Lars Von Trier’s AntiChrist is coming out soon. A movie that has so much sex, it had to be edited out for the wimpy U.S. audience, who apparently has no problems watching an 11 year old girl chop the legs off of drug dealers and murdering their innocent girlfriends (Kick Ass). But that got me to looking up other movies with memorable sex scenes, and that’s when I came across IFC’s 50 Best Sex Scenes and 50 Worst Sex Scenes in Movies. Needless to say, I blew past their best 50 and made a bee-line straight for the worst list.
Needless to say, many of my top 10 BEST SEX SCENES in Movies made it into IFC’s WORST List. No Y Tu Mamá También, no Jane Campion women empowering chick flicks, no gay cowboys and no token black movies, no PC transgender inclusiveness…just cut to the chase, full throttle all out sex. You know you want it: I can tell by the way you are sitting on that cinema seat.
1. Basic Instinct
Great scene. This is what good sex is. No trail of red rose petals, no bubble baths, no Barry White cd’s. No bourgeoisie taking off of the clothes, just tear and enter!
2. Irreversible
My favorite position in full color. Audiences around the world got their panties in a twist over this one. This is standard fair in 90% of the adult films these days. Director Gaspar Noé went on record and said the scene was shot at a static angle because he had to put the camera down. He was shaking so much from sexual excitement, he couldn’t keep the camera straight. (I’m just the messenger) The fact that a gay male character would even consider doing anything like this to a woman is utterly absurd – it’s like running into Jared at Pizza Hut. The way the gay guys at the gay bar were behaving at the beginning of the film is also utterly ridiculous. It’s as if Fox Newscasters who have no frequently experience with gay culture tried to envision recall last night what it would be like to go to one. But that still doesn’t keep it from being a hot scene. If you don’t believe me, just ask the wild animals on the National Geographic channel during mating season.
3. Black Rainbow
The scene where Tom Hulce follows Rosanna Arquette back to her hotel room and she undress from her stodgy Church-gal winter clothes, layer-by-layer is hypnotic. Eventually she gets down to nothing but lingerie with garter belt, before slithering up to Hulce like a snake to flirt with him. You wonder how modesty can turn into lascivious lust in such a short period of time. It’s all about hiding your goods.
4. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)
The kitchen non-consensual scene is ok, but after Frank and Cora stage their car accident, that’s a sexy scene: They crawl out hillside only to find they still look too damn fine. So they sit there and take turns punching each other in the face. Now if you ask me, that’s a real commitment to a relationship. All the rough sex in adult films can’t equate to this magical moment. If that’s what it takes to keep us together, so be it, roll up your sleeves…
5. Belle Du Jour
It’s not really about the riding along the forest in a horse-drawn cart awash in autumnal light and Hallmark card loveliness, or the violent yanking of Catherine Deneuve from the cab, then the rape, then the bondage, followed by the beatings that made this scene in my all-time favorite movie sexy. It was immediately (or during) after the sequence when husband Pierre asks, “what are you thinking?” And Séverine shrugs “oh nothing.” THAT, is what made this scene so fabulously sexy. It showed me, at a young age, that fantasy was the gateway to sexual imagination and creativity. And from there, it’s just a matter of gittin it done.
6. Blue Velvet
I love Frank Booth’s entry in Blue Velvet. And just in case there are prudes reading this blog, there are people who also like lovers like Frank Booth. The sexiest scene is when Dorothy (Rosellini) finally gets Jeffrey to hit her. Just the satisfied smile that subtly radiates from her lips is pure gold. If I have to explain it to you, you’d probably never understand.
7. Bluebeard
Marilu Tolo stars as Brigitte, the frigid, militant, often-drunk feminist wife of Richard Burton’s Bluebeard. The scene where they start arguing gender politics, and end promptly with a swift knee to Bluebeard’s groin is my favorite. He then proceeds to grab hold of her, and slap all the suffragist aspirations out of her. Exorcised of de Beauvoir notions and Steinhem manifestos, she suddenly becomes ultra-feminine and truly wife-like, begging the man to take charge. Delish!
8. Girl Next Door
Elisha Cuthbert visits Matthew’s family in a cheery afternoon tableaux right out of a Laura Ashley living room catalog. As Matthew’s mother shows Danielle pictures of her son from the family album, Danielle starts by blowing his father, then making out with his mother, undressing and grabbing her. It’s one thing to bang the son, but to gangbang his entire family, mom and dad, right in that suburban living room. Outrageous and groundbreakingly hott!
9. Tokyo Decadence
Ai is so staid and proper, but she’s really a call girl. When she visits an eccentric John wearing a modest suit, he orders her to take it off and stand against the office window in broad daylight. After hours of standing there – into the sunset – he finally grabs her roughly from the back. The scene is so unpredictable, yet taut in a way good sex makes you anticipate, crave, and explode the moment contact is made.
10. Carnal Knowledge
This isn’t really a sex scene, but it’s one of the sexiest. When Jack Nicholson’s Jonathan visits the prostitute at the climax finale of the movie, and she performs this hypnotic mantra, chanting utterances praising his manhood while the walls behind her rise endlessly to tribal drumming in the background is fantabulously good. Just the cadence and tone of her voice is that pure horniness that separates the boys from the girls. You can write about political correctness until the cows come home, but corner any man away from the girls, and the truth will come out.
