On movie sex and movie love...

Tag: Michael Douglas

The American President

  • YEAR: 1995
  • DIRECTOR: Rob Reiner
  • KEY ACTORS: Michael Douglas, Annette Bening
  • CERTIFICATE: 15
  • IMDB SCORE: 6.8
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 91%

SEX SCORE: 2/5

✔️ This does pass the Bechdel Test, but it’s one of those passes where the exact conversations that qualify can be listed so it’s not a strong pass!
❌ But I don’t think it’s rewatchable. I don’t mean that it’s not good – I enjoyed it a lot – but I don’t think you could pick it up halfway through and watch from there, and I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to see it again
❌ And I don’t want to fuck the cast. Sorry Michael Douglas, you’re still not for me, although this is much closer than any other movie you’ve done!
✔️ It is sex positive! The plot essentially revolves around whether it is appropriate for the President to have a girlfriend, but any opposition to the relationship is appropriately judged!
❌ It didn’t inspire fantasies so is only getting 2/5, which feels low for a movie I enjoyed. But I simply don’t want to fuck the American President – either in real life (MY EYES!), in the movie or in fantasy.

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Fatal Attraction

  • YEAR: 1987
  • DIRECTOR: Adrian Lyne
  • KEY ACTORS: Glenn Close, Michael Douglas, Anne Archer
  • CERTIFICATE: 18
  • IMBD SCORE: 6.9
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 75%

SEX SCORE: 2/5

✔️ Fatal Attraction does pass the Bechdel Test but it’s described as a ‘weak pass’ as the conversations are very brief and very few!

✔️ And I think it is rewatchable. It’s a tough watch and it’s horrifying, but it stands up to each rewatch and it is still incredibly affecting.

❌ But it is not sex positive. It makes a horror film out of an extramarital affair and highlights the dangers of causal sex without offering an alternate explanation for her actions except that women are crazy and sex outside marriage is dangerous! To quote The Rewatchables, this is ‘fucking with punishment.’

❌ It also didn’t inspire fantasies. I totally get cuckolding fantasies and I love watching my husband with another partner, but this is not it. This is horrifying.

❌ And I don’t want to fuck the cast. Glenn Close is wonderful but her intensity (and perm) are too too much and I literally can’t fancy Michael Douglas. I just don’t see it and never have!

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Basic Instinct

YEAR: 1992
DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven
KEY ACTORS: Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Jeanne Tripplehorn
CERTIFICATE: 18
IMDB SCORE: 6.9
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 53%

SEX SCORE: 3/5
Fails the Bechdel test – none of the female characters speak to each other – and it generally portrays women very poorly…
✔️ I’ve not seen this for years but it definitely stands up to a rewatch and I’d be happy to watch it again so, yes, rewatchable!
✔️ I do think the cast are fuckable but this point comes with a caveat. The sex is hot and Sharon Stone is HOT but I really don’t rate Michael Douglas – as an actor or as an attractive lead. I don’t know why but he does nothing for me. And yet…
✔️ It did inspire fantasies – luckily for my husband, not fantasies of murder or manipulation but of sex that hot and of being a women who was in control her own pleasure. Who wouldn’t want that?
❌ But is it sex positive? Yes, it’s hot and explicit and kinky and mainstream and all about female pleasure but it’s kind of homophobic and the women are awful and sex is used as a weapon or threat and there’s the infamous story about Stone not consenting to the upskirting and I just can’t give it the mark…

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