Ourweekly columnStaff Pickstakes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme andthe "Staff Picks" section was the placetofind outwhat films were worthy of one's time.Of course, our version ofStaff Pickshas a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out the films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, neo-noir weathers the decade of huge highs and embarrassing lows known as the 1990s!
While we haven't covered here in this column yet, Film Noir is one of the greatest subgenres in all of film. Dating back to the late 30s, film noir wasn't coined as a term describing the movement in film until French critic Nino Frank dubbed it "Film Noir" in 1946. The films are often hard-boiled detective tales about men—and sometimes women—who operate in the deep, dark shadows of classic black and white film. Classic examples include John Huston's The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, and Charles Vidor's Gilda. The term femme fatale was created to describe the often gorgeous women who approach our hero with a job that's going to get him in over his head. Such notable femme fatales included Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, and Ava Gardner.
With the advent of the French New Wave came the birth of the Neo-Noir, as directors like Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless) and François Truffaut (Shoot the Piano Player) took elements of American film noir and gave them a distinctly modern setting. It exploded in the 70s when the genre moved back to America and films like Chinatown and Altman's The Long Goodbyegave the genre back its distinctly American flair. Over time, any film with a film noir-ish plot was branded a Neo-Noir, and it has seen its ups and downs over the years. Michael Mann's unique take on the genre even spawned an off-shoot known as Neon-Noir which we will hopefully get to in time.
The 1990s were an interesting decade for a lot of genres, as filmmakers who came of age with both classic Film Noir and modern Neo-Noir sought to blur the lines between the two. Many notable directors got their start in the genre, including P.T. Anderson with Sydney (aka Hard Eight), Quentin Tarantino with Reservoir Dogs, and Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave. There's also an anomalous cross-section here for bad movie lovers who will appreciate flicks like Christopher Coppola's Deadfall and Brett Michaels' A Letter from Death Row. Films which have defined the genre that we've already covered in-depth elsewhere include Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct, John McNaughton's Wild Things, and The Wachowski's Bound.
Films we'd also recommend with either less nudity or scarcer availability than the ones we're covering today includeCurtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, Brian Helgeland’s Payback (Director’s Cut), Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels, Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dressand One False Move, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction,Mike Hodge’s Croupier, Paul Schrader’s Affliction, Roger Donaldson’s White Sands, Bob Rafelson’s Poodle Springs, Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan, andMario van Peebles’ New Jack City.
Miami Blues (1990)
Writer/director George Armitage seemed like he was going to be one of the big shots of the 90s, starting his career off with this crackerjack Neo-Noir that nicely brings the genre into the 90s. After toiling away in the 70s on down and dirty exploitation flicks, he basically took a hiatus in the 90s, crafting two scripts that would come to define black comedy in the 90s, this flick and 1997's Grosse Pointe Blank. While that film was a bit more of a love story and had a slightly softer edge, this flick is more indebted to the films Armitage cut his teeth on in the late 70s.
Alec Baldwin plays violent sociopath Junior, just released from prison, and ready to start life over in Miami. Only it doesn't take long for the life of crime to call him back—hell, he doesn't even make it out of the airport without killing a Hare Krishna. He hooks up with Susie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) a wide-eyed community college student who is taken by Junior's criminal tendencies.Junior soon lands on the radar of a grizzled detective named Hoke Moseley (Fred Ward), who suspects that Junior not only had a hand in killing the Hare Krishna—we only see him break the guy's fingers—but also thinks he might be working on something even bigger.
The truth is that he isn't, he's just a big, dumb lug who doesn't seem to have the faintest idea what it means to go straight. He attempts to talk a guy out of robbing a liquor store, only to end up getting run over by the criminal in his truck. It's a pitch black comedy with plenty of easy going charm and lots offilm noir hallmarks littered throughout.
Jennifer Jason Leigh brings the femme fatale into the 90s with her portrayal of Susie, going topless multiple times in the film as she and Baldwin hook up and attempt to lay low...
**Available to Rent or Own via Vudu**
The Grifters (1990)
A decidedly different take on the Neo-Noir also came along in 1990 with Stephen Frears' The Grifters. Anjelica Huston stars as Lily, a long time con woman whose son Roy (John Cusack) pays her an unexpected visit after eight years apart. Roy has now gotten into the con game himself, but after an encounter that leaves him in the hospital, mother tells her son he needs to find a new line of work. His new girlfriend, Myra (Annette Bening) has other ideas, though, as she has proven herself to be quite the grifter as well, seeing in Roy a partner for a new long con she's setting up.
Once the ball gets rolling and the double crosses and betrayals kick in, it's easy to see why this flick landed in the Best Picture race that year up against heavy hitters like The Godfather Part III, Goodfellas,Ghost, and Dances with Wolves. Huston and Bening both picked up Oscar noms for the flick and though its reputation has faded over the years, it's probably an even better film now than it was 30 years ago.
As the object of Cusack's affections, Annette Bening goes nude a whopping five times over the course of the film, starting with a phenomenal fully nude reveal in bed just 36 minutes in! Following back to back topless scenes just past the one hour mark, Annette once again reveals all when she opens the door to show Cusack her goods at the 66 minute mark...
**Available to Rent or Own via Amazon Prime Video**
The Last Seduction (1994)
Another writer/director who seemed like he had a good shot at becoming the next big thing in the 90s was John Dahl, who made the debut feature Kill Me Again with Val and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer before doing the underrated Red Rock West in 1993. With funding difficult to come by in the early 90s, Dahl turned to HBO to get completionary funds to finishhis 1994 flick The Last Seduction, and the film debuted on the premium cable service after premiering at the Palm Springs Film Market in January 1994. That July, the film debuted on HBO before distributor October Films was able to secure it a theatrical release three months later to capitalize on the positive buzz surrounding star Linda Fiorentino's performance.
Fiorentino stars as Bridget, a New York City telemarketer married to two-bit thug and doctor in training Clay (Bill Pullman). After Clay manages to con some loan sharks out of 3/4 of a million dollars, Bridget absconds with the money, sick of his violent treatment of her, andtakes off for Chicago. At a pit stop in Buffalo, she meets the naive young Mike (Peter Berg), who will serve not only as a sexual distraction for her, but also has the makings of a potential pawn in an upcoming scheme she's hatching.
Fiorentino's performance is electric, embodying all of the hallmarks of the femme fatale while updating them to the 90s. It's not exactly pleasant that they lean in to the abuse in her past to form her backstory, but it does help to flesh her out and feel more three dimensional by putting motivation to her actions. She also gets nude in the flick a bunch, holing up with Berg for a sex-cation in Buffalo and seducing the pants right off the audience...
**Available to Rent or Own via Amazon Prime Video**
Lost Highway (1997)
Juxtapose this scene with her outdoor nude sex scene with Pete, which are much more sensual, and Lynch's point becomes all the more illuminated (in this case literally thanks to a car's headlights)...
What struck me about O.J. Simpson was that he was able to smile and laugh. He was able to go golfing with seemingly very few problems about the whole thing. I wondered how, if a person did these deeds, he could go on living. And we found this great psychology term -- "psychogenic fugue" -- describing an event where the mind tricks itself to escape some horror. So, in a way, "Lost Highway" is about that. And the fact that nothing can stay hidden forever.
**Available to Rent or Own via Amazon Prime Video**
Dark City (1998)
One of the best films of the 1990s is this absolutely mind-bending flick from director Alex Proyas, who made a splash three years earlier with The Crow. Set in a nondescript big city in what appears to be modern times, the film follows John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) who awakens in a hotel bathtub with a murderedwoman on the floor. A group of pale men in trenchcoats enter the room and begin staging the scene, but find that their powers of mind control don't work on Murdoch. He must now set out to discover who the murdered woman was, who the dudes in trenchcoats are, and most importantly, who the hell he is.
Audiences greeted the film with a collective shrug of indifference, but the film has proven itself to be every bit as influential in the world of modern noir cinema as something like The Matrix. You couldn't throw a stone without seeing at least some element of this film being ripped off in dark, dystopian sci-fi throughout the 2000s. Hell, Requiem for a Dream essentially repurposed a recurring shot from this film with the same actress, Jennifer Connelly, standing at the end of a pier. The late Roger Ebert was one of the film's most ardent and vocal supporters, recording a commentary track for the film's DVD release that basically spells out why the film is such a tremendously entertaining, well-crafted, and cine-literate piece of work.
If you've somehow managed to make it through the last 22 years without actually seeing the film, I won't spoil any of the details, other than to recommend you see it without getting anything ruined for you along the way. I will let you in on the nudity, however, as we get two topless scenes early on from Natalie Bollard as the murdered woman...
And later, Melissa George—early in her career—pops in to show bare all three Bs as a similar doomed woman...
**Available to Rent or Own via Amazon Prime Video**
