They Shot the Piano Player (2024)
Spanish director Fernando Truaba is one of those [...]
Archive for September, 1980
Stardust Memories (1980)
Stardust Memories opens, rather lovingly, with a scene borrowed from Fellini’s 8-1/2. Sandy Bates (Woody Allen) sits in a train car populated by sad and grotesque individuals whose eyes bear down upon him as if he doesn’t belong there. He might agree. He looks out the window and sees another train car populated by beautiful […]
Resurrection (1980)
I understand from some light research that Resurrection was originally intended to be a horror movie. Having seen the picture, I could understand how that might have been tempting given the subject matter, at least from a marketing standpoint. Yet it would a real crime given how the movie turned out. This is not a […]
In God We Tru$t (1980)
When I was a kid there was a TV preacher that I found wildly entertaining. His name was Brother Hamill and he would appear on Sunday afternoons on one of those fuzzy UHF stations that seemed to alternate between second-tier professional wrestling, Japanese monster movies and old re-runs of “Petticoat Junction.” Brother Hamill’s shtick was […]
Hopscotch (1980)
Watching Hopscotch is kind of a befuddling experience. Walter Matthau gives such a good performance that you kind of wish the rest of the movie would get out of his way. He’s given a part to play here that you can feel fits him like a good suit, but he’s stuck in a screenplay that […]
My Bodyguard (1980)
The comedy My Bodyguard made me realize just how few kids in Hollywood films reflect my own experience. Most adolescents are horned up, drugged out, over-sexed and have ballooned up personalities so supreme that they should run for office. That wasn’t my experience. I was short, awkward, had big glasses and bad skin, and was […]
Ordinary People (1980)
The only way to really examine Ordinary People is to imagine how it might have been done in lesser hands. I imagine a movie about a family in crisis that has a problem at the beginning, a shouting match in the third act and a reconciliation at the end. I’ve seen that movie over and […]
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
So . . . how exactly does one have a battle beyond the stars? Stars are infinite in the universe. No matter where you go, they’re all around you in distant galaxies. No matter where you go, you can see them, well, unless you’re in the city and the lights are blotting them out. I […]
