Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Sex in Cinema: In the following collection, excerpted from the Mini-History of Sex in the Cinema at this site, here are some of the most significant milestones, and most influential and memorable sexual/erotic scenes and films on the big screen through cinematic history. Most of these films, with portrayals of sex and/or nudity, were considered quite erotic, groundbreaking, unique and/or controversial at the time.
HISTORY OF SEX IN CINEMA - INDEX (chronological by film title)
Intro Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50 Part 51
Sex in Cinema: Part 50Greatest and Most Influential Erotic / Sexual Films and Scenes(chronological by film title) Milestone Films With Scenes That Were Especially Notorious, Infamous, Controversial, or Scandalous
Movie Title
Brief Scene Description
Example
When Will I Be Loved (2004)

This post-feminist, mostly-improvised James Toback-directed film, an Indecent Proposal tale, contained four very sexual scenes, one of which occurred during the opening credits; it was an extended erotic, unself-conscious nude hot shower sequence by beautiful, independent -minded Manhattanite debutante Vera (Neve Campbell) - supposedly an introduction to how she would later demonstrate her sexual and intellectual powers; later, Vera videotaped her lesbian tryst with a lover, had sexually frank discussions with her potential employer - a college professor (Toback), and was pimped for $100,000 to a visiting Italian count billionaire (Dominic Chianese)

2005 Academy Award Nominees
The 2005 Academy Awards were dominated by films with non-mainstream, challenging sexual roles and identities; two Best Picture nominees had themes with homosexual/bisexual protagonists: Best Director-winning Brokeback Mountain (2005) (see below), and Capote (2005) - with a Best Actor Oscar for Philip Seymour Hoffman as the squeaky-voiced, effete homosexual writer title character; also, Felicity Huffman was nominated for her gender-bending role in Transamerica (2005) (see below)

Battle in Heaven (2005, Sp.) (aka (Batalla En El Cielo)

Mexican writer/director Carlos Reygadas' Palme d'Or-nominated film with non-professional actors told "about the mystical erotic pleasure of lost souls in the megalopolis of Mexico City"; it caused controversy wherever shown, with its two major scenes of sexual content: the first in which rich, 20s-something general's daughter and sexy part-time prostitute Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz) was straddled atop passive middle-aged unattractive working class Mexican driver/bodyguard Marcos (Marcos Hernandez), and in another scene, Marcos made love from behind to his morbidly overweight wife; there were also two extended male oral sex scenes (one with a condom, one without - with the use of a prosthetic penis)

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

This was the first mainstream gay/bi-sexual romance film, heavily-promoted by the media, to receive multiple awards and critical/public acclaim; it had eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and three wins; it was made by major A-list film-maker and Best Director-winning Ang Lee, and featured major stars in a story about a secret lifelong bond and longing for love (forbidden) between two young men in the early-mid 1960s: ranch-hand Ennis del Mar (Oscar-nominated Heath Ledger) and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Oscar-nominated Jake Gyllenhaal); the two grew close while herding sheep in the summer on an isolated Wyoming mountain, including scenes of them skinny-dipping, sharing a hungry kiss, and having a sexual encounter in a tent -- and years later in a motel bed; also there were scenes of both men having sex with their girlfriends/wives: Jack in Texas with rodeo queen Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway) and Ennis in Wyoming with sweetheart Alma (Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams); the plotline was based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx and an Oscar-winning adaptation for the screen by the team of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana; Gustavo Santaolalla's original music score accounted for the film's third and final Oscar win

Broken Flowers (2005)

Writer/director/producer Jim Jarmusch's film starred Bill Murray as Don Johnston (with a t), who, during a cross-country search, visited four possible mothers (all former girlfriends) of a 19-year-old son he had supposedly fathered; one visit was to Sharon Stone (as closet organizer Laura) - who had a 'jailbait' nubile daughter named, unsurprisingly, Lolita (21 year-old Alexis Dziena), who non-chalantly and seductively walked around the living room naked (without her pink robe) while talking on the telephone in front of deadpan-faced and unamused Don; this film won the Grand Prix at the year's Cannes International Film Festival

The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)

This popular R-rated comedy starred Steve Carell as nerdy, middle-aged virginal electronics super-store worker Andy Stitzer whose sex-obsessed store salesmen buddies decided that it was time for him to score and advised him to act tough ("like David Caruso in Jade") - so he started to date: he had a disastrous experience with a sexaholic bookstore clerk named Beth (Elizabeth Banks) - who was skilled with a detachable shower head in the bathtub, then with a drunken date named Nicky (Leslie Mann), and also with his pushy boss Paula (Jane Lynch); he finally found his soulmate in free-spirited 40 year-old divorced mother of three Trish (Catherine Keener) although first had to abide by a no-sex policy for 20 dates; other funny gags included Andy's first experience on using a condom - even under the covers, a speed-dating lunch hour session (in which his prospective date (Kimberly Page) inadvertently flashed him), and a botched chest-waxing treatment

Havoc (2005)

Anne Hathaway (star of G-rated family films The Princess Diaries and Elle Enchanted) and Bijou Phillips were featured as two slutty, spoiled white suburban girls (Allison and Emily) from Pacific Palisades who became involved with drug-dealing, tattooed East LA Latino gang members (including Freddy Rodriguez) in this unrated, direct-to-DVD independent film directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple and scripted by Oscar-winning Stephen Gaghan (Traffic and Syriana); this was a prime example of an against-type role played by a young female actress as a rite of passage to more adult roles; in one realistically-acted scene, both young women were making out with gang members in the same room when Allison decided she'd had enough (before intercourse), although Emily decided to go all the way

Hostel (2005)

Before the grisly and bloody torture/murder in this horror story about three backpackers (Americans Paxton and Josh and Icelandic Oli, played by Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, and Eythor Gudjonsson) who ventured to a Slovakian city, they found hedonistic and casual sex with giggly brunette beauty Natalya (Barbara Nedeljakova) and blonde Svetlana (Jana Kaderabkova)

Lie With Me (2005, Canada)

This bleak, medium-core sex film from director Clément Virgo further pushed the boundaries of sexuality in film; it explored the distinction between love and lust, and featured two known TV stars; it opened with a scene of emotionally-detached 25 year-old Leila (Lauren Lee Smith) masturbating on her sofa to a porn video on TV, and then followed with numerous emotion-less but explicit sexual encounters between Leila and David (Eric Balfour) to dull the pain of their existences, including full-frontal nudity, male and female oral sex, an erect penis, and more, with some instances of voice-over narration by Leila

Manderlay (2005)

Controversial director Lars von Trier's sequel film to Dogville (part of a planned trilogy) was set in 1930s Alabama in a rural community that still practiced slavery at a secluded cotton plantation named Manderlay; 24 year-old red-haired Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of actor/director Ron Howard) starred as reforming, headstrong do-gooder Grace (earlier portrayed by Nicole Kidman); in one of the film's subplots, she performed in an inter-racial sex (simulated) scene (interpreted as semi-rape by some critics) with former studly slave Timothy (Isaach De Bankole)

Match Point (2005)

This was famed director Woody Allen's first R-rated erotic thriller; it starred Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as retired Irish tennis pro Chris Wilton who married heiress Chloe Hewett (Emily Mortimer); however, he had a steamy clandestine affair with femme fatale Nola Rice (Scarlett Johannson), the American girlfriend of her brother; there were two scenes of their love trysts...the steamier one was out in a field in a rainstorm; the film recalled Body Heat (1981), Fatal Attraction (1987) and Allen's own Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005, UK)

This Oscar-nominated film starred actress Judi Dench as the title character Laura Henderson - a war-time widow who battled government censorship and transformed a run-down theater (the Windmill) in the 40s into a flashy revue of naked showgirls, when allowed to present shows with 'immobile' or motionless, fully-nude stage performers as living statues in 'artistic tableaux'; the performers included Anna Brewster as Doris, Kelly Reilly as Maureen, and Sarah Solemani as Vera, among others; also - to provide equality of the sexes, there was a brief nude glimpse of the theater's stubborn manager Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins)

Transamerica (2005)

Desperate Housewives ABC-TV sitcom star Felicity Huffman earned an Oscar nomination for her gender-bending role as a pre-operative transgendered woman (or male-to-female transsexual) named Bree (with the given name of Stanley), who discovered (s)he had fathered a 17-year-old son - a troubled and surly, drug-abusing 17-year-old gay hustler named Toby (Kevin Zegers); in this low-budget, R-rated independent road film, Huffman displayed full-frontal nudity as both a man (with a prosthetic penis) and as a woman!; in one scene, he/she relieved himself while traveling from NY to CA by car with his/her son (witnessed by him through the car's rear-view mirror), and another scene showed him/her coming out of the bathroom and embarrassed to be seen in his/her underwear by his/her son; in a post-operative scene, she checked herself out in the bathtub

The Wedding Crashers (2005)

This bawdy film from director David Dobkin marked a return to R-rated comedies with numerous T&A shots; it was about two intrepid Washington DC bachelors and lifelong friends John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) who invited themselves to nuptial receptions to pick up on women and bridesmaids (including one named Claire (Rachel McAdams) and her "stage-five clinger" sister Gloria (Isla Fisher)); the film also included the sped-up "wedding sluts" montage sequence of the two scammers in bed with partly-clothed and topless women who flopped down in front of them (including Diora Baird, Rachel Sterling and Ivana Bozilovic), and the racy scene of Jeremy being seduced by sexually-insatiable Kathleen "Kittycat" Cleary (54 year-old Jane Seymour) - the socialite wife of Treasury Secretary and presidential wannabe William Clearly (Christopher Walken) when he was invited to sample her new breast implants

Where the Truth Lies (2005)

This controversial, tangled and convoluted film-noirish feature film from Canadian director Atom Egoyan was set in two time periods; it was a lurid and sexy backstage crime/murder mystery based upon Rupert Holmes' 2003 novel, about an amoral and pill-popping comedy duo team in 1957 resembling Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (Kevin Bacon as American Lanny Morris and Colin Firth as Brit Vince Collins) who broke up their act after naked, redheaded coed Maureen O'Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard) - who was the room service waitress from the hotel they just vacated in Florida - was found dead in their New Jersey hotel bathtub from supposed drowning or drug overdose (although her corpse had been flown from Florida to NJ and planted there); later, it was revealed that she was killed because she witnessed Vince's closet bisexuality-homosexuality - a psychosexually-related crime committed by the duo's bodyguard Reuben (David Hayman) by smothering her with a pillow in order to silence her; then 15 years later, worldly, award-winning aspiring journalist Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman) - once a polio-cured guest on their final telethon show before the murder, pursued the two to write a book to find "where the truth lies" in the circumstances surrounding the death, and became sexually involved with Lanny; in one of the film's hotter scenes, Vince drugged and photographed Karen while she experienced 'wet' oral sex performed on her by aspiring singer/prostitute Alice (Kristin Adams) who wore a bluish Alice in Wonderland outfit; the film was filled with female and male nudity and was initially rated NC-17 by the MPAA for its sex scenes (including a threesome and homoerotic scene), resulting in its release as both an explicit unrated version and as a R-rated version; the two offensive scenes that were shortened/edited were: (1) Vince receiving oral sex from an unnamed hooker, and (2) the repeated hip thrusting of Lanny as he took Denise (Rebecca Davis) from behind in the hotel room

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