Woody's Most Sexual and Obscenity-Ridden Movie Ever

(Formerly ecarle.)

I mean "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex" was R-rated 70's-style sexual but THIS movie -- from 1997(referenced 1998 in some places) goes a lot further, you ask me.

Its so shockingly sexual and obscenity-ridden right out of the gate that you have to figure: Woody was trying to tell us SOMETHING.

I stumbled upon this on streaming the other night and remembered when I first saw it in the theater in 1997 or 1998(whatever) and how, even THEN, I was "shocked" by the content of the movie. Now, I wasn't REALLY shocked -- it didn't bother me -- but I felt like I was vicariously felt just how outrageous this movie was.

I mean Woody's in it constantly using the F word, and the dreaded "C" word(which I thought was our only bridge too far these days, but seems to get used in print more and more.) Judy Davis in her opening raging tirade calls Woody "m---erfu--ker" a few times.

And Woody hilariousy opens with that "Seinfeld Sweetheart" -- Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, engaged in fully clothed but quite graphic(sounds, movements) sex in a living room with Richard Benjamin(then 58, but the nostalgia sex-warrior of Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy's Complaint.) There's a great joke here -- these two are cheating with their spouses outside in the yard and a blind old woman stumbles onto them having sex and they KEEP GOING. But watch Dreyfuss' expert comedy timing on the sex -- she never STOPS having it, but keeps giving us those "Seinfeld" expressions. Its quite a scene -- daring for Dreyfuss, for Woody, even for the then-little-seen Benjamin.

And that's just the first ten minutes. Actually, things "simmer down" a bit after this initial fusillade of obscenity and sexual content -- Woody's got more to say here about his self-involved sex-crazed author and how his fictional fantasies are taking over his life -- but the movie never abandons that sexual thrust. (Like when Woody hires a black hooker to accompany him -- when his friends won't -- to a speech at his alma matter but only after specifying the exact sexual tricks he expects her to perform before the trip.)

Eventually, Woody ends up in Hell -- with Billy Crystal doing his perfect-timing thing as the Devil himself -- and even THERE, Woody ups the ante a bit -- an oiled up, bare breasted woman is chained for torture in the burning depths(where lawyers and aluminum siding inventors also toil.)

Anyway, its really a good movie in its own twisted way-- we can figure that Woody is bragging about his OWN sexual conquests and betrayals of women(or is he doing Philip Roth?) -- but he's hitting himself pretty hard and maybe confessing for ALL famous movie people: "Yeah, that's right, we have all the sex we want and hurt all the people we want and we know we're bad but...we earned it!"

The one macabre gag I like in the movie -- and its not sexual at all -- is how Woody's friend Bob Balaban is certain he has heart trouble, Woody says no, you're fine -- and the guy gets a clean bill of health from his doctor("Your heart is fine") -- and promptly dies in the car going with Woody and the black hooker(and Woody's SON) en route to the alma mater.

THAT's Woody at his best.