Everything said in the intro to the Still More 60s Movies 5 entry still stands. On to the next!
1980
1. Best Foreign Language Film: The Tin Drum
I read and loved the book. One of the best novels ever.
The movie version is very faithful to the novel, which makes sense given that Gunther Grass acted as advisor to the production. The "sex scenes" involving then-11 year old David Bennent were very controversial at the time, and the film was banned in several countries, but The Tin Drum was critically acclaimed, and I've seen much worse in much earlier films.
Fun Fact: Star David Bennent would go on to appear in 1985's Legend alongside Tom Cruise and Mia Sara. That one role was as far into American films as he ever ventured.
2. Best Music: A Little Romance
An American girl (Diane Lane!) living in Paris falls in love with a French boy she meets on a film set. Director George Roy Hill also directed The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, two movies which are featured in this one. He'd only do three more movies in the 80s: The World According to Garp, The Little Drummer Girl and the Chevy Chase vehicle Funny Farm before going on to teach drama at Yale.
1981
1. Best Foreign Language Film: Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
A factory girl searches for love in Russia's biggest city. I didn't like this one as much as Dersu Uzala, another Russian movie seen recently, but it was still very enjoyable. The story is framed as a debate between modernism and traditional Russian values, and I'm not sure that the protagonist makes the right choice at the end, but then again it's not my culture, and her settling down with a man who seems both extremely proud and extremely temperamental makes a certain kind of sense.
Older Russian movies never seem to have the "hook" seen in Western movies: that crucial opening scene present to pique the viewer's interest. It's a very different approach to storytelling.
2. Best Documentary: From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China
The famous violinist visits China, where he engages in several musical exchanges with musicians there. It seems lightweight at first, but then the school director is talking about being locked in a closet for 14 months, to the point where his legs stopped working properly.
China has come a long, long way in 40+ years. Hopefully the present regime recognizes that some of this progress was due to goodwill exchanges like Stern's trips to Beijing and Shanghai.
1983
1. Best Documentary: Genocide
Like some other Oscar-winners recently reviewed here, these being The Diary of Anne Frank and Black Fox, Genocide once again proves that WWII movies score big when it comes to the Academy.
Genocide, narrated by Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor, is a study of the Holocaust. Like the other films listed above, it's not an easy watch, but you'll walk away from it with a renewed appreciation of how easily fascism infiltrates most democratic societies. "Making Germany great again" indeed.
2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Close Harmony
One choir composed of young children and another composed of senior citizens come together in song. The end result is somewhat cacophonous, but the interviews with the children about how they perceive both age and aging are interesting.
1984
1. Best Documentary: He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'
The founder of the National Dance Institute prepares a class of a thousand kids for a dance performance narrated by Kevin Kline. Not sure why this one deserved an Academy Award, but it's OK.
2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Flamenco at 5:15
I begin to realize that the kind of "flamenco dancing" seen in ballroom dance competitions is at best a pale reflection of the real thing. The combination of music, dance and sheer timing in the performances is truly impressive.
1985
1. Best Foreign Language Film: Dangerous Moves
This movie didn't scream "Oscar" to me, but the ending is cool. I also enjoyed seeing Liv Ullman, who some may remember from several Ingmar Bergman movies. The story is centered around a series of chess matches between two Grandmasters for the World Championship. I'll agree that it sounds boring, but it flows along nicely and the battle of wills between the two protagonists is interesting.
2. Best Documentary: The Times of Harvey Milk
I liked 2008's Milk, and Sean Penn deserved the Best Actor Oscar for it, but Gus Van Sant's movie doesn't do the best job of demonstrating why people cared so much about Harvey Milk. This searching documentary provides a more thorough examination of that topic, and will leave you with a lot to think about.
1986
1. Best Actress: Geraldine Page: The Trip to Bountiful
An unhappy woman ventures back to her hometown after a overlong sojourn in the city.
And hey, isn't that Rebecca De Mornay? Who once made me so "hornay?" She appeared in Risky Business two years before, and after The Trip to Bountiful she'd go on to appear in both Backdraft and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. She's still around, by the way. The last thing I can remember seeing her in was Netflix's Jessica Jones, which aired around 2019, but she's been in movies as recent as last year.
Geraldine Page? I'm not that familiar with her. Her film career stretched all the way back to 1953, and her last movie hit theaters in 1987. She may not have won an Oscar until the end of career, but she was nominated many, many times before that.
2. Best Documentary: Broken Rainbow
Strap yourself in, because this one gets intense. Broken Rainbow details the history of exploitation between the Hopi, the Navajo and the U.S. government, at the time of filming most directly expressed as the forced relocation of Navajo people from Hopi lands as part of a mining scheme. The part about birth defects resulting from uranium mining is particularly hard to watch.
1987
1. Best Foreign Language Film: The Assault
A man struggles with childhood memories of World War II while unexpected acquaintances keep reappearing in his life. I felt like the structure of the story probably worked better in the novel.
2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Women for America, for the World
Several women urge against complacency with regard to nuclear proliferation. I was 11 years old when this came out, but I can still remember that sense of imminent threat. Movies like Threads and The Day After hit us hard.
1988
1. Best Documentary: The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table
A series of interviews regarding an influential lunch club that took place in New York's Algonquin Hotel. Several of those in attendance went on to fame as poets, actresses, playwrights, journalists and authors of note. This one was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, touching as it does upon many social issues prevalent in the 1920s. Quite a party while it lasted. Too bad the Great Depression was waiting in the wings.
2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Young at Heart
A pair of octogenarian painters share their personal philosophies. Their thoughts on aging: 1) don't spend too much time mourning or looking backward, and 2) make yourself busy.
1989
1. Best Foreign Language Film: Pelle the Conqueror
Quite depressing as foreign movies go, but beautifully filmed with enough twists and turns to keep the viewer interested. I agree with the critics: this one's great.*
2. Best Documentary: Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
The only movie here I didn't finish. It gets bogged down in a lot of details regarding the French Resistance, and never elevates itself above decades-old quarrels which will never be resolved.
Besides, I'm getting tired of Nazis. The Third Reich will put you at least 1/4 of the way toward your Oscar dreams, but only so many Nazi-themed movies can be viewed in the same time period.
Still More 70s Movies 4
*If you're watching this movie via the link provided be warned: the subtitles only work via PC or laptop, and the auto-generated text is hard to decipher.
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