~~ Erotic Thrillers of the 80s and 90s ~~

David Corelli : Cristal, Baluga, Wolfgang Puck... it's a fuckhouse.

Just over a week away:

The next season of @RememberThisPod begins in just 11 days! Make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes of #Erotic90s every Tuesday starting March 28: pic.twitter.com/Xrcu9OdSMu

— YouMust RememberThis (@RememberThisPod) March 17, 2023

Aaaaand, as if on cue, Criterion is streaming a bunch of these titles starting next month:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8101-the-criterion-channels-april-2023-lineup

Erotic Thrillers
Sleekly stylish, deliriously plotted, and unabashedly steamy, the erotic thrillers of the 1980s and ’90s are both the ultimate guilty pleasure and an illuminating reflection of an era’s changing attitudes toward sex on-screen. As the ’70s came to a close, with studio filmmaking in decline, home video and cable on the rise, and new X-rated movies ushering in an era of “porno chic,” Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers began pushing boundaries to cash in and create popular films that could never have been made before. Often dismissed as disreputable byproducts of the video-store era, these carnal classics can now be seen as rich cultural texts, laden with tantalizing ideas about gender, the relationship between sex and violence, and the cinematic gaze. Encompassing masterful genre deconstructions by directors such as Brian De Palma (Body Double), Paul Schrader (The Comfort of Strangers), and the Wachowskis (Bound*) as well as lesser-known titles now ripe for reappraisal (Color of Night, Dream Lover, Fleshtone), these late-night cable staples are journeys into our collective fears and fantasies.

FEATURING: Dressed to Kill (1980), Body Heat (1981), Crimes of Passion (1984), Body Double (1984), The Bedroom Window (1987), Sister, Sister (1987), Call Me (1988), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Poison Ivy (1992), Dream Lover (1993), Color of Night (1994), Criminal Passion (1994), Fleshtone (1994), The Last Seduction (1994), Jade (1995)*, Bound (1996)*; COMING MAY 1: Single White Female (1992); JUNE 1: Basic Instinct (1992)

i am excite!

Skinterion

Interesting lineup. I expect some "the orange in Call Me vs. the peach in Call Me By Your Name" discussion once people get a load of that one.

I don't know if Dream Lover's quite "ripe for reappraisal." It does have Mädchen Amick, my fourth-favourite person from the '80s with umlauts attached.

One of these days I'll double feature Poison Ivy and Color of Night on Criterion because it's perverse

rich cultural texts, laden with tantalizing ideas

Yeah that's totally why I watched Body Heat when I was 14.

The tantalizing ideas, the rich cultural text.

This is what I was asking for upthread, a shame its US only and not available in UK.

I could futz around with VPNs etc. but its never an easy solution, always more work than necessary when I just want to sit down and enjoy the rich cultural texts..

Feel like Karina has turned her enunciation game up a notch.

Xpost Hamildan

If you want to watch on a laptop you only need a VPN to sign up as a member - you can use any of the chrome browser vpn plugins. After that, the site will take a UK payment cards and you don’t need to use the VPN when you’re watching movies.

It’s possible to download the app via VPN too but I can’t remember how I did that!

I've needed this to return as winter drags on.

my god The Bedrooom Window, which I saw as part of Criterion's Isabelle Huppert series, has her worst performance and presents Steve Guttenberg as an erotic figure.

The he has the same malleable sexuality as peter riegert in crossing delancy

presents Steve Guttenberg as an erotic figure

Clearly you have not yet taken in the magnificence that is Can't Stop the Music.

that's my Guttenberg Bible

https://townsquare.media/site/341/files/2013/02/morgan_0.jpg

Guttentag!

iirc the bedroom window also has steve guttenberg give the least convincing use of the word "bitch" in a movie ever

That movie has a lot of Least Convincing things, for example the Art Deco nightmare of a bar they hang out at.

Who made him a star, anyway?

Hey, let's not forget Short Circuit, where he has a threesome with Ally Sheedy and a robot:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c4/60/f2/c460f240be5066d3830fd6e52bb3baac.jpg

Guttenberg > Selleck > Danson

well, compared to the last two, Guttenberg is Alain Delon.

Have only listened to the first 15 of the ep but, damn, if this turns into a 14-episode arc of how much the '90s sucked when it comes to sexual politics, it's going to be amazing.

Having finished listening to it, especially with her personal note at the end, I'm thinking your guess is right. Also looking forward to next week, which was fairly clearly signalled.

Will be interesting to see how this all comes together with the main impetus for the project, which is how the American cinema came to turn its back on depictions of sex almost entirely

One not mentioned yet. Save Mewith Lysette Anthony and Harry Hamlin.

Hamlin glowers through a telegraphed plot where red flags are slapping him constantly, and yet the show goes on. Plus, Michael Ironside in the cast!

Watched a couple of the Criterions (second viewing for each).

I actually tried to buy The Bedroom Window a couple of years ago and found it a little pricey. Hard to believe that when assembling the cast, someone said "erotic thriller" and someone else said "Steve Guttenberg!" I think Isabelle Huppert was getting lots of acclaim at the time for her French films, but to me she seemed miscast here. The only Robert Palmer song I ever liked, "Hyperactive," is used, the one thing I still remembered about the film, and Carl Lumbly, the detective, did a great job a few years ago providing Miles Davis' voice in Birth of the Cool.

Dream Lover is sillier but more interesting, I'd say, mostly thanks to Madchen Amick. Truly bizarre coincidence: after I finished watching last night, I was flipping around and came across two stations playing Seinfeld. One was airing the episode with Larry Miller as the doorman, the other had the episode with James Spader doing his 12 steps. Honest to god. (Both in Dream Lover, if you don't know.)

Here we go …

The enemy gained a very powerful ally today https://t.co/774eiUrFeX

— Brandon Streussnig (@BrndnStrssng) April 13, 2023

Although it's played for laughs, I find the Robert DeNiro/Bridget Fonda sex scene in Jackie Brown to be very unpleasant. Maybe it's a good thing he feels this way.

per latest Karina Longworth episode, Theresa Russell's career is truly interesting but she's difficult to assess as an actor. I thought she was amazing in Bad Timing but had an opposite reaction when I saw her in Whore (during its brief theatrical run). But I suspect the problem in Whore is that Ken Russell's natural staginess overrides her skills somehow; would be interesting to see that again after all these years. Rewatched Crimes of Passion with Kathleen Turner and that film has a similar staginess problem although Turner does a good job in it.

I'm glad you brought her up; except for in Black Widow I've never considered her a watchable actor.

(xpost) She's fantastic in Straight Time--small role, might be her first film.

Worth a read: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8117-the-wet-dreams-and-twisted-politics-of-erotic-thrillers

Watching The Bedroom Window right now and I swear I’ve seen this exact same premise in an Italian giallo. Man’s girlfriend witnesses a crime from their apartment window… man reports it to the police as if he had witnessed it. Ring any bells to anyone? Early ‘70s Italian giallo?

lol I read that as "gelato"

Steve Guttenberg and Isabelle Huppert as a couple is a fantasy that only Hollywood’s dream merchants could bless us with

I saw The Bedroom Window at a second run theater when it was new and recalled sort of liking its neo-Hitchcockisms, but rewatching last night it's really not very good.

The You Must Remember This episode yesterday on Basic Instinct was unsurprisingly great. (Also a nice move to use selections from Sharon Stone's audiobook reading of her autobiography at points.)

Haven’t gotten to that one yet but anything that dissuades her from doing impressions is a plus (her Eastwood was a struggle!)

I'm still haunted by her Susan Atkins.

yeah i enjoyed this episode a lot, the stone audio was a nice touch. She did the same iirc for Carre Otis in the Wild Orchid/Rourke episode & it really elevated the ep i thought

lol Call Me is so bad. Why am I watching these things when there are other actually good movies on Criterion?

Is that a rhetorical question?

Dream Lover is currently on Criterion ending this month, and I thought it was entertaining, some offbeat dialogue, good supporting characters and plot turns. And Madchen Amick is beautiful.

Have we talked about The Hot Spot? Dennis Hopper directed 1990 adaptation of the very hood Charles Williams novel about car salesmen, sex and robbery? I lived that book so I’m gonna watch this one asap. May actually start it now, before work.

Have we talked about The Hot Spot? Dennis Hopper directed 1990 adaptation of the very hood Charles Williams novel about car salesmen, sex and robbery? I lived that book so I’m gonna watch this one asap. May actually start it now, before work.

I can’t type on my phone sorry.

Interested to see what you think.