Monthly Archives: May 2024

Modern Romance (1981)

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Modern Romance
Directed by Albert Brooks
Written by Albert Brooks and Monica McGowan Johnson
1981/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

 

Robert Cole: I do love you. I mean, love has nothing to do with this. Yes, I love you. I mean, that makes it very confusing, but I just don’t think… I mean… you’ve heard of a no-win situation, haven’t you?
Mary Harvard: No.
Robert Cole: No? Really, no? You’ve never heard of one? Vietnam? This? I’m telling you they’re around. I think we’re in one of them.

Love in the 80’s was as complicated as it is in the new millennium,  Maybe more so.

Robert Cole (Albert Brooks) is a film editor and is working on what looks like a Grade Z sci-fi flick.  As the movie begins, he breaks up yet again with the long-suffering Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harold).  She is a level-headed bank officer.  He is a neurotic, jealous, mess.  But the sex is good and they can’t stay apart.  With Bruno Kirby as Robert’s assistant editor and friend and George Kennedy as himself.

The Brooks character would be no woman’s idea of a catch, though he can throw on the charm when necessary.  Usually to get forgiveness for some unforgivable offense.  But he makes us like him anyway and laugh at him and his cluelessness.  Brooks also gets in some funny insights into the movie business.  If you like Brooks, you won’t want to miss this one.  If you aren’t already familiar with him, I would suggest starting with Lost in America (1985).

Missing theme song

Chariots of Fire (1981)

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Chariots of Fire
Directed by Hugh Hudson
Written by Colin Weiland
1981/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Di

Harold M. Abrahams: If I can’t win, I won’t run!
Sybil Gordon: If you don’t run, you can’t win.

This film is more than its iconic Vangelis score.

The film is set in the period leading up to the 1924 Paris Olympic Games.  Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) is the son of a wealth Jewish financier and can run like the wind.  He is part of a strong track team at Cambridge University.  He is acutely aware of his outsider status and runs to prove something to his comrades and himself.  He also fits in by being a star in Gilbert and Sullivan productions at his school.  He eventually meets and falls in love with actress Sybil Gordon (Alice Krige).

Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) could not be more different from Abrahams.  He is a devout Christian who aims to become a missionary to China.  But he also runs like the wind and believes he was given his talent for the glory of his God.

Both men are training for the Olympics.  Abrahams is so intent on becoming a champion that he hires professional trainer Sam Mussabini.  Both men head off to the games where drama awaits.

I clearly remember first seeing this on a plane.  The experience was memorable because the plane landed before it was finished!  I did eventually see the film and enjoyed it.  The rewatch did not disappoint.  This is a handsomely produced look at sportsmanship back at a time when gentlemen pursued glory on the field.  Very entertaining.

Chariots of Fire won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Holm) and Best Film Editing.

Diva (1981)

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Diva
Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix
Written by Jean-Jacques Beineix and Jean Van Hamme from a novel by “Delacorta” (Daniel Odier)
1981/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

A triumph of style over substance.

The setting is a very hip and artsy contemporary Paris.  A young postman/messenger idolizes opera soprano Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelnmenia Wiggins Fernandez).  Hawkins has long refused to record her performances. So the postman records a performance surreptitiously.  Afterwards, he goes back stage, meets her, and steals her dress.  He returns to his stupendously cool Paris loft.

A little later he meets a super-cool Vietnamese teenager and strikes up a relationship with her even though she shares the even more stupendous loft of a philosopher? writer? brooding hipster?.  A prostitute tosses another tape into the postman’s moped saddlebag.  This tape is relentlessly pursued by French hit men and their employer.  The tape of the singer is relentlessly pursued by West Indian? Taiwanese? pirates.

Obviously, I found the plot hard to follow.  But this is an example of the “cinema du look” movement and the production is the thing here.  The film certainly delivers in terms of its beautiful art direction, cinematography and score.  So it is an enjoyable watch though not one that I would seek out again particularly.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

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An American Werewolf in London
Directed by John Landis
Written by John Landis
1981/US
IMDd page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must Die

David: I will not be threatened by a walking meat loaf!

Comedy and horror are an uneasy mix.  This works better than it has any right to.

David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) are American college students and best friends who are spending their summer vacation in Europe.  Currently they are backpacking through the English moors.  It is a desolate area and they get out of the cold by entering an isolated pub called The Slaughtered Lamb.  They do not receive a warm welcome from rhe curiously standoffish patrons and barkeeper.  Nor do they get answers about the pentagram on the wall.

It is a moonlit night.  The boys hit the trail again in the rain and promptly get lost.  They then start hearing a howling that makes them very nervous.  This presages a violent attack that leaves Jack dead and David wounded.  The next time he is seen, David is awakening from a coma in a London hospital.  Things go downhill from there.  The only bright spot in David’s life is pretty nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter).
I last saw this on original release and was not wowed.  This time around I liked it much much more.  The makeup and effects are out of this world and the comedy melds nicely with some real horror.  But my favorite part is the soundtrack, which contains many songs about the moon.  Recommended.

Rick Baker won the Academy Award for Best Makeup, the first time this award was given.

Blow Out (1981)

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Blow Out
Directed by Brian De Palma
Written by Brian De Palma
1981/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Jack Terry: I’m a sound man. And – the bang was before the blowout.

This movie steals its plot from Blow-Up and The Conversation.  The best part about it is John Lithgow as an assassin/serial killer.

Jack Terry (John Travolta) is a sound recordist for low-budget horror movies.  He and his boss are having a hard time finding a plausible scream for “Co-Ed Frenzy”.  One night as he is out recording sounds for future use, he witnesses a car go off a cliff in a ball of flames. Sally (Nancy Allen) was a passenger in the car.  Jack rescues her and develops feeling for her right away.

The passenger was a candidate for the Presidency.  Jack gives his tapes a special listen when he gets home and becomes convinced that the crash was no accident.  This knowledge puts him, his tape, and Sally in danger.  Lithgow plays a hired assassin who likes his work way too much.

Blow-Out is more of a thriller than the Antonioni or Coppola films and is much more simplistic.  It is effective visually but less so in its storytelling.  Not a bad film.  It is perhaps unfair to compare.

 

Przypadek (Blind Chance) (1981)

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Przypadek (AKA Blind Chance)
Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski
Written by Krzysztof Kieślowski
1981/1987/Poland
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Witek Dlugosz: If I hadn’t missed a train here a month ago, I wouldn’t be here with you now.
Ksiadz Stefan: It’s not just chance.
Witek Dlugosz: Sometimes I think it is.

This meditation on coincidence, chance, and fate paved the way for such movies as Run, Lola, Run (1998).

Witek Długosz is a young medical student who has decided to take a break from his studies.  He takes a train to Warsaw.  We see three different versions of his future depending on whether he misses or catches this train.  These paths result in him getting involved with the Polish Government, getting involved with student radicals, or resuming his medical studies.  But his ultimate fate remains unchanged in each version.

I love Kieslowski’s world view and spirituality. This is a good example of how he sees everything interconnect.  It’s more heavy-handed than his later work but still thought-provoking and beautifully made.  Run, Lola, Run is a gimmicky music video.  This is far deeper.

The film was made in 1981 but banned and not released until 1987, in a censored version. The censored cuts had been restored in the version I watched.

Mephisto (1981)

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Mephisto
Directed by István Szabó
Written by Péter Dobai and István Szabó from a novel by Klaus Mann
1981/Hungary/West Germany/Austria
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube renta

Hendrik Hoefgen: What do they want from me now? After all, I am just an actor.

This is an excellent movie and Kaus Maria Brandauer’s  performance makes it an amazing one.

It is Germany in 1932.  Hendrik Hoefgen (Brandauer) is egotistical, flamboyant, and erratic.  But he is an absolutely mesmerizing stage actor.  One of his great roles is as Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust.  He wins the love of a society beauty and is having a heated sexual affair with a  Black woman.  He is soon on the road to Berlin to find fame and fortune on the national level.

Hoefgen is also apolitical and amoral.  All he really cares about is himself and his career.  So he is easily seduced by a high ranking Nazi official.  This brings him the fame he seeks and paves the way to his moral bankruptcy as he tries to please his masters.

I can’t really explain how good Brandauer is in this movie.  It is something you will want to see for yourself.  There are many scenes of his acting on the stage that are pretty astonishing.  All the other aspects of the film are first rate.  Highly recommended.

Mephisto won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film.

Lackluster trailer and none of the clips have subtitles.

My Dinner With André (1981)

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My Dinner With André
Directed by Louis Malle
Written by Wallace Shawn and André Gregory
1981/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Andre: The 60s were the last gasp of real Human Beings, and all we have now are Robots walking around.

I loved this on original release and I love it still.  I’m probably going to have trouble saying why though.

In this film, Wallace Shawn and André Gregory play versions of themselves.  Shawn is a struggling playwright who has taken up acting to pay the bills but has a hard time getting work as either actor or writer.  Gregory was a successful theater director but retired to find himself.

Shawn had hoped never again to see Gregory but a mutual friend insists that he dine with him now.  He reluctantly accepts the invitation.  The two spend dinner in rapt conversation.  Gregory does most of the talking.  His adventures with spirituality all over the world are related in such detail that the viewer almost feels s/he has witnessed them.  They keep talking until they notice that the restaurant is preparing to close for the day.  Then they leave.  That is all.

Obviously, fans of action should give this a miss.  But I would absolutely have loved to dine with either of these man and the film is actually engrossing despite its talkiness.  It should have been nominated for its screen play.  Highly recommended if this appeals at all.

Clip – The other stories are not this depressing

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The World of Gilbert and George
Directed by Gilbert Passmore and George Prousch
Written by Gilbert Passmore and George Prousch
1981/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Two British performance artists indulge themselves in a bunch of weirdness.  I’m surprised it was not required viewing on the List like all the other similar homoerotic “art films” I have been subjected to.

The Day After Trinity (1981)

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The Day After Trinity
Directed by Jon Else
Written by Jon Else, David Webb Peoples, and Janet Peoples
1981/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

J. Robert Oppenheimer: [on the proposal for talks to halt the spread of nuclear weapons] It’s twenty years too late. It should have been done the day after Trinity.

We get a much different impression of J. Robert Oppenheimer in this excellent documentary than we did in the latest Best Picture winner Oppenheimer.

This is a biography of the man who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb.  We see him progress from idealistic student to brilliant physicist, to lionized inventor, to disgrace during the McCarthy era.  He is far different from the vain womanizer portrayed by Cillian Murphy.

This is a very well-done documentary with interviews of people who knew the man and I learned a lot.  It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

 

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

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Raiders of the Lost Ark
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan; story by Gary Lucas and Philip Kaufman
1981/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon prime renta

Marion: You’re not the man I knew ten years ago!
Indy: It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.

Still thrilling after all these years.  I had forgotten how sharp the screenplay is.

It is 1936.  Indiana Jones is an archeology professor.  In his off time, he searches for historically significant relics.  This is dangerous work but Indy is proficient with the bullwhip and is incredibly lucky at all times.  We begin the story in an old Amerind temple where Indy snags a cursed solid gold fertility statue, escaping from collapse of the temple and poison arrows by the narrowest of margins.

He is visited by some officials who say that Hitler is obsessed with the original Ark of the Covenant which he believes will endow the owner with incredible powers.  The US Government wants to deny him that prize.  Indy immediately recognizes the significance of this and prepares to leave for the Kathmandu, the last known location of his old professor who possesses a vital clue needed to discover the Ark.

During this visit, Indy must perforce meet again with his professor’s daughter, ex-flame Marion (Karen Allen).  The father is dead and she has the clue.  Despite her cold reception, danger brings them back into each other’s arms.  She will be his partner in his future adventures, in addition to serving as a damsel-in-distress.

The action continues in Egypt where many more incredible adventures await.  The whole thing is capped off by an explosive finale.

This remains a ton of fun.  Movies like this one and Star Wars came as a breath of fresh air to movie lovers who were stuck with a lot serious and depressing material in the seventies.  The screenplay is wonderful in blending fantasy with wit and romance.  The score is classic.  I kind of like that the sets remind me of something out of a theme park.  It emphasizes the escapist tone of the whole thing. Easy to see why this would get the kind of sequels it did.

Raiders of the Lost Ark won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Sound.  It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.  John Williams got gypped, though I suppose he got quite enough awards during his career.