Kuukausi: syyskuu 2022

#1676 Turk 182 (1985)

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Young Jimmy Lynch (Timothy Hutton) starts to perform a series of public stunts behind masked identity and the pseudonym Turk 182 to get justice to his older brother, a NYC firefighter who was denied benefits by the city and humiliated by the mayor.

The movie was completely other than I anticipated by its title, but more or less this was a positive surprise altogether. It’s fun to be an insider in this prank, and to watch Jimmy plan and execute them to humiliate the mayor, and increasingly getting to be the hero of the common folk.

Timothy Hutton is always a delight to watch on the silver screen, and Turk 182 is no exception here. The ending of the movie feels like a lazy writing, and an easy way out, which left me unsatisfied .. but everything until that is completely enjoyable, if not spectacular.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 70%

#1675 The Competition (1980)

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The first thing that strikes from The Competition is the love and devotion the team shows for its subject, competitive piano playing. The actors have been instructed and trained carefully, perform their roles as piano virtuosos very well and at least for me superficially the way the competitions are carried out seems quite plausible, and without those facepalm moments.

Although not one of the movies he is most known for, Richard Dreyfuss once again reminds me why he is one of my favourite actors of the era. Amy Irving whom I recently saw in Crossing Delancey is a good pair for Dreyfuss, and them getting involved in the strange mix of mutual interest, friendship and rivalry does not seem too far fetched.

The Competition sidesteps the obvious pitfalls of ending up boring (due to its classical music theme that’s not actually thrilling), or being untrue to the same theme, and for this reason it’s a success.

80s-o-meter: 65%

Total: 74%

#1674 Hotshot (1986)

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Hotshot is a football movie made in the vein of soccer almost becoming a household sport in America during the 80s, a trend that never did carry too far.

What makes the movie interesting is it featuring one Pelé, arguably one of the best football players in the history of the sport. This aspect of him not wanting to play the sport anymore, but upon a request of a young hothead American player becomes his protege and teacher is what makes Hotshot of any interest.

Other than that, Hotshot is pretty much your basic sports movie with nothing much surprising to it, coupled with way below average production values, especially for a movie made in 1986.

80s-o-meter: 75%

Total: 52%

#1673 Frances (1982)

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Other celebrity biographies well known in this side of the Atlantic ocean, while others, apparently well known in the stateside can remain relatively unknown here. The story and controversial life events of Frances Farmer falls at least to me in the latter category.

A sensation of her time, Farmer’s temperament and lack of respect for authority lead her to discord with Hollywood and a burnout that lead her to be arrested and put into a mental hospital where she was subjected to now-brutal methods of treatment.

As with many biographies, the 2-hour movie format is just too short to give a good treatment to a whole life of events, and the movie feels at many times rushing just to get the story told, and Frances as a character remains to the viewer quite distant and enigmatic.

80s-o-meter: 4%

Total: 60%

#1672 Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

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A costume drama I was for once actually aware of for once, Dangerous Liaisons marches in a quite unexpected cast (at least for a historical drama) consisting of Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves.

Those familiar with my page know that historical romantic dramas aren’t exactly my cup of tea, so at least here the consolidation was the interesting cast I was looking forward to seeing. I perceived Dangerous Liaisons as it was: a drama taking place for some unexplained reason in the make believe history with bored aristocrats in funny wigs delivering an endless stream of witty and pretentious dialogue in a pompous manner.

But – fortunately – there’s an end to all the wittiness, and this is where Dangerous Liaisons actually becomes interesting, to the point of redeeming itself in the final act.

80s-o-meter: 0%

Total: 70%

#1671 Beat Street (1984)

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I love the NYC hiphop culture of the 80s that carried also distant waves all the way to Finland in the forms of graffiti, rap music, beatboxing and breakdancing. There are a few good documentaries out there about the era, but also some cringeworthy movies that haven’t really aged that well. And to be honest, I’ve been putting off watching Beat Street because I always thought it was a movie of the latter kind.

Far from it, Beat Street is actually the 80s hiphop drama to watch and it skilfully balances between showing street life and the struggle to make it out of the ghetto, without being patronising, and having some actual dramatic elements to it without being overly melodramatic and silly by accident.

The movie also features a wide bunch of actual hiphop breakdancers, musical acts and DJs which make it much more credible, and Beat Street has been later recognised as the movie that introduced and ignited hiphop culture around the globe.

80s-o-meter: 98%

Total: 91%

#1670 Doin’ Time (1985)

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Truth be told, when starting this project I thought I was in for a lot of mediocre but passable comedies (true), but also hidden laugh out loud gems nobody has heard of – but the latter ones have kind of been hard to find as the really fun ones are typically more well known.

Enter Doin’ Time, a prison comedy for which I had absolutely no expectations for, and what a positive surprise it turned out to be! It’s one of those comedies where the plot is secondary, and only there to carry the movie from a joke to another. But in this case, much of the humor is actually quite fresh and genuinely funny in its stupidity, delivered in numerous word plays and dead pan comedy style not unlike Naked Gun series.

To make things even better Richard Mulligan and John Vernon are there to deliver the humor in style, and Jeff Altman – of whom I hadn’t former memories although I’ve seen him in some roles before – also performs the lead role with surprisingly solid comedic craftsmanship.

80s-o-meter: 94%

Total: 87%

#1669 Apprentice to Murder (1988)

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A US-Norwegian-Canadian co-production Apprentice to Murder portrays of Pennsylvanian folk healer and his apprentice getting far too deep into dark powers of their craft in a story that very successfully blurs the line between real and make-belief, wrong and right, and good and bad.

I was surprised to learn the movie was shot entirely in Norway, so my hat is off to the production team who very skilfully concealed this fact, and totally sold me the location of 1920s Pennsylvania.

Although shot in mainstream Hollywood fashion, Apprentice to Murder (apparently based on a real historic event) is a very untypical movie but in a good way. It boldly goes quite deep into religious fanaticism, dark sides of human psyche and superstition.

80s-o-meter: 11%

Total: 72%

#1668 Agnes of God (1985)

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Agnes of God presents us with an enigma of a young, eccentric nun giving a birth, insisting the now dead infant was a result of virgin conception, but it never really gives a solid answer to the actual events, or who was the culprit behind it all.

It’s an interesting concept, but the movie never manages to tell it in an interesting way. The same dullness continues in the cinematography and the locations, and the movie is never quite entertaining to watch.

The most prominent feature of the movie is seeing the 80s fitness idol Jane Fonda smoking a truckload of (fake, as it turns out) cigarettes, lighting one up in pretty much every scene she is in.

80s-o-meter: 15%

Total: 31%

#1667 The Bostonians (1984)

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I sigh audibly every time I’m to sit down and watch another period picture set in 19th century, especially one with a romantic theme to it.

The Bostonians wasn’t as bad costume drama as I feared, though. Its manuscript based on Henry James’ novel of the same name has some interesting aspects to it, like women’s rights movement and the implied one sided love story between the female leads, but as with many similar movies the end result is just plain dull, and the plot is stuck in the same place pretty much throughout the movie.

I was surprised by the ending, though.

80s-o-meter: 0%

Total: 32%