THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1981) *** ½

1981 was the unofficial start of the erotic thriller boom.  Movies like Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice were throwbacks to the film noir thrillers of the ‘40s, only with steamy sex scenes the films of old could only hint at.  The genre would go on to be perfected over the years (READ:  The filmmakers added more sex), but the big sex scene in Postman, while not exactly explicit, certainly got people talking. 

Jack Nicholson plays a drifter named Frank who wanders into a cafe and is unable to play his tab.  The owner is an agreeable Greek immigrant (John Colicos) and offers him a job, complete with room and board.  Frank gets one look at the guy’s wife, Cora (Jessica Lange) and decides to stick around.  It doesn’t take long before they are bumping uglies and plotting to run away together.  Of course, it would be easier for everybody if her husband was out of the picture.  Permanently. 

This was Jack’s third collaboration with director Bob Rafelson.  (Or, fourth, if you count The Monkees movie, Head.)  One of the common themes of their work together is that their pictures tend to focus more on characters than plot.  Most film noir thrillers depend on a lot of twists and turns.  With Postman, the twists don’t come from the screenwriters pulling the rug out from under us, but from the way the schemes of desperate people don’t always go as planned. 

Jack is excellent here and he’s especially memorable when he furrows his brow.  It’s a poker face style of acting where you’re not sure if he’s plotting murder or just coming to terms with how his life has turned out.  Thanks to her performance in this and All That Jazz, people began taking Jessica Lange seriously as an actress after the snobby critics dismissed her debut in King Kong.  She has a lot of smoldering intensity and is Jack’s equal in every way.  The memorable supporting cast also includes bits by Christopher Lloyd, Angelica Huston, Don Calfa, and John P. Ryan. 

This was also the first screenplay by playwright David Mamet, who would go on to an impressive film career both behind and in front of the camera.  (He would later write Hoffa starring Nicholson.)  Does it maybe drag a bit in spots?  A little.  Could it have been trimmed down a bit?  Sure.  However, when the two leads are cooking, Postman delivers. 

POSSESSION: KERASUKAN (2024) **

It seems like everyone has been having Possession on the brain lately.  Early in 2024, we had a nice little homage to it in The First Omen.  Hollywood has also announced an American remake announced directed by Smile’s Parker Finn starring Robert Pattinson.  Somehow, this Indonesian remake of Andrzej Zulawski’s classic of paranoia managed to beat that project to the punch when it was unceremonious dropped on Netflix. 

A navy sailor returns home to find his wife wants a divorce.  He suspects her of cheating and goes to find out what she’s been up to.  He soon learns she’s been cursed by a sex demon. 

The 1981 original was a slower-than-slow burn.  I’m glad to say this version picked up the pace quite a bit.  (It’s a good half an hour shorter than the original, too.)  The most interesting thing about Possession:  Kerasukan though is how it adapts the material for Indonesian culture.  I liked how the filmmakers took the original premise and infused it with aspects of their religion and folklore.  Another big difference is the color palette.  Whereas the original had a lot of cold blues, this one is filled with warm red tones. 

That said, you still have to say Zulawski did it better, at least where the shocks are concerned.  Yes, it’s neat that the filmmakers substituted a monster that’s more in line with Indonesian folklore, but that that doesn’t mean it’s very effective, especially when the demon just looks like a mummy hiding inside a throw pillow.  Some of the CGI touches are less than convincing too.  It’s also odd that the filmmakers opt for an Exorcist-style finale.  I guess something may have gotten lost in translation there as they seemingly took the title too literally. 

Let’s face it. It would’ve been hard to top the shocking shit from Zulawski’s film.  I guess armed with that knowledge, the filmmakers instead were content to take the movie’s themes and adapt them and update them for a modern Indonesian audience.  And for a while, it sort of works.  It’s just a shame that it goes completely off the rails in the third act once it stops stealing from Zulawski and starts ripping off William Friedkin.  Still, I have to say it’s far from the worst horror remake I’ve sat through this year. 

ANORA (2024) *** ½

Anora is kind of like Pretty Woman on meth.  A sexy stripper named Anora (Mikey Madison) meets a spoiled rich Russian kid named Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) in the club and gives him a lapdance.  Before long, he’s paying her a little extra for some sexy fun time on the side.  That eventually leads to shelling out big bucks for a week-long arrangement.  During that time, they fly to Vegas for some ketamine and after a bout of lovemaking, they decide to get married.  What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas though when the kid’s furious parents send their bodyguards to break up their wedded bliss. 

The set-up is simple.  The resolution is predictable.  However, everything that occurs in between is a goddamn rollercoaster.  There’s a stretch of about a half-hour there where writer/director Sean Baker builds up a level of concentrated intensity where you honestly have no idea what’s going to happen next.  The way Baker juggles the prospect of violence with black humor, sustained suspense, and manic performances ranks up there with the final scene in Boogie Nights. 

The film is a terrific vehicle for Mikey Madison.  She showed lots of promise in her supporting roles in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream.  Here, she’s given centerstage and she really makes the most of it.  Madison’s completely unleashed here and gives a performance that’s equal parts exhilarating and heartbreaking.  You really take the ride along with her and her reaction shots are often priceless. 

Baker also earns points for resisting the temptation to deliver a false Hollywood ending.  Instead, he gives us something that while wholly believable, is tinged with a bittersweet sadness.  The film is close to two-and-a-half hours, and I can’t help but think there couldn’t have been a tighter version of the same material somewhere in the editing room.  (The nighttime search for Ivan drags in the third act.)  That’s a minor quibble in the long run because when Anora cooks, it gives you one of the purest hits of adrenaline you’ll get from a movie all year. 

THE CREW (2000) ***

Some movies have a premise so thin that you can almost hear the screenwriters pitching it to the execs at the studio.  With The Crew, it’s easy to imagine a screenwriter sitting down and saying “Hey, do you know what’s making a lot of money?  Those Grumpy Old Men movies with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.  And you know what else is raking in the dough?  Those mobster comedies like Analyze This and Mickey Blue Eyes.  What if we combine the two?  Let’s make a mobster comedy about grumpy old men!”

The thing with these kinds of films is that it can work as long as you have the right cast.  A good cast of seasoned pros can take a thin script that is little more than a fleshed out “elevator pitch” and wring laughs out of it if the chemistry is right.  The Crew has not one, but four ringers in the form of Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya, and Seymour Cassel.  They keep you watching, even when it feels like the script is running on fumes. 

The quartet play aging monsters who have retired to Miami and have grown discontent by their surroundings.  They set out to get their mojo back, but in the process, they accidentally start a war with a South American drug lord (Miguel Sandoval).  Things get complicated when they learn the cop on the case (Carrie-Ann Moss) could possibly be Dreyfuss’ long-lost daughter. 

There are plenty of highlights along the way.  My favorite bit was the amusing scene where Burt is working at Burger King and tells an annoying customer what everyone in the service industry has always thought, but never said aloud:  “Special orders upset us.”  There’s a pretty funny parody of the famous Copa shot from Goodfellas too.  I also liked that former wise guy Hedaya took a job as a mortician and tried to make up for his past misdeeds by putting smiles on all the deceased’s faces. 

Sure, not all of it works.  Some of the subplots feel a little too much like a sitcom (like when the boys are forced to kidnap Lainie Kazan), but the film coasts on the performances.  Again, it might have been dire if everyone wasn’t on their game.  Luckily, it’s an agreeable way to kill an hour and a half, especially if you’re a fan of Dreyfuss or Reynolds (or Jennifer Tilly who appears as a sexy stripper who worms her way into the gang). 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: GET CRAZY (1983) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Directed by Rock n’ Roll High School’s Allan Arkush, Get Crazy is similar in tone to that classic (just imagine if it had just taken a handful of amphetamines).  Allen Garfield stars as a theater owner putting on a big New Year’s Eve show with a half-dozen rock and blues acts.  (I was originally going to watch this on New Year’s Eve to close out the Let’s Get Physical column, but it just didn’t work out that way.)  Ed Begley Jr. is a sleazy record producer who wants to buy the building out from under him.  When Garfield refuses, he plans to blow the place up at midnight.  Meanwhile, the stage manager (Daniel Stern) tries to wrangle all the performers backstage and get the show on the road. 

Get Crazy lacks the cohesive center that made Rock n’ Roll High School such a classic.  However, the film’s freewheeling anarchic spirit is infectious.  Much of the movie feels like a filmed Mad Magazine parody.  Some of the random bits of craziness are truly inspired.  My favorite character is the extraterrestrial (?) robot (?) drug dealer named Electric Larry.  Arkush’s scattershot approach sometimes yields less than hysterical results though.  (Stern’s romantic daydreams are especially unfunny.)

That said, it’s worth watching for the music, as well as the amazing cast.  We have Lou Reed as a reclusive folk singer, Malcolm McDowell doing a spot-on Mick Jagger impression (McDowell once told me at a horror convention that Jagger refused to speak to him after he saw the movie), Fear’s Lee Ving as a headbanging punk rocker, and The Doors’ John Densmore as McDowell’s drummer (who plays the drums with chicken drumsticks in one scene).  Roger Corman regulars Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, and Jackie Joseph also pop up, and Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer appear briefly as groupies.  Underrated hottie Anna (More American Graffiti) Bjorn also puts in a memorable turn as McDowell’s main squeeze.  The soundtrack is worth picking up too, and the title tune by Sparks is a straight-up banger. 

Well, that wraps things up for the Let’s Get Physical column.  It was kind of exhausting at times, but it was a lot of fun.  I don’t plan on doing another daily watching column this year, but I probably will do the 31 Days of Horror-Ween this October (which went by the wayside in 2024 since I was so preoccupied with Let’s Get Physical).  I hope you all have a great New Year!

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BIKINI PLANET (2002) **

FORMAT:  DVD

It’s easy to see why this movie was paired with Voyage to the Planet of Teenage Cavewomen as part of a DVD double feature.  Both movies are ‘50s Sci-Fi spoofs about astronauts visiting two planets that have fused together.  Only in this one, the two planets are made to look like a pair of giant tits, and instead of a planet populated by cavewomen, it’s a planet full of sexy babes in bikinis.  Bikini Planet isn’t nearly as successful as Voyage though, despite the benefit of having a few familiar faces in the cast.  (And by “familiar faces”, I mean Conrad Brooks from Plan 9 from Outer Space plays the Vice President.)

Although the movie tries to replicate the look of the old ‘50s Sci-Fi flicks, it all feels kind of halfhearted.  The interiors of the rocket ship look like something from the old space operas (the astronauts sit in office chairs), but the exteriors are done using cheap looking CGI.  Had the filmmakers used a simple spaceship model, it would’ve felt a lot more authentic.  The crappy CGI asteroid effects look awful too.  No matter how bad practical effects look, they are always preferable to computerized ones, especially for a spoof like this. 

It does have a neat gimmick where it’s black and white during the spaceship scenes but switches over to color once the astronauts arrive on the planet.  I also liked the explanation as to why all the women on the planet had big boobs.  (The atmosphere has a high concentration of silicone.)  Stephanie Beaton (a veteran of many Witchcraft sequels) is also pretty good as the sexy bikini princess. 

The big problem is that the alien babes never slip out of their bikinis.  A little T & A would’ve gone a long way to salvage much of the dumb humor.  It also doesn’t help that the sex scenes are only there for comedic effect.  Naturally, they aren’t very funny (or sexy).  There are also lots of jokes about Beanie Babies and one character is supposed to be a spoof of Monica Lewinsky (played by porn star Jacklyn Lick), which really makes it feel dated.  We do get a couple of alien bikini pool party scenes, although it just looks like the director just shot footage of the wrap party and put it into the movie. 

SATURDAY NIGHT (2024) ***

Ivan Reitman made a lot of movies starring Saturday Night Live cast members.  I guess it was only fitting that his son Jason (who had already picked up the reigns to his father’s Ghostbusters franchise) would make a movie about SNL.  As expected, there’s a lot of hero worship at play here.  If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll probably enjoy it. 

The film chronicles the chaotic struggle to get the show ready for its premiere episode.  Facing enormous pressure from the network, producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) has to wrangle wild cast members, a less than enthusiastic crew, and pestering censors to bring to show to air. 

If you are familiar with the events surrounding the first taping, you might have a leg up on casual viewers as Reitman drops you into the thick of things with little background or set up.  He plows forward full steam ahead and never looks back.  The long takes and overlapping soundtrack are at times reminiscent of a Robert Altman movie.  Unlike Altman films, the characters never really stand out.  That’s mostly due to the ticking time bomb nature of trying to get the show on the air.  However, it’s a tad disappointing considering how colorful the characters were in real life. 

Only Michaels and Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) really feel like fully developed characters as they are constantly at odds at what the show should be about.  The cast members who essay the roles of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players do a fair job playing their well-known counterparts.  It’s just a shame that they are mostly kept on the periphery of the film’s drama. 

Overall, I enjoyed Saturday Night, but I can’t help but think what Reitman might’ve been capable of if he had given the script another polish.  Still, it’s fun seeing who is going to pop up in small roles (like J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle).  Plus, it makes for a fine vehicle for LaBelle, who is quite good at keeping the film from spinning off the rails (much like what Michaels did for the show).