Top Ten 1980s

for discussion fun

Tootsie, one of the inarguably great American comedies

"The Tuesday Top Ten will get more article-like soon," he said (again). "It really will." But it was so much fun to discuss the 1930s and the 1970s, which are arguably the two most respected decades (critically speaking) of American cinema. So how about a decade that gets no respect? The 1980s. The '80s are tough for me to feel discerning about because I lived through them and was a) young and b) just falling in love with the movies and c) just falling hard for the movies so how could the cinema possibly have been hitting its nadir? I still have inordinate fondness for movies that might more safely be called guilty pleasures like Yentl, Superman II, Splash, Return of the Jedi, Clue, and about half of the filmography of John Hughes... and so on. I even like revisiting really bad movies from that decade. 

Off the top of my head my ten favorites of the decades. 

A Sean Young polaroid from the set of Blade Runner

1. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen)
2. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
3. A Room With a View (James Ivory)
4. Tootsie (Sydney Pollack)
5. Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears)
6. Amadeus (Milos Forman)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen)
8. Aliens (James Cameron)
9. Law of Desire (Pedro Almodovar)
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg) 

With apologies too... Silkwood, Reds, Diva, The Empire Strikes Back, The Little Mermaid, The complete works of Michelle Pfeiffer, Moonstruck, Raging Bull, Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring, The King of Comedy, Heathers, sex lies and videotape, The complete works of Kathleen Turner, The Shining, Victor/Victoria, The Right Stuff, Bull Durham, Little Shop of Horrors, The Terminator, Witness, Broadcast News, Running on Empty, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Raising Arizona. I could go on and on and on but I'd better stop before I start singing Xanadu again.

 

I'd love to hear your lists, both guilty pleasures and critically lauded efforts you think deserve their reputations.

Cast This! "Baby Jane" the Remake That Should Never Happen But Is Fun To Theoretically Cast

 By now you must have heard that horriblest of horrible news: Walter Hill is planning a remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Why? Why? Why? Won't Carrie 2013 be tragedy enough? But after the brief psychotic break I experienced after reading the news (I stood under an overhead light and swayed inconsolably while holding my Madonna doll) I realized that Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is really fun to enjoy in whichever way it comes to you. I love any spoof or homage. I just don't need a remake.

Luke at Journalistic Skepticism, who came up with a funny casting reunion suggestion, asked me to discuss. And I can't fight it. I readily concede that even though I don't want the film remade, it's super fun to theoretically cast.

Nick joked on twitter that Hollywood would obviously go with oldies like Charlize Theron and Reese Witherspoon which is funny because it's horrible and true. If they go older, they'll obviously offer it to Streep & Somebody. But I think you should go with 50somethings.  My brilliant suggestion after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Happenings: Jackman, Spacek, Turner, Fillion, Kidman

I'm losing patience with today's scientists. The world has changed so rapidly in my lifetime but there doesn't seem to be any progress with teleportation. I don't know about you but I need to be in several places quite often and in quick succewssion. Who has time for planes, trains or automobiles? Look at how much there is to experience near you at unreasonable distances from each other.

War of the Roses (1989)

TORONTO
Today! Kathleen Turner will be honored today with a mini free film festival at the Carlton Cinema: Peggy Sue Got Married and Romancing the Stone this afternoon. The War of the Roses and Body Heat this evening. If you're near there, why miss it? I'd totally hit The War of the Roses because and Body Heat because I haven't seen it in ages (the former) and have never seen it on the big screen (the latter). I think the great lady is in town with her recovery drama High on stage. That closed quickly here on Broadway but they're sure pushing the tour which they can do if a star is willing to tour.

LOS ANGELES
Today Plus! The Getty is hosting a film series "What Becomes a Legend Most"  kicking things off with Rudolph Valentino's The Sheik and the incomparable Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks (which we've covered in our "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series previously. If you're in LA and have never seen it, do not miss the opportunity to see it on the big screen. Other classics coming in the Getty series include two more "Hit Me" alums A Streetcar Named Desire and Rebel Without a Cause. 

EDINBURGH
Monday The Railway Man, a new World War centric prestige drama about a traumatized soldier and a woman helping him confront his past, starts shooting. The film will star Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, and Stellan Skarsgard (incidentally a friend of the book's author). Kidman's role is apparently being beefed up from what it was on the book's pages. 

CANNES
May 16th-27th The world's most important film festival begins with an opening ceremony hosted by recent Oscar nominee Berenice Bejo and a screening of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom  and closes with the late Claude Miller's Therese Desqueyroux starring Audrey Tautou. Many significant things will happen inbetween. I love MUBI's easy to follow Cannes guide.

LOS ANGELES
May 18th-23rd marks the second annual Hero Complex Film Festival via the Los Angeles Times. They always show geek friendly movies with special guests like the actors of filmmakers. The most exciting day this year, according to me, is Sunday the 20th when they'll show WALL•E with Andrew Stanton there to discuss and preview Brave followed by Serenity (which we were just talking about) with Nathan Fillion appearing.

SEATTLE
June 7th  "An Evening With Sissy Spacek" ! The screen legend is being honored for Outstanding Achievement in Acting via the Seattle International Film Festival. I wonder what she makes of all the Carrie revisionism these days? I'm sure people will ask.

NEW YORK AND ON YOUR TELLY
June 10th The Tony Awards (more on these later) hosted by Neil Patrick Harris and undoubtedly featuring many screen and stage stars. 

NEW YORK
June 23rd Hugh Jackman will be hosting Trop Fest, the world's largest short film festival in Bryant Park. The festival is 20 years old and began in Australia, hence quite possibly the presence of our favorite musical theater mutant. You can reserve a space here -- the event is free but it will obviously "sell out".

What special events are happening in your town in the near future? Should we teleport there as well?

10 Things I Learned About Kathleen Turner This Week

Kathleen Turner as Molly Ivins

Those of you in the Los Angeles area have two enticing theater options coming up. The first -- an absolute must see -- is the Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. It's coming to LA soon from Broadway intact but for Bernadette Peters who will be replaced by another major but less famous talent, Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza). The other theater option is currently playing. I can't vouch for since I haven't seen it, but it's the one and only Kathleen Turner playing Molly Ivins in the one woman show Red Hot Patriot.

I have however seen Kathleen Turner live on stage twice (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and High) and she doesn't lose even one ounce of her charisma or gift on the stage the way many screen stars do when they attempt the transfer. Earlier this week she had a live chat at the LA Times Culture Monster and, though I've never participated in one of those before it was my darling Kathleen (she along with Pfeiffer and Streep is how I became such an actress-obsessive in my formative years) so I had to!

I told her I missed her onscreen and her response went like so.

I have a film coming out called A Perfect Family sometime this Spring. I still enjoy camera acting, but it's not as exhilarating to me as being on stage."

Ten other things I learned during her chat with fans after the jump...

10 Notable Bits From Kathleen Turner's Live Chat

10. Her favorite actors are Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench. How strange is that? MOMENTS before this live chat we had just made a major plea for them to present at the Oscars together. This is empirical evidence that Kathleen was reading the Film Experience as she answered questions! ;) But in all serious lord knows if she ever googles herself, she's seen the site.  

"PUSSY WILLOW"

09. Her favorite of her own films is Serial Mom because she has so many wonderful memories from the set ("most laughs") and she is still close with John Waters. This movie prompted the funnest questions from her gathered fans. Had she ever made a prank phone call "For heaven's sake, no! Nor will I". One fan said the house the real Serial Mom lived in in Baltimore was for sale. Should he buy it and give tours? "Good luck!" was her perfect succinct response. 

8-1 after the jump

Click to read more ...

RIP Ken Russell

JA from MNPP here taking a moment to reflect upon the death of the never-a-dull-moment filmmaker Ken Russell (1927-2011). If you're unfamiliar with Russell's work, oh my god you have to fix that! I listed five of my favorite movies of his earlier today, you can't go wrong with any of them. Well... wrong isn't really the right word. Because they can be very wrong indeed. Sometimes so wrong they're right, but just as often, perhaps more often, so wrong they're just very very wrong.

Whore. Nun. Whore, Nun. Whorenun.

But that's alright! Because in Ken Russell's hands bad taste and good taste... well they got really stoned with each other, painted themselves gold, and headed to the bi-annual insane asylum orgy for nymphs and perverts, and it was hypnotic. In one corner there's Ann-Margret humping a phallic couch cushion while covered in baked beans, in another there's Alan Bates and Oliver Reed sweaty and naked and rolling around on top of each other, in another there's Vanessa Redgrave in a habit with a hump having an orgasmic god experience, and there's Kathleen Turner waving a silver dildo at Anthony Perkins, and on, and on. (It's a very loud room we're imagining, with these people.) There was nobody like him, and there won't ever be again, and movies are a lot less interesting now without him.

What's your favorite Ken Russell movie?