Silkwood

Mike Nichols, 1983 (8.3*)
This film is based on a true story and a mystery that has never really been solved. A metallurgy worker named Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) begins to notice many safety violations at her Kerr-McGhee nuclear plant, some involving exposing workers to radioactive material. She begins to file complaints and instead of conditions being made safer, she begins to get harassed and threatened as a result. She is contaminated, perhaps on purpose, as are other workers at the plant.

Cher and Kurt Russell play her roommates with credible performances. Cher, Streep, and Nichols were all nominated for Oscars, and Cher won a Golden Globe for supporting actress. With the threat of a possible meltdown looming in Japan, and the question of nuclear plant safety now on the front burner worldwide, this will be an important film to re-watch for many viewers.

Her story has been the subject of an A&E documentary, this film by famed director Mike Nichols, and many other smaller news stories. Her story has been shown to kids in school. The end result is that the nuclear plant was shut down a year later, and many lives in Oklahoma were likely saved as a result. Her story proves that U.S. corporations value the bottom line above people's lives, as if anyone doubted that in light of recent economic developments; in fact, just a few individuals value their own wealth more than the well-being of the nation or even the world.

At IMDB, it's only been rated by 5000+ fans, which is miniscule for such an important film. It always amazes me how when a film gets a couple of decades old, the public entirely loses interest, while in terms of geological time this is not even one second in the history of the earth.

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Gorky Park

Michael Apted, 1983 (8.1*)
A homicidal puzzle turns into a Cold War mystery in this entertaining spy thriller. William Hurt plays a Russian detective, who is baffled by three bodies discovered in Moscow's public Gorky Park, which have had their faces removed to prevent identification.

In the course of his investigation he discovers that the upper levels of government are stonewalling his efforts - it seems that he may have uncovered an uncomfortable conspiracy. He crosses paths with mysterious American businessman Lee Marvin, who has a few skeletons in his closet, even if he's not responsible for these murders. Joanna Pacula provides the proper eye candy and romantic interest, while Brian Dennehy provides his particular brand of homicidal bravado (he was a real assassin in Vietnam, often killing targets with a knife).

Maybe not a bona fide classic, but still a better mystery than most that are filmed nowdays, and one with some unique and unforgettable images, especially toward the film's climax. If you enjoy all these new forensic investigative police drama, here's one that takes place in Russia, and in a large-budget film with a couple of previous Oscar® winners in Hurt and Marvin.

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The Right Stuff

Philip Kaufman, 1983 (8.9*)
This is the true story of America’s early astronaut program. The men who had the “right stuff” were test pilots, who were the first selected as astronauts, even though they weren’t really doing any piloting at that stage. Kaufman’s film has a big budget and a giant cast, and it shows. Admittedly a Hollywood version of a patriotic story, it’s nevertheless very exciting and realistic, especially the early sequences of Chuck Yeager, played by Sam Shepherd, breaking the sound barrier. The movie also has Scott Glenn, Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Fred Ward as astronauts, Barbara Hershey and Veronica Cartwright as wives, and many others. It manages to maintain a sense of humor and personality by concentrating on a small group of people in just the very beginning of the program. Based on Thomas Wolfe’s best-selling book. Along with Apollo 13, the best true stories among space films.

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The Big Chill

Lawrence Kasdan, 1983 (7.4*)
Probably never in film history has a hit soundtrack using rock and soul songs had so much effect in making a movie into a hit. There's really not much here other than an enjoyable reunion of old college buddies from the 60's, who have gathered together at Kevin Kline and Glenn Close's house in the south for the funeral of one of their inner circle. Jobeth Williams comes, now properly married, Hollywood tv star Tom Berenger also, William Hurt, who has Vietnam War problems, Mary Kay Place, whose bio-clock is ticking, and Jeff Goldblum, who can't seem to stop trying to get laid; Meg Tilly is already there, she was living with Alex when he died. Overall a pleasant trifle, not very deep.

Similar to John Sayles' Return of the Seacausus Seven, and Barry Levinson's Diner (1983), which is the best of this type of all dialogue film. Three Oscar® nominations, including best picture.

Trivia: This was Kevin Cline's first film, but he was cut before release - he plays the corpse, which they intended to show but ended up cutting all his scenes.

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Reilly: Ace of Spies

Martin Campbell, Jim Goddard, 1983, 11 hrs (9.0*)
This 12-part British miniseries tells the story of real life spy Sidney Reilly, who inspired Ian Fleming when he created James Bond. Reilly was the pseudonym of a Russian Jew named Georgi Rosenblum from Odessa who escaped Czarist repression by fleeing to Brazil, later Ireland, changing his name, and eventually becoming a British spy. Sam Neill, in the role that made him famous, turned Reilly into a smirking, self-confident, and suave gentleman who easily gained confidences where needed.

The series is based on the non-fiction account of the same title by Spider Lockhart, who served with Reilly in Russia, whose character is in several episodes. Part 1 begins with him in the Middle East in some subterfuge regarding oil rights for England; next in eastern Russia just preceding the Crimean War (David Souchet has a juicy role in this one); later we see him steal battleship plans from Germany before World War I, and various other endeavors, often battling his rival for information, an arms selling Russian industrialist played by Leo McKern, who didn't care whom he armed to make his fortunes. What really drove Reilly however, aside from a few beautiful women (married or otherwise), was a lifelong obsession with invading and freeing Russia from any totalitarian regime, so the latter episodes cover Reilly’s time spent there, with some interesting scenes involving Felix Derzhinsky, father of Russian intelligence and disinformation who kept Lenin in power in the precarious early days of the revolution. The entire series has a location look, very well designed and filmed, each part a mini-movie, highly recommended for fans of both espionage and history.
Note: Director Martin Campbell would later direct the 007 film Casino Royale in 2006.

Here's the Wikipedia page on Sidney Reilly

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Terms of Endearment

Dir: James Brooks, 1983 (8.2*)

Best Picture (AA, GG)

Major film based on the Larry McMurtry's book; many say this is even better than the book. Oscar winner Shirley McLaine is the mother, Oscar-nominated Debra Winger is the daughter she's not sure she would claim, who falls for a cheating Jeff Daniels. Meanwhile widower mom is being courted by alcoholic ex-astronaut Jack Nicholson (Oscar for supporting actor), who lives next door. Eventually, marriage and health failing, Winger realizes that she may need the love and support of her mother after all. This is an offbeat story, a drama but with a lot of humor, and James Brooks (Oscar for directing) has pulled off a heartwarming film. 11 nominations, 5 Oscars.

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Heat and Dust

James Ivory, 1983 (9.0*)
Beautiful story by Ruth Prabwar Jvabvala, based on her novel, another Merchant/Ivory film (Room With a View, Passage to India). Julie Christie is a woman who inherit’s her deceased aunt’s diary, based on her life in India, and she decides to go to India and retrace her aunt’s footsteps.

The story of the aunt is told in flashbacks: a young British wife, Greta Scacchi, bored with her military husband always being away on duty, is befriended by a local Indian prince, The Nawob, played by Scacchi’s real-life husband Shashi Kapoor, which is highly improper of course. Nicholas Grace (also in Brideshead Revisited) turns in a strong performance here as well. The two stories are deftly blended together, and we get romances decades apart and in two different Indias, separated by time, one colonial, one independent; this brilliantly tells a classical style romance through a modern perspective.

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The Grey Fox

Dir: Philip Boursos, 1983 (9.0*)
A beautiful, small western about the last known train robber in North America. Richard Farnsworth is perfect as Bill Miner, who does time for stagecoach robbing, and when released so much time has passed that the stagecoaches have been replace by train, so he starts robbing those. This is a small but excellent indie film, based on a true story, even has a good romance (Jackie Burroughs?), and put longtime character actor Farnsworth on the map.

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Never Cry Wolf

Carol Ballard, 1983 (8.3*)
Autobiographical film of biologist Farley Mowat, based on his memoirs, and played by Charles Martin Smith (American Graffiti) in a rare dramatic part. Mowat studied caribou and wolves in the British Columbian tundra of Canada to see if wolves were wiping out the caribou, with surprising findings.

Not packed with action, but there's one terrific scene of Mowat running naked with a caribou heard, and another where he and a male arctic wolf mark his territory. This is a gorgeous nature film, with beautiful cinematography by Hiro Narita, Oscar nominated sound.

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Star Wars Trilogy

Dir: George Lucas, Irvin Kirshner, Richard Marquand (1977-83) (8.9*)
These are the original three, though I really only think The Empire Strikes Back was a very good SciFi film; ironically, it was the one whose screenplay was co-written by a SF author, Leigh Brackett. That was the one that introduced Yoda, the land walkers, the ice planet. The first was good, but little more than a western in space. The special effects increased technically with each film, so that in Return of the Jedi we had a full-on space war raging with hundreds of space ships. I can't get used to the "new" titles (A New Hope?) and re-sequencing, so now the "original" three are 4-6, the "new" three are 1-3... Doh! Did Homer work on these? The casting of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, and Alec Guinness as Jedi knight Obi-won (he admitted the dialogue "was inane") was a brilliant coup, most of the rest are either sleepwalking (Mark Hamill) or overacting (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher). Still, a lot of fun, if a bit flippant at times. Nearly all technical, but 7 Oscars total

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A Christmas Story

Dir: Bob Clark, 1983 (8.8*)

This touching and nostalgic story is as much about growing up in middle America as it is about a kid's Christmas, beautifully adapted from Jean Shepherd's book of humorous stories "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash". An adult Shepherd (as Ralph "grown up" and looking back) narrates the tale and co-wrote the screenplay. The film actually merges several stories, but is primarily concerned with Ralphie's (played by Peter Billingsley, where did he go?) desperation to get the "Red Ryder range model 100-shot carbine action air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time", and everyone he mentions that to says "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"

Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin are perfect as his jaded and lifeworn parents ("mom hadn't had a hot meal in eight years"), the entire cast is perfect, and the film is now a bona-fide Christmas classic. PBS filmed two others of his: "The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Coznowski" and "Ollie Hoopnoodle's Haven of Bliss". This should inspire everyone to read Shepherd's award-winning stories, they're terrific, the best of their type and better even than this adaptation.
Some Shepherd characters: Grover Dill, Scut Farkas, Leopold Doppler, Delbert Bumpass, Ludlow Kissel, Flick and Schwartz

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Carmen

Dir: Carlos Suara, 1983, Spain (9.2*)

Best Foreign Film (BAA)

One of the most exciting dance films ever made. Suara and choreographer and star Antonio Gades filmed a trilogy of flamenco films (Blood Wedding, Carmen, El Amor Brujo), and this is the second part. The story involves a flamenco troupe rehearsing for a flamenco version of the famous Bizet opera, one that tells the story in dance. As the production progresses, the two lead dancers, with Laura del Sol as "Carmen", begin a relationship that mirrors the one in the story.

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