Hysteria

In addition to the following releases, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon and Katy Perry: Part of Me are also available this week.

The Cabin in the Woods

Celebrated cult TV creator Joss Whedon cowrote the horror film The Cabin in the Woods. Chris Hemsworth is Curt, the jocky leader of a group of kids looking to get away for a weekend at a quiet cabin retreat. Instead, they become unwilling participants in a horrifying game for their lives. The movie contains a lot of thriller clichés but manages to be both a terrifying scream-fest and a clever nod to the horror genre. DVD extras include director commentary, a making-of documentary, a "Secret Secret Stash" featurette, interviews with the writer and director, two featurettes about the visual effects, and a digital copy of the film.

90%

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, and Bill Nighy play a group of retiring British folks headed to India for a relaxing vacation. Expecting to find a classy resort, they're initially not too pleased to find that the hotel is less of a posh getaway than they had imagined. The friends stick it out and come to find that though their lodging is a little run-down, there's a magic there that revives their lives. The DVD comes with a "Behind the Story: Lights, Colours, and Smiles" featurette.

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See what else is out this week after the jump.

Last night, Maggie Gyllenhaal went on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart to talk about her latest project, Hysteria, a movie about the invention of the vibrator. Maggie isn't ashamed to talk openly about vibrators, female sexuality, and orgasms — and neither is the film's director, Tanya Wexler, who we interviewed last month — but Jon Stewart isn't quite as cool and collected. Jon clearly gets more awkward as the interview goes on, which is pretty funny to watch, but he does throw in a good point about this "period piece" hitting a little close to home during this election season's war on women. In reference to the actual history of doctors in Victorian England treating women with hysteria (a catchall diagnosis for unhappy women of the time) by giving them orgasms, Jon said, "That was a time when men made the decisions about women's health care without having the knowledge or the emotional ability to understand." Watch Jon get squirmy discussing vibrators now!

Don't be shy . . . It's time to talk sex toys! And Hysteria director Tanya Wexler is writing us a prescription for pleasure. Tanya's film — what she calls "the vibrator movie you can bring your mom to" — is in limited release and stars Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Rupert Everett. When working on a romantic comedy that centers around the invention of the vibrator, you end up with some entertaining and embarrassing situations along the way, and lucky for us, Tanya spilled all the hilariously dirty details. From teaming up with the film's partner Jimmyjane for a drive-by vibrator drop-off to a certain female Oscar-winner to trying unsuccessfully to get ducks to shag on command, Tanya was bursting with great stories from working on this very unconventional film. And while Tanya isn't ashamed to discuss the sexy subject matter of her latest film with us, the mother of four and her partner of 21 years did have a tricky challenge telling her preteen kids what her movie was about. (She eventually gave them the script and let them figure it out themselves!) Check out our interview with the fun-loving director now, and we dare you not to have a girl crush on her by the end!

TrèsSugar: What were some of the challenges to getting a movie made about vibrators?
Tanya Wexler: Getting the script right was tricky because if you just make a movie about the invention of the vibrator, it's actually a really short movie: you go "bzz" and it's done. And we had a kind of light romantic comedy. I say I made the vibrator movie you can bring your mom to. But some people wanted it to be raunchy or some people wanted it to be more serious and about feminism. People project a lot onto this movie of what they want, because there isn't a lot out there about vibrators and women's pleasure, and we still don't really deal with that topic very well, or we're overly antsy around it. And as a result, people have a lot of ideas of what the movie could and should be, and you can't please everyone. [laughs]

TS: Ha, good one.
TW: It's nonstop!

TS: Do you find sex toys inherently funny or something to be seriously celebrated?
TW: Yes!

TS: Both?
TW: Yes! Yes. I think they make me laugh, and I think that the inner kind of Beavis and Butt-head in all of us goes "[laugh]." You know, that inner 13-year-old, like, "Hahaha vibrator . . . " and yet they're awesome and fun.

TS: What shocked you the most when researching the movie?
TW: That ducks are the rapists of the bird world, and you'll see when you see the movie, because there's a little bit of questionable duck behavior — or awesome duck behavior — in the movie. It's totally a sidebar, but you cannot make ducks shag on command. I'm just saying.

TS: What about the whole history of hysteria being a medical condition?
TW: When I first heard the idea, I was like, "What do you mean it was invented in Victorian times?" I knew about hysteria, but the idea that the treatment was manual [British accent] massage deparaxism — which is what they called it — and, of course, the denial. The most shocking thing is the denial, that they didn't think it was sexual.

TS: Do you think they were really in denial?
TW: No, I don't think that some people were. My college roommate was with her high school boyfriend for two years and she had never had an orgasm. I think there's all kinds of denial, especially with women's sexuality. So the fact that there are young women today who haven't had an orgasm, whether self-induced — which is insane — or with a partner, then why wouldn't we think back then that women wouldn't know what orgasms were?

They would get a massage, and the doctor's saying, "Without a penis, this isn't sex, because sex is about procreation," so what is this? The best physical therapy you've ever had. So once you don't think of it as something other than what the doctor's supposed to do to cure your uncontrollable crying or uncontrollable laughter or whatever, then it's just an awesome muscle spasm. If you don't think women have their own inherent sexuality, then you're not thinking about it like that.

Keep reading for Tanya's thoughts on Fifty Shades and more!

Hysteria, a movie from director Tanya Wexler, is currently screening at the Tribeca Film Festival before its theatrical release on May 18. The story, which is based on real-life events, centers on the 1880s-era doctor who invented the vibrator to treat hysterical female patients, and I had a chance to check out the film and bring you the details.

• Who's behind it? The film was helmed by Wexler, who previously directed indie films Ball in the House and Finding North. Fun fact: Wexler, a graduate of Columbia's film school, is the half sister of Daryl Hannah. Hugh Dancy is the film's leading man, with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rupert Everett, and Felicity Jones rounding out the cast.
• What's it about? Dancy's Dr. Mortimer Granville is a cutting-edge doctor for his time, since he shocks colleagues by believing that germs exist. After being fired from one hospital after another for his radical views, he lands a last-ditch position as the assistant to society doctor Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce). Dalrymple is a specialist in "hysteria," which was a commonly diagnosed condition in women. His treatment involves a literal hands-on method, and Mortimer has to explore other options to ease the physical demands on the doctor. Mortimer also romances Dalrymple's daughter Emily (Felicity Jones) but is also captivated and confused by Robert's other daughter, volatile social activist Charlotte (Gyllenhaal).

For my thoughts on the film, just keep reading.

Yup, you read that title correctly. In Hysteria, Hugh Dancy plays a Victorian-era doctor who is up to his elbows (um, kind of literally) trying to cure women of "hysteria," which, in this case, seems to be a fancy way of saying aroused and/or sexually frustrated. To make the relief process easier, he and his partner (Rupert Everett) invent the first vibrator with the help of some electricity and a feather duster. Maggie Gyllenhaal also pops up as a sassy love interest.

The trailer looks a little silly, but the fact that it's inspired by true events has me intrigued. Plus, it's hard not to giggle in spite of yourself at loaded one-liners like "Imagine if everyone had one!" To see the trailer, just read more

Hysteria, the upcoming Victorian-era rom-com staring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and Rupert Everett, takes on the creation of the first vibrator. The trailer is out today, and it look likes Hugh Dancy, who plays the inventor-doctor, doesn't hold back in his pursuit of female pleasure.

By failing to acknowledge women as sexual, our prudish Victorian-era ancestors took part in something we would find shocking today: doctors essentially having sex with their patients. The medical community considered female sexual arousal a disorder that needed treatment. Symptoms of so-called "female hysteria" included anxiety, sexual fantasies, pelvic heaviness, and vaginal lubrication. They had the same remedy for such symptoms as we do today, an orgasm, but back then physicians administered them.

Doctors would rub a "hysterical" woman's vulva until she experienced dramatic relief through "paroxysm," aka orgasm. After treating various hysterical women, a doctor's hands and wrists would get tired. So in 1870, one doctor created a steam-powered machine that would administer orgasms and become the ancestor of today's vibrators. Soon even the Princess of Wales would order "Horse-Action Saddles" (seen in this ad) proven to treat hysteria.

Watch the Hysteria trailer below.

No need to blush, so let's just come out with it: Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy have signed on for Hysteria, a Victorian-era indie rom-com about the invention of the vibrator (definitely not your traditional romantic comedy).

Dancy will play a doctor who treats women suffering from an acute case of so-called "hysteria," an affliction of the time marked by "irritability, anger, or unexplained tears." To cure them, he partners up with his best friend (Rupert Everett) to create the device (though some doctors had their own methods of relieving the symptoms). Gyllenhaal costars as the daughter of one of Dancy's colleagues (Jonathan Pryce) and presumably Dancy's love interest. The actress has never been sheepish about tackling a little sexual taboo (hello, Secretary), but with a couple of Brits by her side, this movie sounds like cheeky good fun.