Some things that happened in 1983:
- The internet MIGHT have come into existence. People argue about when this actually happened.
- Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock appeared on TV.
- The Miami Dolphins made it all the way to the Superbowl and lost. In case you don't watch (American) football, the Dolphins are terrible now.
- The last episode of M*A*S*H aired.
- The first Swatch watches came out.
- Ronald Reagan introduced his "Star Wars" defense initiative.
- Return of the Jedi opened in theaters.
- A massive drought ravaged the American Midwest.
- Dragon's Lair, quite possibly the most frustrating arcade game ever, was appeared in arcades nationwide.
- Nintendo's Famicom, the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in Japan.
- The Soviets accidentally shot down a Korean airliner with a U.S. Congressman aboard. It amazes me that this didn't trigger WWIII.
- Huey Lewis and the News released Sports.
- Jesse Jackson announced he'd be running for President of the United States.
Excellent
1. Sans Soleil (Sunless)
Documentary (?) comparing everyday life in Japan and Africa. At least that's what I THINK it's about. There's a lot going on in this movie - and it doubles back on itself more than once - but I found the experience very edifying. I was slightly drunk while viewing it, and that might have helped. I'm sure it's great whether your'e drunk or not, but I do think that alcohol might diminish the "noise" in this movie to some extent.
Fun Fact(s): Junji Ito must have seen this. Some of his manga Uzumaki (Spirals) borrows the spiral (Vertigo) theme from this film. In it you can also see images from the movie House (Hausu) in the bit where people are "collectively dreaming" on the train.
2. L'Argent
Robert Bresson directed this adaptation of a Tolstoy story. I'm not exactly sure what the central thesis is - money is the root of all evil? An unmerciful society creates unmerciful individuals? But whatever it is, this ambiguity only adds to the movie. I especially liked the way the camera turns away from certain people at critical moments in the film, almost as if it was ashamed to look directly at them.
3. Danton
Yes, another French movie. But this one is a French-Polish-West German production, so maybe that makes it different. Gerard Depardieu stars as Danton, hero of the French Revolution, reduced to a suspected figure at the end of The Terror. The production values are high, and its themes are still very relevant. Many of the discussions of Robespierre's secret police and the role of a free press suggest more recent events.
Two things I love about this movie: 1) it was adapted from a play, but never feels like a play, and 2) It never bothers with the question of whether Danton was actually guilty or not. The director and the screenwriter knew that wasn't where the story was.
Some Good Ones
1. Cujo
Rabies, dude. And not like in David Cronenberg's Rabid either, with doesn't actually have anything to do with rabies. A dog chases a rabbit into a bat-filled hole and you can guess the rest. Dee Wallace stars as a morally flexible mom, and it does a great job of setting up its story. No, St. Bernards - even rabid ones - aren't all that scary, but Cujo is a solid horror movie just the same.
2. The Right Stuff
Scott Glenn and Lance Henriksen, two actors I get confused all the time, appear together in this film about the U.S. space program. The rest of the cast is also excellent - Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Barbara Hershey and even Jeff Goldblum. It's on the long side, but critics of the day loved it. Definitely worth watching.
Fun Fact 1: Chuck Yeager appears in this movie as the bartender in Pancho's saloon.
Fun Fact 2: A big reason for this movie's existence is the colossal failure of director Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. After that movie bombed hard, United Artists sold the project to the Ladd Company and it entered production.
3. Barefoot Gen
I suppose that the watching of depressing cartoons is no more and no less than a race to the bottom. At some point I'll actually end up watching a cartoon that manages to traumatize middle-aged me. In Barefoot Gen a boy survives the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and this event in explored in all its grisly detail. It's good though, and worth seeing if you'd like a Japanese perspective on the event.
4. A Nos Amours
A rebellious young woman comes of age in France. The lead, Sandrine Bonnaire, is beautiful in the way that only French actresses can be beautiful, and her character's relationship with her family is interesting if a bit hard to relate to. The director, Maurice Pialat, also plays Bonnaire's father in the film.
5. Pauline at the Beach
Hearts are broken in a French coastal town. Pauline at the Beach explores much of the same subject matter as A Nos Amours above, though the relationships between the characters and the situations in which they find themselves seem a lot more natural. The lead in this movie is also stunningly beautiful.
6. Twilight Zone: The Movie
I had vague memories of seeing this as a kid, but recently rewatched it to refresh my memory. It's a solid movie, but as 80s horror anthologies go I think Creepshow was better. I was surprised to learn that John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller (!) directed the four segments. John Landis' segment was plagued with production difficulties, and what you see in the movie is an abbreviated version of what they were trying to do.
7. Dark Habits
"Habits" as in the things nuns wear, get it? In this Pedro Almodovar movie several drug-addicted women take up residence in a convent full of eccentric nuns. It's not without a certain charm, but I think Almodovar directed much better movies later on. The inclusion of Marisa Paredes in this movie only makes the superiority of later films more obvious. An "attack on Christianity?" Eh, seems like hyperbole to me.
8. Fire and Ice
Sword and Sorcery brought to you by Ralph Bakshi, Frank Frazetta, Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway -- pretty much in that order. Bakshi was clearly aiming for a more "adult" style of animated film in Fire and Ice, something adjacent to Lord of the Rings but not entirely beholden to it. Heavy Metal had appeared two years before, and Bakshi's own Hey Good Lookin' and American Pop preceded Fire and Ice.
For the most part the rotoscoping works well, even if the heroine is a bit oversexualized. But hey, that's Frazetta too. If the female characters in this movie hadn't been oversexualized that would've been weird.
This movie is also, in a way, more Masters of the Universe than both the cartoon and live action adaptations of that property. When us boys first started buying our He-men most of us imagined something more like Fire and Ice and Conan the Barbarian, NOT the kid-friendly versions Filmation and Golan Globus served us once the toy line was already going out of style.
Fun Fact: Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway wrote many of the Conan the Barbarian comics for Marvel. These comics were in turn an influence on the 1982 film.
On the Fence
1. Curtains
Extremely arty slasher movie with a twist at the end that's not really worth waiting for. In terms of production this film was an extremely professional effort, easily topping other slasher movies of the time in terms of sound, lighting and other technical details. BUT it really is full of itself, none of the characters are that interesting, and past the halfway mark it grows increasingly tedious. If you're a fan of the genre you'll find things to like about it, but Curtains is a lot harder to get into than more famous films about knife-wielding maniacs.
Some Bad Ones
1. Local Hero
An oil executive visits a small Scottish town with designs on buying it. The most famous cast member is Burt Lancaster, though you might recognize other cast members from more interesting films. Critics loved (and continue to love) it, but I found it boring.
2. A Christmas Story
A lot of annoying kids. The story that inspired this movie probably isn't bad, but I couldn't take the way the kids in this movie acted. That "my little piggy" scene at the dinner table? My mom would have slapped the shit out of me.
Like Local Hero above, I'm going to have to disagree with the critics on this one.
3. Under Fire
Salvador it ain't. Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman star as two reporters covering a war in Nicaragua. The two characters have an interesting dynamic, and after a shaky start it's somewhat interesting, but it goes on way too long. Nolte appeared in 48 Hrs. the year before, while Hackman hadn't done anything since a supporting role in 1981's Reds.
Fun Fact: Why do so many movies lead back to Predator? If you look real close, about a third of the way through Elpidia Carrillo, the "captive insurgent" from Predator appears as - you guessed it - another insurgent. Carrillo also, by the way, appeared in Salvador as James Woods' love interest.
4. Gorky Park
William Hurt stars as a detective trying to solve a murder case in Soviet Russia. It could have been a half hour shorter, and none of the characters in it are especially engaging. And what, by the way, is going on with Hurt's accent in this film? Director Michael Apted did the disastrous Continental Divide the year before, and the excellent Coal Miner's Daughter the year before that.
So Bad It's Good
1. Sleepaway Camp
Super low budget Friday the 13th ripoff with a surprise ending. It's easy to dismiss it as talky and boring, but once you stop taking it seriously it's an amusing hour and a half. No one in this movie went on to become famous for any reason whatsoever, though it did spawn a whole series of films. Certain revisionists try to claim that it's genuinely good, but no, it's really not. Yes, the ending is memorable, but it doesn't automatically make everything up to that point good.
Fun Fact: The star of this movie went on to direct videos for Slayer.
Porn
1. Carnal Olympics
A porn magazine challenges two porn starlets to a series of sexual encounters as a way of proving who's the hottest. Round One: the lesbian threesome. Round Two: seducing a policeman. Round Three: an orgy in which the male participants ejaculate into a bucket. Thankfully they don't do anything with the contents of the bucket, because that's really not my thing.
I know what you're thinking: with such a carefully nuanced, intricately structured plot, are the actors and actresses involved up to the task? On this score rest easy, my friend. Not only are they all well endowed, they're also the finest film performers of their generation.
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