The 1989 Mini-List

[swo17]

ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1989

VOTE THROUGH NOVEMBER 30

Please post in this thread if you think anything needs to change about the list of eligible titles.

[therewillbeblus]

Can you please add:

Troop Beverly Hills (Jeff Kanew)
Sweet Home (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Grandmother’s House (Peter Rader)
Intruder (Scott Spiegel)
Lover Boy (Geoffrey Wright)

[swo17]

Added but I put the Rader in 1988

[yoshimori]

I'll find a place downlist for Forman's Valmont, if you can add that. Thanks.

Also recommending Pat O'Neill's Water and Power and Wiseman's Near Death for those who haven't seen them.

[swo17]

Added, and I also second both of those recommendations

[knives]

Decided to start this one in the most serene way possible with Ishii’s The Master of Shiatsu. It’s a real turn for him from his punk films which are so concerned with the externalities of society to this interior experience of being and observing.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Can you add Cats on Park Avenue (a film that I dearly adore and encourage everyone to watch) please?

[swo17]

Done

[TechnicolorAcid]

Thank you Swo much.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Decided to start this one in the most serene way possible with Ishii’s The Master of Shiatsu. It’s a real turn for him from his punk films which are so concerned with the externalities of society to this interior experience of being and observing.

Decided to check this out with a bunch of other of the shorts (I’ll write about them near the end of this month) and I found it a delightful little short with the vibe of an actual massage (mostly calm and serene with a lot of tension being released in chaotic bursts of energy). Funny thing though is that All Star was playing nearby while I was watching this and it almost serves as a companion song to this short in a way (I sound insane for saying that but trust me it works better than you might think).

[knives]

Just a couple of recs for putting on the master list. First is Eddie Murphy’s Harlem Nights which would make a great double feature with Chan’s Miracles as a film that understands the quality of classic Hollywood so well it’s able to use it for a totally new setting. An amazingly heartfelt portrayal of storytelling.

The other film is Jim McBride’s amazingly wack-a-doodle portrait of Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire. It’s a relatively straight film for McBride, but because the subject is such a strange figure it evens out to a truly compelling take on a genre that so often can feel tired.

[swo17]

Added, thanks!

[knives]

‘89 is coming out full swing as Kiarostami’s Homework will probably be the best new discovery for me of the whole decade. He damns himself in a fascinating way framing this almost like a police procedural where the nervous students’ answers about homework break down into fear and frustration all the while Kiarostami and his team, especially his cameraman, are cut in like some toughs. I was intimidated by their images and voice.

Far less good, but still fun is Godzilla vs. Biollante. After the slog that is The Return of Godzilla this comes much appreciated. It is by no means a great Godzilla film, but it balances a more serious mode of storytelling with a narrative willingness to be bizarre quite well. There’s also just these moments of real beauty wrought by the destruction that highlights a real knowledge of how to make a meaningful experience from Kaiju.

[knives]

This year’s cheat sheet so that you don’t forget to vote for Wallace and Gromit.

[knives]

Managed to fit in two fun, light but dramatically effective thrillers in. The first, the 26th and final Zatoichi film, shows a bit of a television effect to it, but that doesn’t take from how genuinely delightful it is to see the master maneuvering through the underworld.

Next, and this is a request to add to the list, is Sidney Lumet’s first good movie since the start of the decade: Family Business. It’s a surprisingly excellent film which exceeds at being a light family caper because of how fully Lumet knows that the driver is the dramatic underbelly. The conclusion is so unexpected that being beat that way has a certain delight.

[swo17]

Added

[the preacher]

Can you please add:

El mar y el tiempo https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097831/
Bal poussière https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094706/
Buon Natale... Buon anno https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158530/ (Make Way for Tomorrow... Italian style)
Prikosnoveniye https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311674/ (recommended for lovers of lyrical and highly symbolic films)

[swo17]

Added

[TechnicolorAcid]

Looking for Langston - An easy recommendation for fans of Tongues Untied in regards to it’s dissection of black gay culture through it’s main figure (in fact this features the same “Now We Think” poem by Essex Hemphill in TU), but Langston serves more as an celebration of the connection of being black and gay compared to Riggs’ discussion of it’s longing and desire for change. The film is a warm pleasure with jazz tunes bursting up, a sense of loving eroticism, and angels looking down smiling all captured in a dreamlike setting of fog and mist. But yet beneath it all is a tragedy since we see at the start Langston is dead, surrounded by loved ones and through that I took away the idea that only in death could Langston finally maximize on the joys of living and of his desires without worry but by the end, reality does burst back in, serving as a reminder of how they were victims of targeted violence and what’s taken away by it.

[knives]

Finally hit the Patrick Tam train with My Heart Is That Eternal Rose and it lives up to his reputation as Wong-esque, though there’s a lot of valuable differences present such as the more strategic use of experimental techniques which made my experience less ephemeral. Instead Tam seems to be going for a lingering sense for his emotions like the little bird that haunts you on occasion. Time seems really important and not just in the obvious time skip moment either. The opening languishes in the here and now and the bar scene a half hour in almost seems to extend time to hear each heart beat. Then other moments rush as if we have missed minutes of information. This is a truly great film that I hope lingers with me.

[swo17]

Binging anything is just not how my mind works. Even these single narrative shows like Only Murders I need two or three months to get through (probably why I won’t finish Lonesome Dove in time for the ‘89 list)

Hopefully you can make time for Traffik!

[knives]

Not even trying, though I did check out Robot Jox. That’s just as good, right?

[swo17]

Maybe? Or if you like the Soderbergh version, you might just pretend you've seen the original? They're somewhat interchangeable

[swo17]

I just learned this existed: a music video directed by Chris Marker(!) for the supergroup Electronic (Bernard Sumner, Johnny Marr, Neil Tennant)

[domino harvey]

The other film is Jim McBride’s amazingly wack-a-doodle portrait of Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire. It’s a relatively straight film for McBride, but because the subject is such a strange figure it evens out to a truly compelling take on a genre that so often can feel tired.

I def voted for it, though it’s hard to imagine a film further out of step with today’s propriety than this! But comic overacting like this only works if you fully commit and Quaid and Ryder just nail it

This was an extremely strong year for movies, even if it’s obvious even 35 years later which film towers high above all the others