Film Review: Chloe, The BPD Escort Girl

The new sexy psychological thriller Chloe subverts a few conventions of mainstream romantic cinema. The waifish blonde escort girl is played by Mamma Mia's doll-faced Amanda Seyfried, but instead of following around a married older male benefactor, her character follows around an older married female benefactor (who also happens to be a gynecologist, which seems like a crude coincidence to me).

Julianne Moore plays the gynecologist whose wanker-husband is flirting with his students and generally skipping out on his marriage to embrace a mid-life crisis. So the wife hires the escort girl to seduce the husband, just so she can verify that he is a cheater. The film tries to be edgy and psychologically circuitous in the vein of a Hitchcock great, but it falls flat and devolves into a good old-fashioned lesbian sex scene. I suppose some of you will go running to the cinema now that I have said that, but I'll take a classic S&M-inspired dark comedy over a maudlin pseudo-lesbian flick any day.

Wanker of the Week: Misinformed Modelizer

While hovering on the Parisian sidewalk with my pro-health signs up against the crowds of fashion editors, photographers, and models, a man shouted out to me, "Size zero kills -- I have to disagree. Designers should be able to do whatever they want!" I argued with him, rambling on about the fact that top designers have a responsibility to consider the broader impact of their aesthetic decisions. To put it plainly, requiring models to fit such tiny measurements is sadistic and creepy. To put it elaborately, the prevalence of size-zero models spreads body dysmorphic disorder in consumers the world over.

As I battled it out with this modelizing fiend, his nonsensical rant quickly devolved into the wanker-worthy comment: "But thin girls just look beautiful in clothes! It looks better!" I quickly realized that he was not a reputable fashion editor or artistic director but merely a random straggler taking his Sunday stroll through the Tuileries Gardens. Perhaps he was lurking outside the Karl Lagerfeld tent hoping to find a wafer-thin waif to stand in front of him and "look beautiful in clothes."

The Ogres

My Swedish neighbor in Montmartre once told me that Paris is lovely for a year or two, but after a while its "crumbling glory" starts to aggravate anyone accustomed to modern conveniences. I lived next-door to her in a studette apartment for several months. A studette is a charming term that French landlords have adopted to describe an apartment that is smaller than a studio but slightly larger than the miniature chambre de bonnne (maid's quarters) so prevalent on the eighth floor of Parisian buildings without elevators.

Unfortunately for me, my studette recently devolved into a slumette. One morning a troop of construction workers covered my only window with scaffolding, started jack-hammering and drilling at the outside of my wall, and I never saw the light of day or heard the sound of my own thoughts again.

After months of 8-am wake-up calls from sledgehammers, I didn't even receive a one-Euro reduction on my monthly rent from my evil wanker landlord. The banging became so intense that my wall cracked in two, and a gaping hole formed. The sound of my sobs sent the construction workers dashing into my apartment to repair the 'crumbling glory.' They made a habit of knocking on my door when I was still in my pajamas, in order to "check up on" the state of my ancient Parisian wall. One of the creeper construction workers even tried to kiss me while I was crying on the phone to the frustratingly French electricity company. Charm is easily overwhelmed by disaster.

Upright Position

While resting my legs after a long day of touring Indian temples, I settled down in the empty hotel bar to savor a non-alcoholic chai nightcap. But before I knew it a very drunk man approached my table with a lascivious glint in his eye. He was a creeper to the core.

He started telling me about how he "comes from the land of the snake charmer, where there are a lot of spices..." and then he kissed my hand and stumbled away. But a few minutes later he was back, offering me "a lot of fun" and his business card. He is a banker. From New York to New Delhi, investment bankers and cocktails make for a dangerous mix ending in a security escort out of the building, or hotel in the case of the 'snake charmer.'

Pushing The Envelope

One afternoon in India while wandering an ancient cave site, a great deal of Indian tourists started asking to take my photograph. One young man's mother was delighted when I agreed to stand next to her son and smile into the camera, like we were sitting for an arranged marriage portrait.

After months of being an impossibly un-French American expatriate in Paris, it was refreshing to be around some Indian people who relished my American appearance.

A harmless adolescent creeper approached me and asked where I was from. He quickly exclaimed, "America! Wow! Amazing ... America is the most disciplined country in the world. To us, that is what we believe." I guess they haven't watched very much American reality television in India.

Dressed For Dinner

I was wandering the crowded banana-stand-filled market streets of Puri, India, when I turned onto an alleyway to admire a lovely broken-down air conditioning unit and a typical vendor selling Lay's masala-flavored potato chips, chewing tobacco spices, stacks of cashew nuts, and other essentials. I paused to snap a photograph of an old poster for a Hindi movie whose tagline was "THE PLEASING TOUCH!"

Suddenly a young man popped out at me and said, "3 rupees and I look at you." He proceeded to undress his unique lower-body sarong ensemble. And that was my cue to return to my vehicle. He was offering me the equivalent of 6 cents to look at me as he fondled himself. He was a creeper to be sure, but somehow the interaction was less threatening than the Western World equivalent -- especially since it was a colorful sarong being undone instead of a zipper.

"fortune hunter!"

Heidi Montag is the 23-year-old reality television celebrity who went from sweet and natural Colorado girl to botched and butchered Los Angeles pop star ... all in a matter of minutes. She recently underwent 10 different plastic surgery procedures in a day, saying that she wanted to become the "perfect" version of herself.

She's always indicated signs of derangement: she married a sociopathic mimbo-creeper, Spencer Pratt, and the two of them were baptized in the jungle by a born-again Christian minister (a.k.a. the youngest Baldwin brother) on public television. After they were absolved of their sinful hard-partying lifestyle, Spencer and Heidi (a.k.a. "Speidi") decided to make a series of music videos featuring Heidi's enlarged breasts on the beach. Well, now her lips (and cheeks, and eyebrow arches, and butt) will be bigger too. And her thighs (and ears, and nose, and chin, and neck) will be smaller.

She might be a talentless celebrity past the brink of sanity, but in a culture saturated by image obsession and body perfectionism, Heidi Montag might also be a dreadful alarm call for a future lived in plastic.

Wanker of the Week: Apicius Restaurant Encounter

While dining on frogs' legs at Apicius Restaurant, one of the most elegant and hidden-away culinary delights in Paris, a mysterious man caught my eye. He seemed bored at his table of stuffy, well-coiffed, Chanel-dipped elderly relatives. After an hour of exchanging glances, I made an exit for the ladies' room -- he brushed past me in the hallway and I slipped a piece of paper into his hand. It was a perfectly timed encounter between two creepers.

Moments later we were texting, and a few days later we were doing the standard email writing procedure: he is a banker, his family has a house in Paris, he thinks New York is a wonderful city, he is not one of those 'emotionally unavailable men,' he is enamored of my long hair, and OH, one more thing -- casually, at the end of the email he mentioned:

"What else ???? I'm married (no point in hiding that !!)."

So maybe I didn't find true love at Apicius, but I certainly found a Wanker of the Week (no point in hiding that !!), and the chocolate soufflé was delicious.

Marzipan Mustache

When five French bachelors cohabit in a grand Parisian apartment, New Year's Eve is bound to be a debaucherous affair. I spent my first hours of 2010 in the company of a crowd of horny, sweaty, semi-elegant young Parisians (and a smattering of confused Americans who were passing through town). The dance floor was throbbing, the champagne was flowing, the silly string was spraying, and the handsome French boys were ogling each Parisian girl wearing a little black cocktail dress that entered their line of sight.

New Year's Eve intensifies the creeper-quality in everyone because of the societal pressure to ring in the New Year with your perfect love match (or else your next 365 days will be cursed with lonely nights of watching sitcoms stored on your TV, or learning how to cook for one).

In the hazy inaugural moments of 2010 a particularly convincing creeper caught my eye, and he doled out a series of pick-up lines, each one weaker than the last -- though my personal favorite was his mention of taking me shopping for bridal gowns in the coming weeks. He topped if off when he declared, "If you don't sleep with me tonight, then tomorrow you will regret it!" I was convinced that the contrary was true. It's funny how men and women can have such different impressions of the urgency of a one-night stand.

"of indeterminate age"

While searching for a decent apple at the corner epicerie near my apartment one frostbitten Sunday night, the two overly solicitous shopkeepers asked me, "What are you looking for, young lady?" I told them I was looking for a good apple, but I was having a hard time in my search, since most of the fruit was shriveled and over-ripe.

The flirtatious men tried to sell me their bad apples, and then when I refused, they said, "Take a banana! Why don't you want a banana?" I found the symbolism too laughable to permit me any more time wasted on the sidewalk with these lurking fruit sellers. And then one of the guys exclaimed, "If you buy my banana, you have to sleep with me tonight!" It was an interesting sales technique that I would never suggest repeating if you are working on commission.

Pearls In Wine

My dear Franco-American friend was forced to attend a priggish British boarding school at the young age of eleven. When he took the admissions test, he realized that even though he spoke perfect English, he couldn't read or write it. Though he quickly got over the language barrier, boarding school presented many other menacing surprises: there was the typical hazing rituals by the older boys -- the most notable was called "bogwashing," and you can imagine how that turned out.

One afternoon my friend was in a fanciful mood of understanding dreams and enjoying the sunlight when a strange man approached him, accompanying him on his walk by the river. Eventually the fellow propositioned my friend to "crawl through a hole and go into a place where men went cottaging." My friend kindly declined the offer. He survived his prep school years and is well-equipped for the next time someone tries to stick his head in a toilet or to take him down the rabbit hole, so to speak. No matter how effete, boarding school seems to be a decent preparation for the real world.

Shecky’s Girls Night Out

This week a scandalous event took place at Drouot, the famous Parisian auction house: the police discovered that a commissaire-priseur (the coveted and pimp position of auctioneer/master of ceremonies) and a gaggle of sneaky auction-assistant-mignons orchestrated the theft of a massive amount of precious objects. A Gustave Courbet painting worth 1.3 million dollars was recovered, along with expensive watches, drawings, and other antiquated loot.

Drouot is a veritable high museum of art, but at the end of the day it is a business. And even if there's artistic prowess and Parisian propriety involved, when things turn sour, it's just another chaotic game of "dirty sexy money."

International Shoes Sizes

A strange man approached me when I was nodding off in the foyer to the Louvre Museum's Decorative Arts Library. I thought it was a place exclusively frequented by gay men and the girls who carry their purses, but I was wrong.

I was too tired to ignore the semi-charming stranger, and he somehow obtained my cell phone number, but at least I gave him a fake name. After I skipped out on his invitation to see a boring exhibition at the museum, he called me a week later and confronted me for my lack of textual reciprocation. He claimed to be "a nice man" who only wanted "friendship" and "conversation." I was skeptical, as I consider myself somewhat skilled (and not naïve) in the 'men expert' milieu.

There was no fussy email writing, but we met up over a casual orange juice on a grand boulevard. Even though I told him that I was "in a relationship," he tried kissing me multiple times during the orange juice. And he kept exclaiming with enraptured delight: "You're a simple girl!" He meant it as a compliment, but somehow the translation fell flat on me.

"he buys me dinner."

With visions of meeting lovely strangers in the subway dancing in my head, I endured one of the more jam-packed metro rides of my life. It was the sort of occasion when you are not sure whose body parts are touching you, and so you try your hardest to assume that everyone around you has showered recently (though in Paris that is a relative impossibility).

All of a sudden I felt a hand brushing up against me in exactly the private 'spot' where one hopes not to feel a stranger's hand while riding the Paris metro (or any underground transit system the world over). In classic creeper form the man next to me was violating my 'personal space,' as they call it in kindergarten. He assumed that the crowded train car would prevent his unsavory plot from jarring my consciousness. Little did he know, I have seen the '80s French film, Subway, and I know the dangers lurking below the streets.

Fancy Pants!

Apparently in France Halloween has been canceled. A principal at a grade school in Provence was put off by the concept of children sporting "fancy dress in the classroom," especially "when inspired by some ridiculous foreign novelty."

Luckily for me I spent Halloween at a soirée in Normandy in a picturesque town famous for its namesake cheese. In the courtly confines of a spooky Tudor mansion, I gallivanted with a group of Frenchies who were quite cozy with the prospect of getting decked out and disguised; there was a robed man in a Venetian mask dressed as a character from Eyes Wide Shut, Jack the Ripper, the inevitable sexpot sorcière, and a 'Mother Christmas' who drank a bit too much champagne and was less than merry the following morning.

No matter what the snobby traditional French school mistresses say, Halloween translates easily to foreign cultures: masks + cocktails + wigs = garden of earthly delights.

Reckless Abandon

The metro can be a lovely place to people watch. But then there is the inevitable moment when you see someone really attractive, and you try desperately to come up with an un-desperate approach to getting their number before they get off at the next stop. My friend has decided to keep it simple and tell cute girls, "Nice shoes!" He thinks it will be particularly charming and witty if the girls are wearing basic Converse sneakers. I told him that they will probably think he is a creeper with a foot fetish.

A couple weeks ago I picked up a lovely girl in the metro, because she tried to offer me her seat and had a luminous smile. We have yet to connect over coffee or a drink, but she texted me back, and these days, that's definitely something.

"I'd rather buy jewelry!"

A friend of mine decided to detox from a year of college drinking by spending his year after university living the life of a monk. He took a position as a history teacher at a secluded boarding school in the mountains of Switzerland, far from anything but lovely landscape and a lot of homemade cheese. He awakes at six o'clock every morning for a refreshing run in the alpine air with the basketball team, and the purity of his day only increases from there.

For a change of pace, he had a jaunt in Paris, and due to his modest monastic salary, he decided that CouchSurfing.org would be the most economical of accommodations. This website connects desperate travelers with random hosts all over the world who offer their couches for free, in the hopes of meeting new people and spreading good karma. Sounds officially creepy to me.

He ended up staying with a 35-year-old Parisian guy who did not have a couch. Apparently the bed was not big enough for the two of them, because in the dark of the night my friend awoke to an unpleasant surprise: his French host was treating him to an unsolicited 'Foot Job.' He spent the remainder of the night in his sleeping bag and returned to Switzerland with a renewed respect for Swiss cheese.

The Pampa Horizon

I was hoping to meet some nice, normal, eligible young gentlemen/gentlewomen, and I was told that the public library of the Centre Pompidou museum is a hot spot to pick up people in Paris. So I stood outside for twenty minutes in the queue, amazed that people actually stand in line for admittance into a library.

Once in the reading room, I seated myself across from the fetching young man whom I had noticed as the only hot prospect in the waiting line outside. He had an anguished-French-philosophy-student-trying-not-to-be-bourgeois look to him, and he was drinking a Coca Light, which made him even more bourgeois. But he never looked up from his 'serious literary work' to meet my glances.

Eventually I exited the library, brain-dead from dealing with the inefficient wireless connection. An overly solicitous security guard shooed me towards his younger co-worker in a deranged attempt to set us up on a date. When he realized that I was from The States, he asked, "Where? Texas? Oklahoma? Idaho?" I had never felt like less of a failure at being a discreetly camouflaged American in Paris.

"You're a wicked girl."

Personal ads are always intriguing sources of entertainment. Some desperate men living in Paris have posted ads in the local bilingual magazine, and their cultural confusion is only exceeded by the vagueness of their romantic expectations:

"Single, 6 feet, sportsman, Architect-innovator, screenwriter; I'm looking for a bilingual woman: French, English, single pour séjours Hollywood (screenplays/contracts) et plus." He describes himself as "an innovator," as though it is a legitimate profession, and I am still unclear as to what "séjours Hollywood" denote. He attempts to alleviate any creepiness from the ad by using the French expression "et plus" instead of the utterly unwholesome English version, "and more ..."

Another fellow claims to be a "45-year-old CEO" who is good with all nationalities of women, although he speaks "abominable" English. He is looking to meet a young girl for "an installation project" in London from December. It is hard to discern if he is seeking a co-creator for a performance art piece, a flatmate, or a lover. Perhaps it's all of the above. Regardless, these two seem like classic mimbos en route to creeper-town.

Cut-Out Gliders That Really Fly

There is just something about young boys; I met a pure and beautiful one on a random Parisian street corner. At first I took him for a creeper and didn't want to remove my sunglasses to look him in the eyes. But then I realized he had a genuine interest in cinema, a flair for languages, and might even be the first prince I have come across in Paris.

On the other hand, I recently encountered a bon chic bon genre (sort of the French version of preppies) boy who dabbles in the world of art galleries, feigns academic studies, and spends his parents' money. He turned to my girlfriend (who is known for dating older men) and said something to the effect of: "It reassures me to know that when I'm old and wrinkled, there will still be stupid young girls like you who will want to date me ... and you'll be their mother." I think we've found our Wanker of the Week, and he's chock-full of spoiled-son wisdom.