You Must Remember This: Erotic 80s

“Erotic thrillers appear to be having a moment right now, and I’m here for it,” said Aisha Harris in NPR.org. In the latest season of her deservedly beloved film podcast, critic Karina Longworth examines the 1980s heyday of the erotic thriller while presenting it in a broader context. The season’s first episode dials back to 1972-73 to consider an important antecedent: the “porno chic” era that turned Deep Throat and Last Tango in Paris into box office smashes. But it’s the era of American Gigolo and Body Heat that will get the most attention. “Why the sudden fascination?” asked Gwilym Mumford in The Guardian. Current cinema, “ruled over by family-friendly franchises,” rarely touches on sex, making adults hungry for details about the past. Longworth, who’ll move on to ’90s erotic thrillers later this year, knows that many of the old films were problematic. But “as ever, she smartly contextualizes the moviemaking within the wider cultural headwinds of the era.”

Twin Flames may sound like your typical nightmare cult, said Alice Florence Orr in PodcastReview.org.

The twist: The group’s charismatic leaders,

Jeff and Shaleia Ayan, amassed their following entirely online, and the central tenet of their teachings is that anyone can find and pair up with their true love—and should never give up trying. With actress Stephanie Beatriz hosting, the podcast’s first episode focuses on William, a man who says he’s been stalked for years by an ex who believes the pair are twin flames. But the longer story, about a former devotee named Angie, fails to follow through on the questions it raises. “It’s all mad and, eventually, rather dark,” said James Marriott in The Times (U.K.). Some of the Ayans’ acolytes are so vigorously urged to pursue true love that “they end up with restraining orders.” Beatriz doesn’t push a wider lesson, but you can’t miss the root problem: “a society that encourages us to assume that our desires are all-conquering.”