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Author Topic: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 395914 times)

GothamCity151

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #750 on: July 12, 2010, 09:37:19 PM »
Parents vs. Modern Romance


Parents



I am sure if you are almost passed out drunk on a Saturday night around 11 o’clock that this would be a great film. However, the sober individual I am, this was not the case I saw this film under the circumstance of normalcy. This film is unadulterated tacky schlock. I am not a fan of this style of film. I think it is very well crafted, but the payoff of that craft is nowhere to be fulfilled. The story itself is slow and predictable from the opening frame. It is graphically violent for no reason and very, very disturbing. It is not a fun watch if you have your senses. It is nonsense. Graphic nonsense. Even if their is some sort of directorial craft behind this, that does not change that it is, ultimately, nonsense. I wish I could enjoy this film, because I occasionally enjoy schlock, but this was not one of those instances. Be warned: this film is not for the squeamish or for those who do not enjoy gruesome violence.



Modern Romance



Now, I would not say this is a bad movie. It just did not make me laugh. Most of the jokes in this movie are very hit and miss. Albert Brooks has some good ideas here lampooning the B-movie business, but, in most respects, it feels like an Annie Hall knock off. I think Brooks is a very amusing actor, and he is quite good in his role in the film. He can play neurotic quite well, but that does not bode well for the Annie Hall knock-off comparisons. As a writer and director, I am sure their was plenty of room in the future for Brooks to develop. I personally have not seen any other Brooks film aside from this one so am not able to judge on his development. This film, however, just seems to fall flat. It is a shame because I feel the fire was their in Brooks' mind and heart, but it just does not work. I do want to seek out his later films to see if what I think could be there is.



Winner And Advancement To Next Round: Modern Romance

roujin

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #751 on: July 12, 2010, 09:39:53 PM »
I think Modern Romance is funny. Just in a sad and increasingly troublesome way. It would make a good double feature with Raging Bull. I don't think it has much to do with Annie Hall.

Bondo

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #752 on: July 12, 2010, 10:57:41 PM »
My Big write-up:

Big (Penny Marshall, 1988)

Note, do not do a Google images search for Big. Good grief.

History has been kind to this film. I mean, there is so much that can be interpreted with the age theme. Sure, there is the classical sense in which youth is wasted on the young who want to be older and do adult things and adults may well wish for the simpler times of childhood. It is about a children who for one reason or another have to grow up too quickly and about the failure of adults to remain young at heart where it would be best for them to do so. Yet, today we've got the popular theme of arrested development; the 20 or 30-something man who has not taken on the responsibilities previously identified with adulthood (whether that is marriage and parenthood or living independently from one's parents). Also, watching him play the child in a man's body makes one think of a person with autism, an affliction that has been on the rise in the intervening years. All of this makes the age-bending premise of Big very fresh.

It does of course have the classic scenes, especially the big piano, that are just very touching. Tom Hanks really is an American treasure. His versatility in doing comedy here and the drama that would come in the 90s is a depth of resume that not many can match.

All this said, I can't say I hold this film in any special place in my heart. It isn't quite funny enough or quite touching enough to take it to the next level. But naturally, it makes me long for various experiences I could relive with a child's uncynical eyes (also, too, the moment of awe in being with a woman the first time which is so magically captured here). What's more, not having seen this for at least a decade, it is amazing the degree to which getting older and having some of these experiences makes me appreciate it more.

Bill Thompson

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #753 on: July 13, 2010, 01:50:58 PM »
The Lost Boys (1987)

I have, over the years, had many people tell me that The Lost Boys is a fantastic movie. I must now ask those people what movie they were watching, or better yet what substances they were on while watching said movie. Actually, that’s too harsh, The Lost Boys just didn’t work for me, there’s no need for me to be snotty about it. It is a cult classic and many people do love it. I wish I could say the same, but I spent the majority of The Lost Boys wondering why I should care about what was happening on my screen and the rest of the time I was wondering just how homoerotic Joel Schumacher could get in a film without people noticing?

There are certainly elements to The Lost Boys that I feel were interesting and could have helped to form a good film with a competent guiding hand and a well written script to bolster them. The Peter Pan correlation is interesting, as is the idea of the vampires as allegories of wasted youth dealing with the cultural divide that existed in the 1980′s. Unfortunately Schumacher, never does anything with any of these ideas. Schumacher doesn’t do anything period, and one has to wonder what mark he meant to leave on The Lost Boys. The writing isn’t great either and the writers squander all kinds of interesting avenues, but I believe the director is most responsible for what we see on screen and thus I place much of the blame for my dislike of The Lost Boys on the shoulders of Schumacher.

My biggest complaint against The Lost Boys would have to be its inability to make me care. It’s a film that can’t decide what it wants to be, it spends a good chunk of its run time attempting to be a serious vampire film, creating a dense and foggy atmosphere. Then out of nowhere it turns into a schlocky B movie that is interested more in being a comedy than anything else, and at other times it is an ineffective family drama. And that family is what I am referencing when I talk about the inability of The Lost Boys to make me care. Schumacher tries for these dramatic beats, beats that are never earned. Michael is supposedly flying off the deep end, but we are never really shown this, we are simply expected to accept that he has been losing touch with his mother. But then we find out that it has only been a day since the beginning of the film, when he was all hunky dory with mommy. That is a leap in logic I couldn’t take and I could never quite justify it in my logic addled brain.

For those of you who do like The Lost Boys and view it as a cult classic, more power to you. I wanted to like it, and I tried, searching for things to like about the film at every turn. But, I can’t sit here and lie to you just to make you happy. Well, I could, but then how would you ever be able to trust another review I published? I can’t join you in championing this “cult classic,” in fact I’m going to do the exact opposite and warn all others off of The Lost Boys, it’s a waste of time in my estimation and a film that no one really needs to see. Even if it is running rampant with boatloads of homoeroticism, and trust me, everyone needs more of that in their lives.

Vs.

Zelig (1983)

In Zelig, Woody Allen is clearly attempting a satire on the media, both past and present, and the bias they can place on any given situation. I am including the documentary filmmaker as a part of the media by the way, because you know that I view all documentaries as con-jobs for the most part, sue me if you don’t like it. Sprinkled throughout Allen’s satirical take on the media are the usual neurotic bits of humor and the standard theme of love that always populate a Woody Allen film. But when all is stripped away from Zelig I was left with one fact that stopped me from really liking it, it just didn’t engage me as much as I would have liked.

Zelig is a well made faux documentary, but I don’t consider it an interesting film. I know what Allen was going for and I actually think he succeeds, but I was pretty darn bored when he was succeeding the most. Maybe it’s just where my taste in comedy always goes back to, but I was more engaged when Woody Allen was being the typically neurotic Woody Allen. I was drawn to what was being shown on screen when it was absurd and thus absurdly funny. Those moments were enough for me to like Zelig, but they were not enough for me to really like Zelig, if you get the distinction I am making there.

One area where I will give Mr. Allen some major props is in the way he was able to make the 1920′s-1930′s footage look like footage from that era. No matter what you may think of Allen as a person or even if you don’t like his films I don’t think a person can deny his innate ability to bring a place or a period in time to life. Every time the film switches to grainy and scratched “footage” from the so called jazz era I believed that I was really seeing Leonard Zelig in that time and place. The cinematography deserves a lot of credit for this, but so does Allen, who has once again evoked a particular setting and a particular time with minimal effort.

I wish that Zelig gave me more to talk about, but truth be told it doesn’t. It is easily the most straight forward film I have ever seen from Allen. Either the idea of a faux documentary that pokes fun at media bias will engage you or it won’t. I respect the craftsmanship on display in Zelig, and I laughed more than a few times. But, I was never as engaged in Zelig as I should have been and that is why Zelig ends up a relatively average Woody Allen film in my estimation. If you are a fellow Allen completest like I am then I do suggest at the very least giving Zelig a twirl, but if you aren’t then Zelig is a film you could skip and not feel bad about doing so in the slightest.

Verdict:

It's not a great film by any means, but Zelig easily moves on.

1SO

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #754 on: July 13, 2010, 02:11:52 PM »
I was in High School back in 1987 and everyone at school loved The Lost Boys.  I was disappointed and felt like an outsider because I didn't think it was cool.  Then later that year I saw Near Dark, which is everything Lost Boys isn't.  A true modern vampire film where the style matches the substance.  I could get people to watch Near Dark, but they always felt that The Lost Boys was better.  Now I feel that time has proven me correct.  Excellent evaluation.

Also...


No teenage boy should have that poster on his wall.

pixote

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #755 on: July 13, 2010, 02:27:28 PM »

No teenage boy should have that poster on his wall.
Why not?

pixote
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mañana

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #756 on: July 13, 2010, 02:32:18 PM »
Rob Lowe is a very pretty man.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #757 on: July 13, 2010, 02:35:02 PM »
You put a Woody Allen film through? We may not be on speaking terms anymore, Bill.  :P

Bondo

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #758 on: July 13, 2010, 02:37:01 PM »
Is there a reason we are using spoiler tag on verdicts? :D

I've seen it on a few of them recently. I don't know what we are saving it for.

mañana

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #759 on: July 13, 2010, 02:39:32 PM »
To maintain suspense.
There's no deceit in the cauliflower.