Category Archives: 1980

Let There Be Light
Directed by John Huston
Written byline John Huston and Charles Kaufman
1980/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

Narrator: However different the symptoms, these things they have in common: unceasing fear and apprehension, a sense of impending disaster, a feeling of hopelesness and utter isolation.

The documentary was made in 1946 but it was not released until 1980. It’s an interesting look at the what we would now call PTSD.

The film was made at an army hospital that treated soldiers who were suffering from “psychoneurosis” (PTSD) on their return to the U.S. The main treatment seemed to have been giving the men some kind of hypnotic drug and then hypnotizing them to reverse their psychosomatic symptoms. This works like a charm in the film.

Although the documentary does portray the army program in a positive light it evidently was not positive enough for the authorities and was shelved.

I’m glad it was released as I have a weakness for WWII documentaries. I also liked seeing what mental health care was like in the 1940s.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

Directed by Alexsey Menshev
Written by Valentin Chernyk and Vladimir Menshev
1980/USSR
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

Georgiy ‘Gosha’: How come you never did get married?
Katerina ‘Katya’ Tikhomirova: I was waiting for you.

This sweet coming-of-age romance movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture in a Foreign Language.

The story follows the lives of three female high-school graduates from graduation day until they turn 40. All three get factory jobs immediately thereafter.

Ludmilla (Irina Muravyova) is flamboyant and well-dressed. She has her eyes set on a rich or at least distinguished husband. She gets her opportunity when her friend Katya (Vera Alentova) gets the call to pet sit at the apartment for her well-off uncle. Ludmilla tags along and is soon inviting a bunch of eligible men for a dinner party with the two of them. Both begin relationships with men at the party. These are disappointing to say the least. Will they find happiness in the end?  With Aleksey Batalov (The Cranes are Flying).

This is a very enjoyable look at the image the USSR wanted to project in 1980. The story is sweet and satisfying. Oscar material? I don’t think so.

Kagemusha
Directed by Akita Kurosawa
Written by Masato Ire and Akita Kurasawa
1980/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Shingen Takeda: I am wicked, as you believe. I am a scoundrel. I banished my father and I killed my own son. I will do anything to rule this country. War is everywhere. Unless somebody unifies the nation and reigns over us, we will see more rivers of blood and more mountains of the dead.

This epic look at identity is notable for Kurosawa’s gorgeous use of landscape, settings, and costumes. Tatsuya Nakadai gives a magnificent performance in the dual role of a warlord and his hapless double.

It is 1574. Warlords are fighting among themselves for ultimate control of a united Japan. A trio of the strongest clans are at war. The life of each warlord is constantly in danger.

The brother of the warlord Shingen Takeda (Tatsuya Nakadai) has been acting as his double, taking the risk in public.

But now the clan elders have found an even more uncanny double in the form of a peasant thief who was about to be crucified (also Tatsuya Nakadai). He is extremely reluctant to take on the role but you didn’t argue with warlords in 16th century Japan and live. Finally the real warlord is wounded in battle and asks his clan not to reveal his death and to defend the castle for another 3 years.

The thief proves to be very convincing in his part. Will he be able to relinquish it when the three years are over?

Although there was a message I think I missed, I really enjoyed this movie. The acting was superb, the costumes were sumptuous, and Kurasawa’s staging of the various armies was magnificent. Recommended.

Kagemusha was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Foreign Language Picture and Best Art Direction – Set Decoration.

Superman II
Directed by Richard Lester (theatrical release); Richard Donner (Director’s Cut)
Written by Mario Puzo and David and Leslie Newman from a character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
1980/US
IMBd page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

General Zod: [as somebody pulls a gun on him] These humans are beginning to bore me.

When I saw this way back when at the movies, I preferred the sequel to the original.  Donner’s cut took so much of the fun out of it that it is now much worse than the original.

Most of the cast of the first film is back in this one. Kryptonian villains General Zod (Terence Stamp, Lara (Susannah York) and Non (Jack O’Halloran) escape the Phantom Zone and sow chaos on Earth. In the meantime Superman (Christopher Reeve) is distracted by his new romance with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) who had discovered his identity. Will love interfere with Superman’s duties?

The romance was not given as much prominence as in the Lester version.  And Lester captured the comic book campiness of the original.  To add to its demerits,  there is not nearly enough Gene Hackman.

Fame
Directed by Alan Parker
Written by Christopher Gore
1980/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Angelo: [Starts playing his son’s tape on top of loudspeakers on his cab] My son’s music! My son Bruno, Bruno Martelli, he wrote the music! Today 46th street, tomorrow Madison Square Garden!

Several days ago, I watched Alan Parker’s “Fame” (1980). I remember this from original release. It did not disappoint this time around.

The film is about a students at the New York School for Performing Arts. The story takes us from the tension of auditions to graduation day. But don’t worry there is plenty of teenage angst and drama.

The angst doesn’t measure up to the fabulous dancing and the Academy-Award-Winning title song and score, which has stood the test of time.

Music video – not the movie version

The Stunt Man
Directed by Richard Rush
Written by Lawrence B. Marcus, adapted by Richard Rush from a novel by Paul Brodeur
1980/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Eli Cross: Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray’s belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he’d be a happy man!

This was very interesting for its backstage view of stunt work and special effects. The plot didn’t really hold together for me though.

Peter O’Toole plays Eli Ross, a manipulative almost demonic film director. He is making an action-packed World War I movie full of explosives and dangerous stunt work. His latest planned stunt worked disastrously ending in the stunt man’s drowning.

Eli had been overseeing the scene in a helicopter and spots fugitive from justice Cameron (Steve Railsback) committing one more crime. Eli is short a stunt man and decides making Cameron a substitute is the best punishment for him. Thus the untrained Cameron is forced to do the riskiest scariest stunts. By the end he has fallen in love with lead actress Nina Franklin (Barbara Hershey).

The problem I had with this movie is that Railsback portrays Cameron (well I admit) as a total psychopath but by the end I think we’re supposed to sympathize with him and this was not really prepared for. I thought O’Toole could have been been better utilized. But it is fun to see all the heavy equipment and various tricks used in making a combat film realistic.

Coal Miner’s Daughter
Directed by Michael Apted
Written by Tom Rickman from an autobiography by Loretta Lynn and George Vecsey
1980/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Loretta Lynn: [trying out a new song] It goes like this “It’ll be over my dead body, so get out while you can”, then it drops down to “cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man!”
Doolittle Lynn: Where’d you come up with the idea for that song, Loretta?

Is this one of the best singer biopics ever made? I think so. Loved it all over again. The acting is stupendous.

This is the life of country music legend Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek). It tracks her story from being the eldest of eight kids in a Kentucky family held together by a lot of love and very little money.

When she is thirteen she falls in love with and marries feckless Doolittle Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones). She gives him four children by the time she is 20. They move to town. Their little family also struggles.

One birthday Doolittle gives Loretta a guitar and she teaches herself to play. Writing songs comes natural.

Loretta’s fame would stress the marriage almost to its limits. With Levon Helm as Loretta’s father and Beverly D’Angelo as Patsy Cline.

Spacek richly deserved her Best Actress Oscar for this film. She is phenomenal in singing and acting. I think Tommy Lee Jones deserved at least a nomination for his. The film is also beautiful to look at. I really enjoyed this re-watch.

The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Art Design-Set Decoration.