Sooner or later someone had to start this thread, so I figured it might as well be me!
There are some movies in which it is important, for reasons of plot or characterization, that a performer appear nude or semi-nude. There are other movies in which such scenes are not exactly necessary, but they add a little spice. And then there are movies where it’s just funny. I’m not talking intentionally funny, like in Waking Ned Devine or even the Austin Powers films. No, I mean unintentional hilarity, things like obvious use of body doubles, performers who should have used body doubles, or nude scenes that tried too hard to be erotic/edgy/shocking to be anything other than comical.
Here are my two favorites, ones that actually made me laugh out loud when I saw them for the first time:
The Hunger. Early in the film, David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve, then 36 and 40, have a shower scene that I actually thought was pretty hot…at first. “Tasteful, yet erotic,” I thought. “So many movies would have just spliced in some T&A from much younger body doubles, but…oh. There is it.” Okay, I realize that their characters were vampires, and both Bowie and Deneuve did (and for that matter still do!) look great for their age, but I didn’t buy that either had the butt of a 20-year-old.
The A&E remake of The Magnificent Ambersons. Those of you who have seen the 1942 original version might remember that there’s a scene midway through in which Georgie stands outside the bathroom door and has a conversation with his uncle, who’s in the tub. In the remake, the elderly uncle is still in the tub (I think this counts as intentionally funny semi-nudity), but Georgie is also in the bathroom shaving. Okay, I guess that makes sense. Then it’s as though the director suddenly realized that the project wasn’t coming together very well and the audience was sure to be losing interest by this point. But heck, this is cable! You can show rear nudity on cable! For the sake of a brief flash of actor Jonathan Rhys-Meyers’s bare behind, they adjusted the script to have Georgie suddenly whip off his towel and hop in the shower. This means he has to deliver a crucial speech while rinsing off. It also means the scene has to end with Georgie storming out of the…shower. Heh. This would have been the funniest thing in the whole production if not for the end, when
poor Georgie gets hit by a slow-moving, early 20th century automobile, which inexplicably sends him flying high into the air just as though he’d been launched by a catapult. Bwa ha ha ha ha!
Okay, I’ve shown you mine, now it’s time for the rest of you to show me yours!
The first one that came to mind was Tequila Sunrise with Mel Gibson and Michelle Phifer (sp?). An uninspired piece of crap star vehicle, BTW. They were in a hot tub together getting their freak on when suddenly they did an Orca-style leap upwards right in the middle of it.
Good god. It still cracks me up. That is about all I remember of that movie, aside from Mel using a payphone a lot.
I’ll be back if I remember any more, but I think that’s the top of the list for me.
There was an otherwise nice lesbian sex scene in a Skinamax film once that had me grinning – one of the positions the participants assumed had them on hands and knees, facing away from one another, bumping butts together (there was no dildo or anything of the sort involved, they were just bumping butts). I suppose it was fun, but I found myself thinking, “Hmmm, must be incredibly dumb Catholic lesbians, trying not to get each other pregnant.”
Not precisely a nude scene, per se, but in the recent remake of The Italian Job there was a scene in which Charlize Theron’s character was practicing lockpicking in her apartment. For no reason ever explained by script or character, she did so without her shirt on (but while wearing a bra). It was one of the most comical things I’d ever seen, because it seemed totally out of nowhere… “la la la, I guess I should go practice this difficult and potentially dangerous technique, and I’ll do so in conditions most closely simulating real life: in my underwear.”
This may sound a bit immature of me but I couldn’t help but giggle at Frank Langella’s full frontal in (I think it was) Lolita. It’s not that there was anything funny about his goods, it’s just that he was running and I’m sorry but a naked man running is anything but sexy.
I can think of any number of skinemax movies where the director didn’t care enough to bother hiding the fact the leading man was humping his partner’s leg instead of having sex. My favorite though, was where they didn’t even bother hiding the crotch pads they were using to avoid penetration. That was classy.
I’m going to have to go with American Psycho. Christian Bale, covered in blood and naked except for tennis shoes, running with a chainsaw. I couldn’t help it. Damn, the man is hot, but tennis shoes and a chainsaw? I couldn’t stop laughing.
When I saw Fatal Attraction in the theater, the first time they showed him nekkid, some lady in the back yelled, “No ass!” Maybe you had to be there, but it was hysterical.
I am a big Harvey Kietel fan, and I love the movie. I also understand the idea behind having the frontal nudity scene. However, it really stops the viewer and makes you wonder…why? I have heard that it was an H.K. ploy to get a NC-17 rating.
Of course, I’m sure lissener will be by in a few minutes to tell me their humorous humping was really a veiled satirical comment on the effect that neon animals has had on the zoo industry.
Preach it. It’s the problem I have with the nude boxing scene in Women in love. (IIRC it was one of the earliest full frontal nude scenes in mainstream movies.) Anyway, the set up was artfully done: Oliver Reed and Alan Bates, fighting by firelight, plenty of erotic overtones…except for the unavoidable bobbing caused by inertia. Whumpeta, whumpeta, jiggle and bob. Inadvertantly hilarious.
Seriously, that Frank Langella boing boing boing down the hall was hilarious. Little Frankie went for a real ride!
I saw Dressed to Kill for the first time a few months ago and I was laughing at the beginning when they show Angie Dickinson’s character in the shower just lathering up her 18 year old body double’s body. It had this gigantic bleached Harpo Marx bikini zone too which was also comical. Later in the movie they showed her actual ass and the laughing was over.
Yeah, Christian Bale with the chainsaw and sneakers on; what’s really messed up about that scene is that you think it’s odd he has the sneakers on, not the fact that he’s bloodsoaked and carrying a chainsaw.
