Jeb's Flicks: 1980s

Trash Talk  discussions have led me conclude you Philistines need someone to provide the touchpoints necessary for a decent understanding in motion picture entertainments. I'm handpicking 10 films per time period--I might not limit myself to decades or anything, but contiguous time periods. These are films I like. Expect it to be short on musicals, which I loathe.

Any decade pales before the renaissance represented by the 1970s. The amount of money made by films like Star Wars and Jaws have the studios salivating. There is a push for style over substance and daring movies like Taxi Driver fade from the studios as they look for the next $100M summerpaloozaganza.

The Blues Brothers -- The 1970s had drama figured out and opened up new genres we still enjoy today. But the 1980s just nailed comedies. Broad ones like Airplane! and Caddyshack, subtle ones like Lost In America, and big budget laughers like Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop. The comedy club scene and skit shows like SNL and Second City concentrated the talent, sprinkle in some cocaine for energy and all kinds of crazy shit happens. The Blues Brothers is a big budget affair and doesn't seem like much on paper, but John Landis steers the stellar cast through the best comedy of the last 50 years. 

The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) -- Let's put a nail in the car stunt movie coffin, shall we? No need to make another after this. Sure sure, The Fast & The Furious et al. are well-crafted, but it took another 20 years before anyone really even tried. Before the world realized Mel Gibson was a shithead, he stars in this apocalyptic thriller that stands the test of time. I want this to come back to theaters--it is an amazing film that I would love to see on the big screen. 

Raging Bull -- Loses the 1980 Best Picture Oscar  to Ordinary People. The decade starts off with the divergence of what Hollywood likes and what makes a good film. Robert DeNiro delivers one of the best performances ever. 

The Shining -- Stanley Kubrick takes a crack at a horror movie and shows what everyone else is doing wrong. "Wrong" is the watchword for this film, which bothers the viewer in a deep down way. Just about everything is unsettling and the film just grinds away at normalcy until only the raving madness of the protagonist is left. Comments on earlier entries have noted a distinction between "terror movies" and "horror movies." I want to draw that distinction further and posit that most "horror movies" are "scary movies." The Shining is a horror movie. Cf. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Blue Velvet -- Hey, speaking of normalcy! David Lynch lifts the rock of the Guy Whitey Cornbread Reagan era suburbs and finds the unpleasantness underneath. Lynch was turning out amazing visionary work in the 1980s at a time when it was needed most. He and David Cronenberg kept the 1980s on their toes.

Do The Right Thing -- A virtuosic directorial performance by Spike Lee. Bright colors, loud voices; you can feel the heat of the New York summer bearing down on the characters as they slowly boil into race riot. 

The Thin Blue Line -- Hints of brilliance appear in Errol Morris' earlier Gates of Heaven, but this film transforms documentary film-making forever. An odd amalgam of 60 Minutes-style investigative journalism, Unsolved Mysteries-like reënactments, and camera-in-the-face interviews (aided by "the Interrotron"). Got a guy out of prison. A convicted cop-killer, no less. 

Blade Runner -- Ridley Scott shows us the future and we believe. Still the yardstick by which any future-set movie is measured. Ads are everywhere. Cars fly, but who gives a shit. Explores some of the same ground as 2001: A Space Odyssey (the nature of life, the morality of artificial intelligence), but in an action setting. Harrison Ford is understated and Rutger Hauer is amazing. Still stellar. I prefer the non-Unicorn-dream version without the flyover narrated ending, YMMV.

This Is Spinal Tap -- At the same time Errol Morris was transforming the documentary, Rob Reiner-as-Marty-DeBergy was lampooning it, along with rock music. As a testament to heavy metal, Spinal Tap stands taller than many of its actual practitioners. My kids won't remember hair metal, but this will still crack them up. 

Diner -- Barry Levinson invents the "doing nothing" genre that crystallized in the 1990s. The movie is ostensibly about some high-school chums heading out for a big ball game, but that never happens--and not much else actually does; which is the magic of this film. The characters feel lived in, and the relationships feel real. 

See the pre-1960s list here.

See the 1960s list here.

See the 1970s list here.