Heavenly Bodies (1984)

Every now and then…  Every so often… The stars align and I come across a movie that may be one of the most important films of our time.  If it isn’t necessarily one of “the most important” it certainly is one of the most perfect movies ever made.

Pull up a chair kiddies, and let me tell you the tale of 1984’s dance-ercize epic Heavenly Bodies.

And, besides, summer is coming – it’s time to make sure you got your beach bods ready for the sun and fun of the warmer weather!  Heavenly Bodies is about Samantha Blair, played by the incredibly cute and likable Cynthia Dale, who is an aerobics instructor at a Canadian fitness club named, well, Heavenly Bodies.  She soon finds herself in the battle of her life as she competes against one of the lead instructors at a mega fitness club chain for a spot on a local television workout show.  This brings her face-to-face with big wig bullshit and the only way for her to fight and defeat the evils of capitalism is to dance the fuck out of it.

Mama’s Dirty Girls (1974)

Say…  What have we here?  Ladies…  Allow me to introduce myself to you – I am a dude who makes terrible decisions in the quest to find a good girl.  And, shiiit…  You are apparently your Mama’s Dirty Girls after all.  You are 100% my style.

All that first paragraph was for me to say the following:

OF COURSE I WOULD EVENTUALLY COVER THIS MOVIE.

Dixie Ray Hollywood Star (1983)

Blue March continues with not only another adult film, but an adult film directed by Anthony Spinelli.  Spinelli was kind of known for his work in genres.  Hey, it’s not just a prono, it’s a sci-fi/drama that deals with relationships and kinks and sexual inadequacy.  This isn’t just a skin flick with a really hot redhead, it’s a film noir/crime drama type of movie too!

Dixie Ray Hollywood Star is the latter.  We have a hot, but enigmatic redhead movie star, Dixie Ray, played by Lisa Deleeuw.  She comes into contact (both figuratively and literally) with P.I. Nick Popodopolis, played by superstar adult actor John Leslie, who is caught up in a mystery after finding a dead woman on his floor.

Even better?  This movie has the one, the only, Cameron Mitchell!

Dead & Buried (1981)

Let’s talk about a classy movie!

Dead & Buried is a 1981 flick that takes a different approach to zombies.  It is written by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett who is best known for writing the classic sci-fi/horror flick Alien.  That’s a fact that the poster really wants to sell this movie on – “The creators of ALIEN… bring a new terror to Earth.”

Dan O’Bannon also made Return of the Living Dead which is pretty much a zombie movie hall of fame entry from the mid 80s.  It’s fair to even say that O’Bannon’s work on that movie, matched with the Godzilla movies, and Roger Corman, helped create my love of B-Movies and, thus, well…

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)

Oh baby, we’re back to some sweet, sweet blaxploitation!

There are few in the sub-genre of blaxploitation that are as highly regarded as Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.  It carries the distinction of being included as part of the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art.  It’s also the first to be labeled as “blaxploitation”.  So if you want to go back to the beginning of the phenomenon, well, you can’t go back further than this.

The Hearse (1980)

This week’s B-Movie Enema comes from the dawn of the glorious decade known as the 1980s.  It’s the focus of every soft rock radio station’s weekend format.  It’s the predominating style of music on all mainstream movies’ soundtrack albums.  It’s the decade I visit the most by far.

And because The Hearse is a 1980 horror movie, famed movie critic Roger Ebert called it an idiot plot movie.  It’s his saying for a movie in which all the characters in the plot have to be idiots.  Now, I’m not saying that Roger Ebert is a snob and grossly underestimates the average horror movie, but most horror movie fans like this movie.  Probably because they are idiots and they really like idiot plots. 

Malibu High (1979)

Hooray!  I’m gonna watch more exploitation from the 70s!  This makes me very happy.  And why shouldn’t I feel that way?  Look at the poster to the left for this week’s feature, Malibu High.  Look at the comely lady sunbathing toplessly with that smile that almost says, “Look what I got myself into this time…  I’m such a fun gal!”

And what did she get herself into?  Well, it looks like a bunch of various types of guys in the background are looking on.  Because they are drawn in caricature while she is drawn in photo realism, I’m guessing these guys are gonna be a bunch of rapscallions that will be either scolding our luscious leading lady Kim (played by Jill Lansing), or they will be chasing after her like sex-crazed juveniles hoping she’ll spend a night with them in the ol’ sack.

Rollercoaster (1977)

This week’s B-Movie Enema entry is celebrating its 40th anniversary this very weekend.  It’s Universal Pictures’ Rollercoaster.

Rollercoaster was simply another in the decade-long string of “disaster films” that started at the very dawn of the 1970s with Airport.  It became such a genre in itself that you can almost think of that as being the same thing back then as we see now with superhero movies.  While the 70s were the “golden age” of the disaster flick, the genre still exists to this day.  Movies featuring high drama in the face of incredible tragedy still come out in fairly high numbers.  Anything that stars a relatively large cast that ends with a lot of them dead and a lot of others barely making it through whatever the disaster wrought could basically be labeled as one of these disaster films.