Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge is genuine nonsense from start to finish. The military unit in this movie is absurdly silly. This is ostensibly somewhat of a comedic film, so I guess that works well enough, but Heartbreak Ridge also has pretensions of being a serious movie about masculinity, the military, war, and the true meaning of discipline or some such bullshit. All of it is so cartoon-like though, it feels impossible to take seriously. 

Of course, one of the central features of Eastwood’s directing career is that he is interested in deconstructing and exploring US American masculinity and military and law enforcement regulations. But unlike a later film like Gran Torino or Flags of Our Fathers or even an earlier movie like Unforgiven, this 1986 nonsense actually believes in those values and questions them only in the most superficial ways. Heartbreak Ridge is a cheap, silly version of Eastwood’s later, more critical work. 

Marsha Mason is luminous in this, and I adored her and Eileen Heckart, but this movie annoyed the hell out of me.

(I saw Heartbreak Ridge because it was the final film from Oscar season 1987 on my list, and I am a completist.)

The Seventh Curse (1986)

The Seventh Curse (原振侠与卫斯理) is gory and insane and makes not one lick of sense. It’s a kind of Hong Kong Indiana Jones fantasy with practical effects. It has a murderous monster baby and a crypt keeper that transforms into a Ridley Scott alien. It also stars a young Chow Yun Fat (that's him with the pipe) and a young Maggie Cheung (all the way to the left). Honestly everyone should see this. 

I should also mention that Lam Ngai Kai's movie about a blood curse... in 1986. It’s very obviously about coping with the terror of HIV/AIDS.

My unseen movie club watched this gem in a dubbed version – we couldn't get ahold of a Cantonese version – but it was still worth the watch. 

Manhunter (1986)

Manhunter, which has the distinction of being the first film with Hannibal Lecter in it, is sexy, scary, dangerous. It's honestly so good. It’s crazy that William Petersen didn’t star in more films. He’s great in this.

Caravaggio (1986)

Whoa whoa whoa. I loved Caravaggio. It feels like an extraordinary step from Sebastiane to this, but Caravaggio is brilliant. Its art direction and mood feel like the Pasolini of The Decameron and Arabian Nights, but it’s also modern in interesting ways and the acting is really wonderful.

The Fly (1986)

The Fly is really gross. 

Whenever I watch a Cronenberg movie, I think of watching A History of Violence with my friend Justin. There's a gruesome sequence in that movie when someone smashes a coffee carafe in a man's face. We then get a shot of the guy's face on the floor just torn up by glass and hot liquid. When we saw that shot in the theatre, Justin said Thanks David Cronenberg. I'll never forget it. The Fly is filled with these kinds of grotesque shots. 

In any case, this is sort of fun and quirky and scary. It's even a little bit sad. But it's just not weird enough or mysterious enough to be really awesome. It's no Altered States or Videodrome.

Pirates de Roman Polanski (1986)

This movie is quite funny at times, but it sure does wear out its welcome. At a full two hours this is a pirate comedy that just doesn't have enough steam to justify itself. And the plot, though nihilistic and duly critical of everyone's greed, just doesn't resolve enough to make Pirates feel like it was worth one's while. I enjoyed myself for the first hour or so, and then I wondered why it kept dawdling. Anthony Powell's costumes are gorgeous, of course, but this movie has problems.

I gotta say, it's sort of funny to watch a movie like this that was such s huge flop but that cost $30,000,000. Not funny, I mean, but just a curiosity. What a weird film. It is actually an enormous, expensive movie, but no one has seen it.

I watched Pirates de Roman Polanski on YouTube.

That's Life!

It is pretty hard to think about the frailty of the human condition, as That's Life!'s poster promises we'll be able to do, when the film's protagonist is as rich as Croesus. 

We're in a giant estate in Malibu, for fuck's sake, but we're supposed to sympathize with a man who is bored or anxious or, like, vaguely dissatisfied or irritated. 

Worse yet, the screenplay undermines the stakes of this man's crisis by letting us know before we even meet this asshole that his wife is worried about whether or not she might have throat cancer. So the whole time this movie wants us to sympathize with this rich white dude and whatever midlife crisis he's experiencing, we already know that someone else in the family is having a life and death situation that just makes his crisis feel silly. 

And this isn't to say that anxiety or nervous breakdowns or whatever aren't real, but it's hard to identify with or pity someone this rich.

Little Shop Is an AIDS Play

Little Shop of Horrors is a weird fuckin' movie. In the first place, I really object to the fake flowers and the fake-looking plant and the fake sunsets. I just don't know why you wouldn't try to make things look more realistic. This film also involves an ending that totally differs from the stage show. I don't think I mind that quite as much. 

But... the important insight I had while watching this film is that I think Little Shop is an AIDS play. And if it isn't, this is certainly an AIDS movie. It's so weirdly about trying to process the violence of the medical profession, which in this play is represented by this strange dentist who is a drug addict and also a sexual sadist. The Bill Murray–Steve Martin sequence really seals that deal for me. Murray plays a kind of masochistic pervert, and he plays the character as a gay man. And then there is, of course, the blood. The plant takes over the whole world by feeding on Seymour's blood, and then it causes Seymour to hurt others, and it threatens and devours the heterosexual relationship at the play's center. 

(For the record I don't think AIDS causes anyone to hurt anyone, and I don't think it's devouring heterosexual relationships – or gay ones for that matter – I'm just saying that's how Little Shop is processing AIDS.)

This is a musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised about this, but I certainly had never thought of it before. 

Oh also Ellen Greene. Her performance is honestly incredible. Totally original and weird and genius. We are lucky to have her performance on film.

'Round Midnight (1986)

'Round Midnight is a very odd, very sweet film about an alcoholic tenor saxophonist who is befriended by a French jazz fan in Paris. This film is about their relationship and, well, also about good fucking jazz.

Bertrand Tavernier's film is at its best when it's giving us music, most of this is gorgeous saxophone playing, but there are also some exquisite vocals from Lonette McKee and a great number by Sandra Reaves-Phillips. Martin Scorsese has a sizeable acting role in the film, as well.

Something Wild

Something Wild is extraordinary and weird and very Jonathan Demme. Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta are all sexy as hell. And Ray Liotta gives a weirdly brilliant performance. It's just so strange and compelling and... silly? Cameos by John Waters and John Sayles round out the weirdness, but the extraordinary thing here is the direction. The entire film made me uncomfortable, but when Demme's movie leaps genres and becomes something altogether different than it promised, it moves into brilliant territory.

Parting Glances (1986)

I almost don't know where to start. Bill Sherwood's Parting Glances is a film about a long evening when a man says goodbye to his lover – who is moving to East Africa for work. The bulk of the film is a party, where we hang out with the man's friends and get a veritable snapshot of gay New York in 1985. Much of the film discusses HIV by not discussing HIV, but it's present in almost every frame of the film. I found Parting Glances deeply, wonderfully moving, and I really loved its quirkiness and its sadness. This would pair nicely with one of Gregg Araki's strange movies from this period. Parting Glances is much more grounded than Araki's work, but he's speaking a similar language. Kathy Kinney is magnificent in this, but the entire cast, really, is stellar.

Poltergeist II: the Other Side (1986)

Poltergeist II is relentlessly stupid. It also basically undermines the plot of the first film – in which the family is haunted by an Indian graveyard. In this film, Native American spirits are here to help! The real enemy is (apparently) a demonic cult leader and his dead followers. The cult leader is played by... and this is the only true reason to watch this film... Julian Beck of The Living Theatre. He is totally fucking creepy as this demon-possessed motherfucker. Otherwise – except for one sequence where a giant alien-demon comes out of Craig T. Nelson's mouth – this movie is really fuckin dumb.

The Karate Kid Part II (1986)

Listen, The Karate Kid Part II is extremely predictable at every turn, but, for all that, this is a fairly enjoyable orientalist fantasy. Pat Morita is excellent as always, and Yuji Okumoto makes for a very, very good looking villain. It is also pretty funny to see all of these Japanese-American Angeleno actors playing Japanese characters who allegedly barely speak English.

P.S. I didn't realize just how young Ralph Macchio looks in these movies. He is a baby child!