Camp I think making a Christie film must be hard, because so seldom does it work. For me, the metric is very simple. We need to be allowed to speculate against multiple impossibilities. Many folks will be exposed for hidden, possibly relevant qualities. What makes Christie work is that at the end, things are explained,… Continue reading Ten Little Indians (1989)
Tag: 1980s
Films made in the 1980s
The Stunt Man (1980)
Citizen Crane There are quite a few movies like this, films that reference films and that also aver that the drama within can bend the reality without. The kernel of this idea was ‘Citizen Kane’ but it seemed to flower after John Fowles published ‘The Magus’ and the Beatles followed his lead. This one has… Continue reading The Stunt Man (1980)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
The Penitent Man I had to come back to this, because I’m puzzled. I wonder what it is about Spielberg. It is easy to criticise his mawkish sentimentality and his theatrical sweeps. But I think it is more than that. After all, we happily tolerate that and worse in some others. And it cannot be… Continue reading Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
I, Madman (1989)
The Misadventures of Margaret The setup here is a typical fold. An actress has a day job in a book store. She reads horror books and imagines herself in them. One day, she comes across an author who, when writing, had the story and real life merge. In reading the books, they “come alive”. Her… Continue reading I, Madman (1989)
To Sleep So As to Dream (1986)
Mysterious Silences As my readers know, I study folding in film; when films have parallel positions for the viewer as supported by the construction of the thing. Usually, this is a fluid contract between filmmaker and viewer that requires deeper engagement. I like these in part because I literally fold my life into certain films,… Continue reading To Sleep So As to Dream (1986)
Aunt Peg’s Fulfilment (1981)
Unfulfilling Classic porn, the kind celebrated in “Boogie Nights”, cannot be avoided if you are serious about studying film. An amazing number of these, mostly from the 70s, have pretty cleverly engineered contexts. It is completely different than the porn of today, where there is no attempt at story. Often, those old films stretched for… Continue reading Aunt Peg’s Fulfilment (1981)
War Games (1983)
Winken and Blinken There is less reason to see this now than when it was made, except for the lesson that is more clear here than in current filmdom: how do you cinematically convey concepts that don’t fit our fairly limited vocabulary? The lesson here is stark, only because we have greater familiarity with computers… Continue reading War Games (1983)