1980s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[domino harvey]

No Way Out (Roger Donaldson 1987) Loose remake of the Big Clock (this was the decade of noir-updates, apparently), and as with last update's DOA, I don't have a lot of love for the original, so I don't object too strongly to it being re-envisioned. While I enjoyed this more than DOA (and that other Gene Hackman-starring noir remake, Narrow Margin), I think it's still a heavily flawed film, with some dopey thriller aspects and one truly intolerable character played to maximum annoyance by Will Patton who gets even more offensive once his true nature is revealed (in more ways than one…). However, with all of those caveats in mind, I still find myself recommending the film, and I can't even hint at why without spoiling the only experience by which there is value to be found. So, beware, you really do not want to un-spoiler this unless you've seen the film

Spoiler

Credit where credit is due: This film has hands-down one of the best twist endings I've ever seen (I actually can't think of a better one, though one may come to me), and it's twice as impressive for being completely fair based on the evidence shown in the film and yet still unexpected and a total "Holy shit" game-changer. I didn't even like the film and had significant issues for most of the running time, but the ending had me laughing incredulously and admitting (out loud, to the TV, which can hear me I guess) "Okay, you got me. That's pretty fucking good." This is how you compound Cold War fears in an effective manner, not fucking Red Dawn.

Polyester (John Waters 1981) John Waters' idea of respectability (or at least a level up) is still pretty wild, and your enjoyment of the film will rest with the ability to withstand compounding tastelessness with Waters' lovingly melodramatic swipe at the tropes of many studio-era weepies while completely disregarding anything else from the era-- well, except for Tab Hunter, of course! I was glad, if that's the right word, that my DVD copy came with an Odorama card so I could finally experience film the way it was meant to be experienced-- nasally. Bonus points for one of the porno theatre protesters in the film holding a placard that simply says "I HATE MOVIES."

Used Cars (Robert Zemeckis 1980) A silly movie that nevertheless remains entertaining for nearly two hours while pretending it makes any sense whatsoever. Dueling used car lots, each owned by Jack Warden in a different guise, duke it out for prime placement near a new freeway and this and all the other unlikely events (an OJ trial-esque show of interest in a false advertising charge, for instance) only matter because the zany characters buy into it. Jack Warden is great fun as always, Kurt Russell is maybe a bit too young for the part but he's game, and Gerrit Graham and Frank McRae have some good cheap character runners that work in spite of themselves. This was written and directed by the same team responsible for Back to the Future and I even saw a producer credit in there somewhere for Spielberg (and John Milius!), but this is more a post-Animal House, dirty but good-natured comedy than anything particularly ambitious. Not list-worthy, but fun, and now I've somehow seen all of Zemeckis' 80s work. The director guide would be: Just watch the Back to the Future movies, which you've already seen, so good work.

Five day weekend thanks to the snow means even more 80s viewings! I'm making far better time than I was on the 70s list (though true to my prediction, I just keep buying more 80s movies to fill the holes left by watched titles-- I'll never get my unwatched prairie down to a reasonable size!)

[knives]

But the Back to the Future movies are terrible or at least a few sights less pleasant than Used Cars.

[Yojimbo]

I loved Polyester particularly for its mostly obscure golden oldies soundtrack,and for the all-round sense of fun.

No Way Out was decent with a couple of decent-sized shocks along the way: I think this was a star-making performance for Kevin Costner, or at least one of the first films to announce his true-star potential.
I didn't really care for the 'Narrow Margin' remake, which was probably only of DOA-remake calibre.

Used Cars was quirky and fun, and Jack Warden was a lotta fun - maybe even bigger than the movie. Without him the movie might have been just like an extended episode of CHiPs.

I can't imagine any of these making it into my 50; although Polyester's soundtrack could conceivably make my All-Time Top 50 soundtracks list.

[knives]

The Unbelievable Truth
I've seen a couple of Hartley's films with no real sense of how to handle him and this film leaves no answers either. Fortunately though the film itself is so great that any attempt at trying to solve an auteur sized puzzle seems besides the point. This is just so close to a perfect movie I'm at a loss for words. I'm sure some others have better things to say on it.

Conan the Destroyer
I suppose the only way to make a sequel to the original that wouldn't automatically fail in comparison is by changing everything leaving a Jackie Chan to Milius' Bruce Lee. Unfortunately while the humour is mostly effective a lot of that striving for difference functions just as downplaying the quirks of Conan's personality like the sex and violence leaving the film as a far more ordinary beast. There's a few moments that suggests that with a less classical director, rather than Milius who is classically aware, this could have been a nice satire of the original forcing Conan into new situations where his morality doesn't function or aid. Instead the movie is just sort of limp. Enjoyably limp to the degree I'd argue it doesn't deserve its reputation, but limp all the same.

Cobra Verde
This is the last of the Herzog/ Kinski films I had to see and it certainly fits with most of them quality wise. Kinski of course is an insanely magnetic performer with every second of him on screen working to at least entertain really well, but the film doesn't really offer much beyond that. This is probably made all the worse by Kinski taking such a passive role through much of the film observing the societies around him rather than acting out any serious goal or even personality as in the case of the two best. Like their other weak collabs it makes its points on colonization in a pretty fascinating way (here the most unique being the flattening of religion like with the goat eating the wafer) though that fascination never really crosses over into deep or worthwhile.

The Prefab People
This is a lot more familiar, but still suggestive of what a great Tarr without Krasznahorkai would have been like. It is a lot more free on its toes with a great sense of sloppiness though I suspect that's all manufactured. The lack of dialogue is also played more to the documentary toying with the sound mix and diegesis to all for naturalism (of all things) to be examined through sheer physicality. It's a really great and fascinating window even as I prefer the Tarr we have now.

September
Was anyone more consistently great than Allen in the '80s? I wasn't expecting much of anything from this particular film if just because a lot of his other big Bergman riffs have failed to impress me, but this one stays so low to the ground and is cut so simply I couldn't help but fall in love with the effect. It's not his best film with certain points pushed into places where they don't completely work and some of Sam Waterson's line readings not working as well as I expect from him. That said even if the whole rest of the film flopped this would be one of the true great entertainments if just for Di Palma, Hopkins, and Loquasto's work which gives the right sort of life (somewhere between an autumn stage and a Warners black and white melodrama) to the story leaving everything else as icing that can't impeach upon the cake.

[domino harvey]

Was anyone more consistently great than Allen in the '80s?

He has a good run overall this decade, but in the 90s Allen was utterly in his element, as all of his films range from good to great with no clunkers. I've come around, a little, on Hannah and Her Sisters, but I can't say that for A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Oedipus Wrecks, September, or Another Woman-- though coincidentally I just recently stumbled upon a letter an ex-girlfriend sent me a while ago informing me that I was wrong to dislike Another Woman and asking me to give it another chance (we lived in the same city at the time). It was a very "Only in a Woody Allen movie (would someone's girlfriend write and mail them a letter to ask them to reconsider their opinion on a film)" moment in real life, to be sure!

I remember really wanting to like September and being disappointed that I couldn't reclaim it as an overlooked success, but I will probably be giving all of the decade's Allens another once-over before the voting ends, though Broadway Danny Rose, the Purple Rose of Cairo, and Radio Days are all already guaranteed spots on my final list, so it's not that there's a dearth of Allen on my roster!

[knives]

Well yeah, but everyone was great in the '90s. He probably will have three films on my list (including that number one spot) and that's with me still missing five films. Even a film as lopsided as September is so great in the areas where it gets things right I'm a bit star gazed. Though that's not so with every film from the decade. I suspect I'm totally in the minority, but I have a greater respect of Zelig than like for example. Funny story on Another Woman, which I still have yet to see, though.

[Mike_S]

Surely someone apart from me must like Tootsie?

[The Narrator Returns]

I recently watched Another Woman, and I felt largely the same way knives did about September. It took a little bit for me to warm up to it, but when I did it, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was not expecting to be so devastated by it, and that wasn't helped by me learning about Philip Seymour Hoffman dying right after I watched it. I may have to join domino's ex-girlfriend in her campaign to make him change his mind!

[Yojimbo]

Surely someone apart from me must like Tootsie?

I don't know about like, but I seem to recall being impressed by Dustin Hoffman's performance.
But I doubt I'll be re-watching it, and I don't expect it to make my short-list

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Always (Steven Spielberg, 1989): I watched this one in order to complete my 80s Spielberg collection so that I might do a write up for the director. The film has a rather "blah" reputation, and I'm sad to say that it's earned it. The film is neither great nor terrible, just the sort of middle of the road entertainment that Spielberg has all too often has been reduced to. This remake of 1943's A Guy Named Joe benefits greatly from the director's visual flare. There are some scenes in here, particularly in its first third that are astonishingly beautiful. However, the film falters with its human characters. Richard Dreyfus seems utterly miscast as Pete Sandich, an aerial firefighter who dies mid-flight and then must help his lover (a charming Holly Hunter) move on with her life. Dreyfus hardly seems like romantic interest material, and feels out of place here. There are a thousand more complaints that can be made about Spielberg's choices (e.g. Pete learning that he's dead by getting a haircut from Audrey Hepburn(!), the psychic hobo, etc.) but ultimately it adds up to a rather jejune experience.

Beau-père (Bertrand Blier, 1981): Exploring Blier's 70s output was a real treat for the last project, and if this film is any indication of the quality of his work for the decade, then I'm in for a lot of fun. The film tells the story of Marion (Ariel Besse) who lives with her mother and stepfather Rémi (Patrick Dewaere). When her mother dies suddenly in a car accident, Marion begins an odyssey that has her crisscrossing between Rémi and her caring, but aloof biological father Charly (Maurice Ronet). Marion eventually embarks on a quest to seduce Rémi, and despite his initial refusal, the two begin a torrid love affair behind Charly's back. While the film's frank depiction of adolescent sexuality and taboo relations between a stepfather and stepdaughter may be an obstacle for some viewers, the charm of the three leads, and Besse in particular, make this a winning affair. Blier's script (based off of his own novel) is bristling with equal amounts of wit and pathos, resulting in a bold approach to a topic that could have gone overboard in less capable hands. This was a real winner.

Forbidden Zone (Richard Elfman, 1982): So...this exists. Since I was unfamiliar with Oingo Boingo's pre-80s output, I had no idea that they used to put on humor-horror tableaux likes this. This black and white film (presumably because the shoestring budget couldn't afford color) chronicles the adventures of the Hercules family who just happen to live over a basement portal to the sixth dimension; a world of comic sexual sadism ruled over by King Fausto (Hervé Villechaize) and Queen Doris (Susan Tyrrell) (allegedly the two were an item at the time of filming!). After daughter Frenchy's (Marie-Pascale Elfman) curiosity compels her to enter the world, her idiot brother Flash and mute grandfather soon follow in a desperate bid to win her freedom. As others have pointed out, the film plays very much like a Max Fleischer cartoon on acid, with a good deal of 30s tunes lip synched over the most outrageous images that the filmmakers could think up. Be warned going it, though, this film is very un-PC with blackface, homophobia, misogyny, and racial stereotypes abounding. Taking it as a bit of punk ephemera that was meant to offend makes it easier to digest. The film itself can be a lot of bizarre fun.

Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord (Eric Saks, 1989): Eric Saks's pseudodocumentary recounts about 50 years in the life of Isaac Hudak (played by three different actors, with three others providing narration) from his childhood, through early years as a chemist, to his times manufacturing illegal drugs, and ending with his days as a "leach lord"--a toxic waste disposer working at the bounds of legality and society. The film is told in a fractured narrative with the chronology shifting back and forth between his eras, although the plot is kept mostly linear as we learn about the developments in Hudak's life as they happened. I believe that I sought this one out after seeing Rosenbaum's endorsement of it. I'm glad to have finally found it, but it's not exactly in danger of making my list.

Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme, 1988): I swear that I saw this as a kid when my mom rented it, but I can't imagine why she'd have let eight year old me watch it. Regardless, I remembered enough of it that I must have seen it at some point. Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Angela de Marco, a newly widowed mob wife with enough of a conscience to want a fresh break from the corruption of her late husband's racket. Dean Stockwell costars as the mob boss that killed her husband, while Mathew Modine, Mercedes Ruehl, and Alec Baldwin round out the cast. Like Domino said on page one, it's not exactly profound material, but it is enjoyable enough for what it is. It's not even close to the best film by Jonathan Demme for the decade, but it is still a fun piece of entertainment.

Night of the Creeps (Fred Dekker, 1986): I'm not sure how, but I somehow managed to go this long without seeing this cult comedy/horror hybrid from the maker of one of my favorite childhood films, The Monster Squad. An unexplained space battle opens the film, with UFO debris crash landing just outside a 1950s college campus. The debris contains strange slug like creatures that enter turn a student into a zombie. Flash forward thirty years later and a couple of doofuses (Jason Lively and Steve Marshall) stumble into a lab (run by a young David Paymer!) with the infected corpse in suspended animation. Naturally they let it out and soon the walking dead are running amok on campus. The film coasts by on the charm brought by Dekker's script and the general good nature of its leads (also including Jill Whitlow as the lead's romantic interest and Tom Atkins as a grizzled cop whose met the slugs before). There's nothing deep going on here, but it does make for an entertaining ride.

[The Narrator Returns]

The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen 1985) The best of Allen's work I've seen so far (I still have some heavy-hitters that I've yet to watch, but I'd be surprised if it's out of my top three by the time I'm done). It's absolutely magical, and it will probably be very high on my list. Also, Gordon Willis gets a lot of (very deserved) kudos for imitating the look of old newsreels with Zelig, but his replication of Old Hollywood movies for the titular movie-within-the-movie is pitch-perfect.

Where the Buffalo Roam (Art Linson 1980) I can't even fathom how you make the life and work of Hunter S. Thompson seem dull, but Linson does just that here. Its big problem is that it has little to no interest in HST as a writer, so it decides to turn his life into a slobs-vs.-slobs comedy, where figures of high authority look on in horror as HST engages in some wacky shenanigans (to be fair, the infinitely superior Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas also does that, but it realizes that HST and his attorney would be a nightmare to be around). The only reason this movie isn't completely unwatchable is Bill Murray, who does a fantastic imitation of the man with all his odd posture and mumbling. There is not a single laugh in this movie that isn't won by Murray's delivery (and sure as hell not by Peter Boyle, appearing to be on mild sedatives throughout, as a fictionalization of Oscar Acosta), and even with him, the laughs are scarce. It not only fails to live up to the wild energy of Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, it can't even bother to be up to the level of Better Than Sex.

[domino harvey]

I envy anyone seeing Purple Rose of Cairo for the first time. Like Psycho, it's a film I love to show to students who have no idea what's going to happen, and you can feel the giddiness of an audience kick in once the premise becomes clear. I actually just taught it a couple months ago as part of a mini Woody Allen unit. It'll be number two on my list barring some great upheaval of an unforeseen classic

[Yojimbo]

I envy anyone seeing Purple Rose of Cairo for the first time. Like Psycho, it's a film I love to show to students who have no idea what's going to happen, and you can feel the giddiness of an audience kick in once the premise becomes clear. I actually just taught it a couple months ago as part of a mini Woody Allen unit. It'll be number two on my list barring some great upheaval of an unforeseen classic

When I subsequently saw Keaton's Sherlock Jnr. , all of a sudden 'Purple' didn't seem so special.

And I keep putting off watching that Polish film, 'Escape From The Liberty Cinema', which was apparently influenced by one or both of the earlier films.
But I'll get around to it, eventually

[domino harvey]

Well, if you only valued either film for the basic movie interaction gimmick, okay, but the films couldn't be more different in how they utilize it

[The Narrator Returns]

Last Action Hero, however, remains unsullied.

[domino harvey]

I don't know why but I still remember lines from that movie--
"How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"
"Practice! John Practice!"
-- I didn't say they were good lines

[Yojimbo]

Well, if you only valued either film for the basic movie interaction gimmick, okay, but the films couldn't be more different in how they utilize it

I don't think I've seen it since its original release. I know I loved it, then - and not just because of the gimmick - but I recall reviews at the time mentioning what a major part of its charm the gimmick was.

I still love 'Manhattan', and 'Bananas' of his early stuff - and 'Hannah and Her Sisters' will probably be a contender in this list - but I'd really need to see 'Purple' again for it to have any chance.

Of course it would be hard to watch it without having Woody and Mia's subsequent 'difficulties' in mind.
Everything seemed so much more innocent then.

[Yojimbo]

I don't know why but I still remember lines from that movie--
"How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"
"Practice! John Practice!"
-- I didn't say they were good lines

Maybe it speaks of a subconscious artistic ambition, on your part!

[domino harvey]

Moonlighting (Jerzy Skolimowski 1982) Jeremy Irons and some other Polish workers hang out in London fixing up a flat while their country goes into upheaval. Minor-key stuff all around, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it just didn't add up to much for me. I know the film has a lot of fans here and elsewhere, and I went through the trouble to educate myself on the real-life events the film is dealing with, but while I thought it was an okay movie, the amount of superlatives lavished on it astounds me. This is a total shrug of a film experience.

Risky Business (Paul Brickman 1983) An interesting cautionary example in how not to make a teen sex comedy: Do not film it with the gravitas of an art house sleeper lest you want everything to look unintentionally laughable and the intentionally laughable parts to fall flat amidst the too-serious style. Not that the material had much of a chance either way-- is there any trope less tolerable than "Guy is so great that the hooker gives it away for free"?

Scarface (Brian De Palma 1983) Slight exploration of unchecked greed and aspiration tethered to nothing but the empty whim of the lowest classes: upward mobility at all costs. Al Pacino is clearly having a blast (pun definitely intended) and the whole thing is fun and entertaining enough-- to a point. But at nearly three hours I grew tired of the repetitive hot-head shenanigans and the violent shootout finale seemed to take up another three hours on top of all that came before it. It's bizarre to think of how this now has such a strange legacy of co-option by gangsta rappers and their followers, but not entirely surprising considering the basic plot.

Shoot the Moon (Alan Parker 1982) Another disintegration of marriage flick, this one has the good fortune to star Albert Finney and Diane Keaton as the unhappy couple who break up, find new lovers, and yet still have a strange hold on each other. Despite this sounding pretty rote, there's two compelling reasons to add this to your watch list. One, the film is highly unpredictable and its characters often act in surprising and compelling ways. A great example is the late night birthday gift drop-off that plays out in real time as Finney forces his way into the house to confront and eventually beat his furious daughter for shutting him out. This entire scene descends into pure emotional hell in such an organic and realistic manner and does so out of nowhere. The end result is one of the most unnerving domestic disturbances I've ever seen in a film. The second superlative belongs to the child actors. This movie contains some of the best depictions of how children interact amongst themselves and with others I've ever seen, and the film seems so real and true to Finney and Keaton's young girls that if all the adults weren't movie stars, you might forget this was Hollywood at all. Special praise goes to Dana Hill as the oldest sister who has the most complicated response to the divorce, and the most fascinating. It's a performance worth making time for, even if overall the film isn't quite going to make my list.

Unfortunately my viewing of this ran into some unexpected drama external of those shown within the film! This is now my third Warner Brothers disc (the others being Captain Blood and S1M0NE) to be brand new and scratch free and yet be strangely damaged and unplayable about 2/3 of the way through the film. Thank God for back-channels so I could finish the film, but this is such a scary notion: who knows what other discs exhibit the same secret flaw, lurking quietly within the stacks of films we think we've bought for a lifetime of use? I've ordered another copy from Amazon to see if it's a common issue or just a problem with my disc, but this added another level of stress to the events depicted!

[The Narrator Returns]

Unfortunately my viewing of this ran into some unexpected drama external of those shown within the film! This is now my third Warner Brothers disc (the others being Captain Blood and S1M0NE) to be brand new and scratch free and yet be strangely damaged and unplayable about 2/3 of the way through the film. Thank God for back-channels so I could finish the film, but this is such a scary notion: who knows what other discs exhibit the same secret flaw, lurking quietly within the stacks of films we think we've bought for a lifetime of use? I've ordered another copy from Amazon to see if it's a common issue or just a problem with my disc, but this added another level of stress to the events depicted!

The same thing happened to my DVD of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which was especially frustrating considering I was writing a piece detailing the insights from the Soderbergh-Nichols audio commentary.

[domino harvey]

I'm too scared to check my copy from the Taylor/Burton set, but I should since I'm about to teach it in a couple months. As if the OOP Fest wasn't bad enough!

And somehow, between a full-time job, a social life, and House of Cards/True Detective/Justified, I've seen 64 films for this project in just three weeks. Let no one doubt my spirited commitment to the decade of excess!

[Shrew]

Today in drunk Shrew recounts his childhood... I used to read all of the newspaper's TV Guide film briefs (which have left me affected by some strange reverence for Zorba the Greek, which I still have never seen, because it was the only thing that regularly showed up under Z). One day Risky Business was in there, and 8-year-old me wanted to know what a prostitute was. My mom refused to tell me despite me asking like a dozen times, so I assumed it was something scary and that night I had nightmares that prostitutes were coming to get me. I woke up my mother and then she told me that prostitutes were people who have sex for money. Ever since then, I have never had sex with a prostitute.

[domino harvey]

According to Risky Business, a pros·ti·tute will: 01. Ask you to drive your father's sportscar against your will and in a dangerous fashion. 02. Move into your parents' house and start a brothel within said house. 03. Offer to be your "girlfriend" for a week for no pay and without the emotional benefits that come with such a title. 04. Steal your parents' prized crystal egg to show she is a "wildcard" and "unpredictable". 05. Consent to MTV sex with you on a subway car. 06. Possibly arrange the theft of all your worldly belongings. Nothing in there about sex for money, though, so I think your mom was working with a different dictionary than this film-- unless the prostitute in question is also the hee-larious combination of black AND a man-- but dressed as a woman?! Oh my stars, so zany. Then money comes into play.

[FerdinandGriffon]

Exploring Blier's 70s output was a real treat for the last project, and if this film is any indication of the quality of his work for the decade, then I'm in for a lot of fun.

Make sure you get to Tenue de soirée, AKA Ménage, one of the strangest, most melancholy sex comedies imaginable, with Depardieu at his very weirdest. It falters a bit in the second half, but then, almost none of Blier's films can keep it up for their entire running time, usually either starting or finishing strong, with significant weaknesses at the opposite ends.

I have not seen Beau-père yet, but am now planning to.

[Yojimbo]

Moonlighting (Jerzy Skolimowski 1982) Jeremy Irons and some other Polish workers hang out in London fixing up a flat while their country goes into upheaval. Minor-key stuff all around, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it just didn't add up to much for me. I know the film has a lot of fans here and elsewhere, and I went through the trouble to educate myself on the real-life events the film is dealing with, but while I thought it was an okay movie, the amount of superlatives lavished on it astounds me. This is a total shrug of a film experience.



Scarface (Brian De Palma 1983) Slight exploration of unchecked greed and aspiration tethered to nothing but the empty whim of the lowest classes: upward mobility at all costs. Al Pacino is clearly having a blast (pun definitely intended) and the whole thing is fun and entertaining enough-- to a point. But at nearly three hours I grew tired of the repetitive hot-head shenanigans and the violent shootout finale seemed to take up another three hours on top of all that came before it. It's bizarre to think of how this now has such a strange legacy of co-option by gangsta rappers and their followers, but not entirely surprising considering the basic plot.

I remember watching a tv broadcast of Moonlighting in the early 80s - which must have been the year of release, or shortly afterwards - and not thinking much of it, but then a work colleague pointed out to me that I should have been considering it in the context of Poland's then critical political situation - with Solidarity, General Jaruzelski, etc, etc.
I don't think I've seen it since, but I know I have a converted VHS recording somewhere so I'll probably give it another look to see whether it's due a re-evaluation.
My thing with allegorical films is that they should be able to stand up as dramas, or stories - aside from their power as allegories.


I saw Scarface in a crowded cinema where the extended shootout-finale was perhaps most meant to be enjoyed. Its seemed so much smaller, less 'threatening' on subsequent tv watches, but if nothing else Pacino's edgy, jumpy tics-laden performance is a wonderful cartoon-character, and undoubtedly has kept many impersonators in business.
I much prefer the original, though, which is certainly among Hawks five best films