1980s

  • Babbar Subhash – Disco Dancer (1983)

    1981-1990Babbar SubhashCultIndiaMusical
    Disco Dancer (1982)
    Disco Dancer (1982)

    Quote:
    Disco Dancer is a 1982 Bollywood movie starring Mithun Chakraborty. It is notable for having been popular in both India and the Soviet Union during the 1980s. The film tells the rags-to-riches story of a young street performer. Today, the movie has become a cult phenomenon among many generations of Indians who grew up in the 80s and remember the classic I am a Disco Dancer song. The movie was a musical blockbuster and cemented music director Bappi Lahiri’s talents in Bollywood.Read More »

  • Penelope Spheeris – The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)

    USA1981-1990DocumentaryPenelope Spheeris
    The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
    The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)

    The Los Angeles punk music scene circa 1980 is the focus of this film. With Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X.Read More »

  • Lino Brocka – Bona (1980)

    Lino Brocka1971-1980DramaPhilippines
    Bona (1980)
    Bona (1980)

    Quote:
    Bona, released in 1980, is perhaps his best–regarded work. The title character is a young, starstruck schoolgirl (played by Nora Aunor) who falls in love with an ageing actor (Phillip Salvador) and becomes his servant. She waits on him loyally in his decrepit shack, receiving nothing for her labors but the privilege of being his slave. When the actor decides he has had enough of her and attempts to toss her aside, Bona retaliates in a wholly unexpected, utterly justified fit of violent rage. As with many of his other independently made films, Bona reveals Brocka’s uncanny ability to join the personal and the political, to locate the overarching social statement in an intimate, deeply individualized gesture. Read More »

  • Jim Sharman – Shock Treatment (1981)

    1981-1990CultJim SharmanMusicalUSA
    Shock Treatment (1981)
    Shock Treatment (1981)

    Quote:
    Following on from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, this musical is set several years later in Brad and Janet Majors’ hometown – which has become a giant TV station; residents are either participants or viewers. They are married now, but their romance has fallen on the rocks. Ostensibly to fix their marriage, Brad is imprisoned on the program “Dentonvale” (the local mental hospital) while Janet is conscripted to become a new star. As Janet is entranced by the high life, she forgets Brad. Who is trying to woo her away?Read More »

  • Aleksandr Sokurov – Odinokiy golos cheloveka aka The Lonely Voice Of Man (1987)

    1981-1990Aleksandr SokurovDramaUSSR

    Sokurov’s first full-length feature film, filmed in 1978 and restored in 1987 at Lenfilm. The plot is based on the motives of Andrey Platonov’s works “The Potudan River” and “The Origin of the Master”.
    The picture has become today a film classics, but in 1978 Sokurov was not allowed to defend his diploma at VGIK. Moreover, the film was sentenced to destruction by the cinematographic authorities. The authors miraculously managed to save the negative. In this picture, Sokurov formed an alliance with screenwriter Yuri Arabov and cameraman Sergei Yurizditsky.Read More »

  • Jim Jarmusch – Permanent Vacation (1980)

    Jim Jarmusch1971-1980DramaUSA
    Permanent Vacation (1982)
    Permanent Vacation (1982)

    Jim Jarmusch’s first full length film “Permanent Vacation”, is a day in the life of a ‘beat-down’ young fellow, interested in Charlie Parker. He wanders the streets of Manhattan, engaging in detached conversations with likes of his girlfriend, strangers, and his mentally feeble mother. Using lots of long takes, the film takes it time wandering, giving it a humerous candid feel. With a soundtrack and cameo by John Lurie playing a ” vibrating bugged-out” versison of ‘Over the Rainbow’ giving it a jadded ‘beat-jazz’ feel.Read More »

  • Nagisa Ôshima – Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)

    Drama1981-1990Nagisa OshimaQueer Cinema(s)United Kingdom
    Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)
    Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)

    Quote:
    Here’s a movie that is even stranger than it was intended to be. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” is about a clash between two cultures (British and Japanese) and two styles of military service (patriotic and pragmatic). That would be enough for any movie, and there are scenes when it is enough, and the movie works pretty well.Read More »

  • Jorge Fons – Rojo amanecer AKA Red Dawn (1989)

    1981-1990Jorge FonsMexicoPoliticsThriller
    Rojo amanecer (1989)
    Rojo amanecer (1989)

    A Claustrophobic experience which involves a Mexican middle class family into the atrocities made by wild and heartless army forces whose main objective seems to be students who do not permit the 1968’s Olimpic games’ to develop normally.Read More »

  • Gus Van Sant – Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

    Gus Van Sant1981-1990CultDramaUSA
    Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
    Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

    A group of drug addicts in the 1970’s help finance their habit by robbing drug stores. A highly superstitious Bob and wife Diane love to do various pharmaceutical drugs like dilaudid, morphine and cocaine. To maintain the habit, they steal from pharmacies with the help of another couple. A cop that eventually gets too close for comfort, which causes the crew to move their operation to another town. Before long, one of the crew dies of an overdose; the body has to be moved from their hotel room to their car. The problem is that there is an unexpected sheriff’s convention assembling at the hotel where they’re staying. Bob believes that one of his superstitious beliefs caused this incident and is scared into joining a methadone program. Leaving his past proves harder than he anticipated, though.Read More »

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