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cantsayidont · 1 month

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Haterating and hollerating in the 1980s. None of these movies has any meaningful wlw content, so just assume the answer to "CONTAINS LESBIANS?" is "No."

VIDEODROME (1983): I'd never actually seen all of this loopy, surreal David Cronenberg thriller about an opportunistic Canadian TV station president (James Woods) who becomes convinced that a mysterious series of pirate broadcasts showing scenes of torture and murder might be the Next Big Thing, resisting all attempts to warn him off until it's far too late. Like SCANNERS (which I had seen), its influence has been so outsized that much of it feels familiar even on first viewing, including the film's now-notorious forays into body horror, which, if you're expecting them, are no longer really that shocking (although they are often memorably icky). What's less expected, and thus more striking, is the film's Pynchon-like (Pynchonian? Pynchonesque?) deadpan absurdity; the story is full of characters with names like Blanca O'Blivion (Sonja Smits), daughter of Marshall-McLuhan-like media theorist Brian O'Blivion, and Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson), a sinister optician who's also a defense contractor. It's really very funny, in the same mode as John Carpenter's later THEY LIVE. Judging by the sheer density of ridiculous stuff happening even around the edges, like the brief snippet we see of the weird call-in show hosted by Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry, who's less prominently featured than I'd been given to expect), I can only assume it was intentional, although Cronenberg's narrative straight face and the outsize reactions to the goopy "videocassette orifice" stuff stood in the way of its being recognized as a comedy. (That it's a satire should of course be obvious.) VERDICT: One of those movies you need to see for reasons of cultural literacy, even if it's not really your thing, but perhaps not while eating.

GOTCHA! (1985): Before finding his niche on the TV show ER, Anthony Edwards had a burgeoning career as one of the more obnoxious of the many obnoxious young male stars of the '80s, offering an insufferable combination of earnestness and smarm in films like REVENGE OF THE NERDS and this dumb teen adventure, obviously intended to capitalize on a then-popular campus fad. Horny 18-year-old UCLA veterinary student Jonathan Moore, whose favorite hobby is the titular paintball assassination game, decides to go to Europe with a friend (Alex Rocco, who has more charisma in his minor supporting role than Edwards musters in his entire '80s filmography) and falls for a hot older woman called Sasha (Linda Fiorentino), who soon involves Jonathan in some deadly real-world espionage. The midsection, set in Paris and Berlin, is an okay if unremarkable Cold War thriller, with Edwards relatively tolerable as a fish out of water; the movie's best scene has him hitching a ride with a van full of German punks who love DALLAS. Unfortunately, the third act returns to L.A. and attempts to pay off the paintball-game setup, with preposterous results. Also, if you're much older than the protagonist, the way the story wraps up Jonathan's relationship with Sasha will likely seem a little creepy. VERDICT: Misses the mark.

INTO THE NIGHT (1985): Oddball black comedy thriller starring Jeff Goldblum as Ed Okin, a depressed, insomniac aerospace engineer who over the course of one long night becomes the unlikely savior of a beautiful woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) who's being pursued by an assortment of deadly enemies. Goldblum has fun with his character, who hasn't slept in days and is no longer capable of any emotional response beyond mild dismay (something that becomes progressively funnier as the situation escalates), and he has excellent rapport with Pfeiffer, who's not so much a femme fatale as an aging good-time girl who's worn out her welcome just about everywhere. Unfortunately, they're saddled with a script that often seems like an unfinished draft, with a murky, rather racist plot that's full of setups for gags whose punchlines are still marked "TBA," and punctuated by bursts of violence that are frequently meaner than called for (the fate of the Kathryn Harrold character is especially nasty, and completely gratuitous). Dan Ackroyd, David Bowie, Vera Miles, Irene Papas, and other prominent stars pop up in minor roles, usually for no more than a scene or two, and director John Landis peppers the film with guest appearances by other film directors (including Roger Vadim, Paul Mazursky, David Cronenberg, and Jim Henson, among others), which is distracting if you recognize them and puzzling if you don't. VERDICT: Goldblum and Pfeiffer are great, but Landis's weird indulgences leave it feeling like a private joke.

MANHUNTER (1986): Mesmerizing Michael Mann adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel RED DRAGON, with William Petersen as Will Graham, Dennis Farina as Jack Crawford, Tom Noonan as the "Tooth Fairy" killer, Joan Allen as Reba, and Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter (for some reason spelled "Lecktor"). It has a very different narrative center of gravity than later Hannibal Lecter movies or the HANNIBAL TV show, though it's no less stylized, with striking use of color and music (most memorably in the finale, which uses Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" diegetically). Like most such stories, it's ideologically objectionable — though arguably less so than THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS — but it's certainly effective, and less hokey than the 2002 adaptation with Ed Norton. Long, slow-paced (particularly in the director's cut), and not very deep, but if you catch it in the right frame of mind, its blend of chilly psychological detachment and procedural minutiae is almost hypnotic. VERDICT: A movie to dissociate to.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT (1986): If OPPENHEIMER struck you as too pompous and amoral, try this decent if implausible mid-'80s teen movie about a high school science prodigy (Christopher Collet) who decides to protest the secret DOE lab run by his mom's nerdy new scientist boyfriend (John Lithgow) by stealing some plutonium from the lab with the help of his aspiring teen reporter sort-of girlfriend (a babyfaced Cynthia Nixon) and then building his own atomic bomb. The first half relies too heavily on its hyper-competent (and singularly arrogant) kid hero effortlessly outwitting doofus adults, although it works well enough on its own terms. Things pick up in the exciting third act, which is enlivened by a terrific performance by Lithgow, supported by John Mahoney as a hard-bitten Army colonel who's decided the best way to contain the situation is to kill the boy as soon as they can separate him from the bomb. Collet is quite good, if not terribly likeable; Nixon does her best with an underwritten supporting role. VERDICT: The intended moral point ends up a little muddy, but an attempt was made, which is more than one can say for Nolan's overblown epic.

MIRACLE MILE (1988): AFTER HOURS at the end of the world: What begins as a treacly romance about a dweebish musician (Anthony Edwards at his most objectionably saccharine) falling for a diner waitress (Mare Winningham with a truly unfortunate haircut) takes an extremely dark turn as our hapless hero answers a misdialed pay phone call and learns that nuclear war is about to begin, setting him on a frantic, surreal late-night quest to find his dream girl and get them both out of L.A. before it's destroyed by (presumably) Soviet missiles. It's a frightening premise for a perfectly dreadful script whose painfully contrived setup, cartoonish characters (including Denise Crosby as an unlikely diner patron who seems to know something about what may be going on), and uneasy half-comic tone undermine its credibility at every turn. The urgency and uncertainty of the threat are enough to hold your attention for about an hour, but from there, the story has nothing left to do but to play out the string, leading to an incredibly nihilistic finale not recommended for anyone in an emotionally fragile state. VERDICT: Memorably weird, but not in a good way.

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