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oh yeah wrote:Would Lumet's Prince of the City be too well-known for a spotlight film? It is hard to say because it seems at once highly acclaimed and yet strangely obscured, even by film buffs. In any case, I would certainly place it in my top five or so of the decade.

It's called the "Spotlight" section, not the "Spotlight?" section. I need you to state one way or the other if you want it there. For what it's worth, I haven't seen it.

swo17 wrote:

oh yeah wrote:Would Lumet's Prince of the City be too well-known for a spotlight film? It is hard to say because it seems at once highly acclaimed and yet strangely obscured, even by film buffs. In any case, I would certainly place it in my top five or so of the decade.

It's called the "Spotlight" section, not the "Spotlight?" section. I need you to state one way or the other if you want it there. For what it's worth, I haven't seen it.

I have. It's not going to come close to making my list, but it's certainly worth seeing.

the Black Snail (Claude Chabrol 1988) If you've seen the two theatrical Inspector Lavardin flic flicks Chabrol directed this decade, then you have a good idea what lies in store for you in this made for TV third feature-length outing with the colorful crime-solver. The mystery involving a serial killer who leaves black-painted snails at all of his or her crime scenes is dumb and no one seems to mind much (I didn't either) as this base mystery plot is really just an excuse to let Jean Poiret's Lavardin run around, being rude and no-nonsense and frequently entertaining. This is as low on the totem pole as it gets for Chabrol before we veer off into "Bad," but no one makes a charming lark quite like Chabrol.

the Fan (Edward Bianchi 1981) Just because you get Lauren Bacall and James Garner to star in your slasher movie doesn't mean you've suddenly made a top shelf picture, but someone forgot to tell the humorless sorts who conjured up this pretty tame tale of Michael Beihn's obsessive fan killing those close to Bacall in order to prove his loyalty and love. For fans of Maureen Stapleton getting slashed across the face with a straight-razor only.

Wish You Were Here (David Leland 1987) Emily Lloyd has proven to be one of the greatest discoveries for me from the current concurrent list projects, and her performance here is more than enough reason to recommend this post-war set Brit film about a free-spirited foul-mouthed coquette who traipses through life footloose and ready to offend. This works much better in the film's first half, when Lloyd is allowed to run wild and make foolish decisions without much real-world impact. But, alas, the film falls into a more conventional tack as its narrative emerges, and while I bought into the direction it takes, I couldn't help but be disappointed the spirit of the first half couldn't be maintained for something more deserving of its heroine. Other than Lloyd, the film does also offer some smart visual wit throughout, and there's a certain looseness to the proceedings that makes one want to forgive it its predictable trespasses a bit. I heartily advise watching the film for Lloyd, but unlike In Country, the rest of the film isn't quite up to snuff with her.

Nina Menkes

Here's some recommendation for the first two films (all she made in the 1980s) by this outstanding Israeli/American filmmaker.

The Great Sadness of Zohara (1983): Menkes' debut film, mid-length, set the tone for almost all of her work to come. Set in Jerusalem, the film shows us a young Jewish woman who is obviously alienated from her surroundings, and/or suffers from depression. We see her leaving her apartment, wandering aimlessly through the streets, cutting her hair in what is probably a gesture of self-mutilation, going out into the desert, where loneliness at least seems to yield some sort of relief, then returning to the city, where nothing much seems to have changed for her. Entirely without dialogue, but the film has a soundtrack where multi-layered female voices recite verses from the Book of Job, combined with occasional chant and rumbling electronic soundscapes. Very much like an early Current 93 record.The result is disturbing and intense, especially as the images of the film are extremely beautiful in places. This is a film about inner worlds and about spiritual search, and it's 'meaning' is perfectly clear, though hard to pin down. An amazing debut.

Magdalena Viraga (1986): Menkes' first full-length feature expands on themes of the earlier film, though the setting is now Los Angeles. Filmed in the same stark style (mostly with static camera, but with excellently set-up framing, and very sparse on-screen dialogue), the film is about a prostitute who hates her work and who eventually kills her pimp and is sentenced to death. But like Zohara, the film is basically about the inner world of a (mentally disturbed?) woman, only that the feminist angle is much more pronounced here. The protagonist's final self-assertion, repeating the words "I am a witch", has both a political and a spiritual/religious meaning (the whole film abounds in references to religious concepts, too). Like the earlier film, it's hard to pin down in a 'logical' manner, and it isn't an easy film, but it's extremely powerful and for me one of the major 'experimental' films of the 1980s. Quite definitely in the upper half of my list.

Viewing Log:

The Age of the Earth (Glauber Rocha, 1980): Rocha's final film is an anarchic and free form examination of socialist utopian fantasies and religious/capitalist/colonial realities (still told through a fantastical lens) in Latin America. The plot (if it can be called that) centers on a US carpetbagger named Brahms (Maurício do Valle) whose presence is Brazil is purely exploitative and destructive. He goes from threatening to rape men in one scene, to fervently embracing and kissing statues of the saints in a fit of religious ecstasy in another, to threatening the murder of his own family soon thereafter. There are also a quartet of Christ figures found throughout the film (Indian, Black, Military, and Revolutionary) that never share screen time with each other or Brahms. However, their presence seems to be there to counterbalance the evil done by the Western imperialist, as the Christs are focused on the spiritual and economic liberation of the destitute in the region. I can't give a synopsis beyond this, because that's basically all that I understood. Still, it's a pretty unforgettable experience even if it does get bogged down with a twenty minute long exposition of Marxist principles in the film's first act.

After the Rehearsal (Ingmar Bergman, 1984): One of the five made for television films from Bergman in the 80s, After the Rehearsal stands as one of the most prototypical (Bergmanian?) of all of his works. Bergman regular Erland Josephson stars as what I can only assume to be a stand in for the director himself: filmmaker and stage director Henrik Vogler. Volger is a talented man, but also quick to anger and prone to using people. One day after rehearsing a play, Anna Egerman (Lena Olin), the daughter of two former members of his theater troupe, uses false pretenses to meet with him on stage. As it turns out, Volger once carried on an affair with her self-destructive mother years ago. Volger still has feelings for the dead woman, but Egerman despises her after watching her kill herself with alcohol. The film then takes a lengthy detour into reenacting Vogler's final meeting with the mother Rakel (Ingrid Thulin) while Anna sits quietly on stage. In the end nothing is resolved. The two leads are still miserable and in the same positions as they were at the beginning, yet Bergman's skill as both a writer and director leads to a genuine feeling of denouement even though there hasn't been any real progression or growth (though there is some ickiness in the third act). Not the best of his films from decade by a long shot, but still a great work from Bergman.

Bad Taste (Peter Jackson, 1987): Peter Jackson's debut is a sometimes fun microbudget mess about aliens looking to turn humanity into livestock and open up an intergalactic fast food chain. The story centers on a group of friends who uncover a small New Zealand town that has been wiped out by the invaders. They then spend the course of the film's run time engaged in intermittently amusing antics fighting the aliens and trying to save humanity. Unfortunately for the film, it's biggest laughs stem from its own incompetent special effects that are so bad that their overthetop gruesomeness actually feel charming in an Ed Woodish kind of way. I've never been a fan of Jackson's work (though I haven't seen his lauded Heavenly Creatures yet--a lock for viewing in the next decade project!), but this one did have a charming vibe coming from a hapless lover of cinema that his big budget Tolkien adaptations lack. At least it had that going for it, but don't expect much else.

Days of Eclipse (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1988): I actually watched this one early on for the project, but just realized that I never reviewed it. So, here goes from memory. In a nearly inaccessible narrative, Aleksei Ananishnov stars as Malyanov, a young Russian doctor transplanted to Turkmenistan to study the longevity of a certain members of the native population. As the film transitions back and forth from color to sepiatone, our protagonist undergoes a series of strange events ranging from testing an unknown gelatinous substance to seemingly supernatural occurrences. What is happening to him and does it all have a rational explanation? Sokurov never really answer the questions for us. Instead of holding our hands throughout the process (as many directors would be so inclined to do), he's instead content to give us the mysteries and let us do with them as we may. It can be a frustrating experience for an audience like myself who's used to being spoon fed answers to them, but the journey is always fascinating, so it's an easy recommendation.

Memories of Marriage (Kaspar Rostrup, 1989): Frits Helmuth and Ghita Nørby star as Karl and Regitze Åage in this story about...um, memories from their marriage. When the film begins, the quiet, but irascible Karl and his doting wife hold an annual party at their house for friends and family. As the days slip by them, Karl reflects back on the many experiences that the couple shared from being young lovers in WWII to the birth of their children to his wife's passionate defense of her family and the graceful ease with which she an forgive his shortcomings. This is all tempered by the film's ending where...

Spoiler

Regitze is diagnosed with an untreatable cancer and given six months to live. Even here, she insists on carrying on the traditions of their lives and holding their annual spring garden party in the wake her decline.

It's a melancholy film, but a very well done one at that. Never too maudlin or even overly sentimental (which it may sound like given my synopsis), Rostrup delivers a film that feels warm, familiar, and welcoming to all those in long term relationships.

Sound and Fury (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1988): Up to now I was only familiar with Brisseau's more recent erotic films (Secret Things and Exterminating Angels), so I was more than a little surprised by this tale of a sensitive latchkey child torn between three worlds. When we first meet the film's protagonist 13-year old Bruno (Vincent Gasperitsch) he's on his way to his mother's apartment. She's absent for the duration of the film, attending to the affairs of her recently departed mother. Instead, Bruno's only companion in these early scenes are a canary named Superman and a mysterious apparition played by María Luisa García. Most of the film treats her appearances (where Superman is also present as a hawk) as a his prepubescent imagination (after all, she's nude for her first few appearances, and allows Bruno to explore her body in silence), though the film's final scene challenges this interpretation. Upon entering his new school Bruno is told that he's behind the other students his age and is put into a remedial class where he meets his other two influences. First, there is his teacher Enseignante (Fabienne Babe). Overwhelmed with rowdy students, she finds an immediate connection with Bruno who recognizes as a good, but impressionable kid; much better than most of those who make her life hell. Enseignante makes Bruno her personal project, staying after school with him most days to work him him on building up his confidence. Second, there's Jean-Roger (François Négret) an out of control youth who's idea of a good time consists of torturing dogs and lighting things on fire. As we soon find out, Jean-Roger's behavior stems from his dysfunctional home life where his thuggish drunk of a father Marcel spends his days terrorizing his neighbors (and Jean-Roger), stealing cars, and casually committing murders when crossed by his fellow underworld connections. Needless to say, Jean-Roger is a corrupting influence on our hero, as the story plays out as a fascinating examination of Bruno's life as he's dragged in three different directions. Much of what happens here may seem too over the top or unbelievable, but as the husband of someone who has spent her career working for child protective services, I recognized some very familiar figures in the film's cast. The climax of film did strike me as the wrong way to end the story, but on the whole, this is a very, very good movie.

Sound and Fury's up next on my list of viewings!

Hey, by coincidence I recently watched a Brisseau film too, though I don't think there's much danger of me getting further acquainted!

Noce blanche (Jean-Claude Brisseau 1989) Young coquette Vanessa Paradis starts coming onto her middle-aged teacher and seduces him and then he acts the part of the juvenile lover in response. Complications ensue. I suppose this basic material, though squirm-inducing, could work, were it not for how the Paradis character is handled-- she's given a backstory that is so overwrought and over-sexualized and then participates in a variety of acts meant to signal her willingness to be sexually devalued in the eyes of the teacher as though that were a justifiable vantage. At first I worried that this was a film which romanticized the very real ethical and moral violation of a high school teacher getting sexually involved with a student. Then I realized, to my horror, that it instead is a wide-swathed moralistic attack on young sexually vibrant women, and under the respectable auspices of disapproving of the older man's actions. Excuse me, I think I have something caught in my throat. This irresistible sexpot throws herself at the dumpy old guy, she likes to do "it", she wants to do it all the time, and when he rebuffs her,

Spoiler

she then literally dies for him, because her desire to be with him is so strong that she "wastes away" by the window overlooking his new classroom, like a dog left alone waiting for its owner to return. Le woof.

For all its gloss, this came off as little more than wish-fulfillment/reinforcement for middle-aged perverts.

Something Wicked This Way Comes (Jack Clayton 1983) Occasionally evocative of youth and the autumnal season, this mild horror tale finds a mystical carnival rolling into a small town and granting the denizens their deepest wish, but it's a wish that comes with… well... actually, I'm not quite sure I understood the costs. I think they get trapped into indentured servitude with the carnival, but I'm not quite sure I understand why, or what benefit that would gain Jonathan Pryce's proprietor. The most effective thing about the film is Jason Robards as a man who waited a long time to have a kid and now feels even older because he can't play with his son like other fathers. It's a compelling idea (more compelling than the half-baked supernatural plot, for sure), but it has to compete with a lot of narrative dead ends and lingering questions. Ray Bradbury can be a skillful short story writer, but his gift for capturing compelling ideas in flashes and sketches is ill-served by a lengthier format, at least based on this evidence.

the Tall Guy (Mel Smith 1989) Jeff Goldblum is an American in London who finds himself saddled into degrading theatrical roles and he and the rest of his wacky co-stars have themselves some broadly drawn comic misadventures in this romantic comedy that has a specific sense of humor. It's one I don't share. Goldblum and Emma Thompson as his thinly-sketched object of affection, try their best with lively perfs, but the bad British sex jokes and over-stated delivery of just about everything and everyone didn't do much to bring a smile to my face. But it has the kind of consistent tone that tells me there's probably a good number of people who find this a riot, so you may get better results than I did.

Bradbury's book is actually one of his best works period and the film is a horrible mangling of that which Pryce and Robards barely manage to capture. The film is so horrendous especially compared with what Peckinpah originally had planned for it before he was fired. If you have the time and are in the mood for the moon to Cider House Rules' sun I do hope you read it. Definitely one of the more disheartening could have beens for me.

thirtyframesasecond wrote:Sound and Fury's up next on my list of viewings!

I hope that you like it too.

Domino, that description sounds dreadful. The three films by Brisseau that I've seen are all male fantasies to some degree, but Sound and Fury is actually a pretty smart film about male adolescent and it's typical objectification of women. It's certainly much better than the other two films of his I referenced earlier. I do hope that you'd give it a try if the opportunity presents itself.

zedz wrote:Here's the (currently unavailable) Taiwanese DVD / BluRay - I don't know if anybody can provide a link to somewhere that still has this in stock.

For anyone who is still looking for the Terrorizers Blu, check out JSDVD. It was out of stock when I placed an order on Monday, but I just now received a shipping notice. Dust in the Wind was listed in similar fashion, so it may still be available as well.

bamwc2 wrote:Bad Taste (Peter Jackson, 1987): Peter Jackson's debut is a sometimes fun microbudget mess about aliens looking to turn humanity into livestock and open up an intergalactic fast food chain. The story centers on a group of friends who uncover a small New Zealand town that has been wiped out by the invaders. They then spend the course of the film's run time engaged in intermittently amusing antics fighting the aliens and trying to save humanity. Unfortunately for the film, it's biggest laughs stem from its own incompetent special effects that are so bad that their overthetop gruesomeness actually feel charming in an Ed Woodish kind of way. I've never been a fan of Jackson's work (though I haven't seen his lauded Heavenly Creatures yet--a lock for viewing in the next decade project!), but this one did have a charming vibe coming from a hapless lover of cinema that his big budget Tolkien adaptations lack. At least it had that going for it, but don't expect much else.

I would certainly recommend watching Good Taste: The Making of Bad Taste for a bit more of the Ed Wood-type vibe, particularly the scene of Jackson using his parent's cooker to bake all of the latex masks! I don't mind the film too much, but it is obviously a special effects gore-film, kicking off a run of the same. While it is far better (relatively speaking!) than something like the Violent Shit series that followed in its wake, it is still in the same vein of being enamoured to the point of obsession with dwelling on its gore effects, flourescent green puke drinking and novel use of chainsaws to really have much of a point beyond that. If you want to see a UK take on a gory alien invasion, the much later Evil Aliens obviously owes a lot to Bad Taste, just with the New Zealand references replaced by a (CGI) alien massacre to the tune of "I've got a brand new combine harvester" by The Wurzels!

Not to be taken seriously at all, but there are some fun gags (my favourite by far is this one, exploding the idea of New Zealand cinema!), and it is impressive as an example of DIY action-horror cinema that is more watchable than most. I much prefer Braindead/Dead Alive though for melding jawdropping gore with a bit more of a storyline, but I do have some nostalgia for Bad Taste simply for the time during my schooldays when I walked in at the end of an art class in which all of the kids had somehow persuaded the teacher to let them watch a copy of the film that one of them had recorded from its first (and so far only) television showing!

Brain Dead is terrific, probably a genuine contender for my 90s list. A bit like Raimi, Jackson's departure down the big budget, serious route is a bit sad really. I'd watch Meet the Feebles and The Frighteners (let alone Heavenly Creatures) before any of the LOTR and beyond films.

Just as a reminder, the forum's film club will be devoting two weeks to Fassbinder's Veronika Voss starting this Monday. Here's hoping for a lively discussion!

thirtyframesasecond wrote:Brain Dead is terrific, probably a genuine contender for my 90s list. A bit like Raimi, Jackson's departure down the big budget, serious route is a bit sad really. I'd watch Meet the Feebles and The Frighteners (let alone Heavenly Creatures) before any of the LOTR and beyond films.

Off topic for the 80s list but that run of Braindead, Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners is still wonderful, and so tonally varied (though all capture that sense of manic delirium) that it does make much that followed seem banal, although I am grateful to Jackson and all of his collaborators for finally getting The Lord of the Rings through the filmmaking process despite what it might have done to his later films in its wake.

I find the central romance in The Frighteners (mirrored by the attention paid to the murderous couple too) is surprisingly touching and even heartwarming! It is hard to believe that a filmmaker who could deal with ideas of the afterlife, serial murder and love so strongly and sensitively in what is essentially also a goofy ghostly comedy-thriller would eventually get tripped up so badly by the ponderous and almost offensively leaden Lovely Bones.

Beverly Hills Cop (Martin Brest 1984) One of the highest grossing R-rated films of all time, clearly this connected with audiences. And Eddie Murphy is occasionally funny doing his schtick here. But the mostly serious crime film doesn't give its star very good material to accommodate his zany antics (the screenplay was a hot potato originally offered to Stallone and Mickey Rourke). Murphy has undeniable star power, even in a lesser vehicle like this, but it only goes so far.

Out Cold (Malcolm Mowbray 1989) Strange, mostly unpleasant neonoir that expends far too much time and energy on the idea of various people being locked in meat lockers. John Lithgow is the put-upon hard worker who is in love with his business partner's wife, Teri Garr, and when she offs her husband via aforementioned meat locker, she tricks Lithgow into thinking he's responsible. And Randy Quaid also shows up as the world's dumbest private detective (there's exactly one amusing moment in this largely unfunny comedy wherein Quaid sees pics of Garr in a black wig and comes up with a convoluted explanation on the opposite end of Occam's Razor). I guess if the film has anything to offer, it's that MGM released the DVD open-matte (don't tell you know who!) and so we accidentally are treated to several shots of limp penises in the first ten minutes.

Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood 1985) Oh cool, I've seen Shane too.

Pretty Smart (Dimitri Logothetis 1987) Debatable! Weird teen "comedy" set at a private girls' school wherein the dastardly dean is secretly videotaping all his young charges and using them to secretly mule drugs to assorted European countries. If this sounds like it doesn't make much sense, that's because it doesn't make much sense. The movie itself seems to be missing a first act, the presumable actions of which are instead shown in stills under the opening credits-- that's about the level of craft and consideration for audiences offered here. Really started thinking about reevaluating my viewing choices during this.

Viewing Log:

Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987): il papa's favorite film tells the story of humble Babett,e a 19th century former Parisian chef who finds refuge as an unpaid maid in Denmark. Her employers are a pair of formerly wealthy, but now ideologically rigid sisters who have spent their lives caring for their ailing father instead of pursuing the marriage proposals that they had in their youth. One day Babette wins the lottery and spends her winnings putting on a "real French dinner" in this dramedy of manners. The film works well, but I have to admit being pretty disgusted by a lot of the cuisine in the film's final act. The quail...oh the quail...

A Chinese Ghost Story (Siu-Tung Ching, 1987): A month or so ago, I effusively praised Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, a hybrid fantasy/martial arts/horror film from Hong Kong. Well, this is another in the same vein, and while I wouldn't say it's quite as good as the earlier discovery, it still makes for a very fun time. Ning Tsai-Shen (Leslie Cheung) is a bumbling scholar/tax collector who travels to an isolated region of China on official state business. He takes up residence in a haunted palace that the locals fear, but always manages to accidentally stay one step ahead of the ghouls that want to kill him. Early on he falls in love with the mysterious Lip Siu Sin (Joey Wang) a beautiful maiden who lives alone in the forest. Soon Daoist ghost hunter Yin Chek Hsia (Ma Wu) shows Tsai-Shen Siu Sin's grave and convinces him to act as the bait in a wacky trap for the demons that control her ghost. Although it's got a plethora of corny jokes, it still has a genial nature about it and enough wacky martial arts ghost hunting action to make it a worthwhile viewing. The highlight is undoubtedly portly Chek Hsia's New Wave music video about his love of the Dao midway through the film.

Gonza the Sperman (Masahiro Shinoda, 1986): Set in early 18th century Japan, this story tells of the doomed Gonza a talented warrior with the spear whose commitment to the ritual of his time ultimately costs him everything. He is engaged to be married, but agrees with Osei (Shima Iwashita), the wife of samurai Ichinoshin, to marry their daughter as part of the local tea ceremony. Their plans are overheard and mistaken for adultery between the two, resulting in Gonza and Osei fleeing for their lives as Ichinoshin and his men seek to hunt them down. As I've said in the past, I find Shinoda's films to be rather hit or miss, but this one fell in between for me. Good performances from the central cast, but rather uninspired direction from Shinoda.

Meantime (Mike Leigh, 1984): If you can believe it, Meantime is another slice of life drama from Leigh about England's working class. This time he focuses his attention on Colin (Tim Roth) a mildly mentally retarded teenager who lives with his parent and older brother Mark (Phil Daniels) on the dole in a small London flat. Colin's only friend outside of his brother is Coxy (Gary Oldman) a racist skinhead who acts as an entirely negative influence upon Colin's life. Little happens to him until Colin's aunt procures him a job, sparking jealousy from Mark. This is far from Leigh's best work (in my estimation, his career reached its high water mark with the mid-90s one to punch of Naked and Secrets and Lies), but still Leigh does a competent job here and manages to assemble some of the most famous British actors of their generation including the heretofore unmentioned Alfred Molina.

Tracked (Hideo Gosha, 1985): Tracked is another great entry from Gosha that I never would have had the chance to see had Criterion not placed it on Hulu. When the based on true events story begins, middle aged Tokichi Sakane (Ken Ogata) has just been arrested for blowing up his neighbor's house with dynamite, killing one of the two married couples that lived there. While in police custody, he confesses to murdering his wife and son, then survives slashing his own throat that night. Fast forwarding a few years, he escapes by tunneling out the prison and eludes capture by wearing a kerchief around his scarred neck as he takes up odd construction jobs. This new Sakane is far more intense and determined than the broken man at the beginning of the film, unafraid of killing now, and doing whatever it takes to get what he wants. Gosha tracks his progress by periodically interjecting flashbacks to before the killing began, exploring what triggered his break without offering him the least bit of sympathy. Eventually, he turns his attention back to women, taking up with one and obsessing over another. Will they survive this now remorseless killer and will he ever be caught? Ogata is excellent in his role, while Gosha keeps the plot moving along. The film does end on an odd note, but the journey is more than worth it.

Vamp (Richard Wenk, 1986): This very strange precursor to Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn tells the story of AJ (Robert Rusler) and Keith (Chris Makepeace) a couple of college frat boy wannabes who boast about being able to procure strippers for a party that night. Since they lack a car, they convince rich Asian stereotype and seemingly mentally ill Duncan (Gedde Watanabe) to take them to a seedy joint downtown called "After Dark". There they meet Allison (Deedee Pfeiffer) a new hire at the club who knows the boys even though they can't remember her and Katrina (Grace Jones) an ancient Egyptian vampire/modern day dive bar stripper. Soon Katrina feeds off of AJ, leaving the other three humans desperate in an attempt to survive long enough for the sun to come up. Of course, both the bar and the surrounding city are infested with vampires sired by Katrina, so their task won't be an easy one. I have very mixed feeling about the film. It had some great and (at least then) original ideas, but seemed in need of a few more rewrites to sharpen what was already there: some jokes work, others fall very flat. Watanabe is given nothing to do, and Pfeiffer displays the same charms and abilities as her older sister (no, that's not a compliment). Yet, it's also a very visually gorgeous film, with brilliant set designs, costumes, and framing. There's a much better movie in there somewhere, but what we have here does merit some interest.

domino harvey wrote:Beverly Hills Cop (Martin Brest 1984) One of the highest grossing R-rated films of all time, clearly this connected with audiences. And Eddie Murphy is occasionally funny doing his schtick here. But the mostly serious crime film doesn't give its star very good material to accommodate his zany antics (the screenplay was a hot potato originally offered to Stallone and Mickey Rourke). Murphy has undeniable star power, even in a lesser vehicle like this, but it only goes so far.

Stallone wound up doing Cobra instead, because he seemed to have his heart set on doing his Dirty Harry homage.

Have you seen Tony Scott's sequel? I remember seeing it multiple times on HBO as a kid, so viewing it with fresh eyes would be a bit difficult. What I can say most subjectively is that Scott delivered the goods when it came to flash and bang but it just seemed that he couldn't channel that into the funny side, deferring to just stop everything and let Eddie roll with it.

I have not seen it, but for some reason I remember that my mom likes it way more than the original, but that's hardly a barometer of taste! I may indulge, to use DVDBeaver language, should me and film ever cross paths, but I don't think I'll go out of my way to see it

Scott's affair with his leading lady while her husband produced it was vastly more interesting than the film itself anyway.

The less said about John Landis' abomination the better, but it does bear the distinction of being one of the few films to have a huge action set-piece in Disneyland (albeit a thinly veiled fictional version).

That one I do somewhat remember, I must've flipped on it while it aired on cable. Axel Foley hangs from a rollercoaster or something, right?

Shinoda's MacArthur's Children (1984) was apparently available on VHS long, long ago (one of the earliest Japanese films released on video in the US, it would seem). But it has never shown up on DVD, even in Japan, so far as I can tell. I've wanted to see it for ages, but have never found any way of seeing it. Has anyone here seen it? Would it be a contender -- if only it could be watched?

There's a rip of the VHS on backchannels

If this thing is still available after I retire, I can try to find it. Until then, it doesn't matter much if it exists in the Internet netherworld. ;-{

According to bamwc2, it appears the US video (and presumably theatrical release) is about 20 minutes shorter than the Japanese version.

Michael, if you wanted it, I'm sure one of us could just burn it to a DVD-R and send it to you. I hate to think of waiting for retirement for any movie

Hey -- I'm hoping to be retired in about a year and a half. ;~}

It looks like this did come out on DVD in Japan finally -- but only as part of an expensive 3 film set (Setouchi Sanbusaku Memorial DVD Box) and unsubbed (unlike the big earlier batch of Shinoda films that WERE subbed).