Blink (1994)

Michael Apted's formulaic crime-mystery stalker thriller (similar to Wait Until Dark (1967) and the subsequent The Eye (2008)) starred Madeleine Stowe as blinded Emma Brody, a Celtic folk musician-violinist in a hip band called the Drovers, whose sight was damaged 20 years earlier when as an 8 year-old child (Heather Schwartz), her crazed mother (Marilyn Dodds Frank) smashed her head into a mirror, calling her a "little whore" because she was putting on make-up.

Living independently with guide dog Ralphie, Emma's sight was slowly being restored after a corneal transplant operation. While still experiencing problems with her sight from a phenomenon of "perceptual delay" (she was exasperated: "I can't see things that are right in front of me, and I can see things that couldn't be there"), she became a 'witness' to a murder six weeks after her operation. She heard noises upstairs from her victimized apartment neighbor Valerie Wheaton (Joy Gregory) - who it was learned two days afterwards was strangled, then raped and had her wrists slashed (postmortem), and was left in her bathtub with a Russian cross necklace.

There was a second similar murder of Nina Getz with the same circumstances. Emma reported the incident to smart-mouthed, skeptical and cocky Chicago Detective John Hallstrom (Aidan Quinn), who was assigned to investigate. Sarcastically, she told him that she "saw" a mysterious and shadowy man descend the stairs - sensing his strong soapy and sweaty smell and remembering his voice (he whispered to her: "Yeah. It's all right. I took care of it. Go back to bed"). It would be the next morning until what she saw, the killer's face, was registered - but with other odd flashbacks, it was unclear what her blurred visions or sightings actually were.

Emma reported that the dead neighbor had a "noisy lover" - named "Oh, baby!" During the case, Hallstrom's dirty-minded buddies at the police station kept teasing him about his romantic interest in his pretty witness: "We'll throw in a C-note if you sink the salami," and his boss angrily urged: "Why don't you just go ahead and f--k her and get on with the goddamn case!", although he claimed he was going by the book: "You think I'm gonna waste this body on a ball-bustin' blind broad who can't see it?"

As he pieced together clues with Emma, the detective realized the killer drained his victims of blood after raping their dead bodies: "This guy just wants a body, a f--kin' blowup doll that won't fly out the window when you squeeze it too hard." While the killer appeared to stalk the semi-defenseless but feisty Emma - the case's dubious but "key" witness, Hallstrom eventually made love to her (although he claimed: "I don't want to f--k her"), in the predictable romantic and sexy sub-plot, temporarily sidetracking the homicide case.

After their second passionate love-making, she told him: "I think I could fall in love with you," although she soon doubted his sincerity when he became a busy workaholic after more victims were located - a third victim Margaret Tattersall (Lucy Childs) in Milwaukee, and a fourth in Indiana. She confronted him, called him a "prick," and threatened for him to stay away:

"What the hell am I to you? One of your little conquests? I've seen your friends smirk at me."

Red herrings were proposed to throw the viewer off, including the implication that Emma's eye doctor Dr. Pierce (Peter Friedman), a spurned paramour, was the killer. The case discovered a mix-up regarding Emma's address in her hospital file - the cause of the erroneous murder of Emma's neighbor Valerie. The killer's victims, except for Valerie, were all people who had received donated organs (corneal transplant for Emma, skin grafts for Nina, kidney transplant for Margaret, and a heart transplant for the fourth victim) from deceased donor Leslie Davison, a girl the killer had been obsessed with.

The murderer was eventually identified as Neal Booker (Paul Dillon), a quiet and unassuming orderly at the hospital where Leslie had been a nurse and where Emma had her eye operation. In the conclusion, Emma stood face-to-face with the delusional murderer in a garage across the street from his home - he at first thought Emma was Leslie. She fought him off, as he threatened: "I'm taking back the eyes you stole" - until she shot him point-blank, after which the police arrived. Emma and Hallstrom was reunited - and they open-mouth kissed before they walked off to breakfast.

Cemetery Man (1994, It.) (aka Della'morte Della'more)

Buxom Finnish-born Italian model Anna Falchi (credited as "She") starred opposite British actor Rupert Everett (as Francesco Dellamorte, meaning 'of the dead' in Italian) in this intensely erotic, sexy and gory horror film - a supernatural romance (and comedy!) from director Michele Soavi.

Dellamorte was a restless cemetery keeper at Buffalora Cemetery in Northern Italy where, due to a plague, the corpses came back to life as zombies ("ones that return" or returners) every seven days - requiring re-extermination by shooting them in the head.

The cemetery worker met an exotic, stunningly gorgeous, voluptuous widow (Anna Falchi), wearing black at the cemetery where she was mourning the recent death of her rich elderly husband (Renato Donis) during a funeral. After being turned on by the ossuaries in the cemetery's mausoleum, they had very passionate sex one late night on top of her late husband's grave.

She was killed for her unfaithful love-making by her jealous husband's zombie appearance after he clawed his way out of his grave behind her and bit her in the upper right arm. Francesco plunged a crossed wooden stake into the brain of the husband to forever kill him, and then picked up the nude body of his dead lover.

Cemetery Sex with a Widow (Anna Falchi)

Francesco kept in mind her promise in her dying words: "Nothing will separate us...not even death." He waited seven days for her zombie return from the grave, when she rose up in front of him naked and wrapped in thin cloth. He used a gun to shoot her in the head. She fell backwards onto her grave platform - now experiencing eternal peace.

As the story progressed however, She (all characters played by Falchi) kept reappearing or reincarnating in his confused, mad, depressed and weird life as various female personas (a self-generating hallucination?) resembling his lost love. She first appeared as the new mayor's assistant - a frigid woman who feared the male member (Dellamorte took medicinal injections to become impotent, and considered castration), and then as a young prostitute who was paying off her college tuition. However, all manifestations of his lost love tragically died.

New Reincarnations of She (Anna Falchi)

China Moon (1994)

A contemporary, twisting neo-noir thriller set in Florida similar to Body Heat (1981) marked the directorial debut film for John Bailey.

Madeleine Stowe starred as unhappily married femme fatale wife Rachel Munro, in an abusive marriage to unfaithful bank tycoon husband Rupert Munroe (Charles Dance), who was engaged in an affair with his curly-haired blonde bank secretary Adele (Patricia Healy) - seen under the opening credits.

After striking up a friendship with serious, honorable and skilled small-town Florida homicide detective Kyle Bodine (Ed Harris), Rachel accompanied him on a nighttime canoe ride under a full "China Moon" - the moon resembled "a big old plate of china." Bodine described how his grandmother had said "people would get affected by them, that they'd do strange things." He complimented Rachel: "You're so beautiful," and encouraged her to go swimming in the warm Camelia Lake water as he often did. She stood up in the boat, and uninhibitedly disrobed for skinny-dipping in front of him. When he joined her in the water, she enticed him: "Put your arms around me. That's better" and they passionately kissed.

Afterwards, she cried due to his tenderness, confessing: "I haven't had much of that," but wouldn't admit her marital difficulties to him. They began their own torrid affair - during which she told him: "I'm in a trap. I can't get out of it." Rather than obtaining a legal divorce, she contemplated killing her husband with a recently-purchased 9 millimeter gun. The plot became tangled and complex when she decided to run away with Kyle, but then was forced to kill her drunken husband in self-defense with two shots.

She convinced Kyle to help her cover up the murder, but then he became a prime suspect himself when it appeared that his gun was used in the killing. She professed that she was telling the truth about everything, although he was indignant about secrets she had kept from him, and he called her a "stranger." He grabbed her neck and accused her of lying:

"You were just f--king me, weren't you? I was loving you, and you were f--king me!"

When the plot finally became untangled in the conclusion, an unexonerated Kyle lay dead, after which Rachel shot and killed Kyle's scheming rookie cop partner Lamar Dickey (Benicio del Toro).

Color of Night (1994)

In this psychological thriller by director Richard Rush, some of the more sultry sex scenes were cut from the NC-17 rated film for a lesser rating of R for the US theatrical release, and the restored R-rated Director's Cut included an extra 15 minutes of scenes and was slightly cut. An unrated Director's Cut contained 15 minutes worth of extra plot scenes and was completely uncut. This film was the sex-ploitative winner of the 1995 Razzie Award for Worst Picture, although Maxim Magazine awarded it as having the #1 Hottest Movie Sex Scene ever.

New York City psychoanalyst Dr. Bill Capa (big-name star Bruce Willis) became distraught after the suicidal death of his disturbed, self-hating patient Michelle (Kathleen Wilhoite) while being counseled by him in his high-rise Manhattan office. Upset at the site of her dead body in a bright green dress lying on the concrete in a pool of blood after she jumped ("It was the reddest blood I ever saw, pooled around her green dress"), Dr. Capa began to suffer from psychosomatic, stress-induced color blindness - and couldn't see the color red.

Dr. Capa quit his practice and traveled to LA, to stay with analyst/author friend Dr. Robert Moore (Scott Bakula) and figure out if he was going "crazy." Bill said he felt a "distinct absence of pain" and admitted he was troubled and felt sexually-dead. Moore - who was receiving death threats possibly from a patient - was violently stabbed to death by an unidentified black-clad hooded assailant in his office after-hours. Bill reluctantly took over Moore's Monday group therapy sessions and lived in his ultra-modern vacated house, while attempting to find the murderer when considered a suspect himself by Lt. Hector Martinez (Ruben Blades) with all the other members of Moore's therapy group. This caused him to try and find the murderer himself.

One of the five newly-acquired patients was 16 year-old bespectacled drug user Richie Dexter (Jane March), a volatile "genuine nut case" who had gender-confusion and identity issues ("gender dysphoria"), a social phobia, and spoke with a stutter. Meanwhile, Dr. Capa was seduced by an exotic female - a torrid, provocative, sexually-advancing and insatiable Rose (Jane March in a dual role), calling herself Miss Fender Bender after she rear-ended his car. She unexpectedly reappeared in his home in the evening, invited herself to a dinner date, and made out with him as they called for a taxi.

Later, during their first passionate and sensual encounter at the house when she appeared in a red dress, both displayed full-frontal nudity, beginning in the pool (with underwater sex), and then into the bedroom and .

The Swimming Pool Sequence - Dr. Bill Capa (Bruce Willis) with Rose (Jane March)

In the dining room, she offered him a cooked plate of food of steak and vegetables, as the camera slowly panned up her chest to her face as she proposed: "But if you don't like this, I have something else for you." They continued their love-making in a steamy shower, but then she mysteriously disappeared from his bed.

As Bill researched his five patients, he zeroed in on the background of bespectacled drug user Richie Dexter, whose older over-protective legal guardian was her brother Dale (Andrew Lowery), a welder in an ironworks-furniture shop. Dale vainly pleaded with Dr. Capa to release Richie from court-mandated therapy. Capa found out that all of the Dexter children, who had suffered from abuse and abandonment, had been assigned six years earlier to child psychiatrist Dr. Niedelmeyer in Pasadena, but Niedelmeyer couldn't be questioned - he had died within the last year.

During therapy, Dr. Capa learned that four of his five patients (except Richie) had recently taken on relationships, like he had with Rose:

Five Patients		Relationship Partner (Spoiler - All Were the Same Person!)
Richie Dexter (Jane March also)	disturbed, with brother Dale who worried about her a lot; claims he'd like to be a woman; spoke with a stutter	N/A
Casey (Kevin J. O'Connor)	a talented, sado-masochistic artist-painter	An unnamed "completely uninhibited" model, a "transcendental beauty"
Sondra Dorio (Leslie Ann Warren)	an oversexed nymphomaniac and kleptomaniac	Sondra's lesbian girlfriend Bonnie (remarkably close in resemblance to Rose, and revealed to be one and the same - both had a 'rose' tattoo on their left butt-cheek)
Buck (Lance Henriksen)	a suicidal ex-cop	With someone described as young, having "auburn hair 5'5", 105," "pretty as hell" - only on weekends
Clark (Brad Dourif)	a self-detesting individual suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)	He had "found someone" who liked his "black, emotional hole, unattractive" self

Dr. Capa experienced an attempt on his life on the freeway by a driver in a red car. In the meantime, lesbian girlfriend Bonnie (who was remarkably close in resemblance to Rose) was cavorting with oversexed Sondra Dorio (Lesley Ann Warren), one of the therapy patients, who had confessed in the initial therapy session that she was both a nymphomaniac ("I want sex all the time") and a kleptomaniac. During one visit, Bonnie told her girlfriend Sondra: "Nobody appreciates you the way that I do" before she left - sharing a same-sex kiss, and a subsequent visit led to a longer sex scene between them.

A little later in the film, Rose again surprised Dr. Capa for more sex - meeting him in his kitchen (where she cooked him a meal wearing only an apron), and joining him in a soapy bathtub, etc. Capa then discovered that his patient - painter Casey - was gagged, strangled, hung upside down, and had his throat slashed by someone who had cut out and burned the faces from his paintings. During Rose's next impromptu visit, she seductively opened her blouse, revealing her right breast to Capa - she asked: "So, what color are my nipples?"

By film's end, Dr. Capa's and Dr. Moore's "Rose" was recognized (from a photograph) as the same person, with another personality named "Bonnie," who was in a relationship with Sondra, Buck, and Clark - obviously a sociopathic female with a multiple personality disorder. Rose was revealed to be role-playing the sexually-confused "Richie," whose overprotective brother Dale had committed two murders (Dr. Moore and Casey), fearing that Rose's identity would be revealed.

The film's twist was that the main killer was "Richie's" deranged brother Dale, who had forced his pretty sister Rose Dexter to play-act the role of their deceased brother "Richie." [Note: Dr. Capa learned a breakthrough clue from Mrs. Edith Niedelmeyer (Shirley Knight) that her dead psychiatrist husband had been a sexual molester, who had caused the real 12 year-old patient Richie to commit suicide: "Richie Dexter is dead! He killed himself four years ago...Because he couldn't stand what my husband was doing to him."]

When Capa went to confront Dale, he found "Richie," who removed her wig disguise, emerged as Rose, and rescued her from her torturing and kidnapping brother Dale, who suddenly attacked with a nail-gun. Lt. Martinez (who appeared out of nowhere) was pinned to a wall, while Dale captured Capa with a belt around his throat and threatened to kill him with a mechanical blade.

The Killer: 'Richie's' Deranged Brother Dale (Andrew Lowery)

Dr. Capa's Rescue of Rose on Top of Factory Tower

Dale explained his motive - he was increasingly disturbed that Rose (with her secondary personality of "Bonnie") was overtaking the "Richie" side of her personality, and he feared that "Bonnie's" modeling for Dr. Moore might cause him to link "Bonnie" to "Richie" and destroy Rose's masquerade.

To protect Capa from dying, the traumatized Rose killed her brother with a nail-gun shot to the forehead, ran to the top of the factory tower during a raging storm and was saved by Dr. Capa from jumping and committing suicide when he grabbed her hand during a leap - he simultaneously recovered from being color-blind.

The Cool Surface (1994)

This dramatic, erotic thriller from writer/director Erik Anjou went straight to video and late-night cable, but then was resurrected on DVD after its sexy co-star Teri Hatcher hit the big time with TV's Lois and Clark and Desperate Housewives and it became known that she had two topless scenes in this film. Its tagline was:

"Seduction, Obsession and Murder Lie Just Beneath."

See also Teri Hatcher's similar nude role in Heaven's Prisoners (1996).

Socially-inept, long-haired playwright neighbor Jarvis Scott (Robert Patrick) had just returned from seclusion in the woods in Hollywood after working on his masterpiece, viewed as a commercially-unmarketable product. He was dealing with criticism from his literary publisher Chazz Stone (Matt McCoy) about his work, while still suffering from his former girlfriend's suspicious suicidal death (an overdose of pills -- or a scissors-chest stabbing?).

Teri Hatcher as Dani Payson

Hatcher was featured as Dani Payson, an aspiring actress and Jarvis' next door neighbor. He observed (as a voyeur) what he thought was Dani's abusive, violent, and argumentative relationship (with sexual bouts) with her live-in lover - although was humiliated to discover that she was only practicing her lines.

Soon, he became intimately involved with Dani, and she became a key character in his new sexier novel (based on their own love-making encounters) - a successful potboiler novel titled The Cool Surface, A Kind of Love Story. Since it was based on their own sexual affair, she was the perfect choice to be lead actress in the upcoming and subsequent film adaptation - basically playing herself.

However, Jarvis became irrationally and insanely jealous of her friends, her successful career, and exhibited feelings of betrayal and revenge against Dani.

Disclosure (1994)

Director Barry Levinson's R-rated corporate thriller was based upon Michael Crichton's 1993 novel of the same name. The main themes of this mid-1990s mystery-thriller and message movie were sexual harrassment in reverse, and office power-struggle intrigue and malfeasance. Its main tagline combined the two ideas: "Sex is power." A controversy and debate ensued - was this politically-incorrect film an example of the male backlash against feminism? It was the third film in which actor Michael Douglas was threatened by a scary villainess (Fatal Attraction (1987), and Basic Instinct (1992)).

The film was about Seattle-based DigiCom, a leading software firm whose founder and president Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland) was about to appoint a new VP due to a lucrative merger. Two individuals being considered for the promotion in the company were:

• Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas), the head of manufacturing (the Advanced Products Group or Division), a married family man
• Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), an Operations Division executive

Tom was "passed over" and soon after met Garvin's VP choice from outside his division - Meredith, his own attractive ex-girlfriend from many years earlier. She told Garvin: "Sanders and I go way back. He broke my heart." Garvin had selected her because "the spin-off was Meredith's idea" and it had saved the threatened merger.

The Prelude to the Seduction Scene - A Business Meeting (with Wine)

Amoral, treacherous and ruthless femme fatale Meredith invited Tom to her office at 7 pm to discuss business, the same day as her new appointment. In the very strong, sexy seduction scene (without overt nudity), she told him as they clinked wine glasses together: "I like all the boys under me to be happy." She reminisced about the hot sex they used to have, including when he took her from behind in the shower when she bent down for the soap. As she removed her jacket, she complimented him: "You kept in good shape, Tom. Nice and hard." She excited him by encouraging him to rub her shoulders. She came up behind him (when he was on the phone) and proposed: "Let's get down to business" - and forced a kiss upon him ("There, was that so bad?").

She unbuttoned her blouse, and then urged him to touch her breasts and bottom through her clothing ("Remember all the things we did?...Things nobody knows about you but me. All our secrets"). She opened his shirt and suggested that he just lie back so she could take him: "I could have anybody and I picked you. Now you've got all the power." She began rubbing his crotch, and although he slightly protested, she continued: "You've got something I want." She unzippered his pants ("Don't stop me, come on...Don't worry, I'm not gonna bite. Let me do whatever I want. You just lie back and let me be the boss") - took his penis into her mouth, and provided him with oral sex.

Delivering Oral Sex - Reverse Sexual Harrassment

As he kept resisting, she responded: "Look, nobody has to know. Nobody gets hurt." She let him suck on her finger, before she continued. Becoming aggressive, Tom asked: "Wanna get f--ked, huh? Is that what you want?" He ripped open his own shirt, then forcefully pulled her blouse apart, and they hungrily kissed. He grabbed her large breasts within her black bra, kneaded them, and buried his face in her breasts, as she added: "You just stay hard." He angrily ripped off her panties and touched her privates, as she urged: "You bad boy. Come on, baby." As he was on the verge of penetrative intercourse, she said: "Come on. You gonna f--k me? You gonna f--k me? Put it in...I want you inside me...Do it! Now, now!" But at the last moment, he vacillated and had a change of heart, while looking at himself in a glass reflection ("Oh God, look at us"). She was frustrated: "You can't just stop! Come on!"

He turned her down due to his family. Tom pulled himself together and began to leave, while she threatened to get even: "You stick your dick in my mouth and then you get an attack of morality?" She retaliated when he suggested that she 'f--k' the two champagne bottles in her home's refrigerator instead of him, as she leaned over the stair's railing with her breasts heaving:

"Oh, you son-of-a-bitch. You get back here and finish what you started. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Get back here and finish what you started or you're f--kin' dead. You hear me? You are F--KING DEAD!"

As a result of their sexual encounter, Meredith contemplated a sexual harrassment suit against Tom, but he counter-sued Meredith for the same crime in a case that could potentially cause PR and "disclosure" problems for the company and its proposed merger proceedings. His defense attorney, Catherine Alvarez (Roma Maffia) stated: "Sexual harassment is not about sex. It is about power. She has it; you don't." She agreed to file a sexual harrassment suit on Tom's behalf, although warned that the company would continue pressuring him. During mediation procedures, Tom gave a full and true confession, although Meredith tearfully painted Tom as the sexual aggressor, concluding with a statement that she kneed him in the groin to end it. When Tom discovered that his wrong-number phone call the night of the incident had accidentally recorded the entire sexual encounter on tape, he instructed his lawyer to "bury them."

After the tape was played during a continuation of mediation hearings, Alvarez had a heated argument with the predatory Meredith, who defended her sexual aggressiveness, even though Tom had said "No" 31 times:

Catherine Alvarez: "The point is, you controlled the meeting. You set the time. You ordered the wine. You locked the door. You demanded service and then got angry when he didn't provide it. So you decided to get even, to get rid of him with this trumped-up charge. Ms. Johnson, the only thing you have proven is that a woman in power can be every bit as abusive as a man!"
Meredith Johnson: "You wanna put me on trial here? Let's at least be honest about what it's for! I am a sexually aggressive woman. I like it. Tom knew it, and you can't handle it. It is the same damn thing since the beginning of time. Veil it, hide it, lock it up and throw away the key. We expect a woman to do a man's job, make a man's money, and then walk around with a parasol and lie down for a man to f--k her like it was still a hundred years ago? Well, no thank you!"

Tom's job was reinstated - with $100K for "pain and suffering," plus lawyer's fees and expenses ("total and complete vindication"). Meredith was to be retained through the merger, and then quietly dismissed. But it wasn't over. There was one more attempt to oust Tom and consolidate Meredith's power. He would be the scapegoat - set up and blamed for serious quality control production problems in the Malaysian manufacturing of the company's high-speed Arcamax CD-ROM drive players that she had personally ordered. Meredith was responsible for cost-cutting production changes that compromised quality in the Malaysian plant.

Armed with backed-up data (faxed to Tom's office from Malaysia), Tom arrived prepared at a Friday morning shareholder meeting with merger executives. He was victorious over Meredith after distributing copies of her memos, to expose her lies and deceptions. When fired by Garvin, she thought of herself as a victim. She blamed male higher-ups for the conspiracy - who punished her when she failed, although Tom gave himself the credit: "Did it ever occur to you, Meredith, that maybe I set you up?"

Dream Lover (1994)

In this R-rated erotic thriller from writer/director Nicholas Kazan (his directorial debut film), the central title character or alluring "dream lover" was a mysterious and gorgeous femme fatale. [Note: This film was not to be confused with Kristy McNichols' film Dream Lover (1986).]

The suspenseful film was intended to cash in on the success of the earlier Basic Instinct (1992), and was similar in plot to the homosexually-tinged Bad Influence (1990). The unrated (and uncut) version of the theatrical film contained a few more minutes of extended sex scenes (and additional footage of the ending).

The two lovers came into 'accidental' contact with each other at an art gallery opening and in a supermarket:

• Lena Mathers (Madchen Amick), beautiful and sensual
• Ray Reardon (James Spader), a successful architect and recent divorcee

Dream Lover Lena Mathers (Madchen Amick)

Lena married Ray after dream dates, storybook sex and romance, and they soon started a family. Cracks began to develop, hinted at earlier by Lena herself:

Look, just 'cause I'm halfway pretty, guys look in my eyes and think they know me. I become their fantasy. I'm just a regular screwed-up person. So when you say I'm beautiful, it's like you're not seeing me at all.

But Ray quickly learned that he had been duped for his money while she was duplicitous and devious regarding many aspects of her life: her past history, her identity, her friends, the bruises on her leg, and her afternoon disappearances to conduct a weekly affair with his friend Larry (Fredric Lehne).

He finally sought revenge, although it ultimately cost him his sanity and freedom, when he was committed to a mental institution for six months for observation. When Lena privately admitted to him that his fears and suspicions were well-founded, and that she had duped him for monetary gain, he lured her to the mental hospital during his birthday party to speak to her about a 'mistake' she had made.

In the film's twist ending set at the institution during his party, he lured her away to talk alone, unseen by attendants. He told her: "This is the last time we're gonna see each other, right?" He described how he felt "alive" and "inspired" finally - and grabbed her. She threatened to scream, but he cautioned her that she wouldn't get what she wanted or deserved. He suggested that he wanted to help her by telling her the flaw in her plan, so that she wouldn't repeat her error the next time around. He first demanded a real kiss: "Kiss me and I'll tell, only it has to be a real kiss. Something to remember."

After he kissed her, he stated: "Who are you, Lena? Who will you be when you die?" Before strangling her to death, he told her there would be no consequences for his actions. He claimed that since he had been declared insane, he couldn't be held accountable for her death:

Ray: There are no consequences - that's the flaw in your plan. I'm crazy. You've driven me crazy.
Lena: That was the whole idea.
Ray: Well, crazy people aren't responsible. Crazy people aren't legally responsible. I'm not guilty by reason of insanity. In a year, I'll be sane again and they'll have to let me out.

He strangled her, and then laid her body on the lawn. The film abruptly ended with the credits atop images of Ray and Lena wildly revolving on a dance floor. In the extended version of the film, Ray was released from the hospital and was with his children at the zoo.

Exit to Eden (1994)

Anne Rice's (pseudonym Anne Rampling) 1985 novel of the same name was turned into an R-rated unfunny comedic film by director Garry Marshall and noted for its plentiful nudity

It told about a resort island named Eden specializing in fantasies and bizarre sexual activities for its clients. Rosie O'Donnell also was featured in an unnecessary and secondary subplot as undercover police detective Sheila Kingston who was trailing diamong smugglers at the resort - she had to dress up in black leather and bondage outfits - as part of the slapstick and gag jokes about kinky S&M.

In one scene, Sheila was approached and asked: "How can I fulfill your fantasy?" to which she responded: "Go paint my house!"

One of the resort's guests, sexually-repressed, submissive photographer Elliot Slater (Paul Mercurio) fell for the club's dominatrix leader Lisa Emerson (Dana Delany appearing with a rare full-frontal scene and other nudity).

In a food fetish scene involving a croissant, cinnamon in a shaker, and a stick of butter (during which Lisa asked pertinently while smiling: "Did you see Last Tango in Paris?"), a kneeling Elliot applied butter with his finger to Lisa's croissant and then with the full stick buttered up her left breast - he then did the same with some sprinkled cinnamon as she said: "Oh, Australian kink." He responded: "Bon appetit" as he licked her nipple and she bit into the buttered and cinnamoned croissant.

Exotica (1994, Can.)

Canadian film maker Atom Egoyan's mature, discomforting and haunting meditative masterpiece (told with non-linear reverse chronology and flashbacks), his first art-house success in the US, was about obsession, alienation, jealousy and voyeurism. It was very different than the erotic (or exotic) thriller it was marketed as. It was more of a psychological drama with multiple storylines (two love triangles) and connections between characters that were slowly revealed.

It specifically examined the painful relationship-bond established between two individuals in a club called Exotica:

• Francis Brown (Bruce Greenwood), a Toronto strip club regular, and a lonely government revenue auditor
• Christina or "Chrissy" (Mia Kirshner), a sultry brunette table/lap dancer (often introduced: "What is it that gives a schoolgirl her special innocence?")

She was outfitted as a teenaged school girl (with white shirt, tartan-plaid skirt, and knee socks) and often talked or privately danced for $5 for Francis to the tune of Leonard Cohen's "Everyone Knows." His daughter had been murdered and he was also grieving the traffic accident death of his unfaithful wife - a possible suicide. His visits to the club to see Christina, his former babysitter, helped him 'resurrect' his daughter in his mind and ease his paternal pain. At the same time, Christina was having a lesbian affair with Zoe.

[Note: Francis' current babysitter Tracey Brown (Sarah Polley), (although unnecessary - "There's no baby to sit"), was the daughter of his wheel-chaired brother Harold (Victor Garber) - who was having an affair with Francis' wife before Francis' daughter was tragically murdered and his wife died in a car accident. Eric and Christina were the two in the search party who discovered Francis' daughter's discarded corpse.]

Other associated relationships included:

• Eric (Elias Koteas) - the long, dark-haired club DJ, Christina's jealous and possessive ex-boyfriend
• Zoe (Arsinee Khanjian) - the club's pregnant owner who had been impregnated by Eric through a contractual arrangement
• Thomas (Don McKellar) - a gay, meek, secretive, and bespectacled exotic pet-shop owner who would ritualistically pick up male partners at the opera

Francis uncovered the fact of Thomas' criminal behavior (suspected illegal smuggling rare bird eggs). At the same time, Eric persuaded Francis to touch Christina (strictly forbidden by the club's policies), and Eric barred him from the club. Francis made a blackmailing deal with Thomas - he would overlook Thomas' smuggling if he visited Exotica to speak to Christina and assisted him in killing Eric. However, Francis and Eric ended up embracing, in empathy toward each other's circumstances, when all the interconnected relationships were fully revealed.

The Getaway (1994)

Roger Donaldson's action thriller was a more explicit and revealing remake of Sam Peckinpah's 1972 escape/chase film of the same name (starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw). It was produced in various versions including an uncut, unrated one.

The two stars in this remake were:

• Doc McCoy (Alec Baldwin), a released Mexican prison con
• Carol (Kim Basinger, Baldwin's real-life wife at the time), Doc's wife

The two experienced passionate sex scenes together while on the lam. They were being pursued by the law and by crooked partner Jack Benyon (James Woods).

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Neil Jordan's R-rated sexy horror/drama featured major stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt (and young pre-teen Kirsten Dunst who kissed Pitt) in a centuries-old relationship as blood-sucking vampires - it was based on Anne Rice's best-selling novel.

Mortal Woman on Stage (Laure Marsac) Ceremonially Disrobed

In a ceremonial theatrical 'performance' (that required a real human sacrifice) in the Theatre des Vampires before a live audience, Laure Marsac was featured as a Mortal Woman on Stage, who begged for her life:

Santiago: Just as this flesh is pink now, soon it will turn gray and wrinkled with age.
Woman: (weeping) Let me live. I don't care!
Santiago: Then why should you care if you die now?

She was stripped naked by Armand (Antonio Banderas), and then he proceeded to drain blood from her neck. Then the remainder of her blood was shared by the large group of vampires after he passed her limp nude body to them. The vampires surrounded her and plunged their fangs into her prostrate nude body (from a top view).

The Last Seduction (1994)

John Dahl's modern-day dark noir featured lethal, sexy, amoral, self-serving, cold-blooded, manipulative and brainy femme fatale Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino, whose superb performance wasn't Oscar nominated due to invalidation since it aired first on HBO cable TV). [She followed in the footsteps of two other great femme fatales in film noir - Jane Greer and Barbara Stanwyck.] Its lesser sequel was director Terry Marcel's The Last Seduction II (1999) with Joan Severance.

Smart and attractive telemarketing manager Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) absconded with her physician husband Clay's (Bill Pullman) $700,000 of pharmaceutical-cocaine drug money, and fled from NYC to Upper State New York to the small town of Beston near Buffalo. In the local Ray's Bar after she was ignored by the bartender, she muttered: "Who's a girl gotta suck around here to get a drink?"

She was approached by the local, gullible bar pickup stud Mike Swale (Peter Berg) who bragged about his size: "I'm hung like a horse. Think about it." She responded: "Mr. Ed, let's see," and then he opened his pants as he sat next to her in a booth to sample his manly goods: "I believe what we're looking for is a certain horse-like quality?" She seduced and propositioned him: "No names. Meet me outside." They went to his place to spend the night.

After the two had a brief late evening bout of sex at his place (off-screen), the next morning, Mike awoke and heard Bridget on the phone scheming with her lawyer Frank Griffith (J.T. Walsh) to divorce her husband and abscond with the money. (Frank memorably asked her: "Anyone check you for a heartbeat lately?")

Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) with Mike
In Ray's Bar, Checking out Mike Swale (Peter Berg)	Sex With Mike Against a Chain-Link Fence Behind the Bar	In The Back of Her Jeep Cherokee
In His Place	Again At His Place	Mike Admitting He Had Fallen in Love with Bridget/Wendy: "You happened, alright?"

She took a job in a local company, Interstate Insurance, as Director of Lead Generation, claiming she was alias Wendy Kroy (an acronym for New York) and was fleeing from her abusive husband in NYC. After being hired, to her surprise, she discovered that Mike also worked for the same company; in the privacy of the ladies' rest room, she demanded that he distance himself from her and keep their sexual relationship quiet: ("Don't f--k with my image!"). Hiding out, she first took residence at the Beston Motor Court (and soon after rented a house), and frequented Ray's Bar occasionally.

She made love to Mike again, in an alley behind the smoky saloon while hanging on a chain-link fence and straddling him with his pants down to his ankles. When he asked, "Where do I fit in?" she coldy replied: "You're my designated f--k." Bumping and grinding later on top of him in the back of her Jeep Cherokee, she admitted to her frequent sex partner: "I'm a total f--king bitch." He complained that he was being kept at arm's length like a "sex object." To keep him at bay, she stated: "F--king doesn't have to be anything more than f--king."

A black man named Harlan (Bill Nunn) had recently been hired by Clay as a private detective to locate his duplicitous wife, and help get his funds back so he could pay back $100,000 dollars to loan sharks. He traced her to Beston, NY, where the scheming Bridget tricked him - while driving - into becoming distracted by showing her his large penis while she was driving: "Is it true what they say?...You know, size? ...Now, come on, I was wondering for real. Let me see it...Come on, let me see it. I've never seen one before. I'll show you my ass - Show me!...I'm driving. You go first." After he agreed and asked: "Will you shut the f--k up if I show you?", he unbuckled his seat belt and unzipped his fly to expose himself. She deliberately sped up and crashed the car into a utility pole, killing him by propelling him through the windshield.

After recovering, Bridget took a taxi for the 52 mile trip to Buffalo, to the Erie County Municipal Building where she identified Mike's earlier unwitting and mistaken marriage six months earlier to a trans-gendered male named Trish (Serena); she proceeded to visit Mike's wife and conducted an interview (off-screen) with her (while impersonating a County Health official).

She tricked Mike into thinking she had taken a weekend trip to Miami to murder Lance Collier, a cheating and abusive husband who deserved death. She claimed about the murder-for-profit scheme: "I did it for us, Mike," and wouldn't listen to his objections: "Spare me your brain with countrified morality. The world's better off without Lance Collier" - and showed him a case of payoff cash (her own!) as "f--king evidence." To keep him under her control, she ordered him out, and kept pressuring him to kill for her to show his devotion, and at the same time escape from Beston: "You wanna live bigger but there's nothin' you'd kill for. There's a place for people like that: It's called Beston."

Later at work, she resisted Mike's later apologies (she told him: "You have a way of making a woman feel like a one-way train ticket"), claiming that he needed to be her equal ("a relationship of equals") in order to show his commitment and interest in her. He replied with a question: "Murder is commitment?"

When Mike finally acquiesed, she cleverly convinced him into duplicating her scheme to show his love - to murder Clay (who was trumped up to be an unfaithful husband/cheater and wife beater in New York named 'Cahill'). She claimed the payout by the widow would be over three million ("You, me, three million bucks, New York City, Mike. It's reasonable"). And then to convince Mike to "pull up stakes" to leave Beston and accept her plan, she faked a letter from Trish to Mike asserting that she was returning to Beston to be with him.

The murder plan (an "unpleasant chore") to stab Clay in his NYC apartment went awry when Mike went chicken and yelled: "I can't do it, Wendy, I can't do it" - and then he saw their wedding picture. He realized that the victim was not 'Cahill' but Wendy's husband, and that he had been seduced into committing her husband's murder.

Wendy entered the apartment to check on the killing, where she found both Clay and Mike had teamed up, and Mike knew of her deception ("So you were gonna have me kill your husband"). In a clever double-cross, Bridget killed her own husband by spraying Mace down his throat, after kissing him, and then calmly told her naive boyfriend: "Now we have a future....I did it for us, Mike."

Then to complete the deception, she aggravated the 'intruder' Mike to rape her by first removing her pants and displaying old fashioned men's underwear, reinforcing Mike's fears of being homosexual. She then taunted him about Trish: "You should have told me you never slept with a man before. Must have been some wild night, you getting married so fast." She angered him over his damaged marriage:

"He couldn't believe it - had to keep the goods hidden for a whole two days. What did he tell ya - that little bobbly thing in the back of your throat was a clitoris!? You married a man, you farm faggot!...I'm Trish. Rape me."

The Crime-Scene Set-Up: An Aggravated Mike Raped Bridget From Behind (on a Table) After She Taunted Him: "I'm Trish. Rape me" as She Dialed 911

Mike began to rape her from behind as she was laid out on a table; she reached forward and surreptitiously dialed 911 to record their role-play and conversation and his self-incriminating confession: "I'm gonna rape you. I'm gonna f--king rape you, bitch!"; she also made sure to repeatedly scream out the accusation: "You killed my husband!" with his concurrence: "God-damn right I did!"

The call was recorded and traced, and Mike was arrested, jailed and obviously out-maneuvered and set-up for the crime; his public defender (Jack Shearer) had no way to defend Mike's actions and contest the evidence against him, and he was destined for the electric chair.

Mike thought of one remaining "piece of hard evidence" - Clay's 6B NYC apartment call-button label reading 'Cahill'; however, rape-victim and black-widowed Bridget had thought of everything. In the final dialogue-less scene unlike most noirs, Bridget escaped unpunished - she slyly smiled as she was chauffeured away in the back of a black 1991 Lincoln Towncar stretch limousine; she burned the 'Cahill' apartment label; once it was gone, she was now free to escape with the drug-money and Clay's multi-million dollar life insurance policy.

Bridget's Escape - Burning the "Cahill" Apartment Call-Button Label