The King of Comedy

Martin Scorsese, 1982 (8.6*)
One of the most underrated of Scorsese's films. Robert De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, a frustrated standup comic. (and with De Niro playing him, he's one of the creepiest standups ever) He wants to hit the big time, but seems to never get past the open mike level. He thinks if he just gets a few minutes on a major late night show, his natural comedic talent will carry him in a meteoric rise into stardom.

He tries to get a spot on a show hosted by Jerry Lewis, but never really gets a chance without any type of resume or a name agent. Harassing and stalking Lewis puts him off even more, so Pupkin decides that if he kidnaps the host and holds him for ransom, with the bounty being a five-minute spot on the show to do a standup routine, then he can break into the big time due to public acclaim.

Remarkably, Jerry Lewis actually shows some dramatic acting skills in this; I'd have to say it's his best dramatic acting that I've seen. So does comedienne Sandra Bernhard as a friend of De Niro's who becomes his willing accomplice in this plot. Just the very idea of this shows the type of half-cocked individual Rupert Pupkin is; he's just one gun shy of being Travis Bickle in Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

This is one of the more unusual crime films, as well as one of Scorsese's most unique. It's not a guns firing, blood on the wall kind of crime film - it's an almost too realistic, borderline psychotic type of crime, which has become all too real in the modern era.

This didn't go totally unnoticed, at least in Europe: the screenplay by Paul D. Zimmerman won a BAFTA award; Sandra Bernhard won a National Society of  Film Critics award for supporting actress, and the film won a London Film Critics award for best picture and was nominated for a Palm d'Or at Cannes. Awards page at IMDB

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The Executioner's Song

Lawrence Schiller, 1982 (8.7*)

Tommy Lee Jones made himself a star (and won an Emmy for lead actor) when he played convicted murderer Gary Gilmore in this lengthy tv-film that examines his crimes, his past, his incarceration on death row, and his legal fight to have Utah carry out his execution.

Using only facts from this well-publicized case, and based on Norman Mailer's Pulitzer prize winning book, this is as close to documentary as a dramatic re-enactment can get. It even contains the negotiations with Gilmore with rights to the book and this very film that resulted. Roseanna Arquette also became a star for her portrayal of Gilmore's girlfriend. Together, the two young actors make Gilmore's story an engrossing and human one, though admittedly, I found his homicides to be too baffling to comprehend. The cast also includes Christine Lahti and Eli Wallach.

Together with Dead Man Walking, and In Cold Blood, these make a definitive film trilogy on the subject of capital punishment, and each is based on a true murder case.

[Note: only 600+ people have rated this at IMDB! Mailer's book won a Pulitzer, and the film was up for five Emmys; Arquette and Mailer were also nominated - it's only wins were for Tommy Lee Jones as actor and for sound]

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Poltergeist

Tobe Hooper, 1982 (8.5*)
"They're here!"
Produced by Steven Spielberg, with special effects from the Industrial Light and Magic studio, this is one of the most effective ghost stories ever filmed. Coming on the heels of Star Wars and Close Encounters, the same production values went into this tale of a suburban nightmare in which a little girl, played by Heather O'Rourke, along with the family dog, senses the attempts of contacts from "the beyond".

Pot-smoking parents Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams are skeptical and confused at first but thanks to a miraculous display of kitchen chair stacking, both become aware that something supernatural may be present in an otherwise normal and boring household.

This may get a little over the top toward the latter stages with a lengthy ending, but it's still a bone-chilling excursion into the unknown. Add the fact that over 70% of Americans surveyed feel that they've been contacted by deceased loved ones, and that eerily two cast members died shortly after the film's release (O'Rourke died, and Dominique Dunne, the older daughter here, was murdered by an ex-bf), this story strikes a familiar and credible nerve in most people.

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Diner

Barry Levinson, 1982 (8.5*)
One of the few all-dialogue films that actually works, thanks to a sparkling comedy script and an excellent ensemble cast. Many stars of this film made their breakthroughs here, such as Paul Reiser, Mickey Rourke, and Steve Guttenberg. The cast also includes Kevin Bacon, Tim Daly and Daniel Stern (City Slickers, Breaking Away).

This is obviously an homage (and update) to George Cukor's famous 1939 comedy, The Women, in which women at a dude ranch out west discuss their marital and romantic problems for the entire film. Some claim, in a stretch, that it's a remake of American Graffiti. ["whatever.."] The guys here all meet in the same local diner every day to escape the rest of their shallow lives, and the viewer learns about them through their conversations.

In a very funny running gag, one of the dudes is training his fiance for a football test she must pass or the wedding is off, and we never see the woman's face, we only hear her voice as she answers some very esoteric football trivia, as this is an all male film that takes place in the male-dominant 50's.

Note: other all-talking films that work include The Big Chill (1983, Kasdan), Metropolitan (1990, Stillman), My Dinner With Andre (Malle), 12 Angry Men (Lumet's first), and The Breakfast Club (Hughes). Director Barry Levinson, of course, went on to make the popular and Oscar®-winning Forest Gump.

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The Return of Martin Guerre

Daniel Vigne, France, 1982 (8.5*)
This is a much copied true story, and as such must be declared to be the archetypal missing person story. Gérard Depardieu, in one of his best roles, plays a man who returns to his pastoral village in 16th century France after eight years away in a war; most assumed he had died. Not everyone is sure that he is the man he claims to be, yet he knows about most of the people there, so he wins the trust of some, dividing the town.

The wife, wonderfully played by Nathalie Baye, claims it is her husband. However, this was a time when all women, including wives, could not own land outright, and if their husbands died, those widows without a male heir would likely have their land taken by the state. Therefore the question of true and valid identity of the husband becomes a legal as well as social issue, of special interest to the church.

This intriguing and engrossing mystery is actually a case recorded in history, hence both it's survival today and popularity as a theme in films. It was most recently used in the Robin Hood film with Russell Crowe as Robin assuming the missing husband's role for Cate Blanchett as Mirian so she would not lose her land. This beautifully shot period piece is one of my favorite 10 French films.

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We of the Never Never

Igor Auzins, 1982, Australia (9.0*)

A beautifully filmed true story of the first woman in the Northern Territory of Australia, based on the memoirs of Jennifer Gunn, played with independent spunk by Angela Punch McGregor. An educated urbanite from Melbourne married Aeneas Gunn (Arthur Dignam), who managed a remote cattle station, or ranch, in the northern outback, known as "the never never". While there she faces both anti-female and anti-aborigine bigotry from the all male cowboy population. In spite of this, she grows to love both the rugged wilderness, which is green in this region due to the rainy season, and also the local inhabitants who live the same primitive lifestyle they have for millenia, and who are slow to adapt to more 'civilized' conventions.

This will remind Americans of our classic westerns, just sans gunfights, and substituting more friendly indigenous people who work for and help the white immigrants survive in a harsh land. This is a must-see for fans of classic Australian cinema, and makes the perfect complement to the film My Brilliant Career, from director Gillian Armstrong, about another strong-willed Aussie woman, but one who prized her career more than any man. This film followed that one by just three years, and displays a respectable homage to people with courage and heart

Note: nominated for six Australian Film Institute awards, including picture, actress, screenplay, and music, it only won one for cinematography, which is well-deserved as the film is beautiful to watch with innovative camera movement.

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Burden of Dreams

Les Blank, 1982 (9.1*)
Whether you liked or even watched Werner Herzog’s ambitious epic Fitzcarraldo, this documentary on its making is one of the best films about filmmaking ever made. Herzog became so obsessed with his story that he repeated the character's prodigious feat of bringing opera to the Amazon rainforest by moving a huge steamship inland over hills and up to a huge lake where it could move around a large, remote area to bring the first opera ever seen or heard by Amazon natives.

Les Blank and his assistant Maureen Gosling take us to Herzog’s film locations in the jungle. His first location became the scene of a border war between tribes, so he had to move to another location. Moving the steamship using manpower, pulleys, and one bulldozer for backup was very dangerous, so many crew members and a structural engineer walked off the job; another was bitten by a green mambo and immediately amputated his own leg with a machete – if not, he would have died in minutes. Such are the burdens of filmmaking dreams, and none were more grandoise than Herzog’s insane obsession.

Lead actor Jason Robards succombed to dysentery and wasn’t allowed to return to location, so Klaus Kinski completed the film. Herzog also lost Mick Jagger to a concert tour, so this film had many setbacks, and Burden of Dreams becomes a chronicle of Herzog's obstacles to his maniacal obsession - perhaps the most 'larger than life' of all films. This is one of the best documentaries ever made.

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My Left Foot

Jim Sheridan, 1982 (8.4*)
This is one of the most involved and excrutiating performances in cinema history, as Daniel-Day Lewis won his first Best Actor Oscar® (when basically unknown) portraying the true life story of Irish poet and artist Christy Brown, born with cerebral palsy and nearly completely paralyzed, but who learns to use his left foot. Amazingly he writes and paints with this foot in a story that is gut-wrenching to watch, but which is ultimately inspiring as few of us can achieve what Christy did using our complete faculties.

Look for some incredible scenes here, and some heart-warming ones as well, such as his brothers incorporating Cristy into their soccer games as the goalie. Brenda Fricker also won a supporting actress Oscar® as his mother.

When Lewis learned of his Oscar® nomination, it’s said that he ran outside and ran through the streets of London in pure jubilation; that sounds like Lewis who rarely gives a less than Oscar®-worthy performance.

See Gangs of New York for his portait of Bill the Butcher, my favorite villain in any film, for which Lewis won 17 acting awards.

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The Wrath of Khan

Nicholas Myer, 1982 (7.8*)
I’m a big science fiction literature fan, have read about 500 sf books, hence I’m not a Star Trek fan as the writing is an insult to the genre, pure garbage. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the second film, Wrath of Khan, largely due to the over-the-top performance of Ricardo Montalban as the wronged former Mongol leader, now banished into space, and he is “the Great Khan”, mad as hell, not gonna take it any more. Happily, Captain Kirk shows up to become the target of his wrath, so we have a villain to pull for as we'd all like to see William Shatner get his! Fun stuff, mindless, but a highlight of this mostly boring series. I hear the even numbers are the good ones, and four was ok: The Voyage Home, the one with the whales. I’ve forgotten all the others… hopefully.

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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

Jim Goddard, 1982, 8 hrs. (8.8*)
Brilliantly conceived and executed, this filming of the eight-hour stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company covers four DVD's, and remains one of the greatest theatrical productions in history, accurately adapting a Charles Dickens novel for perhaps the first time in the history of dramatic arts. Only 39 actors portray over 250 roles in this massive production, which gave theatre-goers two ways to see the play: over four weekday nights, two hours per night, or in an all-day Saturday performance with a one hour lunch break! Roger Rees has the title role in a star-making breakthrough - I can't imagine the hundreds of pages of dialogue he had to memorize in order to give this performance in a day. All the actors are superb, and director Jim Goddard involves the audience by having some characters appear from within the audience, and some actors leave the stage to run or walk through the audience.

This is the British stage at its best. Forget all the other versions of Nickleby, if you only see one Dickens novel adapted in your lifetime, this is the one!

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Blade Runner

Dir: Ridley Scott, 1982 (8.6*)

AFI and Time Mag Top 100

Good, but not the novel it was based on, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In fact, where that book focused on the electronic repairman who fixed electric animals (William Sanderson), this film’s lead character is Deckard, the detective played by Harrison Ford, who’s hired to track down some escaped androids, led by Rutger Hauer and Darryl Hannah, which are outlawed on earth, and take them out before they cause harm to humanoids. While searching out the renegade androids, Ford falls for Sean Young, who may or may not also be one. James Edward Olmos also has a good, abeit small part. The film is given "masterpiece" status for its dark, moody look at the future, but outside of a few city shots, the entire film takes place indoors, so it doesn’t really use its sf elements very much, and is eventually a film noir detective story in the future. The title was purchased from an unrelated sf book, and really had nothing to do with Dick’s book, which had nothing called blade runners in it; the producers simply wanted a shorter title. Spielberg filmed another of Dick's stories as the excellent Minority Report.

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Tootsie

Dir: Sydney Pollack, 1982 (8.6*)

Best Picture (GG)

AFI Top 100

Out of work actor Dustin Hoffman decides to start looking for parts as a woman, by going in drag, there’s a great scene where he fools his agent, Sydney Pollack, who only took the part because Dustin said he wouldn’t get into drag unless Pollack played his agent. His roommate is the hilarious Bill Murray, who reputedly ad-libbed his part. He gets a job on a hospital soap opera, where older doctor, former soap actor Dan O’Herlihey in a riotous spoof, insists on "giving all actresses the tongue" during filming, so they can’t react. Only two problems: Hoffman as "Tootsie" falls in love with soap co-star Jessica Lange (Supp Actress Oscar winner), who thinks he's a woman, while her dad, Charles Durning, falls in love with "her". Great gender spoof, and a classic screwball comedy. Lange's was the film's One Oscar
Quote: Man, that is one wacky hospital! (Murray)

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Fitzcarraldo

Werner Herzog, 1982, Germany (9.0*)
Awesome achievement, as Klaus Kinski plays a wealthy European obsessed with bringing opera, and wife Claudia Cardinale to the Brazilian jungles, which involves moving a large boat up a mountain to a large inland lake so it can navigate inland waterways. The film crew actually did this, so half the film is really about making the film! This becomes a huge adventure, unlike anything ever filmed about one man's obsessed dream.

Les Blank made a documentary of this shooting at the same time, working alongside Herzog. Burden of Dreams is one of the best films about a film ever made. These two films make a perfect double feature as this is one of the greatest adventures ever put on film.

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E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial

Dir: Steven Spielberg, 1982 (10*)

AFI Top 100

This lovable kids sf film revolves around an alien botanist who gets stranded on earth when his shipmates panic when discovered and take off in a hurry. He eventually is discovered by some kids, led by Henry Thomas, who shelter and take care of him. The creature is dubbed "E.T." for extra-terrestrial being, and eventually becomes both homesick and physically sick from being out of his element, so the kids want to help him contact his fellow beings. In this film, the adults and scientists are the bad guys, the kids and aliens are the good guys. In Spielberg's hands this became a modern parable about racism, caring, and understanding, and an all-time science fiction and children's classic. 4 Oscars

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Gandhi

Dir: Richard Attenborough, 1982 (9.7*)
Best Picture (AA, BAA, GG)

AFI Top 100

This was a 19-yr project overall for director Attenborough, and the result was a near perfect biopic of the late Mahatma Gandhi, a.k.a. Mohandas K. Gandhi, who began as a minority rights lawyer and later inspired the movement for Indian independence through non-violent means. The casting had to be perfect, and Ben Kingsley was, getting a well-deserved Oscar. This is a monumental epic, worthy of its subject. Two million people showed up for the filming of the funeral scene! They had to eliminate all shots showing Levis and Nikes... and had promised 'free lunch' for all participants! 8 Oscars

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Brideshead Revisited

Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1982, 10 hrs (9.3*)
Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons), a painter, meets Sebastian Flyte (Harry Andrews) at college, and they become best friends, Irons eventually becoming a regular guest at the Brideshead Revisited estate where Andrews grew up; there we meet the rest of the family, and complex romance ensues. From the Evelyn Waugh novel, this is how books should be filmed: in several hours (the reading time?), leaving nothing out. The locations are lush and authentic, the story a bit slow for some, but lyrical and elegant overall.

This major PBS miniseries made Jeremy Irons a star, and won an Emmy for Laurence Olivier with Claire Bloom, Harry Andrews and Irons all also nominated (1 win but 11 nominations overall).Winner of 11 awards, 28 nominations overall, seven BAFTAs, a much more accurate assessment of this film's merit than the Emmys.

A rare treat for those who love literary romanticism. If you like epic romances from novels, be sure to watch the BBC Masterpiece Theater production of A Town Like Alice, set in WW2 and the Australian outback.

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