Best erotic film
25 Sexy Thrillers You Can Stream Right Now Turn on the TV and close the blinds.
We all feel it, that void in our souls where an erotic thriller should be. A subgenre that wasn’t necessarily invented but flew closest to the sun in the 1990s is in many ways the great unifying cinematic experience. It is the bridge between high and low. The film is a handshake between snobs and garbage collectors. It’s the movie theater in old Times Square where any shady person can go to see something sexy, transgressive, and made for pure pleasure. (Trust me: I’m on the asexual spectrum, and even I can’t resist the hot and bothered section at the video store.) The concept of “guilty pleasures” is a waste of time — whatever you like. Love it and shout it out. . Loud — but if there’s one class of movies that slip easily into that folder, wrapped in black paper to protect the sensitive eyes of passers-by, it’s this one.
And while we may not get as many new sexy thrillers as we’d like (or deserve!), there’s a shivery and sweaty archive waiting for you to access anytime. Is. We’ve compiled a list of 21 movies you can watch right now with various streaming subscriptions, and finally four more bonus entries you don’t have to tell anyone about. So whether you’re a seasoned collector of film erotica or you’re just starting to dip your toe in the water, light a candle for Linda Fiorentino and burn a small tribute to Adrian Lyon: these few films. Time to watch. Which requires you to close the shades.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
If an epic erotic thriller is what you seek, master Stanley Kubrick is here to fulfill your desires. Eyes Wide Shut is about three hours long and a wonderful cultural masterpiece. It is Kubrick’s last film directed, one of Tom Cruise’s last films to feature sex, and one of Hollywood’s most (former) power couples of the late 20th century. A tough team-up for one. Cruise and his ex Nicole Kidman star as a married couple on the rocks, the husband becoming deeply obsessed with Cruise when he discovers his wife is fantasizing about another man. Eyes Wide Shut came out in 1999, a time when big stars still made bawdy erotica, and when the idea of on-screen orgy was still cringe-worthy – and not something you’d expect to see on a weekly basis. Couldn’t catch a mistake once. Whatever’s new in streaming TV. Were we ever so young?
f an epic erotic thriller is what you seek, then master Stanley Kubrick is here to fulfill your desires. Eyes Wide Shut is about three hours long and a wonderful cultural masterpiece. It is Kubrick’s last film directed, one of Tom Cruise’s last films to feature sex, and one of Hollywood’s most (former) power couples of the late 20th century. A tough team-up for one. Cruise and his ex Nicole Kidman star as a married couple on the rocks, the husband becoming deeply obsessed with Cruise when he discovers his wife is fantasizing about another man. Eyes Wide Shut came out in 1999, a time when big stars still made bawdy erotica, and when the idea of on-screen orgy was still cringe-worthy – and not something you’d expect to see on a weekly basis. Couldn’t catch a mistake once. Whatever’s new in streaming TV. Were we ever so young?
Disclosure (1994)
The erotic thriller was at its peak in the 1990s, and almost no one took advantage of the era’s richness more than Michael Douglas, a man born to do wrong on screen. And he had no choice but to fall victim to the sexual promiscuity of the cunning women around him! Before Hollywood was abandoning gendered stories, Revelations dared to ask: “But what if a woman is the attacker, and this nice family man is just doing his best when a surprise An evil demon appeared to ruin his life?” what if? Fortunately, that stone-cold lying girl boss is Demi Moore, whose distinctive smoky voice is drenched in condescension and disdain as she descends like a missile on Douglas’s life. First she takes his job. Then she tries to take his whole life. And you’re left asking yourself: Good for…?
Deep Water (2022)
Few filmmakers have staked their claim to sensuality more than Adrian Lyne. From sexy thrillers (Fatal Attraction, Unfaithful) to steamy dramas (Indecent Proposal, 9 1/2 weeks), this man has a mood, and that mood is getting people to strip for the camera. (Flashdance may not be a sexy thriller, but think about which scene from it you remember most!) has been making films for a long time, who just likes to accept. Sexually adventurous characters. While Deepwater was advertised as a bottom-to-the-middle piece of sensational erotica (a trailer that promised murder! and handjobs!), it may have been Lion’s best to date. It’s a weird movie. Starring De Armas and Ben Affleck as an on-the-rock married couple, Lane combined many elements of his long career into a genre-defying tonal milkshake that delivered straight-faced acerbic comedy. Hoy constantly teases suspense — and features Affleck hanging out. . Debating the ethics of making tech for military drones with snails in one scene and Tracy Letts in another. None of the adults in this movie have jobs, so what else are they going to do except screw and fornicate and ride bikes that are too young for them. Also, 2022 screams about the most surprising car chase.
The In Crowd (2000)
You probably know Mary Lambert’s name because she directed the horror classic Pete’s Cemetery, but take a moment to make her entrance. The In Crowd plays like a late-night soap based on the upcoming era of The O.C. And Gossip Girl piggy-backing on dead (and sexy) teenagers sparked a frenzy by Scream. The film masquerades as a slasher given its context and marketing, but if you open the hood, what you’ll find is actually a light-hearted erotic thriller set in an affluent milieu. is and deserves to be at a country club during summer break. College kids are moneyed and bored, and they shine next to Lori Havering’s Adrien, who’s doing his laundry at the club but is hot enough to pass him through a velvet rope. And of course, controlling access from the heights is Britney, the most beautiful and deadly of them all and played with evil brunette perfection by Susan Ward. This entry is really a tribute to Ward, who should have fed on “Fuck your husband and your son” Lifetime movies for years, but our world isn’t the only one. Ward is the Denise Richards of Kari Wuhrers (see Wild Things 2 if you need proof), and her sexually opportunistic femme fatale makes this underserved 2000s treasure sing.
American Gigolo (1980)
The story follows three paths. Julian flashes back to his childhood in the early 1990s, and we see Johnny’s involvement in the escort business. He also returns to his heyday—the film’s time frame, now set in the mid-eighties—and the events surrounding the murder. And in the present, he tries to get his life back on track in the seedier parts of the Los Angeles waterfront. New murders occur, somehow connected to Julian’s past, and unraveling the mystery may require him to return to his old profession.
The story’s multiple timelines are well-blended in a contemporary way, and the constant flashbacks are more obtrusive than usual: they repeat themselves and blurt out information in a way that’s meant to be provocative but merely It is disappointing. The series has a sad, unsettling tone and a charming sheen — starring Nikki Toscano, who starred in the “Godfather”-making drama “The Offer,” and much of the cinematography is by Robert McLachlan, who ” Emmy nominee for “The Offer.” Ray Donovan” and “Game of Thrones.” But in the three episodes available for review, they form a hollow shell.
At the center of Zero is Jon Bernthal, who steps into the role that Gere created but is playing, in every way, a completely different character. 1980 Julian Kaye was an arrogant, manipulative, background unknown, whose ability to feel honest emotions was uncertain until the final shot of the film. 2022 Julian Kaye is sad and noble and, crucially, a victim, having been sold into prostitution as a child. Now we are being asked to regret it.
You could argue that there are grounds for change — a change in times, Julian spent 15 years in prison. And making it emotional can be an attempt to transform a dream figure into something more human. But it’s a doubly bad idea: it only emphasizes that he’s still less of a flesh-and-blood consumer fantasy character, and it turns an entertaining, sordid mystery into a desperate soap opera. When the show tries to be kinky, it feels dated (while the hedonistic poolside partying scenes set in a neo-Puritan, AIDS-paranoid early ’90s feel oddly tone-deaf). And it’s hard to generate much sympathy for Julian in Bernthal’s grumpy, grumpy, mean-spirited performance, though the problem is indeed
If the noisy atmosphere and high production values are enough (executive producers include Jerry Bruckheimer, returning from the film, and “C.S.I.” franchise-masters Jonathan Littman and Christy Ann Reed), you’ll enjoy this “American Gigolo.” can enjoy The occasional truck-sized plot hole. (He cleans the motel room but doesn’t see the photos lying next to the corpse?) Hinton’s role is complemented by talented actors such as Leland Orser, Wayne Brady, Luthier Bluto and Gretchen Mol.
Dream Lover (1993)
When you think of erotic thrillers, you probably think of the 1990s. What you might not think of is Mädchen Amick, who should have devoured the screen in a dozen entries for the subgenre in its most prolific decade. Instead, we got some precious star-studded thriller vehicles from Umke in its ’90s heyday, and one of them is a real hidden treasure. Amick stars alongside James Spader as a beguiling beauty to whom Spader is helpless. She warns him that she is not just a beautiful vessel into which to pour his fantasies, and the older James insists that he sees her truth beyond her beauty. Would you guess that he is disastrously wrong? What’s special about Dream Lover is that it plays halfway through like a traditional erotic thriller, taking you through unexpected twists and turns at the back end. Umke sees sensuality and menace, and Spader is excellent as the brooding hot nerd with the wrong side of himself. And since it’s from the ’90s, there are whole elaborate dream sequences for Speeder to imagine being in the circus. Okay fine!
The Crush (1993)
There are three magic words that open the movie The Crush: “Introducing Alicia Silverstone.” One of the big screen’s leading figures of the 1990s, she made her film debut in this erotic thriller about a teenage girl who is separated from her parents.
Shapiro, who based the story on events in his own life. And the fact that a person is making a movie that basically screams, “No, your honor, a 14-year-old seduced me!” At the very least, there is an interesting situation to consider.
Nonetheless, Silverstone sets the celluloid on fire as the provocative, scheming teenager, delivering a performance that epitomizes the meaning of star power. She legally emancipated herself to be able to work in the film at age 15 (she turned 16 during filming), and it’s surreal that a brand-new kid is in front of the camera. Can have so much presence. The real heads out there know why it sounds so weird whenever anyone says “Adrienne” in the movie, and it’s because the real girl Silverstone played changed her real name to Darien in the script. Sued the production for illegal use. She won, so the film had to be dubbed on the next release. Watch this movie and see it as a prime case study of how crazed Lolita movies were in the 90s. Lots to unpack there!
Jade (1995)
Whenever someone starts talking about erotic thrills, the conversation almost inevitably turns to someone chanting “The Last Seduction.” And, listen, the movie is great; This is a classic. But the lack of respect for Linda Fiorentino’s other contributions to the erotic thriller by constantly listing what a film has done before disrespects her legacy. Consider instead a film that’s decidedly sexier than its most referential sexiest hit (Seduction is a dark comedy, if you’re really honest with yourself). Consider: Jade. The film has a strange reputation despite starring a hard-boiled David Caruso that casts Caruso as merely a detective trying to solve a series of high-profile murders related to kinky sex. Fiorentino becomes the prime suspect in all of this, and here she reminds you why people have been mourning her absence from the screen for years. Jade also makes excellent use of one of the era’s most iconic cinematic treasures: the city of San Francisco.
Bound (1996)
Anifer Tilley and Jenna Gershon star in this all-time sexy crime thriller about two women who find a steamy relationship and plan to break up a violent man. Gershwin plays Corky, a gay man fresh out of prison who catches the eye of Violet (Tilly) in an elevator one day, and who co-stars as Pantoliano Cesare, Violet’s criminal and There is an abusive boyfriend who needs to go. Bound is Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s directorial debut, and it’s a really cute one, before they took us to The Matrix and before they cast Channing Tatum as a human dog in Jupiter Ascending. Cast, he made a hall of fame movie “Be Gay Do Crime”.
Wild Things (1998)
If you’re a genetic millennial, there’s a good chance you had an early connection with Wild Things, which surely holds the distinction of being the first screen thrill and/or first screen erection for many. . Wild Things is not only a top-notch erotic thriller, it’s also a Florida crime movie, and there’s nothing sweatier than Florida crime. New Campbell and Dennis Richards star as the most mature-looking teenagers you’ll ever see in this tale of two high schoolers who blame their guidance counselor, played by Matt Dillon. , of a heinous crime. The whole sordid affair upends the posh seaside town of Blue Bay, and it keeps detective Kevin Bacon on his tail as he tries to figure out who’s lying about whom. For all the sensationalism, it shouldn’t be overlooked that both Campbell and Richards chew on these characters and turn some delicious trash into a fine five-course meal of sexy thrills. Also called out to composer George S. Clinton, who scored for both the film and The Red Shoe Diary—which makes a comical sense.
Cruel Intentions 2 (2002)
The thing about Cruel Intentions 2 is that it won’t surprise you with how good it is, but if you haven’t seen it before, you will be surprised to see Amy Adams play Sarah Michelle Gellar. Succeeds as a beautiful rich girl with intentions. . Catherine Mertuel. And somewhat unexpected: CI2 is actually a prequel! This means we see Addams’ Mertuel opposite Robin Dunne’s Sebastien Valmont in this origin story of their psychotic half-brother relationship. We all know Adams should have at least two Oscars to her name by now, and while a direct-to-video YA erotic thriller might not be the most prestigious affair, she’s still a bad bitch. Serving as if her life depended on it to fill in for Geller. . Strong designer shoes. There are no small parts, only small actors! And even in this sequel-prequel to the early days of his career, Adams is a giant. Watch and respect yourself.
Swimming (2002)
Congratulations, young people, your Savior is here to represent you. If you’re in the market for teenage secrets and lies, either live out your dreams or enjoy this dirty number about a first-time All-Star swimmer who falls for a dangerous new girl. Gets tempted. This movie is perfect with Jess Bradford as a heartthrob athlete. This movie is so weird, it’s about a champion high school swimmer. What’s so unique about this movie is that Erika Christensen is completely brutal and makes people emotional. Swim Fan is Deluxe Friday Night Popcorn fare.
Few have done more for the erotic thriller than writer-director Adrian Lyne, who clutched her pearls with 9½ Weeks before mastering the form with Fatal Attraction. Then came the indent proposal and his 2002 infidelity before plunging into even more taboo waters with Lolita. Diane Lane earned an Oscar nomination for her turn as a wife who throws away her marriage vows when she begins an affair with Oliver Martinez. Richard Gere is a sexy movie icon in his own right, but here he is unbeknownst to the husband that his wife is having sex with the annoyingly attractive Martinez everywhere. It’s paperback sleaze with a sheen of prestige.
Let’s Go (2009)
When we think of erotic thrillers, the first women who come to mind are titans of the genre such as Glenn Close, Sharon Stone, and Linda Fiorentino, but Julianne Moore’s name also springs to mind. Is. Don’t go too far. Moore is one of our most fearless actors, having time and time again in films that are both taboo and extravagant, from Boogie Nights to Body of Evidence to Maps to Stars to Savage Grace. up to. Even and then some. Now, is Chloe at the top of her career when it comes to dark sexy content? No, but sometimes it’s fun to play in the mud. In this 2009 pulp drama, Moore plays Catherine, a woman who believes her husband (Liam Neeson) is cheating on her to hire a sex worker (Amanda Seyfried). He has to prove that he is a two-time bastard. But soon, the business arrangement between Katherine and Seyfried’s Chloe turns itself into a wife-to-wife relationship, with the wife asking her spy to detail every sexual encounter she has with the husband. Does this film play into the sticky history of queerphobia that permeates the entire history of erotic thrillers? It certainly does! But gays deserve to have fun too, so put your judgments aside and give yourself over to Chloe’s charms.
The Housemaid (2010)
If you’re looking for some international erotic thrills, consider this domestic tale of sex and betrayal and bourgeois angst. The Housemaid follows a young woman (Jeun Do-yeon) who is hired as a nanny for a pregnant housewife (Seo-woo) and becomes the object of desire for the man of the house (Lee Jung-jae). Is As you can imagine, it goes wrong for everyone. When the nanny and the husband get involved in an affair, the pregnant wife gets wise, and everything starts to fall apart for everyone involved. It all builds to a shocking climax that doesn’t quite feel like what you’d get from an American film of the same class. If you like it, check out the 1960 movie of the same name that it’s based on.
Stranger by the Lake (2013)
What would a list of sexy thrillers be without French? Set by the sea, this simmering drama explores longing, lust and the breezy freedom of a hot and sunny day gazing at the shimmering bodies of water. Alain Guiraudie wrote and directed this tale of murder and desire, and Pierre Deladonchamps plays Franck, a handsome 30-something who finds himself in the joys of this gay hangout. . The involved Frank has an affair with Henri (Patrick d’Esmalt), but is really smitten with Michael, played by Christophe Pau.
Frank’s spiral as he pines for the magnetic Michelle. Stranger by the Lake is for those who want the French art house experience: a spectacular display of male bodies and sex scenes that don’t hold back. Expand your cinematic palette and watch this quintessential darling.
The Handmaiden (2016)
Erotic thrillers are famously low-budget fare that’s just so charming that it draws in even the most discerning moviegoers. Of course, some of them are legitimately great — cinematic classics! – The Handmaiden may be the highest work of them all, satisfying the basic desires of the audience. Park Chan-wook’s thrilling, brilliant masterpiece garnered accolades from film awards around the world before missing out on a silly Oscar, but every frame is a painting and every plot twist pearls in this thrilling blend of drama, suspense, and darkness. There is a breeze. Comedy, and sexy out of South Korea. The plot concerns three main players: a gentle man (Ha Jung-woo), a low-level grifter he recruits into a scheme (Kim Tae-ri), and an heiress (Kim Min-hee), all are locked in one. A double love triangle. Both crooks are after the fate of the beautiful rich girl, but everything gets complicated when the women start to develop feelings for each other. Or are they? Is it a burgeoning love affair or another act layered over a maze of betrayal? The performances are captivating, the art direction is breathtaking, the sex scenes are eye-opening, and the deception is palpable.
Double Lover (2017)
If you know anything about director François Ozon (See the Sea, Swimming Pool), you know that he enjoys the physical and transgressive. If there’s one thing to know about Double Penetration, it’s that the film opens primarily with gyno-POV and a sample of vaginal penetration. The story centers on Chloé (Marine Vacth), who begins seeing a therapist named Paul (Jérémie Renier), and before long, the pair become romantically involved. But after a while, Chloé meets another analyst who is a dead ringer (hint hint!) for her boyfriend. He’s Paul’s twin brother, you see, and he thinks he can cure Chloe of ailments that involve sex. There are secrets about her lovers that Chloe must uncover, and this loose adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s Live of the Twins is perfect for fans of David Cronenberg’s own sexy doppleganger thriller Dead Ringers. A bell must be rung, with a wonderfully twisted tradition to follow.
The Voyeurs (2021)
If you’re out there mourning the loss of the erotic thriller but you haven’t been watching The Voyuers since 2021, are you even for real? If you’re out here watching Euphoria and tweeting “Sydney Sweeney ate!” But not looking for her work as a sexy optometrist in this twisty thriller, do you even care or are you just riding the Zeitgeist wave? Michael Mohan wrote and directed this steamy little number about a couple (Sweeney and Justice Smith) who get approved for a fancy new apartment that comes with one condition: you can’t put up any curtains. ever This leads them to develop strange, antisocial relationships with all the people they can tease along the way – especially with an incredibly attractive couple (Natasha Leo Bordizo and Ben Hardy) having sex and Emotionally explosive relationships are in their eye line. Our hero couple, Pippa (Sweeney) and Seb (Smith), begin to enjoy the pleasure of watching their hot neighbors slip into a full-on obsession with Pippa’s interest. The real suspense begins when something sinister happens along the way, and Pippa is especially conflicted about what duty she owes to the other woman, who may not know all of her husband’s extracurricular activities. The Voyeurs is heading towards a really big fic final act. If you miss a really sexy thriller, you cannot miss this movie.
The 35 Sexiest Thrillers of All Time
The Black Swan
Esire is a dangerous thing, whether for professional or personal desires. Black Swan dives deep into the world of ballet, pitting Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis against each other as much as it brings them together. Sexual, intense, and deeply disturbing, Darren Aronofsky’s feature is somehow sexy that’s borderline disturbing. It will also ensure that you never pick your nails again.
Mulholland Drive
Get ready for some reading after finishing this famously complex and mind-bending thriller from author David Lynch, which shakes up Hollywood with its hilarious humor and dark cautionary themes. While Lynch’s neo-noir focuses mostly on an aspiring actress (Naomi Watts) who plays an amateur detective upon her arrival in Los Angeles, the film has a relationship between Watts and her co-star Laura Elena Harding. The infamous same-sex love scene is depicted.
Crash
Not to be confused with the Oscar-winning movie about how everyone in Los Angeles is secretly racist, Crash is directed by David Cronenberg and based on the cult novel by JG Ballard. The film stars James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Cara Unger, and Rosanna Arquette as a group of people who have a very special fetish: they’re turned on by car accidents.
Body of Evidence
Consistent with the pop performer’s erotica phase, Body of Evidence depicts Madonna as a woman accused of murdering her lover—who died of erotic suffocation. Willem Dafoe plays her lawyer, who can’t help but be drawn to her sadomasochistic charms.
Dead Ringers
Director David Cronenberg is most interested in thrilling his audience, and there’s no better example than this creepy and weird thriller starring Jeremy Irons as a twin ophthalmologist (yes, you read that right). played characters whose brotherhood is tested in deadly ways when they both fall for the same seductive woman.
Silver
Sharon Stone plays a recently divorced woman who moves into a glamorous new apartment in New York. She soon becomes romantically involved with two of her neighbors: a handsome man who is spying on the building’s residents, and a novelist who might also be a murderer.
The Black Swan
Esire is a dangerous thing, whether for professional or personal desires. Black Swan dives deep into the world of ballet, pitting Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis against each other as much as it brings them together. Sexual, intense, and deeply disturbing, Darren Aronofsky’s feature is somehow sexy that’s borderline disturbing. It will also ensure that you never pick your nails again.
Mulholland Drive
David Lynch has been working toward “Mulholland Drive” all his career, and now that he’s gotten there I forgive him “Wild at Heart” and even “Lost Highway.” After all, his experiment does not break the test tubes. The film is a realistic dreamscape in Hollywood film noir form, and as little as it makes sense, we can’t stop watching it.
tells the story of . Well, there is no way to finish this sentence. There are two characters named Betty and Rita, whose film moves through mysterious plot loops, but until the end of the film we don’t even believe that they are different characters, and Rita (a forgettable who goes by the name “Gilda”) picked up. poster) wonders if she is really Diane Selwyn, a name from a waitress’s name tag.
Betty (Naomi Watts) is a sassy blonde, Sandra Dee crossed with a Hitchcock heroine, who has arrived in town to live in her absentee Aunt Ruth’s apartment and audition for films. Rita (Laura Elena Herring) is a passionate redhead who is about to be murdered when her limousine is overtaken by drag racers. She crawls through the rubble on Mulhland Drive, stumbles down the hill, and is showering at her aunt’s apartment when her daughter arrives.
Rita doesn’t remember anything, not even her name. Betty decided to help him. As they try to piece his life together, the film introduces other characters. A film director (Justin Theroux) is asked to cast an actress in his film or be killed. A dwarf (Michael J. Anderson) in a wheelchair gives instructions via cell phone. Two detectives arrive, speak standard TV cop show dialogue, and disappear. A landlady (Ann Miller–yes, Ann Miller) wonders who the other girl is in Aunt Ruth’s apartment; Betty’s audition; Two girls enter through a bedroom window, Nancy Drew style; A rotting corpse ensues, and Betty and Rita’s bisexual love scenes are so sexy you’d swear it was a 1970s movie, when movie audiences loved sex. One scene also contains the funniest example of pure logic in the history of sex scenes.
After telling you all this, I basically told nothing. The film is hypnotic; We’re drawn in as one thing leads to another – but nothing goes anywhere, and that’s before the characters begin to disintegrate and reunite like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope. “Mulholland Drive” isn’t like “Memento,” where if you look closely enough, you can hope to explain the mystery. There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery.
There are countless dream sequences in films, almost all of which are conceived with Freudian literalism to give characters nightmares about the plot. “Mulholland Drive” is all dreams. There is no such thing as a waking moment. Like real dreams, it doesn’t explain, it doesn’t complete its sequences, it evasively works on what it finds fascinating, it rejects pointless plot lines. If you want to explain the last half hour of the film, think of it as a dreamer slowly drifting back to consciousness, as dream threads fight for space with recent real-life memories, and others. With pieces of dreams. . and which are still in development.
It works because Lynch is absolutely uncompromising. He takes things that are desperate in some of his previous films, and instead of backing down, he charges right in. “Mulholland Drive” is said to have been assembled from scenes he shot for a 1999 ABC television pilot, but no network could air (or understand) the material, and Lynch Knew it. He takes his funding where he can find it and directs it according to fancy orders. The film doesn’t feel unfinished because it can never be finished—closure isn’t a goal.
Laura Elena Herring and Naomi Watts risk embodying Hollywood archetypes, and get away with it because they are archetypes. Not many actresses would be bold enough to name themselves after Rita Hayworth, but Herring does, because she can. Sleek and feisty in a clingy gown, all she has to do is stand there and be the first good argument for a “Gilda” remake in 55 years. Naomi Watts is a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, cheerful girl detective. Like a dream, the film transitions smoothly between tones. There’s an audition where a girl singer performs “Sixteen Reasons Why” and “I Told Every Little Star” and the movie isn’t mocking “American Bandstand,” it’s channeling it.
This is a film to surrender yourself to. If you need logic, look elsewhere. “Mulholland Drive” works as directly on emotion as music. Individual scenes play well on their own, as they do in dreams, but they don’t connect in a way that makes sense – again, like dreams. The way you know the movie is over is when it ends. And then you say to a friend, “I saw the weirdest movie last night.” As you tell them you had the weirdest dream.
Get ready for some reading after finishing this famously complex and mind-bending thriller from author David Lynch, which shakes up Hollywood with its hilarious humor and dark cautionary themes. While Lynch’s neo-noir focuses mostly on an aspiring actress (Naomi Watts) who plays an amateur detective upon her arrival in Los Angeles, the film has a relationship between Watts and her co-star Laura Elena Harding. The infamous same-sex love scene is depicted.
Lust, caution
Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution” is slow at first, then passionate, as it tells the story of a young woman who becomes involved in a political assassination plot and then becomes emotionally involved with her nemesis. It begins with Mahjong Game in Hong Kong in 1942, when the sensual undertones become distinctly audible to us, and then returns to Shanghai, 1938, during the Japanese occupation of China. One of the wealthy women at the game table is revealed to be a college student, and not actually the wife of a wealthy (but invisible) tycoon.
The basic plot gradually reveals itself. Too slowly, some would believe, unless the lean is necessary to create a hothouse environment that survives the war. The Mah-Jongg game is taking place at the home of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), whose wife (Juan Chen) is the host. Since arriving from Shanghai, he has joined the communist regime, handling interrogations and torture, and is paid with status and access to limited items such as nylon stockings, cigarettes, even diamonds. When Mr. Ye comes home in the middle of the game, he exchanges a significant look with Mrs. Mac (Tang Wei), who first joined the circle in Shanghai.
It is clear to us that there is something secret and intimate between them. But who is this wealthy Mrs. Mack, who travels in a carriage but whose husband is always away on business? A flashback reveals him as Wong Chia-Chi, a young student who comes on summer vacation with a group of radical Chinese patriots to kill one of the Chinese working with the Japanese. plays a key role in their hope. Her assignment: Be Mr. Yee’s lover.
This she does in Shanghai, but Jung separates them before she has the chance to kill Yi (she is not expected to do it herself). A natural actress, she handled the roles of lover and rich woman with ease. But she found it difficult to sacrifice her virginity, which was necessary for her to play the role of a married woman.
We don’t see Mr. Yee at work, torturing his compatriots, but Leung is able to risk the man’s potential and begins to do so in bed with him. Then begin the scenes that earned the film an NC-17 rating. They’re not particularly rigorous in detail, but they include so many arcane and athletic sex positions that the MPAA rules against depicting “banging” with their clothes on the floor.
When their gender shifts permanently to S&M, the nature of their relationship changes. It is impossible to say that Wong Chia Chi/Mrs. Mack likes his taste in pain and slavery, but they develop a terrifying intimacy that, for both of them, tears their lives apart. And it is this tension, between private attention and public danger, that gives the film its purpose.
I was quickly corrected by readers for failing to find a coherent connection between Ang Lee’s films like “Sense And Sensibility,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Hulk” (2003), who said that obviously all of his films are his. are about people trying to make sense. Their essential nature despite the restrictions of society. Reader, you are right. Here we have a woman who hates her lover enough to help kill him, and yet is infatuated with him. And a man whose official status will be destroyed by the revelation of the affair (especially if Mrs. Mack’s true identity is revealed). Yet the heart, as Pascal said, has its reasons. Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mc are as transgressive as Brokeback’s lovers, entering into a form of sexuality frowned upon by their societies.
There isn’t a frame of film that isn’t beautiful, but there can be too many frames. Why does Ang Lee go into such depth and detail to establish this world, and why does he delay key scenes in the film? I don’t know, but of course the first time I saw the movie I had no idea what he was doing and I was nervous before I got into it. Asked to edit out the sex scenes to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating, Lee flatly refused and was asked by James Sheamus, his co-writer and, notably, the head of Focus Features, who Releasing the film, was supported by
The nature of sex is Lee’s subject, and he is too honest to suppress it. Her moments of frontal nudity avoid the awkwardness of most movie sex scenes in which the lovers, though alone, carefully conceal their mischief. The scenes are not edited for erotic effect, it is observed, but they are treated with psychological meaning.
Film by film, Ang Lee, from the University of Illinois in Taipei, has become one of the world’s leading directors. The film was his second Golden Line winner at the Venice Film Festival in three years. But it is not among his best films. It lacks the focus and fire that its characters eventually find. Low intelligence, high sensitivity.
Stranger by the lake
The main character is Frank (Pierre Deladonchamps), an attractive guy in his thirties who regularly enjoys everything the resort has to offer: from chatting to swimming. We meet her on the day she chats with Henry (Patrick D’Assemau), a flamboyant and gruff lumberjack who may seem alienated from the beach community, but seems quite open to Frank. Is. And while the latter enjoys Henry’s company, he falls in love with Michelle (Christophe Pau), who looks like a sexy and mysterious Tom Selleck slaying all over the beach (he’s a 1980s In the middle is like an avatar of the gay center).
Michel is initially isolated and goes into the bush with someone else, but the next day he hits Frank and they have sex. Their chemistry is immediate and palpable, even if Michelle doesn’t want to hear about the commitment (which Frank is keen to have). As the story is set up, it is the unpopular Henry who represents loyalty and emotional attachment, while Michelle is pure sex – with a death knell.
On the evening after their first adventure, Frank witnesses Michelle drown another lover in an unusually long shot by the sea that is the film’s centerpiece. Instead of calling the police, he is drawn more and more to Michelle, until the local police begin an investigation. The unsmiling inspector assigned to the case (Jérôme Chapet) faces a daunting task. He begins gathering information in a place designed for people to lose their official identity and sink into unbridled lust. A cat-and-mouse game ensues, with Frank becoming the literal victim in the final scenes, shot in the dark and in their realization more important than any sexual encounter ever shown.
The entire microcosm of the film is highly formal: from appearance and gestures to sexual interest (or lack thereof) to the way individual characters move and interact. Henry’s arms are forever folded across his chest, the inspector holding his hands behind his back like a detective cartoon. And Michelle looks forever ready for a photo shoot with her hairy chest and brilliant smile. Nudity on the beach may not be mandatory, but it’s welcome and uplifting: I can’t think of any other film that’s so open to naked men’s bodies and treats them so casually. (The entire “Stranger by the Lake” costume barely fills a drawer). By fully immersing us in gay shore acts, Guiraudie avoids the trap of William Friedkin’s idiosyncratic “cruising,” which casts its milieu as a freak show. This film seems to have been made not by a tourist but by a resident. There’s something very liberating about seeing so much gay sexuality against the water, sand, grass and stars in the sky (you can imagine Walt Whitman giving a nod).
We never know the people in “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” They are held tightly within the tradition of absolute nature: they exist, they eat, they sleep, they act. It would be acceptable if the filmmakers stood outside their characters and had feelings for them. But I never believed that was the case. Rafelson and his colleagues have gone to infinite pains to successfully create a film that has been amazingly achieved on a production level. But they haven’t filled it with the motives of its characters.
The postman always rings twice.
The Postman Always Rings Twice” is an absolutely brilliant mounting of a hollow and desperate production. It shows the technical skill of the filmmaking, and we are amazed by the performances, the atmosphere, the mood of increasing violence. But by the second hour of the film we’ve lost our grip: what is this film saying about its characters? What does it feel and believe about them? What was the need to tell their stories? The film is based on a hard-boiled, classic novel by James M. Cain, which has already inspired three previous films, including the iconic 1946 John Garfield version. It’s not hard to guess why director Bob Rafelson wanted to remake it. Based on his key scenes, he was drawn to the physical violence in the story and felt that in 1981 he could deal more candidly with Kane’s sexual brutality.
He was right. His film includes references to extraordinary physical strength, with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange making love (if that’s a word) at the kitchen table. Nicholson plays a Depression-era drifter, a cheap thief, and a criminal in the film. Lange is a bored and sensitive cook at a short-order joint run by her hulking Greek husband, John Kolikos. Passion ignites between Nicholson and Lange the first time they see each other, and their love is fast, brutal, uncontrollable and animalistic.
Eventually, they kill Kolikos, though not without the greatest difficulties. This is one of those movies where blood, violence, and the sheer weight of human bodies are made into a Hitchcockian embarrassment. And then the two lovers are put on trial, freed through a nefarious arrangement between rival insurance companies, and then come to an ironic conclusion. Along the way, there is a brief and completely unintelligible appearance by a female lion tamer (Anjelica Huston), who seems to have come from another movie.
The film is a triumph of environment. Every last Coke sign, every old auto and old overcoat and old clutch is kept with loving care. And the performances are cranked up to shivering levels of intensity. Jessica Lange, who first appeared in “King Kong,” this time embraces a senseless monster. Jack Nicholson has never been seedier, shifter, more driven. John Kolikos, as a naïve, drunken, ambitious Greek-American, delivers a wonderfully structured performance. And yet, there is no sense of tragedy in Coleco’s death. There is no sense of grandeur in Lange and Nicholson’s romantic compulsion. There’s no telling what the film believes about his acquittal and ultimate fate. A movie like “Bonnie and Clyde” comes to mind. It also dealt with passion, guilt and money, but so vividly that by the end of the film we felt we knew the dying characters.
Body of Evidence
I’ve seen fewer comedies than “Body of Evidence” and this is a movie that isn’t even trying to be funny. It’s a highly dysfunctional entry in the “basic instinct” genre, filled with lines that only a screenwriter could love, and burdened by a plot that confuses mystery with confusion.
The film stars Madonna, who stars in “Bloodhounds of Broadway,” “Shanghai Surprise” and “Who is That Girl?” after the. Now shed her title as the queen of movies that were bad ideas from the start. She plays a kinky dominatrix who engages in smart and effective sex with an aging millionaire with a broken heart. He dies after an evening of entertainment, and Madonna is blamed for his murder.
But she’s innocent, she protests — and in fact there’s another obvious suspect, the millionaire’s private secretary (Anne Archer), who’s also her ex-lover. Willem Dafoe plays a defense attorney who firmly believes that Madonna is innocent, or in any case very sexy, and Joe Mantegna plays Hamiltonburger.
The film takes place in Portland, Ore. – a fairly small town, Madonna volunteers on the witness stand to say that she once dated a guy who dated a girl who dated Mantegna. This is a common exchange in the courtroom scenes, with the judge reprimanding Defoe for every breath he takes.
I don’t know whether to blame the director, cinematographer or editor for some of the inept choices in this film. An example: Defoe is addressing his opening remarks to the jury, and the camera pulls into focus so that we see an attractive young female juror sitting in the front row. She gives Dafoe a vague look. We in the audience are alerted that the film is setting it up for a later payoff. We are wrong. They are just an extra effort to get some extra business.
But enough of the technical side. What about the story here? It has to be believed – something I don’t advise. It has all kinds of nasty plot debris with cocaine nasal sprays, ghosts from the past, weird sex, and lots of nudity. We’re asked to believe that Madonna lives on a luxury houseboat, where she parades naked in front of the windows all the time, yet somehow doesn’t attract a crowd, not even an adulation. Not even the lobstermen who do. What does she dedicate her life to? She answers this question in a hilarious line from the film, which unfortunately cannot be printed here.
Consistent with the pop performer’s erotica phase, Body of Evidence depicts Madonna as a woman accused of murdering her lover—who died of erotic suffocation. Willem Dafoe plays her lawyer, who can’t help but be drawn to her sadomasochistic charms.
The color of the night
“The Color of Night” approaches evil in so many directions that one must really appreciate its imagination. Combining all the worst ingredients of an Agatha Christie Whodonnet and a sex-crazed slasher film, it culminates in a frenzy of recycled thriller elements, with a chase scene, a showdown in a buzzing warehouse, and Ebert’s Little Movie. has not one but two clutches. . Glossary: The talking killer and the climbing villain. I have to admit that the use of a high powered industrial staple gun is original.
The film stars Bruce Willis as an East Coast psychiatrist who loses his faith in analysis after speaking harshly to a patient who throws herself from the window of his skyscraper office, and ” “Hudsucker Proxy” falls to the ground in the best suicide effect ever. (The pool of bright red blood beneath turns black, as Willis develops psychosomatic color blindness on the spot.) Desperate for a change, Willis heads to Los Angeles, where his Best friend (Scott Bakula) runs a psychic practice. Finances a lavish lifestyle. He is a guest one night at a group therapy session run by a friend. The group is dear to Dame Agatha. There is a more recent, kinky version of one of these collections of eccentrics, who in exercises like “The Mousetrap” introduce “a roomful of oddballs so that they all take turns to be the obvious suspects.”
No Suspects Needed Anytime: Willis’ friend is murdered in his high-security mansion, and of course there’s a reason why every member of the group looks guilty. The group includes Sondra (Leslie Ann Warren), a nymphomaniac with a nervous laugh and a carefree neckline. Clark (Brad Dourif), who lost his job at a law firm when he began compulsively counting everything. Buck (Lance Henriksen), an ex-cop who foams at the mouth with rage at the least provocation. Casey (Kevin J. O’Connor), a neurotic artist, and Ricky, a teenager with gender identity issues, about whom the less said the better.
Willis, who wants to retire from psychiatry, takes over the group at the behest of Detective Martinez in charge of the murder investigation, played by Robin Blades as an anthology of Latino cops (A Sidewalk Talk with Willis During the conversation, he slaps a passerby against a car and chases him while continuing the conversation). The therapy group is, of course, a hotbed of neurosis and skepticism, and the screenplay (by Matthew Chapman and Billy Ray) sends Willis to visit each member of the group, so that he can spread the word about the other members. Declaring themselves as suspects.
Meanwhile, a beautiful young woman enters Willis’ life. She is Rose (Jane March), who appears out of nowhere, who is cute, who likes him and who quickly becomes involved in a swimming pool sex scene that satisfies MPAA censors. There was frontal nudity by Willis before the film was cut to do. (The best argument for including Willis’ genitalia would have been that the movie, after all, includes everything else.) Readers of Ebert’s Little Movie Dictionary will guess that Rose is defined by the law of economy of characters. , which teaches that there are no unnecessary characters in the film. Either he’s just there to give her a partner in sex scenes, or he’s somehow involved in the murder mystery. How and why and if it is true I will not reveal.
In fact, there’s not much I can say about the rest of the film without hiding plot points so subtle and clever that they’d be a surprising surprise for “Forest Gum.” So let’s cut to the chase, where a bright red car with tinted windows tries to run Willis off the road. It fails, but returns, and there is a scene where Willis’ car is driving down the street next to a parking garage, and a high-angle shot shows the red car on the roof of the garage chasing him.
Bad education
Enthusiastic parents reflecting on their children’s pursuit of excellence is not exactly a new phenomenon. Long before the college admissions scandals that brought down corporate executives and Hollywood stars alike, the pursuit of academic superiority—real or imagined—has driven perfectly sane people to the point of insanity. The right neighborhoods with the right schools, the right types of activities and a packed schedule of athletics—all to achieve the great goal of sending your kids to the right Ivy League university that will prepare them for the right lucrative career. .
Top administrators in the Roslyn, New York, school district not only understood this instinct, but exploited it for their own personal gain. “Bad Education” explores his real-life embezzlement scheme, which went bust in 2004 when the high school newspaper broke the story. The glow of success — when you’re the fourth-ranked district in the country, humming for that No. 1 spot. Running around with that much money or renovating your beach house in the Hamptons is no big deal.
Director Cory Finley finds dark humor in this scandal, which he portrays with wit, style and a stellar cast. Hugh Jackman does some of the best work of his long and varied career as the superintendent, Dr. Frank Tassone, whose charisma and polished image hide many secrets. Jackman plays to his usual charm and looks great. But there’s something unsettling about that cuteness that’s unnerving when we first see it, spraying cologne and trimming nose hairs too closely in the boys’ bathroom mirrors. Frank clearly cares deeply and works hard to remember the names and personal details of students and parents alike throughout the district. We can still glimpse the calling that drew him to this difficult profession in the first place. Basically, he’s cheerful and wants to be liked—yet increasingly, he relishes the fame and power that comes with being in a position of authority in an affluent community. And as Frank and his second-in-command (brilliantly played by a brash Allison Janney) find themselves scrambling to survive when their $11.2 million scheme unravels, their flaws and Errors become even more clearly visible.
Finley’s follow-up to “Thoroughbreds,” one of my favorite films of 2018, doesn’t try to shine with sleek, flashy camerawork like that film. But it is equally interested in digging out the depths of the darkest emotions, and does so with sharp satire. (Mike Makowski, who was a middle school student in Roslyn when the embezzlement scandal broke, wrote the script.) “Bud Education” also brings to mind Alexander Payne’s great film “Election,” about his students who Smarter and smarter than you. . Expect and teachers who are not as mature and responsible as you hope. Finley could actually use a bit more of a sharp bite to drink in dealing with this material. Geraldine Viswanathan exudes a quiet but increasingly assertive confidence as the high school reporter whose tough questions and thorough document searches reveal the district’s financial irregularities. Just as compelling as what he finds is his internal debate about how to handle this information. She knows what’s right—but what if it’s the wrong move for her future?
That’s the dilemma that also plagues school board members — led by an outspoken Ray Romano — when they learn for the first time of administrators’ misconduct. Going public would not only jeopardize the school district’s standing nationally, but also damage its reputation locally, making it harder for high school seniors to gain acceptance to top universities. will, due to which property values will fall.
For a long time, Jackman keeps us guessing at the amount of Frank’s knowledge and the depth of his involvement. Jenny’s Pam talks casually about misusing her district credit card over the sound of a Glockenblender as she mixes margaritas. (And the film’s costumes and production design have just the right amount of Long Island grit and glitz without diving over the top into parody.) Frank, on the other hand, includes a motley, charming crowd. As Jackman gets older, he seems less interested in making us like him and more inclined to play complex characters who make questionable decisions. As wildly violent as his Wolverine can be in the “X-Men” universe — especially in the excellent, standalone “Logan” — he’s still essentially a hero. “Bad Education” gives him the chance to play someone who’s doing something really bad, and you can tell he’s really digging his claws into the role this time around.
Dead Ringers
“Dead Ringers” is the raunchy exploitation film title given to David Cronenberg’s new film, originally and poetically titled “Twins.” It stars Jeremy Irons in the dual roles of Beverly and Elliott Mantle, brilliant twins who grow up to be brilliant ophthalmologists. The name Beverly can be misleading. Both twins are male, and they are unusually close, so much so that they routinely pretend to be one another.
The movie isn’t at all shy about exploiting the possibility that one of these women visiting a gynecologist might be seen by another. But this is only the beginning of their deception.
We discover that Elliott has always been the dominant twin, and that it’s his practice to seduce a woman and then hand her over to Beverly – without telling the woman, of course. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be a virgin!” he cries.
One of his girlfriends (Heidi Von Palleske) catches up. She is so truly in love with him that she can figure out an alternative. Her “real” lover apologizes, but does he mean it? Who would win in such a fight? Girlfriend, or twin? Then a famous actress (Genevieve Bujold) comes to consult her on why she can’t have children. The answer, so gynecologically accurate to the movies, is that her uterus has three holes, and an ambitious sperm is likely to get stuck in traffic at an intersection.
Bujold began an affair with Beverly, sharing not only her body but also her drug habit. The drugs seem to release the madness that has always been potential within him, and though his twins try to hide it, their lives eventually fall apart. In one particularly gruesome sequence, Beverly invents some new surgical instruments that look like something from the Marquis de Sade’s daydreams and uses them in a bloody operation that looks like something you’d do with a turkey. Do before filling.
Bujold began an affair with Beverly, sharing not only her body but also her drug habit. The drugs seem to release the madness that has always been potential within him, and though his twins try to hide it, their lives eventually fall apart. In one particularly gruesome sequence, Beverly invents some new surgical instruments that look like something from the Marquis de Sade’s daydreams and uses them in a bloody operation that looks like something you’d do with a turkey. Do before filling.
Does it all work? On one level, it’s like a collaboration between med school and a supermarket tabloid. I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival with several female friends, who said it was harder for them than I, a man, could possibly imagine. But when it was on screen, they were fascinated. The secret may be that Cronenberg (director of “The Dead Zone” and “The Fly”) approaches his trashy material with a scientist’s objectivity. It’s his aloof, cold style that makes the material creepy rather than merely thrilling.
Of course, everything depends on how the Irons perform as twins. He’s a smart, subtle actor, and he actually manages to turn the twins into quite different people. In ways so understated that we’re sometimes not quite aware of them, he makes it clear most of the time whether we’re looking at Beverly or Eliot.
He prepares them separately, so that in the end the chaos really works.
Cronenberg is a master of special effects, as he visibly demonstrated in “The Fly” and as he invisibly demonstrates here. As everyone knows, when the same actor plays two roles in the same scene, one of the techniques used is split screen. Astute viewers can usually see the line – usually hidden in the shadows – where one part of the picture ends and another begins, but Cronenberg uses “moving splits” to fool them. Using computer technology, he can move the position of the split and the camera position at the same time, and he sometimes even drops into the split when a character just crosses the line where it appears. – so that we think that place is “real”. The result is that Iron appears convincingly as two separate people, not as trick photography.
The story could have used more of the Bujold character, who is sophisticated and worldly enough to understand the twins, but is abandoned when they begin to retreat into their own personal breakdowns. “Dead Ringers” is a stylistic tour de force, but it’s cold and creepy and focused on desperation. It’s the kind of movie where you ask people how they like it, and they say, “Well, it was well made,” and then they laugh.
Bad timing
The film is about the relationship between two Americans who meet in Vienna. Why Vienna? Why not Vienna? Art Garfunkel plays a psychiatrist and Theresa Russell plays a sexually dissolute young woman addicted to alcohol and pills. However, Garfunkel sees him not as a sick person, but as an exciting triumph. Although the audience can see that she is clearly in severe physical and mental distress, Garfunkel’s analyst takes advantage of her confusion to move on and have sex.
It’s not, mind you, that she objects to sleeping with him. In fact, she makes the first overture at the party. It’s just that the type of man who sleeps with a woman in this state (especially if his professional training has prepared him to understand her condition) would qualify as a vermin. . Perhaps the blame is not entirely the analyst’s: nothing in the film suggests that Rogue has any special understanding of the fact that her heroine is terminally ill.
Single White Female
It’s a story that, in other hands, could have been just an all-female slasher film, but Barbette Schroeder, who produced and directed it, has a sense of humor that elevates the material. goes It is a slasher film, and something more.
Hollywood loves “high concept” movies, by which they mean, I think, a low concept – a plot idea that can be explained in just one sentence that will sell. “Single White Female” has a great high concept: it’s about a “roommate from hell.” Alison, the heroine, played by Bridget Fonda, advertises for a roommate, and after carefully vetting several nut cases and various obsessions, ends up with a candidate who is the ideal. It is visible.
Her name is Hedra Carlson. She is played by Jennifer Jason Leigh as a sweet-faced, friendly little innocent. These are the ones you have to look for. I can’t find “Hedra” in my unstructured dictionary, and yet somehow the name teases me. Surely this is the name of a mythical beast? A rent receipt in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other? The film progresses more or less as we expect it to, starting with Alison and Hedra being close friends, and ending in bloodshed and death. What’s interesting is how Schroeder progresses from start to finish. There are many stages along the way, including downstairs neighbors, boyfriends, and others who relate to Alison and soon begin to relate to Hydra, as do many of Alison’s clothes and eventually her hairstyle. And color too.
It is revealed that Hedra was a twin, and apparently wants to be one again, if only as an orphan twice.
Sharon Stone plays a recently divorced woman who moves into a glamorous new apartment in New York. She soon becomes romantically involved with two of her neighbors: a handsome man who is spying on the building’s residents, and a novelist who might also be a murderer.
Cruising
“Cruising” is undoubtedly a film with a controversial history. It’s about a series of violent New York murders in which the victims frequent secret Manhattan nightclubs where gay men dance, drink and hook up in an S&M atmosphere of leather, boots, whips and chains. They gather for Such clubs flourish in all major cities, and their promise of danger is usually the only atmosphere.
But when director William Friedkin announced plans to make a movie in that setting and film it on location as much as possible, New York’s gay community rose up in protest. “Cruising” would present a distorted view of gay life, he said. This would imply that the small subculture of S&M was more prevalent than it should have been, and that, if homosexuals were tortured, the attacks on them would somehow be justified.
“Cruising” is undoubtedly a film with a controversial history. It’s about a series of violent New York murders in which the victims frequent secret Manhattan nightclubs where gay men dance, drink and hook up in an S&M atmosphere of leather, boots, whips and chains. They gather for Such clubs flourish in all major cities, and their promise of danger is usually the only atmosphere.
But when director William Friedkin announced plans to make a movie in that setting and film it on location as much as possible, New York’s gay community rose up in protest. “Cruising” would present a distorted view of gay life, he said. This would imply that the small subculture of S&M was more prevalent than it should have been, and that, if homosexuals were tortured, the attacks on them would somehow be justified.
The validity of these arguments is questionable and I intend to discuss them in another article. However, for the purposes of this review, let it be said that the dramatic power of “Cruising” has been very negatively affected by the protests against the film. There is evidence that key elements of Al Pacino’s central character were changed or compromised so that Pacino’s own involvement in the events of the plot was deliberately obscured. Because the film is about his involvement — more than the challenge of solving the murder — what we’re left with is a film that doesn’t have the guts to define itself.
Pacino plays Steve Burns, a young patrolman who is tasked with going undercover, entering the waterfront world of S&M bars, and trying to attract a man who has been stabbing teenagers. Kar is killing him. Why is it chosen? Because he matches the physical description of the victims. Who is the Pacino character, and what is he like? The film never really tells us: we learn so little about the man we almost suspect important scenes have been left out. He has a girlfriend, we learn, and his work in gay bars affects his relationship with her. . . but why? How?
We don’t know, because he hedges his questions with monosyllables. Is he bisexual himself? Again, we can’t say, and the film is so disturbingly unclear about whether she actually engages in sex with the men she meets in bars that it’s a cop-out. Whether he’s gay or not is central to the story’ and the film makes that clear, and yet Friedkin looks the other way at key moments. Is he afraid of offending someone? Then why choose this topic?
The murder investigation itself is quite complex on the surface. But careful thought after the film will reveal that the plot structure is basically a mess. I don’t think it matters, because the film is really supposed to be about Pacino’s progressive involvement with the S&M subculture. And there’s some implicit evidence that Pacino is moving toward homosexuality by the end of the film, and S&M doesn’t get all that inexplicably out of the question.
