Monday, January 05, 2015

Spike of Bensonhurst

from the book log (1/3/89):

Spike of Bensonhurst, a movie

The only actor I knew was Ernest Borgnine. Geez. Funny movie. As in, strange. Crime pays, criminals as good guys, the mafia makes good. Criminals as “jes folks.” It was funny in the other sense, too, and not predictable. The guy who plays Spike is gorgeous and you get to look at him a lot. Although Spike gets two girls pregnant (one of whom is a real cute Puerto Rican dyke-type) there is no (as in zero) kissy-kissy. Spike’s mother is living with her lesbian lover while his dad does time, having taken the rap for Borgnine, the neighborhood mafia boss. Almost no conventional morality in this movie. I liked it. It’s different. Spike is a boxer; normally this would really turn me off, but the boxing is at a minimum and it’s definitely not a fight movie. Wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

*

I haven’t seen Spike of Bensonhurst since. I remember nothing about it. Looking at sites that track reviews, like the Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes, I don’t see much activity, though what is there isn’t approving. On the other hand, malibutrash’s comment at imdb agrees with my opinion of the lead: “Sasha Mitchell was so gorgeous … it really hurt to look at him.”

Spike of Bensonhurst is not a book, clearly. But at the beginning I was extra ambitious with the log and made note of movies and record albums and individual issues of comic book series.

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