Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Body Heat (1981)

Ned: Maybe you shouldn't dress like that.

Matty: This is a blouse and a skirt. 

I don't know what you're talking about.

Ned: You shouldn't wear that body.

God there is so much snappy dialogue in Body Heat, I love it so much -- I could've chosen a dozen other lines to highlight (see also here); it's why I think it's one of the most successful of the neo-noirs that popped up in the 70s and 80s (alongside Chinatown of course). The dialogue harkens beautifully back to the genre's heyday where the verbal playfulness between the lovers-to-be reveals not just their desire but their danger -- anybody who can whip out a double entendre this fast isn't to be trusted. And it also helps when the people are as sexy as William Hurt and Kathleen Turner are in this scorcher. Anyway we're here of course because Lawrence Kasdan's sweaty masterpiece is hitting 4K thanks to the Criterion Collection today -- go snatch up a copy stat! How hot is that cover art too? Humina humina!

Criterion Brings the Heat to May

I feel as if Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat should be a July or August release, but Criterion has deemed it for this May and who am I to argue -- that's the first title in their May line-up which has just been revealed today and I'm already sweating with antici.... pation. That scorching neo-noir is perfection and I can't wait to see every bead of sweat dripping from William Hurt's mustache in gorgeous 4K. Gimme! 

 

It's a truly stellar roster for the month though -- also included are two of last year's absolute best movies (both of them figured into my favorites of 2025 list) with Joachim Trier's Oscar-nominated Sentimental Value (and I am obsessed with that Chris Ware cover art-work!) and Ira Sachs' Peter Hujar's Day (read my review of that one here). And speaking of Ira Sachs...

... his first film 1996's The Delta is also getting a drop, which rules. It's a lovely intimate little gay drama that showed we were in for a real one with Sachs. Sachs has never made a bad film that I've seen and I've seen I think like 90% of what he's done? I've never seen Married Life or Forty Shades of Blue but everything else is top-tier stellar.

As for classics getting their deserved 4K upgrades there is Bob Fosse's Lenny, the 1974 black-and-white bio-pic of the comedian Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman, and Kurosawa's 1949 crime thriller masterpiece Stray Dog starring, as ever, Toshiro Mifune. Did somebody say Toshiro Mifune? Toshiro Mifune break!

Ahhhhh I needed that. The final title for Criterion's May slate is the only one I've never seen -- Shu Lea Cheang's 1994 lesbian "cyber punk fantasia" Fresh Kill, but it's been on my list for a good long while now. Anybody ever seen it? It sounds like a trip.

Good Morning, World

I cannot in wholly good faith recommend you watch Ivan Passer's 1981 "neo-noir" Cutter's Way, which is now streaming as part of Criterion's "Neo-Noir" series -- which has proved to be an excellent series on there, one of their best -- because Cutter's Way ain't great. Oh its leading man Jeff Bridges certainly looks phenomenal, as you can see there -- indeed I'd say that alongside Richard Gere in American Gigolo in 1980 and William Hurt in Body Heat, also in 1981, that Bridges fills out the trinity of sweaty sorta-sleazy WASPishly sharp-dressed early-80s men.

bike trails

And that might be enough reason to watch the movie on its own -- it got me through it! But other than the noted pleasure of Bridges, his mustache, his beach sweaters, there's not much to recommend... more of recommendation's opposite. For example, and primarily, John Heard gives one of the screen's most irritating performances as Bridges' bestie, the titular Cutter. The character is supposed to be a mess who ruins everybody's lives but Heard forgot to give us anything else and instead dialed "dickhead" up to fourteen. Absolutely exhausting to watch, and you actively recoil from the screen when he pops up. Which is constantly.

And I say that as someone who has found Heard extremely charming in numerous roles before. (I will always think of him as the sleepy theater-director who Bette Midler croons to from a bunny suit in Beaches.) But back to Bridges -- ogling him at his near-peak (which I'd say he reached three years after this in another bad movie, Against All Odds -- but perhaps you've got another pick?) isn't a negligible past-time, so maybe the movie will work for you on that alone. In that spirit let's do some more (and these gifs are from just the opening scene -- there's a lot more Jeff to be ogled later in the film), after the jump...

Who Wore It Best?

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Yesterday I was looking at this week's banner of Patrick Wilson in Little Children (which I'm really personally enjoying, I don't know about you) while simultaneously reading our post on Kathleen Turner's fantastic new interview when a vision of a shot of William Hurt in Body Hurt occurred to me (as it often, often does)...

... and I realized there was an homage to Body Heat in Little Children that I had never noticed before! How perfect! And riddle me this -- wouldn't you kill to see a remake of Body Heat starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson? Brains, blown. Anyway I clearly must now ask...

web polls

Quote of the Day

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It was hard to pick just one quote from the interview with Kathleen Turner at Vulture that hit this morning, making this Tuesday into an exponentially greater day right off the bat - she calls Elizabeth Taylor shit, she drags Nicholas Cage and Burt Reynolds and the cast of Friends and all of the method actors, and she does all of this without seeming especially mean about it, just honest. I came out of it angrier than ever that nobody's giving this woman great roles in the movies anymore.
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Alright -- everybody tell me who you think Kathleen Turner is talking about here: pic.twitter.com/WjuXb5ond9

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 7, 2018

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Anyway you should read the whole thing but I decided to share this bit  below about her two-time co-star William Hurt (in Body Heat and The Accidental Tourist) because it made me chuckle, and appreciate Hurt more in the process:

Vulture: I read in your memoir that William Hurt was into magic mushrooms. Did he ever try and get you to take them with him?
Turner: No, I never tried any of those things that he liked. Bill can be very odd.
Vulture: How so?
Turner: I remember one night while we were shooting Body Heat we were sitting around, and for some reason he wanted to talk about how we’d each like to die. I don’t remember what my answer was, but he said he wanted to be sucked up into a jet engine. You would find yourself in that kind of discussion with Bill. Then when we did The Accidental Tourist, Bill was sober, so there were fewer discussions like that. God, you did not want to get Bill talking too much.

In related, talk about Great Moments in Movie Staches:

Hurt So Good

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It is the great William Hurt's birthday today and so you need to click on over to The Film Experience to vote on this week's edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" poll, which is all about the great Broadcast News. It's actually Holly Hunter's birthday too! So wish them both a happy day, and vote. And then as a reward you may come back here and look at these pictures of him in Body Heat at prime hotness.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Body Heat (1981)

Matty: My temperature runs a couple of degrees high, 

around a hundred. I don't mind. It's the engine or something. 

Ned: Maybe you need a tune up. 

Matty: Don't tell me - you have just the right tool. 

Happy  63, William Hurt!

I posted some pleasant pics of him in this movie over here.

Good Morning, World

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A very happy 62 to William Hurt, ultimate 80s WASP.

Mmm yes I think I might have to watch Body Heat right quick. I've posted some very other fine pictures from this movie before, over here. I stumbled upon a wonderful tumblr for the man with loads more shots of him here, which is where these ones are from. Unf.

A Hint of Hurt

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William Hurt in Body Heat... it does a body good.

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