What do I even need to say about this film? This movie is legendary.

  Lee, a troubled young woman with an ongoing struggle with self-harm gets out of rehab and endeavors to become a productive member of society by applying for a job as a secretary. Her new employer, E. Edward Grey, attorney at law, is enigmatic, obsessive compulsive and very particular. However, when he discovers Lee's compulsion to self-harm he offers her alternative, safer methods of coping with her unhappy home-life through BDSM.

  Though many BDSM practitioners are, understandably, a bit tired of the trope this film perpetuates of BDSM exclusively as therapy for broken people; and the unsolicited instigation of the relationship in the film definitely warrants a "Don't try this at home" warning, it is, in all other respects, generally regarded as the most authentic portrayal of the essence of BDSM in regards to the characters' emotions and relationship to each other. It portrays BDSM as mutual devotion, as it should, and the last five minutes really pack a punch by including a very important aspect of the lifestyle that often goes underrepresented in films with a BDSM focus: aftercare.

According to Maggie Gyllenhaal, during the filming of Secretary she and Spader developed a bdsm-esque ritual in which he would send a PA to fetch her from her dressing room, and bring her to the door of his (which was literally two feet away). She would then knock on his door, he would invite her inside and offer her a chocolate.

     And I think that's all I need to say because this rapport comes through on screen, and I'm not certain this movie isn't the closest James Spader has ever come to playing...himself.

Supernova (2000)

♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: Yes. Quite.

I'm only being honest when I say that this is a mediocre sci-fi film, but it has a shockingly fun cast and it labored in production hell until it was so altered by the production studio, the director completely orphaned the project and refused to have his name attached to it.

   But what we do get is a true James Spader film through and through. He's brunette here, which is ODD, but he's also possibly the most jacked he's ever been (which isn't a lot, but it is noticeable in a very nice way) and what's better is there's a primal sexual undercurrent that saturates the film in a surprisingly satisfying way and culminates in James Spader and Angela Basset climbing naked into a pod and swapping genes very literally.

Crash (1996)

♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked? Oh, yes.

I couldn't watch this one with anyone--I had to see it alone, and I'm glad I did.

   This is perhaps the most infamous entry in James Spader's filmography, but it's fairly on brand for him. There's a lot of sex scenes, in three of which he's nude.

   Spader plays James Ballard, a film producer in an open and frankly unmotivated marriage. Both James and his wife Catherine find the need to pursue risky sexual liasons just to have sex with each other. After experiencing a traumatic car crash James launches himself and his wife headfirst into a world they were already dipping their toes into, and they get involved with a cult that fetishizes the violence of car crashes.

   That this is a classic James Spader film is not a matter of dispute. It is, however, different from the two other of his most famous movies that deal with sex as a focal point of the story--Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Secretary. In both of these films, sex is catharsis and it is through the characters' exploration of their own sexuality and sense of intimacy that they come out on the other side of the tunnels they find themselves in.

   Not so in Crash. Here, sex is a byproduct of an obsession with far more dangerous and destructive impulses. These characters don't come out on the other side of a tunnel, they fall straight down a mine shaft and never come back.

   As a Cronenberg film this is great (granted this is the first Cronenberg film I've ever watched, but). It's well executed and it knows what it is and what it wants to convey.

   For my own satisfaction as a James Spader movie, though, I find it to be middling. The nudity is great, but, since James Spader plays, essentially, the narrator, he's kind of playing second fiddle for much of the film. He's not much of a focal point in my opinion and it loses me a bit in the middle for that very reason. Now, the fact that Sex, Lies and Videotape and Secretary are two of my top three James Spader films may be telling when I say that Crash really just isn't my speed. I absolutely recommend watching it at least once if you think you can hang with it, because it is worth it: it's simply not a story I feel the need to revisit.

Wolf (1994)

♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: No, but there is a very short silk robe.

I suppose in the strictest technical terms this is actually a Jack Nicholson movie. Which is a shame because if the main character was played by LITERALLY anyone but Jack Nicholson it would probably be one of my favorite movies of all time.

   Alas, we're not here to review Wolf as a Film, but as a James Spader movie. In that context it lands in the middle. His role as the antagonist is really just a side-character. He doesn't really become important until the last half hour of the film, but boy do they pull out the stops.

    Once again, he's never nude in the film which is a detractor. He does, however, turn into an aggressively, grossly sexual wolfman and it is deeply uncomfortable but also great to watch. And the yellow contacts are just amazing.

Stargate (1994)

♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked: Solid no, but the lesbian energy more than makes up for it.

James Spader stars as Dr. Daniel Jackson, a young Egyptologist and linguist whose eccentric theories strain the credulity of the conventional archeological community. They do, however, get him recruited by a military project which focuses on a singular technological find discovered on an archeological dig: the Stargate. Daniel helps to unlock the secrets of the portal which transports him and a group of soldiers to a desert planet with a human population who are enslaved by an alien race who inspired the Egyptian gods. He also picks up a wife along the way.

A classic. I feel like James Spader said "you know what I'm going to take a break from the weird sex stuff... just briefly". Never has he played a more wholesome character, never has his hair been so floppy.

Dream Lover (1993)

♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: Very much so. He's VERY naked in this film which is what earns it the fourth spade. Very. Naked. It might be the most naked he's ever been.

As an erotic thriller, this is a slight disappointment. Really. Never have there been two sexier people in an erotic psychological drama that had zero chemistry with each other than James Spader and Madchen Amick. But oh, my, he's so pretty in this one, and that really does make it worth watching.

    As an aside, I have this bee in my bonnet about how if the Twilight Saga films had been made in the 80's, James Spader would have played Jasper. Now this is of course in the 90's, but James Spader's particular shade of Honey blonde hair in this movie only reinforces my feelings on this. His acting in the last five minutes plays out, to me, like an AU where Jasper killed Maria before he left.

True Colors (1991)

♤♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: Not quite, but almost!

This is a political drama and a fairly sedate turn in Spader's repertoire. And if it wasn't for Spader I don't know that I could recommend it unless you really wanna spend an hour-forty-two staring at John Cusack's wide-set, beady eyes and disconcertingly small mouth.

   But as an entry in James Spader's filmography it is extremely valuable to me. He's not naked (close--there's a bathrobe) but as usual there's something in his character and performance to make up for the lack. In this case, it's his long, hard, incredulous staring and expressions of absolute disgust as his best friend continuously tries to defend his own cataclysmicly stupid (and criminal) decision making. Because it turns out that the only thing sexier than James Spader being a total weirdo creep is James Spader being a righteous man, full of righteous fury. By hell, it's attractive on him. Which makes it even more mystifyingly incomprehensible that Imogen Stubbs' character (what is she even doing here?) has the harebrained audacity to dump him for John Cusack in this film. Hello? You have JAMES SPADER IN YOUR BED, GIRL. HE'S A GOOD, HONEST, UNBEARABLY ATTRACTIVE MAN WITH INTEGRITY AND HE DRINKS. SCOTCH. NEAT! Get your head out of your ass.

   As another aside, I mentioned in the previous review that James Spader is Jasper Hale in my head, but while that's true, I think this movie, with Tim Garrity's strong sense of justice and ethics, makes a forceful argument for James Spader as Carlisle. I would have taken either and been happy though.

White Palace (1990)

♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: before the opening credits are even finished. And then again (fully nude) half an hour in. There's also one scene that shows his thighs to great advantage.

If I could do half Spades I would likely have given this one in addition to the two full Spades it already has.

     On the face of it, this has all the trademarks you want from a James Spader film. You've got Spader as a dissolutioned 27 year old widower with intimacy issues (and issues in general) following the death of his beautiful and perfect young wife. The actual sex really gets used up within the first half-hour-- isn't that always the way?

     But when I look closer (and this was a first watch for me which is perhaps why I'm digging so deep into it) there are some deviations to the Spader formula and I'm not quite sure they work. He plays a yuppie, and that's par for the course--but he's a Jewish yuppie which, if I'm honest is a little difficult to believe with how invariably WASPish Spader is. In addition to this frankly odd casting, we find Spader having quite a lot of sex. That's not any more out of the norm than him playing yuppies: James Spader is perhaps best known for his easy, unflinching sexuality... which doesn't quite gel when his character is supposed to be repressed and uncomfortable, awakened (and I mean that in a disturbingly literal sense) only by the skillful talents of an older, earthier woman. This is not, in my opinion, where Spader's particular flavor of sex appeal shines. If I'm watching a seduction involving James Spader, I want him to be the one doing the seducing (or at least thinking he is).

     Nevertheless James Spader is James Spader, so even if the material isn't helping him, he'll find a way to make the sexy work.

     What really fails to sell me on this movie might be that I'm not terribly stoked on Susan Sarandon at the best of times, but this character and story really aren't helping her out either.

      Her character, Nora, is a 43 year old waitress at the eponymous White Castle Palace burger joint, and she, like Max is grieving. Except rather than dealing with the loss of a beloved spouse (her husband was a walk-out) she's grieving the loss of her teenage son who boozed and drugged himself into the river at the tender age of fourteen. Their mutual grief is the foundation for their unlikely attraction.

      So after max spends a drunk night on her sofa-bed, Nora pounces by administering a blow job... while he's still asleep. After her downright predatory gazing in the bar the previous night, I can't honestly claim surprise (nowadays this would be pretty soundly recognized as rape--but the cusp of the 80's and 90's in film are a different set of standards altogether). Needless to say, In this year of our Lord, 2022 it's an off-putting way to get the ball rolling, even if he goes on to consent to intercourse with her.

     Lest anyone be under the impression that I object to age gaps of 16 years in relationships (be they real or fictional) let me preface my next statement by refuting that idea. I generally don't have a problem with age gaps, even quite wide ones. However, perhaps it's that I find Sarandon generally off-putting, or perhaps it's that Nora bonded with fresh-faced Max over the death of her teenage son, but the particular brand of sexual chemistry in this movie leaves a vaguely "mommy" kind of aftertaste for me, and not in a way I find appealing.

    Beyond any of that though, the sex itself in this movie didn't really spark anything in me. I believe it shoots for "erotic", but for me it lands a bit far off the mark and hits "tawdry". Not even Dream Lover screwed up that badly.

    The story is ostensibly about love-conquering class differences, involving one supremely acted scene in a bathroom at--the swanky Thanksgiving dinner that Max drags Nora to in an effort to show her that he's not ashamed to be seen with her-- in which Nora gets straight up burnt for making assumptions about other people's blowjob skills. Another great aspect of the film is the presence of Eileen Brennan as Nora's fortune-telling older sister.

While the movie ends on the cute note of Max following Nora to NYC, confessing unashamed love for her and laying her down on a table in the crowded restaurant she's waitressing at, it really failed to convince me on the idea of a deeper passion between the leads, and if James Spader can't sell that, then there's a problem.

Bad Influence (1990)

♤♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: Read on, but yes.

James Spader once again finds himself in his yuppie shoes in this 1990 Psychological thriller, this time as Michael Boll, a young executive who has more in life than he knows what to do with.

   Playing opposite Spader (and frankly almost stealing the show) is Rob Lowe in perhaps his greatest performance ever as the psychotic grifter who sets out shake up Michael's life before ruining it-- only to find that the monster he created more than he bargained for.

    What a watch! This was a first for me, and it is a trademark James Spader Film for the books. I mean look there's a fully nude sextape, a criminal night out on the town, background performance art, mayhem, murder and a confrontation with a knife: it's a big deal. Honestly, as this summer long movie marathon was supposed to go in reverse-chronological order, we technically should have watched this before White Palace, but I'm so glad we didn't.

The Rachel Papers (1989)

♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: He is not, but boy howdy Dexter Fletcher is.

Okay, so this frankly isn't a James Spader film. He didn't really have the billing or the screen time for it to qualify, but it's a great time and he is great in it. He doesn't have much to do, but he makes do with what he's given, and in addition to that you have a young and very cute Dexter Fletcher and amazing side performances from Jonathan Pryce and Jared Harris.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)

♤♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: I mean, given the title and subject of the film, it would be terribly disappointing if he wasn't.

Steven Soderbergh's seminal work finds James Spader truly in his element. Perhaps more so than he ever was before or ever would be again (until Secretary at least).

    Not only revolutionary, but unique in the world of Indie film, Sex, Lies, and Videotape deals with people with problems.

    Normally I can't be arsed about independent films, but this one truly is different. The comfortable, warm visual tone is offset by an ambient score that would normally seem more at home in, say, Chernobyl, but it all somehow fits together in a cozy, intimate way, despite the awkwardness of the characters and their varying degrees of fucked-up. And one of the truly inspired contributions to that balance is James Spader.

   It's impossible to talk about Spader in this film, without discussing the film as a whole-- his comfort in the role is integral to the movie's chemistry.

   By all rights, his enigmatic character, Graham, should be creepy (given that he films women discussing their sex lives and sexual fantasies as a workaround to relieve his psychologically-rooted impotency), and yet, he's not--despite his awkwardness, he's incredibly approachable, forthright, and beautifully non-threatening.

   It is this approachability, and how Spader conveys it, that is the key to Graham's character as he, his honesty, and his perverse coping mechanism force the principle characters (including himself) to confront the lies they've been telling each other and themselves.

Jack's Back (1988)

♤♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked?: He's shirtless. Frequently.

Amidst a rash of Jack the Ripper copycat murders, John Wesford (James Spader), a fiercely principled medical student, stumbles upon one of the crime scenes and is subsequently murdered. Across the neighborhood, John's twin brother, Ricky, awakes from a vivid nightmare of the murder only to see the commotion around the crime scene, visible from his balcony. Ricky must now exonerate himself and his brother's memory from the Ripper Murders.

   This movie is frankly better than it has any right to be. It's a far cry from the nuances of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, but pound for pound if you want a hefty dose of James Spader just looking his absolute prettiest, this is the movie for you. And what makes this movie even better is you get two different flavors of Spader. If you're into the principled good man of True Colors, you get that in John, with his busted old VW bug and seersucker jacket. If you're more into the rough, straightforward,  but enigmatic side, you get that too, in Ricky.

   Ricky, of course is the flavor you get for most of the film. He's got a scar over his eye, his hair is pure art from start to finish, and he's frequently quite naked.

Pretty in Pink (1986)

♤♤♤♤

Is James Spader Naked? I mean not really? It's another robe situation, but it's a good time.

This rating is only for how tertiary his character is, because it's definitely a five-Spade performance. And it's undoubtedly Spader's best known mainstream role (aside from Stargate). Literally nothing about this performance isn't immensely entertaining. There's nothing not to love about how effortlessly Spader sleezes drunkenly through this film. So effortlessly, in fact, that he almost didn't get hired because he was so convincingly scummy that John Hughes mistook it for Spader's own personality and absolutely hated him on first meeting. And his line delivery on "Oh, you are worthless, aren't you?" Incomparable.

   That said Pretty in Pink is perhaps the only movie on this list wherein James Spader isn't my primary impetus for watching it. Even the best movies on this list work, primarily, because of what Spader brings to the table, which isn't true for Pretty in Pink, because this movie hinges, let's be honest, on John Cryer.

The New Kids (1985)

♤♤♤♤

   Is James Spader Naked?: *hysterical giggling* yeah.

Two military kids move to Southern Florida to live with their uncle at his small local amusement park after the untimely death of their parents. At their new school they quickly find themselves clashing with creep, weirdo and all around snappy dresser Eddie Dutra (Spader) and his gang of hick delinquents.

   Lawd what is this movie? No, seriously I don't even know what genre to call this. It's sort of a combination teen drama/thriller with the score of a giallo film plus some work out montages. I'm not really sure who this was made for, because it's definitely a teen thing, but it's rated R.

   Ol Jimmy (fun fact he actually prefers to be called that irl) definitely has his Gay Villain pants (and shirts) on here, and very nicely fitted they are too. Dutra may be the most disgusting villain role I've seen Spader play, but by 'eck it's entertaining, and the bleach blond dye job is an interesting look on him to say the least. He also executes a slap and face grab that is just pure artistry.

Tuff Turf (1985)

♤♤♤♤♤

Well, after a fantastic three months of Spader films, we closed out with my personal favorite (Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Secretary notwithstanding), Tuff Turf.

   Much in the same vein as the previous entry, this fits into the odd Young Adult genre, with its high school setting but with quite a lot of violence and nudity. It lacks the giallo edge of The New Kids, though, and this time, James Spader plays the protagonist, Morgan Hiller.

   Morgan's family relocates from their native Connecticut to Los Angeles after his father loses his business. Morgan, whose malcontent has gotten him thrown out of several prep schools in New England, becomes fascinated by, and immediately begins to pursue Frankie (Kim Richards). The fact that she's dating Nick, a possessive, sociopathic ruffian, seems to make no never mind to him. Determined to show Frankie the kind of relationship she deserves, Morgan, like a terrier, refuses to give up his suit, regardless of the danger.

   It's a batshit movie with warehouse bands, country club crashing, go-go dancers, Robert Downey Jr. before he got his teeth fixed, a very nice and tasteful love scene, and also an ax fight. It's about the most fun you can have in under two hours with a lot of very pretty, frequently shirtless James Spader. This is his first leading role ever, and his natural charisma needs no time to get flowing. It is glorious.

   Fun fact Tuff Turf and The New Kids released exactly one week apart in January, 1985. Imagine the whiplash of going from Morgan Hiller to Eddie Dutra.