You may have noticed my Netflix queue on the right-most column (under Netflix @ Home). As the name implies, it’s the movies I currently have sitting next to my eight-year-old standard-definition TV (or on their way here).

In that queue is The Brown Bunny. I have absolutely no interest in the movie qua movie, but rather to see the much-discussed scene where a supposedly mainstream actress (Chloe Sevigny) performs on-screen oral sex on a supposedly mainstream actor (Vincent Gallo).

(“Mainstream” in this case meaning “not a porn star”.)

I’d heard terrible things about this movie. Complaints included long stretches of Gallo driving his van, with no dialog and little music. I decided that I’d just fast-forward through the movie until I reached the infamous BJ scene.

Even in fast forward the movie stunk.

For minutes on end there’d be a shot of Gallo in his van, and even at 4X speed it took forever to get to a new scene. On the unfortunate occasions when my finger slipped from the FF button, I found the movie was even worse than I imagined.

It was interminable.

And then we got to the blowjob.

The most interesting parts of the scene were

1. figuring out why Sevigny would choose to give an on-screen blowjob; and

2. deciding if Sevigny actually swallowed Gallo’s wine (as it were).

I’m sure if I’d watched the movie at regular speed, this climactic (ahem) scene would have naturally completed the emotional journey of Gallo’s character, bringing appropriate closure to a perpetually pained psyche.

Nah, it would have just as dull.

When even a gratuitous and explicit sex scene can’t save your “movie”, you’re a bad, bad filmmaker.