1980s

  • Jirí Menzel – Postriziny AKA Cutting It Short (1981)

    Drama1981-1990ComedyCzech RepublicJirí Menzel

    Quote:
    Short Cut is a comedy revealed more in the acting and witty dialogue than in the simple premise of the story itself: how the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal was born. Actually, the story is, in many ways, the writer’s conception. The setting is a small town where Hrabal’s father Francine (Jiri Schmitzer) is in charge of a large brewery. Both the blessing and bane of his life is his gorgeous wife Marja (Magda Vasaryova). Blessing, because she is not only beautiful but resourceful and intelligent and lively, bane because every other man would like to get to know her better. Marja saves the day more than once, and the couple are happy in their life together. When Francine’s brother arrives for a visit, an attraction starts to develop between Marja and her brother-in-law that may have upset the marriage, were it not for a fortuitous accident. Read More »

  • Dariush Mehrjui – Voyage au pays De Rimbaud (1983) DVD

    1981-1990ArthouseDocumentaryFrance

    Dariush Mehrjui did this for France 3, during his french exile. A biopic of Rimbaud, with visions of contemporary france.

    Starring :
    Pierre Bayle … Arthur Rimbaud
    Mathieu Joly … Arthur Rimbaud at 8
    Nicolas Joly … Arthur Rimbaud at 16
    The Troupe del Theatre Ern Read More »

  • Richard Lowenstein – Dogs In Space (1987)

    1981-1990AustraliaCultRichard Lowenstein

    Description: Set against the backdrop of Melbourne’s late ‘70s punk rock scene, Dogs in Space chronicles life in a chaotic, squalid share-house. Hippies, addicts, students and radicals fill their days and nights with sex, drugs, parties and television. Writer/director Richard Lowenstein balances a series of chaotic vignettes with the central story of the romance between housemates Sam (Michael Hutchence), the lead singer of the band, Dogs in Space and his lover Anna (Saskia Post) as it spirals out of control. Hutchence is a brilliant symbol of reckless youth in this, his first dramatic screen role, giving Dogs in Space instant cult status upon its release.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Tetsuo (1989) (HD)

    1981-1990AsianCultJapanShinya Tsukamoto

    A strange man known only as the “metal fetishist”, who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body, is hit and possibly killed by a Japanese “salaryman”, out for a drive with his girlfriend. The salaryman then notices that he is being slowly overtaken by some kind of disease that is turning his body into scrap metal, and that his nemesis is not in fact dead but is somehow masterminding and guiding his rage and frustration-fueled transformation.Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – Liberté, la nuit (1984) (HD)

    Drama1981-1990ArthouseFrancePhilippe Garrel

    ‘Liberte, la nuit’ is not really a political film, or, at least, a film about politics. Its central figures are an aging revolutionary helping Algerians in the anti-colonial war against France, his separated wife, a dressmaker who gives them guns, and his mistress, a French Algerian emigree. Such a set-up might offer opportunities for allegory – white Algeria returning to the aging bosom of the fatherland, and all that. The film’s most dynamic sequence is pure political thriller, an assassination by the OAS, confusingly shot and edited on grainy stock that evokes both documentary immediacy and the whirring of a surveillance camera, complete with exciting car chase. The human relationships – especially the drawn-out separation of Jean and Mouche, are said to be caused by his political activity, while his contact with others has some basis in his ‘work’. Even, as I say, his final escape with an apolitical menial has political overtones; and their idyll is ultimately no escape from history.Read More »

  • Akio Jissôji – Ijmete kudasai Henrietta AKA Arietta (1989)

    1981-1990Akio JissojiDramaEroticaJapan

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    Synopsis:
    A young widow (Keiko Kaja) becomes an SM call girl to pay off the debts accumulated by her yakuza husband. She’s a depressed woman, merely going through the motions of existence, subjected to every cruel whim concocted by her clients. She’s dedicated to the misery – even finding comfort in it – stumbling through life like a zombie.Read More »

  • Stephen Quay & Timothy Quay & Keith Griffiths – The Eternal Day of Michel De Ghelderode (1981)

    1981-1990ArthouseKeith GriffithsShort FilmStephen Quay and Timothy QuayUnited Kingdom

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Using the tricks of the Flemish playwright’s own trade–puppetry, masks, and a Breughelesque sense of bizarre carnival, the collaborators succeeded in bringing about a rich and sardonic humor lurking at the edge of the playwright’s macabre, death-obsessed imagination in an allusive homage.Read More »

  • Larry Cohen – A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987)

    1981-1990ClassicsHorrorLarry CohenUSA

    Plot:
    Joe Weber is an anthropologist who takes his son on a trip to the New England town of Salem’s Lot unaware that it is populated by vampires. When the inhabitants reveal their secret, they ask Joe to write a bible for them.Read More »

  • Wim Wenders – Hammett (1982)

    Drama1981-1990CrimeUSAWim Wenders
    Hammett (1982)
    Hammett (1982)

    The plot
    Based in part on detective-fiction writer Dashiell Hammett’s early experiences as a Pinkerton detective, this moderately-noir film has Hammett (using his little-known first name, Sam) involved in an elaborate extortion plot by his former detective agency mentor, Jimmy Ryan. Ryan shows up at Hammett’s San Francisco digs searching for a mysterious Chinese girl, Crystal Ling. He calls in a marker from Hammett’s days at the detective agency to get his help in finding the girl, who turns out to be a very sexy and shrewd former prostitute and porn star. She has photographs of San Francisco’s most influential citizens engaged in sexual fantasy with her and she means to turn them into a million-dollar payday. The tubercular Hammett must cope with an unfriendly police force, a mysterious gunsel intent on inflicting serious harm, and betrayal by supposed friends; to save the reputations of the powerful while tweaking their collective noses
    Written by Joe Jurca, imdb.comRead More »

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