Barbarella (1968)

Barbarella is set many years into the future, where weapons and war have been unheard of for ages. Jane Fonda plays a bootylicious secret agent from Earth, who is sent out in search of an insane doctor that has created a positronic ray gun and threatens to disrupt the harmony of the universe. In order to find this crazed "Dr. Duran Duran" (I'm serious; there's no way I could make such a thing up), Barbarella enlists the aid of her ship's effeminate onboard computer, a blind angel, a bumbling revolutionary, and some child-hunting ice pirate whose skin is hairier than the fur coat he wears.

The imagery of the late 60's is prevalent throughout the flick, as is its morality. The cockpit of Barbarella's spacecraft is a fur box. No joke. The aforementioned revolutionary is named "Dildano". Several scenes of the ship maneuvering through space look remarkably like an egg cell floating in a petrie dish. And of course as Barbarella gets into one jam or another, she learns to trade nookie in exchange for various favors and means of escape. This is considerably difficult for her at first because on Earth, sex has been replaced by a ritual of pill-taking and joining of hands (didn't I see that in Demolition Man?). But after a couple of times doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel, she's practically begging for it at every turn.

For those upset by creations like Barb Wire and Coyote Ugly, Barbarella reminds us that our wonderful country has a long and proud tradition of movies whose sole purpose was to show off some T & A. Since I watched this on TV, I can't be sure whether viewers of an unedited version would actually get to see Fonda shagging, but I'm guessing even that couldn't save this movie. Watch this one only if your only other choice is Weekend at Bernie's Part II.