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Stand by Me (1986)
For some, it's the last real taste of innocence, and the first real taste of life.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Reiner

After learning that a boy their age has been accidentally killed near their rural homes, four Oregon boys decide to go see the body. On the way, Gordie, Vern, Chris and Teddy encounter a mean junk man and a marsh full of leeches, as they also learn more about one another and their very different home lives. Just a lark at first, the boys' adventure evolves into a defining event in their lives.

What Happened to Lardass? first duty of a filmmaker is to worry about how to transport the viewer into the special world they have in mind. The hard way to do this is by devising a very strong narrative. Expert filmmakers then worry about the...


Published January 27, 2025
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Thirteen at Dinner (1985)
Filmmaker(s): Lou Antonio

Actress Jane Wilkinson wants a divorce, but her husband, Lord Edgware, refuses. She convinces Hercule Poirot to use his famed tact and logic to make her case. Lord Edgware turns up murdered, a well-placed knife wound at the base of his neck. It will take the precise Poirot to sort out the lies from the alibis - and find the criminal before another victim dies.

Suchet Sachet Suffers new batch of old TeeVee Christie adaptations have become available on DVD. I’ve been marching through them valiantly, looking for anything of value. Here it is. This one is good. The story on which it is based is one of Christie’s more interesting...


Published November 26, 2022
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Runaway Train (1985)
Desperate, And Determined To Survive.
Filmmaker(s): Andrei Konchalovsky

A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.

Movement seen ‘Unstoppable,‘ I had to see this. It is hard to know what influence Kurosawa had on this, but one can guess. He had been through his rejection in Japan, suicide attempt and film made and financed by the Soviets. He subsequently arranged scant funding...


Published February 19, 2024
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Edge of Darkness (1985)

Yorkshire detective Ronald Craven is haunted by the murder of his daughter and begins his own investigation into her death.

Dickens on record here as someone who believes that TeeVee fiction is a net negative in our lives. The ugliness of the marketplace in general, the specific requirement to sell, sell, sell. The fickle commitment the home appliance brings are probably all more restricting than...


Published February 21, 2024
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To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
A federal agent is dead. A killer is loose. And the City of Angels is about to explode.
Filmmaker(s): William Friedkin

A fearless Secret Service agent will stop at nothing to bring down the counterfeiter who killed his partner.

Two Women a story that connects is a balancing act that rarely succeeds. You have to use the machinery of storytelling to engage, taking advantage of the power of the devices you select. But at the same time, you have to conceal that machinery. This...


Published February 22, 2024
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Ran (1985)
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
Filmmaker(s): Akira Kurosawa

With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.

Noh Lear This is Noh Lear This is Noh Lear a wonderfully varied medium film can be! Here we have a film that is both truly great and in a different way a clumsy mistake. By now you know that this was made by a master...


Published December 9, 2024
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Tampopo (1985)
The first Japanese Noodle Western.
Filmmaker(s): Jūzō Itami

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.

New New Wave about other movies both fascinate and challenge me. The French "new wave" consisted of three types of ideas. They had notions about explicitly acknowledging the camera. That's such an ordinary notion these days that it is impossible to appreciate. And in any...


Published February 20, 2025
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A Girl’s Own Story (1984)
Filmmaker(s): Jane Campion

This early short from director Jane Campion concerns a group of teenage girls in the 1960s.

Her Very Own recently watched “In the Cut,” and found its connectives strange and exciting. So I went to this to see them when young and raw. Supposedly, this is Campion’s first long form film. It didn’t quite work as a film the first time because...


Published December 24, 2022
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1984 (1984)
George Orwell's terrifying vision comes to the screen.
Filmmaker(s): Michael Radford

George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Is What It Shows is a pet peeve of mine to discover films whose point is undermined by its container. Most of these are the trivial case of movies about taking chances and being unique, but the form of the movie is the complete opposite. What...


Published December 15, 2022
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Miss Marple: The Body in the Library (1984)
Filmmaker(s): Giorgi Ovashvili

Amateur detective Miss Jane Marple investigates the murder of a young woman whose body is found in the library at Gossington Hall, home of Colonel and Mrs. Arthur Bantry.

The Switch mysteries are one of the most lavishly adventuresome experiences in literature, if one is interested in how narratives are constructed. The contract between reader and writer is rather complex, often involving virtual contracts with some of the characters as well. Christie is a...


Published February 1, 2024
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