I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #198 - Body Heat (1981, dir. Lawrence Kasdan)

In one of my favorite scenes from The Simpsons, Nelson Muntz is seen coming out of a movie theatre showing Naked Lunch. He angrily looks up at the marquee and says, “I can think of at least two things wrong with that title!” If Nelson were exiting Lawrence Kasdan’s stylish noir thriller Body Heat, he would not have said the same. Body Heat delivers on all three things promised in its title. Hot stars William Hurt (in his third appearance) and Kathleen Turner (in her first film role) are undressed and entwined A LOT in this movie. We know much about their bodies by the end of the film. The movie takes place during a stifling heat wave in a small Florida town, and by the end, one is dying for nothing more than a cool shower. And finally, the movie gives flesh to the idea of “body heat” or human sexual chemistry as few films have.

William Hurt plays Ned Racine, an ambulance-chasing lothario whose crappiness as a lawyer is only outdone by his lack of discrimination in sexual partners. He’s defended every loser in the city, and slept with most of the single and unhappily married women. He’s good looking, in a sleazy 70’s porn-star way, so he’s lucky but he seems bored with his usual prey. One night while cruising for love, he meets a beautiful and mysterious woman named Matty Walker (Turner) and begins a wild sexual affair with her. This is not your typical movie affair. Director Kasdan mixes equal parts film technique and softcore porn levels of eroticism to create some seriously hot scenes. The slavish rules of film noir lighting, dialogue (often hilariously stilted), and camera angle were never put more directly to the task of filming sex, and as a result the entire genre is moved forward just a little bit. More than any other way, Body Heat succeeds almost as a tribute to the noir genre and specifically films like The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Obviously, there’s a rub, and it is that Matty is unhappily married to another man (Richard Crenna), who happens to be fabulously wealthy. Matty convinces Ned that if he kills her husband they can live sexily ever after with the money she inherits. Ned, being a sleazy small-town lawyer doesn’t need a lot of convincing. Like many of the best noir thrillers, the characters seem to inhabit an alternate universe where morality is for the weak, and the spoils go the brash. Hmmm, considering the state of the world we currently inhabit, I wonder whether this is the alternate or the actual state of things. Situational ethics and expected results from hard-boiled threats may seem like a crazy way to live, but look how far they’ve taken our president. All this is to point out that there are no protagonists in this film, just antagonists and double-crossers. Even Ned’s friends, a local police detective and the town’s D.A. (ably played by J.A. Preston and an impossibly young Ted Danson respectively) turn out to be the guys leading the investigation of the murder. Nobody can be trusted and loyalty is only skin deep - no matter how beautiful your skin is.

As the investigation heats up and Ned and Matty’s relationship shows cracks, a sense of claustrophobic disaster reigns. Eroticism is replaced with dread as the story devolves into one of the more memorable cross, double-cross, triple-cross, hidden identity plot twists and revelations of modern cinema. Of course, none of it is really that believable, but throughout, Body Heat succeeds as a stylish tribute to film noir sensibilities and conventions, while offering two important actors early screen cred and a scrap book of themselves when they were young and beautiful. For the viewer, it is simply a hell of a lot of fun.

-         Paul Epstein

I'd Love to Turn You On At the Movies #122 - I Love You to Death (1990, dir. Lawrence Kasdan)

At the age of twelve, I watched reports on the making of I Love You to Death after dinner on Entertainment Tonight as the hosts discussed the controversies surrounding its production. Watching the movie now, it is hard to believe that it could have been the source of any controversies, but that disconnection proves helpful in noting some of the changes in media, entertainment, and perception that have occurred since 1990. Twenty-five years later, I Love You to Death remains an unmistakable product of its time. A highly successful director of the 1980’s, Lawrence Kasdan, guides a diverse and talented cast, including two Oscar winners and two Oscar nominees, through an energetic, dark comedy based on an actual criminal case, wherein a wife tried to kill her husband several times. From its director to its remarkable ensemble cast and the way it handles its subject matter, this movie could not have happened at any other point in recent history.

I Love You to Death follows a string of successes throughout the 1980’s that began with Kasdan penning the screenplays for The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Following these collaborations, Kasdan went on to write and direct some of the biggest critical hits of the decade including Body Heat, The Big Chill, and The Accidental Tourist. A year after this movie in 1991, Kasdan’s Grand Canyon attempted to address and remedy the hangover brought about by the over-indulgences of the 1980’s, but I Love You to Death’s perverse and frenetic atmosphere feels like the last round of drinks shared at end of the party the night before.

As the party guests, this group of actors remains one of my favorite ensemble casts in any movie. Kevin Kline, at the height of his powers, operates in a broadly comic range that he has rarely reached with such zeal or success before or since. Released in the final year of Tracy Ullman’s acclaimed U.S. comedy/variety series, this movie allows Ullman to deliver one of her most natural and nuanced performances. As the emotional heart of the film, River Phoenix’s charisma and generosity as a performer combine to bring out the best from his fellow actors and allow him shine without being the center of attention. As Yugoslavian mechanic grandmother Mama Nadja, Joan Plowright builds a warm and curiously engaging character out of a role that could have been just a plot device or a punchline.

Recently, I realized that William Hurt’s character is a spiritual cousin to Jeff Bridges’ The Dude in The Big Lebowski. As leading men in the 1980’s, both Hurt and Bridges played serious yuppie types, so watching them play bedraggled, middle-aged hippies at the fringes of society creates a jolt of unpredictability that, in this case, creates some of the movie’s most satisfying comedy. For Keanu Reeves’ detractors, the role of a quiet, drug-addled weirdo is right up there with Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure for the list of roles he was born to play. For his defenders, Reeves gives a layered comic performance on par with his later work in films like 2009’s Thumbsucker.

Kasdan and writer John Kostmayer take significant liberties with the actual criminal case to create a propulsive comedic tone that flirts with the darker elements involved, but ultimately keeps the overall mood light and amusing. Within just a few years, cases very similar to the one on which this movie is based became the source of intense media attention. The level of societal and media obsession with cases like John and Lorena Bobbitt, Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco, and, eventually, the O.J. Simpson murder trial created a new kind of entertainment that paved the way for both the ubiquity of the 24 hour news cycle and the dominance of “reality” TV. None of those cases became the source of a movie like I Love You to Death because in a way, they all unraveled in real time as a new kind of mixed-media live theater. Kasdan and Kostmayer thread a timely satire of the violence, tabloid culture, and desire for fame present in modern American life throughout their movie as a possible warning for what was to come. Despite what came after, I Love You to Death survives as a unique and memorable comedy that also offers a snapshot of early stages of the interplay between the news media and mainstream entertainment.

             - John Parsell