@dreamgirldani and I watched sex, lies, and videotape (1989) as the third movie of a triple feature where we took edibles and ordered donuts to her apartment. In this blog, I talk about why rewatching is so important to me, so I'm trying to document what brings me BACK to things not just what brings them to me in the first place.
I think I liked sex, lies, and videotape before I ever saw it. Two years ago, I referenced the film in my review of Challengers (2024) because it had drawn comparisons but I wasn't even sure why. Sometime after that, I watched Cronenberg's Crash (1996) for the first time and then again the next day because it struck a great balance between horny, twisty, and complex.
Every time I drive or walk below underpass I recall images of a sweaty, frantic James Spader and relish in how my car dependent city is kind of sexy despite the terrors ("After being bombarded endlessly by road safety propaganda, almost a relief to have found myself in an actual accident.").
All this James Spader and J. G. Ballard in our heads, Dani and I watched Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape for shallow reasons. I remember enjoying myself but being too out of it 4 hours into the triple feature to have any confidence I knew what was going on.
This week, I picked it up again -- pirated and on my laptop this time, but now with my undivided attention, and of course I loved it even more. I really gravitate toward incestuous dynamics between couples in my movies, all that effort lovers put in to keep out an interloper (or interlopers!).
Here, Soderbergh crafts a kind of love square between a married and sexless couple (MacDowell, Gallagher) + the wife's sister + the husband's mysterious friend from college (Spader with this crazy Tears for Fears mullet) who rolls into town and captures the attention of both women. Chaos ensues and it is quiet, enticing, and sooo satisfying.
I love that it's set in Baton Rouge, I love the interiors and the rare flashy camera move that makes a whole scene come together. I love the performances and the silences and the metanarratives about finding clarity or purposeful deception through a camera and what's on/what's off screen.The film keeps your focus while switching between the same 4 rooms and the same 4 people. The exposition is buried and naturalistic so that the viewer feels like they're constantly one step behind, just as the characters who scramble for information about one another, operating and betraying before they have the full picture.
I'm working on a review of Obsession for for breakfast, and I'm noticing how much CLARITY matters in a script even when a movie is meant to confuse. I don't want any of these NRW blogs to have spoilers, so I can't say much more, but sex, lies, and videotape is one of those movies that is so easy to watch because it is actually technically perfect and watertight. PAY ATTENTION!
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Andie MacDowell and James Spader win the movie for playing their respective characters' repressions so well and using one another to change.
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FUN FACT: A movie I watched for the first time, years too late, is Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. sex, lies, and videotape, which was also Soderbergh's debut, won the 1989 Palme D'Or at Cannes over Do The Right Thing (and Cinema Paradiso) to much controversy! They're both 5 stars to me, Lee gets the edge for obvious reasons though.
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TTNRW *time til next rewatch: If I don't rewatch by the end of the year, I'm planning to seek out the script to read.
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DOUBLE FEATURE: Great pairing with any of the movies mentioned (Closer, Challengers, Crash), but for some reason I'm thinking of HBO's Scenes from a Marriage (2021), a television adaptation of the classic Bergman I have not seen. Sexy people in rooms talking... it never fails to excite me.
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SEXIEST SCENE: obvs the climax
xx
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