Tuesday 20 August 2013

1983


My friend Mark MacKenzie gave me a random year from which to make a Top 10 movies list. I got 1983. Mr. MacKenzie explained it was because he didn't understand 1983. 

In a way, he has a point. 1983 is a tougher than usual year from which to cull a top 10 list. It's sandwiched between 1982 and 1984, which had so many significant films. But here we go, anyway. Because it's the 30th anniversary of that year. Because we're hardcore. 


1) SCARFACE

Obviously.



I know Terms of Endearment won the Oscar, and I like that movie, but through the lens of time, immortality can be more accurately judged. 

Scarface is a  Reagan-era satire written as modern Shakespeare tragedy. It defines the '80s neon electro era, while serving as a lynchpin for all stories (real or fiction) of corrupt social climbers to follow. 


2) THE KING OF COMEDY



What seems, now at least, like an early look into the pathology of celebrity culture, Martin Scorsese tackles delusion and loneliness through the prism of a fame hungry aspiring comic. More uncomfortable than a lot of Scorsese films, since its central rage is never permitted expression, this is a highlight from when Scorsese made films that were wounded and personal.


3) CHRISTINE



I am glad to get 1983, if only to have Christine on this list, which is becoming my favourite John Carpenter movie. The treatment of teenage longing, and nerd Arnie's psychotic-obsessive arc is perfectly handled. Carpenter shoots a teen horror movie as a noir (and not with Brick affectation). The widescreen compositions are beautiful. In Detention, when that girl says she "took a dump on the windshield of Woodruff's Cadillac," that's a Christine reference.


4) THE OUTSIDERS


The director's cut ruins it, but in its initial version Francis Coppola's adaptation of S.E. Hinton's "boy's novel" creates abstract majesty from adolescence. It's a tough-kid movie, but shot and scored like it's Gone With the Wind. The agony of the present collides with the promise of the present. I prefer this to Rumble Fish.


5) SLEEPAWAY CAMP



I've already said too much: https://www.facebook.com/Thrillema/posts/418609091593769


6) RETURN OF THE JEDI



I saw this in the theatre when I was four. This movie is underrated. Inception should have had Ewoks!


7) MY BROTHER'S WEDDING



Black-on-black class conflict comes to a head between two brothers, leading up to a wedding. Charles Burnett's slicker but more obscure followup to his, recently obscure, Killer of Sheep is familial drama handled with poignance and insight.


8) L'ARGENT


Robert Bresson is one of the few filmmakers who I truly find challenging. Everything is shot and "acted" to distance viewers from the emotional pull of the material, and he tells a good portion of his narratives by skipping over the parts that progress the story. Occasionally, this method brings its own alchemy. As in Mouchette, Au hasard Balthasar, and others, in L'argent we process injustice intellectually, and then the emotions resonate.


9) RISKY BUSINESS



The most depressingly corporate teenagers ever captured on film. There was a time when I hated Risky Business for that reason (if you can find my The Girl Next Door review, I think I complain about it in there), but watching it again, I suspect the movie is appalled by it all, too. Anyway, Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay basically introduced me to sex. This is sharply observed in the writing, and atmospherically scored--a comedy about innocence corrupted before it's even been recognized.


10) NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION




The best of this series, and a furious damn movie skewering the All-American white family. Still, Chevy Chase remains sympathetic in his cluelessness. John Hughes scripts would chill out a bit later.

And here's me with the Private School soundtrack. That also came out in 1983, but didn't make it to this list for demographic reasons.