Look, I have absolutely nothing up my sleeve.

Unquestionably a first rate feature in terms of lush productions values, sex and acting, Josh Leslie’s The Pillowman is also something of a magician. It works beautifully on a premise that must have been devised during halftime of an AFC football game – something about a list of women’s names stolen from a bogus dating service run by Joey Silvera who behaves like Capt. Queeg when he discovers it’s missing. It’s merely a list, Joey, not a $58 million lottery ticket.

Alden, Pillowman (Peter North) swipes the list from the grizzly “Chief” (Jose Duval) who first swiped it from Silvera. Catatonic North is going to use it to meet girls (he hasn’t had any for two months), thereby establishing the premise for several ditzy sex encounters: Aja whose “husband” F.M. Bradley sucks on a pacifier while she makes it with North; Brittany Morgan, a Jack Webb freak who recreates scenes form the D.I. with North, and a memorable opening cat burglar suck scene with Chanel Price (what you get if you mated Marlene Dietrich with Larry Bird).