Kuukausi: toukokuu 2020

#1277 Romantic Comedy (1983)

Posted on by admin

When I first saw Arthur – and then watched it again a gazillion times – I looked forward to seeing Dudley Moore’s other comedies of the era.

So far nothing has quite reached what Arthur had to offer, and Romantic Comedy is no exception. It’s pretty generic early 80s – well, romantic comedy – With neurotic adults not knowing whom they should commit to.

The chemistry between Mary Steenburgen and Moore is weirdly off throughout the movie, but it’s all fortunately by design, as the ending reveals.

80s-o-meter: 71%

Total: 54%

#1276 Odd Jobs aka Summer Jobs (1986)

Posted on by admin

Odd Jobs is an on even, small budget comedy of a bunch of college students first trying to get summer jobs before forming their own moving company.

As much as I root for the underdogs, Odd Jobs just doesn’t have what it takes to make for a memorable comedy, and although the single ok moments in the movie are many, as a whole it ends up a dud.

80s-o-meter: 61%

Total: 50%

#1275 Hellhole (1985)

Posted on by admin

A mid 80s take on the woman penitentiary movies, Hellhole maintains the gratuitous full frontal nudity aspect of the genre and is a complete miss as a horror movie.

But it does manage to find a somewhat interesting own tone, making it if not great, still one of the more tolerable exploitation movies out there.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 38%

#1274 A Great Wall aka The Great Wall Is a Great Wall (1986)

Posted on by admin

A Chinese American man gets disheartened with his Silicon Valley job and takes a long vacation to Beijing for the very first time in forty years with his fully Americanised family with no roots to the mainland China.

The few cultural clashes are inevitable in this kind of setup in A Great Wall, but more interestingly the clashes are internal and take place within each family. None of the drama is too big and I did like the approach as it gave both families a great sense of depth and authenticity.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 75%

#1273 Shock Treatment (1981)

Posted on by admin

A spiritual sequel to the 1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shock Treatment marches similar kind of bizarre imagery and zany characters on screen, but falls short every way our heads RHPS managed not to, despite its unorthodox setup.

Placed on a set of a TV show/hospital the music remains the only good point in Shock Treatment – and the music is not very good.

80s-o-meter: 50%

Total: 2%

#1272 Zelig (1983)

Posted on by admin

Some of Woody Allen’s comedies feel like a prolonged joke, and Zelig, a black and white documentary of a long forgotten human chameleon so willing to please who ever he talks to that he and that’s not only their point of you, but also their profession, appearance and race certainly feels like one.

Allen plays the lead role well, writing is snappy and the editing that combines old news clips with new footage is flawless, which more than often is not the case for the era.

The story in Zelig does not carry through its feature film length, and would’ve been much more efficient as a 45 minute short film, with some of the excessive padding left on the cutting room floor.

80s-o-meter: 3%

Total: 51%

#1271 Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)

Posted on by admin

A portrayal of a Jewish family living together in 1937 Brooklyn, New York, Brighton Beach Memoirs concentrate on the story of Eugene, a horny 16-year-old trying to find an outlet for his sexual frustrations.

But almost every other character in the story is more interesting to follow. The movie gets its best moments out of the shared moments between the older brother, who makes several bad choices, and the father, who is surprises the son as well as the viewer with his totally unexpected compassion and wisdom.

80s-o-meter: 21%

Total: 58%