The 1985 Mini-List

[swo17]

ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1985

VOTE THROUGH JULY 31

Please post in this thread if you think anything needs to change about the list of eligible titles.

[therewillbeblus]

I'm always glad I check these master lists - had O.C. and Stiggs down for several years later! I can also safely recommend The Peanut Butter Solution as the most insane kids' movie ever.

Swo, can you please add Walking the Edge (Norbert Meisel) and, most importantly, the greatest HK action-comedy (emphasis on comedy) perhaps ever, It's a Drink! It's a Bomb (David Chung)?

[yoshimori]

Two to add to the list: Schlöndorff's Un amour de Swann and the Quays short "This Unnameable Little Broom".

And my recommendation for 1985: If you liked the likes of like Je vous salue, Marie or A Zed and Two Noughts or Mishima, try Morita's Sorekara [And Then ...] if you haven't already seen it.

[swo17]

All added, with a couple notes:

Un amour de Swann looks to be more properly assigned to 1984, so I've made it eligible there instead.

The Quay film was already eligible for 1985, but under its extremely long title. So long in fact that the search engine still wouldn't recognize it if you searched for just "This Unnameable Little Broom." I've now added that shorter title as an aka

[yoshimori]

Got it. Thanks.

[knives]

Am I crazy or is Mask not listed here? Also just want to rep for Michael Sporn’s The Amazing Bone which isn’t on the list. It’s kind of insane in the quiet way that Sporn loves.

[swo17]

Added both, thanks!

[the preacher]

Missing:
La vaquilla https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090250/
Esperando la carroza https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089108/
Bal na vodi https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091200/
Scorpio Nights* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117568/
Silip** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292236/

*Warning - contains some adult material
**WARNING - CONTAINS SOME ADULT MATERIAL

[swo17]

Thanks. I've added all of those, though I assigned Silip to 1986. There's some conflicting information out there but my best guess is that IMDb's release information is correct (a festival release late in 1985 followed by a wider release 7 Feb 1986)

[the preacher]

Apparently Dave Kehr himself reviewed the film at the time: https://chicagoreader.com/film/silip/

It is not in his top 10 of the year... but my #1 is.

[knives]

My first watch of the month is the surprisingly good Disney flick The Journey of Natty Gann. It’s a good indicator of how little authority was exercised at Disney at the time. This is a pretty mature telling of a children’s story as Kagan presents a world where kindness is only occasionally returned in like and cruelty is the main expression of people. It doesn’t necessarily go as far as it could have, but I don’t think it needed to either as the point is made clearly even with the doses of compassion Natty encounters.

[knives]

I guess this is the month I watch all the kids films, but could you add Follow That Bird? Perhaps this is only due to the watching so much Sesame Street lately with my one year old, but I thought this was an extremely effective film tackling a number of themes related to belonging both in the social and political realm. There’s an intense suspicion of the foster care system and how it can view kids as interchangeable. I also just have to love a kids films that uses the Osmonds as a short hand for characters being completely alien.

[therewillbeblus]

It's a good year for kids movies. The Peanut Butter Solution is the most batshit earnest kids movie ever - complete with the weirdest pubic hair visual joke I've ever seen. The Goonies is the closest anyone came to capturing the imagination of latchkey kids saving the day for all with nothing but a treasure map, friendship, and courage. Typhoon Club is a bit darker and more interesting territory, while Real Genius keeps things light. The Breakfast Club needs no additional selling, nor does Come and See, but they sure are different takes on kids' woes! While Back to the Future is a more digestible sci-fi version of the crazy antics kids can get into, compared to O.C. & Stiggs' borderline-esoteric approach to narrative and character, though remaining the closest cousin to Licorice Pizza I've seen yet. And then Pee-Wee's Big Adventure exists for the adult children in all of us, going back to mine even sillier shenanigans than these kid or teen centric films

[swo17]

could you add Follow That Bird?

Done

[knives]

Another suggestion for inclusion on the list is Masaki Kobayashi’s final film.

The Empty Table is at once something typical as a twilight film and completely unique as in I do not know of a single film which does the same thing. For his final film Kobayashi takes a look at his place in the world and what subsequent generations have done and quietly says, “I don’t know.”

It doesn’t take much to get a sense of autobiography from this picture about a man who doesn’t feel obliged to take responsibility for his son’s violent political behavior.

Kobayashi seems genuinely perturbed by everything involving the Red Army, but instead of old man saying the kids have lost it as others might have the film seems introspective asking if Kobayashi’s own pacifist of left protest is close enough to truly be to blame. This hit me hard as it reflects my own self reckoning of where the left seems to be heading and how long I’ll be comfortable for that ride. That even someone of such intense thought and age as Kobayashi could only say, “I don’t know,” is worrying and reassuring.

[swo17]

Added, thanks!

[therewillbeblus]

Trouble in Mind: Alan Rudolph continues his efforts to balance artificial whimsy and psychic realism, this time committing harder to a neo-noir dream beyond melodrama to fulfill his romantic fantasy. Not every choice worked for me, but I admire his subversions of fatalism into the possible each outing. He's truly a filmmaker who understands pain, and spends time stewing with his characters, but remains mobile, tapping into the impermanence and potential for positivity for the characters when they can't do it for themselves. Like a gently intrusive magical realist intervention, that feels wholly earned within the context of the film's internal logic and atmospheric world itself.

[knives]

Funny, I just watched that last night and it really solidifies Rudolph as the greatest discovery for me this year. It follows the model of Choose Me and yet doesn’t feel like a repetition, but rather is this newly affecting experience. I think what you identified as possibility is exactly what is working for me. How Carradine’s arc works is this film’s highlight. He gets to this point of degradation, yet the finale with humour and drama says something different requiring me to reassess the his whole arc. Honestly I even saw his first film hoping it would tell me Rudolph is possible of bad, but even there he does bad in a compelling way.

[therewillbeblus]

I wasn't a big fan of his late-80s Moderns very much, even if he's working in the familiar mode. The attention to the period era and the historical personas working in it detracted from the effectiveness of his style. I know John Cope is a big fan of that one, so I'm sure there's a nice defense lying in wait!

[swo17]

Also just want to rep for Michael Sporn’s The Amazing Bone. It’s kind of insane in the quiet way that Sporn loves.

Where is this available?

[knives]

I watched it on DVD, but I think it’s streaming on Kanopy for those whose library has it.

[swo17]

Do you remember what DVD?

[knives]

This one which also includes one of his Oscar nominated films.

[swo17]

Thanks!

[knives]

I really appreciate the recommendation of The Peanut Butter Solution because although I didn’t like the film aside from the last twenty minutes it gives a lot for understanding Canadian cinema and also what works about Czech fairy tales (which the movie had a clear affinity toward even before I realized there was an actual relationship there).