Enemy Mine (1985)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Enemy Mine (1985) – W. Petersen

Never saw this unforgettable sci-fi film back in the day and didn’t know enough about it before screening it with Amon.  For those who think it’s a buddy film in space, that’s only half correct (bromance would be the better term and I can’t think of another mainstream genre film from this era with such a barely hidden gay subtext). Dennis Quaid (channelling the later Jack Black persona) is a space pilot on the front line in the human war against the reptilian Dracs.  After a vicious dogfight, he crash lands on a deserted planet but soon discovers a Drac (Lou Gossett Jr.) has also crashed there.  In order to survive the harsh environment, they have to team up … and eventually become friends.  Months or years go by (making Quaid even more Jack Black-like) and, although the pace of the film does drag, it is anything but predictable and soon gets quite weird. I won’t spoil it here but by the end of the film, Quaid is on a rescue mission to get some Drac slaves out of the grips of some evil human miners.  This latter scene is the only explanation for the film’s title – unless you just accept that it is really meant to be “my enemy”.  Ultimately, taken as a film that desires to take on big issues, such as cross-cultural acceptance and anti-racism, in a sci-fi genre context, my feeling is that it pretty much succeeds without being too heavy-handed.  As a sci-fi film, perhaps it drags, though the old-school special effects (and especially set design) are pretty cool.

Clue (1985)

 ☆ ☆ ½

Clue (1985) – J. Lynn

With the success of recent whodunnits (such as Knives Out and Branagh’s Poirot films), I was tempted – or perhaps mislead – to watch this ‘80s variant, based on the well-known board game (called Cluedo outside of the US).  Well, it was a flop back then, despite its gimmick of having multiple endings with different culprits (all included at the end of the film now), and it is still a flop now.  Tim Curry, as the butler, does his able best to provide exposition to the characters as well as to us, the audience, but the script and the cast let him down. Apparently, all of the guests invited to the mansion (and instructed to use pseudonyms which are the names of the Clue characters) are being blackmailed by Mr Boddy, so when the lights go out and he’s found dead, they are all suspects.  This is after they have each been handed a box with a weapon inside (candlestick, rope, revolver, etc.). The rest of the movie will see other peripheral characters (maid, cook, cop) killed and the central characters scramble around the mansion (and the secret passageways between lounge-conservatory and kitchen-study) looking for clues (I guess). Only a few of the actors appear interested in being in this movie (Lesley Anne Warren, Michael McKean, Curry) but you can’t really blame the others (Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan) given the quality of humour here (oh yeah, it is supposed to be a comedy).  Play the game instead.

 

Lifeforce (1985)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Lifeforce (1985) – T. Hooper

Tobe Hooper’s follow-up to Poltergeist (1982) requires more than your usual suspension of disbelief (to put it mildly) – this is bizarro cult fare that somehow manages to keep its plotline coherent (okay, more or less) all the way until the end.  We jump straight into the action in outer space where Steve Railsback and his crew are investigating a derelict ship orbiting Halley’s comet (now making a return near Earth). They discover some dead giant bats but also three perfectly preserved (and naked) humanoids in glass cases. The next thing we know the ship is splash-landing back on Earth with all of the crew dead, the escape pod missing, and the three humanoids still perfectly preserved.  When the military surgeon begins an autopsy on the female, she awakens, sucks the lifeforce out of him, and escapes naked into the space center (note: actress Mathilda May spends nearly the entire film stark naked). Soon Railsback returns and, together with colleague Peter Firth, spends the rest of the film tracking down May with whom he can telepathically communicate (even as she leaps to other bodies, including a later Star Trek icon). Turns out that sucking the lifeforce out of someone turns them into a kind of zombie space vampire and soon all of London is full of them (the story echoes both Stoker’s Dracula and any of the rampaging zombie films that preceded this one). The special effects seem quaint (and some of the animatronic zombies might give you nightmares: think Creepshow) – indeed, the film is from another era, unlikely to be seen again. Perhaps that’s a good thing? Perfect, if you want to get your delirium going.    

 

To Live and Die in L. A. (1985)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

To Live and Die in L. A. (1985) – W. Friedkin

A genre film but refreshing in its totally Eighties choices, especially music (soundtrack by Wang Chung!), fashion, and art design. Still director William Friedkin takes his cues straight from his earlier Seventies hit, The French Connection (1971), in a story that also sees law enforcement, this time a US Secret Service officer (William Peterson), willing to break all the rules (and the law) to catch the main perp (there’s also a similar crazy car chase, but this time the cops are being pursued!).  It’s fascinating to see a young Willem Dafoe as the villain, a counterfeiter (but also an artist –the two go hand-in-hand?) and a young John Turturro as a ruthless bad guy on his payroll. Dean Stockwell is also here as a dodgy lawyer, closer in tone to his part in Paris, Texas (1984) than in Blue Velvet (1986)  -- the former was also shot by Robby Muller who shot this film. To its credit, the plot doesn’t exactly adhere to generic expectations, more downbeat (and violent) than usual, with an abrupt twist that I didn’t see coming (and a not entirely satisfying ending). But for untaxing action fare, it’s not too bad.   

 

The Goonies (1985)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Goonies (1985) – R. Donner 

I turned 18 in 1985 which is probably why I had never watched The Goonies until now (too old for a movie for kids, I guess). As a film-loving dad to two, I have scoured those various “best family films” lists but we’ve either seen ‘em or the boys turn their noses up. I can’t keep up with (or find) the new releases which are all animation, it seems. So, The Goonies seemed a possibility – until we looked at Common Sense Media to discover a lot of horrified parents worried about the S word and drug references and other off-colour bits.  Well, this is Australia, so there’s no way to avoid a bit of cussing (did you see the Olympics?) and we ploughed ahead anyway.  And that was a good decision because the movie is rollicking fun (and some of the inappropriate bits got the bigger laughs, at least from age 11).  A gang of misfit boys, including Sean Astin and Josh Brolin who are about to lose their house to foreclosure, stumble upon a treasure map which leads them (and their friends including Corey Feldman, Jeff Cohen, and Ke Huy Quan) to an old restaurant which is now the hideout for a gang of crooks (including Joe Pantoliano, Robert Davey, and the excellent Anne Ramsey). There’s a lot of slapstick fun as The Goonies find a tunnel in the basement and avoid some booby traps on their way to finding One-Eyed Willie’s pirate ship. There’s some serious weirdness too when The Goonies encounter the chained-up not-quite-right son (gridiron player John Matuszak) of the villainous matriarch (which eventually leads to a nod to director Richard Donner’s other big hit).  Chris Columbus and Steven Spielberg wrote the script and produced but this never becomes cloying (even if age 9 had to close his eyes during the occasional kissing scenes). Indeed, the surprising lack of slickness is a big plus. I guess, that’s 1985 for you.

 

Ornette: Made in America (1985)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Ornette:  Made in America (1985) – S. Clarke

NOT a straightforward doco about great jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman but instead something more impressionistic from famed documentarian Shirley Clarke (The Cool World, 1963).  We begin in the early ‘80s with Ornette receiving the key to the city of Fort Worth where he was born in advance of a concert (recorded as Opening the Caravan of Dreams, 1983) featuring his composition “Skies of America” accompanied by a symphony orchestra.  Then, we bounce around in time, with some concert footage from 1968 and a visit to the Master Musicians of Jajouka in Morocco (cue William Burroughs and Brion Gysin). He plays the violin as well as the saxophone. All the while, we see glimpses of child actors playing Ornette as a kid or a teen with a big saxophone wandering around Fort Worth (which looks dilapidated) – these scenes intimate the difficulties Ornette must have faced on the road to success.  Later we meet Denardo, both as a pre-teen and older playing with PrimeTime and see him chatting with his dad.  Only late in the picture do some talking heads appear discussing Ornette and his influence (the negative reaction to his “different” music in the late 50s/early 60s). The man himself offers a number of anecdotes and insights (something about wanting to be voluntarily castrated) but I’ll still never understand what he means by harmolodics.  Clarke probably tries too hard to make the film as experimental as Coleman’s music but her approach does add value; nevertheless a straightforward documentary and a concert film would nicely accompany this art film.  And I’m just happy to listen to the man’s incredible music. 

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) – D. O’Bannon

I saw this sometime closer to its release date and Ayako reports that she saw it during its release in Japan.  We own the DVD but hadn’t put it on for a long time.  I never realized that it was directed by Dan O’Bannon (writer of Alien and Dark Star).  It is a superior zombie film, definitely of its time (1980s) with a number of punk rock characters and fashion and music to suit (not always punk but definitely 80s).  I think we can agree that this is a comedy rather than a horror film, although the action and effects are as aggressive and gory as anything you would see contemporaneously.  Unlike in George Romero’s classic films (Night of.., Dawn of…, and so on), these zombies move quickly and have a degree of intelligence (“Call More Paramedics!”).  The plot:  Two inept guys working at a medical supply warehouse accidentally spill some tin drums of military origin stored in the basement.  They release a gas which brings the dead back to life (and also infects them).  Unfortunately, the warehouse is located next to a huge cemetery.  Some punk kids are hanging out there.  The whole group escape to a nearby mortuary with the head of the medical supply company (Clu Gallagher) and attempt to defend themselves.  No real social commentary here (of the kind offered by Romero) but just some fast-paced gruesome fun with a light dose of cynicism (at the end). 

Insignificance (1985)

☆ ☆ ☆

Insignificance (1985) – N. Roeg

Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe Dimaggio, and Joe McCarthy walk into a bar…or rather a hotel room.  That’s the basic plot of Nicolas Roeg’s film which is a stage play that has been opened up a little bit.  Michael Emil and Theresa Russell basically do impersonations of the first two whereas Gary Busey and Tony Curtis are probably just winging it.  The good thing here is that the script (by playwright Terry Johnson) doesn’t really follow any known or expected trajectory so it feels fresh.  However, it isn’t always clear what the point is.  Perhaps there is something being said about the perils and side effects of fame and/or the unintended consequences of one’s behaviour (that are a result of it becoming famous)?  Nic Roeg doesn’t lend any recognisable technique to the film – there are a few flashback or thought bubble moments visualized briefly by the characters but not enough to bring us back to the moods or cinematography of Walkabout or Don’t Look Now.