Sunday, March 29, 2009

L.A. Confidential and Kim Basinger

I must admit, truthfully, without any apprehensions of creating a good-boy image of myself, that I am generally not turned by hotness and glamour. If it's physical beauty, I go for facial beauty than structural beauty. Oh of course, there are times when the testosterone in me does feel the need for hot women, but those times are few, and necessitated more by need than want. But anyways, I don't think you need be a "male" (the Bajaj Pulsar kind) to admire Kim Basinger in L.A.Confidential. The movie is surely a classic, it's bad enough that I caught up with such a classic so late, still, I was swept by Kim Basinger. Well, Lynn Bracken, more like. She oozed class. To me, this is glamour. Rather, should be glamour. *Opinion* Yes, she was half-naked in a few scenes, a lot of them in lingeries, but not one scene was vulgar. I was quite surprised I was admiring her, at the beginnining, I was kind of afraid if I had become yet-another-thol'a-paathu-jollu-vidra-party or something, but I realized she was appealing to my mind rather than my body. But the point is how well her physical appearance gelled with her character. I'm not sure if I would have been as taken by her if she dressed/looked the same in another role. But, to me, this was one of the few times an actress looked stunning, not only for facial beauty (coming to think of it, Kim Basinger isn't exactly "beautiful" like, say a Catherine Zeta Jones or a Madhubala [the old one] or a Meenakshi Seshadri [the beauty]), but her attire plus (most importantly) the way she carried herself. She was classic. She was glamorous without a hint of vulgarity. And to top it, she played a whore! I actually had to suppress a grin thinking of some of our dear actresses in K/B/T{ollywood} who can wear the saree in the most slutty way possible and look vulgar in perfectly elegant churidhars. Well, that's not to say it's bad, but when that's almost the only thing they do in the movie (look slutty, talk retarded and act nonsense), it is bad. But forget that. The movie is worth a second watch solely for her. Oh and many more, of course, for Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. Since this post is basically about Kim Basinger in L.A.Confidential, I will just give one-liners for the rest of the cast. Russell Crowe looked like he was made just for that role. Guy looks sooo different from Memento, still, he had that irritating feel about him (in the beginning), especially for his uruppadi-thanam. Kevin Spacey had the look of a Superstar. Really.
On the whole, a semma padam.