Nymphomaniac: Vol 1

Very engaging. Quite surprising too. The film touches upon some important and true aspects of relationships and love, but it also has a lot of bullshit. The sex is quite explicit, especially Shia clearly having sex with Stacy, and Stacy giving a BJ to a guy on a train. It's shocking, but after the first few sexual scenes, this becomes irrelevant and the premise takes over.

Stacy Martin is pretty great as young Joe. Shia Labeouf gives one of the worst British accents I've heard, but bless him, he's trying so hard. I cannot understand why, for the life of me, they chose Christian Slater as her father. A much older gentleman would have been better. Slater looks around 35. Uma Thurman is also very good here. The weakest link, and most horribly pretentious character is older Joe, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Stellan Skarsgård is awesome, as usual.

The Rammstein music makes it a classic. I've never seen a Lars von Trier film before, and I think he's a pretty great director. I shall watch the second part soon.

B+

Totally agree. Tension is ramped up the 200%.

Totally agree.

That wasn't a real penis.

Glad you watched and enjoyed the first volume, Algren.

Lars is a top-20 director for me, so I believe there is value in every one of his films, even more uneven ones such as Epidemic and Manderlay, but I would say his two best are Breaking the Waves and Melancholia. I would recommend those to you if you are interested in exploring him a bit further.

I hate Melancholia.

Noted.

BTW, the change in actors for Jerome is bizarre. Charlotte gets to share the screen with Shia in the beginning and yet he looks completely different in the last chapters.

I think together this may be my favorite film I've seen from Lars, which isn't much since I've only seen this, Dogville, Manderlay and Melancholia.

The thought had crossed my mind, but I don't care. Looked real enough, so as far as hardcore pornography goes, it was up there.

I'm interested in watching Melancholia, but I started watching it once before and it bored me to death. The start is so slow.

Nymphomaniac: Vol 2

The second part of Lars von Trier's sex addict film is a much harder watch. More boring, more weird, and not very engaging apart from wanting to know the outcome of a story that you are already invested in. The ending is superbly sinister, and there is some good stuff in this film, but it pales compared to the first part.

C+

wow, wish I knew the director's cut was gonna be released on bluray in November or else I wouldn't have bought the first release. Eh. If anyone checks it out do tell how it is.