Our Staff Picks column is a new addition that takes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme and the "Staff Picks" section was the place to find out what films were worthy of one's time. Of course, our version has a decidedly nude angle, as we suss out which films from a certain genre with great nudity. This week: movies from 1999!
1999 had it all from American Beauty to 10 Things I Hate About You to Office Space to The Blair Witch Project. That alone is a lot! From Magnolia to American Movie, so many modern classics were made in 1999. There were SO many great movies, but the 90s were not the best about male nudity. That is, except for these films here. Here are our recommendations of good 1999 films with great nudity.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
1999 is when Hollywood finally said "hi gay"...even though they said it with thrillers where gay men wound up being psychotic serial killers. Ugh. Sigh. Still, this film is hot and I actually really like it. It is set in Italy where Matt Damon is hanging out and he meets a sexy playboy played by the effortlessly sexy Jude Law. He is obviously crushing on Law who feels those vibes and really leans into them. He definitely does some teasing of Matt's character, which is most evident in this scene where he bathes in front of him.
Varsity Blues
James Van Der Beek was an It Boy at this time. The blue-eyed hottie showed off his sensitive side on Dawson's Creek every week, so he was able to get raunchy in Varsity Blues. This football drama is a classic high school football movie: small town. Football. Hot guys figuring out who they are outside of football stardom.
But the twist is that Scott Caan shows his ass in two separate scenes. He EVEN shows his butthole. While James keeps his clothes on, Scott Caan's can is keeping us interested. Varsity Blues won't give you blue balls.
Any Given Sunday
Are you tired of football yet? Not in 1999 you weren't! Any Given Sunday takes us to the world of professional football where a football organization is dealing with a management shift and the nebulous future of their organization. Cameron Diaz is amazing in this male-dominated film and she is even more amazing when she walks into the men's locker room to see John Clark totally naked with his huge dong out. I want to touchdown on that dick!
Holy Smoke
While not one of her better-known films, Jane Campion's Holy Smoke! still has a lot of the hallmarks of what makes her films so great. The film follows Kate Winslet traveling through India (okay, I'm already sold) and finds solace in a cult. Her family wants to bring her back home, so they hire Harvey Keitel to do it.
The cinematography in her films is always beautiful, especially when that includes loving shots of Harvey Keitel's keister. Check out his ass in a gorgeous nude scene that shows him laying naked in a post-coital embrace with his ass in the air. Oh, and we see some of the coital action as well.
Fight Club
Does any film feel more 1999 than Fight Club? Masculine panic, hot guys with abs, and a slightly cyberpunk feel are what I remember when I think of Fight Club. The hottest, leanest dudes of the 1990s were in this movie: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and even the young and kooky Jared Leto. All of them got shirtless to get into the ring to fight one another.
We don't talk about the Fight Club, but we DO talk about Tyler Durden and the Narrator having these hot psychosexual vibes throughout the film. Am I right? I can't be the only one who thinks that!
I have written before about the homoeroticism behind Fight Club and how those theories are not unfounded. The author of the book, the controversial writer Chuck Palahniuk, is openly gay but he was not out when he wrote the book. He has since suggested that the film could be interpreted as a metaphor for dealing with fractured identity. In that way, as I wrote before, Tyler Durden could be the narrator's queer self trying to break through!
Cruel Intentions
Would you like to see a twisted thriller that features all of the hottest young talents in 1999? Then Cruel Intentions is for you! The impossibly pouty-lipped Ryan Phillippe stars as a wealthy New York teen whose psychotic step-sister loves to play seductive games on people. She convinces him to make a virginal teen who wants to wait until marriage his next sexual conquest. It seems like the plot of She's All That (another 1999 movie, by the way) or something, but it gets much darker as these rich teens are both determined to win their side of the bet.
While Ryan shows off his perfectly sculpted ass in multiple scenes, we also get to check out some implied gay action when Ryan discovers that Joshua Jackson and Eric Mabius are in bed together. We wish we could see what was going on under the covers, but it was the late 90s. They barely show us the boys' boxer briefs. Still, all of these men are HAWT.
