1980s

  • Alan Rudolph – Return Engagement (1983)

    1981-1990Alan RudolphDocumentaryUSA

    Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy went on a debating tour in 1983. This odd couple apparently bonded in prison, or some shit, despite Liddy personally busting Leary in the 60’s! They debate about a wide variety of issues from their very unique perspectives.
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  • Yôji Yamada – Otoko wa tsurai yo: Tabi to onna to Torajiro aka Tora-san 31: Song Of Love (1983)

    1981-1990AsianComedyJapanYôji Yamada

    Quote:
    On a ship en route to the Sado Islands, Tora-san enjoys the company of a beautiful woman (Miyako Harumi), unaware that she’s a famous enka singer traveling incognito. In this variation on Roman Holiday (1953), the enka star enjoys Tora-san’s company when her boyfriend left her. Eventually, she returns to her glamorous life, but not before surprising everyone in Shibamata by showing up to give Tora-san a ticket to her latest concert. Tora-san thought that this could be a good start, but she finally tells him that… her boyfriend is back.Read More »

  • Nagisa Ôshima – Max mon amour AKA Max My Love (1986)

    1981-1990CultFranceNagisa OshimaRomance

    “Just tell me one thing frankly. Is this monkey really your lover?”

    It is and it isn’t unlikely material for Nagisa Ôshima. The element of transgressive love is here, but this time, it’s in a dry comedy whose centerpiece is a diplomat’s wife’s extramarital affair with a sensitive, somewhat unstable chimpanzee (aren’t they all?). Charlotte Rampling is the woman, Anthony Higgins is the diplomat, and Victoria Abril is the housekeeper who develops a mysterious allergy, probably but not necessarily to the titular Max.Read More »

  • Lawrence Kasdan – The Big Chill (1983)

    1981-1990ComedyDramaLawrence KasdanUSA

    Plot Synopsis from Allmovie
    Embraced by the Baby Boomer generation and spawning countless imitators, the sophomore film of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan was a successful comedy-drama with a best selling soundtrack of Motown hits. Kevin Kline and Glenn Close star as Harold and Sarah Cooper, a couple whose marital troubles are put on hold while they host an unhappy reunion of former college pals gathered for the funeral of one of their own, a suicide victim named Alex. As the weekend unfolds, the friends catch up with each other, play the music of their youth, reminisce, smoke marijuana, and pair off with each other in unexpected combinations. Read More »

  • Tevfik Baser – 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland (1986)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaTevfik BaserTurkey

    The title Forty Square Meters of Germany refers to the shabby apartment where 90% of the film takes place. Ozay Fecht stars in this emotionally-charged drama as an impressionable Turkish girl named Turna, who is taken in by the tall tales spun by migrant worker Dursun (played by Yaman Okay), whom she marries and follows to Germany. But the young bride’s hopes for a better life in Germany are abruptly dashed.Read More »

  • Hsiao-Hsien Hou – Lian lian feng chen aka Dust in the wind (1986)

    1981-1990DramaHsiao-hsien HouRomanceTaiwan

    Quote:
    Dust in the Wind is a remarkable film, and one which will, no doubt, reward multiple viewings. Like most of the films of Hou Hsiao Hsien, viewers will be divided into two, sharply opposed camps.

    The main characters in the film are two high-school students. The first is Wan, who – seeing his village as a dead-end career-wise, decides to leave their home town to go to Taipei to find work, intending to complete his education via night-school. His girlfriend Huen also leaves for Taipei after graduation. The other personages are family members, employers, friends and co-workers.Read More »

  • Zhuangzhuang Tian – Lie chang zha sha AKA On The Hunting Ground (1984)

    1981-1990AsianChinaDramaFifth Generation Chinese CinemaZhuangzhuang Tian

    Tian Zhuangzhuang is perhaps the best known of [the Fifth Generation] for reviving and revitalizing a staple of the Chinese film industry — the “national minority” genre. Made to celebrate the solidarity of the Chinese people under the Communist regime, these films, often made by studios based in the minority areas themselves, showcased the songs, dances, customs, and patriotism of the non-Han community. Stories of liberation, they usually contrast the “backwardness” of traditional life before the Revolution with the benefits of Chinese Communist rule.Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – Mémoire des apparences AKA Life is a dream (1986)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaFranceRaoul Ruiz

    Quote:
    Memoire des Apparences is a highly unconventional, metafictional adaptation of Calderon de la Barca’s play Life is a Dream. Director Raul Ruiz combines the 17th-century Spanish drama, about a man raised in a prison who discovers he is his country’s rightful prince, with a modern-day story of Chilean political intrigue. During the violent, anti-Allende coup of the early 1970s, literature professor Ignaccio Vega is entrusted with memorizing a list of 15,000 resistance members. Read More »

  • Stéphane Marti – Diasparagmos (1980)

    1971-1980ExperimentalFranceQueer Cinema(s)Short FilmStéphane Marti

    Quote:
    “A filmmaker and academic, Stephane Marti has pursued cinema as a visual art form, divorced from the codes of the dominant narrative cinema, since 1976. He is a passionate and militant advocate of Super-8, a filmmaking tool which he has used for 30 years.

    His work has been shown in festivals and international presentations and has elicited numerous articles and interviews. His flamboyant, baroque and sensual style focuses principally on the Body and the Sacred.

    Baroque shades of red and gold fill the frame and dominate the color palette. These pure colours are captured by a mobile, trembling camera, whose gaze is projected with desire towards the bodies of the actors. The plasticity of the masculine subject’s skin is the axis of its gaze.Read More »

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