1984

A Nightmare on Elm Street

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(USA 1984)

I’ve seen A Nightmare on Elm Street twice: once as a teenager and once as a middle-aged adult. I can say with authority: no matter how you slice it, this movie sucks.

The plot sounds like a good idea: a knife-fingered ruffian in a tacky striped sweater reminiscent of the original PBS children’s show Zoom haunts teenagers in their dreams and kills them in their sleep. The problem is, A Nightmare on Elm Street just isn’t scary. It’s silly. Dumb, even. One by one, a bunch of kids gets offed by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund in the role of a lifetime). There’s a really cool scene of a blood geyser spurting from a bed. Heather Langenkamp’s overacting is amazingly bad. There’s that gorgeously diabolical line, “I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy” followed by a tongue coming out of the receiver (never mind that the phone’s unplugged). A young, dumb, and full of you-know-what Johnny Depp is here, all dolled up in an incredibly gay softcore porn outfit. Bizarre. Nancy’s weirdo vodka-lush mother (Ronee Blakley) adds some much needed comic relief—that final scene! Oh, and that catchy nursery rhyme. Other than that, though, this is tedious slasher stuff warmed over from the ’70s but with a slicker ’80s look. I mean, fuck, do we really need that clanking noise to cue us in that Freddy’s coming? Every time? We get it.

Watching it, one is dumbfounded knowing that A Nightmare on Elm Street spawned an entire franchise let alone a sequel. Sure, it’s got kitsch value, and everyone knows this movie so the late Wes Craven did something right. I’m just not sure what. To be fair, I was well aware of what I was getting into here, so I can’t complain about the experience; I already knew this is bad. I’m glad the theater has a bar and we went early as a group to load up on liquor (not vodka) before siting down—that made it fun for a midnight screening.

91 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) D-

http://m.nightmareonelmstreet.com

http://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com

Sixteen Candles

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(USA 1984)

“I can’t believe this. They fucking forgot my birthday!”

—Samantha

It’s not a good day for Samantha (Molly Ringwald). Her entire family, including both sets of grandparents, totally forget her birthday—her “sweet sixteen,” no less. Everyone is focused on her older sister, Ginny (Blanche Baker), who is getting married to oily bohunk Rudy (John Kapelos) tomorrow. A sex questionnaire she fills out and thinks she passes to her friend Randy (Liane Curtis) during class is missing—and she admitted in it that she’d gladly lose her v-card to dreamboat senior Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling). Jake doesn’t know she exists—or so she believes. A freshman geek who calls himself “Farmer Ted” (Anthony Michael Hall) puts the moves on her while taking the bus home. Her grandfather Fred (Max Showalter) calls her boobs tiny while her grandmother Helen (Carole Cook) grabs them because “they’re so perky.” She’s coerced into taking a Chinese exchange student, Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe), to a dance that evening—where she runs into Jake and Farmer Ted, the latter of whom ends up with her underpants. To top it off, she has to sleep on the couch because her grandparents are using her bedroom.

I’m a sucker for teen movies, maybe because deep inside I’m still a teen or wish I still was. Either way, I love John Hughes’s Sixteen Candles for all its goofiness, crude humor, and heart. Ringwald owns Samantha, a different and very Gen X kind of heroine: she’s angsty, gutsy, and fun. Plus, she has substance. Samantha liberally uses the F word, yet she wants all that stupid old shit like letters and sodas. She’s totally relatable—in fact, she reminds me of a dear friend (I’m talking to you, Michelle) in this film. I want the Bow Wow Wow and Culture Club posters on her bedroom walls. Likewise, Hall owns Farmer Ted, a different and very Gen X kind of dork: he’s got personality, and he dreams big. Things works out for him in the end, I guess.

One of the best scenes is an exchange between Samantha and Farmer Ted in a parked car inside a shop classroom. In typical Hughes fashion, the two talk and discover that they’re not so alien. I love what’s pretty much Jami Gertz’s only lines, indignantly and drunkenly slurred at a party to a guy off camera while she catches on a banister a string of pearls around her neck: “I’m sorry, I don’t do that!” When her drunk friend next to her mumbles that she does, Gertz snickers, “I know!” Seeing a baby John Cusack as a nerd (this was only his second appearance in a film) is special. The wedding is awesome, but the final scene in which Samantha finally gets Jake still sends chills up my spine—“If You Were Here” by Thompson Twins plays while car after car drives away, ultimately revealing him standing there across the street from the church. It’s downright magical.

Sixteen Candles has its dubious elements—Long Duk Dong smacks of racism, the word “faggot” is a bit too casually pervasive, and the appearance of Farmer Ted taking advantage of Caroline (Haviland Morris) when she’s passed out is creepy despite portraying it in a relatively innocent and humorous light. I can’t help but wonder whether these flaws detract from the film when viewing it through the lens of the present. I hope not—Sixteen Candles is a classic fairy tale that never gets old for me.

93 minutes
Rated PG

(Home via iTunes) B+

Blood Simple.

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1985)

“If you point a gun at someone, you’d better make sure you shoot him. And if you shoot him, you’d better make sure he’s dead. Because if he isn’t, then he’s gonna get up and try to kill you.”

—Ray

 

“I ain’t done nothing funny.”

—Abby

 

“Well, ma’am, if I see him, I’ll sure give him the message.”

—Loren Visser

I snagged tickets for the first screening when a theater near me announced a brief summer run of the Coen Brothers’ debut Blood Simple. A sharp 4K digital restoration, I’m not sure whether this is the original version—a few minor edits and cuts have been made over the years, and a song (The Four Tops’ “It’s the Same Old Song,” appropriately enough) was taken out and put back in. It doesn’t matter, though, because whatever changes were made are imperceptible, as least to me. This version is exactly as sordid, labyrinthine, and suspenseful as I remember.

Written by both brothers with Ethan as producer and Joel as director, everything about Blood Simple. is unique and masterful. The story starts out simple: set in rural Texas, bar owner Marty (Dan Hedaya) suspects that his wife, Abby (Frances McDormand), is having an affair and hires a private investigator, Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh), to find out whether he’s right. He is: Visser follows Abby and one of Marty’s employees, Ray (John Getz)—a bartender, of course—to a motel and takes photos of them in flagrante delicto. Soon after, Ray quits his job, provoking Marty to reveal that he’s onto Ray and Abby. Marty asks Visser to kill them, and that’s when things get complicated.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

Visser, you see, is a con man: he takes Marty’s money but doesn’t really kill Ray or Abby—instead, he doctors one of the photos he took at the hotel to look like they’re both dead; he paints on bullet wounds and gives the finished photo to Marty. A brilliant series of events all stemming from misunderstandings—like an episode of a demented Three’s Company—ensues, dragging all four characters into a murderous downward spiral.

Initially shown on the film festival circuit during autumn 1984 before a wide release in January 1985, the Coens’ clever mix of psychology, film noir, and seriously dark humor is unparalleled by anything else from its day—the top three films of 1984 were Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, if that says anything (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1984). Blood Simple. exhibits the Coens’ distinctive penchant for ridiculously well developed and eccentric characters, perfect dialogue, flawless plot layering and pacing, fierce tension that makes you squirm, misanthropy, and an innovative use of clichés—all hallmarks of their work. This film, which launched not just their careers but also those of McDormand (it’s her first gig in a movie) and cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, is done so well it succeeds without a big budget. It’s a solid debut that serves as a blueprint of what was to come from these guys.

95 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) A+

http://www.janusfilms.com/films/1815

Purple Rain

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(USA 1984)

Prince’s out-of-nowhere death in April bummed me out—as it did pretty much all of Western civilization. He was an enigmatic staple and a defining figure of ’80s pop music. He has been around from the dawn of my musical cognizance; the soundtrack for Purple Rain (along with a handful of his other albums, some soundtracks and some not) still gets a lot of play on my iPod. A brilliant original, it’s no surprise that The Purple One’s ultimate film played on TV and showed in theaters nonstop for weeks after his death. As much as I dug him (and still do), I never saw one of his movies. I suppose you can thank Madonna for that: I’ve learned that pop stars with big personalities generally don’t make good actors.

Seeing Purple Rain didn’t change my mind about that. Prince was a musical genius, an amazing entertainer, dramatic and mysterious, and a total narcissist. He was fun to watch. But he was no actor, at least not in 1984. The Kid was not a stretch, and the screenplay—by Albert Magnoli and William Blinn—is typical, nothing-special “boy-meets-girl (Apollonia Kotero), boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back” fare set to Prince music. There’s an evil nemesis (Morris Day) out to get The Kid, whose family life offers no respite. The story just doesn’t quite gel in a compelling and engaging way. The dramatic bits are comically overdramatic, ranging from amusing to silly to cringeworthy (seriously, “purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka”?). Prince’s posing is cute at first but it gets tiresome after awhile.

That said, Purple Rain features all the songs from the album plus a B-side (“God”). It’s a great performance film. The extended version of “Let’s Go Crazy” at the beginning alone makes seeing the film worthwhile. Watching the First Avenue audience react to “Darling Nikki” is amusingly awesome. Numbers by Morris Day and The Time (“Jungle Love” and “The Bird”) and Apollonia (“Sex Shooter”) are fun. Personal bonus: I recognized where they filmed a lot of the scenes thanks to my visit to Minneapolis last year.

Prince was exceptional. The Purple Rain soundtrack remains exceptional after more than 30 years. As a film, though, Purple Rain is not—it’s just okay. I would skip to the songs if I were to watch it again. Sorry, Prince—if U even care.

111 minutes
Rated R

(City Winery) C

 

Antonio Gaudí

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Japan 1984)

Barcelona, one of my favorite cities, owes much of its color to Antoni Gaudí, whose personal stamp is all over it. With Antonio Gaudí [アントニー・ガウディー], Hiroshi Teshigahara directs a virtual tour of Gaudí’s major and not so major works, getting close up and even inside a few spots one otherwise might never see.

Antonio Gaudí is pretty, artful, perhaps even poetic; but it’s boring. Teshigahara offers no commentary or background on anything other than—surprise!—La Basílica de la Sagrada Família; even then, the narration is two minutes long, if that. A 72-minute moving postcard, Antonio Gaudí amounts to nothing more than an educational film or a tourism video. I’d rather see Gaudí’s work in person.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) D

https://www.criterion.com/films/536-antonio-gaudi

Paris, Texas

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(USA 1984)

I wasn’t sure what to make of Paris, Texas at first. It opens with a twangy Ry Cooder slide guitar playing as some grubby dude in a tattered suit and a red baseball cap wanders through a desert in the American Southwest. Carrying only a plastic gallon water jug, he stumbles into a gas station bar and passes out. When he comes to, he’s in some town hospital– a sad, one-room affair staffed with a lone German physician (Bernhardt Wicki)– and refuses to speak. Insert eyeroll here.

This man, Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), has a brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), who comes from Los Angeles to a dubious rescue. Slowly, it is revealed that Travis has been M.I.A. for four years. He had a family and a life, and lost everything except a plot of land in Paris…Texas, that is. Walt reunites Travis with his son, Hunter (Hunter Carson). After an awkward adjustment, Travis and Hunter hit the road in search of wife and mom Jane (Nastassja Kinski), who sends Hunter a check each month from a bank in Houston even though she no longer speaks to him.

I love this film, and I can’t come up with anything negative to say about it. Written by playwright Sam Shepard, adapted by L.M. Kit Carson, and directed by Wim Wenders, it’s closer to perfect than any other film I’ve seen in a long time. The story is beautifully simple, and unfolds poetically (as corny as that sounds). The characters, on the other hand, are anything but simple; they’re flawed, searching, frustrating, and real. So much happens without a lot of action: the small, quiet events that transpire here are big, magic moments of truth. The desert scenery, highways, and big sky are more than just a stunning backdrop: they reinforce themes of loss, redemption, and sacrifice that surface throughout the story. Absolutely timeless and flawless.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) A+