By Amy Renner Dec. 5, 2022
21 – 25 of 25 movies
Naughty Books
No one was prepared for the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. Originally written in 2010 as a piece of Twilight fan fiction and posted online, it eventually sold over 100 million copies, taking erotica mainstream. But women didn't only read erotica in large numbers; they also wrote it. In the aftermath of Fifty Shades a cottage industry emerged around self-published romance novels. Once women who worked forty-hour-a-week jobs, living paycheck-to-paycheck, many of them are now New York Times bestselling authors with their own merchandise lines and die-hard fans.
Never Gonna Snow Again
On a gray, foggy morning outside a large Polish city, a masseur from the East named Zhenia (Alec Utgoff, Stranger Things) enters the lives of the wealthy residents of a gated community. With his hypnotic presence and quasi-magical abilities, he is able to get a residence permit and starts plying his trade. The well-to-do residents in their cookie-cutter suburban homes seemingly have it all, but they all suffer from an inner sadness, some unexplained longing. The attractive and mysterious newcomer's hands heal, and Zhenia’s eyes seem to penetrate their souls. To them, his Russian accent sounds like a song from the past, a memory of simpler times.
No Ordinary Man
American jazz musician Billy Tipton developed a reputable touring and recording career in the mid-twentieth century, along with his band The Billy Tipton Trio. After his death in the late 80s, it was revealed that Tipton was assigned female at birth, and his life was swiftly reframed as the story of an ambitious woman passing as a man in pursuit of a music career.
Nomad: In the Footsteps...
Werner Herzog turns the camera on himself and his decades-long friendship with the late travel writer Bruce Chatwin, a kindred spirit whose quest for ecstatic truth carried him to all corners of the globe. Herzog’s deeply personal portrait of Chatwin, illustrated with archival discoveries, film clips, and a mound of “brontosaurus skin,” encompasses their shared interest in aboriginal cultures, ancient rituals, and the mysteries stitching together life on earth.
