March may be cold, but it's hot and heavy here at OnMilwaukee.com as we celebrate our first-ever Sex Week. We're taking a mature look at local video and sex toy shops, area strip clubs, sexy Milwaukee events -- and even some connections between Brew City and Playboy magazine. It's serious, responsible, adult-themed content -- but don't worry, parents, we'll keep it PG-13 in case junior stumbles upon these stories as OnMilwaukee.com turns a pale shade of blue for seven days.
The 1986 French film "Betty Blue" -- directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix -- is hardly a garden of delights from an emotional standpoint and that's what makes it so interesting.
Starring the fetching Beatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade, the film has some very, very blue moments, including an opening sex scene so steamy and conflicting that Lovefilm notes that it is "a perfect set-up for what's to come."
Lovefilm named it the fourth-best sex scene in a movie, writing, "in case anyone thought Europeans were all about the slow burn, there's Betty Blue's incomparable opening sex scene between Betty (Beatrice Dalle) and Zorg (Gean-Hughes Anglade). Shocking at first in its raw intensity, the seemingly never ending intercourse scene eventually elicits laughter along with arousal, fear and confusion. It's a beautiful portrayal of how sex can be both creative and destructive."
Premiere.com includes "Betty Blue" on its top 20 sex scenes of all time, too.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times, however, took a dimmer view of the film and the sex scenes elicited from her little more than concern about a drafty set.
"Too often," she wrote in 1986, "'Betty Blue' has the posturing good looks of a fashion spread and nothing more. Miss Dalle is lovely, but the emotions she displays seem correspondingly shallow. What Mr. Anglade does is more like acting, but it, too, is little more than skin-deep. Speaking of skin, if either of them made it through the filming without catching a bad cold, it's a miracle."
Never mind, rent it anyway and judge for yourself.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
