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Wednesday, November 19, 2003
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Sex and Death And Film Studies, Part 2
Here's another selection from the Subliminal Cinema chapter on Erotic Thrillers. This one is dedicated to GeoX, the only person who correctly guessed our next movie. Well, the only person who guessed at all. Geo wins the grand prize, which is that he or she doesn't have to read Madonna's latest children's book. For the rest of you, here's . . . .
BODY OF EVIDENCE (1993)
Directed by Ulrich Edel
Written by Brad Mirman
Tagline: "This is the murder weapon. Her name is Rebecca."
As our picture begins, it's raining. This is so we'll know we're watching a film noir, and not just a tawdry excuse to see William Dafoe's chest develop a dull waxy build-up of candle-drippings. But let's be honest–when the sexiest part of your leading man's performance is his impersonation of a Chianti bottle, your erotic thriller may be in trouble.
Anyway, elderly millionaire Andrew Marsh has died of heart failure, and the police quickly deduce from the tagline that Marsh’s girlfriend Rebecca (Madonna) killed him with her BODY! And when the police learn that Marsh left her $8 million, she is on trial for murder. Madonna hires shyster Willem Dafoe to defend her because she saw him in that Scorsese movie and figured he was easily tempted.
Presiding over the trial is Black Judge Judy, who hates everybody but reserves her special contempt for the audience. Well, we do have it coming.
D.A. Joe Mantegna declares that Madonna "is the murder weapon itself." He compares her to a knife or a gun. Clearly, stricter Madonna control legislation is needed. The NRA counters that "If you outlaw Madonnas, only outlaws will have mediocre pop stars."
At a billable dinner, Madonna relates a suggestive story about getting scratched on the thighs while stealing strawberries as a child. This strikes a chord with Willem, who realizes he has solved The Caine Mutiny mystery. They rip off each other's clothes, then she takes a candle and drips hot wax on his chest. Willem whimpers. Then she heads south with the molten paraffin, while Willem whines. And we see that Madonna, slut though she may be, is actually furthering the feminist agenda, since it's about time that a man had to experience a bikini wax. Meanwhile, Willem wails.
Back in court, the prosecution calls to the stand Jürgen Prochnow, Marsh’s former doctor. He testifies that he and Madonna used to be lovers, and that he had told her that the old guy would die if he ever had wild sex with a self-promoting exhibitionist. But Willem brings in surprise evidence indicating that Jürgen was in Dune! The plot congeals!
Since he didn’t screw up in court that day, Madonna gives Willem a hand job in a crowded elevator. The other lawyers and the Japanese tourists finally get off (ha ha), leaving Madonna and Willem free to engage in really public sex in the parking garage. Madonna climbs on Willem’s car and the camera shoots from between her legs, revealing (purely by chance) her black garter belt. She smashes the overheard light, then hangs from the pipes and wraps her legs around Willem’s head. She looks like Olga Korbut in heat
Madonna tells Willem that the jury hates her (a lucky guess on her part). She adds that the women thinks she’s a whore and the men think she’s a bitch (another lucky guess). So, she has to testify, to explain that it wasn’t her idea to be in this movie, it was Sandra Bernhardt's. Her plan works, as the jury reasons that if the defendant was bi, she doesn’t have to die. She goes free.
So justice has triumphed, right? Not really, for when Willem arrives at Maddona’s to present his bill and see if she has any more candles, he finds Jürgen there, discussing how they killed Marsh. Willem bitterly announces that he would have defended Madonna even if she hadn’t, um, boinked him. Jürgen is surprised to learn that Madonna isn’t like a virgin. She says (not an exact quote), "Don't look so hurt, Jürgen. I boinked you, I boinked Marsh, I boinked Willem. That's what I do: I boink. And it made me 8 million dollars!" And that was just in tips!
Madonna wraps up the loose ends for the hard of thinking, explaining that she and Jürgen were in it together from the beginning. Unlikely as it seems, Willem was played for a fool! She adds that now that she has her money, both men are history.
Jürgen is miffed and tries to kill Madonna. She and Jürgen fight over the gun, and she gets shot. Then Jürgen and Willem get to roughhousing and Jürgen falls over a railing and dies. While Willem tenderly ministers to Madonna, Jürgen comes back to life, shoots her again, and re-dies. D.A. Joe Montegna arrives to deliver the moral of the piece: "People usually get what they deserve."
Thanks, Joe. Nifty coda. So remember kids, no matter what, murder will out. The truth MUST be spoken! The world MUST be told! Keep watching the sluts!
So, Body of Evidence: a cautionary tale about the dangers of sleeping with Madonna, and also a indictment of a criminal justice system that allows attorneys to engage in acrobatic S&M in courthouse parking garages.
But what would this movie have been like if, instead of Willem Dafoe, Madonna had engaged Perry Mason to represent her?
Well, obviously Perry wouldn’t have slept with his client—he’s too principled for that. And too gay. And he damned well wouldn’t have let D.A. Hamilton Burger deliver the coda!
And if Mason had defended her, Madonna would have been innocent, no matter how damning the evidence, and no matter now many peoples she boinked. We think the climatic courtroom scene would have gone a little something like this:
D.A. Burger : So, not only is the defendant guilty of murdering an innocent dirty, old millionaire for his money, but she herself was the murder weapon. For proof, we offer into evidence the movie’s tagline. The prosecution rests its case.
Mason: Your honor, while it may appear that my client killed Mr. Marsh by forcing him to have kinky sex with her until he died of Viagra poisoning, I submit that the real killer was . . . Willem Dafoe! He seemed to have nothing to do with this crime. Nobody suspected him. Therefore, he’s clearly guilty! If the police had conducted even a rudimentary record check they would have found that Dafoe was the nefarious boat-crashing Giger in Speed 2, the depraved scientist/nutjob Green Goblin in Spiderman, and the English supervillain T.S. Eliot in Tom & Viv. He killed Marsh to solidify his reputation for evil, in order to land the villain role in the new Bond movie. Plus, Marsh killed his father or something.
Willem: Yes, I did it! I did it and I’m glad! I also committed those ice pick murders Sharon Stone got blamed for. I really did it to open the way for my fellow male actors (who are always unfairly stereotyped as dupes and patsies in these films), to play the sexy femme fatale roles! But I would like to be the new Bond villain, yes.
Burger: Your honor, I object! Speed 2 was not made until four years from now, and T.S. Eliot was American!
Judge: I refuse to rule on your motion because maybe I am the murderer. Nobody ever suspects us plump black woman. Hey, we can be treacherous, erotic killers too, you know!
Mason: Then my client is free to go.
Burger: Not so fast! She still has to answer those Swept Away war crimes charges!
Mason: Oh . . .right. Say, Hamilton, why don’t you just boink her and we can call the whole thing even?
Cut to a shot of the lonely, hardworking Burger lying dead in a parking garage, bludgeoned by a SUV owner who didn’t appreciate the D.A. having gymnastic sex on his vehicle. A discarded newspaper beside his body proclaims "Willem Dafoe, Psycho Killer, to be New Bond Villain." Meanwhile, a TV in the attendant’s booth shows Madonna making additional millions with her Gap commercials and children’s book. Mason strolls in to proclaim, "People usually get what they deserve. Except in real film noir." The End.
Or is it? Maybe Perry Mason was the real killer, like O.J. Simpson always maintained. And that leads to the chilling question: what if Bruce Willis was a psychiatrist who lost his red, and he met up with a mysterious nympho who lost her panties? Lost them in a MURDER! For the answer, turn to our next film, which would be . . . ? Guess correctly and you don't have to read Bruce Willis's children's book.
11:46:03 PM 
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...Mass Hysteria, Cats and Dogs Living Together . . .
More from The Corner
GAY MARRIAGE [John Derbyshire]
Some more questions about gay marriage, from a thoughtful reader:
"Your comment about cell-mates marrying got me thinking. Under the traditional restrictions, a man cannot marry his daughter, or, a fortiori, his son, and so if he leaves them a very large inheritance, it is taxed, although what he leaves his wife is not taxed. But under a general license to 'marry' another man, a man could marry his son, and thus pass his property to the son tax-free.
"This is a loophole that would have to be closed, if estate taxes are going to continue, and the obvious way to close it would be to eliminate the special consideration given to inheritance by a spouse. This would be an unwelcome surprise to some propents of 'gay marriage.'
"On another front, what if two men who are partners in crime take the precaution of marrying, so that they can each be sure that the other one won't turn state's evidence at trial, should they be caught?
"Marriage, with the special privileges that have grown up around it, is a potential source of advantages to the unscrupulous. The remedy is going to be, I suppose, to reduce or eliminate the privileges. Having achieved marriage, the homosexuals may find that it isn't worth having any more..."
See what happens when you let homosexuals marry? The next thing you know, the incest laws are gone and people are getting married to immediate family members in order to cheat the inheiritance taxes. Damn gays! I guess in order to prevent a female criminal from marrying her male partner in crime we'd better ammend the Constitution or something.
10:16:46 AM
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Rush Limbaugh: What I've Learned
For people who are truly addicted, I mean hard-core, really addicted, putting them in jail doesn't do any good. There's no way. I mean the penalty may be what society thinks is just. It's not going to fix anything. It's not going to help those people get off the drug or get rehabbed or any of that. Jail is, you know, one thing that is not really productive to this.
And I think it's great he learned this now that HE'S facing possible jail time.
But here's some stuff he said about his fellow addicts at the treatment facility:
You know, the place I went, you know what the number one addiction was at the place I went? It wasn't drugs. It wasn't alcohol. The number one addiction, and there were anywhere from different week to week, 72 to 75 people, the number one addiction was sex. Sex addicts outnumbered everybody at this place I was, and the program they went through was more rigorous.
Let me tell you the average IQ of the 75 people where I was, was 150 or above. You would be amazed who was there and who has these problems.
The people that I was with, where I was, you'd be stunned. I was when I walked in there. And the high IQ, I mean there were multimillionaires in there, all kinds of things, people that have been very successful in business who weren't multimillionaires, it ran the gamut. And they're all good people. I mean, the dregs of society were not there.
No, they weren't the dregs of society, they were the really smart sex-addicts who ran the gamut of wealth from multimillionaires to "very successful in business": you know, the salt of the earth. Rush's kind of people.
Odd that the dregs weren't represented at this tony treatment center, though. I wonder what Rush wants done with them, if they're "hard-core addicted."
6:50:58 AM
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Read More About It!
Yes, if you want to know more about the National Review Death Cruise, and about the NRO's wacky cast of characters, there are many books in your library on these subjects.
For instance, to read more about the Al Franken/Rich Lowry dual, go here: Franken Vs. Lowry (but click on the links in Al's side to get the real story, because Rich has a little problem with telling the truth). And check out The Corner to read John Derbyshire's ruminations on the gay sex and homosexual marriage.
The 18½ Minute Gap has an item we liked about Tim Graham's latest idiotic Kiddy Corner comment.
To find out who thinks that John Derbyshire is really hot, in a psychotic, deranged sort of way, go here: Rittenhouse Review
For the NR's Cruise itinerary, go here: Crooked Timber
And there are other things going on in the world too.
To find out who's cool and hip and stuff, go here: TBOGG. And to find out what other people should follow William Safire's advice to just 'fess up about the mistakes they've made about the Iraq invasion and associated matters, go here: TBOGG (okay, it's the same place--just read it all).
To read Atrio's plea to the media to give some of the Michael Jackson attention to other things, like the dead soldiers in Iraq, go here: Eschaton
And the new issue of Virtual Occoquan is out, featuring the best from the Salon blogs.
Clarified has a fun little piece with Al Gore giving advice to Grey Davis.
So, if you want to learn more, read some of this stuff. I have a fever. I'm going to rest now.
5:39:28 AM
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The National Review Death Cruise, Part 5: Forgive Me Father, For I Have MURDERED!
HIGH-SEA HI-JINX [Jonah Goldberg]
Well, a lot has happened on the National Review Cruise during the last few days. More murders. The uncovering of labyrinthine plots. A plan to use attack clones to fight a dual with Al Franken! Onboard gay marriages. All in all, this cruise has fulfilled all of my expectations of what a vacation should be.
Let me provide you with a brief recap of my previous reports:
Norman Podhoreretz was murdered -- and since only the other National Review speakers had keys to this room where he was found, it appeared that one of us was the murderer. His wife, Midge Decter, looked like the prime suspect to me, because Midge was angry that Norman was writing a book calling her boyfriend Don Rumsfeld a sissy-boy, but she claimed to have been with Jay Nordlinger all that night.
Then Kate O' Beirne was murdered. I questioned Ramesh Ponnuru, since he was reportedly the last one to see Kate alive. When I told him that Mr. Buckley had charged me with investigating the deaths, he agreed to be Joe to my Frank Hardy, and told me that Kate had uncovered a secret cloning operation in the basement of the White House, and recently gone to Rome to talk to the Pope about it.
Ramesh also indicated that Kate was editing Norman's book, and had learned from him about an ancient text which predicted that if the national debt ever reached the total of $666 billion, then Satan would rule the earth forever. A cabal of Lucifer-loving economists was trying to increase the debt so their master could take his place as lord of this world; a secret brotherhood of good economists were fighting them. Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, was in one the two groups, but he was murdered before I could talk to him and fight out which.
Ramesh was going to question the Rev. Robert Sirico, since reportedly Sirico had experience dealing with ancient texts, Satan worshippers, and the Book of Revelation. But I never learned what Ramesh found out, because when I next saw Ramesh, he was dead!
Oh, and Rich Lowry is a big poopie-head.
That's pretty much where I had left off. So, anyway, after finding Ramesh's body in the Crow's Nest Lounge, I decided that I'd better have a chat with the Reverend Father. I put the realistic toy gun of Rich's in my pocket, and went to Sirico's cabin.
He greeted me affably enough, and invited me in -- but there was something about him I just didn't trust. Maybe it was his hypnotic gaze or his "What Would Satan Do?" wrist-band. I decided to fish for information by telling him that I had a piece due the next day and was thinking about doing it on the Acton Institute.
Sirico said that he and his fellow servants of the Lord would welcome some publicity for their humble cause, and indicated that he co-founded the Institute in 1990 to train religious studies students in fundamental economics, so they could understand and address today's social problems. The Institute's mission is to promote a free and virtuous society, characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.
I said that sounded great, but that I'd need a few more details to fill up a whole NRO column. He looked a bit testy, and said that he wasn't done speaking.
Anyway, per Sirico, the Acton Institute endeavors to promote virtue by doing away with the welfare system, since truly virtuous individuals don't take money for doing nothing; and besides, if people are poor, it's probably their own damn fault. If somebody experiences a setback and needs a helping hand, he should go to a faith-based soup kitchen. Additionally, by encouraging the individual to be more self-reliant and faith-based, the Institute promotes liberty by reducing the tax burden of rich people.
I replied that I was amazed that the Catholic church was behind something like this, since as an institution, the Church seemed kinda Marxist, and kinda against, you know, evil. Father Sirico smiled and said that while the Pope and some other Catholic officials don't agree with his work, Richard Mellon Scaife does, and his generous contributions more than made up for a lack of church support.
I burst out with, "J'accuse, Father Sirico! You killed Ramesh! When I last spoke with him, he was on his way to interrogate you. And I just found him dead on a bar stool, the odor of almonds on his breath! While talking to you he must have deduced you were part of the $666 Billion Club and threatened to expose you, and so you slipped cyanide in his drink. Which was BAD! While I'm not up on Catholic teachings, I'm pretty sure the church reassigns priests who commit murder!"
Father Sirico said he had indeed talked to Ramesh, and had told him everything he knew about the Last Days and the Number of the Beast, and had left Ramesh alive and well and sipping an Amaretto on the rocks. An almond-flavored (and scented) drink.
"Um, so maybe Ramesh wasn't poisoned with cyanide, but he's still dead! As are Norman, Kate, and Stephen. I bet you killed Kate, 'cause she was going to tell the Pope on you. And you probably killed Stephen, to keep him from getting drunk and spilling the beans about your Satan-worshipping economics institute. And you murdered Norman because he was really, really annoying! So, Father, tell me you don't have anything to do with THEIR deaths!"
Sirico said he didn't have anything to do with their deaths. He claimed that I had it all wrong, and it was the Knights Fiscal, that group organized in ancient times to guard the Book of Bob the Baptist, who were the bad guys, because the $666 billion deficit would usher in an era of peace and prosperity for everyone living at that time -- it would just be future generations who would have to worry. So, it was GOOD for the U.S. to borrow lots of money for wars and stuff, and to also lower taxes, because this prepared the way for Lucifier, who is actually a nice guy when you get to know him. And if I wasn't part of the solution, I was part of the problem. And at this point, he drew an antique dagger from sash and menaced me with it.
I drew out the toy gun and menaced him right back. He said that it looked like we had achieved a stalemate, and I might as well leave his cabin in peace . . . for now. But I would have only a short time to decide if I wanted to join the $666 Billion Club and worship Satan and save on taxes, or if I wanted to die.
I backed out of there in a hurry, and decided that it was now time to tell Jay Nordlinger all I knew. While Jay was boring, and officious, and a big, bossy grump -- and had done nothing but complain about his lost luggage for the whole trip -- he was, you know, fatherly. But not in a charismatically evil way, like Father Sirico. But when I knocked at his cabin door, nobody answered. I knew what this meant, and got the purser to open it for me. Yeah, Jay was in bed, dead as a doornail. And naked as a jaybird. Midge was there with him, just as dead and naked. It really was a horrifying sight! They each had big bullet holes in their chests, and there was blood everywhere. But not enough to cover up, you know, the naughty bits. While I hate to criticize my elders and betters, I do have to say that it's just basic good manners for old people to put on a robe or something if they know they're going to get murdered.
In fact, I am so overcome with emotion just thinking about it that I can't go on with the story right now. But I'll take a break, have some more to drink, and get back to you with the really scandalous story about Rich. (And after he told Al Franken that "as an editor of a serious political magazine, he had a limited capacity to engage in childish stunts!" Yeah, right. Would a grown-up put Saran Wrap on my toilet seat) And about the lovely gay wedding (well, I will just drop one hint, and say that John Derbyshire met the boat in Puerto Limon with a ring in his pocket and a desire to honeymoon in Panama City). And about the rest of the murders, and the clones, and the Economic Satanists, and stuff.
So, for now, just look over the list of the remaining suspects and see if YOU can solve the case.
2:32:25 AM
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President Bush Defends Sanctity of Marriage
November 18, 2003 STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. Today's decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court violates this important principle. I will work with congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage.
Ex Wants Neil Bush to Undergo Paternity test
Sharon Bush has asked a state district court judge to order her ex-husband -- President Bush's brother Neil Bush -- to submit to a blood test to settle a paternity question at the heart of a defamation lawsuit against her.
The request, filed Monday, asks that the judge order Neil Bush and Robert Andrews to submit blood tests to determine the paternity of Andrews' 2-year-old son. Sharon Bush contends she needs the tests to defend herself against a $850,000 defamation lawsuit filed against her by Andrews. Andrews' suit contends Bush defamed him when she suggested in conversations with reporters, friends and restaurant employees that his son may have been fathered by Neil Bush.
Andrews and his wife, Maria Andrews, divorced in October 2002 after 14 years of marriage. The Bushes divorced in April after a 23-year marriage. Neil Bush and Maria Andrews met several years ago when she was working as a volunteer for former first lady Barbara Bush.
Neil admittedly had a long-term affair with Maria, while both were married to other people. He filed for a divorce from Sharon on the same day that Maria was granted her divorce from Robert Andrews (her third husband).
12:26:14 AM
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Last update: 12/1/2003; 4:56:07 AM.
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