The Ages of Lulu (1990, Sp.) (aka Las Edades de Lulú)

Writer/director Bigas Luna's (known for his later film Jamon, Jamon (1992, Sp.)) explicit and erotic film caused great controversy and censorship. Censorship cuts were made to the film in various places to tone down its graphic nature in its tale of the sexual rites-of-passage odyssey of the title character Lulu (Francesca Neri).

The most controversial included the opening title-credits view of a young and naked Lulu as a baby being baptized (with a close-up of her female genitals), the S&M four-way bisexual orgy at the gay club, and some of the explicitness in the many unorthodox sex scenes.

She was engaged in a depraved journey from her naive teenaged high-school years onwards. In one of the film's earlier scenes as a 15-year old, she surrendered herself to her brother's much older best friend Pablo (Óscar Ladoire) and allowed him to shave her pubic region at the end of their first date. After removing her panties, she sat in front of him open-legged with her white dress pulled up, as he lathered her crotch with shaving cream and then used a men's razor to scrape away her pubic hair. Then he led her to a couch where he proceeded to take away her virginity.

Later, when she was still smitten with him, he gave her a gift of a phallic-shaped vibrating, battery-operated dildo, which she immediately put to use (with his assistance). And then after getting her excited, he forced her to submit to painful anal sex. In the next scene, they were married. After the ceremony, they had more bouts of wild energetic sex together during their honeymoon.

Honeymoon Sex

Pablo's and Lulu's (Francesca Neri) Kinky Explorations with Trans-Gender Prostitute Ely (María Barranco)

Her sexual cravings soon brought her to a darker underworld of experience, including a threesome with a trans-gendered or trans-sexual prostitute named Ely (Maria Barranco).

She also shared a blindfolded incestual threesome with her own brother Marcelo (Fernando Guillén Cuervo) (preceded by the scissors-cutting of her panties to open them). When she discovered the other male was her incestuous brother, she left Pablo, taking with her daughter Ines.

She eventually pursued/explored further kinky and increasingly dangerous sensual experiences after watching gay porno films. She lost control over her sexual addiction and appetite, and began to participate in group sex, gay sex, and S&M (fisting by a male prostitute) in a secret gay club.

Over-the-Top Threesome, Violent Gay Sex, and S&M

When she was bound and gagged and on the verge of being violently assaulted (and Ely was tragically killed), Lulu was fortunately rescued, reunited and taken back by her estranged husband.

Bad Girls From Mars (1990)

Director Fred Olen Ray's (famous for Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988)) kitschy "film-within-a-film" was a low-budget, fairly tiresome film shot in only 5 days. It was actually a spoof of its own B-movie origins, with original sound-effects to warn the audience of upcoming "sexually-explicit" scenes. Its tagline was:

"And you thought Earth girls were easy..."

The soft-core sci-fi film being shot, "Bad Girls From Mars," opened with leading-lady starlet Terry (Jasae), a female alien, complaining during a topless scene to her male prisoner from Earth: "There's no room on Mars for limp dicks" before she was killed in her dressing room (strangled by a roll of film) by a maniac who had delivered a non-rhyming poem to her: "You're mean and cruel right from the start. And now you really have nowhere to hide."

Costume/wardrobe girl Myra ("Scream Queen Brinke Stevens), the girlfriend of narcissistic leading man Richard "Dick" Trent (Jay Richardson), wanted the role but was denied by harried director TJ McMasters (Oliver Darrow) - who was often seen being seduced by his dark-haired secretary Martine (Dana Bentley).

Now that four female stars had been murdered, producer Mac Regan (Jeffrey Culver) encouraged TJ to bring busty, leggy and exotic blonde sex goddess/ author Emanuelle Fortes (Russ Meyer bimbo Edy Williams) from Europe to star in the picture, stating that she had "great tits." Once the breathy replacement actress arrived, and while dipping naked in a jacuzzi, Emanuelle was attacked from behind by the masked killer and kidnapped, although she escaped and ended up loosely draped in a robe in a convenience/liquor store during an inept robbery.

Edy Williams as Sex Goddess Emanuelle

She threatened walking off the set to the director: "I want to live through the week," but then was turned into a "wild woman" by the smell of garbage on his clothes. Once filming resumed, with Myra off-screen cracking a whip, Emanuelle propositioned the director in his office: "You work way too long, too hard...I want to rehearse tomorrow's sex scenes with you...I'll show you how it goes," causing jealous Martine in the outer office to challenge her to a fierce, half-naked cat-fight. The struggle ended when the secretary's neck was broken by the killer (and later, Martine's bloody head was delivered in a box).

In the film's conclusion, Emanuelle was kidnapped again and taken to a warehouse where her hands were bound, when the film's unusual last-minute plot twist was soon revealed. She came upon the final murder in the studio where she found that the producer's neck was slashed. The black-garbed, masked serial killer was Myra -- actually Emanuelle's ex-boyfriend Victor Buntz ("Things were a lot less complicated then"), who had undergone gender reassignment surgery in Sweden. In the past, Victor had murdered Swedish surgeon Dr. Edward Wood, after his face had been altered during gender reassignment surgery. Emanuelle again confronted the killer, unmasking Myra, who confessed:

"I just wasn't cut out to be a boy, you know. I was lousy at sports, beer made me nauseous, I hated shaving in the morning. So I went to this doctor in Sweden and changed my sex...I always wanted to be a movie star, you know, bright lights, flashy cars, glamour, the Enquirer. Now look at me....I can't seem to find the right person to kill to get into the movies."

She explained that "in a round-about way," she was responsible for the killings that had given Emanuelle the opportunity to star in the soft-core film ("Once you were in Hollywood, things would start happening for you").

Myra's planned last act was to blow up the studio with a hand-grenade, but Emanuelle knocked her out, placed the grenade in her mouth, and pulled the pin - eliminating Myra in the ensuing explosion. The film ended with Emanuelle performing unscripted in the scene that opened the film - she stripped, then rubbed, squeezed, and shook her bare breasts, while the director yelled: "Cut!" and commented: "Will this movie never end?"

Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1990)

After Deathstalker (1983) and Barbarian Queen (1985), the demand continued for sword and sorcery, fantasy sexploitation tales.

In this direct-to-video release, B-movie actress Lana Clarkson reprised her title role as a statuesque 'Barbarian Queen' warrior woman - Princess/Queen Athalia.

The Film's Centerpiece: Queen Athalia's Rack Torture Scene
	Hofrax: "What an awesomely disgusting sight!"
Prisoner Athalia (Lana Clarkson)

Frankenhooker (1990)

Longtime B-horror director Frank Henenlotter's blood-and-breasts spoof was one of the most notorious, silliest, and over-the-top horror/comedies ever made, and a spoof of the classic Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Set in New Jersey, it told about electrician-mad scientist/engineer Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz), obsessed with anatomy, whose pudgy blonde girlfriend Elizabeth Shelley (August 1986 Penthouse Pet of the Month Patty Mullen) was accidentally killed by his invention - a runaway remote-controlled lawnmower. Disturbed and grief-stricken, he then stole her head (the only part that could be salvaged), and refrigerated it in a purple preservative bath to later use for his "perfect woman" - stitched onto the body parts of other streetwalkers.

He had acquired the other body "parts" from hookers, one of whom was named Honey (December 1982 Playboy Playmate, Charlotte Kemp) who propositioned him in his car when he said: "I'm looking for a lot of good parts." She pulled down her blouse and dangled her breasts in front of him, bragging:

In case you ain't noticed, I not only got all the right parts, I've got 'em all in the right places.

When he flashed a wad of money at her, she jumped in his car, excitedly exclaiming: "Now you're talking." The spoof was mostly noted for its "Exploding Prostitutes" scene - he murdered a group of bare-breasted prostitutes in a hotel by serving them "super-crack" cocaine - causing them to detonate (in the film's most memorable sequence), and then took their severed limbs and parts to his laboratory to sew together and re-animate with electricity.

Various Prostitutes at a Super-Crack Party Before They Began Blowing Up
Various Hookers	Chartreuse (Heather Hunter)
Angel (Jennifer Delora)	Amber (Kimberly Taylor)
(l to r) Amber and Anise (Susan Napoli)	Snow (Gittan Goding)
Exploding Prostitutes

The reconstructed purple-bikinied female monster, his resultant "Bride of Frankenstein", with purple patchworked, mismatched parts including purplish areola on her breasts, was dubbed 'Frankenhooker' since she only wanted to turn tricks on Times Square streets. She was a sexually-ravenous nymphomaniac and undead (but deadly) "hooker" who went on the prowl for johns (she propositioned various potential males: "Wanna date?", "Need some company, lonely?", "Got any money?", and "Looking for some action?"). Intimate sexual relations with her turned out to be literally shocking - any male client that she kissed exploded.

The film featured a famous, sickly-twisted surprise ending when Jeffrey himself was decapitated by a sadistic pimp named Zorro (Joseph Gonzalez). (There was a final disgusting revenge scene upon Zorro by the female body parts.) Jeffrey had his head grafted onto the body of a large breasted hooker's body in order to be rejuvenated. As he awoke on an uprighted table, he was astounded, and lamented to Elizabeth:

Jeffrey: Holy s--t! That's not my hand. What are these boobs? Elizabeth, what did you do to me?
Elizabeth: I can explain. Obviously, since your theory only works on female body parts, I couldn't reuse your old body, or even Zorro's, so naturally, I had to make some changes. (She uncovered a mirror for a full view)
Jeffrey: No! Where's my johnson? What did you do to me, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Granted, what I did may have been a bit unorthodox, but hey, you look great, and you're alive, and you're back with me and I love you. I love you, Jeffrey, and we're together again. All of us, together again. Together again!

Ghost (1990)

Director Jerry Zucker's old-fashioned supernatural romantic fantasy was noted for its non-nude, seductive sequence (symbolic of mutual masturbation) of co-creating molding clay on a pottery wheel, between the shared, wet hands of Molly (Demi Moore) and shirtless Sam (Patrick Swayze) (with the playing of the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody").

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, as they both morphed the grayish, oozing clay from one phallic shape to another. The sequence continued with their extended love-making and kissing ("hunger for your love") in their darkened apartment.

[Note: This scene was later spoofed in Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991).]

The Grifters (1990)

Director Stephen Frears' R-rated adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel of the same name was a seedy and tense film noir about three 'grifter' con-artists and their worlds of treachery and double-cross. The two females were engaged in a deadly power-struggle love-triangle for the male's attention:

• Roy Dillon (John Cusack), a two-bit small-time hustler/con
• Lilly Dillon (Anjelica Huston), an experienced horse-gambler and Roy's estranged mother
• Myra Langtry (Annette Bening), a high-stakes sexual swindler and corporate scam artist scheister, Roy's girlfriend

Sexy Myra Langtry (Annette Bening)

Deceitful Myra was the romantic interest for Roy - she enticed and seduced him within a naked doorway to become his affectionate floozy girlfriend. She opened her door, standing there stark naked, ran by him in the dark hallway shouting: "Gangway," and then hid behind a curtain as she apologized: "I hope you don't mind, sir. I just washed my clothes and I couldn't do a thing with them." He chased after her and tossed her onto a bed.

In the film's conclusion, vengeful Myra was shot to death by Lilly, and then Myra's face-blasted and disfigured corpse was made to look like Lilly's. Roy was called upon, as next-of-kin, to identify his mother at the Phoenix morgue - he concealed that he noticed Lilly's right hand did not have its tell-tale cigar burn mark.

Then, Lilly was confronted by Roy as she appeared to be stealing his money in his place. She argued that she was on the run and needed his money, and claimed she might make a break to get out of the con games and grifting (although she'd never had a legitimate job in her life) - she desperately begged and begged for his money, to tide her over:

"I need this money! I can't run without money! And if I can't run, I'm dead!...I want that money, Roy, I need it. Now, what do I have to do to get it? You mean you won't give it to me, Roy? Will you or won't you? What can I do to get it? Is there nothing I can do?"

When she came close and seductively kissed him, he asked: "Lilly, Jesus, what are you doing?", she replied: "Nothing at all, nothing at all," but then in a bizarre twist, she swung a suitcase full of cash at her son's head as he was drinking water from a glass. The glass smashed and cut an artery in his neck - and he profusely bled to death on the floor in front of her! Red-dressed Lilly gathered up the strewn cash, descended in an elevator, and drove away.

Henry & June (1990)

Director Philip Kaufman's frank and bold treatment of sex was based on the unedited diaries of poetry and memories by author Anais Nin - published post-humously in 1986.

It was the first major studio feature film to be released with the new and revised NC-17 rating by the MPAA (due to an explicit yet simulated scene of lesbian oral sex) - a rating designed to distinguish erotic-and-serious adult films from pure hard-core X-rated pornography. The new rating remained a stigma. Thereafter, many directors/studios afraid of NC-17 released their films as unrated or reluctantly cut and re-edited them to receive R ratings.

It had the second highest box-office gross of all-time at $11.6 million, about half of the #1 NC-17 film of all time, Showgirls (1995) at $20.3 million.

The sexually-provocative biodrama with themes of voyeurism, partner-swapping, three-way sex, and both hetero- and homo-sexuality told about a love triangle between three individuals in early 1930s Bohemian Paris:

• Anais Nin (Maria de Medeiros, a Portuguese actress), a petite, fragile yet sexually-liberated and free-spirited writer, unsatisfyingly married to banker husband Hugo Parker Guiler (Richard E. Grant) who called her by his pet name "Pussywillow"; the couple had relocated to Paris
• Henry Miller (Fred Ward), an ex-patriate American writer and 'Tropic of Cancer' author, living a Bohemian lifestyle
• June (19 year old Uma Thurman), Henry's alluring and enigmatic bi-sexual wife (his second), an ex-taxi dancer who was often absent (searching for employment as an actress in New York); she functioned as the muse and object of the affections of both Henry and Anais

The controversial film included these scenes:

• during the opening credits, there was a postcard view of the famous erotic woodcut (The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife) from Japanese artist Hokusai, depicting oral sex between two octopi and a young, naked Ama pearl diver; Anais claimed that with the entire collection of erotic items in a box she found in a closet, and wrote: "I became familiar with the endless varieties of the erotic experience"
• Anais' many passionate and eager couplings with Henry during their affair together, including her first time with him furtively behind a curtain in a club during a syncopated dance (he told her: "I love you, I need you" and she told him that she also loved him)
• up against a wall in a tunnel as Henry began to perform oral sex on Anais, they professed their love for each other:
  Anais: "I feel so pure. So strong. So new, Henry. You and I together, not any man or woman together."
  Henry: "Anais, I'm gonna demand everything of ya. Even the impossible. Because you encourage it. Maybe I should get down on my knees and worship ya. Oh, I'm gonna undress ya. Vulgarize ya a bit. Lift up your dress."
  Anais: "No, Henry, not here."
  Henry: "Don't look around. You little aristocrat. Don't care. I wanna fuck ya, teach ya things, humiliate you a little. Wrap your leg around me. I'm gonna make you come with me"
• Anais slow-dancing (and deep lesbian kissing) with June in an underground lesbian club
• love-making between Anais and her husband Hugo, when her voice-over accompanied them while he was sleeping: "Perhaps I am a demon to be able to pass from Henry's arms into Hugo's. Hugo lies next to me as I write this. I love Hugo. And I feel innocent"
• some segments of le Bal des Beaux Arts (the Art Students' Ball) sequence, including Anais' 'rape' by costumed husband Hugo
• an "exhibition" of lesbian love-making in a private show conducted in a mirrored brothel room, viewed by Anais and Hugo, between Henry's blonde whore (Brigitte Lahaie) and another Frail Prostitute (Maïté Maillé) - when Anais advised the aggressive blonde: "Stop pretending to be a man."
• Anais' love-making scene with her lover/cousin Eduardo (Jean-Philippe Écoffey) in the midst of her other affair

Selected Scenes in the First NC-17 Rated Film - Henry & June
Anais with Husband Hugo	Anais' Love-Making with Henry	Anais' 'Rape' by Husband Hugo in le Bal des Beaux Arts
Frail Prostitute (Maïté Maillé)	Private Lesbian Club "Exhibition" Between Henry's Whore and Frail Prostitute

In another scene, Anais described an hallucinatory "nightmare" dream-fantasy of sex with June (and with Henry's blonde whore) in an upper loft, experiencing 'abnormal pleasures' ("I begged her to undress. I asked her to let me see between her legs. As she lay over me, I felt a penis touching me..."). Anais also had a climactic love-making scene with Henry after he had finished his novel 'Tropic of Cancer' while Hugo was downstairs. [Note: "Tropic of Cancer" was published in 1934, and banned in all English-speaking countries for 27 years.]

In the concluding scene, Anais and June got together for love-making (while Henry was asleep in another room of the house) after which an accusatory June confronted Anais about her sexual awakening, and her manipulative and self-serving affair with Henry, her husband:

Anais: I love you.
June: Love? You just want experience. You're a writer. You make love to whatever you need. You're just like Henry.
Anais: No, I'm just like you.
June: I can see exactly what you're doing. You're so slippery, so slippery. You bitch. Liar, trickster. You bought his love.
Anais: June, shut up!
June: You both robbed me blind. You stole everything. And what do I care? I got plenty more to give.
Anais: Shut up.
June: To someone new. Some truly great writer. Henry said you just took us in because you were bored.
Anais: That's a lie. A lie.

Anais broke off her relationship with both Henry & June and returned to her husband Hugo, although she had been changed forever. As she drove away with him, she lamented (in voice-over) her lost loves, although Henry and Anais remained "life-long friends and supporters":

That morning I wept. I wept because I loved the streets that took me away from Henry and would lead me back to him. I wept because the process by which I had become a woman was painful. I wept because from now on, I would weep less. I wept because I had lost my pain and I was not yet accustomed to its absence.

The Hot Spot (1990)

Actor Dennis Hopper directed this contemporary, sexy film noir (based on Charles Williams' 1952 novel "Hell Hath No Fury"), and unfortunately, it turned out to be a financially-failing film.

Scheming bank robber/drifter-used car dealer Harry Madox (Don Johnson) engaged in a torrid affair with used car lot owner's hot-blooded wife Dolly Harshaw (Virginia Madsen in a sizzling performance as a Lana Turner-like femme fatale seductress).

Hot Spot Skinny-Dipping: Gloria (Jennifer Connelly)

One of the side plots told about troubled but sweet and soft-spoken 19 year-old Texas car dealership office secretary Gloria Harper (future Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly). Gloria was being blackmailed over a dark secret. Her most memorable scene was a bare skinny-dip with friend Irene Davey (Debra Cole) as she was being spied upon.

Jours Tranquilles à Clichy (1990, Fr.)

French director Claude Chabrol's sexually-explicit, erotic drama in 1990 was the second film adaptation of controversial Bohemian author Henry Miller's biographical novel of the same name.

[Note: The tale of free love, hedonism, and the Bohemian lifestyle had been told earlier in director Jens Jørgen Thorsen's black and white Quiet Days in Clichy (1970, Denmark), with a Country Joe McDonald soundtrack. It became notorious for charges of obscenity when it was seized by US authorities and viewed as pornography. See earlier entry.]

The colorful 1990 French effort, with Andrew McCarthy as youthful alter-ego Joey/Henry Miller - was about the expatriate and his best friend Alfred Perlès, aka Karl (Nigel Havers), who indulged in a variety of decadent sexual escapades in the 1930s in Paris' bordellos and fancy restaurants while Joey was struggling to establish himself as a serious writer. Both men became platonically involved with young underaged teenaged temptress Colette Ducarouge (Stéphanie Cotta), who the two protagonists simultaneously married.

Joey's true love was red-haired Nys (Barbara De Rossi), with a steamy sex and shower sequence. In his final scene as a young man, Joey was approached by a topless woman (uncredited) who asked: "What do you wanna do now, hmm, you old sex pot?" As he nuzzled between her breasts, he happily replied: "Suck up the last drop."

Adolescent (Giuditta Del Vecchio) with Dying Joey/Henry Miller (Andrew McCarthy)

In many intercut sequences throughout the film depicting Joey's final hours, the aging, wrinkle-skinned and dying man was seen with fully naked, illusionary, perfectly beautiful adolescent (Giuditta Del Vecchio), 60 years his younger. While sitting at his desk with his books in front of him, he talked about fearing the coming of death, represented by a nightmarish group of black-shaped figures that arrived in a car and were approaching closer and closer to him: "Please, make them go away." He claimed he wasn't sick, but still "as strong as a bull" - and that he wouldn't write anymore. The camera panned up the adolescent's nubile figure, as he asserted:

"Stand up. I want to look at you. You are perfection, but you have no right, no right to refuse me. Little apple blossoms like you are a dime a dozen in Paris. A dime a dozen. And they never kept me waiting for a f--k. I was a master, a sensei, an expert in the matter, for ages. I was an obscene type. You know."

In the next segment with her, he expressed: "I'm afraid of sleeping...This is the hour of Scorpio, the month of the jackal, and the army of despair." She replied: "You're a boor. I wish I could leave." He complimented himself: "Even in rejection, the old goat's full of spunk. In my next reincarnation, I'll be your age, and I'll meet you in Clichy. I'm a Capricorn. Time's on my side." He was pining for her, but she repeatedly refused to have sex with him: "The subject is closed, Joey."

When he told her: "If you feel afraid, you're damned," she showed him her bloody palm after cutting it with a shaving razor, emphasizing that she wasn't fearful ("Look, I'm not afraid"). She wondered why he was so insatiable and single-minded about having sex with her. He thought to himself: "Then why do you refuse me? Am I too old? Really, I'm only 60 years older than you. I'd get better from any Tenth Avenue whore. Your body's an empty shell. For the first time in my life, I'm in love with something that makes me sick." Later, he worried as death approached:

"There used to be a river here. When it rained, everything bloomed. The water lilies would bloom. Ah, you're not even listening to me. You're trying to dry me up for lack of affection - and it works. Even the desert goes to dust if nobody comes to look at it. There they are. In Paris, the Cézanne and Monet, incredible blue waterlilies. Ah, you've never been to Paris. If you had, you couldn't help falling in love with me. I rattle on and on like Buddha, but the truth is, I'm just an old jerk from Brooklyn that fell in love too late. Oh, crime and punishment."

When she asked what he really wanted, he responded: "A fatal dose of the clap." That's how he told her that he wanted to die, but: "Before I pull the plug, I'd like to stop off in Clichy, just for a moment." In his final encounter with her, he was lying in bed with her - expired.

Longtime Companion (1990)

Screenwriter Craig Lucas and director Norman René's independent ensemble film told about the impact of AIDS (regarded first as a mysterious "cancer") on seven gay New Yorkers. It was the first major feature film to deal explicitly with AIDS - two earlier limited release films that also dealt with AIDS were Buddies (1985) and Parting Glances (1986).

The film's title referred to the way that obituaries would list a gay man's lover.

It featured the poignant performance of homosexual David (Bruce Davison, nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) and his 'let it go' speech to his deteriorating AIDS patient friend - soap opera scriptwriter Sean (Mark Lamos).

The landmark film was also notable for the heartbreaking ending Fire Island beach fantasy, almost a decade later, in which three surviving loved ones reunited with all of the AIDS dead for a few moments. The three surviving friends Willy (Campbell Scott), Alan/Fuzzy (Stephen Caffrey) and Lisa (Mary-Louise Parker) strolled on an empty Fire Island beach when Willy wistfully mused: ("It seems inconceivable, doesn't it... there was ever a time before all this, when we didn't wake up every day wondering who's sick now, who else is gone?...I just want to be there if they ever do find a cure") - as bluegrass singer Zane Campbell's haunting Post-Mortem Bar was heard in the background.

All of the dead reverted back to their healthy selves for a few moments and were greeted by the threesome -- before cutting back to them on the beach alone, as Willy repeated: "I just want to be there" - the film's last line.

Miami Blues (1990)

Director George Armitage's black comedy-drama (and action crime-thriller) was set in the Miami area, and told about the romantic struggle between two major characters:

• Frederick J. Frenger, Jr. (Alec Baldwin), aka "Junior," an ex-con psychopath, and small-time criminal
• Susie Waggoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh), aka "Pepper," a sweet, short-haired, southern-accented but dense room-service hooker

Junior and Susie/Pepper (Jennifer Jason Leigh)

She was also a student enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College, with dreams of acquiring middle-class stability by owning a Burger King franchise. The vulnerable female naively trusted Junior and played house and 'marriage' with him at Coral Gables during their ongoing love/hate relationship, without wanting to know or acknowledge his true nature and criminal activities. Junior stole middle-aged Detective Hoke Mosely's (Fred Ward) police badge and gun and began impersonating the cop. The film eventually ended tragically for Junior.

Pretty Woman (1990)

Director Gary Marshall's very popular romance film, popular treacle actually, was Hollywood's morally-corrupt and sanitized version of what a Hollywood Boulevard hooker and prostitution would look like - with a fairy-tale Cinderella character and a My Fair Lady ending.

The fantasy romance was between a hooker and her wealthy john:

• Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts in her breakthrough role), a beautiful independent hooker
• Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), a Wall Street corporate raider

Julia Roberts as a Hooker and Pretty Woman - Kissing!

He engaged her services (her wish came true after she had said, "I want my fairy tale"), hiring her for $3,000 and additional amenities at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The turning point in their relationship actually occurred when Vivian consented to being kissed on the mouth. Earlier when asked what she did as services for her clients, she stated that she did "everything" except kiss on the mouth.

Vivian: "What do you want?"
Edward: "What do you do?"
Vivian: "Everything, but I don't kiss on the mouth."
Edward: "Neither do I."

Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

There wasn't much to this picture, directed by Roger Corman regular Jim Wynorski, other than lots of T&A and some violent bloodletting. Its tagline was accurate: "It’s Cleavage vs. Cleavers and the result is Delta Delta Deadly!"

It was a sequel only in name to the original film from 1986. The flashbacks at the beginning of the film were to a different film altogether - The Slumber Party Massacre (1982), which it more naturally followed.

The story was simple - five females bought an old dilapidated house for a sorority gathering place - the scene of the Hockstatter bloody slumber party massacre five years earlier. They moved in to spend the night, without phone or electrical service. Their creepy neighbor, Orville Ketchum (as Himself), told them all about the massacre that had previously taken place in the house. After showering and changing clothes (see pictures), the night-gowned girls consulted a Ouija board to contact the deceased murderer Hockstatter, and then found the house was haunted by a psychotic serial killer.

Jessica ("Scream Queen" Melissa Moore)		Linda (Gail/Robyn Harris)
Suzanne (Michelle Verran, or Barbii)
Kimberly (Stacia Zhivago)

Most of the girls were stabbed or killed (mostly off-screen) (in the following order: Janey (Dana Bentley), Suzanne, Kimberly, and Jessica). Jessica was committing the murders (possessed by Hockstatter), but then when she was stabbed in the neck by Linda, the spirit passed into Linda, the sole survivor.

When the mover arrived at 5:30 am the next morning, he found a scene of bodies and a bloody massacre - five years after the original one. A police officer asked Lieutenant Mike Block (Jürgen Baum), "Isn't this the old Hockstatter place?" Suddenly, rustling in a pile of trash and papers brought forth the possessed Linda with a knife, who gleefully laughed, and in a man's voice stated: "It still is." The wounded Orville rose from the floor, grabbed a gun, and shot the killer multiple times. Two police officers retaliated and shot-gunned Orville to death with many blasts, although he was miraculously still alive and an ambulance was summoned! Later, a newscaster announced that suspected mass murderer Orville was released from the prison ward of the hospital (fully recovered), for lack of evidence to prosecute him.

Gratuitous Scene in Strip Club with Candy A Survivor of the Original Hockstatter Murders
Candy (Bridget Carney)
Candy (Bridget Carney)	Satana (Shannon Wilsey, or Savannah)

1001 Nights (1990, Fr/It/Swiss) (aka Sheherazade or Les 1001 nuits)

20 year-old Catherine Zeta-Jones made her film debut in director Philippe de Broca's obscure and low-budget Arabian nights fantasy, a retelling and weird adaptation of the original tale.

Catherine Zeta-Jones as Sheherazade

In a non-sexual performance, she appeared as semi-naked Sheherazade, falling from the sky and having her clothes blown off while she rubbed a genie lamp to deploy a parachute. She landed in the lap of a startled turbaned man, emerged from the ocean in a seashell bikini, and performed a seductive strip-tease dance down to a skimpy thong bikini.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990, Sp.) (aka ¡Átame!)

Writer/director Pedro Almodóvar's Technicolored, dark, offbeat comedic and unconventional love story (a captor-captive tale) about how monogamy can be a metaphor for power games and chained-up bondage, sometimes accused of depicting the victimization of women via abduction, similar in part to William Wyler's film The Collector (1965) and The Night Porter (1974, It.).

It was the last film to receive the MPAA's X-rating due to its depiction of forced bondage and rape - however, it was re-rated and released as an NC-17 film.

It told of a strange courtship and bonding between:

• Ricky (Antonio Banderas), a dull-witted, obsessively love-sick mental patient/handyman
• Marina Osorio (Victoria Abril), ex-porn star and recovering junkie addict

Recently released from psychiatric treatment in a mental hospital, Ricky kidnapped, gagged and tied up his favorite actress Marina - an unusual attempt to win her affection. He snatched her after she had left the set of crippled director Maximo Espejo's (Francesco Rabal) last movie, The Midnight Phantom in which she was acting.

She gradually loosened her resistance to being his captive, especially after freshly-wounded Ricky was beaten up by drug dealers he had swindled earlier as he attempted to procure strong painkillers for her aching tooth (after he had head-butted her). As they made love, and he was in pain, he asserted he could continue: "The only thing the bastards didn't touch was my cock." During their sweaty and realistic sexual intercourse (seen from various angles, including a kaleidoscopic top view), she suddenly remembered her previous one-night stand with him ("You said we'd screwed before, and I said I didn't remember. Well, now I remember, perfectly").

Marina's (Victoria Abril) Infamous Bathtub Scene with Toy Scuba Diver

It was noted most for its controversial and infamous masturbatory bath scene with the aid of a vibrating toy diver that swam straight into Marina's crotch. There were also a pair of scenes of Marina and her sister Lola (Loles Leon) urinating on a toilet.

In the conclusion's stunning reversal, Marina explained her close loving association with her kidnapper to her astonished sister Lola - who responded: "How can you love a kidnapper who ties you up? You think that's normal? It must be the shock. You can't be that kinky!"

Wild at Heart (1990)

Writer/director David Lynch's R-rated Wizard of Oz-referenced, neo-noirish road film was the winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or. Lynch's screenplay was based on the 1990 novel by Barry Gifford, part one of a series of Sailor and Lulu stories, entitled Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lulu. The violent, sex-drenched film, his follow-up Blue Velvet (1986), was originally threatened with an X-rating, until Lynch toned it down. Some of the most explicit erotic scenes were not included in the final cut, including an orgasm with Lulu describing it as being ripped open by an animal, and another in which she proposed oral sex on Sailor's face ("Take a bite out of Lulu").

It told about two sex-crazed, star-crossed lovers on the run:

• Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage), a violent 23 year-old, Elvis-loving, snakeskin jacket wearing ex-con bad-boy, a parolee
• Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern), a sex-loving, 20 year-old southern girl

Breaking parole and enroute westward to California, they were pursued by private detective Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton) and gangster Marcelles Santos (J.E. Freeman) - both boyfriends and hired by Lula's crazed and obsessed mother Marietta Fortune (Best Supporting Actress-nominated Diane Ladd, Laura Dern's real mother) to either bring them back or kill Sailor. The film ended with an ironic, cliched happy ending, when Ripley had a change of heart after again being arrested and serving a prison term, and returning to be with Lulu.

In one early, classic scene in the back of a bar, Sailor recalled and described to Lula (in order to excite her) an especially memorable sexual encounter he once had with Irma (Charlie Spradling) when he was visiting his cousin, Junior Train, in Savannah:

"When she got almost to the top step, I stuck my hand between her legs from behind...Man, I had a boner with a capital O. Anyway, I found her lyin' in her room filled with assault weapons and 'Spankhouse' magazines, so I slid my hand between her legs again and she closed her thighs on it....Well, her face was half-pushed into the pillow, and I remember she looked back over her shoulder at me and said, 'I won't suck you. Don't ask me to suck you.'...Anyway, dig this. She turns over, peels off them orange pants, spreads her legs real wide and says to me: 'Take a bite of Peach'."

In response, Lula urged him:

"Jesus, honey! You more than sort of got what you come for. Uh, oh. Baby, you'd better run me back to the hotel. You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt."

He responded: "Say no more, but go easy on me, sweetheart. Tomorrow we got a lot of drivin' to do"