Repo Man

Repo Man (Alex Cox, 1984)

Young punk Otto becomes a repo man after helping to steal a car, and stumbles into a world of wackiness as a result.

Lately, I’ve joined the Cult Film Club and Alex Cox’s Sci-fi amalgam of counter culture of punk rockers blended with a metaphor on American Capitalism was the subject of their latest podcast. Having never seen this film before, I was intrigued with the poster on the website of the club. Added to that, Repo Man was included for the first time in the 2015 list of They Shoot Pictures’ 1000 greatest films of all time.

Firestarter

Firestarter (Mark L. Lester, 1984)

Adapted from Stephen King’s novel of the same title, Firestarter stars a young Drew Barrymore as the little Charlie who has a special gift of putting fire just by the power of her mind. Her father Andy (David Keith) and her mother Vicky (Heather Locklear) were guinea pigs for the Lot 6 experiment. It was a secret government laboratory experiment that tested a substance on the human mind. Andy has the power to convince people and hypnotize and Vicky had the power to read minds. Much like Carrie, Firestarter is about a young girl with a power she has troubles handling.

It is another take on childhood from Stephen King who visited the Freudian Oedipus Rex complex with The Shining. In Firestarter, we have the young Charlie who is confronted with different father figures who all wants to teach her on right or wrong. The novel is an interesting exploration of preteen girl male role models. Mark L. Lester’s film is a poor take on a good novel. Lester most successful directing credit was Commando in 1985 starring Arnold Scharzenegger. Despite the capable cast of Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, and Louise Fletcher paired with an interesting musical atmosphere created by the legendary Tangerine Dream, it never gets to really get together and raise up.

Plus, in the adaptation many important details were left out. The setting of the story in the South of the United States instead of King’s New England, the actualisation of the costumes, Charlie’s clothes are described with great precision in the novel and she is wearing something very different in the film. Many shortcuts are done to help the story but the screenwriter (Stanley Mann) and the director never capitalized on strong moments of the plot. In fact, this is a middle of the road directing job that feels like an emotionless reading of a poor script. With a source material from Stephen King one would at least expect a stronger and a tighter story. Even if Firestarter is not my favorite King novel, the movie is not at the level of the book.

While being a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Brian De Palma’s Carrie, and Creepshow I was not expecting this level of movie. But, I didn’t thought it would be as average. It wasn’t a complete mess but not an exploration of a complex psychology more than a compilation of action sequences that are very corny.

Love Streams

Note: this review is a contribution to the 1984 A-Thon hosted by the great folks over at Forgotten Films. The films Big Brother was watching.

Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)

Two closely bound, emotionally wounded siblings reunite after years apart.

Of the many things I want in a movie to be satisfied with I need an interesting plot about human beings that I can believe in. Also, I need a story that involves unpredictable events and it doesn’t have to be mind blowing things. It must like it is the first time it is happening in front of my eyes and I want to believe in its characters. The later don’t have to be perfect they can be strong but at the same time have weaknesses and do things they not always understand or control.

With John Cassavetes and his films, things often get to places you never could have guessed. His masterpiece, A Woman Under the Influence, delivers samples of life. With Love Streams, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands portray unique characters that love too much, live intensely and are not the typical lead roles Hollywood would put on a thirty foot poster.
Cassavetes made Love Streams right after receiving a diagnosis that he would only live for six months. For that, it is considered as his last film even if he directed Big Trouble in 1986 after writer Andrew Bergman declined directing, Love Streams is the last genuine Cassavetes film.

As mentioned before, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands give tremendous performances and the couple who impersonate siblings in Love Streams have the same frailty and depth and all the spotlight is used to highlight the complex human beings they portray. The natural realism of the mise en scène leaves much to the story and the characters. It doesn’t feel like a film that was made in the 1980’s or anytime span. It just feels like a bit of life that could be from any family in any era.

Even before knowing that Cassavetes was ill while making Love Streams, I learned that fact after viewing it, this is pretty clear that he was not at the top of his physical form. There’s a sadness and an urgency in Love Streams for Cassavetes but also for Rowlands. Their characters seem to be incapable of fulfilling their emptiness of love and affection. Just like artists that create, perform, and act to gain the love of the public and get the recognition they need just like fuel or food.
As the audience, we want them to be happy and fill the void they have while making, most of the time, fools of themselves.

As a final note, this review was a contribution to the aforementioned 1984-a-thon and was a pleasure to be a part of. However, Love Streams is a film that doesn’t feel 1984ish and even if it’s a very rewarding film to watch I don’t think that it can be well catgorized as a 1980’s film.
Much like other Cassavetes films, Love Streams can only be categorized as a Cassavetes film and nothing else.

Footloose (1984)

Footloose (Herbert Ross, 1984)

It tells the story of Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon), an upbeat Chicago teen who moves to a small town in which, as a result of the efforts of a local minister (John Lithgow), dancing and rock music have been banned.

Body Double

Body Double (Brian De Palma, 1984)

A young man tries to make it as an actor in Hollywood but he struggles with his fear of confined spaces and his voyeuristic behaviors. This later vice will mix him with a mysterious murder of hitchcockian scape.

The Terminator

The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)

In 2029, artificially intelligent machines are attempting to exterminate what is left of the human race. Two beings from this era travel back in time to 1984 Los Angeles: One is a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a cyborg assassin programmed to kill a woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton); the other is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a human resistance fighter sent to protect her. After the Terminator kills two other Sarah Connors listed in the telephone directory, it eventually tracks down its target to a nightclub. Kyle shows up and saves Sarah from the Terminator's attack and the two make an escape.

Gremlins

Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984)

A boy (Zack Galligan) inadvertently breaks 3 important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town.

Stranger Than Paradise

Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984)

Widely known as the precursor of Independent American Cinema, Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise is so hip that it the term hipster could have been invented just for it. The late Pauline Kael compared Jarmusch‘s film to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot where nothing is actually done and where Beckett wants us to notice every little thing.

Broadway Danny Rose

Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen, 1984)

In my illness that is cinephilia I have to admit to have more than one vice. But the most vile of them all is the fact that I am a completist. I like to watch all the movies a director has made all along his career. Even if it is as expansive as Alfred Hitchcock or Ingmar Bergman and even if it was shortened like Andrei Tarkovsky or Stanley Kubrick. When I like a director’s major films I tend to look to his underappreciated ones and watch them and most of the time like them. The same thing happens with Woody Allen a writer director who writes and direct at the pace of one movie per year since the early 1970’s has made easily more than forty films and seems to not even slowing down today.

Top Secret!

Top Secret! (Jim Abraham, David & Jerry Zucker, 1984)

From the creators of Airplane! comes this new comedy mixing Elvis’ movies, spy flicks, and comedy. Set in East Germany during the Cold War, Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) the American star of Rock n’Roll is invited to play at a concert to show how the East is opened to international music. The whole story evolves around this stereotyped character using all his charms and songs to save his ass and the lady.

The Abraham/Zuckers team presents a funny but lower than Airplane! quality amusement with Top Secret!. The whole thing gets old and gets on the nerves after the second or third song. We kind of understand the point that they are mocking Elvis’s movies for their lack of quality and the below average songs wagon they were.

On the side of the comedy, some gags are better than others but they were so imitated and stolen from this film that today a fresh viewer could predict a good 75% of them. Some are very efficient and the contextualization of them is well done. It’s just that the formula is now textbook for comedies and that the jokes influenced shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy and many movies to follow. It made me realize how humour doesn’t need to be about penises and vulgarities to be funny and/or efficient. Sure, there are some jokes falling in that category but compared to the Judd Apatow pedestrian comedies, we are in more decent terms here.

Anyhow, I felt like if the movie wasn’t as inspired as Airplane! was. Moreover, it was duller and despite some excellent moments I’d wished for a better story to hold the jokes together and I just wish I’d seen this when it came out to compare it to the comedies of its time and how it was original.