PRESENTATION: MAR's Top 100 Films of the 1980s [COMPLETED!]

Trivia: According to an interview with writer and director Jonathan Lynn, after a screening on the 25th anniversary of this movie's release, Carrie Fisher was originally cast as Miss Scarlet, until she ended up in rehab for drug addiction four days before filming started. Fisher called Lynn and agreed to a work furlough, which received approval of her clinicians and the producers, but was vetoed by the production's insurance company, forcing Lynn to dismiss her from the project. Lesley Ann Warren was cast as a last-minute replacement. .

”Everything alright?”
“Yup. Two corpses. Everything’s fine.”

For many years, there seemed to be a notion among film critics that high art and pure entertainment could rarely equal one and the same thing. That if a film is truly a blast, the idea of awards consideration or a ranking on a top year-end list simply wasn’t acceptable. Thankfully, in recent years, this stigma toward entertainment – in particular comedies – has started to vanish among modern film criticism. It does remain prevalent unfortunately – possibly due to an over-exposure to studio-mandated blockbuster cinematic universes and the ever-dying full creative license in Hollywood filmmaking – but when a film with its own unique flavor manages to slip through into the mainstream, it can often catch the film world by surprise.

This was never the case for Jonathan Lynn’s Hasbro board game-inspired murder-mystery-comedy Clue which opened to a lukewarm critical response and never broke it’s $15 million budget at the box office. Thankfully for the rest of us nowadays, it developed a cult following since its release and we can enjoy it in all of its zany, sidesplitting, quotable glory that audiences in ’85 were clearly not ready for.

That a movie based off of the board game Clue was even made is a pretty ridiculous feat in itself, but the fact that it also happened to be as exciting and uproariously funny as it was is pretty magical. Even beyond that, it features one of the finest ensembles ever put to film (yeah, not just comedy ensembles, ensembles period) highlighted by best-ever performances from comedic genius Madeline Kahn and the always-delightful Tim Curry just makes you wonder how strong that cocaine was audiences were all snorting in 1985 to not realize how brilliant this film was.

To say Clue had a unique flavor was certainly an understatement. The best comparison is to Robert Moore’s Murder by Death, although Clue dodges all of that film’s fatal flaws (racist/sexist jokes that punch down, Peter Sellers’ notorious “yellowface”) and simply just sets out to have a great fucking time. The murder mystery film all other murder mystery films wish they could be. Just like having a memorable and entertaining game night with all of your closest friends. I’ll gladly take this film anytime, anywhere, as my weapon of choice.

Awards: Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score.

Trivia: The sound technicians on the film had a hard time hearing Mickey Rourke's dialogue on set, often asking him to speak louder. As a result, the sound crew referred to the production as "Mumble Fish".

Awards: Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film

Trivia: At the time of filming, Peter Weir felt that his young star, Mel Gibson, was "full of beans, and really with no grand career ambitions."

The end of Peter Weir's great Australian period. Visually the work of a romantic (this Gallipoli is very strange, very foreign... an Arabian nightmare), though its power lies somewhere else entirely. In its depiction of how these young men meet their doom for reasons they can't understand or control, the movie has a direct, dispassionate lyricism... and a theme that bears a striking resemblance to Weir's masterly Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Trivia: During the opening sequence, when Willem Dafoe's character is printing money, the film crew was actually creating counterfeit bills. A convicted counterfeiter was on set showing them how it's done. They were filming out in the desert, and Dafoe said that every time a helicopter flew over the building they were sure it was the police coming to arrest them all.

Awards: Academy Award winner for Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing; Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Sam Shepard), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction.

Trivia: Original composer John Barry left the film because he found it impossible to understand what Philip Kaufman wanted from the score, citing a meeting where Kaufman described his ideal score as "sounding like you're walking in the desert and you see a cactus, and you put your foot on it, but it just starts growing up through your foot."

Awards: Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actor (Denzel Washington), Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing; Academy Award nominations for Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction.

Trivia: Edward Zwick claimed that, for the flogging scene, Denzel Washington was lashed at full contact with a special whip that would not cut his back, but still stung. For the final take of the scene, Zwick hesitated to call "Cut!" to signal the flogging to stop, and the result was Washington's spontaneous tear down his cheek.

Awards: Included in the National Film Registry.

Trivia: The choral piece near the end of the film, "Prophecies", is sung in the Hopi dialect. The translation is: "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster. Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky. A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

Awards: Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for Best Motion Picture.

Trivia: In shooting the final confrontation between Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan) and Will Graham (William Petersen), Noonan had to lie in a pool of stage blood for several hours as the crew worked on other shots. After all of this time, the stage blood dried into a thick, cement-like adhesive that nearly fused Noonan to the carpet.

Awards: Academy Award nominations for Best Visual Effects, Best Original Song.

Trivia: In the middle of the film's initial release, to keep interest going, Ivan Reitman ran a trailer that was basically the commercial the Ghostbusters used in the movie, but the 555 number was replaced with a 1-800 number, allowing people to actually call in. Callers got a recorded message of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd saying something to the effect of "Hi. We're out catching ghosts right now." They got 1,000 calls per hour, 24 hours a day, for six weeks.

Awards: National Society of Film Critics nominations for Best Actress (Holly Hunter), Best Screenplay.

Trivia: Fifteen babies played the Arizona quintuplets in the film. One of the babies was fired during production when he learned to walk. The mother went so far as to put her baby's shoes on backwards in order to prevent him from walking.

Awards: Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Mixing.

Trivia: During filming of the immense coronation scene in the Forbidden City, Queen Elizabeth II was in Beijing on a state visit. The production was given priority over her by the Chinese authorities and she was therefore unable to visit the Forbidden City.

Awards: Indie Spirit winner for Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (M. Emmett Walsh), Indie Spirit nominations for Best Feature, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay.

Trivia: On the advice of Sam Raimi, the Coens went door-to-door showing potential investors a two minute 'trailer' of the film they planned to make. They ultimately raised $750,000 in a little over a year, enough to begin production of the movie.

Awards: Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress (Whoopi Goldberg), Best Supporting Actress (Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Original Song.

Trivia: Whoopi Goldberg won the part of Celie in her audition for Steven Spielberg by doing a comedy act she had developed about a stoned E.T. getting arrested in Oakland, California for possession. The audition was attended by many of Spielberg's famous friends, including producer Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.

Awards: Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actor (Sean Connery); Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design.

Trivia: An envelope is dropped on the desk of Eliot Ness in one scene. It is assumed to be a bribe, but the amount inside is never revealed. In real life, Al Capone promised Eliot Ness that two $1,000 bills would be on his desk every Monday morning if he turned a blind eye to his bootlegging activities (an enormous amount of money then; more than $30,000 today). Ness refused the bribe, and in later years struggled with money. He died almost broke at the age of fifty-four.

Awards: Indie Spirit nomination for Best Foreign Film.

Trivia: Many elements of the film closely parallel a classic Western. Goro is the mysterious stranger who rides into town; he saves the pretty girl from harassing bad men, and even has a brawl with another man at the edge of town.

Awards: Palme d'Or and Best Actor (James Spader) at the Cannes Film Festival; Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Trivia: The film was playing in Berlin's largest movie theaters when the Berlin Wall fell. A lot of East Germans crossing over to West Berlin went to see it, expecting Western-style porn.

Awards: Golden Globe nomination for New Female Star (Nancy Allen).

Trivia: As a young man, at his mother's urging, Brian De Palma followed his father and used recording equipment to try and catch him with another woman. That incident inspired this movie.

Awards: Golden Globe nomination for Best Comedy or Musical.

Trivia: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker chose actors such as Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, and Leslie Nielsen because of their reputation for playing no-nonsense characters. Until this film, these actors had not done comedy, so their "straight-arrow" personas and line delivery made the satire in the movie all the more poignant and funny. Bridges was initially reluctant to take his role in the movie, but his sons persuaded him to do it.

Awards: Razzie Award nomination for Worst Music Score. (Yes, this really happened.)

Trivia: James Caan made sure to speak slowly and clearly and tried to avoid using contractions in his words. He decided that Frank would do this so he would save time by never having to repeat himself.

Michael Mann’s attention to detail and accuracy in the criminal realm was already at its peak in his theatrical debut, Thief. Watching a safe being cracked has never felt more real, and that authenticity elevates the film. In possibly the best performance of his career, James Caan’s Frank is a product of the criminal justice system and a man who is very good at what he does, and this is obvious to the audience because of just how real it all looks… and it’s also clear to crime boss Leo. Robert Prosky (chillingly badass in his film debut) is Leo, an obvious symbol of capitalism, who recruits lone wolf Frank to work for him and as you’d expect, screws him over… culminating in one of the most kickass finales you’ll ever see in a crime film. Thanks for everything, Tangerine Dream.

Awards: Academy Award winner for Best Makeup.

Trivia: Michael Keaton ad-libbed 90% of his lines.

Most of Tim Burton's well known trademarks were first presented in Beetlejuice: Gothic visuals, dark hilarity, monstrous but misunderstood heroes, manic Danny Elfman soundtrack!

Morbid and cartoonish black comedy, witty and sensitive at the same time. A classic horror fairytale featuring Winona Ryder's breakout role and a hysterical, slapstick Michael Keaton!

Awards: Academy Award nomination for Best Director.

Trivia: Martin Scorsese banned smoking from the set, both because he's a severe asthmatic, and to avoid any photographs being taken of actors and actresses playing Biblical characters, primarily Willem Dafoe, who smoked at the time, with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.

For someone to understand more clearly what The Last Temptation Of Christ is about I will reference some phrases from the introduction of Kazantzakis’ book, of which the film is an adaptation of. The author states that “This book is not a biography, it is the confession of every man who struggles” and that he is trying to explore the “duality” of Christ, the struggle between his human side and his spiritual one. The book was seen as “heretical” upon it’s release in 1955 and resulted in it’s author been excommunicated by the church and even denied a Christian burial two years later, despite the fact that he had been a devout Christian all his life. The adaptation of the book became a passion project for Scorsese and had been working on it for several years beforehand, but finding funding for it was extremely difficult. Scorsese’s film had a similar fate as the book, since there were riots by religious fundamentalists upon it’s release in 1988 and it was banned (and still is banned) in several countries.

The film’s focus is on the human side of Christ, as we see him face the same doubts, fears and struggles any common man would face. But as the difficulties pile up and he questions his destiny, even his own existence, he never strays from his goal. “It is accomplished!” he cries on the cross at last, having overcome all the obstacles, all the temptations laid in his path. And that is the moment he achieved godhood, rose above his earthly existence, as he put his fellow men above himself and made the ultimate self-sacrifice. Christ is a symbol for all people, a role model that shows that anyone can overcome their innate selfishness and help others in need. Only through selfless acts can we develop as people and better our lives and society in general and, thus, also achieve “godhood”.

Trivia: Hayao Miyazaki didn't want to bore the audience during the film's end credits by using just the names. He set it up to be like a mini sequel so that the audience would leave the theatre feeling happy.

A newly independent young woman is shopping and sees a pan that looks perfect for her. She picks it up, her eyes glittering... and then she sees the price, sighs, puts it back. Then she sees a mug with a cat on it and buys that because cats are awesome.

For some reason, it is this little moment that I keep coming back to. There is so much that I love about Kiki's Delivery Service, and I can't stop thinking about that pan and that mug. They're a microcosmic representation of how Kiki is learning to deal with the world: not knowing how to be an adult, but so desperately wanting just that - not wanting to be a child, but unsure of how to be a grown up. Two sides that are intrinsically part of her identity, that she doesn't know how to reconcile. This kind of thing is often labeled "coming of age," but here it's more like a mystery, a girl looking trying puzzle out what kind of adult she wants to be, taking pieces from the people around her (like the generous Mrs. Osono) and rejecting pieces from others (like the spoiled girl who sneers at the birthday gift from her grandmother).

There's another image from this film that is perhaps even more representative of who Kiki is. A moment towards the beginning, where she runs to her father's arms and he lifts her to swing her about over his head - but he stumbles under her weight, puts her down for a moment, adjusts his grip and then swings her properly. A woman too old for these childish games, but young and kind enough to love the bond that they celebrate.

Awards: Best Science-Fiction film at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film

Trivia: David Tsubouchi, who appears here briefly as a Japanese porn dealer, later became a Minister in the Ontario provincial government. His appearance in this controversial film as a pornographer was exploited by the opposition.

One main theme that pertains to most of David Cronenberg’s films is the impact that technology has on the human psyche. How it affects the mind and the body, how it can change societal norms and habits and how it’s uncontrollable and unrestrained use and dependence on can lead to disastrous results. Videodrome is no exception to this rule, it is actually the film of his in which these themes are in their fullest force.

But Videodrome is also a very cynical critique on the media and how they are used by those in power to manipulate the viewers through the projection of unimportant information or even misinformation, so as to forge a sort of collective conscience that would make the masses easier to control and deceive. Reality is shaped through the news networks and always according to the benefits of those in power. As professor Brian O'Blivion claims in the film: “television is reality and reality is less than television”. Thus it forms naive, mindless people that don’t think for themselves, eating up whatever they are served. Because if it’s on the news then it must be true, right?

Videodrome is just as relevant today as it was back in 1983 and it will probably stay relevant for centuries to come.

Awards: Included in the National Film Preservation Board.

Trivia: After the film opened, several people told Rob Reiner that they loved the film but he should have chosen a more well-known band for a documentary.

Rob Reiner’s mocumentary This is Spinal Tap brilliantly blends humor and rock music. Some scenes appear painfully accurate as portrayals of real life rock artists but then quickly pivot to legendary humor. From cold sores to drugs to debauchery to pure ego, it delivers on the absurdity of rock & roll with still an underlying respect. Truly the only movie that deserves a rating of 11/10.

Awards: Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films nominations for Best Horror Film, Best Makeup, Best Special Effects

Trivia: Most of the film was shot on a set built inside the gymnasium of the JR Faison Junior High School in Wadesboro, North Carolina.

Evil Dead II is one of the greatest sequels ever made, horror or otherwise. It's a less then thinly veiled remake of the first film but taken to a more extravagant comedic extreme. It’s a great middle-ground between the rougher low-budgetness of the original, and the studio goofy sheen of Army of Darkness. The gore is off the walls brilliant and seeing Ash mow down a bunch of deadites with his chainsaw hand is an amazing sight to behold. Ash is a great character, and Campbell gives his best B movie actor turn in the role, with his crazy laugh ranging between being infectious and downright terrifying at points. Just like the entirety of the film, it’s totally groovy.

Awards: European Film Awards nomination for Best Production Design

Trivia: The lengthy tracking shot from the restaurant to the toilet is supposed to be symbolic of food passing through the intestinal tract.

The Cook, the thief his wife and her lover is probably one of the best examples of symbolism in cinema. And not only as a method to express the invisible and immaterial, through objects visible and tangible, but also in a more poetic way, as human actions don’t stand on their own in this film, but are more of a representation of feelings and the senses. Greenaway achieves this through the very clever use of color, using both the film’s sets and costumes. The movie takes place in four different areas (or rooms), each of which is painted with a different colored background that represents an aspect of our world. Moreover, the clothes the people are wearing also change color depending on the room they are in, but also on their mood. The attention to detail given here is staggering and everything is set in such a way as to showcase the films greater meaning: the greedy and gluttonous nature of capitalism will just devour any sort of spiritual pleasure (weather it’s love or artistic inspiration), unless it is kept under tight restraints. This film is a truly magnificent work of art.

Awards: Cahier du Cinéma: Top 10 of 1989

Trivia: Initially, Jeremy Irons had two separate dressing rooms and two separate wardrobes which he would use depending on which character he was playing at the time. Soon he realized that "the whole point of the story is you should sometimes be confused as to which is which," after which he moved to a single dressing room and mixed the wardrobes together, and found an "internal way" to play each character differently, using the Alexander technique to give them "different energy points," which gave them slightly different appearances.

Who better than Cronenberg to tackle the old mind-body problem? With an epicurean twist, that is: everyone in this movie is determined to abolish pain no matter the cost. Easier to live as an organism than play at being human. (It's a world of pills out there). Jeremy Irons is a marvel in the dual role of twins leading strictly biological lives till the threat of separation comes along. And Geneviève Bujold fascinates as the barren actress doomed to individuality. (Cheap TV roles her only means of propagation). Cronenberg is accused of being a cerebral director but Dead Ringers is no post-human schlock. It's a rather affecting, perplexing tragic film... something agonizingly human is upsetting the machinery.