Mechanised Urges It is fine with me for a film to be just an anti war film, without all the embellishments of the more famous ones. Because of that I will advise you to find this and let it soak in. I write this at the beginning of the second year of the Ukraine war,… Continue reading The Beast of War (1988)
Tag: f1988
Films released in 1988
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Remote Brits I watched this recently, and also saw it when it was new. At the time, I suppose it was funny. Now I do not, and I think perhaps it is because the center of gravity for humour has changed. Each of the Pythonista’s had a particular strength. Together, they were terrific, or at… Continue reading A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
36 Fillette (1988)
Evenings of Cabiria In the late seventies, actress/writer Breillat made a film (“Young Girl”) about the nearly suicidal angst of female sexual discovery/fantasy. It is worth watching for the raw honesty, but it misses being a whole film. Five years later, she wrote a Fellini film, not a good one. It was during the period… Continue reading 36 Fillette (1988)
Bloodsport (1988)
No Bruce Lee Bruce Lee invented a genre; Jackie Chan invented a genre; Sly Stallone invented a minigenre, all with various approaches to personal combat. But these guys deeply understood how film works so they could tap the relevant pressure points. Van Damme did not invent a genre here, despite the best efforts of his… Continue reading Bloodsport (1988)
As Tears Go By (1988)
Streets of Mean No better one day film school can be found in watching “Mean Streets” and then this. Superficially they seem the same and Kar-Wai has told us that he patterned this, his first feature after Scorsese’s first. Here’s the lesson: Scorsese belongs to a school of thinking where actors create characters, real extreme… Continue reading As Tears Go By (1988)
Poirot: Death in the Clouds (1988)
Intersecting Planes Agatha Christie was probably our most careful student of the genre. She was all over the map, so to speak, trying all sorts of variations. Her twists on the genre were intended to complement the twists within the story. The most interesting and adventuresome were the Marple ones. The most technical were the… Continue reading Poirot: Death in the Clouds (1988)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988)
The Elusive Core of the Genre If you want to understand film, you need to understand the three main narrative types: noir, that genre derived from the musical, and the detective story. While the detective story in film essentially means Agatha Christie, you can’t understand that unless you understand Holmes. And the “Hound“, my friends… Continue reading The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988)
Appointment with Death (1988)
Multiple Appointments You can come to films for the bubble of the film, as it presents itself. Or you can enjoy the film as a character in your life, your personal film and the narratives that change you. In this case, I chose the larger film. That’s because I have an overarching narrative about Agatha… Continue reading Appointment with Death (1988)
Rain Man (1988)
Drizzle When this was new, few of us knew of neurodiverse folks. So the setup as a road movie where our bad soul gets redeemed worked. If you allow the genre. We were all amazed as Hoffman’s portrayal. Neither is unusual now, which I suppose is progress. Seeing it now in 2022, I am struck… Continue reading Rain Man (1988)