# Utterly Gratuitous Moments **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 14, 2005, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584 "2005-09-14T12:51:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/41 "2005-09-15T22:30:27Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I don’t know why that shows up so often. A friend of mine has been saying for years that there just _has_ to be a man peeing in every movie she sees. She can’t escape it. When we rent movies, she’ll call it out half the time. I remember the late Gene Siskel compaining that \*\*Rob Roy \*\* had \*two \* gratuitous scenes of Jessica Lange peeing. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/42 "2005-09-15T23:26:53Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > It’s one of items on the movie cliche list that every police investigation requires the detectives to visit a strip club at some point. Ah, **Police Squad** : “Is this a bust, or what?” “They’re very nice, but that’s not why we’re here.” **Swordfish** must rate pretty high on the gratuitous-o-meter. “To distract you from the witless Bruckheimer-lite {and _that’s_ saying something}, we will now show you Halle Berry’s tits. Nice, aren’t they? And now, back to the gunfights, car crashes and explosions. Akka akka akka! Brrmm Brrmm! Neoww! Boom!” ---
**Author:** ![HelloKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecccb3/32.png) [@HelloKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelloKitty)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/43 "2005-09-15T23:47:19Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > In Independence Day, where does Wil Smiths wife work? At the strip bar, of course! So you get the pointless moment of performance before moving on to the rest of the pointless movie. I want my money back! I came in here to post this one! I think the plot arc was supposed to be something about Will Smith’s character wanting to become an officer but how could he possibly be promoted if his fiance was ::yikes!:: a stripper!! :rolleyes: Seems to me his military buddies would just say “Way to go, bro!” ---
**Author:** ![Netbrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71e660/32.png) [@Netbrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Netbrian)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/44 "2005-09-16T00:31:12Z")
May I nominate the strip club scene in Lost in Translation? I rather suspect it too was added to inflate the rating properly. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/45 "2005-09-16T00:59:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Re the OP: How about Beverly D’Angelo in the first National Lampoon’s Vacation movie? What was the point of that? I can recall two excellent points. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/46 "2005-09-16T01:35:25Z")
> [@Chanteuse](#): > > That’s true (thankfully!)! But it’s not only the fact that she was remaining clothed in a different situation. It’s that I just had to laugh at someone who felt the need to cover her breasts in the half-second before she put on a shirt, when she’d been hanging them out not two minutes earlier. I mean, the guy had just seen her pretty much fully exposed. He wasn’t going to be terribly shocked if he saw a flash of them in the instant before she clothed herself! 🙂 So can we assume that you never cover your tits around anyone who has ever seen them before? ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/47 "2005-09-16T02:24:42Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#): > > So can we assume that you never cover your tits around anyone who has ever seen them before? Well, to tell the truth, not many people get to see them. My husband, my doctor when necessary–that’s about it. I’ve never had a doctor stay in the room while I redressed, but if he/she handed me my shirt after a breast exam, I’d just put it on–it’s easier and quicker to do using both hands. I guess it just seemed strange to me for her to hide them _for one nanosecond_ before putting on a shirt. If she’d simply turned away to dress herself, it would’ve appeared a bit more natural, but the way that it was done seemed phony, that’s all. It was like a movie I once saw long ago (don’t remember the name, sorry) where a man got out of bed wearing only his boxers. He proceeds to get dressed from head to foot (there was someone else in the room, too) and then turns away to zip his fly. All I could think was–“Huh? He’s too modest to let someone see him COVER what he was openly showing just a moment ago?” Well that’s what I kinda thought with the other movie. She was hanging it all out before, but only got modest about COVERING it. Not that “well, everyone’s seen 'em, might as well not dress at all.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/48 "2005-09-16T04:06:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Swordfish must rate pretty high on the gratuitous-o-meter. “To distract you from the witless Bruckheimer-lite {and that’s saying something}, we will now show you Halle Berry’s tits. Nice, aren’t they? And now, back to the gunfights, car crashes and explosions. Akka akka akka! Brrmm Brrmm! Neoww! Boom!” Have you heard Halle Berry’s latest line? She’s now saying she did a nude scene in _Swordfish_ in order to practice before doing one in _Monster’s Ball_. I know - it makes no sense to me either. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/49 "2005-09-16T04:14:52Z")
> [@Chanteuse](#): > > It was like a movie I once saw long ago (don’t remember the name, sorry) where a man got out of bed wearing only his boxers. He proceeds to get dressed from head to foot (there was someone else in the room, too) and then turns away to zip his fly. All I could think was–"Huh? hehheh, okay, I see your point. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/50 "2005-09-16T04:32:45Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > I remember the late Gene Siskel compaining that \*\*Rob Roy \*\* had \*two \* gratuitous scenes of Jessica Lange peeing. 😕 ONE sounds like too many! > [@Netbrian](#): > > May I nominate the strip club scene in Lost in Translation? I rather suspect it too was added to inflate the rating properly. The song is a scream. And the way Bill Murray says goodbye. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/51 "2005-09-16T05:54:39Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Have you heard Halle Berry’s latest line? She’s now saying she did a nude scene in _Swordfish_ in order to practice before doing one in _Monster’s Ball_. Huh. Rumour at the time was she did it for an extra $250,000. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/52 "2005-09-16T16:04:07Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Have you heard Halle Berry’s latest line? She’s now saying she did a nude scene in _Swordfish_ in order to practice before doing one in _Monster’s Ball_. > > I know - it makes no sense to me either. Actually, it makes perfect sense to me. Taking off your clothes in front of a camera is an incredibly intimidating experience, even if you’ve got a body like Halle Berry’s. It’s a psychological block that can make an actor nervous, self-conscious, and distracted–all things that are anti-thetical to good acting. She knew she had to get naked for _Monster’s Ball_, but she also knew that if that was the first time she ever got naked in front of fellow actors, a director, and an entire crew of people on the set, she may not give the performance she might otherwise be capable of because she’d constantly be thinking “Oh my God, I’m naked right now.” Would you want your first piano recital at Carnegie Hall? Would you want your first jump from a high dive during the Olympic qualifiers? No. So, her solution was to get naked in a movie where her performance didn’t really matter and where any baggage or self-consciousness that came with getting naked would be for a film where the stakes weren’t high. Plus, if she absolutely positively couldn’t get naked, then she knew that _MB_ might not be a movie she could realistically do. But that’s not something you want to discover about yourself when you’re on the set and everyone’s counting on you delivering for this small independent film. The money and publicity probably didn’t hurt either, though. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/53 "2005-09-16T18:03:01Z")
In one of the body-spray ads the guy shows up at his girlfriend’s house and mom starts coming on to him. Not gratuitous - except we see a scene with the camera zoomed in on girlfriend’s be-pantied ass as she’s pulling up her jeans. I quite like it, but man, it screams out gratuitous. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584/54 "2005-09-16T19:49:56Z")
How could I have forgotten this? Jean-Claude Van Damme butt shots. I remember in _Bloodsport_, we get a shot of him putting on undies, but it’s so staged as to be laughable. I mean, it looks like they said, “Action!” and when the camera zoomed in, he pulled his shorts down just long enough to show the cheekies, and then pulled them back up. Totally fake-o. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-gratuitous-moments/321584.md?page=2)