First-Watch Shamely Awards 2021

James and Nick Britt (@campbelldropout) talk about their favorite first-watches from the year 2020, awards style. 

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CREDITS

Talking Heads:

host: James David Patrick (@007hertzrumble)
guest: Nick Britt (@campbelldropout)

Shamely MC: Eric Jones (@deacon05oc)

Music Contained in this Podcast:

Preacher Boy – “Shamedown” <– Support our house musician

Recorded in February 2021. Copyrights are owned by the artists and their labels. Negative dollars are made from this podcast.

Heating up August with Erotic Thrillers

With August the dog days of summer are upon us (even though July brought that massive heatwave). Cinema Shame is planning to perpetuate the sizzle by focusing on the classy, uber-sophisticated world of the erotic thriller. A sub-genre of films that could really make family movie nights awkward.  Yeah, I’m looking at you, Xenia Onatopp. Your orgasmic coup de grace techniques always had me scrambling for the remote.

Death by sexual healing.

When I think of the erotic thriller sub-genre, the first thing that comes to mind is direct to video refuse or heavily-edited features on USA Network. My turning point was watching “The Last Seduction” last November. Linda Fiorentino (a @007hertzrumble obsession, by the way) and dark neo-noir compelled me to investigate the genre further.

Obligatory Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction picture.

In Robert Barton Palmer’s book Hollywood’s Dark Cinema: The American Film Noir, he refers to the “erotic thriller as a direct descendent of the film noir.” Here I was judging these films for having a plot to tie sex scenes together. It also felt like a good time to cleanse the mind of the mindless summer blockbuster. So for this month, I plan to tackle the following erotic thrillers: Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo and Cat People and Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat.

Reach out to us on twitter (@cinemashame) or by email (cinemashame@gmail.com) with your essential erotic thrillers. 

—@campbelldropout

June Prompt – 1989

This June marks the 30^th anniversary of Tim Burton’s Batman. A film with huge cultural significance, positive and negative — as it forever it changed the summer blockbuster landscape. The entire summer slate of 1989 has to be one of the greatest in film history for sequels, blockbusters and surprise hits.

Consider that during just a few months, the summer of 1989 begat Ghostbusters II, Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Licence to Kill, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Abyss, and Do the Right Thing.

And so far I’ve just mentioned the summer releases. The entire year boasted en entire roster of films worthy of discovery (or rediscovery). I would have been around three so there are no solid memories of this year for me, except vague memories about Hardee’s promotion of Ghostbusters II. I guess Licence to Kill would have been too much for a child’s happy meal toy, kids probably couldn’t handle a shark-mangled Felix Leiter toy.

For more discussion of non-summer related releases from 1989, we have our in-house resident expert, James Patrick (@007hertzrumble), whose personal website has posted some great discussion on films from that year. It is a great resource if you want to scroll back through a few of these releases you might have missed.

I’m limiting my choices to three, but I have a feeling I will be doing more rewatches of 1989 films. My biggest shame release from 1989, which has had a lot of talk in the film twitter vacuum, is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. (See James’ conversation here.) I’ve seen bits and pieces over the years but never took the time to watch the entire film. I’ve owned The Dream Team (another entry that James has lauded) for at least a year now without watching it and it would be interesting to compare Keaton’s performance to his role in Batman. The last movie I will pick from 1989 will be Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape. I will always take this opportunity to toss a Criterion release into the mix.

Reach out to us on twitter (@cinemashame) or by email (cinemashame@gmail.com) with your Cinema Shames from 1989 or 1989 recommendations.

Future Prompts — Coming Soon to Shame Near You!

July – Cult Films

August – Racy Films (SCANDALOUS!)

—@campbelldropout