Body Heat feels like a throwback to an older era of films, maybe one of those salacious pre-Hays Code releases, or a 40's Noir that slipped under the radar of censors, but presented here with the 80's steam of a late night Cinemax romp.
And steam it has a-plenty: set during a particularly burning hot Florida summer, we see how Ned Racine (William Hurt), a sketchy local lawyer who wears his moral shortcoming on his sleeve, quickly gets himself into…
There's a scene at the beginning of The Longest Yard where Burt Reynolds' character of a disgraced pro football player is in a bar getting sloppy(er) drunk after leading the cops on an insane high speed chase in a car he just stole from his wealthy socialite girlfriend because he's tired of being her puppet boy-toy. The cops come in to drag his ass to jail, and yet neither them or the bartender can contain their amusement with the no-fucks-given…
After spending the late 80s and early 90s being kicked around as a punchline by hack comics, as well as try-hard scenesters who had no idea what a critical influence Devo had been to alternative wunderkinds like Nirvana's Kurt Cobain or Maynard James Keenan of Tool (who went as far as to name his son after the band), this is it, the band's reunion and triumphant return at Lollapalooza '96. It was with this tour (as well as their trolling…
The 2018 Cult Movie Challenge
Week 47: MonsterVision Week
--
Deeply British, dry-as-toast sci-fi slowburner featuring characters I feel like I've seen in a bunch of other Earth invasion movies. Competently acted despite the lack of obvious stars and a decent enough picture overall, but maybe one that I should rewatch when I'm in a more receptive headspace.
The very first shot of Jim and Andy is of a now gray-bearded 55-year-old Jim Carrey, and it feels like he's playing a character. Is this Old Jim we're seeing? Or Documentary Jim? Or are we just so used to Some Character Jim that we don't recognize the real him when we see it? Or even more disconcerting: did Real Jim get tossed aside somewhere along the road to the fame he now enjoys, possibly lost in the funhouse that…
If ever I'm in a coma and you can't reach me, play some of Bill Conti's score for the Rocky series (Conquest might work best). That about illustrates how deeply Rocky resonates with me, and a lot of other people.
Poverty. Illness. Discrimination. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Rocky speaks past those battles to the deepest part of each of us, the part which may sometimes be beaten but refuses to be defeated. And…
