Night Shift (1982)

Bought this out of the Walmart 5$ bin a couple of years back. Its a funny film with a lot of charm. I thought Henry Winkler was really good in it. Keaton it goes without saying steals the show but yeah Shelley Long was sexy in this.

Would Ron Howard make anything like it again? Doubtful. I never watched Keaton and Howard's reteam for The Paper but that looked pretty awful.

I might be alone on this, but The Paper is one of Howard's more enjoyable films.

I love this movie. Best Ron Howard movie for my money and one of Keaton's best performances. Winkler ain't no slouch either.

I'm continually confusing this with the early '80s other pimp romp, Doctor Detroit.

The Paper is flawed but worth it for Keaton's "Because I don't fucking live in the fucking world! I live in fucking New York City! So GO! FUCK! YOURSELF!" tirade.

The moment he hit the screen in Night Shift you knew something weird and cool was happening. I miss the earlier, funnier Keaton. I wonder if Batman kind of killed his career. Seemed to go downhill after that. Though he was great in his two Elmore Leonard flicks, and I admit I didn't see that baseball flick he was in.

I don't know that it "killed" his career. It actually gave him a great opportunity. But what he chose to do with that opportunity is questionable. His choices already tended to be odd (I like it, but The Squeeze really is a horrendous film). And then, after he presumably had his pick of scripts he still went for stuff like One Good Cop.

What did kill his career, I think, was saying no to Batman Forever. People always play that up like he made the right choice given how the movie turned out. But it was a stupid decision. The powers that be never forgave him for it.

Post that debacle he was actually really good in Multiplicity - an underrated comedy that was beaten at the box office by the pretty bad Nutty Professor remake. Hate that Eddie Murphy got a brief undeserved "comeback" with that movie, while Keaton was left in the dust.

His choices continue to be infuriating. As anyone who's seen White Noise will attest.

About Night Shift? Love it. It may seem a bit quaint now and it's a very soft R by today's standards but it still works splendidly as character-driven comedy. Henry Winkler does a nice bit of playing against type (remember... he was Fonzie back then. You wouldn't expect him to play the straight man like this) and Keaton comes out of nowhere guns blazing.

I think Keaton making kiddie movies like Jack Frost and Herbie Fully Loaded is what killed his career.

Holy shit, how could I have forgotten that? He's fucking brilliant in that. For years a buddy and I quoted Doug 4 at each other. "Count Chocula."

The downturn had started well before then, that stuff was probably the only way he could get into theaters.

I need to revisit Night Shift, the last time I saw it I think Keaton was the only thing that really kept my attention, though Winkler wasn't bad. The Paper is a solid film, and the cast is amazing, one of those rare big movies for adults, I like it a lot.

On MULTIPLICITY, yeah, Keaton is brilliant in it. He totally sells the disparate personalities of the clones, but the movie around the performance(s) doesn't support him well enough. That's Ramis' fault, because Keaton brought his A-game.