In Contention

Tag: Empire of the Sun

  • Those underrated gems of the 1980s

    BirdFor me, no decade was as overall weak for films as the 1980s, a 10-year span when bad movies made a fortune good ones went unnoticed. Of course there were exceptions to that rule.  “Amadeus,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Platoon” were brilliant productions that also scored at the box office, but more often than not, great films were discovered on video, sometimes years after release.

    A quick glance at the decade will show you that “Raging Bull” was not hailed as a masterpiece right away, and was by all acounts a failure at the box office, as was Warren Beatty’s masterful “Reds.” Phillip Kaufman’s extraordinary space adventure “The Right Stuff” had all the makings of a great American film (which it was and remains) and a box office smash, but sadly never found an audience, falling by the wayside in the summer of 1983. Audiences were flocking to see junk like “Flashdance,” “Footloose,” “Top Gun” and “Dirty Dancing” while many great films opened and closed without causing a ripple.

    I went back through the 1980s recently and re-visited 15 films that deserved attention when they were released, deserved Academy Award nominations (or more than they got), and certainly should have found an audience at the time of their release. Many of them were admired by critics, but I have left out the obvious — “Raging Bull,”  “Blade Runner,” etc. — to include smaller films that need a little love. Here they are, in no particular order…

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  • The under-appreciated

    (from left) John Wayne and James Stewart in The ShootistWe all know that there are brilliant films that sometimes never find an audience, slipping out of theatres long before they should and often disappearing into the void of the home market.

    In fairness, the advent of VHS and now DVD has allowed for such films to be re-discovered by future generations, and VHS was easily responsible for saving “Blade Runner” in the 1980s.  But these types of films deserved beter in their initial runs. Perhaps the studios were not clear on how to release them (often the case).  Perhaps critics did not get the film.  Or perhaps audiences just stayed away despite strong reviews.  Whatever the reason, there are often times that a great film just doesn’t catch on.

    I am currently contracted to write a study of the films Steven Spielberg has directed, and following that, I will be writing a study of under-appreciated films from the 1970s and 1980s. This has now been expanded into a decade-by-decade series, beginning with the 1980s (to be released in 2010), then the 1970s, the 1990s and the current decade, each one a year apart.  For obvious reasons, I am quite excited about them.

    For me, some of the more under-appreciated gems from the 1970s and 1980s for me have been films like “Black Sunday,” featuring an Osca-caliber performance from Bruce Dern, and still the best film ever made about international terrorism; John Wayne’s last film, “The Shootist,” in which The Duke portrays an aging gunslinger dying of cancer when he himself was being ravaged by the disease; the odd little western “The Missouri Breaks,” with Brando and Nicholson going toe-to-toe; the sensational musical “Hair,” directed by Oscar winner Milos Forman, who really does recreate the summer of love.

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  • Movies that Oscar missed

    As film junkies, we all know it happens. Usually every single year there are one or more films the Academy passes over for Best Picture consideration, in some cases because there are, after all, just five slots available, but in others because, well — they blew it.

    Like the rest of you, I sit and listen to the nominees announced live every January and have never had a year when I did not roll my head and ask to no one in particular, “Where is such and such or so and so?”

    I mean for me, the great honor is the nomination, because when “Kramer vs. Kramer” defeats “Apocalypse Now” for Best Picture, how can you possibly take the winners seriously? However, a nomination — that is decidedly different.

    Where was the Best Picture nod for John Ford’s masterful “The Searchers,” arguably the greatest American western ever made? And Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” which redefined the horror genre?

    Since 1980 there have been a number of truly brilliant films passed over, leaving this critic often shaking his head in disgust, though I get over quick enough to watch the damned awards…talk about hooked. But it amazes me how “The Empire Strikes Back” can be a better film than “Star Wars,” yet not be nominated in the big race. Ditto Brian De Palma’s “Blow Out,” possibly the finest film of his career, ignored in every category despite its artistic mastery. The very same year Milos Forman gave us “Ragtime,” a much stronger film than “Chariots of Fire,” which won the Oscar, or even “On Golden Pond,” one of the five nominees!

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  • The 80s yielded one great Best Pic winner: ‘Platoon’

    Ten awards for Best Picture were handed out throughout the 1980s, one of the worst decades for film in history, and I’d wager that only “Platoon,” the Oscar winning giant of 1986, can lay claim to being a great film.

    Oh, that is not to say there were not great films made in the 80s; there were indeed, but nobody went to see them, despite rave reviews. Many of the decade’s very best films were released and abandoned, to be re-discovered on video, at that time a very new addition to the film industry.

    “Raging Bull” ended up being the finest film of the decade, hell one of the five greatest films of all time, yet Oscar did not see it that way. Somehow, Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece lost the Oscar for Best Picture and the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Film to Robert Redford and “Ordinary People” — a well crafted film, but hardly the raw and angry work of the former.

    That same year would see the releases of “The Empire Strikes Back” — a superior film to the first “Star Wars” installment, yet snubbed for a nomination for Best Picture — and Richard Rush’s “The Stunt Man,” which might have been a strong choice for a nomination as well.

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  • Spielberg and blockbusters

    Can he do it? After becoming (in his own eyes) a serious filmmaker with “Schindler’s List,” “Amistad,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “A.I.” and “Munich,” is Steven Spielberg able to re-create the magic he almost always brought to his pure entertainment blockbusters?

    It takes a look at his journey as an artist to even attempt a reasoned understanding of such a question.

    On one hand, I argue that he was always a brilliant director, “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.” all great examples of his artistry, yet he himself was never satisfied by the reaction to those films by the Academy. It is well documented that Spielberg coveted acceptance in the film community, seeing the Oscar for Best Director as the ultimate acceptance from Hollywood. Snubbed for “Jaws” in 1975, he behaved like a petulant child as live cameras caught it all on film, invited in to see his reaction when he was nominated…but — he wasn’t.

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