I have been told by my shrink to back away from the NY Times Best Selling Books o' Depression* list and to spend a lot more time with movies that will afford me the benefits of that best of medicines, Mr. Laughter.
So what was #1 on my to-do list after being shut in for two weeks? That's right: the new film about Sharon Stone's snatch!
If you've forgotten, it's been 14 years since Miss Stone's snatch first grabbed the spotlight in the original. The premise was ludicrous, the script was ridiculous, the acting was serviceable. And none of it mattered because Sharon and her snatch were magnificent. MAGNIFICENT, I tell you! She was feral and sexy and smart and every single minute she was onscreen, she and her snatch were on fire. You could not look anywhere else. She was the very definition of supahstah!
So 14 years later, L.A. Jan, the world's best sport, and I hauled our own middle-aged snatches to the twilight show at Century City (which is $10.50, now, btw) to see Sharon and her snatch rise again. My short review?
O cruel, cruel time.
Don't get me wrong, Sharon still looks hot. If she's had work done on her face, it's unnoticeable, and her body is smashing. But putting aside the egregious wardrobe and styling, she was like some horrible, tranny cartoon of herself. And in a completely different movie than all of the quiet, in-the-pocket British actors around her. That's the fault of the director in the same way that the LUDICROUS script is the fault of the writer, but the real problem is Miss Sharon Stone, who is too far up (or down) the digestive tract of the Hollywood star machine to be of much use to herself or anyone else.
Friction is good. Having to fight and sometimes even claw your way to things is good. While I hate conflict myself, there is no doubt in my mind that having to clear hurdles of money and time and commitment have made my acting and writing better/stronger/faster. This woman? Clearly, she has no one around her to tell her she looks ridiculous. La Stone and her La Snatch are the buck-naked empress and her royal pussy, borne on a litter of hangers on, wearing horrible clothes, jaw-droppingly awful extensions and acting like a bad Skinemax version of temptress. (Note: the pussy was not wearing extensions; in fact, the pussy was not even in view, as far as I could tell. But this was shot in London, where everything is quite dark, including the police station, the sky and the clothes of all its citizens.)
This is not to say I didn't enjoy Basic Instinct 2. I did. I laughed and winced and was agog at the increasingly implausible turns this movie took. But the overall acting was too good (Charlotte Rampling? HOT! David Thewlis? DOUBLE HOT!) for this movie to achieve high camp. So what you end up with is a good cringeworthy movie, but not the sort of praise-jesus-pass-the-lemonade trash of Valley of the Dolls, Mommie Dearest, or anything made by the Modess corporation introducing young women of the mid-century to the joys of menses.
Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas were the dream team of trash, producing both the original Basic Instinct and that sine qua non of camp, Showgirls. Whether trashy or campy, there was nothing sedate or correct about their films; they were unabashedly, whole-heartedly, gloriously exhuberant, shameless in the pursuit of the idea, cowtowing to no one's idea of correctness.
Today? Pfft. I laughed, I enjoyed, I'd even recommend it as a curiosity. But would I ever watch Miss Stone and her 46 (!) year old snatch again?
Not likely. And not because it's old, but because it's...
zzzzzzzzzzzz....
xxx c
*Thank you, Fred!
Image via IMDb.com
TAGS: Basic Instinct 2, camp, movies, trashy movies