Category Archives: Transexual Theme

2013, Bullying, Cooking and food, Crime, Crude Talk, Lesbian Theme, Made For TV, Masturbation, Nudity, Prison, Race Relations, Revenge, Sex Scenes, Suspense, Transexual Theme, TV Series, Vulgar

Orange is the New Black (2013)

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From Netflix:

From the creator of “Weeds” comes a heartbreaking and hilarious new series set in a women’s prison. Piper trades her comfortable life for an orange jumpsuit and finds unexpected conflict and camaraderie amidst an eccentric group of inmates.

Prison life for a group of women characters, lesbian affairs, transsexuals, and more: sounds disturbing! Now I quote from the Boston Globe Critic’s Corner:

If you get Netflix, then you really ought to try this series. It’s thoroughly engrossing, as it follows a yuppi into a low-security prison for an old drug-related crime. Made by Jenji Kohan of “Weeds,” the show is funny but also dramatic, and all of the female characters are fully fleshed out, Taylor Schilling’s Martha Stewart-type heroine most of all. All 13 episodes are available right now, but I recommend spacing them out and savoring them across the summer.

As Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling as the lead character) first enters prison the warden tells her “This is not Oz”. In case you don’t know, “Oz” was a TV series that ran from 1997 to 2003. Oz took place in a hard-core men’s prison and was quite brutal at times. “Orange” is, as the warden said, NOT Oz. But “brutal” is relative. Bully guards taking advantage of fairly helpless women prisoners makes for tense viewing. Framing a prisoner for some offense so that their sentence is lengthened is all too easy.

Nevertheless, if you don’t mind suspense and some really explicit scenes and discussion, and if you came even close to enjoying “Oz” you will really appreciate this TV series.

2002, British Mystery Series, Could Be Hard To Watch, Dark, Detective, Disturbing Image, DO NOT MISS, FilmReview, Grim, Gritty, Murder Investigation, Occasional gore, Police Story, Sadism, Serial Killer, Stalker, Suspense, Torture, Transexual Theme, Violent

Wire in the Blood (2002)

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CHANGE OF STREAMING SOURCE:

Now you can stream 6 episodes NOT from Netflix but now from Acorn TV, which makes sense because Acorn TV shows only entertainment from the worldwide British empire.

The review below is still valid and a warning. However in Season 4 and forward, Herminone Norris is no longer in the episodes.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

From NetFlix:

This tense British crime series follows the work of Dr. Tony Hill (Robson Green), a psychologist with a peculiar talent for understanding how serial killers think and for using that knowledge to help law enforcement apprehend them. Partnered with a detective from the local police department’s Major Incident Team, Hill finds himself on the trail of killers ranging from vigilantes and snipers to rapist-murderers, twisted suicide cults and more.

Through NetFlix streaming or DVDs you can see this British detective TV series.

Some of the episodes are ugly. You might even want to skip the very first episode because it shows sadistic torture. Later episodes refer back only slightly to preceding episodes, but that is not important.

Why watch the series at all? With each British detective series that I watch I find that the stories are tensely engaging, well written, and well acted but also usually very grim and explicit. One exception that comes to mind is Pie in the Sky in which there is never a murder. Also the crimes in Midsomer Murders are never hard to watch.

Two actors carry the series:

  • Robson Green appears exclusively in (zillions of) British TV series. If you are a British TV fan you will recognize him immediately. His character, Dr. Tony Hill, seems a little too smart to be true.
  • Hermione Norris (DCI Carol Jordan) appeared in a great many episodes of MI-5.

You have been warned that certain scenes are brutal. Other than that, this is another great British detective TV series.

1996, British, Explicit sexual discussion, Love Story, Motorcycles, Nudity, Sex Scenes, Transexual Theme, Unusual, Wonderful acting

Different for Girls (1996)

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From NetFlix:

Karl Foyle (Steven Mackintosh) and Paul Prentice (Rupert Graves) were boyhood friends back in the 1970s, but when they run into each other in present-day London, they learn that a lot has changed. For starters, Karl has become Kim and has no desire to go back to her past. As for Paul, he’s just an aging punk with no future. The two rekindle their friendship and are surprised to find their relationship becoming much deeper than they expected.

NetFlix Watch Instantly almost never offers mainstream films but instead has a catalog of rejects, failures, second rates, and an occasional find. If you look up Rupert Graves in IMDB you will find his appearance in 75 productions. For example, he was DI Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes TV series. Now try to find a film with Rupert Graves in NetFlix Watch Instantly. Voila! Now you are a kid in a candy store. Just for the fun of it choose “Different for Girls”. Talk about different!

Probably you have never seen a film as unusual as this well-done British gem. For those of you with delicate sensitivities, beware. Not only is this an eventual love story between a straight man and a male-to-female transsexual, but there are anatomical discussions and instances of explicit nudity and intercourse. Having been warned you should now ignore the warning because this film is a non-prurient story of an admittedly unusual relationship.

As I watched the performance of the transsexual character Kim, I sensed a slight bit of masculinity, but SHE was a beautiful and very feminine young woman. In IMDB I could not find the woman playing Kim until it hit me. SHE is played to perfection by Steven Mackintosh whose own resume listed 94 entries. Steven Mackintosh was Winston in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998).

During filming Rupert Graves was 33 and Steven Macintosh was 29.

If you are in the mood “and now for something completely different” (quoting from Monty Python), go no further.