Right away Anchors Away delves into Navy and sea related iconography with a medley of related tunes over the title cards with significant imagery straight into a big naval orchestra performance immediately showcasing the films ostentatious choreography focusing on the film's inclusion of composer, Jose Iturbi. The audience is then introduced to a sickly looking Sinatra and Kelly, who after being awarded the silver star, prepare for four days leave to hit the town with the same flamboyance as the opening scene suggests. Following a random scene with a little kid, Sinatra reveals his cuckold fantasies as he wishes to watch Kelly chat up his girl on the mainland so he knows what it's like to be a real man. All this interaction is cut short when corrupt police officers take the two protagonists to the station without arresting them so they can be acquainted with the random orphan boy we met earlier who wants to learn more about the navy. This starts a whiz bang friendship between the two leads and the boy's Aunt Sue. Cue love triangle. The working class humour of Gene Kelly that have made his films less dated then most other musicals of the Golden Era of Cinema is completely on show here where the audience is treated to humorous dance numbers about hooking up with women and sarcastically showing sympathy to fellow crew members when they're awarded with leave. Out of nowhere, pandering to the South American market (who were contributing in the war effort or something like that.) occurs when the characters end up in Mexico. It's this sort of randomness that occur in the film's painful 2hr 19minutes run length that distract the viewer from being fully engaged in the film compared to stronger Kelly efforts like An American in Paris or the near-perfect musical Singin' in the Rain. It's not surprising then when the most memorable sequence is about Kelly as he tells a group of children a fairy tale involving himself and a group of animated anthropomorphic woodland critters provided by the MGM animation department that climaxes with an iconic dance off between Kelly and Jerry mouse from Tom and Jerry. The sequence has absolutely no relevance to the film's paper thin plot but it doesn't matter and it's neat seeing an animated mouse upstaging Jose Iturbi in the star power department. I imagine musicals like these were a way for young people to spend a day out of the house rather than sitting at home and being on the Internet or watching TV like today. Anchors Away has very little to do with cause and effect story development here and more to do with killing time. When do they sing New York?
Reviews
19 Reviews
Anchors Aweigh
(1945)
A painfully long Gene Kelly film where he dances with Jerry mouse.
6 November 2010
And God Created Woman
(1988)
Cringe worthy 80s love triangle with brief nude DeMornay.
6 November 2010
Roger Vadim's remake of his own film opens with a ridiculous jail break from what appears to be a soccer mum in a mullet and tracksuit and leads to a number of other embarrassing sequences that are at least saved with an early nude scene from Rebecca DeMornay. The moment is quickly ruined by a music sequence or however else Vadim over idealises his leading lady. It turns out this scene indicates DeMornay's desire to escape from prison and pursue her realistic dream of being a famous rock and roll star. The whole experience starts getting humorous when DeMornay is sent back to prison and arranges to marry a young carpenter to beat parole on the advice of Frank Langella, a candidate running for governor of New Mexico that ran into DeMornay during her failed escape from prison. Despite the obvious predictability of the love triangle that film will pursue the film is redeemed from plenty of comedic moments thanks to the strong performances from DeMornay and a whole cast of unknown actors. It turns out irresponsible screw ups are a great source of comedy. However, plenty of embarrassing moments continue to show up in the film including a cringe worthy disrobing of some random actress who rocked up to work in granny panties and a nauseating navel gazing Langella. It is pretty depressing seeing how easily the men in this film can be led just because someone is attractive regardless what a terrible human being said person is. I think the film is meant to be a farce, it's all very light hearted with some tacky New Romantic 80s pop thrown in.
American Gigolo
(1980)
80s suspense film about a gigolo.
6 November 2010
Giorgio Moroder's signature synths followed by Deborah Harry's instantly recognisable new wave classic, Call Me, opens up American Gigolo as we see a pretty suave 80s Richard Gere in a black Cadilliac driving along the beachside. Gere has all the trappings of a wealthy 80s lifestyle so usually romanticised in a Bruckheimer production but the film establishes in its first few scenes that Gere is pretty much a buck for hire with little sway over his Aryan madam. This form of bait and switch appears throughout the movie, with Gere appearing in control and pretty cool at first and then as a total whore. The dichotomy between these two personas plays a big part of the film's plot as Julian K., Gere, becomes entangled in a murder investigation of a trick who is the wife to a wealthy S&M aficionado and learns that he should question the many friendships he's procured during his career as a loverboy. Lauren Hutton plays a random woman that Gere meets and develops into the film's love interest after one of the most minimalist sex scenes in an 80s film. The set production, music, acting and story is all very connotative of the eighties. Apartments are gray or salmon coloured with minimalist artwork and expensive vases and silver blocky stereo systems - it's clear with some scenes, including one where Gere hangs upside down to do some crunches, that the set design heavily influenced the mise-en-scene of Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho. Moroder's various compositions of Blondie's Call Me highlight the continuing descent of Julian k. as the chorus becomes more melancholic and ominous - it's all very suspenseful from an eighties perspective. Some may find the final scenes slightly ridiculous and most likely unrealistic, but one should remember that American Gigolo was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and even on the tail end of New Hollywood, the film does show caution in its dark themes as not to alienate mainstream audiences. I definitely felt the material was pretty subdued for a film written and directed by Taxi Driver's Paul Schrader. However, it doesn't matter as the film is effective as a time capsule of the seedier side of the eighties.
Alvin Purple
(1973)
A 70s Aussie sexploitation film with very little sexy about it.
6 November 2010
Opening with an act of sexual assault Alvin Purple chronicles the adventures of Greame Blundell's sexual addiction and the difficultly of finding an Australian actress with an attractive face. The film flashes back to Purple's high school years where the same problems exist along with every leading male in an Australian film or television show looking exactly the same for forty years. For a counter cultural sexploitation film it has no qualms with using Benny Hill material. We skip to Alvin's 21st birthday where we're introduced to the various middle aged homosexual relatives in Alvin Purple's life along with a montage of bogan disco and the viewer begins feeling frustrated and wondering when an attractive actress will appear in this film. Well after watching some very awkward, uncomfortable nudity and sex scenes akin to walking in on your parents naked there appears to be some solace about twenty three minutes in with a very satisfying homage to equestrian sports somewhat marred by indulgent psychedelic (lazy) coverage and editing. Anyway, we go through a number of pointless episodic sequences of Alvin as a waterbed salesman we're introduced to Purple's psychiatrist who works with the sex addict's obsession and lack of pleasure. This leads to more episodic sequences and Benny Hill sketches eventually leading to Purple being a sex therapist again letting the viewer wait until an attractive female appears on screen. In this case it's 50 minutes into the film. Of course, this brothel of one is uncovered, Purple goes to court and the film ends with a 70s car chase. It's all very uncreative, unsuspenful and uninteresting and most likely because of its budgetary limits and crappy screenplay so eagerly looking for respect or mainstream appeal when it should just accept its sexploitation leanings.
Action Jackson
(1988)
A grittier Andy Sidaris film.
6 November 2010
Ridiculous violence, people flying from punches, gun shots with explosions of blood and Incredible stuntwork are all the key elements that differentiate Action Jackson from the standard 80s action film more so than featuring an African-American lead. The shots during the theme song are a collage of Detroit's smoggy brown and gray landscapes, with emphasis on the Ford and Chrysler plants, that paint the whole film with a tone of late 80s urban decay. Jackson himself is an almost mute human tank, recently demoted and divorced for being... well... Action Jackson. Craig T. Nelson plays De la Plane, a successful car manufacturer who appears to struggle being an asshole, with his wife played by Sharon Stone, who dons a cakeface so needless and noticeable it's akin to a WASP version of Snookie. Fortunately, we return to the gratuitously outrageous violence, stunts and explosions made even more enjoyable when the murder victims are AWA members. Robert Davi plays against type as a really distressed person who wants to kill himself and only appears to exist as a storytelling device so Jackson can link De la Plane to all the violence in the movie. The film has a consistent structure of exposition followed by violence/action followed by exposition between scenes with some exceptions involving Vanity, playing herself with a different name, who uses nudity to bridge the gap between exposition and violence/action. She is also a heroin addict, which is interesting to see in a mainstream 80s action film that has no understanding of junkies. There seems to be very little cause and effect in the film outside of... De la Plane has someone killed and then Jackson finds out about that from someone who De la Plane will then kill. All the action, violence and stunts are ridiculously exaggerated and really outweigh the interest in the story - it doesn't matter that we know Craig T. Nelson is the bad guy from the get go and I'm pretty certain the viewer will not really care how Jackson pins the crime on De la Plane but you will be wondering when the next act of on-screen violence will occur or if Sharon Stone gets nude. Yes, but it could have been longer. Also, Herbie Hancock worked on the score, which is so interchangeable from other films of this genre I nearly forgot to mention it.
Adventures in Babysitting
(1987)
I like this brand of 80s film.
6 November 2010
Adventures in Babysitting opens with a scene of a standard 80s teenager, Elizabeth Shue, dancing in her bedroom with white floral wallpaper while she puts her clothes on to 'And then he kissed me' designed to make all male viewers recoil within the first 15 seconds of the film and think of movies where Shue engages in a sex scene. Shue, who plays Chris Parker, is then asked to babysit a young effeminate male with an attraction to older women and his younger sister who wears a distracting Thor helmet throughout the film only to be later joined by the young man's best friend, Dre-dog, who looks equally bi-curious but brings the funny. Chris's best friend Brenda, surprisingly not played by Joan Cusack, then calls Chris informing her that she ran away from home and is stuck in a Chicago bus terminal so Brenda and the kids hop into the car to pick her up and mayhem adequately ensues. The film follows a series of different comedic sequences familiar in 'fish out of water' stories where sheltered suburban kids experience the horrors of the city and the underclass while trying desperately to find Brenda and return home. There's some effectively directed scenes of suspense when the character's lives are threatened by local gangsters that involve some quite agile maneuvers of escape that make me wish I was young and athletic again. Other hijinks include a musical sequence in a blues club, the suburban answer to gang violence, double entendres, fainting, 'before they were famous' cameos and all the other staples of a solid 80s family film. I'm not sure if there's a moral to the story but it doesn't matter.
Beverly Hills Cop set in the early 90s.
6 November 2010
From the moment you see the Silvers Production logo in that retro 50s Cadilliac font you're reminded of everything that is kitsch about early 90s cinema. Andrew Dice Clay narrates as Ford Fairlan, rock and roll detective, as we're introduced to a dying breed of hair metal band that would appear in heavy rotation on Howard Stern who will be the murder victim in this common 90s neo-noir full of mid-30s greaser baby boomers, Gen X hookers, Hawaiian shirts, beaches, palm trees, muscle cars, venetian blinds, ceiling fans, smoking and Lauren Holly. Mind you all this predates Pulp Fiction, Swingers, Dennis Leary and Private Parts - perhaps Renny Harlin was ahead of his time? Funnily enough, Gilbert Gottfried plays a sleazy Howard Stern caricature who asks Fairlane to find his daughter before dying in a very entertaining way causing Fairlane to hunt down Gottfried's killer, rather than congratulate him or her, and find the girl. Priscilla Pressley, impersonating Barbara Stanwyck and the mother of the missing girl, also asks for Fairlane's help. Standing in the rock and roll detective's way is Ed O'Neil, who plays a disgruntled detective accompanied with his own Yello soundtrack (who worked on the score) along with Wayne Newton who is convincing as an evil Walt Disney look-a-like record producer. Freddy Kruger is also in the film contributing to an over- complicated convoluted screenplay, episodic story structure and Yello's embarrassing early 90s swing revival attempt at rock music. The film is mostly about its style and to its credit, a lot of other films that would follow did share aesthetic elements that appear in The Adventures of Ford Fairlane even though everything else about it is ----. Also, there's a Koala.
Alice
(1988)
Meh. Creative but whatever.
6 November 2010
In the initial minutes of Jan Svankmajer's Alice one assume they're installed for a minimal and meta 4:3 version of the classic Alice through the Looking Glass story shot on video. There is very little dialogue and when the spoken word does appear it's mostly from a close up of a girl's lips narrating the story. The quality and texture of the stop motion animation is of a Gumby standard and the entrance to the Wonderland is as minimal as the on screen action. I wonder if the film is simply misconstrued as being intentionally surrealistic (Milos Forman said this film was Disney + Bunuel on the DVD cover.) when Svankmaker could have wanted to make a more elaborate version of Alice and was simply forced to adopt a minimalist style due to the technological and budgetary limitations. The film spends its first forty minutes working out the animosity between Alice and the White Rabbit. I imagine children will enjoy these sequences if their attention span can handle the silent art film pacing. Alice actually enters into the Wonderland around an hour into the film itself and it's at this point where the film deviates from the original story to indulge in Kafka-esquire surrealism with cockroaches and sock worms and other bizarre interests of the film maker. Watching the segment with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare I start to feel that I would have appreciated this film more if I were an adolescent - I fail to see much groundbreaking about this rendition of the Lewis Carroll story as it is still targeted and tailored towards those in their teenage years. There's a curiosity in seeing how the film will adopt the other Wonderland characters in this minimalist DIY style but very little outside of this interest will lure the viewer into watching this film often.
All the Right Moves
(1983)
All the right moves is alright. <- That's your pun, the review is below.
6 November 2010
All the Right Moves begins with the triumphant synth rock melody of David Campbell's score accompanied by shots of grimy working class settings of train terminals and factories indicating that viewer is in store for a blue collar John Hughes films that has one foot in eighties cinema and the other still dipped in the obsessions with 70s New Hollywood. Tom Cruise is quite convincing as a working class jock while Lea Thompson as she only helps to bring up connotations of herself in Back to the Future and would seem more appropriate in a world of upper middle class WASPs like Growing Pains or Family Ties rather than the lurid Welcome Back Kotter universe of All the Right Moves. Perhaps Cruise needed a girlfriend who seemed a little sluttier but still had Thompson's vulnerability? Ally McSheedy? Chris Penn plays Cruise's less attractive jock pal and Craig T. Nelson establishes his typecast as a humourless coach and all three characters express similar desires very early in the film about 'moving on' and escaping their working class background. Knowing the direction that the manufacturing industry would take in the 80s this is probably an understandable goal. However, each character have obstacles preventing them from establishing that dream - some of which are intertwined. Lea Thompson contributes to this story by making Tom Cruise sexually frustrated during awkward love scenes. High school football is used as a metaphor for cooperating to exceed ones limits as detailed by Craig T. Nelson in a pre-game speech that would lead to him being fired if it were uttered today let alone ten years ago. It's at this point of the review, I wish to remind the viewer I have no idea how American Football works - all I know is people jump on each other and touchdown is a good thing. Anyway some play happens in the game that causes Cruise to be thrown off the team for disciplinary reasons and this all leads to a descent that includes being falsely framed for terrorising the neighbourhood and the last half hour of the film covers a number of other plot twists that occur from that one prior conflict along with a short resolution. With just under ninety minutes of run time All the Right Moves is a satisfyingly short rise and fall and rise story with an interesting mix of New Hollywood drama and the emerging 80s teen film genre.
Altered States
(1980)
A Cronenberg movie written by Paddy Chayefsky,
6 November 2010
Altered States immediately causes confusion to the viewer when we learn the film is apparently is set in 1967 when the clothing and big hair would indicate we're in the late 70s. What follows is very reckless conversation about the causes and raison d'être of schizophrenia and Cronenberg-esquire sex scene accompanied by an ominous score by John Corigliano. Essentially, the film follows William Hurt who gets stoned inside a giant boiler and the various horrific hallucinations he has about his life. The dialogue is very Chayefsky with a whole load of Christo-religious references thrown in and mostly self-satisfied overblown expositionary wankery that would later by parodied and mocked in Arcand's The Decline of the West. Anyway, the film deals with past memories being biologically passed on with each generation and Hurt attempts to activate past memories he feels are hidden in his limbic brain by visiting some tribe on a mountain and bleeding in their stew. Hurt brings the stew back with him to New York where the effects of the hallucinations become more intense and Hurt arrives closer to his goal in unlocking past memories. When Hurt hallucinates I start contemplating how Chayefsky would have written this in the novel Altered States in based on... I can only imagine it would be like "WHOA, DUST STARTS BLOWING EVERYWHERE AND THERE'S LIKE THIS SHEEP WITH A HEAD OF A GOAT WITH LIKE HEAPS OF EYES AND THEN THERE'S THIS LIZARD ON A DUDE'S HAND AND OUT OF NOWHERE, BLAIR BROWN'S T-TS APPEAR." Anyway things start to get creepy when Hurt insinuates his genetic structure is undergoing changes during his intense hallucinations hence the title of the film. The viewer does some guess work in trying to determine whether they are watching a hallucination or an actual materialised fantasy. However, the rest of the film the viewer becomes curious whether Blair Brown will disrobe again. The last forty minutes of Altered States seem nothing like a Paddy Chayefsky screenplay even though they definitely answer the questions that viewers might be having. Smart, creepy and a little predictable.
Heavenly Creatures
(1994)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
This film caught me by surprise. I am not really keen on Peter Jackson and am not entirely interested in his fantasy or horror films even though I admit the man has a great imagination and an inspiring ability to realise his massive concepts on the screen. I respect that – but Heavenly Creatures is a completely different kind of beast of a movie that is just crazy good. Revolving around two high school girls who develop a deep, special friendship, Kate Winslet gives the performance of her life as a very charming new student and her delivery really makes you want to be her friend. Jackson is really able to control the audience's responses as the story progresses – you feel a sense of sadness when you realise that this friendship is going to end very badly and then with that final shot, absolutely dread and horror as you wake up and realise how far gone these two girls were in their own fantasy world. I also have respect for Jackson for crossing over his interest in horror and fantasy into this drama – the make up and special effects are really cool and complement the actors as the line between reality and fantasy is blurred. It really helps in getting the audience to have an experience that mirrors what Melanie Lynesky feels throughout the film rather than just being a detached observer. If I had to pick my "most" favourite film from this list I can easily see Days of Heaven or Heavenly Creatures being the first film I think of. Watch it today!!!
Phenomena
(1985)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I am not into a lot of horror but I love the way Dario Argento designs death scenes – I've never seen a teenage girl being decapitated on a shard of broken window glass filmed so hauntingly terrifying and operatic. Argento also needs credit for where I'm afraid John Carpenter fell a little short - and that's in taking all the elements of the eighties pop culture aesthetic and transforming them into high art. Throughout Phenomena you have a heavy metal soundtrack, you've got the coloured eighties lighting in all our favourite tones – lime green, deep red and neon blue – you've got the old scientist as mentor to the young child and a monkey! Phenomena has a monkey and Argento uses that to create this synergy of eighties horror awesome. However, I should mention Phenomena is a cult and strictly cult classic and even Jennifer Connelly, who is really sweet in this film, has spoken out against it. It is a shame though. I think this film is a bigger star on her resume than Requiem for a Dream, which I thought was an overwrought, melodramatic retread of Pi. :P
Trust
(1990)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
It was toss-up between what film will represent the early nineties style of independent films that I like – Trust could easily be replaced with Chasing Amy, Swingers, Metropolitan, Dazed and Confused or even Scream but I chose this Hal Hartley flick because I think it is the most profound in exploring the relationships we have with our partners, our family and the people in our immediate environment as well as having the most charming minimalist style to express those thoughts. A lot of the film is pretty much shot with talking heads but the execution works well because of the deadpan while nuance performances of a cast who remain very appealing and likable regardless of the dark twists and turns the story takes. Trust is probably the only Hal Hartley film you can guarantee finding at JB Hifi in Australia at any time and I definitely recommend it as an impulse purchase.
American Psycho
(2000)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
American Psycho is a bit of a no-brainer for me, I loved that it was one of the first films during that time (I think with The Wedding Singer being the other example before that) to be a modern film set during my favourite decade, the eighties, and about the eighties. Not only that, it was set during the best part of that decade – the late eighties. The vastly underrated Mary Harron brings out the satirical edge of Bret Easton Ellis's novel and Christian Bale gives the best performance I have ever seen from him. Watching him argue with the Chinese lady at the dry cleaner reminded me of an eighties leading man like Tom Cruise or Richard Gere and to see him change from the confident yuppie with a sinisterly dark sense of humour to a pathetic whimpering psychotic bearing his soul to his lawyer's answering machine is made of win. Luckily, American Psycho goes beyond being just a showcase of Bale's acting ability thanks to the film's attention to detail in set pieces including Patrick Bateman's morning routine and the uber-modern restaurant dishes as well as a strong cast to help complement Bale's madness like Chloe Sevigny, Willem Dafoe and Jared Leto in "that" scene.
Days of Heaven
(1978)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
I tend to think Days of Heaven doesn't get enough credit compared to the rest of the output during the New Hollywood age of cinema but I see it as certainly more than being just a beautiful looking film. I mean, it does work as a film you could just watch on a lazy afternoon to take in the incredible cinematography but it is also, to me, a unique merger between the romantic style of the epic John Ford or Howard Hawke Westerns and the dark themes and "realistic" enhancements of New Hollywood (Similar to what Chinatown was achieving). I think it is of no coincidence that Ennio Morricone was selected to work on the film's memorable score. There's also Biblical underpinnings, which are kept subtle and are there if you're interested in that sort of thing, or you can focus on the love triangle that makes it a good date movie – it works on many levels. Days of Heaven is great and it also has one of my favourite movie trailers.
Rumble Fish
(1983)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
Some thoughts that occur to me when I watch Rumble Fish is that David Lynch's Eraserhead must have completely shaken up Hollywood when it came out because only a few years later some of the biggest directors from the New Hollywood scene, also shaken up from the failure of Heaven's Gate, had big Lynch-esquire influences in their work. There was Martin Scorsese's After Hours (also in my top ten), Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and this film – Rumble Fish. When I first watched Rumble Fish I thought it was Coppola trying to cash in on the neo-German Expressionism scene of the late eighties, with directors like Tim Burton, but it preceded that trend by a few years and was really ahead of its time. The story is essentially the same as The Outsiders or a basic Rebel Without A Cause type of movie but the idea is all about creating a tone and sweeping you into this world based on the S. E. Hinton novel of the same name as the film. It's about feeling more than climax and it is a lot of fun. The soundtrack by Stewart Copeland is really cool and Matt Dillon is a stand out – I say give this film a try when you're in the mood for something like The Lost Boys.
Wings of Honneamise
(1987)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
My favourite animated film and sadly unappreciated is Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise. The story is set in a fictional world where space travel has not yet been achieved and based around a cadet from the Royal Space Force who wants to see that change despite his peers thinking it is a suicide mission as all previous attempts have resulted in death. Royal Space Force and Akira were the two big Anime that marked the rise of that subculture in the West during the late eighties. Unfortunately, it was Akira that received all the attention from the fan base as it catered to an adolescent audience more than Royal Space Force, which is a drama and has a slower pace
and it's a shame. Admittedly, I didn't get into Royal Space Force on the first watch – however, repeated viewings have made me realise this film is not only better than most Anime – it is one of my top ten favourite films along side 2001: A Space Odyssey. The story has a rich number of themes being explored – knowing your place in the world and then understanding how trivial we are in the context of the universe, it looks at religion, the military-industrial complex, the relationship between men and women, loyalty, self-respect and most importantly – following one's dreams. The soundtrack is perfect for this as is the wonderful animation by GAINAX, the studio behind Neon Genesis Evangelion – there's an amazing montage sequence towards the end of the film that is so ambitious it is up there with the jump cut from the bone to the space station in 2001. I love this film, it is my favourite science fiction and it is the film I would recommend first from this list. Watch it once, give it day then watch it again.
Magnolia
(1999)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I think Magnolia pretty much speaks for itself. This film is great – setting aside the wonderful bravura film-making and the big surprise finale – I love how this film makes Philip Baker Hall a crucial, main character rather than a supporting player, I love Julianne Moore's outburst in the pharmacy, I love how they used the children's game show to anchor the story amongst the numerous main characters with each their own unique and engrossing story, I love the speech Jason Robard gives about regret and finally - a lot people like Tom Cruise's performance in the seminar where he goes "Respect the c--k, tame the c--t." but I LOVE the speech Tom Cruise gives when he finally confronts a character in the film as the tone is completely unexpected and very dark. Roger Ebert said this movie is "alive" and I think that's accurate – this is probably the strongest piece of storytelling I've watched. Better than Charlie Kaufman and I am ready to make the comparisons between Anderson as a modern day Kubrick. Good soundtrack too.
After Hours
(I) (1985)
One of my top ten favourite films.
1 October 2009
The eighties was the best decade for Scorsese with every film being just full of energy but still having the restraint to focus on the story of one person's eventual downfall and/or redemption – Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money and The Last Temptation of Christ. After Hours is my favourite Scorsese picture because it is Scorsese at is his most Lynch-esquire surreal and it is a huge deviation from his Godard influenced style. Not only that, the structure of the story as you follow this one man just run into more excruciating situations that all logically flow into each other is, not only funny, but admirable from a writing standpoint. I wince but also enjoy seeing Griffin Dunne, who seems like a live action Leisure Suit Larry, just fail and it's the great kind of movie where you watch really late on a Saturday night – explaining its cult status. There are also a number of great cameos by performers just before they became well known in the nineties and I am so glad I have a movie on this list featuring one of the female Arquettes.
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