Author Topic: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 395905 times)

ferris

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #420 on: June 21, 2010, 01:53:21 PM »
Say Anything... vs Dear America - Letters Home From Vietnam


Great reviews once again :)

Yeah - I know Say Anything has a pretty big following, but for me it's always been an odd little duck.  Outside of the one obvious money shot, i don't think I can recall another scene in the entire film.  Not lousy, not terrible, but just kinda THERE for me.
"And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs" - Exodus 8:2 KJV
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pixote

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #421 on: June 21, 2010, 01:57:02 PM »
I like the main storyline of Say Anything... a fair amount, but the whole daddy issues subplots kinda kills the movie for me.

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #422 on: June 21, 2010, 02:00:01 PM »
I like the main storyline of Say Anything... a fair amount, but the whole daddy issues subplots kinda kills the movie for me.

pixote
You're crazy. It's part of what makes the film work so well.

tinyholidays

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #423 on: June 21, 2010, 02:37:44 PM »
Say Anything... is another I haven't seen, aside from, you know, famous clips on the tv. So many things I want to see next round!

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #424 on: June 21, 2010, 02:38:35 PM »
Say Anything... is another I haven't seen, aside from, you know, famous clips on the tv. So many things I want to see next round!
Don't wait till then, watch it now!

mañana

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #425 on: June 21, 2010, 09:59:22 PM »
Nice job, GC151. I love how quickly you get your verdicts up!

Back when I worked at a vid store, I think nearly rented Dear America about a dozen times but never actually did. I think we're on the same page when it comes to Say Anything..., I thought it was OK but it didn't really turn my crank. Not enough Lili Taylor.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2010, 10:00:55 PM by matt the movie watcher »
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GothamCity151

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #426 on: June 21, 2010, 11:39:36 PM »
Blade Runner: The Final Cut vs. Better Off Dead...

I was able to get this one done very quickly. (I own one and was able to get the other at a local rental shop today.)


Blade Runner: The Final Cut


Prior to this matchup, Blade Runner was in my top 100 films of all time. After another viewing, it will steadily remain there, and, perhaps, climb the ladder even more. This is easily one of the five greatest science fiction films of all time, and the only Ridley Scott film that I thouroughly enjoy. Everything about the film is nearly perfect. The acting, the special effects (which hold up), the dark cinematography of the city are all fantastic. The high point of the film is the art direction, which seems like it could actually be a portrayal of the future. Every detail of the world created is concentrated on. This film is part action thriller and part character discovery. Harrison Ford is terrific as Rick Deckard, who may or may not be who he thinks he is. The action scenes are done brilliantly, as many people know Scott is able to capture, but the quiet moments are also done well. There is quite a bit of subtlety in this film, which seems to be absent from his other films. I think all the praise that has been heaped on this film by critics and fans alike is all valid. It is one of the premiere films of all time. Enough said.



Better Off Dead...


I have to say that I really enjoyed this film. I laughed quite a a lot. John Cusack definitely is charming and in seeing this and Say Anything... in my last matchup, I finally see why there is draw to him. He is quirky and has a very strong screen charisma. However, at times, the films gets too quirky and too broad for its own good. The bits with the bully paper boy who breaks the garage windows I do not find too funny and out of place in the style of the rest of the film. The dark, subtle humor works much better than the broad stuff. The mom character is an embodiment of a joke gone wrong. Too many things like this are wasted. Saying this, I did laugh, but it just wasn't enough to make this a great comedy. Despite my saying this, I do recommend this film. Had it been in a different matchup, there was a much greater chance of it winning.

Winner And Advancement To Next Round: Blade Runner: The Final Cut

ferris

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #427 on: June 22, 2010, 12:35:12 AM »
Blade Runner: The Final Cut vs. Better Off Dead...

Winner And Advancement To Next Round: Blade Runner: The Final Cut[/center]

That was a rough match up to be sure.  I think you got both reviews exactly right, as well as your verdict...  

But I want my two dollars
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Beavermoose

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #428 on: June 22, 2010, 01:18:01 AM »
Hey I want in on this, sign me up for the next round :) As well as for the other brackets (90's).
« Last Edit: June 22, 2010, 01:27:06 AM by Beavermoose »

flieger

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #429 on: June 22, 2010, 01:31:15 AM »
Sleepwalk (Sara Driver, 1986) vs The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982)

Female directors, female screenwriters, female protagonists!



Sleepwalk (Sara Driver, 1986)

"not until the year of the dog, can these tales be told... only one chosen person can unravel the knot, only one among these many stories fits the prophecy... mortals, do not question the will of the immortals in the year of the dog…"

A Japanese woman in a red dress opens a wall cabinet, taking out a page of the manuscript and rolling it up. After she leaves, a tall man comes in - his shadow on the wall as he slides open the door tells us this is quite possibly dubious - opens the cabinet, takes out the manuscript, and takes the next page.

Working in a printing shop (at one of the tables is Steve Buscemi), typing away at the computer terminal with aching wrists, Nicole is visited by two mysterious strangers (one of them the tall man!) who want her to translate some Chinese text. Since it's not part of her day job, she can only do it by staying back after work.

Ripped from a VHS copy, it seems appropriate to watch this film with all the characteristics of video tape playback intact, bringing back memories of obscure movies taped off the TV at 3am. Images and borders bleed ever-so-slightly into each other, as if the images need a proper format to convey the interstitial world our hero, Nicole, enters. Shot in an eerily deserted, slightly anomic NY City, the film itself is a dreamscape, of fairy tales subtly changing the day-to-day existence of our protagonist. Is what we see real, or part of her own mind? A product of hallucination from the job she takes on (occupational health and safety issues!)? Or myth and fable seeping through drab reality?

Story becomes less and less important, sort of, as mood, symbolism and a dreamlike logic take hold. The fairy tales start to impinge in weird ways on the life of Nicole. A cut finger, a barking businessman, hair falling out, the smell of almonds (or perhaps poison), a black dog, an elevator ride where every stop is a Lynchian moment. The cinematography captures strongly thrown shadows and light with a palette of dull blues and greys, and the occasional Oriental red. Her husband Jim Jarmusch might have been on camera, but it comes off as quite distinct from his own visions.

As a whole, the film starts out fine, if a little 80s NY avant-art-scenish, but there is a rhythm and finely attuned storytelling verve that takes hold. The effrontery of the imagery - part pure-cinema, part surrealist, part performance art - starts to mesh itself into the story and the characters, and the anxious need to make sense of it all in a classic narrative sense just fades away. It becomes a journey taken where the things that are just have to be accepted. I like that.



The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982)

He's dead all right. He's so cold.

Is the pizza?


Written by prominent feminist writer Rita Mae Brown, and directed by Corman alum Amy Holden Jones, you'd expect this film to go straight for the throat of the conventions of the slasher film, and in some ways it certainly does, but in other ways it disappointingly does not.

The narrative is pure, undistilled slasher territory. We have a psycho on the loose (with a heavily phalllic killer monster-drill), we have the parents away, undressy senior schoolgirls preparing for a slumber party (like the good old days), and boys who seem to be stuck in a juvenile sexual development phase, and various secondary characters who could very well come over to check on the girls at any time. Perfect set-up opportunities for many, many false scares.

There is an ease in portraying the women in this film. Apart from the various handywomen we see - a female phone worker, a friend drilling a hole in the front door for a new peephole - nudity is there, but it's quite desexualised. As the girls shower there are boobs and bottoms aplenty (plus classic female locker room banter, "You know what, I think your tits are getting bigger!"), but the camera has this serene, gliding quality, ending up with a long take on a girl's back and bottom that seems almost reverential.

The women are also given onscreen space to reflect - without dialogue, just thinking - whilst engaging in domestic duties with a maturity that belies their years. All very odd. Mind you, there are the usual pratfalls of talking about boys, listening in on phone conversations and whatnot, it's just that the usual voyeuristic egregiousness of the camera seems to be a little off.

Then there's the phallus. An instrument of penetration. The killer stands above a cowering girl, and the camera shoots from behind his spread legs, the drill-bit hanging down between them, about to do its business. Male sexuality running rampant, sure, but the film is as much about female apprehension regarding sex, and especially the phallus. This slumber party just isn't like the good old days, as relationships and men have entered the picture.

Contrast the women with the peeping tom boys who manage to find themselves inside with the girls as the killer strikes. Given a knife by the uber-female, the boy looks at it and says "Now I wish I hadn't dropped out of Cub Scouts… maybe I would have learned what to do with it." Poor immature sucker gets dealt with in the appropriate manner.

I liked this emphasis. The idea of the phallus and of penetration is given this sly, comic touch. When the opportunity to strike back arises, the girls have this hesitation with using the knives, be it from common courtesy or from an aversion to penetrative violence (I'm going with the latter, naturally), but they grit their teeth and get on with the stabbing and the chopping. It's all about becoming a real woman, I guess.

Eh, but I probably go too far. It's a slyly funny film, but the genuine scares are few and far between. Subtextual bullsh*t hypotheses aside, it comes off as a relatively straight slasher picture, with some quite level-headed and equitable female characters. Well worth watching, in the end.


*************


So, Sleepwalk will move ahead in this round. It's a delicate little film, and will need some tender watching-care from the next viewer, but it deserves to be seen by more people.


 

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