Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Geek Pin-Up #10: Kim Basinger
Welcome. It's high time for another look at how desperate we are to prove we're manly men and perfectly heterosexual, in the form of a bunch of us staring at photos of unreachable women on the internet. Kim Basinger isn't necessarily the geekiest pin-up, especially compared to some of our past subjects, but there was a time when almost every red-blooded male in both hemispheres would have given his right leg to spend 9 and a half minutes with Her Sultryness, so I'd say she's earned her place. Be warned, there's one picture which might be considered NSFW by your uptight boss, despite the fact that the average car commercial features nude but-tocks.
Basinger came on the scene very near the time when most of the geeks here (myself very much included) were just hitting puberty. Her first major film was Never Say Never Again, but the level of beauty and sensuality she could bring wasn't fully realized until 9 1/2 Weeks.
I don't think that there are too many of us that have seen it that actually remember the plot, but the sex between her and Rourke are indelibly printed on my brain. It was all about the sex, which described the characters' relationship perfectly. I never looked at an ice cube or an alleyway the same way again. It also starred a kid who could fart the theme to Jaws, or at least the first bar. That plus a Playboy shoot in the same year showed the world what she had to offer.
The first legal and family friendly thing I saw her in was My Stepmother is an Alien, and it's amazing that she immediately switched from treating the contents of a refrigerator as lingerie to this cornball family film. She switches gears again to play Vicki Vale in Batman. Say what you will about this film, but I think it gets a lot of things right. I'm not sure that one of those things was choosing Kim to play a famous photojournalist, but she has a scene where she turns the heat on the Joker and the smile nearly cuts his head off.
In spite of Batman's success, the early part of the nineties isn't exactly filled with mega-hits for her. Cool World was quirky and let her use her sex appeal to good effect playing both the real world and the animated Holly Would, alongside Brad Pitt, but she was a streamingly-hot success in the underrated Wayne's World 2, which let her play with the sexy older woman role who relieved Garth of his virginity as well as his common sense. But nothing else brought her any notoriety until 1997 and L.A. Confidential.
In it she played a high class whore who looked like Veronica Lake. Basinger surprised everyone by managing to portray the absolute glamour of golden era Hollywood, the scheming deviousness of Hollywood's ruthless underbelly and the vulnerability of a girl from Bisbee, Arizona trying to find love in a dangerous world, all at the same time. Her beautiful face, masked in perfect pale make-up to try and cover the first cracks of aging, is the defining image of this fantastic depiction of lies and corruption in the city of angels.
This decade has brought a series of roles that show me that the fifty plus year old actress is still beautiful and still very much in the game, including playing Eminem's mom. Hollywood is harder on women as they age, but she has done so gracefully and I hope I continue to see more from her in the future. And I couldn't think of a better end to this tribute to a blonde bombshell than by showing you hers (wow, that was awful - Charlie).
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