You know that classic movie-theater seduction maneuver — the yawn, the stretch, the sneaky arm-drop over your date’s shoulder? Yeah … maybe don’t try that at this particular screening.
Debuting Oct. 16 at the historic Culver Theater, Flicker Festival is the first-ever short-film fest run entirely by intimacy coordinators — those behind-the-scenes on-set sex chaperones who make sure every touch, thrust and body part lands exactly where they’re supposed to.
“People think of us as the set police,” says Yehuda Duenyas of CINTIMA, the SAG-AFTRA-accredited intimacy coordination company behind the event. But he sees the job — and the festival — as something more sex-positive and cinematic. “We’re experts on how to translate fabricated intimacy in a way that
looks real,” he says, referring to his experience teaching actors how to convincingly simulate orgasm and perform oral sex. “You wouldn’t improvise a car crash,” he adds. “But you still want that car crash in a scene to look amazing. We are really interested in the art form of intimacy and intimacy coordination.”
Founded in 2023 by Duenyas alongside Jimanekia Eborn and Jaclyn Chantel, CINTIMA launched the festival to showcase that artistry onscreen. Thirty shorts — selected from 50 submissions — will be screened, all riffing on the theme of intimacy. Some are steamy. Some are awkward. One’s about death doulas (a very different sort of intimacy). Entries include original works, scenes from Shortbus and Chocolate Babies, and ad spots from brands like Lelo (sex toys) and Pair of Thieves (underwear).
There will be a red carpet, a jury that includes actresses Rutina Wesley (Queen Sugar) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till) and a dress code described as “party attire.” In other words: Wear something cute — but keep your hands to yourself.
Is Dick Wolf Getting Political? Chicago Fire Raises Eyebrows
The new season of Chicago Fire opens with a storyline seemingly straight out of a Trump stump speech: violent gangs brazenly attacking first responders, 911 calls going unanswered and a mayor accused of burying the numbers.
“Oh great,” one firefighter mutters, “now we gotta hear the new mayor’s talking head tell us everything is hunky-dory, just like they always say, and things get worse.”
It’s the kind of narrative President Trump has been pushing about Chicago for months — a liberal city spinning out of control, desperate for law and order (and maybe a few National Guardsmen). And for a Dick Wolf series, it felt like something of a departure.
While Wolf’s Law & Order series is famous for its ripped-from-the-headlines plot twists, his One Chicago franchise — Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. — has largely steered clear of overt politics. Wolf himself tends to stay out of the fray, with the occasional exception — like when, after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel, he threatened to pull funding from his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, over a Palestinian literary festival. His biggest known political donation? Fred Thompson’s 2008 GOP run (Thompson, of course, had been an actor on Law & Order).
But Chicago Fire‘s apparent season arc — which seems to lean in to the recent real-life friction between Mayor Brandon Johnson and the city’s first responders — has raised some eyebrows. Whether it’s a one-off or the start of a redder slant remains to be seen. Asked whether the episode signals a new direction, Wolf’s company had no comment. — ANDY LEWIS
Hey, You Hockey Puck, Don Rickles’ Daughter Has Launched a Podcast
Growing up in Vegas while her dad was eviscerating celebrities onstage at the Sahara at 2 a.m., Mindy Rickles had a pretty unique childhood. “I would be on the lawn in a crib,” she tells Rambling Reporter. “When I was like 2 or 3 years old, he’d be working in the lounge doing four shows a night — 8 o’clock, 10 o’clock, 1 o’clock, 2 in the morning, 5 in the morning — crazy times.”
Her father, of course, was the late Don Rickles — the OG insult comic, before the genre even had a name. From the 1960s through the 2000s, no one skewered a crowd with sharper affection. But now it’s Mindy’s turn behind the mic. In the podcast Mindy, Ed and Don Rickles — which dropped its first episode Sept. 22 — she and her husband, Ed Mann, surface archival performances, TV appearances and never-before-heard bits, weaving them together with stories, context and more personal reflections than fans have ever heard before.
For Rickles, the project isn’t just a trip down memory lane — it’s a way to reintroduce her father’s humor and humanity to a world that might have forgotten what made it work in the first place. “I might say, ‘Oh, this is what my dad was thinking at this moment,’ ” she explains. “It’s not that I knew all of his thoughts, but I knew how he worked from seeing it for so many years.”
Each episode pairs a recovered clip — maybe an early Jimmy Kimmel appearance, maybe a lounge set recorded during the ’70s — with her insights into how he thought, how he played the room and how his act evolved with the times. She and Mann also confront the trickier parts of Don’s legacy head-on, adding disclaimers and bleeping jokes that “really don’t belong in 2025.”
You can find the podcast on iHeart, Spotify and Apple Podcasts — you dummy. And get a haircut, you look like a poodle.
This story appeared in the Oct. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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