#1980 films

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

August: Fantasy & Sci-Fi

Flash Gordon / Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan

You've got to hand it to Brian Blessed and the other Hawkmen actors: this is the sort of costume that can't be worn timidly. It must be worn with gusto or else it will utterly defeat its wearer. And they pull it off, wings and all. Interestingly, they're actually wearing slightly more than their comic counterparts (see below).

Prince Vultan's costume has some extra features that denote his rank. He has a fancy helmet with the badge of the hawkmen, showing crossed wings inside a star, and two tall horns? lightning bolts? stylized feathers? He also has a more substantial breastplate with another variation on the badge (crossed wings in front of a beaming sun). The breastplate appears to be made of leather, with overlapping scales in gold and deep brown.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Pinocchio's Christmas (1980)

Pinocchio’s Christmas takes Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel and gives it a holiday twist. The results work surprisingly well. Though the songs are lousy and the animation brings up certain issues I’d never even thought of before, its short running time, combined with the good-natured story and heartwarming message allow it to squeak by and make it worth watching… if you happen upon it playing on TV.

When poor woodcarver Geppetto (voiced by George S. Irving) sculpted a wooden puppet from a log, he never expected it to come to life. Despite his best efforts, "Pinocchio” (voiced by Todd Porter) gets himself into all sorts of trouble as the Christmas season draws near.

Pinocchio’s story naturally ties itself to Christmas. He's a toy, brought to life through a miracle, he needs to learn to differentiate right from wrong, etc. Here, Geppetto wants to buy a Christmas present for his wooden son and Pinocchio wants to reciprocate. Led astray by The Fox and The Cat (Allen Swift and Pat Bright) Pinocchio goes on the same sort of adventures as he did in the novel: dismissing the Talking Cricket (Bob McFadden) that wants to give him advice, working in a puppet theater owned by Maestro Fire-Eater (Alan King), skipping school to earn money in a way that’s way too easy to be true, etc. Meanwhile, the fairy Lady Azura (Diane Leslie) watches from a distance. If finding your pops a great gift for December 25th isn’t the mark of being a good boy, I don’t know what is. It may even even be enough to earn Pinocchio the right to become a REAL boy! The solution to Pinocchio’s dilemma is a good one, particularly for little kids, who can’t exactly go to the store and buy their parents something nice.

Though the stop-motion animation is fine for a TV movie of the early 80s (really, it’s much more reminiscent of something you would’ve seen in the 60s), I’m not sure how well-suited this visual choice is for a Pinocchio story. See, Pinocchio is a puppet, and so is everyone else. He stands apart from the other characters if you look at his elbows and knees but it’s an odd effect. The initial knee-jerk reaction you have could've been reduced if everyone but the protagonist had received sewn hair instead of painted hair, or some other visual cue that they’re real and he’s not. Geppetto’s design is particularly distracting because he has those lines running down the sides of his mouth like a ventriloquist dummy. In certain scenes, he looks faker than his artificial son does!

Any issues the film might have are specks of dust compared to the dreadful songs. The same words are rhymed over and over, which makes them easy to sing along with and memorable but these earworms are the kind that will dig into your skull and start taking big chunks out of your brain. I’ll take the Ninja Turtles’ rendition of 12 Days of Christmas a dozen times if I never have to hear Pinocchio singing Dancin’ or The Fox and The Cat telling me all about It’s the Truth again.

The ending of Pinocchio’s Christmas seems to imply that it could fit somewhere in The New Adventures of Pinocchio series but I’d bet a whole money tree that the continuity wouldn’t line up, particularly with the “love interest” introduced for the protagonist. Nonetheless, if you enjoyed the series (maybe you caught it when it originally aired during the '60s or on syndication) it’s worth checking out as a companion piece. For the rest, I can also give this film/TV special a mild recommendation. Despite the awful soundtrack, the kindhearted message at its core is nice and the plot is occasionally clever. (On VHS, December 19, 2021)

[eroticlamb]

Geena Davis posing with a bug for a promotional shoot of "Beetlejuice", featured in Prevue magazine, 1988 ♡

[melomancy]

Kate Bush as the Sound Monster in Experiment IV (1986)

[thomashagen]

"Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club."

THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) dir. John Hughes

[odetokeons]

The Substance (2024) + parallels with other horror films

Re-Animator (1985)

Saw (2004)

The Shining (1980)

Videodrome (1983)

Pearl (2022)

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Carrie (1976)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Rachel Ward and Steve Martin - Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

[aloneandforsakenbyfateandbyman]

Possession (1981)

[filmgifs]

Carpe diem, seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989) dir. Peter Weir

[oldschoolfrp]

Outfit of the day (James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom, Conan the Barbarian, 1982)

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

March: Pink Redux

Flash Gordon / Ornella Muti as Princess Aura

For a princess, Aura doesn't dress much differently from the average court member on Mongo. But then, with this level of elaborateness, there isn't a lot of room to get fancier! The exact shade of her off-the-shoulder dress appears to vary quite a lot with the lighting. We see it both with and without the pointy-shouldered cape.

The belt is not only highly decorative, but a practical way of concealing weapons, apparently.

[adamwatchesmovies]

9 to 5 (1980)

Before I hit play and began watching 9 to 5, I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into. I’d heard the Dolly Parton song of the same name, knew roughly what the story was about and was aware of the film's cult following. I certainly didn't expect to feel cold towards it. This comedy has its moments for sure. I just kept thinking that the film could’ve - should’ve - gone in and been tougher or darker or made its point more aggressively. Instead, it's being content with merely dipping its toe into the ideas it brings up.

While bonding over their mutual hatred of their sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss, former housewife Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), mother of four Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin) and secretary Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton) fantasize about what it would be like to teach Frank Hart (Dabney Coleman) a lesson. When a misunderstanding leads Violet to believe she’s poisoned him, they scramble to find a way to cover up their “crime”.

As a film debut, Dolly Parton couldn’t have asked for much more. She proves herself a natural comedienne, easily keeping up with her co-stars. She’s charming through and through. She also gets to show off her skills as a singer - there's a reason that titular song is still playing on the radio. The film's best scenes have Frank manufacturing scenarios so that he can peer down Doralee's blouse. It makes you hate him even more than you already do and endears you to Doralee even more than before.

It’d be one thing if Frank was good at what he did but everyone can see right through the big idiot (well, maybe except his secretary). The point when Judy, Violet and Doralee fantasize about what they’d like to do to him should fill you with all sorts of dark laughs - should. Whether or not the trio manages to get Hart to change his ways (or get him killed, either one will be satisfying), it won’t change the fact that all of the other Frank Harts are still out there. They're still harassing their female co-workers, rounding up toadies to ensure they are never punished for doing so, handing out promotions to unqualified men rather than the hard-working women who have been around them for years, etc. Frank is not a character; he's an idea. You want an impossibly ridiculous vengeance to rain down upon him; you want your fantasy to come true but the picture just doesn't go that way. To be fair 9 to 5 does abandon all pretense of realism but it eventually turns into a light-as-air comedy, which just doesn’t feel right.

9 to 5 gets very silly, which makes it inoffensive and easily digestible to just about anyone - except maybe dedicated misogynists and Ronald Reagan, who strongly disapproved of a scene in which the girls smoke marijuana. I can't say whether the decision to be light and breezy was right for 1980. Today? It disappoints. 9 to 5 left me wanting a lot more. I expected a laugh-out-loud comedy that also hit as hard as a sledgehammer between the legs; I wanted to see a provocative, memorable comedy. That's not what you get. Still, I would give it another go to see if lowered expectations might change how I feel. (On DVD, October 9, 2021)

[wh0-is-lily]

Mia Goth in ‘MaXXXine’ (2024) ♡

[tvneon]

[thomashagen]

VICTOR/VICTORIA (1982) dir. Blake Edwards

[hauntedinsomnia]