Basic Instinct

I'm a little torn on this one. On one hand, 1992, holy shit, this thing's 25 years old already, which makes it old enough to be an antique if it were a car, which it isn't, obviously, but I mean, hey, you get the point, I'm sure, this thing's a dang classic by now. On the other hand - a classic what? It's a neo-noir thriller with an iconic scene - you know the one, but in case you don't, it's SHARON STONE RE-CROSSING HER LEGS IN A SHORT DRESS AND FOR A SECOND THERE YOU CAN SEE HER VAGINA. I'm sure that was a big deal back in the early '90s but the scene (and the movie) feel very dated now. Like, yeah, a sexy woman flashing her cooch at a bunch of detectives could only play as parody or desperation this side of, I dunno, 2005? That scene aside, there's really nothing memorable here. Like, nothing is bad, and I appreciated the air and the ambiance of Basic Instinct, but what's clever here? What about this story is creative? What about these performances are memorable? It's just sex appeal - which, hey, I get it, and I even appreciate it, don't get me wrong, come on guys did you not just see me raving about The Handmaiden a few days ago?

Something about the late '80s and early '90s - the original Bush years I guess - always strikes me as sort of lost in time, harking back to a past that never was and looking toward a future that never would be. Cold War's pretty much over, computers and the Internet aren't really a thing yet, '80s cocaine rings and HIV scares are mostly gone, no one in the mainstream is paying any attention to people of color for better or worse, global conflict's at a minimum, or at least civil unrest is, Germany's reunited, Soviet era's over, China's gone capitalist - it's lsort of like, what are we even doing? Where are we even going? Better just maintain these '80s haircuts while softening up around the edges a little bit. Like, think about it, it's exactly the kind of environment where Bill Clinton could be embraced. "He's hip and young." Oh God, he was! He really was, back then, to them, to the people who saw Basic Instinct and either got enraged or engorged. I just think 1990-1993 was possibly the most boring four-year stretch in American history. (Grunge!) And that's not a bad thing! But it does mean you end up with movies like this one making an eternal impression on Hollywood all because of a couple dozen frames of vulva. "Game changer, am I right?" No wonder Generation X were all a bunch of burnouts - what the fuck did they have to look forward to?