James Spader 90s Erotica 500th Films Extravaganza

White Palace

Dream Lover

Greetings and salutations my lovely, dear reader! I hope you’re staying warm, or cool, or smoke-free, depending on which pocket of our apocalyptic world you reside. It’s a new year, but it’s not a new me. I’m still watching movies, I’m still curating specific and niche double features, and I’m still writing about them for anyone who cares to read my rambling thoughts. My first post on this blog was on March 26th, 2020, when I thought this movie-watching adventure would be a mere distraction amid the horrifying early days of COVID. Well, 5 years and 500 movies later, COVID is still around, and so am I. Watching a double feature every week since 2020 started as a coping mechanism, but it’s turned me into a cinephile, in hopefully the least pretentious way possible. I’ve never written this consistently, ever in my life. I never thought I could write this consistently, ever in my life. I never thought I’d get paid sometimes by nice publications to write about movies, and I never thought anyone would even give a fraction of a shit about what I have to say. But I’m so glad I started doing this, even if someone I got into a Twitter fight with once emailed me and told me that “blogging is the lowest form of self expression”, I mean they’re not wrong but at least I’m consistent bitch! Even if no one reads it, even if no one cares but me or my mom, I love it, I never wanna stop, I love movies, sue me!!! Over the years I have taken suggestions of what to watch, but I mostly just cater to my own curiosities and tastes. That’s why, for my 500th movies and 250th(ish, I’ve had some quadruple and triple features too) blog post, I wanted to indulge in the most salacious and sinful of my cinematic guilty pleasures, and explore a realm of film that still had some selections left unseen by my overexposed, impure eyes, and this is, of course, the 90s erotic film starring James Spader. For how much I adore this specific subgenre, I’ve really only covered three films that fit this criteria thus far, so I had to amend this. James Spader, even now with his bald head and Rubenesque figure, is the number one male sex symbol of erotic thrillers, to this critic. 1990s American cinema was filled to the brim with sexy, steamy, often-convoluted films, and James Spader ruled them all. This phenomenon also bled into the decade ahead and after it, with Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Secretary, Crash, Bad Influence, Jack’s Back, Wolf, The Watcher, True Colors, The Rachel Papers, Keys to Tulsa, Speaking of Sex, hell, even the episode of Seinfeld he’s on is somehow sexy just because he’s in it. No one asked me to do a deep dive on the erotic ouvré of James Spader, but no one asked me to watch the 498 other films I’ve covered, either, so let’s get into it. Tonight’s James Spader 90s erotica showcases the full spectrum of this subgenre, and this actor’s superb capabilities within it. Up first is a film that was originally titled “The White Castle”, but this particular fast-dining establishment didn’t grant the filmmakers permission to use their namesake, this is Luis Mandoki’s erotic drama from 1990, White Palace. Produced by Hollywood legend Griffin Dunne, and starring an intriguing cast of James Spader, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Jason Alexander, and Eileen Brennan, White Palace introduces us to a young, sexy, and broody James Spader, who is a widower at the age of 27. His name is Max Baron, and he’s the mopiest, moodiest of all of his pretentious, yuppie friends, since they’re all settling into their post-grad marriages and jobs and mansions, and he is still mourning the death of his wife, Janey. Max gets his clothes dry cleaned, and keeps his expensive St. Louis apartment shiny and clean and excruciatingly minimalistic. He is quiet and reserved and keeps to himself, even when his buddy Jason Alexander is having a rowdy bachelor party, where Max has been tasked with obtaining burgers. When he arrives at the party, burgers in tow, this gaggle of yuppie bros realize that they’re several burgers short, and this absolutely sets Max off for some reason. So he marches back to the White Palace, where he got these empty burger boxes, and bitches out the staff, where a cashier named Nora (Susan Sarandon) is happy to yell right back at him. He returns to the party, drinks a soda and not beer, then leaves kind of abruptly, to take a contemplative drive as soulful jazz music booms around him. Max finds himself wandering into a shitty dive bar to blow off some steam, even though it’s clearly not his kind of establishment. But it’s in this dingy dive bar where Max is reunited with the burger waitress with whom he sparred earlier, Nora, who is stealing glances at him as she takes long drags from her cigarette. The two have some light, awkward conversation, mostly led by Nora, who is anything but subtle in her approach. She’s a bold, brassy, older broad who can see right through this messy young gentleman, and the two end up accidentally bonding over their grief. Max lost his wife in a car crash, and Nora lost her son to leukemia, long ago, but these wounds do not heal easily. The two stumble back to her house in Dogtown, far from the classy, stuffy suburbs that Max calls home, and though Max is hesitant at first, Nora successfully seduces this tortured young man. At first it seems like a simple, passing, one-night stand. But when Max returns the next day, with a new mailbox to replace the one he drove over the night before, the two are instantly all over each other. He’s 27, she’s 43. He comes from Ivy League money, she comes from working class grit. But somehow, these two troubled individuals just get each other. His dry, cynical outlook on the world is softened by her earnest, hardened acceptance of the world, and the two make each other a little better. It’s all one, blissful, sexy montage where a song that says “women peak at 40 and men at 19” plays, until reality comes crashing down, and Max’s overly-protective friends want to meet his new girlfriend. When their worlds do collide, it is anything but comfortable or cohesive, but it is, most likely, pretty realistic. Especially for the time in which this was made, White Palace handles the topic of class and money with as much nuance and real-world understanding as it could. There was, of course, some rather kooky, unrealistic dialogue when it came to working class woes and matters of the heart, but for the most part, it was actually pretty thoughtful and complex. For very different reasons, both Max and Nora have given up on obtaining the traditional idea of what a family is, but the glimmer of hope they give each other is actually quite lovely, and inspiring. The poster of this film, as well as the trailer for it, makes it seem like one of those cheesy, schlocky, oversexed erotic novels with Fabio on the cover, but White Palace has way more depth than it would lead you to believe. It wasn’t quite the thriller I expected, but I’m actually glad this was the case. As quaint as it may seem when viewing it from a 2025 perspective, White Palace delicately and considerately handled topics of class, gender, age, and cultural standards, at a time when sexy films were typically only concerned with being sexy. I appreciated this film’s sensitivity on these subjects, even if it mostly seems like a total middle-aged fantasy. But what’s wrong with a little fantasy? And why shouldn’t these star-crossed St. Louis lovers work out in the end? We’re still just as judgmental of people’s finances and how they represent their age bracket today, even as the middle class disappears and aging becomes stranger and stranger to observe and experience. And after watching Susan Sarandon’s expert sex appeal and seduction techniques in last week’s double feature, I was happy to keep this theme going with this film. Though White Palace is not the most subtle in its representation, I still think it is far more charming and kind than it even needed to be. And to have a happy ending as well? Well that was just the cherry on top of this sultry sappy sweet movie. Continuing the sultry vibe, but shirking any sweetness, is tonight’s next selection: Nicholas Kazan’s 1993 film Dream Lover. Dream Lover introduces us to yet another mopey, moody, broody, yuppie iteration of James Spader, this time as Ray Reardon, a successful architect who is also recently single—this time due to an amicable divorce, and not a horrific death. The film opens on a bizarre fever dream of a carnival, where a clown asks Ray how the family is. We then cut to a sleepy Ray sitting in court, where he tells the judge that he is no longer going to contest the divorce requests, and says that his ex-wife can have anything she wants. Next thing we see is Ray and his ex-wife, lovingly leaning on each other in the courthouse lobby, as they reminisce over their tumultuous but sweet days as a married couple. Even when getting divorced, the woman acting alongside James cannot help but gaze upon him with admiration and desire—she grips his tie as she says that she’s already jealous of the woman he’s going to get with next. It’s an odd, but completely-90s-kind-of interaction, full of adult incredulousness, but still hopeful that something sexy or stupid will happen—and luckily, it does. We then meet Ray’s fellow yuppie friends, one of whom is legendary character actor Larry Miller, who encourages Ray to get right back on the horse and find a woman ASAP. He says there are plenty of “dark, mysterious, anorexics” out there, just waiting for him, as the rest of their boisterous brunch table laughs in support. Ray isn’t that simple or easy, though, so how could his next lover be? Thankfully, at a fancy, shmancy art party later that night, Ray quite literally bumps into a devastatingly-beautiful woman named Lena Mathers (Mädchen Amick), which causes her drink to spill all over her red, velvet dress. The two exchange some unfriendly words, then suddenly, this mysterious, gorgeous brunette has vanished. About a week later, Ray is at the grocery store, when he bumps into Lena, once again. This time, she is much softer, gentler, and is apologetic about her reaction when they first met. They judge each other’s grocery items playfully in the checkout line, share some light chemistry, and once again, Lena vanishes. But this time, Ray catches up to her, and invites her to get sushi. Ray and Lena get to know each other through casual conversation, and their palpable tension only grows the more they speak. Mädchen Amick also ruled the 90s erotic thriller world with her role in Twin Peaks, and in Dream Lover, she keeps up with Spader’s natural charisma and sex appeal quite easily. After their dinner, Ray wants more. But Lena is not that easy to pin down. As she tells him, “Getting to know someone is like peeling an onion” to which he responds, “It makes you cry?” but she just laughs and says, “No, layers and layers and more layers” before shutting her door in his face. Lena is so good at playing hard to get, that Ray exhausts all of his resources and creepy friends to track her down without a phone number. Eventually (the next day), he does find her, and he finds himself inside her apartment. But suddenly, Lena is colder, more distant. “Something’s changed from last night, what’s the problem?” Ray inquires, and Lena replies, “The problem is that I really like you” before they fall into a bundle of lovemaking. Just as with White Palace, and most 90s erotic thrillers, I would’ve loved if the male nudity matched the female nudity, but c’est la vie, we still get to see Spader’s tight little ass and his hungry mouth as he ravishes his new lover. Ray and Lena are all over each other, and fall madly, deeply, stupidly in love in a very short amount of time that the film reflects with its awkwardly swift pacing. Before you can process the fact that Lena wears modern clothes but pearl necklaces for some reason, we’re at their wedding, where strangely, Lena has only invited two friends. As time goes on, as their marriage becomes more lived-in and the two have a baby, only then does Ray realize that he may not know too much about this woman. Lena has allegedly burned all of the bridges from her past life, so she has very few friends, and she doesn’t even speak to her allegedly-abusive parents anymore. Two years have now gone by, and Ray and Lena are visiting the sushi bar where they had their first date, when Lena sighs and says, “I never thought it would be possible for me to have such a normal life.” Suddenly, a woman with a thick, Southern accent approaches Lena and calls her Sissy, claiming to have known her and her family back in Texas. Lena uncomfortably brushes her off, and says she must have her confused with someone else. This odd moment stays with Ray, though, as does the fact that some of Lena’s other stories and personal factoids do not line up with reality. Privately, Ray begins to question his wife’s past, and even makes a secretive trip to Texas to track down her family, who prove to not be abusive, just a bit abrasive. I thought we might have a bit of a Saltburn situation on our hands, until Dream Lover proved to be even more complicated and cuckoo. Little by little, lie by lie, Ray begins to expose and confront his wife on her confusing personal history, but Lena remains calm, and seemingly has an explanation for everything. And as Ray unravels the carefully-constructed persona that Lena has built for herself, it is he that seems crazy, not her. I shan’t give away anymore of this puzzling, perplexing little thriller, because while it was a bit soapy and scattered, Dream Lover actually did a pretty good job of keeping me guessing. This was an absolutely batshit, totally sexy, half-assed-Hitchcockian wannabe thriller down to the pearls on Mädchen’s neck. Big swings were taken, while also not ever achieving the level of twisted it desperately wanted to reach. Did it build the most effective suspense? No. Did its clunky dialogue ever make full sense? No. But did it all sort of work despite the unevenly-paced story and not-visible-enough shots of James Spader’s ass? Yes… It’s rare when this happens, but this movie would lose me then win me back, constantly. It would pretend to be sophisticated then go right back to being trashy and stupid, and it ultimately kept me very entertained. I hope stupid horny movies never stop getting made, no matter how stupid they are, and I credit James Spader with popularizing this subgenre and making them as memorable as they have been. I love these cheesy, sleazy movies than I can properly articulate, and that’s why they felt like the perfect way to ring in 500 movies. From the bottom of my cold, chilly heart, dear reader, thank you for reading along this week, last week, or any time you may have casually checked into this silly little blog to see what this silly little bitch is talking about. I love you, I love movies, and I hope you’ll stick around for the next 500. Ta ta for now!