August 30, 2010

The Naked Reader: Sex and Travel Cinema

by Tucker Cummings

Let's Go To The Movies

Before SunriseEat Pray Love
The Place: ViennaThe Places: New York, Naples, India, and Bali
The Plot: Two strangers (one American, one French) meet on a train traveling from Budapest to Paris, and impulsively get off in Vienna to spend the night together.The Plot: A woman recovers from her painful divorce by traveling around the globe. Along the way, she meets a handsome man and falls in love all over again.
Hotness Rating: *** Who hasn’t found themselves intrigued by a handsome stranger, and wanted to surrender to their impulses?Hotness Rating: *** The story and characters take a backseat to the stunning vistas and sharp cinematography.

The BeachThe Darjeeling Limited
The Place: An unnamed island near ThailandThe Places: India
The Plot: A young American travels around Thailand, hearing rumors about a beach paradise where both sex and drugs are plentiful. He meets a beautiful French girl, but soon finds out that the island paradise isn’t all that it seems.The Plot:Three American brothers reconnect on a train ride throughout India, while experiencing all that the country has to offer.
Hotness Rating: *** 1/2 Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is bombarded by offers of sex throughout the entire movie, whether it’s pimps asking him if he “needs a girl” or Tilda Swinton coercing him into a sexual encounter. Hotness Rating: ** Jack and the stewardess nicknamed “Sweet Lime” have one hurried tryst in the train bathroom shortly before he gets kicked off the train.

Hotel ChevalierHeading South
The Place: ParisThe Places: Haiti
The Plot: In this prequel to the events of The Darjeeling Limited, Jack has an unexpected encounter with his ex-girlfriend (played by Natalie Portman). The Plot:Three women vacationing in Haiti are entranced by the local male escorts, but come to realize that all is not bliss under the country’s dictatorial rule.
Hotness Rating: **** Portman is lovely, nude, and at her best. It would be five stars, except the song Jack insists on playing in the background isn’t exactly a slow jam.Hotness Rating: **** As some of us know all too well, sex often seems better when there is an element of danger.

How Stella Got Her Groove BackUnder the Tuscan Sun
The Place: JamaicaThe Places: Tuscany
The Plot: Overworked executive Stella takes a long-overdue vacation, where she meets a gorgeous man 20 years her junior. The Plot:Frances, depressed by her recent divorce, buys a villa in Tuscany. After one failed romance with an Italian, at the end of the film she finally meets an American she might have a chance with.
Hotness Rating: **** Two words: Taye Diggs.Hotness Rating: **** Some have said it has one of the most masterfully shot lesbian sex scenes in cinema history, and it’s one of the top-grossing feature films of all time featuring a lesbian couple.

Classic to Cutting Edge

SummertimeDesert Hearts
The Place: VeniceThe Places: Nevada
The Plot: An uptight spinster (Katherine Hepburn) warms to the idea of an affair with a married Italian man. The Plot:Newly divorced New Yorker Vivian Bell undergoes a sexual awakening in the heat of the desert.
Hotness Rating: **** Let’s face it: most men like crude when they are eying up a woman. But Rossano Brazzi has a way of undressing a woman with his eyes that is incredibly hot. This one of the most tame movies on the list, and yet it sizzles. Katharine Hepburn is a lucky, lucky woman.Hotness Rating: *** Just goes to show that sometimes we need to travel halfway around the world in order to find ourselves.

French Kiss Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Place: Paris, Cannes, and other locations around FranceThe Places: Barcelona
The Plot: Kate travels to France to win back her fiance, but finds herself attracted to a French thief she meets on the plane. The Plot:An American woman and her best friend spend the summer in Barcelona. Cristina (played by the sultry ScarJo) eventually falls into a polyamorous relationship with an artist and his ex-wife.
Hotness Rating: **** Almost every woman has fantasized about having a French lover at some point, and a lover with a criminal past only makes the tryst more enticing. Hotness Rating: ***** The only thing hotter than the summer heat in Spain is the darkroom makeout scene between Scarlett Johannson, Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz. This movie will undoubtedly inspire an entire generation of women to spend a summer abroad in Barcelona.

Serial Travelers (and Seducers)

In the history of cinema, there have been many movie franchises driven by the dual passions of travel and sex. From James Bond to Indiana Jones to Captain Kirk, some of the longest-running film series are steeped in stories that revolve around globetrotting adventurers who are experts at both navigation and seduction. Here are some highlights from the most travelicious and bootylicious exploits of these classic characters. If only there were more female characters at the heart of franchises like these!
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Captain Kirk kissing an alien woman: James Bond making love with a beautiful woman in the Bahamas:Trailer for the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, in which he travels with his latest flame from China to India: