A Fistful of Sex! (Matt’s Picks)

    Sure, we had the Hays Codes for a long time, so sex had to be handled in some pretty delicate, and often symbolic ways.  But sex in cinema has been a staple since the very beginning (and a little more obvious in some other countries…France, I’m looking at you).  And I’m all for it.  Though, oddly, I don’t like when so called legitimate or mainstream films feature unsimulated acts of various sorts.  I don’t quite know why, but I find it tacky.  Plus, I haven’t seen a film yet where it wasn’t used as a gimmick, for shock value.  Brown Bunny, Romance, Short Bus.  Whatever.  Anyway, with Shame making so many waves right now, we figured it would be a good time to talk about our favorite bits of the naughty action in film.

Remember the good old days...the ones before the good old days?

    Sadly, after nearly a year of doing this blog, I feel I may be falling back on a few titles a bit too often.  But, I guess they’re among my favorites for a reason.  I did come close to picking The Terminator, because, while it wasn’t the first time I saw nudity, I think it was the first time I saw a scene where it didn’t cut away when the saxophone started up.  I think it was the first ‘sex scene’ I ever saw, and I remember it making me uncomfortable at the time, partly because I knew Linda Hamilton from Beauty and the Beast, and it was a very different way of looking at her.  And there are some pretty epic sex scenes in some not so good movies, like Taking Lives or Original Sin (which I actually do like, probably a lot more than it deserves).

Sometimes a cigar is just a...metaphor for penis.

5.  Repo Men:  Repo Men is a strange movie.  It’s better than it really is.  I mean, it’s not a great movie.  Not at all.  Yet it has some mysterious charm that won me over.  And I’ve got to say that in spite of the rather graphic, bloody sequence of attempting to reclaim lost organs, the ‘love scene’ from the movie is uniquely erotic.

4.  Galaxy Quest:  The more exploitative side of science fiction has frequently featured various bug-eyed or betentacled beasties menacing comely young lasses since the early days of the pulps.  It’s a rare occasion when the shoe (or whatever is on the other foot).  And it’s an even more rare occasion when both parties are OK with it.  When Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) scores one for the good guys, he also scores one for interplanetary relations.

3.  The Women of Hammer:  No movie studio ever did so much to make me revert back to a horny teenager as Hammer.  They had a magic that was never recreated, not by American International (the next runner up), not Full Moon.  Not by anyone.  Even in Hammer films that didn’t feature nudity, there was always that undercurrent, frequently not subtle, of sex.

2.  300:  It’s very rare to show happy couples in movies.  Normally, if there’s a married couple, they’re having troubles.  If there’s passion, it’s only in new romance.  One of the things I loved about 300 is that Leonidas and Gorgo are not only still in love, but still have wild animalistic sex.

1.  History of Violence:  I don’t have a cheerleader fetish.  Never did.  But, this movie made me question that fact.  Maria Bello and Viggo Mortensen are a loving couple who still have a lot of fun together.  And when she comes out in her old cheerleader uniform, I was…well, let’s say impressed.

-Matt