One Paragraph Movie Review: Body Heat

Fifty-second film: Body Heat, with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. From the opening credits — saxophone-drenched and with a tell-tale typeface, you know this movie’s going to be extremely sexy in a way specifically peculiar to the early 80s. For the first half it plays out like a television midday movie — all pastel outfits and Vaseline-smeared lenses — plus nipples — but then somewhere in the middle you find yourself engrossed with the twists and with the double-crosses and with Ted Danson’s dancing (Ted Dancin’?) and with Mickey Rorke’s ex-con lip-synching. It stops being an embarrassing nude romp and starts being a bloody excellent noir crime thriller, and jokes were made in this house that the original title was probably ‘Crazy Bitch Wind Chimes’. Unexpectedly excellent, and now I want to watch it again, Usual Suspects style, from the crazy bitch’s point of view. Four horny smashed front windows out of five.