Sex and Death 101

Sex and Death 101 came and went without hardly a whisper this spring. I wanted to see it, but I believe it played in one theater in New York for one week and then vanished. Now it's available on DVD, and I saw it last night.

It's notable for the re-teaming of writer-director Daniel Waters and Winona Ryder, who last worked together almost twenty years ago in Heathers. Waters has hardly done anything since then, except writing the script for the second Batman film, and while Ryder's career hit some pretty big heights (two Oscar nominations in back to back years in the mid-nineties) she hit the skids after a shoplifting incident and seems now to be stuck in indy land, as no big studio will use her, perhaps due to insurance issues (that may be changing--I see she has a role in upcoming Star Trek picture).

Sex and Death 101 is kind of like a "Twilight Zone" episode for the Maxim subscriber. A fellow played by Simon Baker receives a mysterious email--a list of 101 names. He realizes the first 29 are women he has slept with, with number 29 being his fiancee. But he comes to understand the rest of the list consists of all the people he will eventually sleep with, starting with a stripper at his bachelor party. He becomes obsessed with the list, and actually hunts some of the women on it, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Meanwhile, Ryder plays a serial killer who is known as "Death Nell." She is something of a vigilante against piggish men, leaving inscrutable messages at the crime scenes. Of course, her name is the last on Baker's list.

I think the best thing I can say about this movie is that it's sexy. There are lots of beautiful women, and some of them are buck naked (including Sophia Monk, who I don't know anything about except she's often featured in Maxim). There's a long, otherwise witless scene in which Baker spends the evening with two lesbians (named Bambi Kidd and Thumper Wint, an obvious allusion to characters in Diamonds Are Forever) that could provide inspiration to porno directors (a swing is prominently featured). Then Leslie Bibb shows up as a woman that Baker really loves, and though Ms. Bibb is not nude in the film, the camera lingers over her like a lecher.

Aside from that, the film is really a throwaway. I mean, Mindy Cohn plays a large role for goodness sake. The production values are pretty shoddy, and it just has a cheap vibe to it. There's a lot of overacting and nothing about it seems genuine.

But I would like to comment on Winona Ryder. Ah, dear Winona! She has been a crush of mine for a long time, ever since she burst on the scene in Heathers. I've been remarkably loyal to her over the years. In looking over her filmography I realize that I've seen almost every one of her films, which include a dizzying array of clunkers that I actually paid good money to see. Consider this list: 1969; Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael; How to Make an American Quilt; Boys; Autumn in New York; Lost Souls; and, Sim10ne. Does she have a bigger fan than me? The only films of hers that have seen general release that I haven't seen are The Darwin Awards, which I promptly have added to my Netflix queue, and The Heart Is Deceitful Among All Things, which doesn't appear to exist on DVD.

I think her of like an old girlfriend that you had to cut loose because to stay with her would cause insanity, but in dark lonely moments you feel the urge to be with her again, because her very witchiness compels you to reconsider and think that perhaps it could work out after all (I think Woody Allen captured this perfectly in his film Celebrity, and so did Nicholas Hytner, more perversely, in the film version of The Crucible). Yet, even though you know she's nothing but trouble, you still defend her when others make jokes, because she has a little piece of your heart, and deep down you wish her well.