Live Nude Girls (1995)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This movie is like a precursor to the HBO series "Sex and the City", except it's less cutesy, less melodramatic and not at all obsessed with puns. If you'd like to see what Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte looked and sounded like about a step earlier on the evolutionary scale, you'll find it in Live Nude Girls.Less a story and more an extended monologue on women, sex and relationships that's been split between 6 different characters, this film is about the night some old friends have a bachelorette party sleepover. I don't know if a group of women all pushing up against 40 getting together for a slumber party was considered normal in Los Angeles in 1995 but it's the nail this story is hung on, so you've just got to go with it. Georgina (Lora Zane) is a confused bisexual who's thinking of switching back to men. Jill (Dana Delaney) is the raunchy one with the happy marriage that's never really talked about. Rachel (Laila Robins) is Jill's uptight sister who's staring down spinsterhood. Marcy (Cynthia Stevenson) is the awkward one who ends up banging her house painter, who then starts stalking her. Jaime (Kim Cattral) is the neurotic B-movie actress who's freaking out about her impending third wedding. Chris (Olivia D'Abo) is Georgina's current girlfriend and one of the least convincing lesbians in cinema history. A cross-dressing Benny Hill would have been more believable.The entire film is essentially these 6 women sitting around and talking about sex, with occasional cutaways for flashbacks and fantasies, with undercurrents of Georgina's sexual indecision, Jill and Rachel sniping at each other, Jaime's overwrought case of cold feet and a couple of secrets that, of course, end up blurted out before the night is over. There's also a decent amount of female nudity, an embarrassingly bad gay stereotype and a weirdly sympathetic view of men for this sort of film. Nothing in this story ever gets resolved or figured out or fixed. The movie just starts and these women yap away until it's over.If you want to watch women yapping about sex and relationships, you'll probably enjoy Live Nude Girls. If watching "Sex and the City" feels like someone is trying to suck your brain out through your nose, you probably won't like this movie. There's nothing wrong or bad about it, but it's entirely one of those things you either really like or you really don't. You're going to have to make that call yourself.

Six young women sit around at a bachelorette party and drink margaritas and eat pizza. Collectively they're a rainbow of personality types. Let's see. There's the flighty soap opera actress getting by on her good looks. (That would be Kim Cattrall.) Then there's the square who wanted to be a ballerina but turned out to be a bored CPA, Cynthia Stevenson. And there's the hostess, a bisexual chef, Lora Zane.It all looks like fun. Oh, the girls may bicker at times but they get over it quickly and the next minute they're laughing and having a wonderful time again.Personal problems of a dramatic nature are explored. Well -- "explored" is the wrong word. "Glanced at" is better. Most of the conversation revolves around sex and includes the revelation of masturbatory fantasies, sometimes about kinky dreams or experiences, several of them illustrated in flashbacks or imaginary sequences.Gosh. I didn't know girls talked like this! I mean, I was aghast. Here they are slinging around words like "clitoris". (What's a clitoris, again?) And sodomy -- only good, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon words are used, while those of Latin parentage are avoided.The pace is headlong and the movie is never boring. It's especially not boring when Kim Cattrall is running around in this tiny pink piece of lingerie -- I don't know what it's called -- the shoe-string thin dorsal strap of which disappears for most of its length within her gluteal sulcus. I found it a little boring when the gay chatter turned to domination and bondage but then I'm not into that sort of thing, although I never seemed able to convince my ex wife of that. And actually it was instructive to learn about how to insert a tampon.It was also educational in the sense that I learned that ladies of this ilk don't use the F word as verbal punctuation nearly as often as men do. I was a little disappointed in not finding out what the bisexual hostess did when she was with her lesbian lover. Tribadism, cunnilingus, mutual masturbation, some kind of plastic instruments -- what? There isn't really a nimiety of nudity and not an abundance of simulated sex. It's not really a "dirty movie." More like one of those plays in which everyone gets progressively tighter on booze and more revelatory.I must say I didn't get that much of a kick out of it. I kept wondering why it was made, but others might find it more familiar and friendlier territory. I've always thought Dana Delaney deserved better than she's gotten in the way of roles. There's something about her big shiny teeth and naturally compressed lips that suggests a healthful blend of sexuality and nurturance. And Kim Cattrall is always enjoyable as a madcap vampiress. The other performers aren't bad either, however much the over-emphatic script, with all that fake cackling, tries to undo them.

I remember liking this movie when it came out, and thinking what an odd and somewhat misleading title (just ask for it at Blockbuster and watch the funny looks they give you). Except for the great and recognizable cast when looking at the box, one would expect a more prurient, less substantive, late-night cable skin flick from a movie so titled. But the title though is appropriate as the movie is about friends, behaving like the "girls" of their childhood, sharing laughs, gossiping, and candidly baring their psyches at a bachelorette party. It is interesting, funny, sexy, and even innovative (like, it was a good idea to do an entire film focused on women just conversing candidly -and the viewer is an eavesdropper). Having just seen the newly released DVD version, it occurred to me how reminiscent the dialogue and style is to Sex in the City, which started its run several years after this movie. It is not a great and serious film work, but it is good, interesting, well-made, and may be a good conversation starter.

Some films defy carping criticism. With a cast such as this film boasts, all 30+ beauties, plot and technique become as irrelevant as Hans Blix. Kim Cattrall (a certified goddess), Cynthia Stevenson, Dana Delaney, ...etc... -- what a feast for the eyes -- I'd watch them taking turns reading the phone book!