Heat

Plot synopsis:
FBI agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is an expert and effective investigator in New York City, but is despised by her allied agents for her egotistical & vicious personality. When her manager assigns her to a mission in Boston, she meets a detective named Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), a skilled but loudmouthed, bloodthirsty, sadistic, hot headed, & dirty cop who is part of the Boston Police Department. Ashburn's ruthless philosophy clashes with Mullin's nefarious style of law work, proved during their attempt to interrogate local drug dealer Rojas (Spoken Reasons) who was captured by Mullins. Under pressure from Hale (Demián Bichir), her employer, Ashburn reluctantly agrees to work with Mullins as her ally.
Ashburn and Mullins tail a local nightclub manager named Hank LeSoire (Adam Ray) to his place of business known as Club Ekko and successfully place a bug on his cell phone in an effort to get information on a drug lord, Simon Larkin. As they leave the club, Ashburn and Mullins are confronted by DEA agents Craig (Dan Bakkedahl) and Adam (Taran Killam), who have been working the Larkin case for several months and are worried that their case will be compromised. Ashburn and Mullins discover a surveillance video in the DEA agents' van showing Mullins' brother, Jason (Michael Rapaport), apparently connected to Larkin's organization. Jason was recently released from prison, having been put there by Mullins to keep him off the streets and out of trouble.
Ashburn convinces Mullins to go to her parents' home to ask Jason for information on Larkin. On their arrival at the home, it becomes apparent that Mullins' parents (Michael B. Tucci and Jane Curtin), particularly her mother and three brothers, Peter (Joey McIntyre), Mark (Bill Burr) and Michael (Nathan Corddry) two of whom have girlfriends, Gina (Jessica Chaffin) and Beth (Jamie Denbo) still resent Mullins for her involvement in Jason's incarceration. However, Jason does not have any ill feelings toward his sister, and tips her off about the body of a murdered drug dealer by the name of Sal Netalie in an abandoned car. Chemicals on the victim's shoes lead Ashburn and Mullins to an abandoned paint factory, where they witness a drug dealer being murdered by Julian Vincent (Michael McDonald), vicious criminal and second-in-command of Larkin's organization. They apprehend Julian but are unable to extract any substantial information regarding Larkin's whereabouts, even with Mullins going so far as to play Russian Roulette with Julian's testicles.
The pair spend the evening bonding in a bar, where a drunk Ashburn reveals that her foster child past may be partly to blame for her attitude. After a night of raucous drinking and partying, Ashburn wakes up the following morning to discover that, in her drunkenness, she has given her car keys to Wayne (Steve Bannos), one of the bar patrons. After unsuccessfully pleading for the keys, Ashburn and Mullins watch as the patron starts the car and is killed by a bomb. They discover that Julian has escaped from custody and means to harm Mullins' family, so Mullins moves her family into a motel. Jason leaves, intending to join the Larkin organization in an attempt to help Mullins solve the case. Jason gives her a tip about a drug shipment coming into Boston Harbor. Despite Mullins' reluctance, Ashburn gets the FBI to take down the shipment. The FBI finds that the ship is actually an innocent pleasure cruise ship. Jason was being tested by Larkin, who shoots Jason for informing the FBI about the supposed drug shipment. Jason escapes death but falls into a coma. A falling out occurs between Mullins and Ashburn, with Mullins vowing to bring her brother's attacker to justice. They then reconcile when they arrest several drug dealers as a way of gaining leads to Larkin's whereabouts, including Rojas.
Ashburn and Mullins go to equip themselves with assault weapons from Mullins' extensive personal arsenal, and infiltrate one of Larkin's warehouses. Despite taking out several of Larkin's men with a hand grenade, the two officers are captured and bound. Julian is about to torture them with knives when he gets called away by Larkin. Before Julian leaves, he stabs Ashburn in the leg and leaves the knife in the wound. Mullins removes the knife from Ashburn's leg and uses it to cut the rope binding her hands. Before she can finish freeing herself and Ashburn, they are discovered by Craig and Adam. Craig begins to untie the two women, but is shot and killed by Adam. Ashburn and Mullins learn that Adam is actually Larkin, who has been working his own case from inside the DEA for several months. Julian returns and Larkin orders him to kill Ashburn and Mullins while he goes to the hospital to kill Jason. After Larkin leaves, Mullins manages to finish freeing herself and Ashburn incapacitates Julian with a head butt, after Mullins had stabbed him in the leg. Mullins and Ashburn race to the hospital to save Jason.
Upon their arrival, Mullins rushes to find Jason. Ashburn, hindered by the stab wound in her leg, lags behind, unable to move quickly. Mullins learns that, due to the foul language she and her family exhibit, the doctor moved Jason to another room in the hospital; she finds Jason's room, only to be disarmed by Larkin. He is about to kill Jason when Ashburn, having had to crawl to the room, subdues Larkin by shooting him in the genitals (much to Mullins' surprise, as she would never actually do so; scaring Julian earlier was only a way of making him talk). With Larkin captured, Ashburn requests to stay in the FBI's Boston field office, having developed a strong friendship with Mullins. Jason is shown having fully recovered from his coma. The film ends with Mullins receiving a commendation from the Boston Police Department. Members of her family are present and they cheer Mullins, now having reconciled with her. Ashburn later gets a call from Mullins to look in her year book. Mullins had signed the back of Ashburn's yearbook with the words, "Foster kid, now you have a sister", showing the strong friendship that Mullins felt for a previously unpopular Ashburn.
As a surprise, Mullins brings to Ashburn the cat that she had found in Ashburn's neighbor's house, believing it was hers. Earlier, when Mullins saw a photo of Ashburn with the neighbor's cat, Ashburn had lied and said it was her cat which had gone missing in New York. Mullins quickly deduces that the cat is not Ashburn's; Ashburn confesses and the cat is boxed to be shipped back, ending the film.

Tags: cult, satire

Review:
In the moments of their most wooden acting, the fascinations of the real person - whether it be the gapingly numb Joe Dallesandro, the ogrishly preening Pat Ast or the gonzo mystery of Andrea Feldmen, emerges with overexposed brilliance.Sylvia Miles plays her role with subtlety and iconic ugliness.
A funny, almost mystically seedy story about the impotent, vacuous end-point of trash culture - the former child star now a passive, blankly available icon of smooth flesh: fame and "art" (if there is such a thing) having become mere hollow commodities on the one hand, and a medium for posturing neediness on the other (Miles).
Heat actually has a plot, the actors including Joe Dallessandro are very good and the camera moves, instead of being stable.
Wonderful moment: Sylvia Miles on her way out of the motel just after a big fight with Jesse (Andrea Feldman) and there's Lydia-Pat, leaning against the wall in her platforms, shaking her head disparagingly as Sylvia walks by.
Check out the moment when Pat, having bribed Joe into a sexual encounter, starts obsessing on crazy poor Andrea is and how she "just can't" have people like that around her anymore.
Warhol-Morrissey's film, Heat, uses the themes from Billy Wilder's famous Sunset Boulevard movie, but by stripping it of prurience and distractingly high production values, makes the moral dilemmas more accessible.In place of opening credits, an intertitle asserts: "In 1971 another film studio, the Fox Lot on Sunset Boulevard was torn down." Cut to an attractive young man standing on a demolition site.Several strands are immediately established.
She disapproves of the pervs at Lydia's motel, including the brothers who earn a living by having sex on stage, and her own daughter Jessica who is going through a lesbian 'phase'.
If Joey plays his cards close to his chest, Jessica is completely up-front about her relationship with 'Mom', openly claiming she's only interested in her money.Morrissey uses Warhol's distancing techniques to establish Brechtian analysis on the part of the audience.
It has neither the manufactured, over-acted look of pornography nor the air-brushed unbelievability of the 'erotic' scenes from mainstream movies.When Sally enters the story, things progress to a more traditionally dramatic level (Sylvia Miles went on to become twice Oscar-nominated for later films).
Sally's hypocrisy is exposed when Jessica later makes a jealous play for Joey.The moral ambiguity is developed by making the younger characters sympathetic.
Boulevard's Joe Gillis, like the Joey of Heat, really has no faithfulness to anyone.
Like it or not, the crazy Sally Todd (Sylvia Miles) / Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), has her feelings protected by society.Morrissey takes bare Warhol aesthetic and makes it accessible.
Character-for-character comparisons with Sunset Boulevard instantly raise it above the "unsavoury piece of work laced with sex, lesbianism, self-abuse and perversion" with which one tabloid equated it.Heat's sheer comic inventiveness will keep you glued to your seat wondering what surprise turn will hit you next.
As I had been anticipating, the third and last of Paul Morrissey's trilogy of films with Joe Dallesandro as the (willing) object of desire of practically the entire cast irrespective of gender, is the best made and most accessible.
With no full-frontal nudity this time around, the services of an Oscar-nominated actress in Sylvia Miles, a narrative which obviously (and not unamusingly) parodies Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) and a generally more disciplined approach, Morrissey was clearly striving towards the mainstream herealthough HEAT is still full of offbeat, individual touches and the dubious ingredients associated with this type of film.Dallesandro is now a minor ex-star of Western TV series who's keen on kickstarting a singing career and Miles a fading character actress who likes to think she still has influence in the business and promises her support in return for certain favors.
After a stint at a dingy Hollywood resort (the scene has shifted from New York to Los Angeles as per Joe's ambitions)  where he submits to the wiles of the obese and frizzy-haired female owner played by Pat Ast  Joe is soon shacked up in Miles' old-style mansion as a kept man.
Here, however, he also attracts the unwelcome attention of Miles' mixed-up daughter (whom he actually met at the resort, where she was staying with her possessive girlfriend and baby in tow); appearing in this role is Andrea Feldman  the girl in search of a trip in TRASH (1970)  who seems to have been troubled in real-life as well, seeing how she committed suicide before this film had even opened!
Unlike the previous films in the trilogy, here Dallesandro is pretty much the observer  or, rather, the catalyst for the histrionics of the three women (Miles, Feldman and the acid-tongued Ast); two other notable characters (also residing in the run-down motel) are siblings involved in an incestuous stage act(!), one of whom is a dimwit who wears female clothes and has an embarrassing penchant for public manifestations of masturbation!!
While the plot only really parallels that of SUNSET BOULEVARD on the surface, the ending of the film sees Miles attempting to shoot Dallesandro as he leaves her for good  just as Gloria Swanson did to William Holden in the unforgettable climax of the Wilder classic  with, admittedly, hilarious results!
The perennially struggling actor, the withering diva, the junkie daughter, and the sleazy motel owner are the main clowns in Paul Morrissey's trash fest, "Heat", famously produced by Andy Warhol.
Most are already familiar with the film's plot and the "Sunset Boulevard" connection, as well as the infamous cast including Pat Ast, Andrea Feldman, Sylvia Miles, and, of course, Joe Dallesandro.The memorable opening theme, the mostly eccentric characters, and the retro vibe of the film are major reasons why "Heat" is so entertaining.
The film was made certainly just to have an excuse to ogle him on screen for 90 minutes."Heat" is among the trashiest films I have seen and my favorite, the most palatable in the famous Warhol trilogy (with "Trash" and "Flesh"), and the quintessential 70's "art"/trash film.
Heat Is On. I caught this one late at night on the culture channel and expected nothing much, except maybe a bit of skin, lots of artsy film student tomfoolery and wonky camera-work throughout.
And then the film grabbed me, sucked me in and knocked me over.OK, so this pic has the technical perfection of a VHS holiday video, and marketing it under the labels "art" and "Andy Warhol" might actually be more of a setback these days, but it's one hell of a movie.
And I could heap equal praise on the other actors.Forget all the gimmicky rigmarole about how little this movie cost to make, how it was being shot in just two weeks and all the other irrelevant gossip: this is great cinema, and Paul Morrissey did for a pittance what Hollywood so frequently fails to do for a budget that could send a man to Mars..
Paul Morrisey's camera typically meanders around, catching whatever it can on the fly, but for one classic moment:  Sylvia Miles walking into frame and interrupting a twisted little encounter between Joe Dallesandro and Feldman; the camera stays stock still, but the timing of the movements of the actors is a stitch!
He isn't quite as bad an actor as his reputation makes him out to be--he's actually quite subtle and kind of funny when he dumps Miles at the end--but one look at him and you know why he's in this movie..
After meeting Joe by the pool, she convinces him to come back to her room and hang out with her and her mother, the not-so-famous, Sally Todd, seemingly to get under the woman's skin.
This film is apart of the Morrissey Flesh-Trash-Heat Trilogy.
Joe Dallesandro is as indifferent as ever (still no acting skills) and Andrea Feldman (Jessica), as usual, is conveniently out of her mind, probably on acid.
Heat is peculiar, mean-spirited, and vulgar, and filled with Inept, yet highly improvised acting, with very little point, which are just a few reasons to not hate this movie.
"Pat Ast, 59, Film Actress.WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.
Oct 26 - Pat Ast, 59, a model and actress who appeared in Andy Warhol films, died on Oct. 2 of natural causes at her home, it was reported in the Los Angeles Times.
She moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1970's and appeared in several films, including 'Reform School Girls, and 'The Incredible Shrinking Woman.'"thought someone might like to know..
Paul Morrissey's FLESH, TRASH, and WOMEN IN REVOLT are classics of underground cinema.
While I prefer TRASH and WOMEN to FLESH, all of them have a certain appeal (wether it be Joe Dallesandro or the Factory transvestites) that keeps a legion of fans happy.
HEAT, while a technically superior film to the above-mentioned, has less of that appeal, but is still enjoyable.Joe Dallesandro is Joey Davis, a former child star who is trying to revive his career.
He takes up residence in a sleazy motel run by Pat Ast and also occupied by Andrea Feldman, an odd lesbian whose mother, Sylvia Miles, is a has-been actress.
Miles and Dallesandro have a brief affair that cuts itself short when Joe begins having sexual encounters with every person he runs into!As usual, Morrissey's film relies on great acting by the cast.
Joe Dallesandro is good, as usual, but was much better in TRASH.
The two actors who really steal the film are Pat Ast and Andrea Feldman.
While many believe she is basically playing her crazy self, I think she manages to create a wild, yet sympathetic character and making this performance even more believable is the fact that Feldman killed herself shortly before the film was released.
I wonder if her career would have continued had she lived?HEAT has a Hollywood feel to it, despite being filmed in the standard cheap way by Morrissey, which makes it a bit less realistic to some viewers.
I would recommend this over any other Morrissey work for those who have yet to venture into the world of Andy Warhol's films, as this is easily accessible and is a bit easier to view (FLESH has bad sound and editing, TRASH has unflinching realism) for the mainstream film viewer..
Heat revolves around a few characters, a hag who runs a motel, an aging actress, brothers who have sex on stage in a nightclub act, a young lesbian who isn't quite sure if she is a lesbian, and yes girls..Joe Dallesandro.Joey is a struggling child actor, who has come back from a stint in the army and hopes to get back into acting.
There really are no major plots or twists or even morals in any of Morrissey's movies even more so in heat.
The fact that a director can make movies based on real life exploits of real life people and make it interesting makes him a brilliant director.This movie is ugly, sexual, amusing and obscure, the fact that nothing really happens shouldn't put you off, you will be entertained and amused by the actors, if you really get bored you could pick out the flaws such as- Why does everyone have a New York accent when they live in LA, or is that a man or a woman?
But for us girls Morrissey delivers us another film in which we can drool over Dallesandro, sadly he doesn't spend nearly half the amount of time naked as he did in flesh.
(Pat Ast is actually in Midnight Cowboy) For fans of trivia ..Heat is essentially an unofficial remake of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard with Dallesandro playing William Holden's part.I feel Paul Morrissey is a highly underrated director, every film I have seen of his has left me wanting more, left me shocked, disturbed, in hysterics and leaves me raving about how simplistic yet fantastic they are.
"Heat" is the final film in Paul Morrissey's 'Bad Taste Trilogy', following "Flesh" (1968) and "Trash" (1970), all from the Andy Warhol studios.
Joe Dallesandro, star of the previous two films, plays Joey Davies, an ex-child star, who comes to a run-down motel, populated by a variety of strange people, including masochistic lesbian Jessica Todd (Andrea Feldman), who keeps her baby quiet with sleeping pills, and the obese and flamboyant land-lady Lydia (Pat Ast).
Jessica introduces Joey to her mother Sally (Sylvia Miles), who once acted with Joe on a TV show and who is now a fading Hollywood star.
Joe starts an affair with Sally, hoping to restart his career, as well as having affairs with both Lydia and Jessica.The film is more accessible than "Flesh" and "Trash", and is at least similar to conventional mainstream cinema, with something like a story, basically a pastiche of Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), and actors playing characters.
As with any Warhol film there is a cast of a dozen or so said freaks, half living on the edge of society & the other half the high society & the two halves meet for 90 minutes or so in movie form.
This film is obviously culled & spliced together from hundreds of hours of improv dialogue, like, the director told the actors 'here's where your character talks about this thing & then that thing.' Then the editor splices the few interesting scenes into a movie.
Paul Morrissey's semi-parody of Sunset Blvd, Heat, puts Joe in the shoes on an ex-child actor.
Living at a semi-resort neighboring a vulgar landlady and a crazed lesbian named Jessica(played by the amazing Andrea Feldman in a role that is just as memorable and amazing as her role in Trash), Joe hooks up with Jessica's mother Sally Todd as a means of getting back into the industry.
This is Paul Morrissey's most mainstream film in his trilogy starring Joe Dallesandro as well as the more narrative-based.
In addition to all this is the Oscar nominated actress Sylvia Miles playing Sally Todd in what could probably be considered the best performance of all of Paul Morrissey's films since Holly Woodlawn.
Sylvia Miles does such an excellent and professionally mannered job here that she makes the rest of the cast look almost too amateurish as a result, and often times it really sort of takes you out of the world of the film.
Everything is too clean and too stylized for the style of filmmaking to work.However, Heat is still an excellent film full of life, humor, shock, and color.
I think the fact that the film takes place in California instead of New York really makes this a completely different kind of idea, but done in the same style and tone as both Flesh and Trash.
As I mentioned above, this is definitely the best film in the Paul Morrissey trilogy to start with.
The revelation of the film is Sylvia Miles, she is the best, most natural and believable.
Joe Dallesandro is the same as in all his movies.
The difference is that Paul Morrissey, funded by Andy Warhol Factory, provides much sexuality.
Campy classic, extremely low budget and the third in Paul Morrissey's collaboration with Andy Warhol.
Joe also does a very good job as does Pat Ast, perfect in her role as the concierge of a small Hollywood Motel.At times the film suffers from poor editing and maybe some rough acting but you believe these people.
Heat has Joe Dallesandro playing Joey Davis, (ex-child-star from a t.v. show called Mousetime U.S.A, and a western show called The Big Ranch).
In  the beginning of the film we find Joe walking around the grounds of an old studio in Hollywood that has been torn down.
The hotel is filled with weird characters, one's that you come to expect in a Morrissey movie.
Jessie, (Andrea Feldman) plays The daughter of Sally, (Sylvia Miles), A fading Movie star who's reduced to doing game shows, But insists she's "semi-retired".
Joe moves into her Huge mansion, liking the posh lifestyle, also thinking that Sally can be useful in getting him some acting jobs.
Sally appreciates Joe's company, because he represents  something that she used to be, she longs for the youth, beauty, of her yesteryear, making her painfully attached to Joe. Andrea leaves her Lesbian lover, and moves into the mansion with them, not because she's attracted to Joe, but just to try and get in the way of them.
Sally manages to get a movie producer to meet With Joe, but is turned down saying that they are looking for a "Elliot Hoffman" type.
The Movie ends with Joe leaves Sally to move back into the hotel.
As unfortunate as that is, I would imagine the shock of the person who was expecting Mann's movie and got Morrissey's "Heat" instead.
As a parody of Sunset Boulevard it is a little hilarious, but it lacks the raw fractured style of the New York films with their broken soundtracks and even more deadbeat people.
I found watching the wretched scum of New York junkies and prostitutes to be much more mesmerizing and horrifying, even though all three movies are essentially about selfish people.Joe Dallesandro has actually come into his own as an actor at this point--he's somewhat believable as the lackadaisical child star mooch just looking to screw his way through life, and almost succeeding but for the destructive attitude of Jessie (Andrea Feldman).
Your tolerance for the unbelievably grating Sylvia Miles may dictate how much fun you have watching Paul Morrissey's demented take on SUNSET BOULEVARD.
She's a faded actress holed up in a decaying mansion who finds herself in lust with handsome former child actor Joe Dallesandro.
He's got his hands full living in a seedy motel where he's dogged by both Miles' crackpot daughter (Andrea Feldman, in a great performance!) as well as sleazy landlady Pat Ast. Dalessandro is his usual stolid self and the movie is dominated by the wacky females...Feldman is priceless and her scenes with Miles are hysterical (particuarly when she claims to be a lesbian).
The production values are surprisingly good...this is Morrissey & Warhol's most accomplished work.