February 14, 2003

It's Valentine's Day and we at BOP are feeling a little "bah lovebug" about the whole thing. Movies are a way to tell stories about our human experience, right? And sex and love are a natural and awesome part of that experience, right? So why do movie love scenes sometimes give us the general impression that, you know, no one in Hollywood has ever actually HAD sex?

Now don't get us wrong. We haven't completely hardened our hearts to the concept of cinematic romance. Rhett and Scarlett's kiss is a classic film moment, as is the iconic waves-and-sand clinch between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. That one really used to light grandma's fire.

Looking at a more "modern" example (in other words, let's get to the sex!), director Edward Zwick effectively used the love scenes between Rob Lowe and Demi Moore in "About Last Night..." to illustrate how easy it is to fall into bed with someone, but how hard it is to fall in love. Plus, dude! Demi Moore. 1986. You do the math.

So believe us when we say we appreciate when Hollywood occasionally (if seemingly accidentally) gets it right, and we love celebrating the way movies celebrate love.

But sometimes we just can't help ourselves.

With that in mind we have compiled a quickie list of the movies' most awkward, embarrassing, passion-less, icky, or otherwise WORST love scenes that have ever burned themselves, for all time, onto our collective retina.

Enjoy, and Happy Valentine's Day. Love, BOP.

Special PS for methodology geeks: We didn't employ our usual rigorous scientific voting method (normally involving chicken bones and rocks) to compile this list, so we're not guaranteeing completeness, nor is the list ranked in any order of any kind. Some scenes were intentionally disturbing, while others were erotic only in the eyes of the director and his posse of yes men, but all either generated guffaws and/or crushed our libidos.

Special PPS for methodology geeks: Geek.

Without further ado:

Showgirls--Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle McLachlan:
If you always wanted to know what a dolphin having sex with a human looked like...

Bad Lieutenant:
Harvey Keitel and the two frightened teenagers: Granted this was intentionally "bad", but it was part of a greater trend there in the early '90s where Harvey Keitel just kept getting cast in movies requiring sex scenes. What exactly were the questions on that market research survey that told studio execs that audiences were clamoring for more Harvey Keitel pickle shots?

Body of Evidence:
Madonna and Willem Dafoe: None of us were willing to admit having actually seen Body of Evidence, but it's Madonna trying to act and the Green Goblin trying to be sexy, so we're just assuming it's gotta be bad.

Enemy at the Gates:
Jude Law and Rachel Weisz: Mmmmmmm, dirty fingernail sex in the middle of a room full of strangers. How did those two kids not stay together?

Requiem for a Dream:
Jennifer Connelly and a room full of asshole stockbroker types: It has Jennifer Connelly. Naked. With another hot chick. Yet we still scoured our bodies in scalding water for days afterwards trying to feel clean again.

Crash:
Pretty much any random five minutes of this one will put you straight into therapy.

Sliver:
Sharon Stone and One of the Damn Baldwins: Wait, there's more. Sharon Stone and any of the non-lesbians in Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone and Sly Slack Jaw Stallone in The Specialist, in fact, Sharon Stone in pretty much her entire body of work. It's a wonder we're not horribly scarred mentally from the sex stylings of La Stone. Furthermore, in theory, would a Harvey Keitel/Sharon Stone sex scene render anyone who saw it incapable of arousal ever again? It'd be like that Monty Python bit about the funniest joke in the world.

We have to say one more thing about The Specialist, perhaps the least erotic love scene we've ever seen. And bear in mind we've seen Too Young To Die, which features a ten minute, uncut, shot of a septuagenarian couple having sex. Anyway, if you watch The Specialist closely enough you can actually see Stone and Stallone fantasizing about themselves while kissing each other. It's true.

Spanking the Monkey--Jeremy Davies and Alberta Watson:
Because nothing says "sexy" like a little hot mother/son action.

The Skulls--Joshua Jackson and Leslie Bibb:
Because you always want to stop in the middle of being chased by a murderous secret society to shower with your girlfriend.

Eye of the Beholder--Ashley Judd and some random dude:
Erotic only if a Black Widow who screams, "How do you like that, DADDY!" after killing their one-night stand is your thing.

Exit to Eden--Rosie O'Donnell and/or Dan Ackroyd:
Sweet, sweet repressed memory syndrome has blotted out whether either one of them actually had sex in the movie or not, but the image of two of them in fetish gear still haunts our dreams.

Monster's Ball--Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton:
Hey, Billy Bob. Nice scrotum! We thought Monster's Ball was supposed to be a metaphor.

Starship Troopers--Casper van Dien and Dina Meyer:
Fuck, that Verhoeven's got some issues.

Boxing Helena--Julian Sands and Sherilyn Fenn:
Like father, like daughter; David Lynch's offspring directs a creepy stalker film that advocates forced amputation.

Sex and Zen:
You remember in American Pie when Alyson Hannigan says, "This one time, at band camp…"?

Happiness--Philip Seymour Hoffman and himself:
On the other hand this one earns points for creative uses for sperm.

Words Cannot Describe:

Kim Basinger and Dan Akyroyd in My Stepmother is An Alien.

Joan Allen and James Sheridan in The Ice Storm.

Wesley Snipes and Ming-Na in One Night Stand.

Come to think of it, most of the Eszterhas oeuvre.

The orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut.

Michael Douglas and Jeanne Tripplehorn in Basic Instinct.