1980s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[Gregory]

I'm still pruning but here are my recommended titles for consideration. I'm leaving out all those that I remember already having been mentioned in this thread (I may have missed a couple) as well as Criterion titles like Missing and El Norte that should be on everyone's radar already.

In no particular order:
Zappa and Twist and Shout (August) These were the two films I offered to swap viewing a la DH's They All Laughed. Anyone else interested, feel free to post or PM me. I wrote a brief review earlier in the thread.
Repentance (Tenghiz Abuladze)
The Seventh Continent (Haneke)
Life Classes (Bill MacGillivray - available on DVD from Picture Plant in Canada)
Scum (Alan Clarke)
Looks and Smiles (Loach)
Born in Flames (Borden)
My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki)
Black Rain (Imamura)
Breaker Morant (Beresford)
Camile (María Luisa Bemberg)
Balance (the Laurensteins)
The Man Who Planted Trees (Back)
Crac! (Back)
Man Facing Southeast (Subiela)
The Times of Harvey Milk (Epstein)
Koyaanisqatsi (and perhaps Powaqatsi) (Reggio)
Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring (Berri)
Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata)
Day of the Dead (Romero)
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (Zwerin)
Style Wars (Chalfant, Silver)
Atomic Cafe (Rafferty et al)
Mea Culpa (and perhaps America is Waiting) (Conner)
Pee Wee's Big Adventure (Burton)
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (Hara)
Chameleon Street (Harris)
Eight Men Out (Sayles)
An Angel at my Table and A Girl's Own Story (Campion)
Round Midnight (Tavernier)
Mephisto (Szabó)
Mr. Hoover and I (de Antonio)
Ties that Bind, Damned if you Don't, or maybe another (Friedrich)
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (Bae)
Another Way (Makk)
Interrogation (Bugajski)
I...Dreaming and Dante Quartet (Brakhage)

[zedz]

Right now it's The Terrorizer - good luck!

It's find-able, and it definitely a top 10-er.

Which opens up the problem of the 80s. In retrospect, it was a some-what wonderful decade for film, but it was great outside of the usual suspects as far as countries and auteurs go. As a result, a lot of the great films aren't available on DVD. Even a film like The Horse Thief, despite being gushed over by every critic at the time, isn't out.

This is a key issue with this round of voting, I suspect. The most exciting filmmaking countries in the world, in my opinion, were Taiwan and Iran, but almost none of the key films from thos places are readily available.

IRAN: There's a terrible R1 disc of Makhmalbaf's The Cyclist - a pivotal film, but it might be an odd entry point. The poor French (but English subbed) disc of The Key is, I think, out of print. No Kiarostami. I think I heard that Naderi's The Runner was available somewhere, but I'd rather see Water, Wind, Dust again.

TAIWAN: There was that essential, out-of-print Hou set, but no sign of A City of Sadness, which is easily his magnum opus of the decade, even though it's probably not my favourite. [broken record]No Yang![/broken record]

And then there are all those major films and filmmakers that defined international cinema during the decade but have slipped out of currency and availability:

Raul Ruiz was possibly the greatest French-based director of the 80s. Who knows? Who's seen all thirty-something of the films he directed during that time? Only one of the films is available with English subtitles. I'd be willing to give him that title on the basis of the handful I have seen.

In Japan, there's the emergence of Sogo Ishii and Yanagimachi Mitsuo. You might be lucky enough to track down the latter's masterpiece Fire Festival / Himatsuri on VHS, but otherwise you'll need to learn Japanese.

Other major MIA films:
Horse Thief - Tian Zhuangzhuang (by far the best of the Sixth Generation films, in my opinion)
The Asthenic Syndrome - Kira Muratova (the key Russian film of the Glasnost period. It would be nice to see Kanevsky's Freeze, Die, Come to Life! too)
Stammheim - Reinhard Hauff (along with Reitz's Heimat perhaps the last gasp of the New German Cinema)

And glaring omissions from established auteurs:
Black Rain - Imamura
El Sur - Erice
Pont du nord - Jacques Rivette (my lizard brain insists that this was his best film of the decade, but it's been so long since I saw it that comparisons are futile)
There are a couple of Miklos Jancso films from the decade that sound positively hallucinatory (Jesus Christ's Horoscope and Season of Monsters, I think - it's been a while since I read about them) and quite different to his earlier work.

Which isn't taking into account idiosyncratic choices like Comrades by Bill Douglas or Nicolas Ecchevarria's post-Herzog Cabeza de Vaca, another film I don't remember quite well enough to rank. Or experimental film, which is badly represented for any decade.

[swo17]

I watched Zappa a few months ago and was pretty impressed with it. I'd say it's worth a look, for those of you still deciding which films in your queue you actually have time for.

Also, for the purposes of this project, I am officially coming out and saying that my movie which I insist you all see is Angelopoulos's Landscape in the Mist, which I mentioned on the last page. (It's OOP, but Netflix still has it.) That includes you, Domino and Gregory, since I already watched your films (natch).

Finally, re: zedz' post, anyone looking for City of Sadness, Black Rain, or El Sur, I might be able to help (PM me).

[Gregory]

Odd: I just looked over the 1980s list from 2005 and noticed that Gates of Heaven made the cut even though the date is currently listed as 1978 at IMDb. Perhaps the date was mistakenly listed as 1980 a few years ago and has since been corrected. I may have even voted for it myself during that last round. I see it didn't make the 1970s list this time -- too bad.

swo17, thanks for prompting me to see Landscape in the Mist -- I actually haven't seen that one but have been meaning to do so, and my library even has the OOP disc.

[yoshimori]

In Japan, there's the emergence of Sogo Ishii and Yanagimachi Mitsuo. You might be lucky enough to track down the latter's masterpiece Fire Festival / Himatsuri on VHS, but otherwise you'll need to learn Japanese.

There're also Oguri, whose great Kayako no tame ni probably few have seen, and of course Morita, who, in addition to the fabulous Family Game, made more two of my favorites from this decade, Sorekara [my #1 now] and Tokimeki ni shisu.

IHorse Thief - Tian Zhuangzhuang (by far the best of the Sixth Generation films, in my opinion)

Sad it's not available, but sadder still, iyam, is the MIA Chen King of the Children [though, get the amazingly beautiful r2jp and Tony Rayns' book with a translation of the script and you're set!].

Other favorite mainstreamish art-films that people haven't been talking much about: Veronika Voss, A Zedz and Two Noughts [sic], Blue Velvet, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Lola, Hail, Mary, L'argent, Mauvais sang, Drowning by Numbers, Full Metal Jacket, Colonel Redl, Stardust Memories, Where's the House of My Friend? [my sentimental favorite AK], Love Streams, Hotel Terminus, Danton, and my favorite Wajda, The Possessed.

[domino harvey]

My top five as of the latest tabulation:

They All Laughed (Bogdanovich)
My Dinner With Andre (Malle)
the Purple Rose of Cairo (Allen)
Detective (Godard)
Gang of Four (Rivette)

[thebadsleepwell]

Odd: I just looked over the 1980s list from 2005 and noticed that Gates of Heaven made the cut even though the date is currently listed as 1978 at IMDb. Perhaps the date was mistakenly listed as 1980 a few years ago and has since been corrected. I may have even voted for it myself during that last round. I see it didn't make the 1970s list this time -- too bad.

Zedz, apology for the fairly obvious question- is the film therefore not eligible?

[exte]

My top five as of the latest tabulation:

My Dinner With Andre (Malle)

OOP and very expensive on Amazon. Damn.

[domino harvey]

My top five as of the latest tabulation:

My Dinner With Andre (Malle)

OOP and very expensive on Amazon. Damn.

It was shot Academy ratio, so you might see if your library or video rental place has it on VHS

[tojoed]

My top five as of the latest tabulation:

My Dinner With Andre (Malle)

OOP and very expensive on Amazon. Damn.

... But being released by Optimum in the UK on January 1st 2009.

[Murdoch]

I've been catching up on my 80s cinema, so in no discernible order here's a sample:

City of Sadness - Hou
Better Off Dead - Savage Steve Holland
Videodrome - Cronenberg
The Sacrifice - Tarkovsky
Manhunter - Mann
Decalogue - Kieslowski
Veronika Voss - Fassbinder
Cobra Verde - Herzog
Evil Dead 2 - Raimi
Little Shop of Horrors - Frank Oz
Re-Animator - Gordon
Clue - Jonathan Lynn
Heathers - Michael Lehmann
Something Wild - Demme
Stardust Memories - Allen
Gang of Four - Rivette

[zedz]

Odd: I just looked over the 1980s list from 2005 and noticed that Gates of Heaven made the cut even though the date is currently listed as 1978 at IMDb. Perhaps the date was mistakenly listed as 1980 a few years ago and has since been corrected. I may have even voted for it myself during that last round. I see it didn't make the 1970s list this time -- too bad.

Zedz, apology for the fairly obvious question- is the film therefore not eligible?

Yep, ineligible. That old misdating was a long-standing imdb headscratcher.

[GringoTex]

The only films you listed that I haven't seen or didn't already intend to see are the Gorin film (which I can't find anywhere) and the Saura film, so I guess I'll add Blood Wedding to my queue!

Even if I wasted your time, it's only 65 minutes. Set in a single room, it's an almost real-time dress rehearsal by a fictional dance company of a real flamenco play. The almost ridiculous austerity isolates the choreography and, more importantly, the melodrama to the point of abstraction. It's distilled like alcohol and makes you drunk.

[HerrSchreck]

No love for Runaway Train(Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985)? Not number one on my list, but this is the B-picture of 80s, courtesy of the Cannon Group.

I just reminded myself of this film over on another thread. MUCH love for this film.

Adapted from a Kurosawa script, directed by Konchalovsky, with monstrous performances by Jon Voigt and Eric Roberts, with some of the most authentic prison scenes you'll ever see, it's just a great film all around. It doesn't sound like many folks around here have seen it (or maybe just don't like it)-- but if you haven't, then run don't walk!

[domino harvey]

That's actually been in my queue for the longest time. I need to increase my "at a time" number for the next month at Netflix to accommodate more films coming my way.

And the mention of Clue reminds me of how many childhood favorites deserve a second look-- I'm really interested with how the Secret of NIMH holds up, for instance

[swo17]

No love for Runaway Train(Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985)? Not number one on my list, but this is the B-picture of 80s, courtesy of the Cannon Group.

I just reminded myself of this film over on another thread. MUCH love for this film.

Adapted from a Kurosawa script, directed by Konchalovsky, with monstrous performances by Jon Voigt and Eric Roberts, with some of the most authentic prison scenes you'll ever see, it's just a great film all around. It doesn't sound like many folks around here have seen it (or maybe just don't like it)-- but if you haven't, then run don't walk!

Can you guarantee that I will not be subjected to the Soul Asylum song even once during the course of the film?

[thebadsleepwell]

And the mention of Clue reminds me of how many childhood favorites deserve a second look-- I'm really interested with how the Secret of NIMH holds up, for instance

Madeline kahn always cracks me up in "Clue". Quite sad she isn't still with us...

[HerrSchreck]

No love for Runaway Train(Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985)? Not number one on my list, but this is the B-picture of 80s, courtesy of the Cannon Group.

I just reminded myself of this film over on another thread. MUCH love for this film.

Adapted from a Kurosawa script, directed by Konchalovsky, with monstrous performances by Jon Voigt and Eric Roberts, with some of the most authentic prison scenes you'll ever see, it's just a great film all around. It doesn't sound like many folks around here have seen it (or maybe just don't like it)-- but if you haven't, then run don't walk!

Can you guarantee that I will not be subjected to the Soul Asylum song even once during the course of the film?

Yes, though by the time it ends, your hair will have stood on end so many times you may wind up looking temporarily like the lead singer from SA.

[Forrest Taft]

I just reminded myself of this film over on another thread. MUCH love for this film.

Adapted from a Kurosawa script, directed by Konchalovsky, with monstrous performances by Jon Voigt and Eric Roberts, with some of the most authentic prison scenes you'll ever see, it's just a great film all around. It doesn't sound like many folks around here have seen it (or maybe just don't like it)-- but if you haven't, then run don't walk!

Can you guarantee that I will not be subjected to the Soul Asylum song even once during the course of the film?

Yes, though by the time it ends, your hair will have stood on end so many times you may wind up looking temporarily like the lead singer from SA.

Herr Schreck, don´t forget the Shakespeare quote towards the end, a perfect way to end an already terrific film. I can´t get enough of this... Jesus, I love this film. Have to watch it again tomorrow.

[Zazou dans le Metro]

I remember, as an excitable and impressionable film student, getting steamed up over Runaway Train. I loved the opening titles with their jagged Kurosawa style wipes over block colour/solarised mattes of the train . A sort of 80's electro re-mix of Len Lye. I also remember running out to get Trevor Jones score which was the first ever cd I bought, principally to see if the version of Vivaldi was on it that featured in the film.
Unfortunately it was the 'straight' rendition which although lovely didn't have that manipulated breathy rumble that was in the sound mix= that as you say had a hair raising intensity to it..

[domino harvey]

Caught up with a couple of Coppola films:

Rumble Fish is every bit as weird and wonderful as its reputation led me to believe-- maybe even moreso. The fantastic clicking score and vibrant energy of the picture's cinematography are just overwhelming. How did he ever get away with making an art film this difficult and esoteric? There's no "in" for a viewer that doesn't accept the sheer aesthetic ballsiness of the whole affair, so this is probably a love it or hate it affair, but I happily sided with its bravura. Belongs on a shelf with Repulsion and Seconds for sheer insanity beautifully captured in widescreen black and white.

More insane but less aesthetically so is the Cotton Club. I know I called Caught the worst film by a great director a few weeks ago, but I may have spoken too soon. I estimate I spent half the running time of the film with my jaw literally open in shock at how bad the movie was. If Diane Lane could act as well as she plays dress up, this film could have been something. Of course, she and everyone else is given a horrible script (in terms of dialog, plot, story, every single damn aspect is wrecked) and the direction is sloppy, the editing confusing, and even the sets look like they cost fifty dollars, not fifty million. And the less said about the "messages," the better. I don't know if the picture could have ever been any good but it certainly didn't need to be this bad. This is a movie that lets the audience know a character is meant to be Charlie Chaplin by having him put forks in his dinner rolls in the middle of a scene. Avoid at all costs.

[Yojimbo]

Caught up with a couple of Coppola films:

Rumble Fish is every bit as weird and wonderful as its reputation led me to believe-- maybe even moreso. The fantastic clicking score and vibrant energy of the picture's cinematography are just overwhelming. How did he ever get away with making an art film this difficult and esoteric? There's no "in" for a viewer that doesn't accept the sheer aesthetic ballsiness of the whole affair, so this is probably a love it or hate it affair, but I happily sided with its bravura. Belongs on a shelf with Repulsion and Seconds for sheer insanity beautifully captured in widescreen black and white.

More insane but less aesthetically so is the Cotton Club. I know I called Caught the worst film by a great director a few weeks ago, but I may have spoken too soon. I estimate I spent half the running time of the film with my jaw literally open in shock at how bad the movie was. If Diane Lane could act as well as she plays dress up, this film could have been something. Of course, she and everyone else is given a horrible script (in terms of dialog, plot, story, every single damn aspect is wrecked) and the direction is sloppy, the editing confusing, and even the sets look like they cost fifty dollars, not fifty million. I don't know if the picture could have ever been any good but it certainly didn't need to be this bad. This is a movie that lets the audience know a character is meant to be Charlie Chaplin by having him put forks in his dinner rolls in the middle of a scene. And the less said about the "messages," the better. Avoid at all costs.

'Camus for kids' is how Coppola referred to 'Rumble Fish'
btw, it was only when watching the DVD in the past year or so that I realised that was Sofia, playing Diane Lane's kid sister
(and in his commentary, its clear how proud he is of his daughter).
Didn't care for 'Cotton Club', either.
Apart from the Hines' Bros tap dancing.

[GringoTex]

Something Wild by Jonathan Demme
This and They All Laughed were huge revelations for me. They pick up where Altman's 70s comedies left off and take it to the next level. I suddenly feel I've been missing out on all that was great in 80s American cinema. I grew up on a ranch in rural West Texas during the 80s, a hundred miles from the nearest theater and with one snowy tv channel. So I had no movie exposure at the time and must have carried over that huge blank spot to my movie education years, because I never really sought out 80s American cinema like I'm doing now. This is fun.

Walker by Cox
Hated this film. The argument scene between Walker and his wife near the beginning is so touching and honestly rendered, it dseflates the cartoonish political tract that comes after. The continuous music soundtrack was like paper mache surrounding a big ball of nothing.

[Yojimbo]

Something Wild by Jonathan Demme
This and They All Laughed were huge revelations for me. They pick up where Altman's 70s comedies left off and take it to the next level. I suddenly feel I've been missing out on all that was great in 80s American cinema. I grew up on a ranch in rural West Texas during the 80s, a hundred miles from the nearest theater and with one snowy tv channel. So I had no movie exposure at the time and must have carried over that huge blank spot to my movie education years, because I never really sought out 80s American cinema like I'm doing now. This is fun.

Walker by Cox
Hated this film. The argument scene between Walker and his wife near the beginning is so touching and honestly rendered, it dseflates the cartoonish political tract that comes after. The continuous music soundtrack was like paper mache surrounding a big ball of nothing.

'Something Wild' has a great soundtrack: I have it on vinyl, although I don't think I have it on CD.
I particularly love 'Wild Thing' by Sister Carol, and the reggae and World music tracks.

I prefer 'Melvin and Howard' to 'Something Wild' the film, though.

[colinr0380]

"Does Big Brother exist?"
"Of course he exists"
"Does he exist like you or me?"
"You do not exist"

I thought before the 80s list was over it would be appropriate to watch Nineteen Eighty-Four again! I would agree with the DVD Savant review that the one problem the film had was creating a faithful adaptation of a book whose themes had been cannibalised over the previous 36 years by other works with varying degrees of acknolwedgement and then having a darkly comic version of the same material released the next year in Brazil.

However I liked the film a lot more than Erickson, and respected its intention of fidelity to the text (ironically the one area in which Nineteen Eighty-Four didn't work for me was in the portrayal of bureaucratic behaviour in Smith's work while this is an enormous part of Brazil's plot - something which lets the films play as good companion pieces). While Lowry's flights of fantasy were spectacular interpretations of (terrifying in a different way) mundane reality, Smith's fantasies are remembrances of real events and fantasies of the most limited kind (a green field). There's no escape into your fantasy allowed in the Orwell novel or Radford's film version - that is not an acceptable choice. I suppose it is hard to think of Gilliam's film as having a happy ending but compared to Nineteen Eighty-Four it does.

I've always found interesting the way that the society of Oceania allows people the chances to destroy themselves with illicit material (perhaps a comment on the way society officially abhors drugs and drinking yet tacitly enourages people to take such things through encouraging the escape through alcohol and taxing the more 'acceptable' types of drugs, in order to then have individuals to condemn for the consequences of this behaviour). The room in the antique shop and O'Brien handing Smith the Newspeak dictionary with a copy of Goldstein's seditious work pasted behind each page seem to act as honey traps to test their subject's loyalty. To accept without question isn't enough (as it is in Brazil), you have to give your unqestioning love fully to whatever is the current whim of the party.

The performances are magnificent. I don't think I've seen John Hurt be better (which is saying a lot) and it is a wonderfully dark memoriam for Richard Burton playing the ultimate father figure, only being cruel for your own good and to facilitate your personal development.

It was interesting to note seeing the film again after a few years that V For Vendetta seems to have been influenced by it. Natalie Portman's head shaving humiliation scene is filmed in the same way as John Hurt's was, and of course Hurt plays the Big Brother figure himself in that film.

This may be reading too much into it but Suzanna Hamilton's breathtaking first nude scene in the little room, where she unzipps her boiler suit and steps out of it while walking towards the camera, seemed to bear a strange resemblance to a similarly infamous scene from the first Charlie's Angels film! I've no idea whether the two films have any thematic connection though!