80s

Victor/Victoria

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
Victor/Victoria. Ladbroke Entertainments 1982.

Before watching the movie:

I have a dim memory spatially associating the existence of this movie with the existence of Amelie, but I wouldn’t have been in the space I’m thinking about seeing posters of them (elementary school restroom hallway) after Amelie came out, and I don’t believe they would have put, really either of them, in that place. Anyway, I remember very slowly learning of the existence of this show and some time later actually digging just deeply enough to know what the title meant.

I expect some degree of playing with gender roles if the core of the plot is a woman impersonating a man in order to get work, and that’s about all I can guess at. I’ve seen surprisingly little of Julie Andrews’ work for how much she is an institution in entertainment.

Continue reading →

A Chorus Line

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
A Chorus Line. PolyGram Pictures 1985.

Before watching the movie:

When I think of classic musicals, this is one of the first ones that comes to mind. So I was a bit surprised to see the movie came out in 1985, when I always assumed it was one of the highlights of the musical trend of the 60s-70s. It turns out that it did open on stage in 1975, it just took a while to get made for the screen. My original criteria for “classic musical” was nothing from after 1980, which is why it wasn’t in my last series of classic musicals. But this feels more of a different age of musicals than what I consider to be modern musicals (though I guess shows from after sometime in the 2000s are by now yet another category from what I’m getting at).

I don’t really know much beyond “I Hope I Get It”, so I know that it’s about musical performers desperate for jobs, so I expect a lot of diegetic numbers. I don’t really have an idea of the shape of a plot, if there even is much of one.

Continue reading →

Night of the Comet

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
Night of the Comet. Coleman and Rosenblatt Productions 1984.

Before watching the movie:

I’ve heard this movie mentioned here and there but never that much about it. I didn’t even know the thing that happens the night that the comet comes is zombies until I was looking for zombie movies.

I really don’t know what else to expect. There’s a comet, and something happens, and zombie apocalypse, and it’s considered pretty good but not good enough to be that remembered in the mainstream.

Continue reading →

The Evil Dead

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
The Evil Dead. Renaissance Pictures 1981.

Before watching the movie:

When I was deciding on the next theme, I discovered that among the many different “_____ Month” observances for May, it is, according to Humans Vs. Zombies, “Zombie Awareness Month”. So be aware, I guess. The events of the past few years have demonstrated that zombie apocalypse stories don’t really go far enough with the dumb things people will do to spread contagions like zombism.

I already covered Night of the Living Dead a while ago, so I figured it was long past time to take a look at the other classic zombie franchise. These kinds of movies I’ve stayed away from for a very long time, but I’m pretty aware of Bruce Campbell, chainsaw wielding badass, coming back every few years to play Ash in yet another Evil Dead thing. I’m always interested in the changes that happen as a successful one shot becomes a franchise.

Continue reading →

Mystery Train

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
Mystery Train. Mystery Train Inc, 1989.

Before watching the movie:

I know very little about this movie but I saw that it’s a series of interacting vignettes and a mix of drama and comedy, so I’ll give it a try. It seems to have something to do with the interactions between passengers on a train so it should be interesting.

Continue reading →

Twilight Zone: The Movie

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
Twilight Zone: The Movie. Warner Bros./Amblin Entertainment 1983.

Before watching the movie:

I first learned that there was a movie based on The Twilight Zone when I read that the first meeting between John Lithgow’s character and William Shatner’s guest character on “Third Rock From the Sun” had them comment that they had similar terrifying experiences on an airplane, and that was a reference to the fact that Shatner had starred in the Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, and Lithgow had played the same role in the Twilight Zone: The Movie remake of that story. I thought it was odd that of all the iconic stories told on The Twilight Zone, they chose that one to make a movie out of, but simply titled it “Twilight Zone”, as if the one story summed up the entire show. I much more recently looked it up and discovered that multiple stories are told in the movie, which really makes a lot more sense.

Continue reading →

The Gods Must Be Crazy

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
The Gods Must Be Crazy. C.A.T. Films 1980.

Before watching the movie:

This is another one of those movies where the title gets mentioned in passing but nobody really feels the need to talk about what it’s about. Eventually I got curious enough to track down a synopsis that satisfied me that it’s about an uncontacted tribesman coming into contact with the modernized world and finding “civilization” to be a confusing mess.

It also seems to have the kind of reputation you’d expect a movie made in the late 70s by white people about native Africans to have in terms of stereotyping.

Continue reading →

Akira

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
Akira. Tokyo Movie Shinsha 1988.

Before watching the movie:

I’ve heard the title of this movie thrown around a bit, but I never really understood much more. I didn’t know if it was a movie or a series or what, probably anime but maybe not. I assumed it was action, and probably grim and gritty, and that’s about the end of what I thought I knew, until I saw it called out as being extremely influential on Eastern and Western animation alike, and as the referent of that one motorbike slide that’s everywhere in animation.

It turns out this seems to also be the source of that “Neo-Tokyo” I’ve heard about. And this is probably why some of the names I hear come up a bunch in Anime circles come up so much, but I don’t know what Japanese names are more generic versus more unique.

Continue reading →

The Thing (1982)

temporalparadoxLeave a comment
The Thing. Universal Pictures 1982.

Before watching the movie:

This is one more legend that’s a bit of a black box. I know there’s a monster besieging a research station in the Arctic or Antarctic, and that’s about it. I think almost the entire movie goes without showing the monster? It might be an alien but it’s left ambiguous? The poster is as much of a masterpiece as the movie, they say, and it is a fantastic poster.

I dimly recall a TV special about practical and visual effects in horror movies in general that may have touched on this movie, but I’m not sure. The images I’m remembering could be almost any horror movie, but they could fit a frozen research station for all I know.

Continue reading →