First of all, I'd like to say I'll be answering the questions in the next day or so, either pictorally or verbally, so tune in to channel Lil for sketchtastic hijinks. <3

Second, I'd like to talk to you folks about a movie I had what can only be described as the dubious privilege of watching, in the way that watching an oil tanker slowly run into sharp, jagged rocks and spew black, liquid death over the waves is a terrible, mesmerizing spectacle. This movie is called Sliver.

I would say that when attempting to market this film, the highly ambitious advertising team attempted to promote it as a sexy, high-tension, heart-pounding thriller cum romance (See what I did there?) with an intriguing and new perspective on the nature of voyeurism and whether or not it's innate to human nature.

In reality, though, the movie is just an excuse to see how many times and from what angles Sharon Stone can be violently dicked by her creepy do-nothing-but-watch-horrible-personal-tragedies-taking-place-in-his-apartments Landlord, while being observed from the coffee table by nothing less than what appears to be the angry, spiky cousin of a piece of the Aggro Crag.

Said landlord-slash-voyeur-millionaire is played by William Baldwin, who out of the renowned Baldwin brothers easily bears the closest resemblance to a beaver. Also, though I have seen precious little of the other Baldwins in the buff, I would venture the claim that he is the swiftest to strip. According to the movie, or its singular editing, the man can go from one to severely naked in the span of oh my god, is that his ass? seconds.

Moreover, I would posit that his dong is either too resplendent for the eyes of mere mortals, or is in fact a bacon cheeseburger. My reasoning is thus: for the first, regardless of how many times we see every possible inch of Sharon Stone, he is always tastefully draped in a convenient sheet. Perhaps this is because like Zeus's true divine form, were his joystick to be viewed by the unimpeded mortal eye, any who glanced upon it would explode. Let us hope this philanthropy and the loss of several set crew members are what drove the director to make this choice. For the second, when he does in fact spread his legs to display the Wang of Mystery to Sharon Stone, the look on her face, to me, the audience--the hunger in her eyes, the tremble in her jaw--says nothing so clearly as it does, "Christ I want a bacon cheeseburger. Right. F*cking. Now." Perhaps it is possible that his package is in fact a bacon cheeseburger crafted by God Himself, thus rendering it both holy and delicious! But thanks to the sheets which have been so repelled by Sharon Stone's naked form, but so magnetically drawn to the tender bits of William Baldwin, the world may never know.

It is possible, given the extent to which the main character is thoroughly boinked on screen (First time I've seen actual Surprise Buttsex outside of the Discovery Channel! Like I said, the man is a Speedy Nude!) that what was actually leased from the video store was the Unrated version. This raises two questions.

One: if this is in fact the unrated version, when they cut out the lurid sex scenes, how on earth did they market a five-minute feature picture?

Two: if this is actually the rated version, what in merry hell did they actually find it in themselves to cut?!

There's also a bit of plot in there somewhere involving serial murders and Maybe Kindof Oedipal Complexes and a man who is a loon because he can't hold an erection. If this were, say, a French film, they'd find a way to make the last bit a legit conflict. In this, it's nothing more than a way to buy time for Sharon Stone's hooch to collect itself and reaffirm its attachment to her pelvis so that it won't fall off next time William Baldwin gets the impulse to speed-strip and jump her. I wish I could cite this exhaustion of the nethers as a reason for the first depiction of Sharon Stone climaxing, as she looks rather like she's riding an arthritic rocking horse while in the throes of both seizures and anaphyllactic shock while William Baldwin... just sorta sits there, mildly interested, but more intrigued by the nuclear reddish glow of the Aggro Crag. Unfortunately, this is supposed to be their first encounter, so no such rationalization is really possible.

Long story short, Sliver is a fantastic film for one specific audience. That audience is the people who are too embarrassed to rent actual softcore porn at Blockbuster, but still need their fix of hoocha-hoocha-lobster. And even then, there's more emotional depth and satisfaction in opening a really stubborn pickle jar, albeit lacking in full-monty Sharon Stone.