Bad Lieutenant (1992)

Director Abel Ferrera's gritty, audacious and excessive NC-17 rated crime drama was literally about a "bad lieutenant." The film's tagline described the title character:

Gambler. Thief. Junkie. Killer. Cop.

The film was set in New York during the seven games of the World Series playoffs between the Dodgers and Mets as a religious structure for the infraction of seven deadly sins.

• "Bad Lieutenant" (Harvey Keitel, in a tour de force performance), an unnamed corrupt, alcoholic and debased NYC police detective

The 'bad' title character had a reputation for excessive compulsive gambling on baseball games, alcohol and drug abuse (snorting and shooting heroin), and womanizing with prostitutes.

He was seen with blonde prostitute Bowtay (Victoria Bastel), exhibiting full-frontal nudity himself with his arms outstretched. He also shot up with nameless, red-haired junkie girl friend dealer (co-scriptwriter Zoë Lund/Zoe Tamerlis). She delivered a foreshadowing soliloquy while helping him shoot up into his arm:

"Vampires are lucky. They can feed on others. We gotta eat away at ourselves. We gotta eat our legs to get the energy to walk. We gotta come, so we can go. We gotta suck ourselves off. We gotta eat away at ourselves 'til there's nothing left but appetite. We give and give and give crazy, 'cause a gift that makes sense ain't worth it. Jesus said seventy times seven. No one will ever understand why, why you did it. They'll just forget about you tomorrow, but you gotta do it."

It was noted for its pivotal scene - the notoriously graphic and brutal rape scene of a defenseless nun on a Spanish Harlem church altar by two neighborhood teens from the adjoining Catholic school, juxtaposed with the image of a suffering Christ on the cross. The cop glimpsed-peeped at the victimized Nun (Frankie Thorn) during her naked medical exam in a hospital room. He overheard the female doctor explaining how the virginal nun had been violently violated with a crucifix, causing trauma and multiple lacerations to her hymen and vagina:

"Black pubic hair other than the patient was found during comb inspection. Here are the samples of that. There was trauma to the vaginal mucosa with multiple lacerations that appear to be made with a sharp object in which the hymen ring was broken. It was stated that this object was a crucifix - trauma consistent with multiple penetration."

He couldn't understand her forgiving and contrite nature when she later refused to identify her attackers - and prayed for them. The nun called them "sad, raging boys...they are good boys" - and then intended on bearing the child from the rape ("turn bitter semen into fertile sperm").

In another vile and disturbing scene immediately afterwards, he sexually exploited (verbally raped) two teenaged New Jersey females that he had stopped for a minor traffic violation (broken tail-light, and for driving without a license and registration) during a rainy night. He forced them to provide sexual favors in return for not reporting them, including listening to his obscene questions ("Did you ever suck a guy's cock?"), and watching him masturbate alongside their car door - while having the driver pantomime giving him fellatio (oral sex) ("Show me how you suck a guy's cock. Show me with your mouth") and the passenger showed him her ass.

The film ended with the detective's spiritual breakdown at the church crime scene that still showed signs of desecration, his own forgiveness of the two boys ("you f--king scumbags") by putting them on a Port Authority bus (with a box containing $30K in cash), and afterwards his own redemptive murder in a mob drive-by shooting (for a $120,000 debt) as he was parked beneath a huge banner advertising Trump Palace with the slogan It All Happens Here.

Basic Instinct (1992)

Director Paul Verhoeven's glossy erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992) (with a script by Joe Eszterhas) was typical of the 90s.

[Note: A sequel - Basic Instinct 2 (2006) - was released almost a decade and a half later with 47 year-old Sharon Stone reprising her sexy murderess role.]

Womens' groups called the film misogynistic, and gay-rights groups in San Francisco called it stereotypically-homophobic and gay-bashing - they charged that the main murderess suspect in the film was a denegrating portrayal since she was a mentally-unstable, psychotic lesbian and bi-sexual.

The film was also criticized for permissiveness, steamy content (scene of cunnilingus), exploitative nudity, its depiction of lesbian characters, and its scenes of bondage (especially with reversed roles). Threatened with an NC-17 rating, and reduced to R rating (with cuts), this flashy film was then released with a more explicit 'Director's Cut' version for the video market, with the extra-steamy scenes.

The film opened with views (from all angles, including a reflection in a ceiling mirror) of a couple making love - the unidentified female was atop rock star Johnny Boz (Bill Cable), and elements of S&M were revealed when she tied his arms behind him to opposite sides of the bedpost with a long strip of the sheet - before writhing on top of him. Then she grabbed an icepick to her right, reared up, and stabbed him to death as he climaxed.

Troubled, burned-out SF police detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) investigated seductive, bi-sexual mystery writer and brutal ice-pick murder suspect Catherine Tramell (a star-making and career-launching role for Sharon Stone) after a series of murders of males during intercourse and S&M sex.

The Infamous Leg-Crossing, Police-Interrogation Scene with Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone)

The sexually-charged film featured a taunting femme fatale predator with an insatiable sexual appetite and possibly homicidal tendencies. She matter-of-factly flirted and manipulatively toyed with the libidos and sexual appetites of the middle-aged men in a police station room as she tersely revealed her past sexual activities with the victim and played sex games with their minds. After admitting to cocaine use with the dead Mr. Boz, she surprised the audience by directing a provocative, follow-up question toward Nick: "Have you ever f--ked on cocaine, Nick?" She smiled and revealingly uncrossed her legs (removing her left leg from atop her right leg), flashing her panty-less private parts at him. And then she re-crossed her legs in the opposite direction, crossing her right leg atop her left.

When Detective Curran visited Catherine Trammel at her home, he reinforced the notion of his voyeuristic tendencies when he watched Catherine undress from a distance. She flaunted her bisexuality when she introduced her lesbian girlfriend to Nick. She kissed Roxanne "Roxy" (Leilani Sarelle), fondled her nipple, and then stood with her arm around her, asking: "You two have met, haven't you?"

Then came a provocative three-some dance at a crowded nightclub disco (between the lesbian lovers Catherine and Roxy) - and an aroused Nick voyeuristically watching them as they touched and French-kissed and then also watched them from outside the nightclub toilet stall as they snorted cocaine.

Another controversial scene was one of forceful, animalistic sex between Curran and girfriend/police psychiatrist Dr. Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Back at Beth's apartment in her living room, Nick took out his sexual aggression against her. He immediately forced himself on her, pinning her arms up on the wall, kissing her forcefully, grabbing her leg, caressing her rear, grabbing her breasts through her clothing, and ripping her dress open in the front.

In the misogynistic, near-rape scene, he turned her toward the opposite wall as he lustfully pushed his hands under her bra, scooped out her breasts, and kissed her even harder. Then he dragged her over to the sofa and aggressively draped her over its top as she protested: "Nick, stop, no!" He pulled off his own pants and animalistically entered her from behind, climaxing quickly. Afterwards, as she lay next to him and they spooned together, she set the record straight: "You weren't making love to me." Then she sat up and dressed.

Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) with His Own Girlfriend/Police Psychiatrist Dr. Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn)

There were various sexual encounters between Catherine and the detective, including two that exactly paralleled the film's opening sex sequence (one of murder).

Although it appeared that the case was solved and Dr. Garner was implicated (although she might have been framed?), the final scene extended the ambiguity of Catherine's murderous instincts.

Final Sexual Scene: Parallel to Film's Opening Scene

In the film's final scene - Catherine was making love to SF police detective/lover Nick Curran, and in the midst of their coupling, she stretched backwards and reached behind herself, then suddenly came down on top of him. Her whole body stretched across his - and both of them went motionless - as she (and he) climaxed.

• Was he still alive?
• Had he been pierced with an icepick?
• Was there something in her hand, when she half-turned and twisted around, and rolled to the outer side of the bed?

Fortunately for him, there was continued movement as they intimately kissed each other. Then, after a cut, they were seen lying next to each other in bed, both staring up. He was smoking a cigarette. She curled away from him toward the outer side of the bed:

Catherine: What do we do now, Nick?
Nick: We f--k like minks, raise rugrats. We live happily ever after.

Her right arm reached over the side of the bed (was she picking up an icepick?), as she retorted: "I hate rugrats." He revised his epitaph:

We f--k like minks. Forget the rugrats. And live happily ever after.

She half-turned and twisted around, watching him turn his body away to put out his cigarette. The music built - was she holding something in her hand? They looked at each other for a long moment. She reached out with her hand, pulling his neck and face toward her own body for another kiss. The screen darkened for a moment, and then returned.

As they kissed more passionately as she pulled him down to her body, the camera slowly descended below her side of the bed. When it lowered to the floor, the camera came to rest on a close-up of the murder weapon - a thin, steel-handled icepick. The finale of the ambiguous film arbitrarily left the inexplicable question of the guilt and/or innocence of the main character still up in the air --?

Belle Epoque (1992, Sp./Port.) (aka The Age of Beauty)

Fernando Trueba's R-rated, Oscar-winning (Best Foreign Language Film) romantic comedy was an earthy, sensual 1930s story.

It told about young soldier Fernando (Jorge Sanz) who deserted the army and found himself in the country household of wealthy Don Manolo (Fernando Fernan Gomez) and his four beautiful daughters:

• Luz (Penelope Cruz), young and virginal
• Rocio (Maribel Verdu), playfully flirtatious
• Violeta (Ariadna Gil), tomboyish, lesbian cross-dressing
• Clara (Miriam Diaz-Aroca), lonely, widowed

The Beautiful Daughters
Rocio (Maribel Verdu)	Luz (Penelope Cruz) and Rocio
Violeta (Ariadna Gil)

He experienced steamy, amorous and sexy encounters with each one of them - and eventually married Luz.

Bitter Moon (1992, Fr./UK/US) (aka Lunes de Fiel)

This ultra-kinky, voyeuristic drama/thriller from Roman Polanski was rated R for its "depiction of a perverse sexual relationship." The dark film was set on a Mediterranean ocean liner on the Black Sea bound for Istanbul, carrying two couples - the film's main characters. The first couple was from England:

• Nigel Dobson (Hugh Grant), an up-tight and married British passenger and Eurobond dealer
• Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas), Nigel's childless, stait-laced wife of seven years

Nigel became acquainted with a second couple on ship-board:

• Oscar Benton (Peter Coyote), a crippled, sexually-deviant, wheelchair-bound, self-loathing writer
• Micheline "Mimi" Bouvier (Emmanuelle Seigner, the director's own 27 year-old wife), Oscar's sultry, mysterious, good-looking, French partner

Oscar warned Nigel about his femme fatale companion: "Beware of her. She's a walking man trap." Nigel had earlier been attracted to the sight of Mimi in a black dress dancing solo in the ship's bar-lounge to Peggy Lee's classic love song "Fever." The dirty-minded Oscar boldly asked the flustered Britisher: "She gives you a hard-on, doesn't she?" In his private cabin, failed writer Oscar began to tell Nigel - his "listener" - the contents of his third great novel, about the development of his own sado-masochistic, increasingly-torturous and sordid relationship with Mimi - told in a series of depraved flashbacks (and voice-over narration) - after he first met her on a Paris bus ("a sorceress in white sneakers") and gave her his ticket. He wrote: "I'd been granted a glimpse of heaven."

Their first sexual encounter was in his apartment before a roaring fire, where he slipped her red dress from her shoulders to expose her breasts - he touched her nipple and kissed her before sleeping with her ("Nothing ever surpassed the rapture of that first awakening") - and they remained in the apartment making love for three days. In another scene during their whirlwind romance, Mimi performed a sexy dance for him in his candle-lit living room, wearing a thin gauzy nightgown.

Mimi's (Emmanuelle Seigner) Sexy Oral Games with Husband Oscar (Peter Coyote)

The film's most memorable scene was set at their breakfast table to the tune of George Michael's "Faith," where Mimi let creamy milk drip onto her naked chest, then massaged her breasts before Oscar licked the milk off her nude nipples and breasts - after which she delivered oral sex to him as the toaster suggestively popped out two slices. Later that morning, Mimi licked a spot of blood from Oscar's face during a close shave with a straight-edged razor.

During a shower together, he intimately described her to show how "enslaved" he was to her - body and soul:

"Her pussy was a neat, discreet little cleft, but as soon as the animal within was roused by my caresses, it would stir, draw aside the silken curtain covering its lair, and become a carnivorous flower, a baby's mouth greedily sucking my finger. I loved to tease her clitoris with the tip of my tongue and then abandon it, wet and glistening like a little duck dabbling in a pool of pink flesh."

During his second salacious yet mesmerizing lengthy conversation with Nigel over tea, "verbal exhibitionist" Oscar told how during a ski vacation, Mimi exhibited urophilia (narrated only) - she "spread her legs and pissed on the (TV) screen" and then urinated on him: "I was engulfed with this warm, golden cascade...I experienced the orgasm of a lifetime." When the decent Nigel was repulsed and called the perverted story-teller obscene, Oscar argued back:

"I'm trying to expand your sexual horizons...Have you ever felt real overpowering passion? Have you ever truly idolized a woman? Nothing can be obscene in such a love. Everything that occurs between you becomes a sacrament, don't you see?"

He recounted his disintegrating, depraved relationship with her as it evolved into darker practices: "That was our sexual Rubicon. It opened up all sorts of new possibilities." The sex-crazed couple bought kinky sex toys and engaged in S&M bondage experiences. Oscar was handcuffed and tied up with tape over his mouth as the beautiful Mimi "humiliated" him. She dominated him wearing a full-length black latex coat and slowly cut off his clothes with his straight-edged razor, before removing her coat and squatting naked atop his face. Difficulties arose when they flirted with other partners and became jealous of each other ("Our credit was running out. We were headed for sexual bankruptcy...the spell was broken at last"), and their sexual practices became even more deviant - he wore a pig mask as she whipped him.

As part of the bargain, pimping Oscar explained to Nigel, that if he continued to listen to his tale, he was promised to enjoy Mimi - to fulfill his voyeuristic and sexual pleasure ("You can have her, Nigel, with my blessings"). As he proceeded to tell the rest of the story, Oscar confessed that his life had been "demolished by a love that was too strong" and that he lost sexual desire for his voluptuous wife. They repeatedly broke up and reconciled during their amour fou affair, squabbled, and at one point the embittered and heartless Oscar physically abused her. When broken-hearted Mimi begged not to be sent away permanently, she offered to humiliate herself: "I'm willing to live with you on any terms, any at all." He agreed and then started treating her sadistically and making her life a living hell, including demanding an abortion of her when she became pregnant, and feigning illness to heartlessly abandon her on an airplane bound for a vacation in Martinique.

As the frequent sessions progressed between Nigel and Oscar, Fiona suspected that her husband - who had kissed Mimi by then - was interested in the sultry female: "You've got the hots for her, haven't you?" In another session, Oscar told about how he then sought sexual satisfaction for two years without Mimi through other hedonistic outlets, including prostitutes, drunken parties and "short-lived" one-night stands ("No more emotional entanglements"), but then he was struck by a vehicle in the street when drunk (and expecting to have an orgy with two party girls) and hospitalized with a fractured femur.

During a surprise visit to his hospital bedroom, Mimi suddenly reappeared and vengefully paralyzed Oscar from the waist down by dumping him from his bed - causing him to become a paraplegic, so that she could become his devotedly permanent caretaker/nurse. Turning the tables on him, she began to humiliate, torture and dominate him - keeping him mostly in solitary, and using dirty needles for his medication. The self-critical Oscar realized: "I know I deserve all I get. I treated you like a monster. I am a monster." Miserable, Oscar begged his cruel caretaker: "Why don't you just finish me off? Why don't you OD me, or push me down the stairs, or something?" She presented Oscar with a birthday present of a gun [later an integral part of the tragic ending], singing Happy Birthday to him with one candle. He thoroughly despised himself: "I hate myself worse than you could ever hate me," but she cruelly countered: "No one could hate you more than I do" - illustrated when she entertained feline black dancer Basil (Heavon Grant) in the apartment in front of him and had intercourse. But surprisingly, Mimi and Oscar were married ("...a bond between us shared by no one else in the world").

After hearing Oscar's entire story, and reminded of Fiona's daring and challenging encouragement to have a fling: "Anything you can do, I can do better," Nigel sought out Mimi on the dance floor at a shipboard New Years dress ball party. During a dance, he confessed to her: "I think I've fallen in love with you," but she replied: "That's why you will never have me."

He was upstaged when previously-repressed Fiona ("I'm feeling dangerous tonight") and exhibitionist Mimi performed a sexy dance and passionate lesbian kiss in front of a crowd. Oscar commented to crestfallen Nigel: "Come on, stop sulking, man. You ought to be glad they're getting it on so well."

Later that night, Nigel found the two ladies in a naked embrace in Mimi's cabin, where Oscar had voyeuristically observed them: "Two nymphs sleeping off their amatory exertions. You really missed something, Nigel. Fiona was a revelation. All fire. I doubt if you've ever really made the most of her."

In the surprise ending, the distressed Oscar shot Mimi in the back as she slept next to Fiona, and then suicidally blew off the back of his own head by placing the gun in his mouth, after remarking: "We were just too greedy, baby. That was all." The film ended with stretchers carrying their two bodies off the ship, as Fiona and Nigel sobbed during an embrace on the ship's deck, under a clouded moon.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Francis Ford Coppola lavish, R-rated vampire film, based upon Bram Stoker's novel, was eroticized and visually-opulent.

In the late 1800s, young law-clerk/solicitor-agent Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves), in one of the early scenes in Transylvania, was enticed and seduced by three surreal and alluring Brides (called "devils of the pit") of the dark and brooding Dracula (Gary Oldman). The Brides were played by

• Monica Bellucci
• Michaela Bercu
• Florina Kendrick

In Harker's bedroom as he was retiring for the night, one of the tempting undead Brides emerged from under his bed (Monica Bellucci) and proceeded to rise up (half-naked, bare-breasted) and stroke his inner thighs. A second bride (Florina Kendrick) surfaced up through the mattress. After he was surrounded by the three ravenous creatures, they tore at his clothes, fed upon him (by licking him), and then bit down on his crotch with fanged teeth. They drained him of his blood to keep him weak.

They were interrupted by the sudden appearance of Dracula himself, who jealously and strongly cautioned:

Dracula: "How dare you touch him! He belongs to me..."
One of the Brides: "You yourself never loved."
Dracula: "Yes, I too can love. And I shall love again."
One of the Brides: "Are we to have nothing tonight?"

The Crying Game (1992, UK)

Writer/director Neil Jordan's R-rated sleeper hit political thriller included an infamous, much-talked-about, erotic unveiling and shocking revelation. It has become legendary and famous for its shocking twist, exemplied in one of its ads: "The movie everyone is talking about... But no one is giving away its secrets." The film was advertised by the film's distributor Miramax, urging moviegoers not to reveal the secret twist, although some of the intrigue was softened when actor Jaye Davidson (playing a female) was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor (!) category.

The film's two taglines were: "Play At Your Own Risk," and "Desire is a Danger Zone."

Guilt-ridden, reformed Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer terrorist, kidnapper, and guard Fergus (Stephen Rea) (with the adopted name of "Jimmy") - a fugitive - journeyed to London to befriend the lover of deceased British hostage/soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker) who had been accidentally killed after being taken prisoner. Jody, who was trying to escape from captivity, was hit and run over by a convoy of British army soldiers in Northern Ireland. Fergus had been a message to deliver to Jody's lover Dil (Best Supporting Actor!-nominated Jaye Davidson).

Fergus was pleasantly shocked that the dead man's lover turned out to be a beautiful cabaret-nightclub lip-synch singer/hairdresser named Dil. Dil was known as the 'wee black chick' that Jody loved.

After kissing each other and making out, Dil performed oral sex on Fergus. Fergus then asked about Jody's possible reaction, but Dil avoided the question:

Fergus: "What would he think?"
Dil: "He can't. He's dead. In Ireland."

After going out to a bar to dance, and returning to Dil's place, they kissed some more, and prepared to have intercourse. Dil changed into a robe in the bathroom, and then returned to the bedroom, where Fergus asked: "Would he have minded?" When Dil responded, "No," the red kimono robe was dropped to the floor for a superbly unexpected moment of revelation.

Dil turned out to be both a provocative and exotic female, when her true identity as a transvestite male (rather than as a female) was revealed in the film's major surprise. There was a sexually-disorienting view of Dil's penis -- his true gender and maleness was shown in this surprising full-frontal unveiling. It occurred with a slow camera pan down Dil's nude body to his genitals. But then, Dil realized that Fergus hadn't known: "You did know, didn't you? Oh, my God."

Fergus reacted with repulsion to the sight of his cross-dressing partner: "Jesus, I feel sick," struck Dil, and fled to the bathroom to vomit in the sink. Dil begged: "Don't go, Jimmy. I'm sorry, I thought you knew. What were you doing at the bar if you didn't know?" Then, he realized that Fergus had drawn blood:

Dil: "I'm bleeding. It's all right, Jimmy, I can take it. Just not in the face. You see, I'm not a young thing any longer. Funny the way things go, don't you find that, Jimmy? Never the way you expected."
Fergus/Jimmy: "I'm sorry."
Dil: "You mean that? Don't go. Say something! Jesus!"

[Note: In the same year, Sharon Stone shockingly and visibly revealed her female sex in Basic Instinct (1992).]

Damage (1992) (aka Fatale)

Director Louis Malle's film, based on Josephine Hart's best-seller of the same name published in 1991, was a provocative and complex drama with an intimate exploration of obsessive, kinky and damaging passion and its disturbing results. Its taglines described the plot:

"With love comes risk. With obsession comes damage"
AND
"Damaged people are dangerous"

The mostly unerotic film with urgent and desperate love-making caused a ratings controversy when released and cuts were enforced by the studio.

It told about an illicit and lustful sexual relationship - and a complex, troublesome threesome between:

• Dr. Stephen Fleming (Jeremy Irons), a middle-aged English politician, Parliamentarian who was married to Ingrid (Oscar-nominated Miranda Richardson)
• Anna Barton (Juliette Binoche), melancholy, half-French, art-world follower, also enigmatic and pretty
• Martyn Fleming (Rupert Graves), Dr. Fleming's newspaper-editor son, and Anna's fiancee

The complex threesome, including many sex scenes between the older doctor and Anna, including one seemingly non-erotic intertwining when Dr. Fleming banged his lover's head into the floor. She warned him how she was 'damaged' from a tragic incident earlier in her life involving the suicide of her obsessed, incestuous older brother who was distraught when he couldn't possess her: "Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive."

Sexual Damage: Stephen with Anna (Juliette Binoche)

Everything led to disaster, with Fleming's betrayed and angry wife Ingrid and with everyone involved. When she learned of Fleming's deceit, she stripped in front of him and asked: "Not enough?" In the film's most shocking scene, Martyn was stunned when he caught the two making love during one of their secretive trysts, stepped backward, tumbled and fell to his death many levels below. The death led to Fleming's public disgrace, the end of his marriage and Anna's departure, although he remained obsessed by her image years later.