Body Heat

I have been putting off watching Body Heat for some time now; all I really knew about it was that it was supposed to be extra-steamy and sexy, with William Hurt and Kathleen "Man Voice" Turner as the lovers.  That idea never stimulated me enough to watch this acclaimed movie.  I finally buckled down and sat down for a viewing and was immediately and pleasantly surprised --- this thing is a neo-noir!  Awesome!  Some of my favorite films are classic noirs from the 1940s and 50s, and I have been appreciating the more modern homages to the style lately, too.  So, right off the bat, there is more to enjoy here than Man Voice and Mr. Male Pattern Baldness having another stab at the themes from Last Tango in Paris.  I cannot express just how happy that realization made me.

Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a low-rent Florida lawyer for sleazebags and people who want to frivolously sue.  He's a funny guy, aware of his lot in life, and he is infamous for sleeping with anything with a heartbeat.  Florida is in the midst of an oppressive heat wave, causing people to only talk about the weather; Ned's cop buddy also argues that the heat causes more crime because people start to believe that the rules of civilized life have stopped applying.  Well, one night, Ned happens to spot the striking Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) walking unescorted through town.  Ned takes this as his cue to mercilessly hit on her, even after she tells him that she's married (but out of town.  "My favorite kind," he replied). 

Ned, quoting the market price for mustache rides.

Despite herself, Matty takes a shine to Ned and the two eventually retreat to her palatial home for some sweaty naked time.  Matty's husband, Edmund (Richard Crenna), is only home on the weekends, so the two are free to flaunt their post-coital bodies all around the house, without a care.  But things start to get serious.  Ned can't stop thinking about Matty and risks seeing her, even when he knows Edmund's around.  It's just as bad for Matty --- she has talked about leaving Edmund, but he had her sign a prenuptial agreement, so she would leave the marriage with a pittance.  But if Edmund were to die, Matty would get at least half of his estate...hmm...

Great.  It's hot, she's using him as a pillow, and she's a mouth-breather.

I tend to enjoy William Hurt's acting, and Body Heat is certainly no exception.  He does a remarkable job of being very likable and seemingly bright, but simultaneously sleazy and dumb.  This is important, because we watch the movie through his perspective.  Kathleen Turner, in her film debut, was an excellent femme fatale.  I'm not usually a fan of Turner's (to be fair, I have pretty much missed her in her heyday), but she was obviously dangerous and sensual, which made her irresistible pull on Ned Racine plausible.  Richard Crenna (Col. Trautman from the Rambo series) was unsympathetic in his small part, which was exactly what he needed to be.  Ted Danson, in a rare pre-Cheers role, was very likable as Ned's competent lawyer friend, and the guy who flat-out tells him that Matty is bad news.  Mickey Rourke also makes an early-career appearance as an accused (but not convicted) arsonist; he has the film's best line:

Anytime you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you can fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, you're a genius. And you ain't no genius.

Mickey speaks the truth.  For his friends.

This was Lawrence Kasdan's first directorial effort, after co-writing the last two of the original Star Wars trilogy and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  After Body Heat (which he also wrote), he would be almost exclusively a writer-director, usually of Kevin Kline vehicles.  I loved his style in this movie.  It is clearly evoking and referencing noirs of the past, most notably Double Indemnity, but the writing feels fresh.  The acting was very good, too, but Kasdan had the most important task in the film.  He had to convince the audience that Ned's decision to do something stupid, dangerous, and illegal in exchange for the promise of money and sex made sense.  If someone, let's be gender-biased and say it's a lady, walked into this movie halfway through, she might scoff at this notion; after all, who is stupid enough to risk life and limb for sex?  Men, that's who.  Kasdan made the sex scenes earlier in the film so sweaty and lusty that having Ned's little head doing the thinking for him seemed natural and even inevitable.  That's some good filmmaking.

Matty, indicating the general area Ned wants to occupy.

Despite owing quite a bit to other noirs that I have seen, Body Heat is the first movie (that I can think of) that made the dangerous sexuality of the femme fatale character explicit.  That's kind of a big deal, even if it paved the way for Basic Instinct.  More importantly, Lawrence Kasdan was able to leave his own mark on a genre that resists change, and he did so with good actors and writing.

The Big Chill

Have you ever watched a TV show or movie that your parents used to swear was great, but when you watched it, it seemed...quaint?  It happens with me all the time, partially because I'm a little snotty, and partially because my dad still laughs out loud at Barney Fife.  It's not a bad thing, but it just goes to show how certain things age differently than others.  It also serves as an example to generational gaps.  I understand that; I still look back fondly at Homer Simpson falling down Springfield Gorge, but objectively, that Simpsons episode is pretty old and not very funny.  It just holds nostalgic value for me that my children will never understand.

Keep that in mind as I take a look at The Big Chill.

Alex (an uncredited --- because they left his face on the cutting room floor --- Kevin Costner) commits suicide.  His college buddies from the '60s show up for his funeral and get to catching up.  They include a married couple, Harold (Kevin Kline) and Sarah (Glenn Close); a successful Magnum, PI-style television actor, Sam (Tom Berenger); an unhappy public defender, Meg (Mary Kay Place); a professional drug-dealing Vietnam veteran and former radio shrink, Nick (William Hurt); a "journalist" for People magazine, Michael (Jeff Goldblum); and a housewife that regrets marrying a "safe" husband, Karen (JoBeth Williams).  They are joined by Alex's much, much younger (and very flexible) girlfriend/amateur space cadet, Chloe (Meg Tilly).  This group (minus Chloe) went to a Division I college and more than half of them got rich.

And yet, none of them are truly happy.  Sadly, the lovely Motown soundtrack does not include a track of the smallest violin in the world playing a sad song, just for them.  Sarah once had an affair with Alex, and her relationship with Harold never had the same level of trust again; this is compounded by their decision to help financially support Alex in the months preceding his suicide.  Sam feels cheapened by his lame acting gig and wants, more than anything else, to fulfill his long desire to be with Karen.  Karen feels trapped by her boring husband and kids.  Michael is unfulfilled, writing journalistic tripe for a magazine you read in the bathroom or at the doctor's office.  Meg wants a baby, but has no suitors and her biological clock is ticking away.  Nick felt like a fraud as a radio host and balances that with his lack of self worth as a drug dealer.  Oh, and he apparently has erectile dysfunction as a side effect of going to Vietnam.  Or he has a war wound in his crotch.  Or he has a terrible STD from Vietnam.  Whatever.  The big guy has a problem with his little guy.  Chloe is just bizarre and seems attracted by damaged men.  By the time the weekend ends, all of these problems are addressed and (more or less) solved.

I think my favorite thing about this movie is the script.  It is clever and witty, and it leaves out a lot.  That might sound like a drawback, but there is a lot of great dialogue, and real conversations do not spell everything out for onlookers.  There are dozens of funny one-liners, but the script is deeper than that, forcing the viewer to come to their own conclusions about how each character feels about the rest.  As the least sexually-successful member of the group, Michael has a lot of great lines that work, regardless of context, and Jeff Goldblum delivers these lines with panache.  There is a lot of sarcasm in the script, and everyone gets a turn eventually, but I think Goldblum's lines make him the most memorable supporting character.

The acting and direction (by Lawrence Kasdan) are both pretty good, too.  Kevin Kline and William Hurt are usually pretty dependable, and they both are given some solid dialogue, so it's a win-win with them.  Jeff Goldblum is sarcastic, witty, and nobody has sex with him, which is probably as it should be.  Meg Tilly was surprisingly wonderful as the spacey young member of the group; she is alternately distant and intimate, random and on-the-nose, throughout her performance, and I imagine that is hard to pull off.  The rest of the cast (Bernenger, Place, and Williams) are decent, but nothing special.  There was one character that I outright disliked.  Glenn Close's character struck me as particularly disturbing and unrealistic.  I know Close can act, but her emotions in this movie are so unpredictable and inconsistent that I just can't deal with her.

It's not all her fault, though.  The plot for this movie is absolutely ludicrous.  I know coming-of-age stories with ensemble casts usually have a suspicious number of characters come to important conclusions by the end of the film, but this is ridiculous.  Everyone in the principal cast has a life-changing weekend?  What is this, The Breakfast Club?  I don't appreciate some of the plot devices, either.  Why would anyone sit in front of a video camera and be bluntly honest and emotional if they were planning on watching the video in front of their friends?  That is beyond awkward.  I think my biggest problem with the plot deals with Glenn Close's character.  ***SPOILER ALERT*** So Meg wants a kid, but can't find a daddy.  She asks around, and Sam won't do it, Nick can't do it, and she doesn't want Michael, so Sarah suggests her husband?  I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me.  One the one hand, I would feel uncomfortable (at best) if Glenn Close encouraged me to cheat on her.  She is Ms. Fatal Attractions, you know.  On the other hand, where do you go after that?  How does sympathy sleeping with a friend not attract jealousy and discontent within a marriage?  It's one thing to be married to a crazy woman, but to have her allow you to cheat...well, it may seem like a blessing, but I see a death-by-butcher-knife in your future, my friend.  

If this was almost any other movie, I would give it a few stars for the clever dialogue and dock it points for the ridiculous story and predictable plot.  As it happens, though, my parents were pretty big fans of this film when I was growing up and, while the film doesn't carry as much weight for me as it did them, my early exposure left a soft spot in my heart for it.  Despite the clumsiness of the dance scenes, the implausibility of most of the romances, and almost everything relating to William Hurt's character, I am going to give this movie the benefit of the doubt.  That said, I cannot forgive the egomaniacal self-centeredness of the Baby Boomers, no matter how handsomely it is disguised.  As such, I give this tribute to rich people schtupping each other...