EW is a magazine that takes itself seriously when it comes to movies. Their reviewers are the sort of people that will swirl their glass of dessert wine before giving you a lecture on French cinema when, really, you’re just in line for the bathroom, man.
When you take this into account, it becomes pretty clear that the majority of what EW’s critics like is going to be obnoxiously artistic and annoyingly socio-political. So much so that EW has become my favorite guide to newly-released movies; I simply go against their advice on a regular basis.
A movie that gets a “C-“ is probably chilled out and fun, whereas the movies that rate an “A-“ usually leave me wanting to dress up as a clown and set myself on fire at a child’s birthday party (which would actually be perfect fodder for the sort of movies that EW likes, provided you filmed the whole thing in black and white and then scored it with a sitar).
So when EW published their list of picks for the 100 Sexiest Movies in Cinema, I figured that what they had really done was compile a list of the movies most likely to slash the tires, shatter the windows, and steal the stereo out of my sex drive. Naturally (since I’m writing about it), it turns out that I was right. Not all of the picks were horrible, and some I hadn’t seen. The rest are below. God help us all.
“Out of Sight”: This movie stars George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in the adaptation of an Elmore Leonard book. For those of you unfamiliar with the author, he’s a quirky sort that has written the same “glitzy California crime romp” roughly 6,000 times. Furthermore, Clooney, in my humble correct opinion, has been the blandest part of all the decent movies he’s been crammed into. And I have never really been able to figure out why Jennifer Lopez is even famous – the only thing remarkable about her is that she’s relatively thin, but manages to have an ass like Reggie Bush. Finally, this movie also features Steve Zahn – enough said. Why I would find the combination of a) Clooney’s smugness, b) Lopez’s wooden delivery, and c) Zahn’s panic as he attempts to be a real actor sexy at all is a mystery.
Sexiness rating: Republican National Convention.
I'd rather not "learn about men" from Cary Grant, if it's all the same to you. Picture ⓒ Columbia.
“His Girl Friday”: this is a 1940 comedy remake of an earlier film – I know, as soon as I wrote that, I started fanning myself and asking if it was getting hot in here. It stars Cary Grant, who my research indicates looks like somebody took John Wayne’s skin and filled it up with mashed potatoes. I can’t imagine what was going on in the minds of the EW staff. I bet it was just a clerical error, where they mixed up “sexy” and “groin punch.”
Sexiness rating: Somewhere between slipping on a banana peel and starving to death at sea.
“Mr. & Mrs. Smith”: This was the movie where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt made infidelity totally cool. This is also the movie that ended with a massive, rotating gunfight in which Pitt and Jolie killed about 30 people in cold blood. The sexiest scene in the movie, I guess, was when they were dancing and both planning to kill each other. At one point, she asks him if that’s a gun or knife or something, and he says that it’s all him. So basically, it’s sexy like an awkward, middle school dance.
Sexiness rating: 6th grade.
“Bull Durham”: Kevin Costner. I should be able to stop right there and have made my point, but I’ll go on and add: Susan Sarandon.
Sexiness rating: Cottage cheese.
“Don’t Look Now”: This is one of Donald Sutherland’s early movies, and was famous at the time for the graphic sex scene. In fact, it’s still rumored to this day that the actors actually had sex. So when you see this movie, you possibly get to see real-life footage of Mark Wahlberg’s father figure in “The Italian Job” banging it out. I’ll understand if you open up a separate window and scurry on over to YouTube.
Sexiness rating: Getting chased by zombies.
“Y Tú Mamá También”: First you have sex with a girl. Then your jealous best friend has sex with that same girl. Then you have sex with your best friend. Then the girl dies from cancer. Sorry for all of those incredibly arousing spoilers.
Sexiness rating: The cautionary STD slideshow in health class.
“Last of the Mohicans”: Now this movie was sexy. Remember that scene where the English captain was burned alive and Hawkeye mercy-kills him? Oh man, and that part where Magua slashed Colonel Munro’s throat after telling him he’s going to kill both of his daughters and wipe his seed from the earth? I’ll tell you, there is nothing sexier than people slaughtering the daylights out of each other. That James Fennimore Cooper was a dirty boy.
Sexiness rating: I’m gettin’ all hot.
“Once”: This is a fairly recent (2007) film about an Irish guitarist and a Czech girl that never have any kind of physical intimacy. To be honest, I fell asleep during this movie, and so I possibly missed a really sexy hand-holding or sandwich-eating scene. It turns out that the 37 year old male lead and the 19 year old female lead fell in love while making this movie, so maybe that’s the sexy part. Because there’s nothing sexier than dating somebody who was eligible to vote when you were just being born.
Sexiness rating: Getting into a car with a stranger.
“Shakespeare in Love”: I actually watched this movie fairly recently, and considered doing a decade-late review of it – it is that ridiculous. Shakespeare wears a ton of eyeliner, which is supposed to make him seem intense, but actually makes him look like a junkie. Gwyneth Paltrow, to me, has always seemed bird-like, and spends more than half the movie wearing a fake mustache. So picture, if you will, an emaciated heroin addict making out with a peacock in drag. Throw in a cameo by loud, hammy Ben Affleck and you have… well, something.
Sexiness rating: Your girlfriend crying.
“The Year of Living Dangerously”: Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver star in this. I’ve never seen it, but in my mind, it’s about Mad Max and Ripley, and they fall in love. And during a tender love scene on the beach, she says “My heart feels like it’s about to beat through my chest,” and then a chest-burster alien actually does pop out of her chest!
Sexiness rating: Like a naked Citizen Kane.
“Notorious”: It turns out that this isn’t a hilariously sexual movie about an obese rap legend and all the beautiful women that are secretly after his “mad cash.” It’s just more Cary Grant bullshit, and another attempt by the EW critics to show how much more cultured and clever than you they are.
Sexiness rating: Waiting in line at the DMV.
“Swimming Pool”: I never did see this, but as far as I can tell, it’s about an old English lady falling for a nubile teenage girl with a French accent, and then there’s a murder. There is literally no way that any of this could be erotically appealing. All of the women in this movie are at the far reaches of the age spectrum, and all the men (from what I can tell) die.
Sexiness rating: Reading “redrum” in the bathroom mirror.
“The Notebook”: This seems like another movie custom-engineered to make girls weep. I haven’t seen it personally, but I do know that it’s about a guy with a beard, and that it’s apparently raining for the entire movie. Also, my research indicates that the movie is chockfull of lines like “I think our love can do anything we want it to.”
Sexiness rating: Throwing up near the port-a-potties at Woodstock.
“Titanic”: In my 7th grade science class, the teacher laughingly explained buoyancy by telling us about how DiCaprio’s body only sank after his lungs filled with water, which made all the guys laugh while all the girls got mad and scrunched up their faces. Additionally, when I saw the famous nude scene Titanic, a) I was with my parents, and b) I desperately needed to pee.
Sexiness rating: Opening your car door to spit in the parking lot.
“Mississippi Masala”: My parents liked this movie. I remember them watching it and talking about it. So please understand when I say that I do not f*cking want this movie to be sexy.
Sexiness rating: Lasting childhood trauma.
“The Age of Innocence”: I liked this book; unlike the majority of the overly emotional pap out there, this is a story about some guy that decides to be responsible and stay with his family, instead of running off with some woman he recently met. At the same time, the focus of the movie is on Newland Archer’s passionate, unconsummated romance with Ellen Olenska. So while it might be an excellent movie, it’s also a Victorian-era film about people in corsets and top hats not doing it. Am I misunderstanding something?
Sexiness rating: A lecture on the advantages and disadvantages of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
“9½ Weeks”: I honestly had always thought that this was a romantic comedy about a pregnant lady. But apparently, it’s about a two people banging a lot, over the course of which Mickey Rourke’s character pushes the woman into a sexual downward spiral. I actually youtubed one of the calmer sex scenes, where Rourke blindfolded the girl and fed her bits of food. Then he fed her a jalapeño, which is exactly what I’d have done as a poorly conceived joke (i.e. not sexy at all). Then he drizzled honey all over her and they did it. I thought was gross, but it turns out that honey is a highly recommended home remedy for yeast infection, so Rourke really showed me.
Sexiness Rating: Cafeteria lady.
Brain bleach, please. Picture ⓒ Paramount.
“The Postman Always Rings Twice”: This movie sounds like a porno, don’t you think? It features Jack Nicholson, who, at his friendliest, looks like a cross between a child molester and a great white shark.
I youtubed this sex scene too, and it’s ugly and violent. There’s nothing appealing about it. Jack Nicholson bullies some lady, and they mess up a kitchen before doing it. Frankly, it reminded me of this.
12 thoughts on “Sexy movies that make you want to stab yourself”
i didn’t know Youtube has uncut sex scenes. other than that. i agree with you. for me, a movie’s sexiness isn’t complete without Clive Owen, no matter how shitty the movie turns out.
i forgot to add “….to be.”
Hey Joe, I like your style! a rule of thumb for me is: run a million miles from any man who finds ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ (the remake) sexy. And fast.
Because there’s nothing sexier than dating somebody who was eligible to vote when you were just being born.
Ouch. He was actually eligible to vote a couple of years before I was born, but you’re probably correct that it wasn’t all that sexy.
It was mildly entertaining to read this, but you’re wasting your time and your talents, dude.
The last movie I considered to be genuinely sexy was Cousin, Cousine. In one absolutely perfect scene, the middle-aged lovers stay for days on end in their hotel room, making love, ordering room service, swapping recipes, clipping toe nails, bathing each other, reading newspapers, giving each other clues about their pasts and hopes for their future. And because it was a French film made in the 1970s, the actors were gloriously and un-self-consciously nude the entire time.
I thought that “His Girl Friday” poster was extremely creepy, until I saw the “Postman…” poster. Euagh.
And is eatbees secretly a dessert wine swishing EW critic? 😉
I like it I like join also
You have a lot of rules about being sexy and most of them seem to be very politically correct ones. Is there no sexual fascination that is at all dark for you or is it all of the responsible, nonsexist, American feminist approved type? It seems to me that the book title “Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream” states perfectly that not all of our fantasies (some of which are set to film) are so correct and that many of our sexiest fantasies (also sometimes set to film) are exciting precisely because they are SO wrong. Art often illuminates what the rest of us are afraid to say aloud. This doesn’t make Art right…but at least we’re talking about the repressed and the forbidden. You seem to delight in tearing down without taking the chance of explaining what you think is sexy; please do sometime.
i didn’t know Youtube has uncut sex scenes. other than that. i agree with you. for me, a movie’s sexiness isn’t complete without Clive Owen, no matter how shitty the movie turns out.
i forgot to add “….to be.”
Hey Joe, I like your style! a rule of thumb for me is: run a million miles from any man who finds ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ (the remake) sexy. And fast.
Because there’s nothing sexier than dating somebody who was eligible to vote when you were just being born.
Ouch. He was actually eligible to vote a couple of years before I was born, but you’re probably correct that it wasn’t all that sexy.
It was mildly entertaining to read this, but you’re wasting your time and your talents, dude.
The last movie I considered to be genuinely sexy was Cousin, Cousine. In one absolutely perfect scene, the middle-aged lovers stay for days on end in their hotel room, making love, ordering room service, swapping recipes, clipping toe nails, bathing each other, reading newspapers, giving each other clues about their pasts and hopes for their future. And because it was a French film made in the 1970s, the actors were gloriously and un-self-consciously nude the entire time.
I thought that “His Girl Friday” poster was extremely creepy, until I saw the “Postman…” poster. Euagh.
And is eatbees secretly a dessert wine swishing EW critic? 😉
I like it I like join also
You have a lot of rules about being sexy and most of them seem to be very politically correct ones. Is there no sexual fascination that is at all dark for you or is it all of the responsible, nonsexist, American feminist approved type? It seems to me that the book title “Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream” states perfectly that not all of our fantasies (some of which are set to film) are so correct and that many of our sexiest fantasies (also sometimes set to film) are exciting precisely because they are SO wrong. Art often illuminates what the rest of us are afraid to say aloud. This doesn’t make Art right…but at least we’re talking about the repressed and the forbidden. You seem to delight in tearing down without taking the chance of explaining what you think is sexy; please do sometime.
Cause skeezy old men scoring with hot young women and dudes getting boners from beating women up are such artistically ground-breaking concepts. Edgy!