This title + no nudity = inappropriate!: "sex, lies, and videotape"

Seriously, I don't go into something like this expecting the most risque scene to be a potted plant covering Peter Gallagher's nether regions.

I saw this so-called indie hit a long time ago, but The Light of My Life never had. Thanks the Netflix, we've changed that, although I'm not sure we're better for it.

The story explores the warped relationships among four people:
-- Ann (Andie McDowell), a housewife uninterested in sex with her husband.
-- John (Gallagher) , the husband and a lawyer who is having an affair with ...
-- Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), Ann's sister and a wild-child bartender.
-- Graham (James Spader), John's college friend who stays briefly with him and Ann upon arriving in town.

While the relationships among the first three are clear, Graham is an outsider who confesses that he's no longer intimate with women. Instead, he videotapes women talking about sex, accumulating dozens of cassettes. This fascinates the two women, while John merely wonders what he and his friend still have in common.

Back in 1989, much was made of this movie's subtle "intelligence," courtesy of young director Steven Soderbergh. And in some ways, "videotape" is an impressive film. Soderbergh was only 26 and had a tiny $1.2 million budget. That officially makes this a small, independent movie, and I salute his accomplishment.

Unfortunately, the movie is ... what's the word I'm looking for? Ah, yes ... boring. For such a provocative title, there's a whole lot of talky-talky-talky. Maybe that's called "irony," but I found myself wondering why I really should care about any of these people, especially when we don't get a whole lot of background or insight into why they do what they do -- namely, focus on sex in different ways.

True, I certainly couldn't have done that with any script I would have written at age 26. Hell, I'd be lucky to draft something like "Snakes on a Plane." But now that Soderbergh has done much better work -- not just "Traffic," but lighter fare such as "Ocean's Eleven" -- his breakthrough effort suffers a bit in retrospect.

I also wasn't sold by all of the actors. Gallagher was fairly believable, and San Giacomo was sufficiently naughty. It was easy to accept they knew what they were doing was wrong but couldn't help themselves. As for Spader, his might have been the most praised performance, and I guess Graham was an interesting character. But he also came across as full of sh*t at times when he was supposed to be "deep," and I still enjoy Spader much more when he's a punk. (See "Less Than Zero" below.)

Then there's Andie McDowell, who as an actor is a great model. While I don't think she's incredibly great-looking, I can see how others might. I can't, however, see how anyone could mistake her for an actor. She's, um, not good. In fact, make that "bad." Really bad. Pick a movie ... "Hudson Hawk," "Short Cuts," "Groundhog Day" ... and she's easily the worst thing about it. (And that's saying something when it comes to "Hudson Hawk.") She's in the annals of bad movie lines among my friends for her bakery tantrum in "Short Cuts" -- "My son is DEAD! He is DEAD!" In fact, the surprise in "videotape" isn't that Gallagher's character cheats on her, but that Spader is drawn to her. C'mon, man ... you were in "Tuff Turf!"