"Short Cuts" (1993)
Let's say you spilled something on your pants
and the tag says DRY FLAT and so you don't want to chance ruining them in the
dryer and besides, you're in an argument with your husband and you're not gonna
give him the satisfaction of seeing you all damp and disheveled, so instead of
drying them the prudent way you thought you'd just whip them off and blast them
with a blow dryer.
I mean, who's gonna care if you're not wearing any underwear?
Though this 1993 film is a Robert Altman classic, based on short stories by
the brilliant Raymond Carver, viewers unused to seeing angry people in billowing
white blouses and no pants have perhaps forgotten anything else that happened in
the movie, besides the fact that Julianne Moore appears to be a natural redhead.
Would it have been so hard for her to air-dry? Or wear panties?
On the other hand, maybe Altman should have just re-titled this, "Shorts,
Cut."
"True Lies" (1994)
Jamie Lee Curtis is beautiful, hilarious and
married to the wittiest man in Hollywood.
So I can only assume her pole-dancing bedroom scene in 1994's "True Lies" was
meant as revenge on Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays her on-screen spouse, for
his unnecessary nudity in "The Terminator."
Though she's in fantastic shape and never takes it all off in this extended
dance mix of a striptease, it's painful to watch. Like you'd walked in on your
parents on one of their "special" Thursday nights.
And Schwarzenegger apparently agrees. His expression in the scene says one
thing only: I'll never be back.
"About Schmidt" (2002)
To me, the idea of Jack Nicholson as a sympathetic
character or charismatic leading man makes about as much sense as classifying
the tomato as a fruit. Yeah, it grows on a vine and it's got its seeds on the
inside. But it's a tomato. No way is that stuff nature's candy.
And Jack Nicholson is not dessert. He's dangerous -- to anyone with
prudish sensibilities, that is. As evidence, I offer up 2002's "About Schmidt,"
where Nicholson plays a man who's lost everything and must find himself.
This is all well and good until he finds himself standing next to a hot tub
full of Kathy Bates, whom I'll always remember as the queen of torture in
"Misery."
In the scene, which to me is the new misery, Bates gets naked, and while many
have commented on the size and buoyancy of her breasts, they are only somewhat
larger than Nicholson's.
I know that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and all. But a
workout? That might not be such a bad idea.