About Schmidt (2002)

Director Alexander Payne's R-rated drama included a landmark, infamous, much-talked about nude hot tub scene.

In the scene, divorced, sexually-liberated, free-spirited, middle-aged, and overweight Roberta Hertzel (Kathy Bates), the mother of the groom-to-be, casually stepped into the tub naked with recently-retired and widowed actuary Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson), the father of the bride.

Bates' real-life, plump, 'earth mother' body type was a strong and courageous contrast to the slim young ones usually exhibited on the screen.

Adaptation. (2002)

Director Spike Jonz' brilliant comedy/drama was often bewildering, twisting and turning.

It opened with the sped-up scene of the evolutionary creation of the cosmos and man from Hollywood (from Four Billion And Forty Years Earlier) to the present that concluded with the close-up of a childbirth.

In the main story, struggling (writer's blocked) screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) shared many scenes with his fictional, freeloading alter-ego twin brother Donald Kaufman (Cage in a dual role). He was working with Columbia Pictures on writing a movie adaptation of New Yorker author Susan Orlean's (Meryl Streep in an against-type role) 1998 nonfiction book The Orchid Thief.

During his efforts to write a simple and acceptable 'Hollywood' screenplay, insomniac Kaufman masturbated while imagining having sex with Susan Orlean from her picture on her book cover (while adapting her book for the screen) and taking her advice:

"I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size."

With his brother Donald, Charlie pursued and spied on her, and discovered her snorting lines of mind-altering, ghost-orchid green extract, getting high, and committing adultery in an extra-marital affair with a secret lover - the real Florida orchid thief John Laroche (Chris Cooper) in his Florida Everglades swamp home. Horticulturalist Laroche and some Seminole Indians were poaching rare ghost-orchids from a Florida State Preserve. After falling in love with Laroche and snorting drugs, Orlean's world-view changed. He posted a topless photograph (doctored!) of Susan Orlean on his pornography website (was it imagined?). At one point, she screamed at Charlie: "YOU FAT PIECE OF S--T!...YOU LOSER. You've ruined my life, YOU FAT F--K." He matter-of-factly replied: "F--K YOU, LADY. You're just a lonely, old, desperate, pathetic DRUG ADDICT."

In the Florida Everlades swamp in the thriller-ending, the two brothers were hotly pursued by Laroche and the adulterous Susan after she madly wanted to kill him for witnessing her drug habit and extra-marital affair. Charlie received profound advice from Donald as they hid behind a stump: "You are what you love, not what loves you." Donald 'died' when thrown through Charlie's car windshield (this extinguished Charlie's alter-ego forever, and gave Charlie new confidence). Laroche was attacked and killed by an alligator, after which Susan madly exclaimed: "I want my life back. I want it back before it all got f--ked up. I want to be a baby again. I want to be new. I WANT TO BE NEW." Orlean was arrested.

Upon his return home, Charlie met with pretty ex-dating partner Amelia Kavan (Cara Seymour) and openly admitted his affection for her by kissing her (with her own confession: "I love you, too, you know"). In the last lines of the film, long-suffering scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman finally realized how to finish his script for The Orchid Thief, after honestly expressing his love for Amelia and for once being filled with hope.

Also in an earlier fantasy scene, Charlie Kaufman had the key-lime pie waitress Alice (Judy Greer) open her top for him out behind the restaurant.

Charlie with Waitress Alice (Judy Greer)

Amadeus (1984) and Amadeus (2002)

In this PG-rated Best Picture winner of 1984, Elizabeth Berridge portrayed playful Constanze Mozart whom the musical prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) chased lustfully around and under a food table during his long-anticipated entrance in the film.

Amadeus (2002) - Director's Cut with Constanze Mozart (Elizabeth Berridge) Half-Naked

A Director's Cut version, with 20 minutes of additional footage (considered superfluous to the main plotline), was released by Milos Forman in 2002.

The longer version was R-rated for its brief nudity and mild profanity - Constanze Mozart briefly displayed topless nudity in a non-sexual context, when she undressed (and became half-naked) in front of competing rival, court composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), as a way to hopefully bribe Salieri into recommending Mozart's work for a royal appointment.

Auto Focus (2002)

Greg Kinnear starred in director Paul Schrader's compelling dramatic biography and cautionary tale of mid-60s Hogan's Heroes sitcom TV star Bob Crane (from 1965-1971). He became the unlikely star of a politically-incorrect WWII prison camp POW comedy - an instant hit. The film was based upon Robert Graysmith's book The Murder of Bob Crane, from a screenplay by Michael Gerbosi. It was edited in post-production to avoid an NC-17 rating.

Crane's self-absorbed and sordid life spiraled out of control due to his rapid stardom and a compulsive addiction to sex - a "very serious conflict here between (his) your lifestyle and (his) your career." He allied himself with John Henry Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a home video salesman and technician, for much of his life, as both found pleasure in strip clubs and extramarital sex (and obsessively recording and viewing their escapades). (Carpenter was a prime suspect in Crane's murder, but was not found guilty.)

First, he hid "shady magazines" such as Nature Girls 1965 ("photography magazines" he claimed) in his garage, then frequented strip clubs, and entered into an 'open marriage' arrangement with one of his Hogan's co-stars Patricia Olson (Maria Bello) (with the professional stage name of Sigrid Valdis), a native Californian of Swedish descent whom he eventually married (in 1970) after an off-screen affair when she appeared as a regular cast member.

In one of Crane's nightmares or fantasy hallucinations during filming of the sitcom, he reimagined a scene in the show with Patricia in a blonde wig and pigtails in the role of Hilda, Col. Klink's sexy blonde secretary. She approached: "I'm ready for you, Hogan...It'll be a modern marriage. Klink and Schultzie can join in too. Come on, Hogan. F--k me right here!" - she stripped down, and reclined on Klink's desk - with her long, fishnet covered legs extended as the Colonel started pawing at her breasts. Carpenter appeared with a hand-held video camera and urged Crane on to engage in the three-way sex sequence: "Go for it, Big Daddy. I got you covered." The conflicted Hogan/Crane was also urged on by his wife and kids, and then had a flashback to when he was 12 years old: "Go balls deep, pop!" He declined: "No, I can't. Klink, tell me what to do. What's the answer?" Klink shouted back: "The answer? We don't have answers. We're Nazis! Dismissed! Dismissed, Hogan!"

Fantasy Re-Enactment of an Episode of Hogan's Heroes - with Patricia as Hilda, Colonel Klink's secretary

Crane also videotaped and took Polaroid pictures of nudes for a scrapbook, filmed sex acts, attended naked pool and house parties, and went about having a penis enlargement operation.

As he was describing (in voice-over) to an interviewer about why he had such a successful marriage, he was seen having sex with various partners, including a threesome:

"Three words: Don't - make - waves. As every sailor knows, when one set of waves meets another set of waves, it can set up some chop. And when three sets of waves come together, it can make for some mighty rough sailing. Also helps sometimes to have a harmless safety valve. So when I get tense, I blow off steam. And so, when it comes to my own family, I don't make waves."

In a scene set at one of the sex parties, Crane photographed a young fan (Kitana Baker), taking her picture as she said "Schmile!" while she lifted her blouse to reveal her breasts to him. He smiled and complimented her: "Really great." He then expressed, in voice-over, his obsession with breasts, during a visual montage of different sizes, varieties and shapes:

"I'm a normal, red-blooded American man. I like to look at naked women. I love breasts, any kind. I love 'em! Boobs, bazooms, balloons, bags, bazongas. The bigger, the better. Nipples like udders, nipples like saucers, big pale rosy-brown nipples. Little bitty baby nipples. Real or fake, what's the difference? I like tits. Who's kidding who? Tits are great!"

He frequently visited strip-bars, where he watched performers such as the Porcelain Twinz (Zero and Zen) (Heather and Amber). Drinking abuses led to indebtedness, particularly after Hogan's Heroes was cancelled in 1971, and he appeared in a show of his own (The Bob Crane Show (1975)) and two awful Disney movies (Superdad (1973) and Gus (1976)).

Everything led, in part, up to his unsolved murder in 1978. The 49 year-old was found beaten to death (and strangled with a video cable or electrical cord) in a Scottsdale, Arizona rented apartment room - murdered when his skull was bashed in by the tripod legs from a video camera that he used to make sex tapes.

8 Mile (2002)

Curtis Hanson's gritty, R-rated semi-autobiographical urban biopic told about a struggling, mid-1990s hip-hop rapper and blue-collar worker in the Detroit area named Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith, Jr. (white song artist Eminem in his acting debut, with the role in the film mirroring his own life). The film was filled with profanities, many found in the lyrics of the performed rap songs.

Jimmy had a horrible living situation, in a dilapidated trailer with three other family members:

• Stephanie Smith (Kim Basinger) - his unstable and alcoholic mother
• Greg Buehl (Michael Shannon) - Stephanie's abusive and younger freeloading boyfriend
• Lily Smith (Chloe Greenfield) - his younger sister

He had broken up with his previous pregnant girlfriend, Janeane (Taryn Manning), and was moving on and interested in a relationship with aspiring model Alexandra "Alex" Latourno (Brittany Murphy). In the film's extremely graphic sex scene (without nudity however), Rabbit and Alex found themselves at lunchtime in his deserted, noisy auto factory plant - although clothed, she opened up her blouse to show her black bra and panties. He caressed her breasts (through her bra), then pulled his pants down and they engaged in sex standing up, with plenty of hot kissing and other action.

As part of the preparation for their intercourse, Alex licked her hand for lubrication and then locked her hips with his as they thrusted into each other. After he orgasmed, she giggled at him and complimented him: "You were so good outside." He asked: "In line at a lunch truck?"

As things turned out, Jimmy found that unfaithful Alex was cheating on him with a DJ named Wink (Eugene Byrd) at a recording studio. Jimmy and beat him up (producing a bloody and broken nose), although Wink's allies, members of a rap group named "The Leaders of the Free World" retaliated against him and gave Jimmy a black eye.

He was victorious by film's end in a hip-hop, rapper group competition (composed of three rounds), performing with his group "Three One Third." He found himself competing one-on-one against a member of the "The Leaders of the Free World" - a rapper named "Papa Doc" (Anthony Mackie). Digging deep into his own life experiences, Jimmy was able to outshine and perform "Papa Doc" and win the competition..

40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)

Screenwriter Rob Perez's romantic comedy and sex farce was semi-autobiographical, although mindlessly foolish. Miramax Studios was confronted by the the Catholic League regarding the film's one-note joke - a "vulgar" depiction of Lent.

In this flat, raunchy and mostly unfunny film, San Francisco dot-com web designer Matt Sullivan (Josh Hartnett) tried to purge his life of any memories of his ex-girlfriend Nicole (Vinessa Shaw), who had broken up with him six months earlier and gone on to date a new boyfriend (who ultimately cheated on her). However, he became obsessed with wanting her back, and suffered from various sexual issues during sex, including the emergence of an imagined black hole ("Have you ever noticed the crack on my ceiling?").

On a date with Susie (Emmanuelle Vaugier), he strapped on a condom during sex with her, but then obviously faked his orgasm with her. She asked quizzically: "What the f--k was that?...You faked it." He feebly replied: "Guys don't fake it. I don't even think that we can." She challenged him to produce evidence of sperm in his condom: "Show me!...The stuff." Matt ran to search for "anything that looks like semen." He tried to fool her into believing his semen had filled the condom - but she knew better and chastized him: "You are such a bad liar."

Faked Orgasm During Date with Susie (Emmanuelle Vaugier)

To resolve his sexual problems, Matt vowed to abstain from sexual activity and contact (including self-gratification) for 40 days and nights for Lent, although his roommate friend Ryan (Paulo Costanzo) considered it unnatural and against nature:

"The male was biologically designed to spread his seed, Matt. You're gonna piss off the seeds, man! You're gonna... It goes against science! You wanna be the guy who goes against science?"

When he became involved with pixie-dream girl Erica Sutton (Shannyn Sossamon), whom he had met in a laundromat, his friend Ryan worried that his sexual inactivity would label him as a "homo." Ryan also doubted, with Matt's co-workers in the dot-com office, that he would be able to hold out for 40 days. They set up an office betting pool that he would fail (and also made efforts to tempt him) - and by the 35th day, the total had reached $18,000 dollars.

A notable erotic scene of intimacy was the one in which Matt, to not break his vow, blew white flower petals across Erica's naked body (down her stomach and then across her panties) as she was lying on her back - it caused her to writhe with pleasure and experience an "immaculate" orgasm without being sexually touched - although it seemed highly improbable. She responded afterwards: "I wasn't supposed to do that, was I?"

In other scenes during his abstinence period, especially as he came closer to the 40th day, he imagined various women semi-nude (on a bus and in a street scene), as he became more and more obsessed about sex ("I'm seeing things! I swear to God, everywhere I look I'm seeing tits and ass"). He described his experience at the coffee shop:

"This morning at the coffee shop they were unofficially sponsoring Hot Women Wearing No Bras Day."

In the film's twist-ending, Matt's ex-girlfriend Nicole (who had left her cheating boyfriend) once again became interested in Matt and tried to win him back, knowing about his 40 day abstinence period and that he was now more desirable. When Nicole found him handcuffed to his bed, she raped him while he was asleep, just before midnight on the 40th day. However, Erica soon realized that Matt had not purposely dishonored her, and they reconciled with an exhaustive, all-day bedroom encounter.

Cabin Fever (2002)

Eli Roth's debut feature film, mostly a gore-fest, told about five college graduates who rented a cabin in the woods in rural North Carolina and became infected by a contagious, flesh-eating disease/virus from drinking contaminated water. An infected homeless hermit (Arie Verveen), set on fire, had expired in the area's reservoir. The film's tagline was the catchy: "Catch It!"

In the film's most infamous, cringe-inducing scene, diseased Marcy (Cerina Vincent) - unaware that the rash she had on her back had become diseased, bubbly and blistered with oozing sores, attempted to shave her soap-lathered, infected legs in the bathtub, causing bloody wounds, skin to come off, and reddish bathwater.

When she emerged outside the cabin, Marcy was torn to pieces (off-screen) by a mad dog (named Dr. Mambo) in the woods - shot from the dog's POV. Her body parts were discovered scattered about, in the reddish-tinged scene.

One of the scariest scenes was one in which blonde Karen (Jordan Ladd) was revealed to be the first one with the illness after drinking the bad water. As her would-be boyfriend Paul (Rider Strong) sexually touched her as she dozed feverish and unconscious, he removed his hand in horror - noticing that it was covered in goopy, infected blood. The skin on her thighs and groin area were rotting.

Paul's (Rider Strong) Horror

Diseased Karen (Jordan Ladd)

Later, after Karen was isolated in a shed outside the house, Paul found the mad dog (Dr. Mambo) feeding on her diseased body. He shot the dog, then put Karen out of her misery by beating her to death with a shovel.

Femme Fatale (2002)

Brian DePalma's work was a compelling, film-noirish erotic crime thriller. The glossy film's opening theft of a gold-plated bodice (with diamonds) wasn't everything that it appeared to be as the plot twisted and became more complex.

The film opened with the blonde title character Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) reflected in the TV glass as she watched (in the nude from her hotel bed) the French subtitled broadcast of the film noir Double Indemnity (1944) - with its classic 'femme fatale' (Barbara Stanwyck) poised to double-cross her male counterpart in the movie's conclusion.

As a mercenary thief, she then participated in a spectacularly sexy heist during the screening of the film Est-Ouest (aka East-West) at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. One of the film's guests was Veronica (Rie Rasmussen), wearing a see-through gold-plated "amazing top in the shape of a serpent" encrusted with 500 diamonds worth over 10 million dollars. The statuesque Laure posed as a photographer and whispered in Veronica's ear to meet her in the ladies room before the show began.

There during a hot bisexual tryst of kissing, stand-up sex and stripping scored to Ravel's "Bolero," the heist of nearly-nude Veronica's serpentine gold-plated bodice took place.

The Sexy Heist in the Ladies Room Between Laure (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and Veronica (Rie Rasmussen)

After the heist, Laure double-crossed her accomplice partners - "Black Tie" (Eriq Ebouaney) and Racine (Édouard Montoute). She met up with her camouflage-wearing brunette girlfriend in Belleville (a suburb outside of Paris) in front of a church [the girlfriend was her partner-in-crime Veronica!]. She was to receive instructions about where she could obtain a passport to leave the country (Room 214 at the Sheraton Hotel). Outside the church, she was photographed by long-haired, in-debt Spanish paparazzo Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas) from his overlooking balcony (in split-screen).

In the church, she was mistaken for a missing, suicidal woman named Lily (also Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), her own look-alike doppelganger. Lily had experienced a "terrible tragedy" (loss of husband Thierry and daughter Brigitte). Laure was trailed by Lily's parents, and eventually ended up in their apartment. Laure decided to impersonate Lily after finding her passport and plane tickets.

When she was taking a soothing soak in an overflowing bathtub (in the apartment of Lily's parents) - she fell asleep (and a dream sequence commenced). A distraught Lily returned and committed suicide with a gun, near a flooding aquarium (hint!). Laure was awakened by the suicide.

To "start a new life" and escape pursuit, Laure appropriated Lily's identity and flew to the US - conveniently meeting businessman Mr. Watts (Peter Coyote) on the plane and subsequently marrying him. By seven years later, the double-crossed partners had tracked down Laure and the stolen diamonds - they learned that she had taken the name of young suicidal, look-alike bereaving mother Lily Watts - the married wife of the American ambassador to France, Bruce Hewitt Watts, living in Paris. She had been forced to return to France when Watts became US Ambassador to France.

She again became involved with long-haired, in-debt Spanish tabloid paparazzo Nicolas Bardo when he took her picture without her permission. Bardo snapped her picture as she exited her car at her new Parisian residence (the photo was printed and posted on billboards), and sold it to tabloids for distribution. Meanwhile, her accomplices saw the photo and joined together to hunt down Laure. They first caught up with brunette Veronica, who was "fencing diamonds," and threw her under a passing truck.

Fearing that her accomplices would recognize her from the photos, femme fatale Laure/Lily sought revenge against Bardo. They met up in Room 214 at the Sheraton Hotel. She manipulated and enticed him, first by non-chalantly stripping to her skimpy underwear in her Paris hotel room (he asked: "Are you flirting with me?" and she replied: "You're so damn lovable"). Then she set him up for charges of stealing her car, and for a kidnapping-for-ransom accusation by the police, aimed at demanding money from her husband (at the Passerelle Debilly Bridge).

First, she suggested having some fun: ("Let's go do somethin' fun, want to?") and invited him into joining her in the basement of a sleazy bar/pool-room. She enticed him by asking: "Hey, how come you're the only man in this room that doesn't want to f--k me?" She then performed a strip-teasing dance to arouse his angry jealousy in the room, before making vigorous love to him (she told him as she bent over: "You don't have to lick my ass...just f--k me"). During the love-making, he recorded her admission of her treacherous guilt in the staging of the kidnapping-ransom plot: ("I made everybody think you kidnapped me, so I could screw my husband out of 10 million bucks").

At the Seine River bridge rendezvous at 2 am, the ransom-exchange plot went sour when Bardo sabotaged the scheme. Laure/Lily was forced to execute her husband Bruce ("I was just being careful") and then wounded Bardo. She was attacked from behind by ex-accomplice Black Tie ("F--king over everyone again, hmm, not this time!"), who threw her from the bridge into the cold waters of the Seine River - where she was shocked into reality -- the dream ended. Revived by the icy-cold water, the completely-naked Laure 'awoke' from her dream in an overflowing bathtub.

Her suicidal doppelganger Lily entered the apartment again, but this time, Laure warned Lily about killing herself and gave her a second chance to change her future - and her own.

"I'm your f--king fairy godmother, and I just dreamt your future. And mine too. And all I know is, if there's a snowball's chance in hell of any of that s--t happening, we're gonna change it right here."

She encouraged Lily to take the plane to America, and sit next to "good guy" Bruce Watts who would "fall in love" with her. Lily chose life, and hitched a ride to the airport with a truckdriver, to whom she gave a reflective glass-ball necklace to remember the man's 10 year-old daughter ("when you're on the road, your little girl will always be with you").

Seven years later, once again paparazzo Bardo was asked to get a picture of the new US Ambassador to France with his three children and wife. He again photographed Laure at an outdoor cafe giving a $4 million share to girlfriend Veronica after slowly fencing off the diamonds they had stolen together. Laure's and Veronica's theft of $10 million was successful and skillful with a bait-and-switch tactic when replayed.

Veronica was again pursued on the street by the two double-crossed criminals, but this time, the crooks lost their lives when a truckdriver (in the same truck that had killed Veronica in Laure's dream, that also had the glass-ball necklace swinging from its rear-view mirror, who was blinded momentarily with a flash of sunlight reflecting from Laure's shiny case into the piece of jewelry) veered into them and impaled them on a spiked, loading truck gate.

After witnessing the accident, Bardo assisted a shaken-up Laure and asked: "Haven't we met before somewhere?" - she replied honestly: "Only in my dreams."

The Heart of Me (2002, UK/Germany)

This richly-appointed BBC period, marital costume-drama by director Thaddeus O'Sullivan was based on Rosamond Lehmann's 1953 novel The Echoing Grove. The main melodramatic storyline was about a torrid, adulterous and passionate affair that almost destroyed two sisters. Its tagline referred to the promiscuous relationship of one sibling with her sister's husband:

Passion Brought Them Together, Love Will Tear Them Apart.

The very-British film opened in 1934 in London - after the funeral services for a family patriarch who was survived by his regal and proper wife Mrs. Burkett (Eleanor Bron). After the ceremony, the patriarch's unmarried daughter was invited to stay with her married sister's family in their townhouse.

The two estranged, polar-opposite sisters who became involved in a destructive love-triangle (and sibling rivalry) were:

• Dinah (Helena Bonham Carter) - unmarried, self-centered, sensual, unconventional and free-spirited, an artistic-bohemian painter
• Madeleine (Olivia Williams) - a prim, cold, dispassionate, repressed and proper housewife, and the less favored child of her father; she was unhappily married to wealthy and handsome Rickie (Paul Bettany), with one son named Anthony (Luke Newberry)

Although wishing to be loyal to his wife, Rickie was magnetically attracted to Dinah for her independent streak and lack of convention. When he found out that his true love Dinah was engaged to marry a dullard in a loveless marriage, he privately went to Dinah's bedroom to dissuade her - he ordered her to break it off: "You are not going through with this. Break it off."

Dinah manipulatively entered into a sizzling, volatile, all-consuming and destructive affair over a decade's time (told in flashback from 1946 looking back) with her sister's businessman husband - her brother-in-law, ignited by sex outdoors in the bushes at midnight during a New Years' Eve celebration. Complications involved Dinah's pregnancy by Rickie and a resultant still-born birth, and Rickie's injurious car accident on the way to see Dinah. The affair ended, but was briefly revived before it ended for good.

In the downbeat ending set during WWII about 10 years later, after a number of deaths, the two sisters were left to contemplate their lives - and face reconciliation and forgiveness with each other:

• son Anthony's death in battle
• Rickie's death, who was caught during an air raid and died - he had ordered an engraved bracelet for his true love Dinah, inscribed with: ("And throughout all eternity, I forgive you and you forgive me" - a line from the William Blake poem My Spectre Around Me Night and Day)

However, Madeleine could be consoled by the fact of having a daughter with Rickie, who hatefully and passionately ripped off her clothes and impregnated her as she cried out: "You're hurting me!"

Irreversible (2002, Fr.)

Frenchman writer/director Gaspar Noe's hard-hitting, graphic, profoundly disturbing and violent film about rape revenge, was non-linear - it was told in flashback and reverse order in continuously-filmed takes, similar in structure to Christopher Nolan's Memento, with the theme: "Time destroys everything." The fatalistically-tinged film implied that the characters in the film were predestined (irreversibly) to face what would happen to them. It was noted for its excruciatingly-long, painful-to-watch, nine-minute anal-rape and real-time beating sequence.

It was also revealed that the film deliberately caused nausea, vertigo and unease in the viewer (and provoked many walk-outs) through two techniques:

• the opening 30 minute's low-frequency bass drone (almost inaudible), was accompanied by a wildly moving, shaking, and bobbing camera
• during the opening credits, there was an excessive use of stroboscopic lights (warnings were required to be displayed on the poster and DVD box)

In a Parisian pedestrian underpass lit by a reddish glow, beautiful and erotically sexual Alexandra (or "Alex") (Monica Bellucci), earlier seen being flirtatious in a revealing dress while dancing, accidentally came upon rapist/pimp Le Tenia/Tapeworm (Jo Prestia) beating up transvestite prostitute Concha (Jaramillo) in the tunnel. She found herself to be his new victim.

When she was assaulted by him, she begged to no avail: "Let me go." He ordered: "Shut your mouth, slut" as he threatened with a knife: "Is this what you want, slut? You gonna shut your mouth now?" He called her a "f--king high-class bitch," causing her terror when he stroked her face with the blade: "Stinking c--t. This turn you on, tell me?...You know, you're hot for a c--t."

He then lifted her skirt, forced her onto her knees to lay down, and then coerced her: "I'm gonna take care of you." He laid on top of her, covered her mouth, pulled on her hair and began to prepare to anally rape her: "Damn! You must have one tight ass." He untied her dress straps, stroked her bare breast, called her a "little whore," and threatened to strangle her if she didn't keep quiet. He commanded her to spread her legs, told her "I'm gonna f--k your ass...I'm gonna blast your s--thole," and then raped her while using one hand to cover up her muffled screams and moans.

As he endlessly thrust into her, he continued to call her foul names ("F--king high-class swine"), and asked: "You bleeding or you wet?" Afterwards, she attempted to crawl away, and he kicked her in the face ("I'm gonna fix your face, I'm gonna fix it good"), beat her with his fist, and smashed her face into the pavement until she went into a coma. He pronounced her "dead meat" when he was finished with her.

The Nine-Minute, Real-Time Rape Sequence in an Underpass Tunnel

After that, Alex's boyfriend Marcus (Vincent Cassel, Bellucci's real-life husband) and Alex's ex-boyfriend Pierre (Albert Dupontel) searched through the dingy underworld of Paris, looking for and eventually brutally beating the suspected rapist. Pierre rescued his friend Marcus from assault (although his arm was broken) by the suspected rapist known as Le Tenia ("The Tapeworm") (Jo Prestia).

There was the horrific, violent and vengeful retaliatory scene of the man getting his head beaten to a pulp with a fire extinguisher in a gay S&M night-club bar called The Rectum. The suspect's head was repeatedly smashed with dull, crunching blows from a fire extinguisher until it became a bloody pulp and the individual expired. The rapist apparently witnessed the beating, while an innocent man was the grisly victim of the bludgeoning assault.

[Note: The victim of the lethal beating, not known until later, was not La Tenia - who watched from nearby.]

Also earlier in the chronology (the film's final scene) was a love-making (or spooning) scene of Alex with boyfriend Marcus. She had explained earlier to her friends during a subway ride the secret to love-making pleasure - it was a turn-off for a man to be too focused on a woman's pleasure:

"Sometimes, a woman's pleasure is the pleasure that a man feels. And if I feel that the guy isn't coming, isn't also feeling pleasure...if I sense that the man isn't also feeling pleasure...I can't come."

As Alex and Marcus laid together in bed after awakening, she described a foreshadowing dream of a red-lit tunnel which broke into two. She also said she was a few days late with her period (it was soon learned that she was pregnant with Marcus' child). They got up for a few moments and danced naked in the living room, then returned to the bedroom after Marcus told her: "I wanna f--k your ass" - almost the exact same words used by the rapist.

While sharing a cigarette, she asked: "What if I'm pregnant?" He smiled: "That'd be fun," and they laughed together as he kissed her nipple. Realizing she was behind schedule, she showered instead of making love. He kissed her through and then behind the transparent shower curtain before he briefly left.

She decided to perform a simple 'Nataltest' upon herself - in the toilet, she urinated on a test strip and it surprisingly revealed that she was pregnant. She pondered what it would mean as she sat on the sofa and touched her belly.

One of the film's final images was of Alex holding her swelling belly on a bed, below a wall poster of the foetal 'Star-Child' in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (with "The Ultimate Trip" tagline). The camera also soared into the blue sky, and then settled on her sunbathing on a blanket on a vibrantly green park lawn, where the camera then circled dizzingly above a lawn sprinkler as children pranced through the water.

Ken Park (2002)

This was another controversial film from co-director Larry Clark, in which the director was accused of exploiting young teens and lasciviously filming unsimulated sex. Clark's film was banned in Australia, and never issued in wide release in the US. Its plot was about four dysfunctional, abusive families in Visalia, California and their teenaged skateboarders, with themes of teenage suicide and wild sexual experimentation. The film also included other scenes of graphic oral and masturbatory sex and nudity, violence, suicide and incest.

It opened with the suicidal death of red-haired, freckled teen skateboarder Ken Park (Adam Chubbuck) in a Visalia, California park, when he pulled out a gun from his pack and blew his brains out.

The Suicidal Death of Ken Park

In one of the scenes, scrawny teen Shawn (James Bullard) made out with his girlfriend Hannah's breast-enhanced mother Rhonda (Maeve Quinlan). They both fondled each other through their underpants, and then after being excited and getting wet, she asked: "Take my panties off." He provided her with oral sex, too fast at first when she requested: "Slow." As he pleasured her, she removed her bra, and further instructed him to speed up by guiding his head until she experienced an orgasm:

"Go just a little faster. Yeah, that's it. Right there. Move with my hips. There you go. Oh, s--t, s--t. Good boy, Shawn. That's a good boy. Oh my God, keep licking."

[Note: The image of the two of them engaged in sex was often displayed, in part, on the film's video/DVD cover and poster.]

She let him rest his head between her breasts. After she bathed in a tub (as he laid back smoking a cigarette in bed), she kissed him while massaging him (inside his underpants), when he asked: "Whose dick is bigger, mine or Bob's?" She smiled and laughed: "Yours."

In one controversially-graphic scene of auto-erotic self-asphyxiation designed to increase his own sexual arousal, death-obsessed, masturbation-addicted, sociopathic parent-less teenager Tate (James Ransone), who wore a T-shirt saying "Keep it Simple," choked himself with a long green dressing gown belt tied to a doorknob while he pleasured himself (to climax) watching Anna Kournikova playing tennis. He had earlier killed his doting, smothering grandparents that he was living with - murdering them during a scrabble game - also for purposes of sexual arousal.

The film ended with an idyllic sex orgy scene between a trio of teenagers (Tiffany Limos as nymphomaniac Peaches, Stephen Jasso as abused Claude, and Shawn) in which they were in both give-and-take positions - seeking refuge from their troubled lives.

Clark's Infamous Three-Way Teen Sex Scene Between Peaches (Tiffany Limos), Claude (Stephen Jasso) and Shawn (James Bullard)

Killing Me Softly (2002)

Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige's English-language film debut was this steamy, erotic thriller of sordid, obsessive, and dangerous attraction. It was a direct-to-video release with various versions (depending on ratings). The story was told in flashback, as the main protagonist brought charges of domestic violence against her husband.

In early 2001, blue-eyed blonde and Indiana-bred Alice Loudon (Heather Graham), a self-professed "flatlander" with "virtually no family and very few friends," had been living and working in London for a year and a half in a "comfortable" and "safe" relationship with boyfriend-engineer Jake (Jason Hughes). She was a well-paid designer of CD-ROMs and websites for corporate clients.

On her way to work at a cross-walk signal, after becoming love-struck by the sight of a handsome, seductive and brooding stranger on the street, she trailed him during a lunch break to a Summit Books shop, accompanied him in a car, and went to his residence (actually, the residence of his sister Deborah (Natascha McElhone)) where he grabbed her from behind before they made passionate love.

Wordless Sexual Attraction

He forcefully grabbed her through her clothing and they engaged in heated and fiercely passionate love-making. He ripped open the front of her dress, pulled down her bra, and hungrily kissed and grabbed her naked breasts. Their clothes dropped to the floor, and he carried her naked into the living room, where they had intercourse on a red rug - she rolled him over and continued to make love to him.

Their First Sexual Encounter: Adam Tallis with Alice Loudon

Afterwards, he invited her to return for more - "Whenever you want, Alice. You decide and I'll be here." In voice-over, she recalled the passion that she felt that she couldn't duplicate with her boyfriend: "I couldn't believe what had happened that day. I knew it shouldn't happen again. I wanted everything back the way it was."

After a heated romance and lots of fierce love-making with the stranger, Alice then found out his name and identity from a bookstore display - he was celebrity mountain climber Adam Tallis (Joseph Fiennes), who two years earlier had lost his girlfriend Francoise Collette when he failed to save their climbing group of six people on a mountainside over 20,000 feet. Alice bought a book about the studly climber and returned for more love-making, begging: "Please don't stop." He described the sensation that he was still feeling after he was unable to rescue the group, including his lover: "Without air, the brain cells die. It shuts down, and then the rest of the body follows. It's been two years. and it doesn't go away."

Although Jake considered them "perfect together," Alice impulsively left her boyfriend: ("I can't go on like this, I'm sorry. I have to leave...I didn't mean to hurt you"), claiming that she had met someone. After ditching Jake that same evening, she marched over to Adam's 'residence' and was stunned when the door was answered by a female, who claimed she had returned after climbing in Chile - she identified herself as Adam's sister Deborah (Natascha McElhone). During her absence while she was gone, Adam had stayed at her home during renovations at his place. She knew of Adam's love for Alice: "I can see why he'd fall so hard for you."

Adam's Sister Deborah (Natascha McElhone) in Adam's "Residence"

Alice's Girlfriend Sylvie (Amy Robbins)

Alice risked everything when she decided to move in with Adam. Alice's concerned girlfriend Sylvie (Amy Robbins) (who later moved in with her "jilted boyfriend" Jake whom she had known for 15 years) told her that her abandoned boyfriend was "completely f--ked up...you had somebody who loved you. You loved each other and you let him go for good sex. Love isn't just a good f--k, you know." Suddenly while walking along the street, Alice was mugged by a knife-wielding thief and fortuitously, Adam witnessed the attack, pursued the assailant, and beat him to a pulp - and then impulsively proposed: "I'll always be here, Alice...I'll protect you. Say you believe me....Marry me. The sooner the better. Tomorrow. The day after, as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, Alice had been receiving numerous warning signs (that she initially ignored) about Adam's character: mysterious hang-up phone calls, and an anonymous typed letter asking: "USE YOUR HEAD, ALICE - WHAT DO YOU REALLY KNOW ABOUT HIM?"

Alice accepted Adam's marriage proposal, and they were married in St. Edmund's Church, his family church. After the brief ceremony, she exuberantly changed out of her wedding clothes in the nearby church graveyard in front of an angel stone statue - and he took Polaroid pictures of her after she stripped naked ("I need to remember you like this," he claimed), before they went on a lengthy hike ("his idea of romance").

At the end of their hiking trail, - for their honeymoon - the couple ended up in a secluded stone cabin with a roaring fire - where he introduced her to S&M bondage and displayed a fetish for erotic asphyxiation with a silk scarf wrapped tightly around her neck as they made love. He asked: "Do you trust me?" In voice-over, she recalled: "I gave up all control. I let him decide when I could breathe and when I couldn't. I loved it."

During Honeymoon in Cabin, Adam's Fetish for S&M Bondage With Silk Scarf

After returning to London, the Guardian's Weekend Magazine reporter, Joanna Noble (Yasmin Bannerman), published an article (February 3, 2001) she had written praising Adam as a hero, titled: "SAINT OF THE HIMALAYAS?" - and Alice was thrilled. But then, she received another more troubling typewritten note: "IT WAS A MISTAKE TO MARRY HIM." Deborah gifted Alice with a necklace at a tribute party for Adam at the British Federation of Mountaineering.

Deborah's Gift of a Necklace to Alice

Reporter Joanna's Threatening Note

Reporter Joanna also received a similar note about her article and sent it by fax to Alice: "What you wrote made me SICK - Your BIG HERO, Adam Tallis, RAPED ME - 20.10.1989. Why don't you Try reporting the TRUTH!" A second page of the scrawled note suggested calling the rape victim from 12 years earlier, Michelle Stowe (Rebecca Palmer) and provided the phone number.

Adam's character and his past were again called into question. Suspicious, distrustful and inquisitive of her husband's potentially-violent and secretive past life, Alice began an intensive inquiry into Adam's ex-girlfriends and relationships, and found some disturbing facts and similarities - first, an alleged rape (unreported) of Michelle Stowe. Immediately after receiving Joanna's note, Alice unofficially impersonated the Guardian reporter and interviewed the victim in her apartment - she learned all the details of the alleged sexual assault, to satisfy her own "innocent curiosity." At a dance, the drunk Michelle was taken outside, dragged into bushes by Adam and raped. Adam non-chalantly told her: ""It's only sex. Just sex," and then left the party with his sister. Her curiosity grew: "I needed to know more."

Suspicious and inquisitive, she went snooping into a locked closet in Adam's bedroom, discovering a letter from Adele Blanchard (living on Marchmont Rd. in London), one of his past adulterous lovers who decided to return to her husband Michael and leave Adam after "living on the edge" during her affair with him. Distrustful, Alice began to fear potentially-violent and unpredictable tendencies in Adam's nature. While reading the letter in a very tense suspenseful sequence, Adam returned home while she rushed to relock the closet door. When Alice directly asked Adam about the alleged rape of Michelle, he denied it: "Didn't happen, Alice. I never raped her....I've known her since we were kids. I think she saw me as a way out."

Adam's Ex-Girlfriend Adele's Incriminating Scrapbook With A Similar Polariod Picture in Graveyard

A third parcel delivered to Alice's door (with the silk scarf) and a typewritten note read: "HOW FAR WILL YOU LET HIM GO, ALICE?" A further search for Adele Blanchard, took Alice by train to a London suburb, where Adele's mother (Kika Markham) revealed that she had been missing for eight months, and there as an on-going investigation. She also learned through Adele's scrapbook that there were disturbing facts and similarities in Adele's life before she disappeared. Adele had her Polaroid picture taken in the nude next to a stone statue of an angel in the church graveyard - the last picture of her before she died. The mother also said that Adam had recently called asking about the case and was arriving shortly for dinner. She fled in a panic after stealing the picture.

When the nerves-frazzled and spooked Alice returned home, Adam was quietly awaiting her in the dark. He tied her up in a spread-eagled position with thick rope on the kitchen table and claimed: "I'm making you mine." Due to her suspicious sneaking around, he wrongly thought that she had been with another man. After she confessed that she had found and read Adele's letters, he asserted: "I have nothing to hide, Alice." She justified her reason for checking up on him: "I just thought if I knew more, that I could love you more." He responded: "I could break your neck, I love you so much."

After being untied, she fled from the house via and window and latter and ran barefooted to escape. Frustrated after not catching up to her, Adam returned home. In the next scene set in a police station, Alice brought charges of "domestic violence" against Adam, but without any evidence, her unsubstantiated claims couldn't be acted upon. She thought that Adam had killed Adele in the missing persons Blanchard case for threatening to abandon him, and that Adam had raped Michelle, although the incident was unreported. To her astonishment, she learned that a concerned Adam was currently in a nearby police interrogation room reporting how Alice had run off without her shoes and was acting in a disturbed, shaken-up manner.

Avoiding her own home, Alice shared her fears and suspicions with Adam's sister Deborah, about how she suspected that Adam had killed his lover Francoise while climbing a few years earlier, making it look like a tragic accident after he learned that she was cheating on him and was planning to leave him. Deborah responded: "Maybe" - that it was a real possibility that Adam switched Francoise's rope-anchor with a cheaper, less-reliable one that caused the fatal accident. Deborah urged Alice to save and protect herself from suffering the same fate at the hands of her violent brother: "Leave him, Alice. I know him." Alice added how Adam had also possibly killed Adele for threatening to leave him and then after snapping pictures of her, he buried her body in the cemetery at St. Edmund's Church. Alice suggested that Deborah accompany her to go to the church's cemetery to look for Adele's body.

On the drive to the snowy graveyard cemetery in the film's tense and exciting climax, Deborah confessed that she had sent all the warning notes to alert Alice to Adam's violent nature: "I sent you those notes. I know about my brother's violence. I've seen it....I'm glad you got away from him, Alice. You'll be OK now."

With shovels, the two entered the church cemetery close to where Adam and Alice were married. Near the angel stone statue, Alice and Deborah dug in the earth, and Alice discovered Adele's buried corpse with a telltale necklace similar to the one that Deborah had given Alice. Deborah explained how Adele didn't have to die, if she had only gone back to her husband.

As it turned out, Adam was NOT guilty of any of the charges related to Michelle, Adele or Francoise. Deborah confessed her motivation for committing all of the murders - a combination of possessiveness, protective jealousy, incestual desire, and revenge against her brother Adam's lovers, after he had raped her in the graveyard when they were teenaged kids: "Who do you think gave him his first piece of silk? He was just 15! I'm talking about f--king, Alice. That's right. We f--ked right here. Adam is mine! He's mine!"

After deducing where the two had gone, Adam arrived just in time to save Alice as she fought against Deborah. Deborah grabbed a shovel to strike Adam from behind in the head. With a flare gun, Alice shot Deborah in the stomach and killed her, and she died looking into her brother's eyes. Adam confessed to Alice: "She and I. We used to come here together. I just thought you had to trust me."

The next morning, Adam was taken away by the police. An ending voice-over summary by Alice reflected back:

"And that's how it ended. Yet not a day goes by without at least one thought about the passion. Maybe I was so blinded by it that I missed all the clues to his past. I often wonder what would have happened if I hadn't looked up that morning. Two years later, I saw him once more. I don't know. Maybe a flatlander like me can't live at that altitude. Maybe it never would have been possible to sustain what we had. Maybe. Well, that's what I tell myself."

It was presumed that Alice had divorced Adam, and saw him only once more two years later as they wordlessly passed each other on escalators at the airport. She slightly wondered what would have happened if they had remained together - would their passion have continued?

Laurel Canyon (2002)

Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko's R-rated romantic drama featured Frances McDormand as Jane, a rock-music producer and a free-spirited hippie parent to her son, recently-graduated Harvard medical school resident psychiatrist Sam (Christian Bale).

In the film's opening sex scene, Sam and his strait-laced and virtuous fiancee Alex (Kate Beckinsale) were engaged in awkward love-making, consisting of Alex verbally providing specific instructions during his performance of oral sex - she ordered: "F--k me!" which then commenced, but they were interrupted by a call from her future mother-in-law. She orgasmed, but all he could say was: "I'm OK" as he sat up unsatisfied.

When the couple came to live in the Laurel Canyon section of LA, they unexpectedly found that Jane was still living in her house, although it was supposed to be vacant. Jane was experiencing a passionate romance with boyfriend/musician Ian McKnight (Alessandro Nivola).

The film included a threesome scene of Jane skinny-dipping with Ian and Alex (in her underwear) in the pool, with the two females sharing an open-mouthed kiss. This marked the beginning of Alex's shedding of her inhibitions. Another sexual trysting in a hotel suite's bedroom between the three of them was discovered by Sam, who was hypocritically enraged.

Meanwhile, Sam was beginning to have feelings for fellow resident Sara (Natascha McElhone), hiding their relationship from Alex.

The Magdalene Sisters (2002, UK/Ire.)

Scottish writer/director Peter Mullan's second feature film, a severe melodrama, was denounced by the Catholic League for its semi-historical depiction of religious and sexual repression in Ireland during the 1960s. Several of the actual victims of the Magdalene laundries in Sex in a Cold Climate (1997), Steve Humphries' TV documentary, were interviewed about their ordeal.

The docu-drama told a barbaric and scandalous story of three Irish girls, abandoned by society, cast out by their families, and treated as slaves at Magdalene Sanctuary run by the Sisters of Mercy. The "fallen" young ladies who had committed mortal sin were considered immoral, or impure (for being flirtatious, or for being raped or having an illegitimate child). Shy red-head Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) was raped in an attic during a local dance by her cousin, and was incarcerated for naming her attacker. Unwed mother Rose/Patricia (Dorothy Duffy) gave birth to a child out of wedlock and was forced to give up the child. And orphan Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) was accused of being too cute as a smiling temptress and was therefore in mortal danger.

The trio of sexual troublemakers ("fallen" women) were brutalized, sexually humiliated, subsisted on bowls of oatmeal-slop, and lectured on the evils of the flesh by a group of Catholic nuns and priests in the prison-like confines. Soft-spoken saintly Sister Bridget (Geraldine McEwan) was actually cruel, callous, sadistic and tyrannical. The women were told that they could redeem themselves in the convent laundry service or workhouse, "working beyond human endurance to remove the stains of the sins" they allegedly committed, for 8-10 hours a day, 7 days a week. The three girls defied a century of injustice, lack of rights, dysfunctional sexual control, and no privacy to free themselves from the asylum.

The Humiliating Nude Lineup
Left image: Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff), 2nd from left Crispina (Eileen Walsh), 5th from left Rose/Patricia (Dorothy Duffy), 6th from left Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) 7th from left

Its most notorious scene showed a lineup of naked girls stripped as they stood before the cold-hearted nuns before tea-time. They were inspected and compared by various bodily criteria (the smallest and largest breasts, biggest behind, and hairiest private parts). One of the disdainful nuns chided, demeaned and ridiculed the nude subjects:

- "Some of you could do with cuttin' down on the potatoes. Arms by your side....Frances, you know, I never noticed before, but not only do you have the tiniest little breasts I've ever seen, but you got no nipples. Do you see that? It can't be natural, girls. We're all agreed. Frances has the littliest breasts, but who's got the biggest?"
- "I'd say it was Patricia."
- "No, she's just broad in the back. Turn around, Patricia. See, she's just big in the back. Patricia, you have a brickie's (bricklayer's) back. A couple of tattoos and you could pass yourself off as a navy (sailor). No, biggest breasts definitely have to go to Cecilia. Give yourself a round of applause, Cecilia. (Cecilia applauds herself.) Good girl. So we've covered biggest breasts, littliest breasts, biggest bottom. So that only leaves us with the hairiest. Crispina, step forward, and Bernadette, step forward. Stand beside each other. Crispina, get your hands away from there! Get them away. Bernadette, you have more hair down there than you have on your head. But the winner is... Crispina. Crispina, you've won. Why are you crying?"
- "I don't know, sister."
- "Well, neither do I. It's a game. Ah, put your clothes on, the lot of ya. It's time for tea."