Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
This weekend, audiences will be welcomed back into the manacled embrace of E.L. James’s cinematic universe with Fifty Shades Darker. All the thrills of light S&M; all the excitement of hardcore contract law. Among the new cast members being brought on to the franchise, by far the most prestigious is Oscar-winner Kim Basinger, who will play Elena, the woman who (in the books at least) deflowered a teenage Christian Grey and returns to throw shade into Ana’s new relationship with him.
Say what you will about the rest of the movie, but the Basinger casting is pretty brilliant. This movie that seeks to represent the sexual vanguard of mainstream cinema in the 2010s has cast one of the most prominent sex symbols of the ’80s and early ’90s. It’s easy to forget now, as Basinger doesn’t show up in movies all that often, and when she does she’s playing moms of various extraction (lest we all forget, hers was the spaghetti Eminem rapped about in 8 Mile‘s “Lose Yourself”).
But starting with her breakthrough role as a Bond Girl in 1983’s Never Say Never Again, Basinger played one role to perfection: the sultry, alluring, unknowable blonde. In case you’ve forgotten:
Never Say Never Again (1983): Basinger plays Domino Petachi, whose name is more than a little disappointing for viewers who were raised on Pussy Galore and Holly Goodhead. Given all the associations that our culture has with Bond Girls, this role set a pretty good template for her upcoming career.
The Natural (1984): As iconic as Barry Levinson’s The Natural is as a baseball movie, it’s impossible for me to think about this movie for anything but its deeply strange relationship to women. It features not one, not two, but THREE unknowable women observed at a distance, each of whom purports to take something essential from Roy Hobbes. Basinger doesn’t play the mysterious woman who shoots him (that’s Barbara Hershey) or the angelic figure of goodness and domesticity (Glenn Close). Instead, Basinger plays Memo Paris (honestly, that’s closer to a Bond Girl name), who is sent to entice Hobbes into throwing baseball games for gambling purposes.
9 1/2 Weeks (1986): This is the big one. Basinger co-stars with Mickey Rourke (back when he was the most gorgeous face in the movies) in a movie from Adrian Lyne, one year prior to his making Fatal Attraction. Focusing on an intense sexual relationship between the two leads, the film pressed all sorts of buttons other films were afraid to press in the ’80s, from female masturbation to cross-dressing to bondage, and Basinger suddenly became Hollywood’s most scandalous star.
(NSFW, obviously)
The film was a divisive sensation, with audiences walking out in droves and Razzie nominations galore. In the years since, it’s been looked upon with greater favor, but it’s the scandal that remains fresh.
Cool World (1992): After 9 1/2 Weeks, Basinger was Hollywood’s hottest sex symbol (or at the very least running neck-and-neck with Madonna, with whom she competed for several big roles). Basinger was the breathy love interest in Tim Burton’s blockbuster Batman in 1989 and another femme fatale opposite Richard Gere and Uma Thurman in Final Analysis. Cool World was something different altogether, though, as Basinger provided the voice for a Jessica Rabbit-esque cartoon sexpot in this live-action/animated hybrid about a cartoonist (Gabriel Byrne) who draws himself into his own creation and is seduced by Holli Would (another better Bond name), who wants to become real. Between Basinger riffing on her own image and Brad Pitt starring as a sexy detective, it’s surprising no one really talks about this movie anymore.
Wayne’s World 2 (1993): After taking a role as self-referential as the one in Cool World, it was clear that Basinger was now in the post-modern phase of her career. There was no better capitalization of that than in the Wayne’s World sequel, where Basinger played Garth’s dream woman, the deliciously named Honey Hornée (ANOTHER! BETTER! BOND! NAME!).
L.A. Confidential (1997): People forget that this role was something of a comeback. Basinger’s fateful decision to back out of the title role in the controversial 1993 film Boxing Helena ended up costing her a cool $5 million settlement and sent her into bankruptcy. Four years later, she was back on top in a major way, cast as the femme fatale in Curtis Hanson’s perfect L.A. noir. The role had a big ol’ spotlight on it, and Basinger stepped into it with the confidence of a woman who’d been preparing for this role for over a decade. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and while she’s never been able to scale those heights again, most actresses never even reach that summit in the first place.
Where to stream Never Say Never Again
Where to stream Wayne's World 2
