charlies angels Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For some reason best left to psychologists, there are people who are attracted to what I call ... sex creeps. This type of character goes beyond what is called jolie-laide in women, a term that directly translates to pretty-ugly, although is generally used to describe "unconventional" beauty. There's no real correlation between the jolie-laide and the sex creep. No, the sex creep is attractive but prone to certain, shall we say, peccadilloes that go beyond the pale -- dating blow-up dolls, crashing cars to get off, dabbling in experimental gynecology. These guys all slime their ways between the lines.

In any case, here are seven of my favorite sex creeps. You might also notice there's a certain director who shows up a few times on the list -- he's an honorary sex creep as well. I hope he takes his title in the complimentary manner in which it's given.

Not despite Charlie's Angels, but because of it (the first one, anyway), I really like McG as a filmmaker. Say what you want about his undeservedly but oft-criticized nickname, but the guy has the chops – and then some – to make blockbuster spectacle look, well, spectacular. Given his existing filmography, he's only made one serious creative misstep, the disastrous Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, since the first Angels movie was an exhilarating thrill ride and 2006's We Are Marshall a heartfelt and powerful drama.

Aiming for the A-list credibility enjoyed by the likes of Christopher Nolan, McG has unleashed his muscular, bombastic creativity on Terminator Salvation, which should certainly resuscitate the franchise even if it doesn't quite distinguish the director from other fanboy punching bags like Michael Bay and Brett Ratner. As part of Cinematical's special Summer Interview Series with different directors, we sat down with McG at the film's Los Angeles press day for an exclusive chat about reimagining Terminator's beloved characters. In addition to talking about defining the director's own filmmaking style and searching through summers past to find the films that inspired him to become a director, McG drilled us a little bit about our own feelings on the film, precipitating one of the more interesting, and, well, interactive interviews we've done in a while.

D.E.B.S., about a group of schoolgirl secret agents, originally debuted in 2003 as a short and did quite well, scoring wins at a slew of festivals (mostly fests of LBGT films). In 2004, director Angela Robinson (who most recently brought us Herbie Fully Loaded) remade the short as a feature using some of the original cast members, and the result is the glorious bit of cinematic silliness known as D.E.B.S.

If you've ever seen D.E.B.S., you know exactly what I'm talking about, but if you've never seen it, well, imagine this: Charlie's Angels in high school, with short-skirt schoolgirl uniforms, high kicks, and lesbian love scenes. What makes D.E.B.S. a not-so-horrible film is that it doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest, and so when you laugh, you're really laughing with it and not at it. Mostly. I mean, there's only so much you expect to get out of a film with the tagline: "They're crime-fighting hotties with killer bodies."

The basic plot involves this group of schoolgirls (the lithe and sexy kind, natch, because it wouldn't be fun with pimply schoolgirls wearing neck and back braces ala Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles) who are chosen for training in an elite national-defense group. Ahem. Now, honestly, the plot is just ridiculous, but that didn't stop me from loving Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I also admit to occasionally paying attention to the Cartoon Network's squeaky-clean, lesbian-free schoolgirl-spy show, Totally Spies. D.E.B.S. starts picking up when perky blonde team leader Amy (Sara Foster) discovers she's having nefarious feelings for sexy brunette bad girl Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster, in a great performance).

However silly it may be, D.E.B.S. is just plain fun. You just know, don't you, that bad-girl Lucy is going to tempt super-spy Amy away from the path of goodness, and that Amy will find the badness good (there's probably an adult-film knock-off of D.E.B.S. out there somewhere -- not since Princess Leia pranced around in that gold bikini has a film so blatantly pandered to the "hormone effect"). D.E.B.S. is as much fun, in its own way, as a John Hughes teen flick or a Grease/Grease 2 double-feature -- a campy good time with a sly wink on the side. If you haven't seen it, get a group of friends together with some beer or wine, and have fun.