If there’s one film that epitomizes the power of environment over libido, it has to be Lawrence Kasdan’s directorial debut, the totally-80s noir Body Heat, which takes place during a Florida heat wave (does it get any hotter than that?) In fact the balmy weather is a character unto itself, so much so that Kasdan’s production designer Bill Kenney should have gotten top billing right along with the spectacularly sexy duo of William Hurt as smalltime lawyer Ned Racine and Kathleen Turner as the femme fatale Matty Walker, out to wield him as a weapon for murdering her wealthy husband. Never a moment goes by where the third character of heat and humidity isn’t enveloping the pair in a passionate ménage a trois.
And never does a fry-an-egg-on-the-pavement summer in NYC go by when I don’t wonder why one of our many outdoor screenings doesn’t showcase this perfectly paced, edge-of-your-seat engrossing film. It can’t be because of any racy sex scenes since Kasdan shoots rather chastely, with the camera cutting away before anything explicitly raunchy occurs. Instead he chooses a lot of close ups of Matty’s orgasm-chasing face, Ned’s hands squeezing her butt cheeks and parting her legs, a couple of gratuitous glimpses of Turner’s tits, but that’s about it. (Bunuel’s erotic classic L’Age d’Or with its toe fellatio scene at the end is way more pornographic than anything Kasdan puts onscreen.) What’s so palpably sizzling is nothing less than the chemistry between the equally matched (in talent and animal sexuality) Hurt and Turner who, even while bantering double entendres fully-clothed, create enough buzzing electricity to counter a blackout.
Corey Mburu Wainaina is 14 year old aspiring video game designer, honor student and one of the world’s greatest players of Super Smash Brothers. I could think of no better commentator with whom to discuss either the state of the nation or the state of summer movies. But, um, luckily we veered off on a far less boring Hancock tangent.
STEVEN BOONE: You have an interesting background. Your father is from Kenya and your mother is an American. Another African-American with heritage in Kenya is now famous around the world. What’s his name?
COREY WAINAINA: Barack Obama.
SB: What do you think about his candidacy?
CW: I think it’s nice, but (whispers) it doesn’t matter because it’s lies.
AFTRA will announce the results of their guild’s ratification vote on a prospective contract with the AMPTP today. It’s said to be “widely anticipated the terms will be accepted,” despite SAG’s pressure on their overlapping union to vote no in order to get a new/more favorable deal.
Kinky Boots, one of those newfangled British comedies where somebody saves something through the power of something that somebody else thinks is naughty, is going to become a Broadway musical.
Computer generated super machines run by conflicted heroes tethered to ladies who just can’t quit them–summer has arrived. And we’re loving it. Iron Man won the democratic primaries this week by staying away from controversy. The Marvel Universe will change how business gets done in Hollywood and Speed Racer is… different. Like Warhol making out with Walt Disney.
We have less than three weeks until Iron Manopens in theaters, but the way people are talking about the film today, that might be too long. Regardless of how subversive the comic book adaptation may be (check out Paul’s thoughts from yesterday), or otherwise how intelligent a blockbuster it is (according to an exhibitor, quoted here by Anne Thompson), or how “pretty darn amazing!!!!!” it is to a more mainstream, don’t-care-if-it’s-intelligent-as-long-as-it’s-awesome crowd (such as includes those who send reactions to AICN), the fact of the matter is that we may have already accepted the movie as all these things well before even seeing the whole thing. The big, hairy guy from Ireland, Karl Hungus, sums up his feelings of saturation, sparked by this latest hero-becomes-familiar-with-his-powers clip, on his blog (via IMDb):
The problem is, with all this cool stuff being flung at us, is there going to be any cool left to blow us away when the film finally hits? I know, this isn’t the first time I’ve said this, but there’s just so many new promo shots and trailers/TV spots being published, the main villain being revealed, the clips with the tank, battles being shown and now a lot of the development of the armour as well, my worry is growing that the final product will be ruined.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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AFTRA will announce
