THE HUNTING WIVES (2025)

The Stepford Wives meets Twin Peaks meets The L Word  meets Desperate Housewives meets A Simple Plan (and some Gypsy, another Netflix series, thrown in)... About rich Texas Republicans who use every cliche (and red state reference) in the book, which is obviously overly deliberate, and thankfully the characters thaw out of their formidable shells into seeming more human than hackneyed... With a frame story about a gorgeous blonde teenage cheerleader whose death rocks the town, straight from that famous David Lynch series, but THE HUNTING WIVES isn't really ironical or weird, just extremely sexual...

The two main characters are Malin Akerman and Brittany Snow: one's older and hot and confident; the other's shy and mousy-cute, looks 22 when she's 40... Their lesbian romance is so overly hinted at and teased, there's not the necessary tension in their inevitable hooking up... Overall, despite the high-class-suburban conservative setting, things are so sensuously liberal that there's really no shock value in the nighttime soap opera elements... it's like lighting up a fuse that's already sizzling... But these two ladies are good enough in their opposites-attract attraction to keep the pulpy/page-turning (eventually neo-noir inspired) cadence worthwhile. Rating: ***1/2

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR (2013)

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color Rates: ***1/2

Celebrated French teenage-lesbian romantic-drama stars now famous Léa Seydoux and still unknown Adèle Exarchopoulos... the latter being the true lead (the original title translates to THE LIFE OF ADELE) as we go through her daily high school routine ranging from teachers teaching to a pseudo-boyfriend flirting to her finicky gal pals gossiping... soon enough about how she's been seen hanging around with Seydoux (who she kind of accidentally met at a girl-gay bar) as the lovely and confident blue-haired artist Emma...

When both first see each other crossing the street, it's intense intrigue at first sight, which is how the director grabs the audience, albeit sometimes dragging out their relationship through mundane family dinners to backyard parties while the lesbian bedroom scenes become far too graphic, paling to the rudimentary budding-relationship aspects featuring Adèle with full lips kissing Seydoux, comparably more sexy than anything taken further: ultimately making BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR far too long, often overreaching the more simple mainline of two young opposites in love, which, when centered only on them, is right on target.

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos first kiss with Alma Jodorowsky in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos first kiss with Alma Jodorowsky in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Color

Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Color

Alma Jodorowsky in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

GIA (1998)

Angelina Jolie playing Gia Carangi would be like, musically, if Jeff Beck played a concert celebrating Eric Clapton... while both Jolie and Carangi are knockouts, they're completely different kind of knockouts: Gia was subtle, more cute-gorgeous while Angelia's... well... Angelina Jolie and, acting-wise, is quite good here, wielding the kind of energy that steals her own movie... yet it often feels more like a biopic set during the 1990's than the 1970's/1980's...

The director's partially to blame, making GIA seem a bit too much of exactly what it is: a risque cable movie (or one of those Don't Do Drugs Specials without any specific reasons behind her using) that sporadically almost-reaches big-screen potential (the documentary-style interview/interludes mirroring another doomed beauty flick, STAR 80)... meanwhile the lesbian scenes with Kim Dickens needed to evolve past cliche lipstick chic... although they did both have terrific chemistry in their build-up, and, overall, Jolie's almost too good here, not seeming like she's portraying an actual former niche celebrity but embracing the fact she's on the verge of becoming a revered beauty-icon herself: Or like she's rebooting Gia's life rather than factually reliving it... which isn't too shabby, either way. GRADE: B—

Kim Dickens and Angelina Jolie

James Haven and Angelina Jolie in GIA

White Shadow star Joan Pringle in GIA

THE L WORD: LIGHT MY FIRE EPISODE

Season 3 Episode 4 2006

You gotta love THE L WORD for the surprisingly few times it takes on then-President George W. Bush for not allowing anyone to bash him, when in fact he was the most bashed President in history (until now... Trump) and didn't care one bit, unlike Obama... say something about him you're a racist...

It's just funny how the Left wants to be the underdog and the overlord both, and this preachy episode as Mrs. Bette Goes to Washington is made up for by a delicious seduction by Dana Delaney as a supporter of Gays... And even John Kerry is mentioned as a supporter of her support, which was timely as Kerry had run against the man who gets bashed on a show that says he never allows it... Too funny, huh?

GYPSY (NETFLIX SERIES)

Year: 2017
Rates: ****1/2

This original Netflix series has had very negative comments and reviews and is now dead as dishwater, with no second season to continue GYPSY, which was falsely promoted as a kind of thriller, or something...

But it's actually the sexiest and in that, most lustfully suspenseful show that ever dealt with bisexual women... Or what some refer to as "lipstick lesbians." Because that's really all this is about, and everything else is merely background... wallpaper...

While Naomi Watts is a pretty older woman, Sophie Cookson is perhaps THE most beautiful young actress that ever lived... and there have been quite a few... living and dead...

The basic premise is that Watts, a married shrink, goes behind her patients' backs, tooling around with the people in their lives they'd shared about in private AND legal confidentiality. And yet, what everything really boils down to is when Watts and Cookson (the wild ex of melancholy young male patient) will eventually connect i.e. hook up. When they do, it's unfathomably awesome. But is nothing compared to the repressed longing that occurs for the first five episodes to reach that point, so, if you're into this kind of thing... GYPSY, although no longer a series, can now be referred to as an extremely sexy and genuinely sensual 10-hour older-younger lesbian movie. 

THE L WORD

Year: 2004
cast: Jennifer Beals, Mia Kirschner, Erin Daniels, Malaya Rivera Drew
Rating: ****

A perfectly cast ensemble of different personalities that both clash and connect with an equal balance and, like any soap operatic series it keeps the viewer interested in the characters that are all stuck in the quagmire of maze-like relationship purgatory. The only problem is how political the show can get, targeting only Right Wing Christians when the more-gay-hating Muslim faith is never mentioned (throughout the series are many harsh critiques on President George W. Bush while, ironically, it's also mentioned that The Bush Administration doesn't allow criticism).

The "worst" character is also the most important, at least initially, providing the white rabbit into the wonderland of lesbians... save for Pam Grier, sister of control freak Bette played by Jennifer Beals, in a relationship with a lip-less, whining bisexual named Tina. And they're not the only couple on board. Jenny's married in the first season, and has an affair that brings her into the fray and then, by season two, she becomes the most preachy and, intentionally, pretentious, by the end basically the villain "Joan Collins" of the series, where she's bad on purpose (aided by a cute, sneaky Malaya Rivera Drew, pictured above, on the left, and below).

Alice is the smart ass: providing (albeit whiny and polarizing) not really "comic relief" but a relief of being vulnerable and funny through good (Erin Daniels as a pro tennis player who dies in the third season) and bad relationships (getting dumped by said athlete), all posted on her website. Meanwhile, an androgynous Shane is the token player (but Shane is not butch). A Joan Jett of the Runaways era-looking grunge chick, any and every (outside the group) girls, gay, straight, bisexual, are after her, and it's fun how the more monogamous lesbians react to her wild lifestyle, which is what most people expect them all to live... giving the L WORD a glimpse not just into a lifestyle but into a group of friends that struggle with love and loss without juggling too many cliches.