Monday, January 4, 2010

Night Shift (1982)

I open this decade with a classic tale of boozing and banging, tits and triumphs. Yes, I am speaking of the one and only Night Shift. Over recent months, people have been bugging me about Ron Howard with some "don't you know who he is" shit that mostly stems from his daughter pushing out the other chick in the Twilight franchise which I'm sure you don't watch. Anyway, this is a Ron Howard movie. And looking at his credits, I see more than one movie sitting on my shelf. But I am also not surprised of my subliminal slamming of Senor Howard, because damn is he a misogynist. We're talking no strong female characters at all (excluding Splash of course). Backdraft? Those Dan Brown pics? Ransom? Apollo 13? Frost/Nixon? Fucking EdTV?? Even Willow is sausage-heavy. Geeze dude, lighten up a little. Or as Gracy-Lou Freebush would say "it's like feminism never even happened!" But what with the obvious sexism in Hollywood, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. On the other hand, the blatant objectification of women in this film is the truly the coupe de grace, cherry on top, shining diamond of success. I mean, without the tits and tacos, where would we be? Michael Keaton appears here in his feature film debut and pulls out all the stops as the quintessential American, engineering idiot. "Take live tuna fish and feed them mayonnaise....." Why stop there? Don't forget the pickles! The film is packed with hilarious bits about getting cumbered, seances, shoeshiner tits, finding assholes with funnels, and all that other typical frat boy stuff that also includes dancing with corpses. Truly the older brother to that other requisite necrofilm, Weekend at Bernie's. And even weirder.....Weekend at Bernie's II (dun dun dun...). First time screen appearances by Kevin Costner and Shannon Doherty as well. Although, I squinted at that screen so frickin' hard, but it's impossible to find Costner without the pause button. Haha. And don't forget the Fonze! I'd like to thank Kenneth Chisholm for this beautiful summary:
"A nebbish of a morgue attendant gets shunted back to the night shift where he is shackled with an obnoxious neophyte partner who dreams of the "one great idea" for success. His life takes a bizarre turn when a prostitute neighbour complains about the loss of her pimp. His partner, upon hearing the situation, suggests that they fill that opening themselves using the morgue at night as their brothel." Hawt.
And for all you nerds out there, a bit of trivia: apparently the use of VisiCalc in this pic is a big deal because some people credit the app as the true motivation behind the personal computer boom (they said it, not me).

Final Judgment: "Dream on all you American entrepeneurs - the path shines bright with jugs and joints, Tarzan costumes and desecration galore!/You're gonna play tennis with God!

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