So...when's Lexie coming home?

As Joni Mitchell once famously sang (in a sentiment that's been echoed countless times since by such esteemed musicians as The Counting Crows' Adam Duritz), you don't know what you got 'til it's gone. Joni was right, as always. I'd gotten used to having Alex here to watch movies with me every weekend. But now he's gone (for a few days)! On Saturday I hardly knew what to do with myself. He's backwoods camping in Tennessee with no cell reception, and H. was dancing his ass off at a wedding reception. Since I usually text/call either one or the both of them about 15 times a day, I was at a loss. So I watched a movie by myself.

The cover of Don't Look Now describes it as "A Psychic Thriller." Because there's a psychic involved (spoiler alert! Not really). It's hard for me to talk about Don't Look Now without talking about one specific thing: the sex scene. It was, hands down, the most explicit sex scene I've ever seen in a regular, rated R movie. Apparently, 9 frames (roughly half a second) had to be trimmed out of the scene to prevent the movie from getting an NC-17 rating. Only God (and I guess the people who worked on the film) knows what was shown in the half a second, but it must have been actual penetration because holy moly. I am not going to link to the scene because, I don't know, maybe you have fragile eyes or something, or maybe you don't want to watch a toupee-d Donald Sutherland having sex, but if you are curious just search for "Don't Look Now love scene" and you'll find it. In my research, I've come across some conflicting theories: one that Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie were together at the time and that this was real, unsimulated sex, and another that they just met immediately before shooting the scene and that it is not real. No confirmation from either Julie Christie OR Papa Sutherland about this, which is frustrating. To me. Because obviously these are the sorts of things I care about in a movie.
So anyway. Don't Look Now is not a "scary" movie, strictly speaking. It is more of a psychological thriller, in the vein of Rosemary's Baby or Let's Scare Jessica to Death (that vein can hold both good and shitty movies, apparently). Quick plot summary: Papa Sutherland and Julie Christie's daughter drowned, and now they are convinced that she's appearing to them in some way in Venice, where they're restoring a church. The ending is actually shocking. I gasped! Do yourself a favor and don't find out what the ending is before seeing it (even though I know Alex already knows it), because it sounds so silly just reading it, but it's actually quite creepy and effective after seeing the whole movie!
This movie was listed on both Bravo's Scariest Movie Scenes of All Time AND Entertainment Weekly's Sexiest Movie Scenes of All Time. And if you're anything like me, that's enough to make you want to see it. It's much slower paced than the trailer makes it seem, but I still think you'll really like it. Winfreys approve.