Sex Lies and Videotape (1989)
The film that was perhaps most responsible for the indie film boom of the 1990s, Steven Soderbergh’s stunning debut finds James Spader (one of the best of all cocky blond guys in ’80s movies) playing the seemingly awkward drifter Graham Dalton.
Dalton has a knack for convincing women to confess their sexual desires and backgrounds in front of his video camera, which makes him both repellant and fascinating to the repressed Ann Bishop Mullany (Andie McDowell, pictured), the wife of Dalton’s old college friend, John (Peter Gallagher) — who is himself a secret philanderer.
Things get messier and messier, in thanks part to the involvement of Ann’s less-inhibited sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). Sex, Lies and Videotape is a wonderfully complicated and coolly judgment-free examination of people and the secrets they share. Made for about a million dollars, it earned that back thirty times over, opening Hollywood to the notion that small, smart DIY movies for grownups could be the future.
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