Best Foreign Film – 1984

Official Nominations: Dangerous Moves. Beyond The Walls. Camila. Double Feature. Wartime Romance.

As ‘Eighties’ as the domestic categories (and particularly my choices) are this year, the same can’t be said for the Best Foreign Feature category. If Dangerous Moves had been a Hollywood film this year, it would have starred Rodney Dangerfield as the wise-cracking, alcoholic chess grandmaster and Matthew Broderick would have been the wise-cracking young up and comer. There would have been a scene in an arcade, and hot young twenty something actress would have appeared in a bikini at some point. Being a Swiss movie, it’s a tad more serious. It feels like the Chariots Of Fire of the Chess world.

Beyond The Walls is a bit grim, isn’t it? Set in a prison, it’s about the fighting and in-fighting and conspiracy between a group of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners. Camila feels like a Hollywood Biopic – taking a tragic cult figure and blowing up the most salacious and famous moments of their life. It’s done in a considered way, with Camila presented as something of a martyr, a woman who fell in love with the wrong person in the wrong place and time. Double Feature is one of those films about films which Hollywood loves to celebrate. It’s good, but rather than a celebration about the industry it’s about how people can be so dedicated to their craft that they lose sight of their families and struggle to re-connect as they age out of the business.

Finally, Wartime Romance is exactly that – a Russian Romantic Drama about a soldier who re-connects with the nurse he had been obsessed with a decade earlier, who he then has a hand in bringing back to her former confidence and beauty. It’s not great.

My Winner: Camila

My Nominations: The Never Ending Story. 1984. The Company Of Wolves. The Element Of Crime. Greystroke. The Hit. The Killing Fields.

Can we get away with having The Never Ending Story here? I mean, they got away with giving the film that name, so I think we’re good. It was a joint production between Germany and the US… I’ll allow it, just this once. It’s another of those movies which was always on TV when I was young, and another which we watched in School when the teachers couldn’t be arsed. I’ve never been as big a fan of it as others, and I don’t think I’ve ever bothered with the sequels, but it’s fun.

The UK was putting out a fair few decent films in the 80s – not the dreary dramas and unfunny rom-coms we typically see. 1984 was inevitable, and should have received an official nomination while The Killing Fields was of course a huge critical success. The Hit saw Stephen Frears flexing his muscle, making one of the few London Gangster movies I enjoy. Story wise, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, beyond placing a lot of the tropes into a pseudo-road movie and bringing together a great cast – Terence Stamp, John Hurt, and Tim Roth. It follows an ex criminal tout enjoying his retirement thanks to ratting out his old mates, whose past catches up with him.

Greystroke is one of the more enjoyable adventure movies of the era, clearly inspired by the success of Indiana Jones but going its own way, taking the Tarzan stories and bringing them up to date. The Company Of Wolves is a movie I saw when I was very young and one whose images stayed with me for many years until I was able to watch it again. It’s certainly a film of images, given the fantastical, almost nonsensical and secondary nature of its story. It’s basically a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood, but with a heavily erotic and violent slant, told with grim visual beaty by Neil Jordan. It’s a dense film with stories within stories, the aforementioned startling imagery, and a touch of blood and guts.

Finally, The Element Of Crime is Lars Von Trier’s debut. He’s far from full Von Trier here, but many of the elements (ahem) which would make up his later, more controversial work, is clear to see – the self-deprecating humour, the violence, the stretchy veil between tongue-in-cheek/satire/reality. It’s very strange, but full of ideas.

My Winner: The Company Of Wolves.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Song – 1984

Official Nominations: I Just Called To Say I Love You. Take A Look At Me Now. Footloose. Lets Hear It For The Boy. Ghostbusters.

We’re deep into the 80s now – just look at these songs, every one was a hit, every one is still played today and everyone knows them. Probably only two of them are recognisable from their respective movie today, but these are all still significant movie songs in their own right. I can’t complain about any of these being the winner – I Just Called To Say I Love You is the official choice and it’s one of my favourite Stevie Wonder songs. Most of his fans disregard this one but as I’m not a huge fan of his I don’t fall into that category. I just like good cheese. Likewise, I’m not a fan of Phil Collins, but I do like Take A Look At Me Now (or Against All Odds as it is correctly named). Footloose and Lets Hear It For The Boy I can’t say I really like but they’re both a lot of cheesy 80s fun. My winner then is the most iconic song of the bunch, at least in terms of movies. Everyone knows Ghostbusters – who ya gonna call, and all that. Even so, I’m not a massive fan of the song – I like it, who doesn’t – but I have to pick it as the winner.

My Winner: Ghostbusters

My Nominations: I Just Called To Say I Love You. Take A Look At Me Now. Footloose. Lets Hear It For The Boy. Ghostbusters. The Heat Is On. You’re The Best. Young Hearts. Feel The Night. Cruel Summer. See Me In The Mirror. Love Came For Me. Sorcerer. Nowhere Fast. Breaking Like The Wind. Stonehenge.

This is when we get into that realm of 80s movies and hit songs going hand in hand. It honestly seems like every worthwhile movie released this year, and in this era, had an accompanying hit song or songs. If they couldn’t manage a hit song, they likely had a hit piece of theme music – see Beverly Hills Cop. Not happy with having a hit theme, Beverly Hills Cop also had a hit song in The Heat Is On – you already know it, and now that I’ve made you remember it you’ll be going ‘wow ooh wow oh, wow ooh wow oh’ all day.

The Karate Kid is littered with hits and 80s monstrosities – the biggest one being ‘You’re The Best’ – another inspirational anthem that you can’t help but love. Young Hearts is pretty dreadful on its own, but once again it works well within the confines of the movie. The same goes for Feel The Night. Cruel Summer ended up being one of Bananarama’s biggest hits, debuting in The Karate Kid.

It’s fair to say Alice Cooper was a bit of a mess in the 80s, recording several bad albums that he has zero recollection of. He also popped up in a number of horror movies and contributed songs to them. He wrote two songs for the Italian cult horror movie Monster Dog, and while they are far from his best, they are stronger than most of his early 80s output. Identity Crisis is a slice of fun but See Me In The Mirror is a darker ballad of the type Cooper was an expert at writing – again far from his best, but a vital curio. Many people would say that the most important soundtrack of this year was Purple Rain. And yet, I’ve never been a Prince fan. At the time his music always seemed too 80s to me, too samey, too reliant on the same rhythms and synth sounds. My opinion hasn’t really changed over the years though I’m aware I’ve only heard a fraction of his work. As such, I’m struggling to find a song from the movie I actually enjoy. Just to annoy you further, I’ll add another slice of stinking cheese in Love Came For Me from Splash. Come at me!

Lets keep things going with the bizarre Streets Of Fire – Nowhere Fast is a decent attempt at some sort of rock/pop opera thing while Sorcerer is a more simple atmospheric ballad. Next we land on The Terminator with a few songs lurking in the background and hitting that weird mix of techno and rock that was around for a few years in the decade – Burning In The Third Degree has a crap verse but great chorus. Most of the other tracks aren’t worth mentioning. For This Is Spinal Tap, really any of the songs could make an appearance but I’m already ripping the arse out of it – my favourites being Break Like The Wind and Stonehenge, but really the entire album rips to shreds everything that was, and is, so laughable and terrible about 80s hair metal. For anyone still reading… I think we’re done here. I think we know Ghostbusters is the winner, but I’m the contrarian.

My Winner: You’re The Best

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Score – 1984

Official Nominations: A Passage To India. The Temple Of Doom. The Natural. The River. Under The Volcano. Purple Rain. The Muppets Take Manhattan. The Songwriter.

Maurice Jarre picked up an official win for A Passage To India – a score with a lot of different styles at play, from big band jazz and orchestra epic pieces to more subtle sitar and mario-lava-level pieces. It’s big and bold, but it’s lacking in any great hooks to pull me in and doesn’t have a lot of deep resonating emotion. Similarly trawling the depths of Eastern culture and mysticism is Temple Of Doom, the sequel/prequel to Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Most of the best moments are borrowed from the first film, but there are one or two wonderful new pieces and changes to the classics to make it higher in my estimation than the official winner. John Williams was also nominated for The River this year, but it’s a bland enough score to go along with a bland film.

The Natural is a film about baseball, so I’m already not particularly interested, yet there’s something about the sport that makes it apparently the best candidate for translating to screen. There aren’t many great sports movies, but most of them are based around baseball. Randy Newman’s score is fine, moving from inspirational, oft copied ditties to era-specific pieces that I’m not so keen on. Under The Volcano always makes me think of the terrifying kids show Under The Mountain, though the two are in no way related. It and Moondial were pure nightmare fuel. Anyway, Alex North’s score has a lot of South American influence, but even in its more unusual moments it isn’t memorable.

Purple Rain unsurprisingly won the award for Best Original Song score but as I’m not a huge fan of the dearly departed star’s music, it’s not getting my vote. Joining him in that category were The Muppets with another collection of faintly riotous songs and Kris Kristofferson for Songwriter which has too much Country for my tastes.

My Winner: The Temple Of Doom

My Nominations: The Temple Of Doom. Beverly Hills Cop. Birdy. Body Double. The Company Of Wolves. Conan The Destroyer. Ghosbusters. Gremlins. The Karate Kid. The Killing Fields. The Last Starfighter. A Nightmare On Elm Street. Once Upon A Time In America. Police Academy. Splash. Starman. Supergirl. The Terminator.

Only my winner makes it to my list. Beverly Hills Cop gets a nod mostly for the great Axel F track and a variety of other early electronica. Peter Gabriel’s score for Birdy feels like a stark departure from his usual hits, a poignant, dreamlike collection of minimalist mood pieces. Pino Donaggio work well together once again on Body Double to make a score which apes Hitchcock and Hermann but has plenty of its own unique 80s pieces. You can’t talk about dreamlike without mentioning The Company Of Wolves – one of the first horror movies I ever saw and a score which never fails to send chills through me. Conan The Destroyer as a movie is, well, crap in comparison to Conan The Barbarian with the score being one of the major redeeming things. The score isn’t as wonderful as the first movie’s score (what is?) but it has a couple of excellent standalone themes and updates enough of the original’s tracks to remind us what a huge talent Poledouris was. Berstein’s Ghosbusters isn’t merely a bunch of ‘who ya gonna calls’ but has plenty of instrumental pieces of note, from the creepy museum intro to the madness of the ghostly caperings around New York later in the film.

This category is ripe for WTFs, as already discussed in my 1982 post. Gremlins not getting a nod this year is another of those. You have a conductor already recognized as an Academy favourite doing some of his most recognizable work, yet they pass it over. Gizmo’s theme and the main theme are both iconic, fantastic, and more deserving of a mention than most other pieces on this post. The Karate Kid must surely get a nomination too – Bill Conti another previous winner passed over. Sure I’m biased with a lot of these 80s movies as I grew up with them, but even removing yourself from that nostalgic viewpoint these films still have rip-roaring, rousing, inspirational scores – it’s not quite on the level of Rocky but it has a more youthful feel and if anything has more going on than Rocky with a great variety of styles.

Mike Oldfield’s score for The Killing Fields  score is gut-wrenching, epic, haunting, and memorable. There are too many great choices this year. The Last Starfighter may be a Star Wars clone but at least it tries to plough its own musical groove. All good slashers need a good score, or at least a great central theme – A Nightmare On Elm Street has one of the best yet most underrated. Funhouse fairground style sounds collide with child-like rhymes and simple melodies played with menace on the keys. There’s a lot of 80s rock influence there too and a touch of the industrial all meshing together in one nightmarish whole. Morricone’s Once Upon A Time In America – you already know it’s a masterpiece before you hear it. What’s surprising perhaps is how gentle and tender and melancholy it all is, eschewing the usual dramatic overpowering strings with more subtle softer moments, taking in South American, Asian, and European influences. Police Academy has, hands down, one of the best main themes in movie history and while the rest of the score doesn’t live up  to it, it still has other notable once-heard-never-forgotten arrangements.

This is truly the category that never ends. Splash is another romantic, dreamy string led soundtrack which remains beautiful without becoming cutesy. Starman is one of those rare John Carpenter movies where he didn’t provide the score, with Jack Nitzche providing the music instead. His main theme is one of the most gorgeous of the decade, complimented by other romantic and tension filled synthetic tracks. Supergirl… not the greatest film but fun in its own way and it has another great Goldsmith score even if it is a bit too similar to Star Trek. With The Terminator soundtrack Brad Fidel stamped his name on the industry making a score which merges dark techno and rock into a beast unlike anything else at the time. The main theme we all know, the beat in the original being slightly different to the more popular main theme of T2 and taking on a more synthetic and threatening tone than the industrial and emotion led follow-up. The central beat of course has become synonymous with the series and has taken on a life of its own outside of the film. I love how the beat becomes more aggressive as the track progresses, that sense of approaching danger growing, and it is balanced by pulsating chase themes and heartfelt, heart-breaking piano-led track which remain in regular rotation in my iPod.

My Winner: The Terminator

Let us know your winner in the comments!

1984 Academy Awards – An Introduction

The 57th Academy Awards were presented by Jack Lemmon, overseeing films such as Amadeus, A Passage To India, and The Killing Fields which all received multiple nominations. As is the case with most years in the 80s, there are a number of cult and high entertainment movies which will feature heavily in my choices.

Honorary Awards went to Jimmy Stewart, David L Wolper, and The River while Linda Hunt, Kathleen Turner, Tom Selleck, Michael Douglas and other handed out the awards. Performances came from Ray Parker Jr, Willie Nelson, Diana Ross, and others.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks to see what my picks in each category will be, and feel free to leave your own choices!

Best Cast – 1983

My Nominations: Yellowbeard. Uncommon Valor. Terms Of Endearment. Trading Places. Scarface. Rumble Fish. The Outsiders. The Osterman Weekend. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. The Right Stuff. The Big Chill.

We close out another year of Oscars coverage with another category which really should be part of the official ceremony. Yellowbeard is one of those films which seems like it could never have happened, probably shouldn’t have happened, and remains a curio which always prompts amazement that it exists at all. A who’s who of British talent, originally the plan was for it to be a Sam Peckinpah and Keith Moon vehicle, but instead became a Pirate movie featuring (takes a breath) an uncredited David Bowie, Spike Milligan, Graham Chapman, Peter Cook, Peter Boyle, Cheech & Chong, Marty Feldman, John Cleese, James Mason, Madeline Kahn, Susannah York, Nigel Planer, and Eric Idle. And others – you get the idea. It’s not very good, but it’s great to see the group of performers together.

Uncommon Valor is another one of those ‘Vets return to Vietnam’ movies which were all the rage for a few years, and features an interesting mix of established stars, martial artists, and new faces – Gene Hackman, Patrick Swayze, Fred Ward, Robert Stack, Randall Cobb, Kwan Hi Lim, Jane Kaczmarek, Michael Dudikoff, and Reb Brown. Even though it’s an action movie, it’s quite downbeat. Terms Of Endearment – it’s overrated in my books, but it excels in its casting and performances. Trading Places couples peak Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd with Jamie Lee Curtis trying her hand at comedy alongside stalwarts Denholm Elliott, Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy. Scarface is inevitable – Pacino, Pfeiffer, Bauer, Loggia, Mastrantonio, and F Murray Abraham.

The Outsiders and Rumble Fish both have crazy casts – I’m not going to type out all the names, but they’re both a who’s who of future stars. The Osterman Weekend isn’t a film we’ve talked about so far – it was something of a critical and commercial failure, but given the source material, director, and calibre of cast it’s definitely worth your time. It’s a rather messy conspiracy thriller where you’re not quite sure what’s going on, the characters aren’t sure who to trust, and nobody is very likeable – yet it stars Burt Lancaster, Dennis Hopper, Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Helen Shaver, Meg Foster, Chris Sarandon, and Craig T Nelson.

Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence is one of the better acted ensemble films in my list – David Bowie, Takeshi Kitano, Tom Conti, and Ryuichi Sakamoto are all great, while Eureka is another which deserves a wider re-appraisal, featuring Rutger Hauer (again), Gene Hackman (again), Mickey Rourke (again), Joe Pesci, Joe Spinell, Theresa Russell, and Jane Lapotaire. We don’t need to cover The Right Stuff again, but it should be here if this were an official category, as would The Big Chill. 

I’m a bit stumped on this one, and I’d likely pick a different winner if asked again tomorrow.

My Winner: The Outsiders.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Stuntwork – 1983

My Nominations: Return Of The Jedi. Octopussy. Blue Thunder. Lone Wolf McQuade. Project A. 

We’re back with one of my favourite categories to talk about, because it’s not an official category and it feels less like I’m repeating myself. Jedi obviously gets a nomination – it’s still an action movie at its core, and between the climactic battle, the speeder bike and Ewok fun on Endor, and the opening excitement with Jabba, Fett, and pals, the stunt work is a treat. If there’s a Bond release, it’s always going to appear on this list. Octopussy is one of the more bland, least memorable Bond films but even with a lackluster story and characters, there’s still some standout action moments – a pre-credits car chase with bikes and an airplane are among the film’s best moments along with the aerial work in the end. 

While we’re on the topic of aerial work, we have to nominate Blue Thunder. A film about a pair of cops using a new-fangled helicopter to take down bad guys in LA, you would expect some tense action, and you’d be right. Lone Wolf McQuade deserves a shout out – not only because Carradine and Norris mostly performed their own stunts, but because it’s something of a more old-fashioned action movie compared to the extravagance of the other nominations and the excess which was just around the corner in the decade. Project A is a Jackie Chan and Hong Kong classic – everything you want for a Chinese Period action movie, with some of Chan’s most eye-opening/eye-closing stunts. 

No room for Uncommon Valor or Zu Warriors, unfortunately.

My Winner: Project A

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Art Direction – 1983

Official Nominations: Fanny & Alexander. Return Of The Jedi. The Right Stuff. Terms Of Endearment. WarGames.

The most interesting inclusion here is probably WarGames – it’s cool that it’s here, and it’s deserved, but it’s interesting because it’s not the sort of thing that The Academy ever pays attention to. Elsewhere, Fanny & Alexander was the winner. It’s a worthy winner, but it’s a 1982 film so doesn’t make my list. Terms Of Endearment gets an inevitable and unnecessary nomination. The Right Stuff should have been a front runner here, but there’s no question that Return Of The Jedi is my winner.

My Winner: Return Of The Jedi

My Nominations: Return Of The Jedi. The Right Stuff. Wargames. Liquid Sky. The Hunger. The Keep. Videodrome.

Any number of alternate films could have made it to my list, but I’m trying to be more selective these days. Apologies to Scarface and Flashdance. The Keep is not a film I’m very fond of, but its visuals are the one thing which make it memorable. Liquid Sky deserves to be remembered for its visuals and more, while The Hunger looks gorgeous from start to finish. Finally, Videodrome is one of the more visually unique films of an era which had a lot of breakthrough sci-fi films and also deserved an official nomination.

My Winner: Return Of The Jedi.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Writing (Adapted) – 1983

Official Nominations: Terms Of Endearment. Betrayal. The Dresser. Educating Rita. Reuben, Reuben.

My Winner: Terms Of Endearment.

I’m not sure there are any films I would personally nominate here. There’s no doubting that Terms Of Endearment is a faithful and successful adaptation and is probably the film I enjoy most out of these. Betrayal is a British Harold Pinter adaptation with a bit of a reverse narrative structure which is innovative for its time. But the film feels very theatrical and the subject matter isn’t overly interesting to me. There have been many stories over the years similar to The Dresser – an employee basically keeping a star’s life from unravelling – and again these types of stories are usually only interesting to me if there is a unique hook. Educating Rita is another British film which I didn’t enjoy growing up, but have a respect for now, but still it isn’t anything I would nominated. Finally, Reuben Reuben is a little too snide and self-congratulatory for me to nominate, even if it is sometimes funny and has some underheard, quotable dialogue.

My Nominations: Eureka. The Fourth Man. The Outsiders. Rumble Fish. The Right Stuff. Scarface.

An entirely different list from me, and a few films I’ve missed out. Eureka is one of those films which, looking back, seems like it would have been the sort of thing which The Academy would have celebrated. It made no money, received no nominations, and disappeared without a trace – a shame because of how good it is, its director, and its cast. It would make a solid double feature with Scarface, so similar are their stories of greed, power, and the impact on individuals and families, though it lacks the latter’s iconic one-liners.

Two solid adaptations presented by Coppola in Rumble Fish and The Outsiders based on novels by different authors but which have a lot of intertextual similarities. The Right Stuff seems like the glaring omission from The Academy perspective, given the amount of acclaim the film received, while The Fourth Man doubles down on the horror and religious elements of the novel.

My Winner: Scarface.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Writing (Original) – 1983

Official Nominations: Tender Mercies. The Big Chill. Fanny & Alexander. Silkwood. WarGames.

Not the most exciting list of films this year, but lets always applaud originality where we can. Tender Mercies picked up the win this year, the tale of an alcoholic cowboy turning his life around thanks to the love of a good woman. It’s more nuanced than the standard sort of fare you expect from the simple synopsis. The Big Chill is this year’s hangout movie, following on from Diner. It’s another of those ‘ensemble old friends get together after years apart’ movies, but it’s one of the best. Fanny & Alexander is 1982 and can be ignored, Silkwood probably shouldn’t be here either given that it’s essentially an adaptation of the Silkwood book, while WarGames may be the only truly original screenplay here predicting the role technology and computers would play in warfare in the decades to come.

My Winner: The Big Chill.

My Nominations: The Big Chill. WarGames. Return Of The Jedi. Brainstorm. The Man With Two Brains. Trading Places. Videodrome.

Two make it over to my list to join a variety of comedies and Sci-fi films. Return Of The Jedi is that rare beast – a satisfying end to a trilogy. Even as it ties off all our loose ends and answers all our questions, it still introduces new characters, worlds, and ideas to enrich the universe and gives us some more iconic pieces of dialogue. Brainstorm gets another nomination for me for its creativity and ideas, while The Man With Two Brains is a fun idea making fun of other tropes and cliches which have existed in Cinema for many decades. Trading Places was one of those movies which could only be made in the 80s – the environment of Reagan politics, greed, and Capitalism becoming the real American Dream was set up for a story like this, and you had a cast who could authentically pull the humour off. Finally, if it’s creativity and originality you’re looking for in a screenplay, looks no further than Videodrome. It may border on incomprehensible, but its strokes are broad enough that we are pulled in on a first watch and enticed to uncover additional hidden delights on subsequent viewings.

My Winner: Videodrome.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Supporting Actress – 1983

Official Nominations: Linda Hunt. Cher. Glenn Close. Amy Irving. Alfre Woodward.

Linda Hunt picked up a deserving win this year – except for the fact that The Year Of Living Dangerously was a 1982 movie and therefore she’s not in for my consideration. Cher picked up her first nomination as Karen Silkwood’s roommate in Silkwood – it wasn’t her first performance, but it was certainly her first serious role and her breakthrough as an actress. Glenn Close is always good and may be the standout actress in The Big Chill, while Amy Irving received the pre-requisite Musical Acting nomination for Yentl. Finally, Alfre Woodward received her first and so far only Oscar nomination for Cross Creek. 

My Winner: Cher

My Nominations: Cher. Glenn Close. Meg Tilly. Louise Fletcher. Susan Sarandon. Barbara Hershey. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

Only Cher and Close make it over to my personal list. From The Big Chill, joining Close, is Meg Tilly as the younger newbie of the group. Louise Fletcher perhaps should have made my Best Actress list instead as she is a lead within the cast of Brainstorm. It’s arguably her best performance, although most people will understandably point to One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The sad fact is that a film called Brainstorm would never be allowed anywhere near The Oscars.

Elsewhere, Susan Sarandon is a standout alongside Bowie and Deneuve in The Hunger, Barbara Hershey deserves a nod alongside all the men in The Right Stuff, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is the sole innocent voice in the midst of all the chaos and debauchery in Scarface. 

My Winner: Louise Fletcher

Let us know your winner in the comments!