Podcast: Nick & Nathaniel Circa 1986

Before you ask again, please note that I have submitted the podcast to iTunes. Hopefully the submission process will take. The podcast can be heard at the end of this post.

Today, we have a special retrospective podcast for you today. Since Nick has been revisiting Cannes 1986 in all its sidebar and competitive glory and Nathaniel has been gagging on Aliens and Peggy Sue Got Married lately for their 25th anniversarieswe decided to join forces.

Topics include & spin off from:

• Robert Altman's Fool For Love (1985)
• Aliens (1986) vs. Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) vs. Platoon (1986)
  
• Sigourney Weaver's "Ripley" or Kathleen Turner's "Peggy Sue"?
• Molly Ringwald, Farrah Fawcett, Marlee Matlin, Kim Basinger, Beatrice Dalle and dozens more 80s actresses discussed
• Three French Films: The Green Ray, Betty Blue and Therese
• Spike Lee, Woody Allen, James Cameron and David Lynch
• Our favorite films of 1986 -- we share a #1 favorite which has to share the #1 spot in both our cases. 

We'd love to hear your opinions on these topics as well as your memories (constructed or actual) of the 1986 Film Year.

Podcast: Revisiting 1986

Best Actress "Character" 1981-1990

Time for more polls! Same situation as before. I'm asking not who you think should have won the Oscar but which Best Actress nominated roles are the most memorable for you. Who are the characters you think of the most from movie history (albeit through the lens of Oscar since some great role aren't nominated).

Two polls ahead -- I think we'll quit here since fewer people will play from the 70s backwards -- so please vote on both. Pick the 5 roles that are the "stickiest" in your head, the most memorable, from each poll of Best Actress nominated characters.

1981-1985
Choose up to 5 women

poll by twiigs.com

1986-1990
Choose up to 5 women

poll by twiigs.com

Does anything surprise you while reviewing your options?

Tech Noir "The Terminator"

This article was originally published in summer 2009. [Thanks to Leave Me The White for some of the screencaps] I'm reposting with minor edits in celebration of the 20th anniversary of its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day on this 4th of July Weekend.  Plus, what's more American than spectacles of Hollywood violence that launced billion dollar franchises?

Arnold Schwarzenegger as "The Terminator"

"Tech Noir"
In March of 1984 when The Terminator began filming, the director James Cameron and the producer Gale Ann Hurd were no Hollywood heavyweights. Cameron was no one's idea of a visionary (except for perhaps his own) and had only one feature under his belt, Piranha 2: The Spawning -- auspicious beginnings! Hurd had learned the production ropes on B movies for Roger Corman. Cameron and Hurd intended for the dark, fast and cheaply made robot movie to be their calling card. Seven months later in October the movie premiered with only its deceptively simple premise (killer machine hunts woman) and Conan the Barbarian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to sell it. The Terminator was an immediate hit, though not quite a blockbuster. It earned a Conan-like $38 million gross in its initial run (which I believe is something roughly in the ballpark of $100 million in today's ticket sales).

As a franchise it was a slow starter but as a stand alone movie The Terminator was anything but. The movie begins with a bone crushing (literally) view of "The Year of Darkness", in which massive machines hunt humans in desolate post-apocalyptic ruins. Very quickly we're thrown back to present day Los Angeles ...present day in in the 80s at least.

An electric storm begins and a naked crouching man rises from the clearing smoke. He proceeds to walk emotionless through LA and slaughters some punks for clothes. A second electrical storm follows dropping another naked man into downtown LA. The twin sequences are mostly wordless but already Cameron's story instincts are shining: The first man (we don't technically know he's a machine) is already embedded in the audiences mind as an cool collected deadly force to be reckoned with, the second Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is, in contrast, a scurrying, less capable and frankly desperate looking man.

Contrasting Entrances

In short, he's mortal.

Click to read more ...

John Malkovich signs "John Malkovich" on a photo of John Malkovich

"Malkovich! Malkovich! Malkovich!"

Malkovich Career Honors

John Malkovich was just honored at the Munich Film Festival in Germany with a "CineMerit Award" so herewith a very impromptu top 4 performances. I loved him in his Oscar nominated work in Places in the Heart (1984) back when I was a kid but I don't remember the movie at all so I left it out.

Nathaniel's "Best" Malkoviches

1. Being John Malkovich (1999) -far and away his best. The Academy was insane not to nominate him.
2. In the Line of Fire (1993) 
3. Burn After Reading (2008)
   honorable mention: Dangerous Liaisons (1988) maybe he was a walking anachronism but I worship the movie, okay?

 YOUR TURN!

Game Off

Three stories of how I'm off my game.

1. In the podcast post about "Midnight in Paris", I was all "you should read these articles" and then I didn't link to them. D'oh. We briefly mentioned Fandor's "TOP TEN FILMS ABOUT FILMMAKING" which you should definitely look at (I did the Sunset Blvd honors therein and I shared a personal ballot) and we talked about Mark and Joe's series on Oscar nominated Original Songs which has covered 1980 "Fame", 1981 "Arthur", 1982 "Up Where We Belong", 1983 "Flashdance", 1984 "I Just Called To Say (I Love You)", 1985 "Say You Say Me" and 1986 "Take My Breath Away" thus far. It's great fun to read.

2. Today is the 50th anniversary of THE PARENT TRAP (1961) only one of my favorite movies of all time. I think I was born loving it. Maybe I was meant to be twins? And I forgot to write it up. *sniffle* Forgive me Hayley & Hayley!

Yes, it is amazing!

3. You have to be chosen! With each passing day my own Green Lantern review fades in my own estimation (and I was so happy with it when writing it) whilst my hatred for the movie grows.

First Christopher Orr at The Atlantic provided the funniest traditional review, absolutely skewering the movie's hateful messages. I had tried to do the same with that "thinking is bad for you!" anti-intellectualism angle but the Tyranny of Beauty complaint is just as valid when it comes to the movie's deplorable subtext. Now Topless Robot has an incredibly funny but, more importantly, entirely accurate synopsis of its "best" scenes. It's hilariously precise and a great reprimand to all future movies that would like to have their screenplays written by committees and portray"heroes" as assholes whilst demanding that you root for them.

Remember how juvenile and bratty that movie Jumper was wherein the "hero" basically called everyone watching it "schmucks" in the opening scene and then we were supposed to root for him and his enormous and undeserved powers anyway? Green Lantern is totally like that... but it gets away with it a bit more on account of cocky Ryan Reynolds winning the sweepstakes of "who would you rather stare at you in 'puny human'* contempt mode?" sweepstakes handily over whiny Hayden Christensen whose ass you could probably kick anyway.

*I realize I just mixed up superhero tropes. Shut up! My ego has already taken a beating.

I will diminish and go into the East and remain Nathaniel.