basic instinct, another eszterhas masterpiece
well since i have been writing about bad films i enjoy lately, OBVIOUSLY joe eszterhas has been on my mind. gawd i would like to get into that guy's mind. it must be like a nonstop orgy of cocaine-fueled lesbianic cunnilingus in there. hell yeah!
so this week i decided to go to blockbuster and rent
basic instinct, something i almost never do. (i mean, it costs 4.50 to rent even OLD movies now. i could probably buy this one on amazon for 8). but john hadn't seen it and it had been a long time since i had watched and plus i was feeling eszterhasy so i went for it anyway. and i was glad i did. i forget what a told vacuous festival of rancid trash it is. and i also forgot that it is all so gawddamned entertaining.
so, as with other eszterhas/verhoeven concoctions (most notably the incomparable jesse spano masterpiece whose name not even need be mentioned) this film starts off with a certain formula. first you begin with some terrible actors who are willing to do just about anything on film because they are just that desperate for attention/money. then you train those actors to simultaneously exude sexy passion, anger and a callous disregard of the establishment. this is the expression that all actors will hold for the entire film. next you pepper the script liberally with extraneous, uninformed lesbian sex acts, usually in front of a virile male voyeur. and finally, you tie the whole story up with the big yellow ribbon that is the naked female genitalia. VOILA! a film is born.
in the case of
basic instinct, as in all other eszterhas films, the story itself is pretty much absent and doesn't really deserve mention. but if there is a plot to this movie here it is. the guy that catherine trammel (sharon stone) is fucking (her words not mine) is killed and she becomes the lead suspect. however the guy working on the case (michael douglas) is a troubled cop in the whole "one more infraction and i'll have your badge, officer" kind of way. this leads to some wacky slip ups between the pair and of course, in the process he falls in love with her and they have wild violent totally disgusting sex, often in front of trammel's other lovers. (yeah this is normal behavior). what douglas finds out is that trammel is actually being framed for this murder and others by an acquaintance of his. . . or is she?
really though, you don't have to know any of this to enjoy this movie, as it is totally irrelevant. what you do need to know is that joe eszterhas has never had sex with a woman EVER. so what he has presented here is a tryptich of masterbatory fantasies in which sharon stone is splayed out in the most totally embarrassing ways for his own amusement. (do you think her mom ever watched this? dear lord). and the final result is a convoluted melange of sexually imagery (she allegedly committed the murders with an icepick of all things, which she always carries around with her), superfluous violence, and bisexuality. SCORE!
here is why i like this movie. well, first of all sharon stone is freakin hillarious in regards to the fact that she appears to be having a single protracted orgasm throughout the entire film. i love how she is constantly talking about how she likes to experience pleasure (she says this like a dozen times). WE GET IT SHARON. YOU LIKE TO GET OFF. and i have no problem with her having sex with women. that is cool. i mean i am not into it but more power to her. but what is fucking funny is how she only ever dykes it up when there are other people around watching. do girls really act like this? i mean i know they do in girls gone wild videos, but i have never seen it personally.
i can't imagine how eszterhas and verhoeven gets financing to make these movies. i have no idea why people act in them. but i am damn glad they do, because they make for some great cinematic accompaniment to my popcorn and red wine.
sadly, i had every intention of going to see the sequel so i could post about its hilarity, but i kept putting it off and now it isn't playing in tucson anymore. so hopefully it will come back to the discount theater next week and i will let you all know about trammell's latest lesbianic sexcapades.