Best 80's movies?

I was in such a hurry to reply with Top Gun that I was 1/2 through typing before I realised you had already mentioned it...!

Top-tastic 80's action...

I still love Tarantino's 'homo' take on it all though...!

I remember a rumour of a sequel ! Something about 'Maverick' now being a tutor at the Top Gun Academy.....I'm not sure what happened to that ! Perhaps it doesn't mix with Cruise's Scientology beliefs these days...

Steve

From 1986 - The best Space-fiction film ever? ...it is imho! : )



I hope it's fiction anyway!

Angel Heart - before Mickey Rourke lost the plot and with the always lovely Charlotte Rampling. Good soundtrack, too!

Aliens scared the c~ap out of me when I first saw it - still does actually -great movie. I bought the ten disk ;-) edition of the aliens movies and really enjoyed the extended version of Aliens - well worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

Jonathan

Off the top of my head, Cal, Defence of the Realm, The Ploughman's Lunch, Wall Street.

Best, Chris

And after a shower....Plenty, A Private Function, My Beautiful Launderette, Chariots of Fire and The Mission.

Chris

Heralded by 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Quadraphenia' in 1979, the period of the 80s (when I was between roughly 16-26) was my great cinema-going period (I haven't been to half so many since the children came along...). During the decade I enjoyed going to see at least the following, and possibly some more (in no particular order):

The Mission (the first film I saw with surround sound, Leicester Square, amazing)
Local Hero
Gregory's Girl
A Room with a View
Kagemusha
Diva
Babette's Feast (Babettes Gaetesbund)
Jean de Florette
Manon des Sources
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Black Rain
Preparez vos Mouchoirs
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres Al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios)
Raging Bull
The Shining
Tootsie
This is Spinal Tap
The Terminator
Brazil
Chariots of Fire
Dog's of War
The Long Good Friday
Amadeus
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Batman
9 to 5
Ghandi
Withnail and I
Stripes
Arthur
Porky's
Ghostbusters
Back to the Future
Out of Africa
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
Star Trek 4
Fatal Attraction
Good Morning, Vietnam
The Untouchables
A Fish Called Wanda
Field of Dreams
When Harry Met Sally
A Fish Called Wanda
My Left Foot
Shirley Valentine

Holy crap...Did you google that lot...?!

You should have known me then, you would have had a great time with me!

At the time, the foreign films were motivated partly by thinking it would make me more attractive to women (or at least the bookish sort I fancied). Didn't work ... except for one ... and we've been married now for almost 21 years (ah, bless...)

But Babette's Feast, Diva, Jean de Florette and Manon Des Sources remain in my all-time top 10. If you haven't seen them, they are a must (even with subtitles).

And I didn't remember everything first time round!

If it can be permitted, I would also like to put in a bit for Kevin Brownlow's amazing 1980 reconstruction of Abel Gance's 1927 silent masterpiece, 'Napoleon'.

This really is an epic, and an early example of split-screen triptych widescreen (called Polyvision by Gance, the principle was later refined into Cinemascope). Brownlow campaigned for years to get the funds to reconstruct it.

I saw it at Ipswich Corn Exchange Film Theatre, it had a newly-composed live piano accompaniment, and lasted all day in three sections, with lunch and tea intervals. It was an amazing experience that I will remember all my life, especially the triptych split screen battle scenes.

I remember Birdy and Kiss of the Spider Woman leaving an impression.

/david

Blade Runner?

Blues Brothers.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
Blade Runner?

Why the question mark? No doubts in my mind. One of the best movies of all time, not just the eighties. After some mixed-quality DVD transfers, the new Blu-ray edition is just stunning.

One of my all time favorites:

Breaker Morant (1980). Outstanding film about the Boer warand the court martial trial of the bushfeld carbonniers starring Edward Woodward.

JWM, it was great to be reminded of Diva, which I had completely forgotten about despite having the soundtrack on vinyl.

And staying with the French theme: Trop belle pour toi, 'Round Midnight, Subway, The last Metro, and Betty Blue, this last if only for the opening sex scene!

Others: The Rolling Stones' Let's Spend the Night Together (brilliant on iMax), Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Killing Fields and (wait for it!....) P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang.

Cheers, Chris

Restless Natives!


With regards,

The Fat Cat

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
Blade Runner?

Why the question mark? No doubts in my mind. One of the best movies of all time, not just the eighties. After some mixed-quality DVD transfers, the new Blu-ray edition is just stunning.

I wasn't sure of the date, I'm sure about the film.

Blade Runner was released in 1982 if my research is correct.

quote:

Originally posted by naim_nymph:
From 1986 - The best Space-fiction film ever? ...it is imho! : )



I hope it's fiction anyway!

I saw it's first public screening in Leicester Square at 12:15 at night 3 rows from the front!!!!! I couldn't stop shaking we left the cinema at 2:00am to drive home.

Also Dune and American Werewolf in London from the '80's are great films.

Jono

Preferred Aliens to Alien the others were crap IMO.

The best little whorehouse in Texas. Dolly P gives a far better rendition of "I will always love you" and puts the Houston woman to shame.

Also:

Caddyshack
Mad Max
Rain Man
Dead Poets Society
Excalibur
Highlander
The Witches of Eastwick

Just remembered - The Name of the Rose.

Third attempt to post to this thread, hope the fourm does not crash this time.
_________________________________________

The 1980's was a great decade for films.

Peter Greenaway - The Draughtsman's Contract, Belly of an Architect, Drowning by Numbers
Stanley Kubrick - The Shinning
Nic Roeg - Bad Timing, Castaway (very underrated), and several other good films.
Woody Allen - Hannah and her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanour's, and lots of other good films.
David Cronenberg - Videodrome, Dead Ringers, and several other good films.
Patrice Leconte - Monsieur Hire
Spike Lee - Do the Right Thing
Steven Soderbergh - Sex, Lies and Videotape
Phil Alden Robson - Field of Dreams
Wim Wenders - Paris Texas, Wing of Desire
Krzysztof Kieslowski - The Decalogue/A Short Film About Killing/Love
Louis Malle - Atlantic City
John Huston - The Dead
Lawrence Kasdan - Body Heat, The Big Chill (might not have dated so well)
Bruce Robinson - Withnail and I
John Diugan - The Year My Voice Broke
John Hughes - The Breakfast Club

Film Four produced a lot of good films, A Month in the Country, My Beautiful Laundrette, Another Country, The Last of England, etc.

Although I am not a fan of his films, Martin Scorsese made 'Raging Bull' and 'The King of Comedy'. David Lynch made 'Blue Velevet' which a lot of people seem to like, personally I found it a very unpleasant film, similarly people rave about Alex Cox's 'Repo Man' with is just about the film I have least enjoyed.

David Zucker made two films so tacky, fast and funny that my throat hurt after seeing them - Airplane (with Jim Abrahams), and The Naked Gun.

The Mr Creosote scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life was fantastic, especially as I saw the film before people knew about it, half the cinema were in fits of laughter, and the other half were green looking very ill.

On the subject of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1985). I much prefer Alien. I think the first hour of Aliens is excellent, but after that if is just fight - run away, bigger fight - run away, even bigger fight - run way, then the thing that was killed at the end of the last scene appears and kills the robot, and frankly I had lost interest by this time. I am not particularly a James Cameron fan, the Terminator films are very good, but other than that he seems to direct a series of set pieces, rather than a films with a flow to the plot.

It was a disappointing decade for Clint Eastwood as a director, nothing of any great note. John Sayles and the Cohen brothers were starting to emerge, but did their best work in the 90's.

On the negative side, Alan Parker made several nasty manipulative films, including 'Mississippi Burning' which is probably the only film about race in America not to have any black actors in it, and Paul Verhoeven began his Hollywood career of misogynistic and vilely violent films with 'Robocop'. Although unlikely, were I asked to work on a film made by either of these directors I would refuse.

Still all in all a great decade for films.

Been reminded from another thread, Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot".

My memorable films from my youth were -

Back to the future
The Goonies
Weird Science
Predator
Lethal Weapon
Teenwolf
The secret of my success
Big
Big trouble in little China
ET

Bladerunner for me... Still holds its own aganist many of today's sci-fi.