Sex in the Cinema

EUPHORIA GRADS (CASSIE): The Housemaid w/ Cecilia Conti & Josh Reinhold

Returning guests Cecilia Conti and Josh Reinhold join Torie to eviscerate the cultural climate’s pathetic answer to a feminist take on an erotic thriller, THE HOUSEMAID (2025).
Starring everyone's favorite MAGA-loving bimbo, Sydney Sweeney, the phenomenally talented Amanda Seyfried, and a lesser-Hemsworth-coded hunk named Brendan Sklenar (who Josh looooves), this film undoubtedly caters to the true crime-obsessed, Colleen Hoover-reading, Lifetime™-loving audience.
Featuring disappointingly little sex, atrocious clothing, unnecessarily gratuitous violence, and awful one-liners, this "for women, by women" film fails to meet its intended goal of feminist rhetoric. Despite a truly bang-up performance from Amanda Seyfried, it barely even meets the criteria for a solid hate-watch. 
Amid the discourse, Torie struggles not to sound like a misogynist discussing Sydney Sweeney's most famous attributes, and everyone fails (again and again) to correctly pronounce Seyfried.
 

EUPHORIA GRADS (NATE): Wuthering Heights w/ Cecilia Conti & Josh Reinhold

If there’s one film that set tongues (literally) wagging this year, it’s the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë’s masterpiece of gothic fiction, WUTHERING HEIGHTS. 
Directed by one of cinema’s most de rigueur darlings, Emerald Fennell, WUTHERING HEIGHTS showcases Fennell’s trademark maximalism, bold subversiveness, and canny eye for visual magic tricks. The formula should have been a perfect match of fiction and filmmaker. So why did it leave us feeling kind of… meh? 
SITC all-star guest star Cecilia Conti and special guest Josh Reinhold join Torie to hash out their feelings about Fennell's new take on Brontë’s classic. And honestly, the film reads more like a smut fanfiction or two-hour music video than a true-to-text take on a venerable and deeply complex work of literature. 
Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as doomed lovers Cathy and Heathcliff, Fennell’s sex-ed up rendition is more style than substance. All the same, the candy-coated visuals are glorious, the metaphors are ripe, and the acting ain’t half bad. The sex itself is decidedly PG-13, but it was enough to confirm that Jacob Elordi is very much most likely a damn good kisser.

FUN WITH FISH: The Lighthouse w/ Ziah Grace

This is the final boarding call! The SITC submarine is departing port for one more journey 20,000 leagues under the sea. This time, the tentacular, mighty Poseidon of masculinity, King Triton, wields his whale dick, effectively blasting us with oozing gallons of salty sea. 
Creator of the Hyperreal Film Journal and critic, Ziah Grace, joins Torie below deck to dissect Robert Eggers’s ferociously homoerotic, abrasively bleak masterpiece of cinematography, THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019). 
Starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattisson as one of the greatest “odd couples” to ever grace 35 mm, this claustrophobic meditation on Sartre’s existential idiom “hell is other people,” is packed with alpha/beta power dynamics, a yonic/phallic(!!) lighthouse, perverted seagulls, and enough masturbation to generate a Sperm Whale’s worth of ejaculate. These gents have No Exit, and, for one hour and 50 minutes, neither do you. 
Get ready for an onslaught of girthy tentacles, depressing orgasms, alcoholism, gaslighting galore, and man-on-mermaid action (alongside a very large, anatomically explicit mergina).
Other highlights include Torie’s Willem DaFetish and an inevitable discussion of the most fiercely gatekept piece of male anatomy ever to circulate the Hollywood rumor mill. 

FUN WITH FISH: The Lure (Córki dancingu) w/ Ziah Grace

Come back aboard the SITC submarine for the next descent into the trenches of taboo, where sexy sea creatures seamlessly seduce bone-headed humans.
Captain Torie is joined again by film critic and First Mate, Ziah Grace, for a delightful submersion into one of the best, boldest, and most ingenious takes on The Little Mermaid to ever grace the silver screen: the Polish, punk-rock, Eastern Bloc fever dream, THE LURE (2015). 
This is a tale of two sisters: Silver (light) and Golden (dark). After spotting a found family-assembled rock band playing on the shore, these nubile young mermaids each hatch a pair of legs and migrate to the metro-capitalist world of their bipedal contemporaries. But horny humans beware, pretty mermaids are not mere trifles. Like mankind, they contain multitudes of facets: monster, maiden, lover, killer, seductress, sister… the list goes on.
Highlights include kaleidoscopic musical numbers, creature feature-worthy and subversively girthy tails, accurately fishy vaginas, the intersection of female body politics and misogyny, the infatuated euphoria of first love, the tragedy of self-sacrifice, and the sacred bond of sisterhood. Torie also reveals some meta-contextual backstory regarding her musician ex-boyfriends, who bear a striking resemblance to the floppy-haired bass-playing “Prince.”

FUN WITH FISH: The Shape of Water w/ Ziah Grace

Hop on the SITC Submarine because we’re plummeting into the watery, murky depths of interspecies sex. This deep blue beyond is where fish and fowl Neptune and chill.
For this first journey beneath the waves, Torie is joined by Ziah Grace, Austin Chronicle “Best of Austin”  2025 nominee for Best Film Critic and misanthropic beach boy, to soak in Guillermo del Toro’s 2018 Best Picture Oscar winner, THE SHAPE OF WATER.
Prepare yourself for an hour of Siskel and Ebert-coded bickering over a mediocre movie. Highlights include Torie’s monster fetish, Ziah’s impassioned response to an unjust cat murder, a profusion of eggs and egg timers, Torie’s abhorrence for men with long hair, squirting geysers, and Ziah’s supreme vexation over the creature’s phallic AF genitals (the fish dick). 
Despite some differences in opinions, both parties agree that Sally Hawkins’s performance was one of Cinema’s all-time best and that Guillermo del Toro robbed his audiences by refusing to give us explicit (yet romantic) fish f**king.

50 SHADES OF GARBAGE: Freed Garbage w/ Chelsey Morin & Thien-Y Hoang

We’ve arrived at the bitter end. Torie and returning special guests Chelsey Morin and Thien-Y Hoang make their final trip to the 50 shades of garbage dump searching for anything of substance in the final installment of this trash film trilogy. Alas, 50 SHADES FREED proves the third time is not the charm. 
 
Sulky sub Anastasia Steele and Dom daddy Christian Grey tie the knot (figuratively, not literally, this time). Their marital bliss is soon interrupted by Ana’s former misogynist boss, Jack, and his desire for vengeance against Christian, which still doesn't make sense, as well as a certain unplanned you-know-what that drives a wedge between Ana and Christian, who proves, even after three insufferable movies, that he remains an unhinged, narcissistic a**hole.    
 
What ensues is two hours of blatant misogyny, buttplug pleasures, adventures on the Aspen club scene, painfully asinine car chases, a kidnapping of Rita Ora, a profoundly obnoxious performance of ”Maybe I’m Amazed,” and the confounding absence of a prenup. And through it all, like some absurd monument to early 00s mallboi masculinity, are Christian’s cherished pair of Hollister Men’s jeans.
 

SITC Late Night FM: Heated Rivalry! Part Deux w/ Billy Weston

SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains spoilers through the season finale of Heated Rivalry.
With the conclusion of Season 1, all us HR fans are sitting and processing our thoughts and feelings about the sleekly operatic, often playful, heart-throbbing, and ingeniously sincere story we just witnessed. Think pieces are bounteous across the editorial planes and the feelings are REAL. Torie and Billy discuss what Heated Rivalry means to each of them, and the deeper societal meaning around the whirlwind impact of this miraculous show.

BOOB TUBE DETOUR: Lifetime™’s A Carpenter Christmas Romance w/ Cecilia Conti

*Note to the listeners*- For the most pleasurable listening experience, lube up with our January 2024 episode covering Sarah Drew’s A Cowboy Christmas Romance before you tune in.
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We’re returning to the 50 Shades of garbage dump soon, but in light of this festive season, SITC all-star guest star, Cecilia Conti, joins Torie to incinerate the most recent(ish) installment of sugar & spice from Limetime™’s own formula-disrupting vixen, Sarah Drew. 
Her Cowboy-themed roll in the hay, A Cowboy Christmas Romance, made history as the first Lifetime™ holiday film to feature a “sex scene.” Sarah Drew is back with her sophomore feature that puts the WOOD in woodworking: A CARPENTER CHRISTMAS ROMANCE (2024).  
This explicitly My So Called Life-coded narrative follows nerdy(ish) romantasy writer Andrea back to her sort-of hometown, Wildwood, for an unplugged Christmas stay due to a scandalous leak of the final book in her stupid series. To her surprise, she reconnects with Seth, her old, Jordan Catelano-esque but née jock crush, Seth. Complications arise with the presence of Seth’s tenant, Aiko, and her cloying children. Is Seth still a f**kboi or is he a nice guy now? 
 

SITC Late Night FM: Heated Rivalry! w/Billy Weston

SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains spoilers through episode 4 of HEATED RIVALRY
 
Reference Links:
The Rite of Spring: Joffrey Ballet 1987 Rite of Spring (1 of 3)
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun: L'Apres-midi d'un Faune Ballet performed by the Joffrey Ballet

50 SHADES OF GARBAGE: Darker Garbage w/ Chelsey Morin & Thien-Y Hoang

Torie and special guests Chelsey Morin and Thien-Y Hoang return to the 50 Shades of Grey garbage dump for the second installment in this stinking landfill of a film franchise, 50 SHADES DARKER. Don't bother to bring a shovel.
After being broken up for 2.5 seconds, newly deflowered Anastasia Steele and hunky millionaire Dom Christian Grey rekindle their love and get into a full-on relationship. As their "intimacy" grows, Anastasia learns more about Christian's dark past and meets some of the (many) skeletons in his closet.
What ensues is two hours of even more sociopathic behavior, somewhat less sexy "S&M" sex scenes, a dash of gun violence, a lavish masked ball fundraiser, a pair of Ben Wa balls, even more Hollister men's jeans, poor restaurant etiquette, workplace sexual harassment, and more. We also meet a less-than-colorful cast of new characters, including Christian's former Mommy Dom "Mrs. Robinson," played by Kim Basinger, Anna's misogynistic new boss, Jack Hyde, and one of Christian's former pets/hostages, Leila.