Body Heat Knows Classic Film Noirs Well But It Also Knows How To Subvert Their Norms

Though the classic film noirs of the 1940s were known for their grim nature, the Hayes Code that ruled American cinema with an iron fist prevented the genre from embracing its darkest tendencies in several departments. For one thing, nudity was out of the question as was language harsher than the occasional "damn!" But the time 1981 rolled around, the Hayes Code had been abolished for sixteen years and features nudity and strong language were now commonplace in then-modern-day R-rated fare. Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat, released in that exact year, decided to take a classic film noir set-up and wrap it up in a screenplay that fully embraced all the raunchy elements Hayes Code era noirs could never even dream of touching.

Broadcast News Isn't Quite The Sum of Its Entertaining Parts

You ever finish watching a beloved movie for the first time and suddenly find yourself stuck with the feeling of recognizing you enjoyed it but also wished you had liked it more? I encountered such a sensation after finishing Broadcast News for the first time, a classic James L. Brooks romantic-comedy from 1987 that numerous people claim to be the apex of Brooks' entire career. It's certainly leagues ahead of his 2010 dud How Do You Know and a highly charming feature overall with some exceptional performances, but I walked away from Broadcast News feeling satisfied but not truly enamored with what I had just seen.

The Village Review (Classic Write-Up)

SPOILERS FOR THE VILLAGE AHEAD

If the life of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan were ever adapted into a cheesy documentary, the point in his career when The Village was released would be when the music would get tense and the narrator would intone "And that's when things (dramatic pause) went wrong.". Prior to the release of this movie, Shyamalan had three back-to-back-to-back critical hits and two of those films became box office phenomenon's. It seemed as if the guy could no wrong...until this 2004 feature came along and tossed the director into a decade-long artistic downturn that finally got reversed with last fall's sleeper hit The Visit.