Cheap Heat [Region 4] (DVD) (Paul Morrissey) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Heat [Region 4]

Underground Classic
This is the most coherent in the Flesh/Trash/Heat trilogy and certainly more watchable than Andy Warhol's films that he personally "directed" (anyone for 8 hours of the Empire State Building?). John Waters was certainly influenced by Andy Warhol (who returned the favor in Andy Warhol's Bad) but his films were a lot more fun to watch. Though, just as in Andy Warhol, early John Waters had the characters basically play themselves, Pink Flamingoes and Female Trouble are shockingly hilarious, whereas Heat has a creepy sense of exploitation. This update on Sunset Boulevard (a far better movie by far) has the characters repeating what seem like monologues. The storyline revolves around the characters using each other sexually and otherwise and even though the "acting" is certainly lacking, the characters seem like real people who lived in the countercultural version of skid row at the time with the explicit scenes verging on pornographic without being at all arousing. The reason I called Heat a "classic" is that underground films at the time could be tedious, random images, political diatrebes, or experiments with film (the same shot over and over). This was way before underground films morphed into independent films where with the right connections, you could actually make a profit as well as before the vcr, when seeing an underground movie was an experience in itself. That world has now disappeared and "Heat" is a fragment of that time.

Plastic slice of life
This is probably the most accessible of the Worhol flicks, and comes across as a seedy voyeuristic experience. Sylvia Miles is fantastic as a whacked-out, washed-up actress of yesteryear, and her sexually-confused daughter is just as off-kilter. It's filled with hilariously weird characters and scenes, most noteably the scene where Joe (Dallesandro) and his landlord (Pat Ast) end up caressing each other in bed, in order for him to get "that discount" on his rent. Another stand-out is the discussion between Sylvia and her daughter over the possibility that her grandson will become a lesbian if he is raised by two gay women! The dialogue seems very natural, and perhaps was largely improvised. The label "art-house film" is appropriate here. More refined than Worhol's/Morrissey's "Trash" and "Flesh", this stream-of-consciousness film should satisfy if you enjoy well-done low-budget independent films.