Fox Movie Channel

Sex & Bicycles

Welcome to Unvaulted, a little corner of the internet where you can read about the choicest Fox Movie Channel movies that you most likely have never seen. Here at FMC, I spend most of my day moving tapes around and arranging and updating data in a number of programs that result in you seeing our stuff on your TV. As a happy side effect of working here, I get to watch a lot of movies. Some are awesome, some are less than awesome. But, rad or not, none of them have commercials, which is pretty hard to beat. Because commercials blow, and I like movies.

To be more exact about it: I like movies with sex and violence. I like suspense and intrigue. I like good acting, the kind that fixates, the kind that make makes you feel something even though you are just looking at a little screen. I like being fully taken away, lifted into another world outside of my cluttered cube here at Fox Movie Channel. I like movies where women have something to DO, other than just be the wives or the foils or the playthings of men. But don't worry, I like movies with men and cars and guns a lot too. I also have an unusual yet sincere love of the pop culture of the 80s - with 1984 and 1985 being particularly good years. And I like the part in movies where the people get together. That's really my favorite part.

If I find a movie that we're airing that delivers particularly well on any of the above - or if it delights me based on any other fickle reason of my choosing - I am going to let you know about it here. That is, as long as I deliver my tapes and get my data in order first.

So to kick things off with a movie from 1985 where people get together, let me introduce you to Key Exchange, a film about some really fun singles who live in New York and like to ride bicycles and have sex. Unlike my friends and I, they all have interesting love lives and cool careers and plenty of time to talk about their relationships and ride bikes. I don't even own a bike. Phillip and Lisa, the main characters, can't seem to figure out the level of their commitment in their relationship, and bam! That's what the movie is about. Obviously I am glossing over some stuff, but you can watch it to catch the rest.

I like that this movie is shot in New York, and I like the pervasive and always amusing eighties-ness of it - like when Lisa vacuums while listening to a Walkman, or how Phillip smokes cigarettes instantly after cycling. I appreciate the escapism of spending a light hour and a half with these people and all of their fun problems. But let me tell you what I really like about this movie (and probably the only reason I am bothering to write about it to begin with): the scene where Lisa uses her titular key to go in Phillip's apartment and has sex with him in the shower.  I think it's safe to say this is the hottest water sex scene now airing on Fox Movie Channel. (Yes, there is that strangely appealing watering hole make-out session in that one really long Sam Elliot cowboy movie we have, but he's so hairy and wearing that wet long underwear. This one's far less troubling.) For some reason the film intercuts this shower scene with a sequence of Michael (another one of our fun bicycling New Yorkers) aggressively racing some other dude on his bike. Which is so odd but still, so amusing. And all the while this unrecognizable 80s power pop ballad is playing over the sequence. It's kind of priceless.

Even worth watching the whole movie for.