you faithfully forsaking all others. I promise to love, to trust and to respect you. To comfort you in times of need and keep you safe. All that I have is now yours.

Anastasia: Christian, I vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and health, I promise to love you unconditionally. To honor and respect you. To bring you solace in times of need. I promise to cherish you as long as we both shall live.

Afterwards, they traveled in his private jet to Paris and the Mediterranean (Nice, France on the Riviera) for their honeymoon. When she was non-chalant about being topless at the hotel's beachside cabana, Christian - who had applied suntan lotion to her back, became overprotective and nervous about adverse publicity in "some sleazy tabloid", but she argued back in an exasperated fashion: "Christian, look around. There's nothing but boobs for as far as the eye can see. Boobs in boob land. Nobody cares about mine."

While they were basking in the sun, back at Grey Enterprises, a saboteur was planting a bomb in the main server room of the company, resulting in a minor fire - the culprit was identified none other than Ana's jealous and vengeful ex-boss Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson) who had been plaguing, stalking, and tormenting the couple for a long time. There were petty arguments between the newlyweds about whether they would have children, about Ana's reluctance to adopt Grey as her surname, and fears of Christian's betrayal by having an affair with his ex-mistress Elena.

There were a number of tawdry sex scenes interspersed throughout - first on his Riviera yacht after they jet-skied there from the hotel - with Christian's use of handcuffs: ("I'm gonna f--k you until you scream...Don't pull. Don't bite. Do you love me?...Then why do you defy me?"); also later, the application of ice cream followed by licking, and the use of an assortment of "toys" - plus a hair-shampooing and cutting scene, but all of the scenes were fairly tame and reruns of similar sequences in the other two films.

In one intense scene of BDSM in the Red Room, he blindfolded and restrained her. Then, he teased and tantalized (or punished) her ("I'm gonna drive you wild") with a vibrator applied to her breasts and crotch. He was angry that she was disobedient and didn't return straight home that night, until she finally protested and forced him to stop with her safe word 'Red': ("That was not love. Christian, that was revenge... Don't use the Red Room to even the score").

Scene of Bondage in the Red "Play Room"

By the conclusion of the trashy film, the couple were pursued by Hyde who first threatened to kidnap Ana, and after his apprehension was released on bail for $500,000. He then kidnapped Christian's sister Mia Grey (Rita Ora) with ransom demands of $5 million. During the exchange of the ransom, Jack attacked Ana and hit her in the stomach (she was pregnant) - she retaliated by shooting him in the leg.

In the epilogue, it was revealed that Christian and his alter-ego Jack were in the same Detroit-area foster care home. He hypothesized about himself - about what he would have been like if he hadn't been adopted by the wealthy Greys: ("If I'd been left in the system who knows how I'd have turned out?"). Ana reassured him:

"You are nothing like him. You were given a life with advantages, yes, but look what you made of it. You're man of honor. And you treat people well. You care. No one could ever say that about a man like Hyde. No matter who raised him."

The two discovered the whereabouts of the burial site of Christian's "birth mother" and visited the grave.

Lizzie (2018)

Director Craig William Macneill's historical-biographical crime drama told about the infamous and unsolved August 1892 murders (by hatchet) committed by Lizzie Borden. Filmed in only 23 days, the poorly-performing film starred Kristen Stewart (as Bridget "Maggie" Sullivan) and Chloe Sevigny (as the title character, and serving as one of the film's producers) imaginatively speculated that the two had a lesbian relationship.

Historically, the two bloody slayings of Borden family members were committed in Fall River, Massachusetts in the late 1800s. In the feminist retelling of the film, the motivation for the murders was 32 year-old, epilepsy-prone, unwed Lizzie's attempt to liberate herself from her patriarchal, oppressive, wealthy and abusive father Andrew Borden (Jamey Sheridan) while she was in the midst of a lesbian relationship with the newly-arrived, pretty and young Irish, illiterate live-in housemaid Bridget. Also in the Borden household were Lizzie's sister Emma (Kim Dickens) and step-mother Abby (Fiona Shaw). Lizzie hated her step-mother, suspecting that she had married for money.

One of the crucial turning points was Mr. Borden's discovery of Bridget and Lizzie making out in the barn. Borden was also intruding into Bridget's attic servant quarters nightly to forcefully rape her, while his wife slept. In a particularly upsetting sequence, Andrew murdered Lizzie's pet pigeons as punishment, and then fed them to the family for dinner. Lizzie and Bridget were forced to secretly pass love notes to each other as they passed in corridors or the stairs.

The Bloody Bludgeoning Murders - Seen in Flashback
Lizzie's Brutal Axe Murder of Her Stepmother in Her Room
Bridget's Confrontation With Mr. Borden - But She Was Unable to Kill Him and Watched as Lizzie (Who Had Cleaned Up) Took the Hatchet From Her and Finished Him Off As Bridget Watched in Horror

In actuality, the stepmother suffered 18 blows and the father only 11. During the subsequent trial, Lizzie was acquitted. The film ended with a lengthy post-script epilogue: "Lizzie Borden never took the stand. The jury of men deliberated for just 90 minutes...Lizzie lived alone until her death at age 67. She never married, had few friends, and left the majority of her fortune to the humane society."

Never Look Away (2018, Germ./It.) (aka Werk Ohne Autor)

German writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's biographical drama was rated R for graphic nudity, sexuality, and brief violent images. It was his third feature film after the East German drama The Lives of Others (2007, Germ.), his debut film and an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, and The Tourist (2010) starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.

The three-hour biopic film, loosely based on the life of famed, enigmatic German artist Gerhard Richter, was a glossy, high-budget ($20 million) production, but failed to attract significant audiences (with only $6.2 million worldwide). It received two Oscar nominations: Best Foreign Language Film (Germany), and Best Cinematography.

Its tale spanned the 1930s to the 1960s, beginning with free-spirited, mentally-unstable Aunt Elisabeth May (Saskia Rosendahl) taking her young nephew Kurt Barnert (Cai Cohrs as 6 year-old) (a fictionalized version of German artist Gerhard Richter) to see (and appreciate) a notorious traveling exhibition of 'degenerate art' in Dresden in 1937. During the visit to view artwork and paintings by Chagall, Klee, Grosz, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Dix and Van Gogh, Elisabeth whispered in young Kurt's ear that she liked the "flawed" art that didn't conform to the Nazi's proper Aryan ideal.

Shortly later, young Kurt walked in as Elisabeth was in the living room playing the piano naked. In the striking scene, she stood up, approached Kurt, and hit herself in the head with a glass ashtray, while urging him to face reality and appreciate art: "Don't look away. Never look away, Kurt. All that is true is beautiful." Her bizarre behavior resulted in her being sent away to a mental asylum in 1938. He watched - although partially obscured his vision with his own hand - when she was forcibly taken away in an ambulance. She was sterilized and murdered with many others in a gas/shower chamber. At the end of the war, she was one of many victims who mysteriously disappeared during Hitler's new eugenics laws requiring sterilization and euthanasia to produce 'racial hygeine'.

Aunt Elisabeth - Playing Piano In the Nude Before Young Kurt
Elisabeth's Death in a Gas/Shower

In the film's plot, Professor Carl Seeband (Sebastian Koch), a respected senior obstetrician and gynecologist, was haunted by his past as an SS officer and Dresden hospital director during the Nazi regime. He kept his incriminating role a secret - he had been responsible for clearing hospitals (to open space up for wounded soldiers) by sending mentally-ill patients (including Aunt Elisabeth) (who were unfit for reproduction) to concentration camps - and their deaths. In the present, while others were being prosecuted for war crimes, his past deeds went undetected.

After Kurt (Tom Schilling) grew up, in the post-war years he became an art school student in Dresden in the Communist GDR of a divided Germany. He was taught to view Picasso’s paintings as decadent and undemocratic. On campus, he fell in love with Professor Seeband's beautiful sole daughter Elizabeth or "Ellie" (Paula Beer), another young fashion student (who resembled his beloved Aunt Elisabeth).

Love-Making Scene: Interrupted by Her Father's Arrival Home, Kurt Fled Through A Second-Floor Window By Leaping to a Nearby Tree

She was unaware of her father's history, or that Kurt was related to one of her father's victims - Aunt Elisabeth. After marrying "Ellie," was it possible that she would learn what her father was responsible for - as a war criminal? Kurt began to make a living painting social realist murals in line with Soviet demands, and found his relationship with Ellie was disapproved by her overbearing father-in-law.

Puppet Master - The Littlest Reich (2018)

The 13th entry in the long-running Puppet Master franchise (from 1989 to present) was a reboot of the horror series about animated anthropomorphic puppets that turned deadly with highly gruesome kills, similar to Gremlins (1984). The unrated, 90 minute-long, B-grade film made a paltry $643K, mostly due to VOD and video/DVD sales.

The violent, un-PC and bloody installment opened with a prologue set in 1989 in a bar in Postville, Texas. Heavily-scarred, bald, disfigured French doll-maker Andre Toulon (Udo Kier) rudely confronted the brunette bartender Candace (Victoria Hande) by asking about her fees for "companionship" - she was insulted by the insinuation. Then, she and her blonde lesbian companion Nancy (Betsy Holt) proved to him that they were acquaintances by lesbian-kissing each other as he sat disgustedly before them ("disgusting homosexuals"), and then abruptly left. Later that night as the two drove away, they talked about it being "the perfect time" to have a baby. Suddenly, their car crashed when Candace was decapitated from behind by a knife-wielding puppet (her head rolled from the car when the door was opened), and passenger Nancy was killed in the accident.

Lesbian Kiss

Dead Nancy

Decapitated Candace

Next in the present day in Dallas Texas (approximately three decades later), recently-divorced, sad-sack, comic-book artist/writer Edgar (Thomas Lennon) was forced to move back home, where he rediscovered his deceased brother's Blade doll. He decided to take a (doomed) road trip with his girl-next-door lover Ashley Summers (Jenny Pellicer) and his comic book shop boss, Markowitz (Nelson Franklin). They decided to attend the 30th anniversary convention of the infamous Toulon Murders committed by homicidal Nazi Andre Toulon, where he planned to sell the scary-looking puppet. On the eve of the convention when the puppets were about to be auctioned, the pint-sized Nazi dolls began to slaughter their owners in their rooms in a Texas hotel known as The Brass Buckle.

In one of the hotel rooms, Richard (Serafin Falcon) asked his nude, big-breasted companion Goldie (Kennedy Summers, December 2013 Playboy Playmate, and Playmate of the Year in 2014): "You ever worked at a strip club?" When she replied, "No," he answered: "You could." She remarked: "And that's supposed to be a compliment." As he pulled down her panties, he surmised: "I'll bet you don't have any tan lines. I was right." And then as he thrust from the rear against her and grabbed her neck as she stood by the window (with her breasts smashed against the glass), Blade emerged from the closet and slashed his Achilles heel from behind. When they both fell backwards, she asked angrily: "What the f--k are you doing?" At that moment, Blade jumped on top of her chest and repeatedly stabbed her between the breasts. Blood gurgled from the holes in her perforated chest.

Goldie (Kennedy Summers)

In another disturbing (but infamous) scene in a bathroom, Hezekiah Buckland (John D. Pszyk) was decapitated as he urinated by a puppet named Autogyro - the man's severed head plopped into the toilet in front of him, and his still-standing body continued to urinate onto its own head. There was also a hint of feces in the toilet bowl.

Hezekiah's Decapitation Into Toilet

In another grisly instance, a doll named Money Lender crawled into bed with a pregnant black female named Princess (Amber Shana Williams), entered her uterus through her vagina, ripped itself out of her swelling stomach with her unborn fetus in its hands, and crawled away - with the umbilical cord trailing behind.

Red Sparrow (2018)

Austrian director Francis Lawrence's over-long female empowerment action-spy thriller was a throwback to films with female saboteurs or provocateurs such as the very recent Atomic Blonde (2017), La Femme Nikita (1990, Fr./It.) and its US remake Point of No Return (1993).

It followed the exploits of a young woman named Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) who was taking care of her invalid mother, Nina (Joely Richardson). After a painful-to-watch, graphic on-stage accident (resulting in a bone-shattered left leg and temporary crippling) while performing as a prima ballerina for the Bolshoi Ballet with her partner Konstantin (Sergei Polunin), her dancing career ended and her salary (and subsidized apartment) were discontinued.

While she was recovering, Dominika's sleazy-minded Uncle Vanya Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts), a high-ranking Deputy Director of a Russian secret intelligence agency (SVR), showed her sex photos implying that her male Bolshoi partner Konstantin had engineered the accident in the midst of a sexual affair with Dominika's understudy-replacement dancer Sonya (Nicole O'Neill). In a very violent sequence in the women's locker room of the theater after a rehearsal, Dominika sought brutal revenge by viciously assaulting the couple in the midst of having sex in a steamy sauna, by battering them with her long metal walking cane.

In a second test of her resolve, she was challenged to lure wealthy Russian oligarch-gangster Dimitry Ustinov (Kristof Konrad) into a hotel room with the promise of sex in a one-night-stand. As she showered and dressed, a voice-over from her Uncle described her mission to compromise the 'enemy of the state':

Wear your hair the way you wore it that night at the Bolshoi. And let him see you. Just sit at the bar. He sits at the same table overlooking the restaurant. You will stand out from the sort of women who tend to go there. I'm certain he will initiate contact. And just do what he asks. And when he drops his guard, I want you to replace his phone with a duplicate. I will make sure you are safe.

After she stripped off her red dress down to a black bra and panties, the Russian grabbed her and threw her onto the bed to rape her. He stifled her screams with his right hand, and ripped off her thong panties and began to thrust into her. Suddenly at the last possible moment, he was viciously garrotted with a thin wire from behind and saved by a mysterious, black motorcycle-helmeted and clad hit-man Simyonov (Sergej Onopko) - blood dripped down onto her breasts from his sliced neck.

As the sole witness to the execution, Dominika had no choice but to enroll in a dehumanizing training center (Sparrow School), run by fiercely-sadistic headmistress Matron (Charlotte Rampling). The school functioned basically as a "whore school" - where Dominika (known as "Red Sparrow") was trained to be a sex-spy, to use her body as a weapon. She was rigorously mentored in sexpionage and sexual abuse, as the Matron reminded her: "Your body belongs to the state":

From this day forward, you will become SPARROWS. Weapons in a global struggle for power....Every human being is a puzzle of need. You must learn to intuit what is the missing piece, and they will give you anything...Take off your clothes. Your body belongs to the state. Since your birth, the state nourished it. Now the state asks for something in return. You must learn to sacrifice for a higher purpose, to push yourself beyond all limitation and forget the sentimental morality with which you were raised.

Sparrow School Matron (Charlotte Rampling)

She was warned by the stone-faced Matron that she was far behind her other classmates, since most of them were military-trained. Her objective, as an agent named 'Diva,' was to target various enemies of the state, including CIA agent Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) in Budapest, with whom she soon engaged in a treacherous work/romantic relationship. He was working with a Russian operative code-named Marble to pass on state secrets to the US.

During her training, she unwittingly miffed another young male recruit by answering a question before he did. He sought revenge by trying to rape her in the communal showers, but she fought back by ripping off the metal handle of the shower controls and beating him across the face to defend herself.

Then, in the film's most talked-about sequence, Dominika was in front of her spy-class, where she was ordered to have sex with the same male recruit. She stripped down, reclined back on a desk with her legs spread, and challenged her male colleague (with a bandaged face) to enter her. Her forwardness caused him to remain limp without an erection and he declined.

Dominika: I want to watch you do it. Look at me! (She began stripping) Look at me. I said, look at me. Well? (He began to remove his pants and undershorts) What are you waiting for? (He began touching himself) I'm ready. Are you going to f--k me or not? (He lubricated his fingers with spit) Nothing? A shame.
Male: Bitch! (He pulled up his pants and walked away)
Dominika: Power. That's what he wants.

Dominika Challenging Male, With Her Legs Spread

The most excruciating-to-watch and realistic scene was the torture of Nash by Simyonov with a skin-graft instrument, to learn the identity of Marble. As thin strips of skin were sliced off the victim's arm, he screamed and shuddered, until Dominika turned on Matorin and killed him.

SPOILER: In the twist ending, a scene of a hostage spy swap or trade set at an airfield in Budapest, Dominika turned in her Uncle Ivan as Marble, rather than revealing the real mole - General Vladimir Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons). [Her motive was revenge for her Uncle orchestrating her placement into the Sparrow School.] A sniper ended Ivan's life with a well-placed head-shot, to silence him forever.

Stormy Daniels - Breaking News in 2018

Stormy Daniels: Penthouse Pet of Month, Feb. 2007

One of the biggest stories of the year was about a porn and adult film star stage-named Stormy Daniels who met future-President Donald Trump in July 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe. Her legal claim was that they began a consensual sexual affair. She agreed to be silent (with a non-disclosure agreement) about their alleged relationship for a sum total of $130,000 shortly before the 2016 presidential election, paid on October 27, 2016 through Trump's long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

In 1979, she was born as Stephanie Clifford in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and raised there. Rather than going to college (she was the product of a broken home), she entered the stripping business, starting at the age of 17. In 2002, she became the lead actress in her first pornographic film, Heat, for a California studio known as Wicked Pictures. She was also Penthouse Pet of the Month in February, 2007. She was married three times (with three divorces). In early 2018, she signed on with the porn studio Digital Playground.

Throughout her career, she has made a number of brief appearances in mainstream films, as well as starring in a wide range of adult films (both behind and in front of the screen).

Bad Girls at Play (2006) (aka Secret Sins of My Neighbor)
The Witches of Breastwick (2005)	Saint Francis (2007)	Finding Bliss (2009)

Knocked Up (2007) - As Lap Dancer
Wrong Side of Town (2010)