Amazon.com: Frequently given short shrift as a blue movie (which it is) and as mindless (which it isn't), director Adrian Lyne's follow-up to Flashdance (insert own joke here) is a thoughtful, smutty film about a bad sexual relationship. It follows the two-month affair between Elizabeth, an art-gallery dealer, and John, a Wall Street exec. The relationship spirals downward into raunchier sex (filmed, by the way, quite nicely) but principally is about two adults doing adult things but not acting anything like real adults. Attempts at actual human connection, about the longing to be "good," are present here and make this an above-average erotic film. Rourke is just honing his scumbag, bad-boy persona; but it doesn't overwhelm. Lots and lots of Kim Basinger. --Keith Simanton
Smoking Hot! I had always heard about this movie, but had never seen it until recently. All I can say is Wow! Erotic, passionate, thrilling, sexy. It did not dissapoint my husband and I. I recommend it for adult couples who want to be teased and intrigued. Mickey Rourke is both sexy and scary and fascinating. You do not know what his intentions are, whether he is going to hurt Kim, or Kill her or just make love to her! And Kim Basinger is so adorable, vulnerable, sexy and amazing. The refrigerator scene is my favorite. I dont recommend you watch this with children under the age of 18. Its too STEAMY! I recommend Adults add this one to their DVD collection and watch the sparks fly!
Looking for Mickey Rourke I was 14 when I saw this for the first time (1986). I knew of both the actors, Mickey Rourke from Rumble Fish and Kim Basinger from Never Say Never Again but I saw the movie because I'd read that John Taylor from Duran Duran had written a song specifically for the soundtrack and I loved him. Mickey Rourke woke me from my childhood crush and caused a lot of problems for me as I went search for my own private Rourke. The soundtrack carries the film, as does the cruelness of Mickey Rourke's character and game playing.
Then and now, The best movie after movies. Mickey Rourke in my humble opinion has always been ahead of times, the Actor who displayed his talent in 1986 and rocking the industry ever since like todays 2005 Sin City and many more films coming up. This film was simply a great movie, Kim is amazing and the director had done his homework keeping this movie on point with such mystery and endless topics one can talk about. Amazon.com delievers fast and I gotta tell ya, this is the ultimate film among many of his work!
Excellent DVD Luved the movie from the moment I saw it. Mickey Rourke and Kim Bassinger are excellent together. This movie is a gem.
It's not about sex--it's about sensuality. Most of the reviews here are by people who were evidently expecting a soft-porn sex movie, and their disappointment tells more about them than the movie. They miss the point by focusing only on the BDSM in the relationship between Elizabeth (Kim Basinger) and John (Mickey Rourke). There is a serious, well-told story here that people apparently obsessed with sex seem to miss.
The movie actually has three narrative perspectives that run concurrently through the film: the evolving relationship between Elizabeth and John; the evolving relationship between Elizabeth and the reclusive artist Farnsworth; and Elizabeth's interactions in NY art circles through her work at a gallery. In the first, John, who wears nothing but black suits and white shirts and lives in a colorless and impersonal apartment, is shown to be able to feel nothing except through extreme forms of sexual expression. In the second, Elizabeth gradually comprehends the mystical revelry of pure sensation--Farnsworth examining the fish he has caught--that also comes through in his painting. The last--Elizabeth's art world--is the intersection of the two, between the art of pure sensation and the artifice of society and its conventions. In the film, Elizabeth grows in all three narrative worlds and in the end achieves a kind of liberation of self, demonstrated by simply leaving John.
The film's photography is gorgeous, using darkness and rays of light to set the shifting contexts of sensuality and sensation throughout. Rourke and Basinger are both superb in their roles--John who is painfully frozen in his incapacity to feel, and Elizabeth who grows visibly in self awareness over the course of the film.
This is a spellbinding, provocative and deeply humanistic movie about how we sense the world. It bears repeated watching.
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