Rain Man

Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988)

Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt's (Tom Cruise) father left a fortune to his savant brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country.

This popular success film that won many Academy Awards is an iconic piece of film that delivers a nice entertainment that sealed Dustin Hoffman as one of the most respected Hollywood actors but also that proved to many of Tom Cruise’s detractors that he could act in a more serious film.

Much like other Academy Awards winner for Best Actor, like Forrest Gump for instance, Rain Man is about an actor portraying mental illness and making us believe in it. With a plot full of wit, sometimes comedy, and heart warming moments we are in the presence of the kind of family movie you can watch and feel no harm. It brought a little more light on autistic people and their challenges.
It makes us face how capitalism represented by Cruise’s character often forget how it is important to give more money on social programs for the less fortunate and those who can’t live by themselves. This is a nice moral lesson.

However, I have some struggles ranking Rain Man as one of the greatest films of all time. Yes this is a very good script and it deserves recognition. There’s also all those iconic moments parodied in The Simpsons and remembered in The Hangover by the character of Alan.

On a more personal note, I tend to like films of the 1980’s with their more conformism form and less control to the directors since the crash of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate saga. I don’t like the fact that directors had less power over their films. In fact, I hate this. But there’s something to the films of the 1980’s that reflects the time of my childhood and how America tried to connect to better times. In fact, connecting to the baby-boomers’ childhood of the 1950’s. Just look at Back to the Future and its mega success with the story of a teen that goes back to the time his parents met.

With Rain Man, we are dead on this, they go in Las Vegas, a place that had its best moments in the 1950’s with the Rat Pack and the presence of Elvis, Sinatra, and all those classy American acts. In fact, Rain Man had a very good screenplay and it is one of the reasons why it worked so well with audiences in 1988 and still works well today.

Hairspray (1988)

Hairspray (John Waters, 1988)

The original campy comedy that generated a Broadway hit musical and an average remake in 2007, John Waters’ Hairspray is a whole lot of fun. With the last appearance of the star of his trashy films like Pink Flamingo, Divine, Hairspray celebrates music and the evolution of tolerance in America.

Histoire(s) du Cinéma

Histoire(s) du Cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard)

This unique series of documentaries on the history or histor(ies), is a play on the fact that there are more than one history to tell a fact or a manifestation that happened. Godard began his career as a film critic, then a film director, an auteur, a philosopher, a Maoist, and he easily got his degree in History only with his own attempt at summarizing some of the most important moments of film History. To him, the Cinema is the greatest of all Arts. And by using History of Art, classical poetry, stills from hundreds of films, and his mastery of editing, Godard demonstrates how Film became to get the control of the universe.

Die Hard

Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)

John McClane, officer of the NYPD, tries to save wife Holly Gennaro and several others, taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.

Being born in the 1980’s makes me a kid of the John Wayne of my time, Arnold, Stalone, Van Dam, Jackie Chan, and Bruce Willis were the actors I wouldn’t miss a film. The later who played the character of Officer John McClane was my favorite; I remember very well that the first time I got to a Theatre by myself was for the opening night of Die Hard: With a Vengeance in Sorel. The first film of the franchise, Die Hard, is a game changer movie that even ranks third in the Top 10 of Christmas movies I cumulated for this December. Without much further ramblings about myself here’s my a little enthusiastic review of this Action Film classic.

Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)

A tragic film covering a young boy and his little sister's struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.

The Second World War has been such a huge inspiration for movies that it is almost impossible not to think of a War film without thinking of this particular Historical Event. As a Historian myself, I learned to understand the facts and the horror that happened. However, I will never know what it is to be in the center of a War as a soldier or a civilian. Well, I hope I’ll never witness any of these. Some War films depict the conflicts and battles with great action scenes and how it is a thrill to fight the bad guys. More recent War films put us of the side of the losers of the War. Very few showed us the casualties of war like Grave of the Fireflies. With that said, it is more than essential to know that this movie was animated by the Ghibli studios. Keeping it far from the Disney pictures themes that we are acquainted to.

Opening with Seita’s death in a subway station, a young Japanese boy of more or less fourteen we know that we are in for a very tough moment. From that point we see the bombing of his town, the death of his mother, his struggle to survive and care for his little sister of approx five years old. Even if it pictures the final moments of Japan into War against the Americans, Grave of the Fireflies is filled with wonderful moments between the two siblings. Moments of innocence, happiness, sadness, and desperation.

It is a film that deals with problems that children should never encounter and that we hope that will never be repeated. It would not be recommended to show this film to children even if sometimes kids are surprisingly strong facing extreme moments.

Finally, I might be one of the few that is not a fan of anime and that doesn’t get the films of the studios Ghibli. Not being a fan doesn’t mean that I hate them I just think that it is not the ultimate thing. I like the approach and the originality that it brings to animation, it’s just that I am okay with seeing the film but I won’t be buying it or watching it again. Even if I think that the IMDb Top 250 is filled with overrated films (Grave of the Fireflies is ranked #106 as I am writing those lines) it is still worth a look.

Dead Ringers (1988)

Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)

Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg has been one of the most surprising and interesting directors of his generation. At the beginning of his career he made horror oriented movies like Shivers, Rabid, and The Brood. In the 80's, he invented a genre: body-horror it locates human's monstrous enemy inside its own body' with films like Videodrome, Naked Lunch, and much further Dead Ringers. In the 21st century his cinema will be more around cultural issues and less about horror. But always in his own way.

At first I did not knew what to think about Dead Ringers. A film I've been craving to see for years, its character oriented plot got me off balance and the strong performance from Jeremy Irons just blew me away. It may not have been the first time the theme of the double has been used but I think here it has been pushed further by Cronenberg. The twins Mantle gynecologists are recognized in their discipline. They live together, they share everything and they always have been together. One can't live without the other. But when Beverly falls in love he also falls into drug abuse. On the other side Elliott, will do anything to help his brother because he is more than his brother, he's his other half. The alternate title of Dead Ringers is Alter ego and it explains its on the relationship of the twins. Together they make one complete and super-human being, but apart they can't be even one average human being. It's like if they are one person cut in half and one got some parts and the other the other parts (nervous system for example).

Besides thinking the theme couldn't be as interesting as it actually is the film is probably not Cronenberg's best film to date but still one of his strongest efforts. Personally, Videodrome is a favorite but I still think that A History of Violence is his best film to date. I'm looking forward to see his A Dangerous Method in 2011 and to catch up to all his films I haven't seen yet.

My Neighbor Totoro

My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)

Besides citing the same points I've already shared about Miyazaki's films I will recommend my review on Howl's Moving Castle. Well, to sum up quickly, my arguments were that Miyazaki has a near saturated palette of colours and that his unique universe transports us with his stories. Those arguments are reinforced here, I think that the public of My Neighbor Totoro is younger than the one of Howl's Moving Castle and I think that with that in mind, My Neighbor Totoro is a far better offer.

There are some darker elements shown here and the theme of childhood is once again so well exploited. I like this kind of film where children are not treated like zombies and that their innocence should be saved from thinking and letting their imagination grow and go places they wouldn't expect. This little story about two little girls moving in an old house near a huge tree with their father to be closer to the hospital where their sick mother is recovering is quite simple. But it's what comes after, in a setting near a ghost house tale they happen to see Totoro a character from a Japanese childhood story. But only children can see him. The story lives on hope and faith in life, a strength that only children have, maybe it's some kind of innocence but it's still a strength when they see Totoro and the many fantastic characters that populate that wonderful modern fairytale.

My only regret about My Neighbor Totoro is that I haven't seen it when it came out in 1988 when I was five years old...