Artifact-y. It’s not a pretty word. Heck, it’s not even a word. Yet it describes the appeal of “Basic Instinct: The Ultimate Edition” (unrated and remastered; Lions Gate, $19.98).
After all, there are so many things about the film and its making that speak to the pressing issues of the early 1990s: sex and money.
Even before the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven began shooting his blatant homage to “Vertigo,” the psychosexual thriller had generated buzz and blather.
Writer Joe Eszterhas received a big fat check for his script – the chunkiest payout at the time – from executive producer Mario Kassar: $3 million.
The Hungarian transplant also wrote “Flashdance” and “Jagged Edge.” With “Basic Instinct,” the one-time writer for Rolling Stone became screenwriter as rock star.
“My movies had grossed more than a billion dollars at the box office,” he wrote in his alternately thrilling and tiresome memoir, “Hollywood Animal.” “I had sold one script for $3 million, another for $3.7 million, another for $4.7 million. I was the only screenwriter in the history of Hollywood who had groupies.”
Gay rights activists in San Francisco got wind of the project – which toys with Tramell’s bisexuality the way a Playboy spread might – and began protesting the shoot with a verve that 14 years later seems mildly misguided. Actually, it seemed overstated even then. Credit the producers of the featurette “Blonde Poison: The Making of Basic Instinct” for including interviews with a couple of those activists.
So effective were the protests that the movie opened at No.1, went on to make more than $117 million domestically and was in the top 10 for the year.
Famously, “Basic Instinct” launched Sharon Stone’s career. Though with the baleful sequel opening today, and the awful “Sliver” (Paramount Home Entertainment released an unrated version this week; $14.95), you’d be right to wonder if it stalled Stone in some way. Still, her interview about “that shot” is revealing.
However, the most enjoyable extras may be the clips of Stone’s and Jeanne Tripplehorn’s screen tests. We’d say something about the passage of time, if only Stone looked older.
