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| Directed by Cynthia Roberts |
| Canada, 1996 (fiction, 94 minutes, colour, English) |
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Film Description: "The eponymous heroine of Bubbles Galore is a superstar/producer of hardcore films played by Canadian XXX-rated actress Nina Hartley [...]. Although Bubbles has taken her share of hard knocks, she's kept a firm grip on her enthusiasm for working either end of the camera, not to mention her private erotic pleasures. As the movie opens, the happy porn queen is about to dive into the challenge of shooting her new production, Good Girl Gone Bad, on an ultra-tight schedule. Unfortunately, a cloud lurks behind the silver lining of Bubbles's life: her ex-boss and lover, Godfrey Montana (Daniel Maclvor), a megalomaniacal porn czar who wants Bubbles back, professionally and personally. When she greets his sweet talk and threats with disdain, he terrorizes Buck Lister (Andrew Scorer), an ex-lover Bubbles is still fond of, into a plot to ruin her. Buck, the tragic figure of the piece, is a good-hearted former porn actor whose career has turned limp because he has. Meanwhile in a subplot, Bubbles falls for the enigmatic Dory Drawers (Canadian pin-up Shauny Sexton), an amiable blonde who aspires to a career in the sex industry. Dory's problem is that she's a virgin, not the best qualification for on-camera lovemaking, as Bubbles's jealous lesbian assistant, Vivian Klitorsky (Tracy Wright), reminds her boss. But Bubbles is smitten, and she takes it upon herself to initiate the ripe young virgin in carnal knowledge." -- Maurie Alioff (source) |
| Film Credits (partial): | |
| Written by: | Cynthia Roberts, Greg Klymkiw |
| Produced by: | Greg Klymkiw, Remo Girlato |
| Principal Cast: | Nina Hartley, Tracy Wright, Daniel MacIvor, Shawna Sexton, Annie Sprinkle, Andrew Scorer, Sky Gilbert, Peter Lynch, Ed Fielding, Hillar Liitoja, Raven, Brittanee Bond, Sigrid Johnson, Wendy White, Scott Sprague, Rosalba Martinni, Jessica Summers, Deborah DeMille, Thea Gill, Kirsten Johnson |
| Cinematography: | Harald Bachmann |
| Film Editing: | Sarah Peddie, Cynthia Roberts, Su Rynard |
| Music: | Nicholas Stirling |
| Production Company: | Horsy Productions, Hryhory Yulyan Motion Pictures |
"The Canada Council, which approved the script and outline of Bubbles Galore, blessed it with $60,000 because at its artistic core, they said, it portrayed independent-minded women taking control of their own images. Enter the Reform Party, stage right. That sure wasn't the way they saw it. 'Why does (then heritage minister Sheila Copps) feel that money spent on this kind of trash is in Canadians' interests?' demanded Reform party whip Chuck Strahl. His colleague Monte Solberg, then Reform finance critic, was equally incensed and said Bubbles didn't merit our tax dollars. Reform MP John Williams called the movie pornographic and an indictment of Canadian cultural funding. [...] Award-winning filmmaker Cynthia Roberts, who had shown Bubbles in Germany, Spain, Australia and South Africa without raising eyebrows, was astounded at the political storm her Bubbles caused in Ottawa."
-- Chris Cobb
(source)
"Screening at the Melbourne Queer Film and Video Festival, which begins tomorrow, the film [Bubbles Galore] probably will provoke as much debate here as it did last year at its Montreal premiere. Bubbles Galore is a tender, trippy, pastel-tinted tribute to X-rated porn flicks and the women who work in them. [...] Bubbles (played by former X-rated film actor Nina Hartley) is a porn superstar and producer who has only a month to shoot, cut and deliver her latest movie, A Good Girl Gone Bad. And that's just one of her dilemmas. She's also madly in lust with her leading lady, a Marilyn Monroe look and sound-alike called Dory Drawers (Canadian Penthouse Pet Shauny Sexton) who not only has no experience in skin flicks, she's also a virgin. Meanwhile, the local porn kingpin, threatened by Bubbles's growing success, decides he will rid himself of the competition by shooting a snuff movie casting Bubbles as its star. Bubbles, however, has God on her side, played by ubiquitous performance artist and self-styled pleasure activist Annie Sprinkle. This scenario is more elaborate than your standard skin flick, but Roberts and her cowriter, Georgina Wright (who also has worked in the sex industry), pay homage to classic plot devices of the genre such as older-woman-teaches-younger-one-about-love, with results that are immensely erotic."
-- Christine Cremen
(source)
"The art-house crowd might be lining up with the raincoat brigade at Cinematheque this week for the raunchy pro-porn romp Bubbles Galore. A word of advice: It's impossible to overstate the raw and sexually graphic nature of this Canadian flick, brought to us by ex-Winnipegger Greg Klymkiw, the man who produced Guy Maddin's early work. Whatever you're hoping for—or fearing—this low-budget oddity, winner of Best Film at the Freak Zone International Festival, will go farther. And then some. Toronto director Cynthia Roberts' previous feature, The Last Supper, took a sombre look at AIDS. This time out she's in ridiculously high spirits, starting out with a dreamy, candy-coloured vision of heaven, presided over by a half-naked Annie Sprinkle as God. Sprinkle is an American performance artist, self-described 'pleasure activist,' and former sex worker. If Annie is God, you can imagine what the rest of the universe is like. Down on earth, there's trouble brewing in the porn industry between two rival directors. Bubbles Galore represents pleasure, female empowerment, and good, clean, dirty fun, while her arch-nemesis and former lover Godfrey Montana stands for brute power, female enslavement, and sheer nastiness."
-- Alison Gillmor
(source)
"As for the film itself [Bubbles Galore], outraged politicians, none of whom seem to have seen Bubbles, claim it has lots of explicit sex. Well, what would you expect in a film about the sex industry? And as for casting porn superstar Nina Hartley in the title role of an aging porn star-turned-filmmaker, isn't typecasting an honourable tradition in moviemaking? Besides, just because a film has a surfeit of explicit sex doesn't make it pornographic. Bubbles Galore was shown at the Montreal and Vancouver film festivals when it was released in 1996, and is being screened commercially in France, Belgium and Switzerland. So far, no protests from the broader public."
-- Globe and Mail
(source)
"The real issue is not whether this country should finance films in which breasts and bottoms and vaginas and dildos are exposed and in action. The real issue is how inept the film is. If there is a special circle of hell reserved for Canadians and Canadiana, one alcove in it should feature the damned being forced to watch Bubbles Galore until the end of time."
-- Globe and Mail
(source)
"Bubbles Galore [...] is a spicy, comic look at the porn business that manages to combine a feminist message about the rights of sex workers with a large dollop of fairly explicit bedroom action, much of which is deliberately made to look like a real, low-budget XXX pic. Even more surprising is the film's almost-sappy, romantic side, which turns this offbeat feature into a strange cross-pollination of an old-fashioned, Hollywood tear-jerker with Deep Throat. The frequent sex scenes, many of which focus on all-female gymnastics, will limit the film's reach, as will the low-fi production values. But the pic's hip politics, the presence of porn activist Annie Sprinkle in a droll turn as God, and the highly sellable concept of a politically correct smut film will likely allow this to make a mark in specialized settings."
-- Brendan Kelly
(source)
"As the debate around [Bubbles Galore] continues, no one taking a stand—neither [Sheila] Copps, who is shifting blame to the Mulroney government, nor Reform finance critic Monte Solberg, who calls it 'basically a porno'—has actually seen it. It could be more than titillating, an art film, as the filmmakers, the Canada Council and various film festivals maintain. Or it could be no more than titillating. Financing film isn't an exact science. Sometimes those blessed by governmental agencies turn out to be dogs. Sometimes they're complex, disturbing critical successes that many people never see, because that's not why they go to the theatre. Sometimes they're commercial entertainments. They might be about Bill 101, or about rubber dolls on a killing spree, or about aging porn stars calling their own X-rated shots. You don't have to like them all to endorse their right to exist and to receive public support. The only thing that's really offensive in this equation is the idea that Canadian films should be about some things and not others, and that the audience is so completely one-dimensional that it can't make room for a film like Bubbles Galore."
-- Alison Vale
(source)
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