As long as they're doing bad '90s softcore sex thrillers, I hope they drag out Body of Evidence, which may be even more ludicrous than Color of Night. The unholy pairing of Willem Dafoe and Madonna, and one of the most laughably idiotic plots ever dreamed up -- Madonna being prosecuted for murder after an older lover dies in bed with her, because, see, she was planning to literally fuck him to death. Hence the title, get it?
But as Willem Dafoe so sagely points out (he's her defense attorney and of course ends up in bed with her too) ... "It's not a crime to be a great lay."
Great stuff, really.
Oh man... you really sparked an old memory...
Basic Instinct created one of those periodic conversations on cultural mores. Right-wing commentators were up in arms because there had never been such an expensive, star-laden studio film that was so sexually explicit and perversely violent. Meanwhile, from the Left came protests from various Gay and Lesbian lobbying groups, protesting (rather weakly) that the film’s killer was bisexual. Now, to make this argument you had to ignore the fact that every single character in the movie was either a moron, a scumbag, or both. And, of course, these were largely the same people whose reply to Dan Quayle’s comments on Murphy Brown was, ‘It’s only a TV show, you moron!’
Neither protest, though, kept the film from making blockbuster level bucks. Lead player Sharon Stone was catapulted, after toiling for years in the cinematic trenches, into the upper echelon of film stardom. Ironically, she only got the role after a series of bigger stars turned down the film, due to the level of nudity and sexual simulation required.
The film’s notoriety was largely due to the film’s infamous money shot, when Stone uncrossed her legs and gave the audience incontrovertible evidence that she was a natural blonde. Stone eventually became embarrassed by the level of attention played to her, er, presentation, and pretended that the shot was done without her knowledge. This, however, was clearly untrue. Stone had been making films for far too long not to have figured out what that particular camera placement was intended to capture.
In any case, sleazy Film Noirs flashing plenty of celebrity flesh seemed to be the next hot trend. There was just one problem though. It turned out that Julia Roberts, Michele Pfieffer, Meg Ryan and Jodie Foster didn’t want to gyrate nakedly on a guy and then stab him with an ice pick. Or even just the ‘gyrate nakedly’ part. (This is why even Verhoevan himself, the director of the megahit Basic Instinct, had to cast the little known Elizabeth Berkley in his sexfest Showgirls.) They figured they could make hit movies without such antics. And as Demi Moore has shown since, trying to build a major career by flashing your breasts is a sucker’s game.
This is when little light bulbs must have begun appearing over heads all around Hollywood. Hmm, Madonna’s a big star. She’s hardly shy about sex and nudity. And she really, really wants to be a movie star. She’d be willing to make a movie far kinkier than Basic Instinct! So whip up a derivative, ‘is she or isn’t she a killer’ script. As a hedge against negative reviews (and Madonna’s rather questionable acting skills), throw in some well regarded, classy co-stars: Willem DeFoe, Joe Montange, Anne Archer, etc. Why, it’s practically a license to print money!
