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

[swo17]

What zedz said. Also, I don't know enough about Forbrydelsen to say which side it falls on, but I can categorically state that it's not eligible for the '80s list!

[zedz]

What zedz said. Also, I don't know enough about The Killing to say which side it falls on, but I can categorically state that it's not eligible for the '80s list!

Well, what if I vote for it anyway, huh? Along with my handpicked selection of the 17 best Deadwood episodes? YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

[domino harvey]

You heard swo, A Short Film About Killing is not eligible for the 80s list!

[swo17]

Your post makes no sense.

[domino harvey]

To be fair, before you edited it, your post was a surprisingly hearty argument for the return of agrarian society

[ohtani's jacket]

Can we participate in this even if we're new to the forum and have never made a post before? I only discovered this site recently when I was capping off a 50s poll ballot for another website and would love to participate.

[domino harvey]

Of course. Contribute write-ups and defenses and weigh in on others' viewings and comments, since the ballot itself is not due til September. Welcome!

[swo17]

Can we participate in this even if we're new to the forum and have never made a post before?

Absolutely! Just make sure to familiarize yourself with the rules and protocol summarized in the first post of this thread. There's still about four months left until the deadline, so plenty of time still to explore and discuss the '80s.

EDIT: domino beat me to it.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Satyajit Ray is still going strong in the 80s. 'The Home and the World' is a terrific film, a political and domestic drama set in the aftermath of the 1905 partition of Bengal and the turmoil that follows.

Has anyone seen 'The Deliverance' or 'An Enemy of the People'? Are they worth trying?

[bamwc2]

Satyajit Ray is still going strong in the 80s. 'The Home and the World' is a terrific film, a political and domestic drama set in the aftermath of the 1905 partition of Bengal and the turmoil that follows.

Has anyone seen 'The Deliverance' or 'An Enemy of the People'? Are they worth trying?

Here's an old review of all three films that I wrote a few years back.

[colinr0380]

I'd like to recommend the terribly conservative but amusing 1982 TV film Mazes and Monsters, which is an early Tom Hanks film (just after his debut in slasher He Knows You're Alone). It is cashing in on the apparent big media fear of the time of the dangers of Dungeons & Dragons-style role playing games causing sensitive kids to entirely lose their grip on reality. Hanks plays a sensitive loner dumped by his horrible parents at a boarding school, and who gets befriended by the local nerd fraternity (just as dangerous as any other gang) who introduce him to the intoxicating and illicit world of RPG larping. Unfortunately it all proves too much and leads to Hanks going dangerously lunatic to the extent that the finale:

Spoiler

takes place on the top of the World Trade Center as Hanks, deep in his fantasy-world, almost hurls himself off the top! He gets talked down, but in a coda that is just as jaw-droppingly nutty, he is shown being visited by his friends, wandering the grounds in a dressing gown having completely retreated into fantasy!

You have been warned! Don't get dressed up as knights to battle imaginary dragons: just abuse alcohol and drugs instead!

[domino harvey]

I used to watch it all the time when I was younger because my mom taped it (in EP mode, of course) on the same cassette as perennial favorite Creepshow (recorded off Fox which cut out the entire final cockroach segment), but I can remember nothing about it now! I think I tried looking for it once and was greeted with a bunch of PD releases, to which my normal response is to move on

[YnEoS]

Rachel Zen

Till We Meet Again (1981)
Cream Soda & Milk (1981)
Born to Live (1984)
Hearth & Home (1987)


Most of the Hong Kong New Wave directors started out working in television and then quickly moved on to making feature films. Rachel Zen, however only ever made 3 films and stayed in television for the majority of her career, which is probably why she isn't very well known outside of Hong Kong. Very little of her work is available on DVD, so it’s difficult to draw any definitive conclusions about her style. From what I've seen it seems she pretty consistently makes realistic portraits examining social issues of Hong Kong society, and like many other Hong Kong filmmakers tends to focus on sketching out elaborate community and family relations rather than on driving narrative. However I think the strength of her work is her meticulous and detailed look at society in which situations are brought up not simply for dramatic effect, but to show the variety of ways they affect the interactions between the dense variety of characters that inhabit her films.

Till We Meet Again (1981) is a 45 minute episode from the TV show Faces and Places, that follows the story of two teenage girls as they discover the joys and dangers of mixing birth control, disco, and Andy Lau. One ends up pregnant and forced into an early unhappy marriage, the other becomes a prostitute, and they meet up again at various stages of their life. Cream Soda & Milk (1981) is her first feature film and the only one available on DVD. It begins by setting up a loose narrative structure around two young siblings separated by their parents divorce, and the sister’s efforts to find her brother after she's grown up. Most of the film sidetracks and meanders through a rich variety of side characters and ends up being one of the most absorbing portraits of Hong Kong society I’ve ever seen from this era.

The next two of her available works were made for the Below the Lion Rock television series and are essentially full 90 minute films split over two 45 minute episodes.

Born to Live (1984) is a careful examination of several characters with varying physical deformities, and shows some of the tensions that arise when people with widely different problems and capabilities are grouped together by society without any attention to their specific situation. This is shown amongst other human conditions that cause one to be dependent on others like old age or pregnancy. The second half might be a bit over sentimental and with one too many singing scenes. Though the film ends with a scene of Rachel Zen interviewing the two main actors and asking them some rather frank questions about how their characters relate to their actual personalities and if they worry about some of the issues brought up in the film.

Hearth & Home (1987) is much more focused in scope than the other available films. It follows the story of a woman coming to Hong Kong from mainland china to live with her boyfriend, when she’s kidnapped and forced into prostitution by the triads. Her second life is told all through montages of still images with voice over narration. The majority of the film shows the couple living together over a wide span of time with no hope of alleviating the situation ever being presented. Not as sidetracked by Rachel Zen's usual wider societal view, this is perhaps her most acute and detailed examination of a relationship.

DVD releases
Till We Meet Again is packaged with another Faces and Places episode directed by Clara Law
Cream Soda & Milk
Born to Live and Hearth & Home were released in a box set together

*I believe these TV episodes are eligible because they're 100% isolated stories with no connection to other episodes in the shows. If not, well this guide is going to be really really short.

[Feego]

I attempted to reconnect with one of my own 80s childhood favorite last night (knowing good and well that it has no chance of making my list), but I just couldn't get through it. It was the 1985 TV miniseries Alice in Wonderland, produced by Irwin Allen and boasting 36 celebrity guest stars. I remember watching this so many times as a child, but after enduring the first 20 minutes or so, I found myself just skipping through to the best/cheesiest/weirdest parts. This is a movie that, although it actually sticks pretty closely to the original books, is intended to simply showcase the various celebrities' schtick. The cast is a veritable who's who of stars most likely to appear on "The Love Boat," including Sammy Davis Jr., Scott Baio, Sid Caesar, Ringo Starr, Pat Morita, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, and even a young John Stamos. You'll get to hear the likes of Imogene Coca and Telly Savalas sing very badly, and watch as Donald O'Connor and Shelley Winters -- both in full bird costume -- act as background dancers to a musical number led by Sherman Hemsley.

But the best/worst part is Carol Channing as the White Queen. Eric Henderson at Slant Magazine has cheekily called her performance here "one of the three or four greatest performances ever caught on film," and it is something to behold. Here's her big showcase, which starts out draw-jopping and ends on nightmarish.

[swo17]

I believe these TV episodes are eligible because they're 100% isolated stories with no connection to other episodes in the shows.

Probably. Was that the nature of these TV shows, that each episode was isolated from the others? I know we've allowed, say, episodes of The Twilight Zone for the genre projects, but do we allow them here too? I don't know, I'm so confused.

[domino harvey]

Are they anthology shows, with different casts and free-standing storylines each week (ie no recurring elements outside of the format/intro/end credits)? Then it should be okay if you're using the Genre lists' Anthology rule. But the wording is strange: just because the events don't impact other episodes, if they star characters/sets/worlds already in play in other episodes, its episodic television and not eligible. It's the difference between the X-Files (which has stand alone episodes but recurring characters, so not eligible) and Tales From the Darkside (same format week to week, but no recurring characters or setting)

[YnEoS]

My impression is that these are anthology shows based around the theme of giving the viewer a look into different lives of ordinary people living in Hong Kong. Each episode is a completely new story, setting, and characters and most of the DVD releases are grouped by who directed the episodes with no attempt to present the episodes in the sequence they were actually broadcast in.

[domino harvey]

Sounds like it should be okay then, assuming swo carries over the anthology rule

[swo17]

I suppose I will, barring any protests.

[swo17]

But now for my first SPOTLIGHT:

Cycling the Frame (Cynthia Beatt, 1988): This has been a favourite of mine ever since I first saw it on TV in the late 80s. I almost feel like calling this half-hour film a city symphony for a solo instrumentalist. It shows a very young Tilda Swinton - who is already pretty iconic - cycling around 'the frame', i.e. the Berlin Wall, on a hot summer's day. From the Brandenburg Gate we quickly follow her into lesser known parts of the city and get her thoughts about the divided city via voice-over. She's clearly a stranger to the town, bringing a fresh view to the cityscape (and it's very charming when she tries to read German posters, for instance), and her reflections often have a lyrical and meditative character. It's a pretty simple but very beautiful film, showing us unusual sights of the town, and it also makes you aware how 'green' Berlin actually is. But with the 'frame' always looming, it's also a testament to an era which thankfully would be over only two years later.
The film is available as an extra on a German disc which has "The Invisible Frame" (2009) as its major item, which is basically a re-make of the same bike tour twenty years later. It's also good, but still Cycling The Frame is the more immediately touching film. The disc seems to come with all sorts of subs, but you won't need them, as the film is in English in spite of being a German production.

I just thought I'd mention that this DVD is also available in R1 from Icarus Films.

[the preacher]

My spotlight: Oro, Plata, Mata / Gold, Silver, Death (Peque Gallaga, 1982)

Set in the Philippine province of Negros during World War II, it tells the story of how two haciendero families cope with the changes brought about by the war.

Gold
Model: The Godfather
The film starts with a birthday celebration showing aristocracy and leisure Filipinos are experiencing under the American regime (extravagant parties, mansions full of servants, banquet tables groaning heavily with food).

Silver
Model: The Rules of the Game
Since both of the families have enough resources to support their needs during the war, they transfer to a provincial townhouse (fields of grain, hordes of water buffalo, a rooftop observatory under the vast constellated night sky).

Death
Model: Gone with the Wind, but R-rated!
As they move to their isolated (yet still very much unsafe) bungalow at the forest, they are constantly baffled with different disturbances (guerrilla-related).

It's beautifully structured, with the trajectory of the families' fate described in the title (gold, silver, death), and the characters are fascinatingly conceived. The greatest Pinoy film of all time.

The film has been restored and re-mastered last year and it's now available in pristine condition.

http://youtu.be/g7Pl_4M-6aI

[swo17]

A heads-up: knives' spotlight Alphabet City, which Netflix has tagged as having a "short wait" since the project began, will be airing on TCM very early this coming Saturday morning.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

The Falls (Peter Greenaway, 1980): Greenaway's second feature length work is, like his previous film Vertical Features Remake, a pseudodocumentary. This time the subject is a disastrous futuristic occurrence that struck Europe known as the "Violent Unknown Event" [VOE], which has resulted in any number of abnormalities for the thousands effected by it. Narrator Adam Leys chronicles the bizarre reactions which can include death, immortality, immortality, transformation into birds, the ability to speak new languages, a variety of malformations, and superpowers. The title refers to the fact that the sample here only include those whose last name starts with "FALL". This examination clocks in at over three hours, however, the film never drags for too long and the variety of interesting fictional subjects helps to keep the film from feeling boring. I liked this one a lot. In fact, I loved this one as much as I hated Vertical Features Remake in the last decade project. Any who are remotely interested should check it out.

L'héritage de la chouette (Chris Marker, 1989-1990): This thirteen part miniseries, which aired on French television at the end of the 80s, chronicles all things Greek. Marker's particular focus though, is the ancient world, examining Greek culture based on broad themes like mythology, misogyny, etc. Each episode is composed of talking heads--mostly academics, but occasionally a famous Greek like Theo Angelopoulos or Elia Kazan will pop up. But, wow, are these ever excellent! And it's not as if there are any low points in the run. Each episode maintains the same high level of mixing interesting observations, historical analysis, and cheeky editing from Marker. My only regret for this series is that I can't track down subtitles for episode 13 which covers philosophy. #-o

Un jeu brutal (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1983): Another Brisseau film, but it's another one that I enjoyed. This time the focus is on Isabelle (Emmanuelle Debever) a disabled teenager whose life is a mix of sexual frustration and violent impulses that find her torturing insects and fantasizing about bombing cafes. One day when her grandmother dies her ex-scientist father Christian (Bruno Cremer) reenters her life and tries to tame her by locking her up and denying her food for days at a time. Christian has his own problems, though, as he's a schizophrenic serial killer of children (I won't reveal why since we find out the bizarre explanation in the film's penultimate scene). Her life changes when she gets a new therapist, but only because she develops a crush on her lover after he saves her life. What follows is a fascinating portrait of two broken people living desperate lives. Cremer delivers another great performance in here with his physical presence looming in every scene, casting a shadow of danger that is far different from the one that he cast in Sound & Fury.

Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980): Redford's directorial debut tells the story of three members of a family broken by the tragic death of one of their own. Before the film begins, the family's oldest son drowns while boating. Conrad (Timothy Hutton) blames himself for for his brother's death and unsuccessfully tries to kill himself after being overcome by the guilt of failing to save him. His parents (played by Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore) once had an ideal marriage, but find themselves drifting apart after the traumas in their lives. Can Conrad learn to overcome his grief and guilt with the help of his therapist (Judd Nelson) and his new girlfriend (Elizabeth McGovern)? Can his parents stay together? This wasn't the snooze fest that I was expecting after reading some of the views on the site, but it's also not a very exiting drama. Little happens in the film, but I could go either way on it given the strong central performances. I guess that I'll land on the "watch if you're interested" side of the debate.

The Satin Slipper (Manoel de Oliveira, 1985): This epic seven hour film is the second film by de Oliveira that I've watched for the project. Like his subsequent Os Canibais, the director seems to enjoy tormenting us with extended periods of drudgery that are ultimately redeemed by some of the most amazing moments in cinema that one can envision. This time the film is an adaptation of Paul Claudel's play of 16th century Spanish intrigue and greed. There are simply far too many characters and plot lines to synopsize in this, but needless to say a straight recreation of the play itself would have been torturous. Fortunately de Oliveira rescues the viewer by giving us a film that is intermittently gorgeous with some of the most beautiful set designs that you'll ever see. Sadly this was undercut by the VHS rip that I found online, but I'm sure that a theatrical presentation or a full restoration would be amazing.

Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Guy Maddin, 1988): Clocking in at the other end of the length spectrum, we have Guy Maddin's feature debut which runs at barely over an hour. Here the film uses a dying woman recounting her memories as the framing device for a story of two men (Kyle McCulloch and Michael Gottli) infected with an unidentified plague in early twentieth century Iceland. The two men spend the duration of the film isolated in a hospital ward until things get more intense in the film's final act. In this one Maddin apes early talkies, with special focus on German expressionistic techniques. While this feels like old hat to us today, it surely must have seemed revolutionary when it debuted in '88. Like most of Maddin's films (I've only his most recent to see), I enjoyed it. I wouldn't say that it's his best or his worst, but exists somewhere in the happy middle.

Tampopo (Jûzô Itami, 1985): My second Itami film of the project tells the story of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) a sweet Japanese noodle cook whose charm and tasty food convinces a group of men to band together to renovate a noodle shop on her behalf. Chief among them is the mysterious drifter Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) whose tough guy swagger seems like it channeled the Clint Eastwood's roles in The Man with No Name trilogy. While aspects of the film play like a traditional western as well, Itami has too much fun with his characters for it to be shoehorned into any particular genre with much of the film just coming off as goofy fun. Itamai also cuts away from the main narrative several times to tell side stories that are all similarly centered on the love of food. This one is a lot of fun, and comes as a very easy recommendation, though I suspect that most members of the board have already seen it.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (Charlotte Zwerin, 1988): This documentary delivers exactly what the title promises, hence your enjoyment will likely depend on how compelling you find the subject. Mixing footage of life performances with biographical data and interviews with those close to him, the film does come off as an authoritative look at the life of the jazz great. I can't say this without feeling like a Philistine, but I've never been a big jazz fan, and while I can appreciate Monk's talent with the piano, it just never moved me the way other genres have. I didn't get much out of this one, but I can easily see others loving it.

Le Voyage en Douce (Michel Deville, 1980): This film, which Google unhelpfully tells me is translated as "The Freshwater Journey", follows two 30-something friends as they travel about the French countryside. Hélène (Dominique Sanda) lives in a cramped Paris apartment with her husband and two children. Her childhood friend Lucie (Geraldine Chaplin) is staying with them as the two prepare for a week away from the domestic life. They soon depart and take up residence in a lovely bed and breakfast far outside of the big city. While there they spend most of their time talking about sex for pretty much the whole film. Sex with men, masturbation, their experiences as rape survivors, and their sexual feelings for one another. I don't mean to reduce the film to something it's not. The film is quite fascinating in how it explores their relationship and how they goad each other into always one upping the other with their frankness. But they really do send the film just talking about sex. It's still a fascinating portrait of the characters and how they relate to one another.

[Shrew]

Chameleon Street (Harris, 1989)
Well, this thing is just great, isn’t it? Despite its (too quiet) acclaim from nearly all quarters, the terrible hypercolor DVD cover made me apprehensive about opening it up. I was also expecting something much more lo-fi or rough, where a singular strong voice made up for deficiency in filmmaking technique. But this is an amazingly competent debut—balancing a variety of experimental editing techniques and efficient shooting, allowing for small flourishes (like the FantomasJudex costume party) without getting sloppily overambitious (it helps that Harris’s voice and the diction of his narration sound not unlike Orson Welles). Harris also gives a great central performance, ideally suited to the role—he reminds me of Teshigahara saying he wanted Nakudai for the lead of Face of Another because of his “unnaturally smooth face, like a lizard” (see also Harris’s lip-licking tic). It plays out like a modern picaresque, shifting style and mood with each episode, exploring how much performance is essential to our ideas of class and race and identity beyond.

If there are any sour notes in the film, they come from some of the amateur actors on the sidelines (the psychologist in the opening scene in particular seems to be vacillating between “pompous white guy” and “plain bad actor”) and the problematic roles of the women in Street’s life, especially Gabrielle in the film’s final act. Still, the film's fate is a tragedy (this is the sort of thing begging for the attention a Criterion release could bring), and this is a lock for my list.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (Greenaway 1989)
This is only my 3rd or 4th film by Greenaway, and I can’t say I’ve gotten a clear handle on how to process his films yet. On a purely aesthetic level, the film is easy to praise, and its grotesque ending is wonderfully operatic (or Grand Guignol?). But the clashing elements (here Gambon’s whole blustering performance) and repetition feel like sensory overload. Wherever you stand vis-a-vis the little meta-joke about losing interest in a film once the characters begin talking, I was relieved when the lovers began to talk here, if only to break up the relentless 1-2 pounding of Gambon’s shout and the child soprano (later, again I assume as a bit of self-awareness, asked to politely be quiet). Overall, this is a film I can appreciate and respect, but I’m just not yet sure if I can like the damn thing.

History of the World Part 1 (Mel Brooks, 1981)
Here’s a change of pace. So Mel Brooks never saw a double entendre he couldn’t undouble. This is a great for a kid, as you finally have someone guiding you through all these dirty jokes your parents are snickering at, but it gets old as an adult. There’s also the problem where occasionally Brooks does strike on something funny (i.e., his banal version of the Last Supper) but never develops it beyond one or two quick gags before moving on to another joke that could just as easily miss as hit. That said, I found History of the World mildly amusing, but I have no desire to watch it again.

To Be or Not to Be (Alan Johnson, 1983)
But while I’d much sooner just watch the Lubitsch again and again, Brooks’ To Be or Not to Be isn’t really bad at all. It’s a bit like watching a revival Broadway cast or a talented local theater put on a big show. The material still mostly works, and there are some surprisingly good elements (Brooks’ performance is hammier and less perfectly-timed than Benny’s, but it plays to his strengths anyway), but the whole thing has an overly theatrical feel, and a keen awareness of the original’s shadow. Bancroft has done some great things, but she’s not Carole Lombarde. Her scenes with Jose Ferrer (who more than anyone just seems to be reciting lines from the original without bothering to make them his own) are painfully awkward. Overall, despite making the various relationships more explicit, the film feels drained of sex, as if all Selinsky really wants to do with Bronski is take her out for that dinner.

Oddly for a remake, what works best are the additions, which don’t feel superfluous. Unlike Lubitsch, the film has history on its side, and can clearly see the terrible peril that faces the Jewish characters and openly acknowledge the plight of homosexuals. But instead of being daunted by the horror of knowledge, it weaves them in as—dare I say it—Lubitsch himself may have done, with a surprising amount of grace, considering they end up dressed as clowns.

[bamwc2]

Shrew, I'm glad that you liked my spotlight pick! The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is another likely top ten finisher for me. I hope that I'm not the only one voting for it.