Marquis de Sade (1996)

Nice guys finish last, politely holding back ejaculation until the female has climaxed, and what good does it do them? Women may claim they appreciate the sensitive and vulnerable male, but the fair sex still prefers to be fascinated by bastards, which is why director Gwyneth Gibby made a movie called Marquis de Sade (1996) and not Tom Hanks. The Marquis, for anyone who grew up and went to school in a tree, was an ignoble French aristocrat of the 1700s who put to prose the most painfully erotic fantasies to be published at that time. Though panned and actually persecuted by the critics of the day, de Sade’s shady writings have earned lasting infamy. The term sadism was coined from his name, and his nefarious sexual exploits continue unto this very moment to provide grist for shocking, controversial, and arousing cinema, the kind that ladies are powerless but to love, though they know they should loathe it.