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

[zedz]

"My Way" was only one of his covers, and when he died we was turning an interesting corner into punk covers of old tunes (an area that all manner of underground/alternative types of bands would go on to explore in the decade that followed)

I don't think you can really credit Sid Vicious with any form of innovation in that respect, since covering rock classics and MOR standards in a punk style was already a long-established tradition by 1979. The pre-Sid Sex Pistols performed Small Faces and Who covers, and the grand tradition was kicked off in exemplary fashion by the two covers on Patti Smith's Horses in '75. Devo, the Ramones and Television all had punked-up 'classics' in their repertoire at around the same time, and even if you're limiting it to conversions / subversions of MOR material, The Saints' 'Lipstick on Your Collar', The Boys Next Door's 'These Boots Were Made for Walking' and Magazine's 'Goldfinger' all predate 'My Way' by a year or two, so it was already a well-trod path.

I think the brutal truth about Sid Vicious is that his musical legacy is practically nil. The Sex Pistols were a one-album band, with subsequent releases either consisting of leftovers or ringers. Sid's only contribution to that album was bass on one track, and according to Steve Jones, who overdubbed his own bass part onto the same track ('Bodies'), Vicious' contribution is barely audible.

His subsequent recordings - as the 'Sex Pistols' and under his own name - arguably helped establish punk as a one-note, marketable joke, but he wasn't alone in that and I don't think it's an achievement anybody should be particularly proud of.

[Gregory]

I didn't mean to say he had innovated it (or anything else, for that matter, except perhaps pogoing). I see the "punk"/"new wave"/"alternative" covers of old pop material really taking off in the 1980s, but that may be due to a biased statistical sample (I have a 2 1/2-hour playlist of this stuff and the vast majority of it is from the '80s).
I'd also agree that his legacy is not really musical, and the reasons he ended up in the Sex Pistols had basically nothing to do with music. People who played with him have attested that he practiced hard at certain times in order to improve on the bass (a new instrument for him at the time), but still his whole approach to music and celebrityhood seemed to be to make it as much of a piss-take as possible. In some key ways, for me, he's the antithesis of what punk at its best is all about (building, creating, and ideas rather than violence, destruction, and cynicism/nihilism).
To get back to the film, the reason Sid and Nancy doesn't interest me all that much is that the two main characters are never that interesting to me, and just don't think Cox did good things with the material or really knew his subjects, though surely his vision was at least better than the proposed Hollywood biopic that was allegedly in development with Madonna and Rupert Everett in mind as the leads!

[zedz]

I see the "punk"/"new wave"/"alternative" covers of old pop material really taking off in the 1980s, but that may be due to a biased statistical sample (I have a 2 1/2-hour playlist of this stuff and the vast majority of it is from the '80s).

Maybe that explains it, since my (hypothetical) punk playlist would stop at 1980. I actually think the 'new wave' covers trend (if what you're talking about is what I think you're talking about) also predated 'My Way', with Stiff issuing things like Lene Lovich's 'I Think We're Alone Now' and Rachel Sweet's 'B.A.B.Y.' in '78. (And the Rubinoos issued their stateside cover of 'I Think We're Alone Now' a year earlier on Beserkley.)

[Gregory]

Dead Kennedys had been doing "Viva las Vegas" and "Rawhide" since they first started playing in '78, I'm pretty sure. A list of similar examples would be long indeed. I'll get off this topic now before we need a thread split.

[Feego]

To get back to the film, the reason Sid and Nancy doesn't interest me all that much is that the two main characters are never that interesting to me, and just don't think Cox did good things with the material or really knew his subjects, though surely his vision was at least better than the proposed Hollywood biopic that was allegedly in development with Madonna and Rupert Everett in mind as the leads!

I agree very much with this sentiment concerning the characters in the film, and I believe what interest does come out of these characters is due entirely to Oldman and Webb rather than Cox. I find myself wishing Cox had expanded more on his surreal riffs and turned the film into more of a punk myth rather than his largely realistic and aimless picture of addiction. The scene in which Sid and Nancy walk through the chaos of a police bust, seemingly unseen by anyone else, is a great moment that transcends the mundane reality that surrounds it.

I hadn't heard about the Madonna/Rupert Everett idea (the DVD I got from Netflix was the barebones MGM disc, so I haven't seen any of the interesting Criterion supplements), but I did read that Courtney Love auditioned for the role of Nancy and was granted a small role in the film based on her audition tape. Her performance wasn't anything to write home about, and Chloe Webb was fantastic, but it's interesting to consider what might have been if Love had played the part. She looked more like the real Nancy than Webb, and the film eerily presages Love's own downward spiral in the following decades.

[domino harvey]

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek 1989) I was planning to revisit both of these films together, but after the underwhelming experience of sitting through this one, I think I'll wait a little while before ruining my positive memories of Bogus Journey. I do suspect the target audience here is eight year olds, though, since anyone older will have problems buying into most of the extraordinarily sketchy frame on which all of the action is hung. The film doesn't care enough to make sense, and this lackadaisical approach at least in results one funny moment late in the film wherein Bill and Ted decide that to get out of assorted precarious situations, they'll just remember to prepare supplies for the present by going back in the past afterwards and putting them there to begin with-- it's a good comic idea dealing with the myriad of nonsensical aspects of time travel and the film could have used more of that and less of famous people being quite glad and rather non-plussed to travel through time to deliver a not-even-that-good final oral report to an over-enthused crowd. I mean, I guess the idea of, say, Joan of Arc wanting to lead an aerobics class could be funny, maybe, but just presenting that as a shallow "joke" is about at the level this film pitches its idiotic references. Alex Winter is responsible for the brilliant Freaked and Reeves is generally good even if he gets a bum rap for his elocution style, but I didn't much care for either in this film, which made it even harder to get through. The messenger for this celebration of stupidity get about the level of quality such a message deserves.

Cameron's Closet (Armand Mastoianni 1988) I vividly remember the trailer for this film playing before some rental years ago when I was just a kid, and it has always stuck in the back of my mind. In true "Expectations will only fail you" fashion, this is about as lousy as 80s horror gets, with a nonsensical plot in which a little psychic boy inadvertently brings an ancient demon statue to life inside his closet (or the closet of wherever he goes). The only terrifying thing about this film, which by the way opens with Tab Hunter getting accidentally beheaded by a machete, is that for some reason poor Mel Harris from thirtysomething is given what must be the worst wardrobe in the history of filmed images. I don't know what she did to piss off the costume department (which, based on the apparent budget for this, may very well have been located in the backseat of someone's Camry), but behold a couple of her non-demon-spawned outfits:




(Maybe the other terrifying thing here is that these crystal clear caps are from a commercial DVD release!)

Fright Night (Tom Holland 1985) Fun, special effects-heavy vampire film that mostly works if you turn off the logic part of your brain and just let the whole affair wash over you (I know, I used the same argument against Bill and Ted, but here we are on the other end of that spectrum). I liked the performances, especially Chris Sarandon (who is always so good at being a slick villain) and of course Roddy McDowall as the b-horror movie host/actor who gets suckered into dealing with the real thing. Not nearly as good as the stylish but comparatively more serious the Lost Boys as far as 80s Vampires Next Door flicks go, but still better than expected. Plus the music is a funky treat-- I enjoyed the lyrics to the title song accompanying the end credits: "Can't you tell he's tearing us apart / I got to drive a stake through his heart"

[Shrew]

Oh come on, those outfits are far from the worst the 80s have to offer. Just look at Rohmer's output during the decade! While his leads usually don a variety of outfits there's almost always at least one screamer (like Beatrice Romand's Christmas sweater horrorshow in A Good Marriage, which trumps the above easily). Of course, sometimes it's intentional, like the guy in an insane mesh vest that hits on Riviere on the street in The Green Ray.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I must be the last person on the forum to have seen 'Do The Right Thing' but it's rare to see anything that just blows you away completely like this.

[domino harvey]

Yep, it's one of those films that everyone says is great and actually is

[bamwc2]

Domino, I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's been about a decade since I last saw it, but I remember being impressed by the sophistication of the intentionally dumb humor. Thinking about Freud hitting on the teenage mall girls while holding the corn dog still makes me giggle.

[knives]

Yep, it's one of those films that everyone says is great and actually is

Further agreement. I was vaguely aware of the ending due to Lee's comments about white people and property, but I didn't realize how physically gut wrenching the moment leading up to that would be. Even if Lee had only made a bunch of She Hate Mes after that he'd still be one of the best by virtue of that ending alone. What really makes it work is how silly the film allows itself to be up until that point. Hell even the shouting match leading up to things on the surface level is another very silly thing.

[mfunk9786]

*raises hand* I haven't seen it yet. It's just eluded me to this point. Perhaps thirtyframesasecond is the man who'll change that for me by making me feel ashamed not to have done so yet.

[flyonthewall2983]

I've got nothing on Bill & Ted 1, but the sequel has one of the funnier sequences I've ever seen (probably all the more funny if you've seen The Seventh Seal).

[colinr0380]

I don't mind Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure but my overriding memory is mostly of the traumatic experience I had going to my local corner shop with a video section by myself during the school holidays, plucking up the courage to rent out the first tape I'd ever had the courage to take out without parental supervision which was this PG-rated film, and having the checkout lady interrogate me suspiciously about my age and whether the film was suitable viewing material in front of the entire store before begrudgingly letting me rent the tape. I wouldn't have minded but I was about 12 years old and it wasn't as if I was trying to rent out anything particularly adult!

I really should let the situation go after all these years (after all even the corner shop disappeared about five years ago!), but it was still one of those formative traumatic experiences of youth!

Fright Night (Tom Holland 1985) Fun, special effects-heavy vampire film that mostly works if you turn off the logic part of your brain and just let the whole affair wash over you (I know, I used the same argument against Bill and Ted, but here we are on the other end of that spectrum). I liked the performances, especially Chris Sarandon (who is always so good at being a slick villain) and of course Roddy McDowall as the b-horror movie host/actor who gets suckered into dealing with the real thing. Not nearly as good as the stylish but comparatively more serious the Lost Boys as far as 80s Vampires Next Door flicks go, but still better than expected. Plus the music is a funky treat-- I enjoyed the lyrics to the title song accompanying the end credits: "Can't you tell he's tearing us apart / I got to drive a stake through his heart"

The other interesting thing about Fright Night is the enormous and highly amusing gay 'subtext' running through it (1985 was a big year for this as Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is the other celebrated example, but I think Fright Night is much better), as the main character's best friend gets cornered in an alley by Sarandon's highly charismatic vampire, gets 'inducted into the club', later appears in our hero's room in the middle of the night trying to attack him, then after getting staked has a highly eroticised moaning and writhing death scene! (the stake being a phallic symbol, you see )

It probably doesn't help to dampen down the subtext that according to imdb the actor in this part, Stephen Geoffreys, disappeared from mainstream cinema during the 1990s and went into acting in gay porn!

[domino harvey]

Can't believe you left out the part where he's left nude by the staking. You'll never be a pedigree homoerotic subtexter with such lax observations, Colin [-X

[colinr0380]

Darn I forgot that part! The main other thing I remember about the film the last time I saw it a couple of years ago is Sarandon's great seduction of the heroine by simple intercutting between her watching while he walks back and forth across a nightclub floor a number of times!

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Alphabet City (Amos Poe, 1984): This is Knives's spotlight, and he gives a much better description of it than I ever could here. Unfortunately, I didn't sense the same magic that he did.

Himatsuri (Mitsuo Yanagimachi, 1985): Violent and repugnant lumberjack Tatsuo (Kin'ya Kitaôji) finds himself on one end of a rivalry between the mountain goddess worshiping lumberjacks and ocean goddess worshiping fishermen in a remote Japanese village. Tatsuo is angered by a newly proposed marina which he believes will put his religion's sacred mountain traditions at risk. It's this love of tradition that proves to be his undoing as his anger boils over into an explosive rage late in the film. While not a great film (though it is a good one), it is extremely effective in painting the horrors of one man's simmering rage, lack of empathy for other living things, and extreme misogyny. The film features several disturbing scenes of violence against animals that are truly disturbing.

Landscape Suicide (James Benning, 1987): After watching a handful of films by Benning over the last year, I finally feel like I've found one that I both understood and connected with on an emotional level. I'm not sure what that says about me, since the film tells the story of two quintessentially American murderers: California teen Bernadette Protti and Wisconsin ghoul Ed Gein. Their stories are recreated by actors using what I can only assume are the actual police interview logs for the film's dialogue. These scenes, however, constitute maybe a third of the film's run time with the other two thirds consisting of shots meant to convey Americana: a lone man practicing his swing by hitting balls on a tennis court, a station wagon driving through the suburbs as a preacher bellows hellfire, a commercial for a compilation of 80s hits, a deer being hunted and field dressed, etc. Though separated by the first story geographically and the second chronologically (I'm a Midwesterner who grew up in the 80s), the film still told a story of shocking violence that's nevertheless all too familiar to most Americans. It's a very easy recommendation and has a chance at appearing on my list.

Say Anything... (Cameron Crowe, 1989): Well, I'm probably the last person on this forum to finally see this movie, but now that I have, I can understand why it's proven to bean enduring sentimental favorite to so many. John Cusack stars as Lloyd Dobler an aimless high school graduate who's only ambition in life aside from becoming a kick boxing champion is to be the boyfriend of his class valedictorian, Diane Court (Ione Skye). The two quickly fall in love, but she's recently accepted a scholarship overseas and has only a handful of weeks to give to Lloyd before she must move. Matters are further complicated when her father (played by John Mahoney) finds himself at the center of an IRS investigation for bilking his nursing home clients. While the cast is great and the love story works well, I think that I found the decentness of all three of the film's main characters to be its most refreshing aspect (at least until

Spoiler

we find out that dad really done did it

), with each of them having legitimate concerns that stemmed from something other than their own weaknesses or self-centered desires. Also the film earns bonus points for working in a Don "The Dragon" Wilson reference. Every film should have at least one.

The Stunt Man (Richard Rush, 1980): Steve Railsback stars as Cameron a fugitive on the run from the law who stumbles on to director Eli Cross's (Peter O'Toole) anti-war film set. Cross agrees to hide Cameron so long as he agrees to work as the stunt double for the film's star. Of course things don't go according to plan as Cross seemingly spends his time plotting new ways to torture Cameron and drive him to the edges of sanity and even death. This is a deeply strange film, one whose oddity I cannot put into words. However, I fear that it too often uses its own weirdness as a substitute for substance. Strip away the layers of Cameron's hallucinatory experiences and what is left? Anything at all? I'm not sure, but I do know that I want to punch Eli Cross.

[Michael Kerpan]

It sounds like "Himatsuri" is not much like Yanagimachi's later "Who's Camus Anyway?".

[bamwc2]

It sounds like "Himatsuri" is not much like Yanagimachi's later "Who's Camus Anyway?".

Can't say. While that's been on my radar for some time now, I've never got around to seeing it. I'm glad that I'm rediscovering Yanagimachi in this last year year or so. I started exploring his oeuvre with a bootlegged VHS copy of Battle Royale in 2004, and hated it so much that I ignored his other work for the better part of a decade. Since I began participating in this project, I've come across some real gems of his.

[swo17]

What did Yanagimachi have to do with Battle Royale?

[bamwc2]

What did Yanagimachi have to do with Battle Royale?

Nothing. I had a brain fart and momentarily confused him with Kinji Fukasaku, a director that he has nothing in common with other than being Japanese. My comments above were actually about Fukasaku, not Yanagimachi. My mistake.

Edit: I should say that I had Fukasaku on my mind because of watching Under the Flag of the Rising Sun last night for the war project. Review coming soon.

[FerdinandGriffon]

it is extremely effective in painting the horrors of one man's simmering rage, lack of empathy for other living things, and extreme misogyny.

Don't really even know where to begin with this take on the film. Though Tatsuo is without doubt a classic Nakagami anti-hero, and therefore complex and in touch with many of the impulses most repressed/frowned upon by modern Japanese society, I don't find him to be lacking in empathy or misogynistic at all. Or even particularly angry; for the vast majority of the film's running time he's positively bubbling over with bawdy humor and joie de vivre, and his stance opposing the marina is expressed more by mischievousness and pranksterism than direct antagonism. Nor would I say that he loves tradition per se. It's more a case of him being a bit of a relic, an old soul that's in touch with a mystical aspect of nature and life that the film treats as a tangible reality. Which brings us to the events of the film's conclusion.

Spoiler

They come almost out of nowhere, and certainly not as an organic development of Tatsuo's psychology. The killings are a supernatural event, imposed upon the vessel of Tatsuo by nonhuman forces at work in and around the town, just like the oil that seems to be bubbling into the harbor from nowhere at all, or the so-called UFOs sighted by the schoolchildren.

If you like Yanagimachi's films at all or would like to gain some insight into his protagonists I'd strongly recommend reading The Cape and Other Stories, by his collaborator Kenji Nakigami, whose novels were also adapted by Kumashiro, Wakamatsu and Hasegawa.

Also, what animal cruelty are you referring to? The scene where Tatsuo is training his dogs by siccing them on a boar? That's hardly unusual or uncalled-for behavior for a hunting dog trainer, and certainly not anywhere near the worst end of the spectrum of animal cruelty in other great films. Besides, as About Love, Tokyo's slaughterhouse scenes make clear, I think Yanagimachi has a lot of concern for all life, animal included, even if he's not willing to avert his camera from practices that, though cruel, are common.

It sounds like "Himatsuri" is not much like Yanagimachi's later "Who's Camus Anyway?".

No, it's much better. For me, Camus is the weakest of the five Yanagimachis I've seen, and Himatsuri the best.

[bamwc2]

F&G, first, yes, I was referring to the dog training scene along with the casual shooting of the monkey. Having not seen About Love, Tokyo, I can't comment on it. And I will grant you that there are worse examples of animal abuse in cinema, but this is just a red herring. Just because there are worse cases, does not make a bad case excusable. The scene in which Tatsuo trains his dogs to hunt boar features a boar being terrified by three large dogs before they all bite it. There are a number of reasons why this scene was included (to show Tatsuo's preoccupation with tradition, the casual cruelty that he's capable of, etc.), but none of them necessitate the showing of this. There are many other ways to achieve these ends without having a real boar get mauled on camera.

As for Tatsuo's character, surely you must agree that there is a progression with his character. I don't think that I'd ever call him jolly, but we are treated to his descent from seeming normalcy to an explosive act of violence triggered by his disapproval over the goings on in his town. This gets documented through increased acts of cruelty toward both animals and humans in his life. If we didn't see this sort of progress, then the final act that we've both referenced would not make any sense.

[FerdinandGriffon]

The scene in which Tatsuo trains his dogs to hunt boar features a boar being terrified by three large dogs before they all bite it. There are a number of reasons why this scene was included (to show Tatsuo's preoccupation with tradition, the casual cruelty that he's capable of, etc.), but none of them necessitate the showing of this. There are many other ways to achieve these ends without having a real boar get mauled on camera.

First of all, I don't agree that Yanagimachi and Nakagami include the scene for the reasons you cite. Hunting is a natural, mundane aspect of Tatsuo's life, and of the lives of millions around the globe. It's not bloodsport, he's not siccing the dogs on the boar out of sadism, and he obviously has a lot of affection for his own animals. Secondly, I don't think that there are a number of ways to stage the scene if you consider the long take, mobile camera style that Yanagimachi uses throughout the film. He can't suddenly adopt any of the tricks or cheats that, for example, Hitchcock uses to fake the hunting or the horse execution in Marnie. And besides that, these are obviously real hunting dogs, that would be trained this way with or without the presence of the camera that is documenting the action. Which for me makes the scene more documentary than fiction, and very far from being the sort of deeply disturbing animal cruelty I've witnessed in everything from Jodorowsky to Tarkovsky.

As for Tatsuo's character, surely you must agree that there is a progression with his character. I don't think that I'd ever call him jolly, but we are treated to his descent from seeming normalcy to an explosive act of violence triggered by his disapproval over the goings on in his town. This gets documented through increased acts of cruelty toward both animals and humans in his life. If we didn't see this sort of progress, then the final act that we've both referenced would not make any sense.

I think there is a little progression in Tatsuo's character, but the film is not a character study. It's more depiction of a milieu and a way of life on the verge of being wiped out, and Tatsuo, as the epitome of many of the more unusual qualities of this world, is a natural protagonist. Where do you see a trajectory of increasing cruelty in his actions? For me, the final act doesn't make sense in terms of his psychology.

Spoiler

There's an enormous gap between hunting animals, playing pranks on his neighbors, and cheating on his wife with her knowledge and apparent approbation, to shotgunning his family and himself. And it's a gap the film doesn't even begin to fill with psychological development, or even with an escalating scale of violence.

The only thing that does prepare us for it is the supernatural element of the narrative, the escalating series of strange and inexplicable occurrences happening in town that point to an increasingly enraged, destructive, non-human presence. I'm not well-schooled enough in Japanese mythology to say exactly what's going on, but it seems evident that Tatsuo has been chosen for some kind of possession. In touch with nature, he is of course the first to lose control when nature chooses to go haywire.

[bamwc2]

F&G, let's agree that there's a difference of opinion here (especially among the hunting as I consider that to be morally impermissible unless done out of necessity for survival. Feel free to take one of my ethics courses if you're interested in debating it!), and agree that it is a very good film (though as I said, doesn't reach masterpiece status) that others ought to see.

It's my first film by the director, and you appear quite familiar with his work. Aside from Who's Camus Anyway, is there anything else that you'd recommend by him?