The Best and Worst of 80's Cinema

                                                  Nine to Five is an 1980 comedy starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton as three office workers who suffer working under their sexist, asshole boss (played by everyone's favorite sexist authority figure, Dabney Coleman). Through a series of wacky misunderstandings, they try to undermine their boss as revenge for his treatment towards them.                                                I might sound like a dour curmudgeon who is not forgiving of breezy workplace farces, but I did not enjoy the film. As a comedy, it's not terribly funny. Although I won't deny that it has a bubbly energy and the three leading actresses are charming (and I can understand people liking it based on that),...

                                      My Bodyguard  is an 1980 teen drama about a young rich kid named Clifford (played by Chris Makepeace) who is tormented by a pack of bullies (the lead bully played by Matt Dillon) so he requests the service of a mysterious outcast named Ricky Linderman (played by Adam Baldwin) to be his bodyguard (Dillon and his crew are intimidated by Linderman because there are rumors that he killed a kid, raped a teacher, etc.) and they slowly become friends in the process.                              I remember the first time I saw this movie, I was in middle school and they showed it during English class. I don't remember the reason for watching it. I guess because it's a movie about bullying and bullying is always a sensitive subject in school.           ...

                                  Ordinary People is an 1980 drama about a suburban family (Donald Sutherland as the husband, Mary Tyler Moore as the wife, and Timothy Hutton as the son), dealing, in their own individual way, the grief and trauma over the loss of a family member (Hutton's older brother, Bucky). It was Robert Redford's directorial debut and the winner of the 1980 Academy Award for Best Picture.                                   The film was okay, if a bit overrated. I enjoyed it as an actor's showcase more than I did the movie as a whole. Because the acting is good. Sutherland and Hutton are both very empathetic and well-rounded people with understandable feelings. Judd Hirsch is wonderful (his scenes with Hutton are the best in the whole movie) as the tough, straightforward but caring psychiatrist. ...

                                            The Fog is a 1980 horror film (directed by John Carpenter), set in the California coastal town of Antonio Bay, about a sinister fog bank that approaches the town that carries the ghosts of fishermen seeking revenge for their deaths in a shipwreck 100 years earlier.                                             The Fog  is an technical masterpiece that is sadly overlooked. Though decidedly a minor film in Carperter's oeuvre, it is a perfectly crafted exercise in atmosphere and pacing (and a thinly veiled allegory for idealizing history), not to mention a film that further cements Carpenter's reputation as one of horror cinema's greatest practitioners.                     ...

                                        Airplane!  is the first directorial effort of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker triumvirate and the standard for all absurd parodies to this day. It is a direct parody of disaster films (more prevalent during the 70's than it is now), more specifically the  Airport films (even the title Airplane!  is a hilariously sardonic jab at the bluntly uncreative Airport ) and Zero Hour  (taking most of its story structure and plot as foundation).                                         Airplane!  is, of course, a classic, though I would say this felt a little rougher around the edges than I remembered and lacking a bit of the confidence of their later films ( Top Secret  and The Naked Gun ). Even so, the movie was (and still is) a...

                                    Fame is an 1980 musical/teenage coming-of-age movie that follows four years in the lives of a class of students attending the High School of Performing Arts in New York City. The movie was directed by Alan Parker, a man with diverse range whose previous film was the gritty Midnight Express  and the film following after Fame  would be his surreal adaptation of Pink Floyd's  The Wall .                                    Fame  is a movie that nearly teeters on greatness. As someone who is not a fan of musicals (well, this is a semi-musical) in general, this happens to be one of the more refreshing examples of the genre I've seen. It's actually more ambitious than most people give it credit for. The movie is constructed almost like a symphony with movemen...

                                  The Elephant Man is an 1980 drama focused on the life of Joseph Merrick (he's called John, for some reason), a severely deformed man who is brought under the care of Dr. Frederick Treves (played by Anthony Hopkins) after years of circus abuse from his owner.                                This is an odd film for David Lynch. On one hand, the macabre subject matter is perfect for Lynch (a recurring theme of freaks and deformities show up in his films). At the same time, the rather straightforward, sentimental story is unusual for the elliptical surrealism that Lynch is used to (then again, this was only his second feature film so he hadn't quite established his own identity). The bookend scenes of the movie are very Lynchian but that's about as close as it gets. It definitely feels more i...

                                  The Dogs of War  is an 1980 "war" film starring Christopher Walken as a mercenary who is hired by a rich industrialist to depose a militaristic African king with the help of his mercenary friends. The movie was based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth (author of political thrillers like "The Day of the Jackal" and "The Odessa File") and directed by John Irvin (best known for made-for-tv movies and documentaries)                                The movie is, to put it frankly, dull. It is a movie that seems to have all the right elements (a potentially exciting coup d'etat, strategic planning, strong characters, etc.) but the movie lacks passion or tone. I'm guessing it was going for a hard-edged, unsentimental tone, but instead of nuanced execution, it's terribly blunt, going for acti...

                                The First Deadly Sin  is an 1980 detective story based on a novel by Lawrence Sanders (author of  The Anderson Tapes ). The film stars Frank Sinatra in his final starring role as a detective trailing down a killer in New York City while also doting on his dying wife (played by Faye Dunaway).                            This is a fairly minor film, but not a bad film by any means. I didn't really think much of it when I first saw it. Watching it again, it's actually alright. Though the plot is pretty standard, it had fine filmmaking on its side. It's low-key, it's subdued, it has subtle camerawork, and has a pacing that, very much like its lead protagonist, is leisurely and meditative.                            Frank Sinatra,...

                                  Altered States  is a surreal science fiction film starring William Hurt (in his first starring role) as an atheistic scientist who experiments with drugs and sensory deprivation to achieve alternate states of consciousness, hopefully finding a deeper meaning behind existence. His obsession with these experiments lead to strains in his marriage to his wife (played by Blair Brown) and a sort of devolution of his physical state (at one point, turning into a Neanderthal). The movie was based on Paddy Chayefsky's only novel and directed by Ken Russell.                                                      Altered States ....is strange, to say the least. I have decidedly mixed feelings about the movie itself. Though, I ultimately think...

                                    The Exterminator is a low-budget vigilante/revenge film that was a part of a late 70's/early 80's trend in the wake of Death Wish (which became a controversial success due to the rising crime rate in America at the time). It stars Robert Ginty as the eponymous Exterminator, a disgruntled Vietnam veteran who goes on a vigilante crime spree against all sorts of rotten eggs after his best friend is paralyzed by a group of thugs. Christopher George co-stars as a detective on the Exterminator's trail.                                                           Now, as an exploitation film, I thought the film worked on a lurid level that a movie of this caliber should have. It has the right atmosphere (grungy old Taxi Driver...

                                  Brubaker  is a prison film starring Robert Redford as Henry Brubaker, the new warden of Wakefield Prison in Arkansas and is heavily intent on reforming the dilapidated, corrupt prison system but comes across resistance from seedy politicians and uncooperative prison trusties.                                 The movie was based partly on a real life prison warden named Tom Murton, whose wardening exploits were chronicled in a book that helped influenced prison reform in Arkansas.                                                                   I, for the most part, enjoyed it as a minor social crusade film, despite the ...

                            Coal Miner's Daughter is the 1980 biopic of country singer Loretta Lynn (played by Sissy Spacek) and her rise to fame. The movie primarily follows the relationship between Loretta and her husband/manager Doolittle (played by Tommy Lee Jones).                                                             This is my second time viewing Coal Miner's Daughter and I wasn't terribly impressed by it. Biopics are fairly tricky since they can easily fall into cliche trappings. The movie, for the most part, does despite having naturalistic performances and a nitty gritty authenticity. The first hour of the film takes place in the poverty-stricken coal mining hills of Kentucky where Loretta grew up, then the next hour shows us her rise to cou...

                           Watching this right off the heels of the mediocre Any Which Way You Can , this was a wonderful, surprising Eastwood offering, and it stars some of the same actors (Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis).                             Bronco Billy  follows Clint Eastwood as the eponymous protagonist and his traveling circus troupe as they encounters joys and hardships on the road. Along the way, they meet a stuck-up heiress (played by Sondra Locke) who becomes Billy's assistant after being ditched by her husband (played by Geoffrey Lewis).                          When it comes to his directorial career, Eastwood has always been hit and miss with me. I can safely say this is one of my personal favorite Eastwood movies. I didn't think much of it lookin...

                             I've only seen Every Which Way But Loose once and I remember being misled. I had the impression that it was some sort of buddy movie with Clint Eastwood and an orangutan. It turns out....the monkey is barely in it (at least that's my recollection). I also remember the movie being bad. And that's about it.                              The movie was actually a surprise hit when it came out, since it was Eastwood's first real foray into comedy, and I guess it's intended audience were Southern hicks with stunted ideas of humor. Well, the first one was a success, why not follow it up?                               Any Which Way You Can  is the sequel and, if I recall, an almost identical movie to the original, only it's about a minu...

                              I like war movies, though I find the genre to be stale most of the time, because there's only so many times you can tell the same story: war is bad. Unless you have strong characters and narratives, war movies can only regurgitate the same harrowing themes without seeming fresh.                              Samuel Fuller (an unpretentious director mostly known for directing well-received B-movies) directed his passion project that was also semi-autobiographical and is often considered the finest movie he ever made.                                                          The Big Red One  is an episodic war movie following the lives of five men (with Lee Marv...

                         As a young child, my mom owned a VHS tape of Somewhere in Time  in our video cabinet. I had never seen the movie nor had I ever seen my mom watching it. It was just a movie that existed in our house. I spent years as a kid studying the VHS cover; a picture of Christopher Reeve standing in front of Jane Seymour's face, which looked like it was emerging from a sepia-tinted fog. I was never interested in the movie itself; I was just curious why this movie was even here. It turns out it was a favorite of my mom's, and my mom, despite having very different taste in movies than mine, turned me on to a lot of movies that ended becoming some of my favorites ( Arthur  and Field of Dreams , to name a few). So I thought, okay, maybe I'll finally see why this movie held such a presence in our abode.                        And the movie, a...

                            Atlantic City has often been considered a low-rent Las Vegas, the sleazier younger brother. Or, as Saturday Night Live once jokingly called it, "Las Vegas for Ugly People." While Las Vegas has had a long, storied history and an aura of glamour, Atlantic City is rather unglamorous and neglected in popular culture.                          Around the late 70's and early 80's, Atlantic City went through a strange limbo period where it went from urban decay to revitalization when they legalized gambling in 1976. It's the main visual motif of Louis Malle's Atlantic City : construction and demolition. Casinos half built and half demolished. It gives off the impression of transformation, but it's a slow change, so what we're given instead is stasis. In a way, I couldn't help but see Lou Pascal as the embodiment of Atlant...

                        If you were to ask someone what the definitive New York City movie is, you would probably get a dozen diverse answers (though I'd argue Taxi Driver ), or if you asked about the definitive Los Angeles movie, you would probably get a ton of film noirs. Chicago, though, not as many. You might get some John Hughes movies, or some 30's-era gangster flick like The Untouchables . But if you were to ask me, a native Chicagoan, what the definitive Chicago movie is, I'd probably answer The Blues Brothers .                          And if you're from Chicago, you should be thankful this movie even exists. The Blues Brothers , more than anything, put Chicago on the cinematic map. Chicago became an icon of the eighties due to its ubiquity in American cinema at the time (though most of these movies were made by Chicago natives like John Hughes, B...

                            During the 1980's, film critics suffered a particular phobia known as  paraskevidekatriaphobia . That being, the fear of Friday the thirteenth. Its foggy, questionable origins go back to the New Testament, more specifically, the Last Supper. There were thirteen disciples who sat around Jesus Christ as he broke the bread and poured the wine. The thirteenth disciple was Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus. And Friday being Good Friday, the very day Jesus was crucified at Calvary. Hence, a superstition brought about by a cadre of paranoid numerologists. This long-held superstition lends its name to a critically maligned movie franchise that ultimately changed the slasher film genre, at least in the financial sense.                        Friday the 13th,  an indie slasher film released in May of 1980, continues to ...