1980s

Chidambaram (Malayalam) is a 1985 Malayalam film written, directed and produced by G. Aravindan. It is the film adaptation of a short story by C. V. Sreeraman.The film explores various aspects of relations between men and women through the lives of three people living in a cattle farm. Themes of guilt and redemption are also dealt with. Bharath Gopi, Smita Patil, Sreenivasan and Mohan Das play the lead roles. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film and five Kerala State Film Awards including Best Film and Best Direction.Read More »

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A young, idealistic poet, turns his back on civilization and goes to small, backwood village, rents a bed in the house of an old woman, and decides to make his living as a lumberjack. Soon he realizes that the world around him is far from perfect. He does not make any real contact with the people in the village. And then another outcast like him rents a bed in the same house.Read More »

Prayer for Marilyn Monroe integrates images of the Hollywood actress and verses from Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal to create a powerful Pan-American product. Directors Miriam Talavera and Marisol Trujillo portray the harshness of the star’s life behind the glamour and glitter of show biz.Read More »

Candy tells the story of her life, her dissatisfaction with her male lovers, her desire for her girlfriend Katy and the route that led her into stripping. This is 80 minutes of flesh, bordering on the hardcore, sometimes on the gynaecological, and supposedly directed by Lina Romay (Candy Coster). Her husband Jess Franco was probably on hand somewhere. Romay in 1982 is not the trim young sexpot she was in the early 70s but she loves to get stuck in and there are still moments of genuine eroticism. It’s a shame a ridiculous blond-white wig often offsets her cute, slightly buck-toothed face. This was remade by Franco in 1986 as El Mirón y la Exhibicionista as a hardcore feature.Read More »

St. Elmo’s Fire, released in 1985, is one of the defining movies of the 1980s brat pack genre. (Along with ‘The Breakfast Club’, ‘Sixteen Candles’ and ‘Pretty In Pink’). Its major stars, slick editing and production and its soundtrack made it a financial (although not a critical) success.

This clasic mid-80’s coming-of-age film revolves around a group of friends that have just graduated from Georgetown University and their adjustment to their post-university lives, the quarter-life crisis, and the responsibilities of encroaching adulthood.Read More »

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All the Corners of the World sees the family unit as a disaster waiting to happen. Mr and Mrs Chang live in Taipei’s Hsi-Men-Ding (the city’s entertainment/red light/nightlife district) with their teenaged kids. The parents work as cleaners in a “love hotel” and send the kids out to work as ticket scalpers, block-buying seats for hit movies like A City of Sadness and reselling them at a profit. Tragedy strikes when the daughter Mei-Hsueh flirts with the idea of prostituting herself and changes her mind at the last moment, leaving her first client with injuries that put him on the critical list. The focus throughout is on the son Ah Tong, who has a latent talent as a writer that is never going to flower.Read More »

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Fourteen-year-old Stefan Kolbe, along with his mother and sister, moves from an idyllic small town to the developing area of Berlin-Marzahn, where his father works as a construction worker. Stefan must find his way in a completely new environment and surrounded by strange people. Stefan gets to know two girls, who attempt to seduce him, and gets himself into trouble with the landlord, who kisses up to societal authority figures. He becomes friends with the anxious Hubert, defends him against the constant humiliation of the older student Windjacke, and encourages him to stand up for himself. It ends tragically in a bitter fight between Stefan and Windjacke.Read More »

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In the ’30s a man is obsessed with a painting of a woman that reminds him of his long-lost mother. He models his girlfriend exactly after the woman in the painting and after she attempts to commit suicide she is committed into a sanatoriumRead More »

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There are times in “Mephisto” when the hero tries to explain himself by saying that he’s only an actor, and he has that almost right: All he is, is an actor. It’s not his fault that the Nazis have come to power, and that as a German-speaking actor he must choose between becoming a Nazi and being exiled into a foreign land without jobs or German actors. As long as he is acting, as long as he is not called upon to risk his real feelings, this man can act his way into the hearts of women, audiences, and the Nazi power structure. This is the story of a man who plays his life wearing masks, fearing that if the last mask is removed, he will have no face.Read More »