1985: Movies I've Seen
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Tue, 09/30/2003 - 10:34
Tags:
A
- Brazil
A-
- Back to the Future
B+
- Ran
- Vagabond
B
- My Beautiful Laundrette
- Witness
B-
- After Hours
- The Breakfast Club
C+
- Clue
- Desperately Seeking Susan
- Fletch
- The Purple Rose of Cairo
- A Room With a View
C
- Lost in America
- Pee Wee's Big Adventure
C-
- Better Off Dead
- Brewster's Millions
- The Sure Thing
D+
- Prizzi's Honor
- Weird Science
D
D-
F
Should See
- The Color Purple
- Come and See
- Shoah
- Tampopo
- A Time to Live and a Time to Die
Author Comments:
As we hit the mid-80's, you'll notice that my lists are getting sparser. I haven't quite decided if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but based on some of the crap that populates my 90's lists, I'm leaning towards good.
Not that this year is particularly good. I saw a lot of mediocre comedies that weren't good enough to put higher and weren't bad enough to put lower. Although I think 1985 may have been a pretty bad year for movies as well. Even with this sparse list of movies, I can only come up with two 1985 movies I want to see, and only one Hollywood movie.
C+ or higher = all movies I liked to some degree and would probably recommend
C = average
C- or lower = all movies I disliked to some degree and would probably not recommend
Cloned From:
I think this might well be the year we disagree the most on. Several films I love linger at the bottom of your list!
S'okay. A couple years of therapy, and I should be fine. ;)
Loving the lists...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Hmm, could you be more specific? I know what you think of "Lost in America"; I said I might try it again, but for now, it's staying at third tier. Which other ones do you disagree with?
Sure. I like Prizzi's Honor, Pee Wee, Desperately Seeking Susan, and Lost in America. Most of those are hardly favorites, but all are firmly in my 'like a lot' category.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Well, let's see. "Desperately Seeking Susan" is more in between the 2nd and 3rd tiers and I eventually decided not to give it the benefit of the doubt. I kinda liked it, but probably not as much as you.
I admit it's been a while since I saw "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." I may have lumped that together with all the other really bizarre comedies I've seen which were worse than PWBA itself.
But I firmly stand by my ranking of "Prizzi's Honor." I didn't like that movie much. I liked the premise that a hit man and a hit woman were hired to bump each other off, but the way it was handled was unbelievable and rarely interesting, IMHO.
Fair nuff! I really found Susan charming, but it is hardly my favorite comedy. Pee Wee is my favorite Burton next to Ed Wood. Granted, I'm not the biggest Burton fan in the world, but I do dig those two films. As for Prizzi's, I remember your comments before, so I would be quite disappointed if you didn't stand by your ranking. It certainly is a love-it-or-hate-it film, and we're just on opposite sides of that coin.
Did you ever catch Pee Wee's Playhouse? One of the most deliciously subversive Saturday morning shows ever...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Yeah, "Ed Wood" was cool. It's my favorite Burton as well, but I admit I haven't seen "Edward Scissorhands"... that's supposed to be pretty acclaimed, right?
I never saw Pee Wee's Playhouse, myself. I watched "Big Adventure" with a babysitter when I was younger, and that was my first and only experience to Pee Wee. I remember the scene with the truck driver who turned out to be dead scared the hell out of me. Especially when she made that face...
Edward Scissorhands is pretty acclaimed. If you thought Moulin Rouge was too much style over substance, however, beware... On top of that, Edward is much more heavy-handed. Some nice eye candy, though.
Funny what a difference age can make. I saw Big Adventure in the theater (my poor grandmother... next year I would drag her to Little Shop of Horrors also...) when I was 12. That scene made me howl. At that age, I thought it was the funniest scene in the film.
Spooky too, though...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Well, jeez, I'd be hard-pressed to remember my exact age when I saw the film, but I think I was younger than 12.
And BTW, I have a first-cousin-once-removed in her mid-fifties whose favorite movie is probably "The Princess Bride", and I dragged her to "28 Days Later." Huge mistake. I think that's why I saw "Bend It Like Beckham" with her the next day, to get the gore out of our minds.
Also, lbangs, I know you have a million other projects you're working on around here, but did you ever consider making a few lists in this format? I'd love to read your rankings!
I only know my age by looking up the release date and doing the math, since I know I saw it in its first few weeks at the theaters. Otherwise, I would never try to remember my age at the time. My memory ain't my strong suit...
I may have to give this format a whack. I hesitate on years mostly made up of films I haven't seen in a decade or so, but I could probably do a better job putting them into tiers rather than I could trying to rank them as I do for the more recent years. I may have to dip my toe soon...
Of course, my other problem is that I tend to remember the films I like and forget about the films I didn't. Helps keep me happy, no doubt, but I fear the lower tiers may be sparse unless I do some research to refresh my recollection.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Yeah, I never would've been able to make these lists without my Microsoft Word list of all the movies I've seen. I'm glad I decided to start writing them all down. Then again, maybe without that list, I could've forgotten about some of those bottom-tier or lower-than-bottom-tier movies long, long ago...
I think it's possible Sleepy Hollow is my favorite Burton movie, and I generally like him (including liking Edward Scissorhands). I don't like him enough to let him off the hook for Planet of the Apes, though.
Ah, I still have yet to see Sleepy Hollow...
Or Planet of the Apes, for that matter, but I don't really feel the need to make up for that.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Sleepy Hollow is pretty popular round here, although poet and AAA do dissent. Check it out!
Can Pee Wee's Playhouse still be found on tv anywhere? Even if we owned a tv when I was a kid I doubt I would have understood most of it. According to IMDb it went off air in 90, so I would have been 6!
(By the way, Jim, no tv for kids is the way to go; good call on that. We didn't get one until I was in 8th grade and I know I read and played games with my sister and family, etc, a lot more than my classmates did. I actually wished for a while after we got the tv that we hadn't because I could tell I wasn't having as many good conversations with my family! How many teenagers do you think would be sad about that?!)
:-) Thanks! We're pleased with the way it's working out, and it's translated into lots more time for we grownups as well (even if I do burn a fair amount of free time watching movies). I think for me one of the biggest benefits is sparing them from the twin bludgeons of commercials and laugh tracks.
I don't think so. For a while, the Family channel (owned by Fox before ABC bought it out) was running them again, but I think it is relegated to videotape for the time being.
I'll keep my eyes open for it.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Interesting list. Some thoughts on this:
Agreed on Brazil and Ran.
After Hours is the best of the ones I have seen here.
The Color Purple is a pretty good film.
I even agree on Prizzi's Honor which I found pretty boring.
Excellent, excellent. I do like After Hours, but I must confess I don't think it's as good as you seem to. It's nice to see the funny/weird side of Scorsese's brain, but he's better at the more serious stuff IMHO.