Mistaken Movie Identity

When I was a younger man, perhaps even what you would call a preteen (the memory is fuzzy), I recall one experience with late-night cable watching that has stuck with me for years.

A friend was sleeping over, and we saw in the cable guide that "Red Heat" with none other than the current governor of Caleeforneeuh and John Belushi's brother as east-meets-west buddy cops. It's definitely a staple of the 80's Arnold movie, and is perfect for two 12-year-old boys to watch late at night.

But then everything went to a very strange and uncomfortable place. Red Heat started, and though both of us had thought we had seen the movie before, the initial plot and scenes confused us. This was, in fact, before my encyclopaedic knowledge of all things cinematic had sprung forth, and so I did not immediately realize that this was not the "Russian cop awkwardly adjusts to American lifestyle" action movie we were expecting. It was instead Red Heat, "American woman caught up in East German prison" movie, a strikingly effective propoganda piece (to me, at 12) on the perils of travelling to the eastern bloc at the time.

In our naivete, we watched the entire movie, only giving up on an appearance by The Terminator after about 45 minutes. By then, we wanted to see whether Linda Blair would make it out. But in hindsight, this was not the late night women-in-prison cable movie that most 12-year-old boys would love to see. I suspect it was this early case of mistaken identity that, to this day, keeps me from being able to enjoy such movies on the same level as most other guys enjoy them.

Next time on "Why Nuture Beats the Hell out of Nature" theater: the little piece of my soul that died when I watched the movie Fortress, and how it gave me nightmares (and daymares!) for months afterwards. And please note--I am not the only one who got freaked the hell out by this movie. (Interesting trivia: this movie also has a doppleganger, which I have never seen because to even watch a movie called Fortress, even if laughably bad and starring Christopher Lambert, breaks me out in a cold sweat.)