Lusty lesbians, Oscar nominated and winning flicks galore, and one of the nuttiest non-sequels ever made await you as we look back at the most skinsational flicks released on November 20 in Movie Nudity History!
2015: Carol
Director Todd Haynes returnedto the world of Douglas Sirk-ian melodrama for his sixth theatrically released feature film, once again set in the 50s. Having worked with Haynes previously onI'm Not There.,Cate Blanchettlikely had the full trust of the director when she accepted the title role of Carol Aird, an affluent divorcée who becomes infatuated with a beautiful but disaffected shop clerk Therese (Rooney Mara).
An hour and fifteen minutes into this film, the furtive glances and pearl clutching comes to an end when these two finally get down to business. The slow burn intensity Haynes has created in the first two-thirds of the film pays off in a way Sirk never could due to working during the time of the Hays Code. Carol's R rating allows Haynes to give us a very tenderly played and immaculately shot first actual physical contact between two women who, up until this moment, had been straight. Or at the very least, masquerading as straight...
The green color palate Haynes used on his previous work,Mildred Pierce, is used to great effect once again, but his amber is warmer here, giving this the vintage feeling he seems to have perfected.As far as Blanchett goes, she does do her first nudity here sinceElizabethnearly 20 years earlier. Her three brushes with nudity in the interim were the work of a body double, but my guess is that she felt comfortable enough with Haynes and co-starRooney Marato know that the end result would be this stunning...
2015: The Summer of Sangaile
Lithuanian cinema isn't exactly among the most renowned in the world, but every couple of years, a film will come out of Lithuania that puts the Eastern European country back on the map, so to speak. Four years ago today, they unleashed The Summer of Sangaileon the world, a sensationally sapphic tale about young love and letting go of your inhibitions.
Julija Steponaityte stars as the buttoned-down title character, who spends a summer discovering herself thanks to her friendship with the free-spiritedAuste (Aiste Dirziute). The two Lithuanian natives have three lesbian sex scenes in the film, both baring boobs, bush, and buns in a nearly four minute lesbian scene at the 37-minute mark...
2009: Broken Embraces
Hot off of winning an Oscar for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Penélope Cruz reunited with director Pedro Almodóvar (coming next month to our SKIN-depth Look series) for this noir-ish thriller about ablind writer recounting an affair he had with the mistress (Cruz) of a wealthy businessman. Cruz has three topless scenes within a span of ten minutes just prior to the one-hour-mark, returning to nudity just a year after Elegy!
We also get some bonus boobage at the four minute mark from Kira Miró, as a guy pulls down her dress and squeezes her perfect pair...
2009: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Werner Herzog has a reputation for his contentious relationships with his stars, and the combination of Herzog and unhinged maniac Nicolas Cage for this ten year old feature is just too good to resist. Herzog famously directed his lead to“let the wild boar loose” whenever he wanted Cage to, well, Cage out! The result is an absolutely insane journey into the mouth of madness with absolutely no connection to Abel Ferrara's 1992 flick Bad Lieutenant.
The film features everything from "iguana cam" to the breakdancing souls of deceased drug dealers, but the film's only skin comes in one Cage's typical loose wild boar scenes. Whileattempting to procure some drugs, he puts on a display that is pure abuse of power, groping and eventually banging Katie Chonacaswhile her boyfriend watches helplessly, held at gun point by the unleashed Cage...
Eva Mendes also puts in one of her last performances in this flick, having more or less retired five years ago, showing some boffo cleavage as Cage's drug addicted prostitute girlfriend...
While not quite radiating the same combustive energy that fueled Herzog's work with the similarly cagey Klaus Kinski, this is still one of Cage's best, most manic, most insane performances ever, and well worth your time.
1998: Sue
Palestine-born directorAmos Kollek (Whore 2) found his muse in busty beauty Anna Levine, with whom he would make several more subsequent films, in this 1997 flick that was finally released on this day 21 years ago. Levine plays the title character, an unemployed woman whose lover leaves her to move overseas, stranding her with no place to live. Sue is driven to become resourceful, hooking up with a series of guys in hopes of finding some place to call her own. It's a bleak and painful film about the human condition, aided by a sensitive and skinsational turn from Levine!
From shacking up with random guys to flashing strangers in the park and flicking her bean in a movie theater, this is a sexually adventurous performance from Levine, who bares all in some no-holds-barred scenes...
1987: The Last Emperor
Bernardo Bertolucci finally basked in Oscar glory for his 32 year old biopic of Pu Yi, the titular final ruler of the Middle Kingdom, whose rule was more ceremonial than anything else once Chairman Mao rose to power. Winner of 7 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, this absolutely gorgeous film is among the handful of films that won Best Picture while actually being the best movie released in its year—though one could make a strong argument that Broadcast News was the best film of 1987.
The film employs the same storytelling device that nearly all of Bertolucci's films uses, starting near the end of the story before flashing back to the beginning. John Lone plays Pu Yi, who came to power as a small child, and like a great many of Bertolucci's protagonists, has a complicated relationship with sex. The film's only nudity comes early in the film when we first meet him as a child and he is being breastfed by his mother, played byJade Go...
Another breastfeeding scene follows not long after, with the film departing from nudity altogether at this point. Puyi's relationship with women further on his life is no less strange, while always remaining firmly within the constraints of the film's PG-13 rating, another first for the director. Desperate to escape his role as emperor, Pu Yi marries Wan Jong, played by the gorgeous Joan Chen. Their wedding night scene finds Chen in a sheer nightgown with her breasts clearly visible beneath...
1981: Ragtime
Finally, on this day 38 years ago, a twenty-year-old Elizabeth McGovern got fully nude as part of Miloš Forman's adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's immortal novel of the American dream in the early 20th century. This multi-layered story has since been turned into a Broadway musical, and though the film was nominated for 8 Oscars—including Best Supporting Actress for McGovern—that version of the story has kinda become the more famous adaptation of the book. Even still, Forman's assured hand behind the camera makes for a compelling watch with the film sandwiched comfortably between his two Oscar winning classics One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus.
McGovern's part in the story is that of former actress and now kept wife, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, who consistently finds herself in the middle of a firestorm thanks to her voracious sexuality and her husband's hair trigger. Evelyn soon finds herself having an affair with Younger Brother (Brad Dourif), the sibling of Mary Steenburgen's character Mother, and 52 minutes into the flick, McGovern spends a full four and a half minutes completely nude! Not bad for a PG flick if you ask me!
