Film Dictionary: 1985

December 12, 1985

Top 10 Films of 1985

1. "Brazil" (Terry Gilliam, UK)

2. "Runaway Train" (Andrei Konchalovsky, USA)

3. "The Purple Rose Of Cairo" (Woody Allen, USA)

4. "Come And See" (Elem Klimov, Soviet Union)

5. "Colonel Redl" (István Szabó, Hungary)

6. "The Emerald Forest" (John Boorman, USA)

7. "Ran" (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)

8. "Prizzi's Honor" (John Huston, USA)

9. "The Company Of Wolves" (Neil Jordan, UK)

10. "After Hours" (Martin Scorsese, USA)

Other great films:

L'Amour braque (France)

Angry Harvest (Germany)

Back To The Future

Barbarian Queen

Bez konca (Poland)

The Black Cauldron
The Breakfast Club

Cocoon

The Color Purple
A Chorus Line

Commando

D.A.R.Y.L.
The Day Of The Dead

Le Declic (France)

Desperately Seeking Susan

Detective (France)

L'Effrontée (France)

Elvis Gratton (Canada)

Flesh Blood

The Goonies

The Grafenberg Spot

Gritta von Rattenzuhausbeiuns (East Germany)

The Hollywood Clowns

How Poets Are Losing Their Illusions (Czechoslovakia)

Into The Night

Je vous salue Marie (Switzerland)

Joshua Then And Now (Canada)

The Kiss Of The Spider Woman (Brazil)

Lifeforce

The Lost Empire

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Australia)

Massacre In Dinosaur Valley (Brazil)

Mr Vampire (Hong Kong)

Nadzor (Poland)

Och Karol (Poland)

The Official Story (Argentina)
Out Of Africa

Pee-wee's Big Adventure

Perinbaba (Czechoslovakia)

Piccoli fuochi (Italy)

Police (France)

Police Story (Hong Kong)
Pulgasari (North Korea)

Rambo: First Blood. Part II

Re-Animator

Ronja Rovardotter (Sweden)

Shoah (France)

Silip (Philippines)

Silverado
Subway (France)

Sugarbaby (Germany)

The Sure Thing

Sweet Dreams

That's Dancing
Trois Hommes et un couffin (France)

When Father Was Away On Business (Yugoslavia)
White Nights

Witness

Women In Fury (Brazil)

Year Of The Dragon

Short Top 3:

1. "Le Livre de Marie" (Anne-Marie Miéville, Switzerland)

2. "I Hate You Now" (Richard Kern, USA)

3. "Rainbow War" (Bob Rogers, Canada)

Other great shorts:

The Right Side Of My Brain

Thrust In Me

Top 3 Music Videos:

1. "Take On Me" (Steve Barron, A-Ha)

2. "Cry" (Godley and Creme, Godley and Creme)

3. "Don't Stop The Dance" (Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Bryan Ferry)

Top Musical of 1985

"White Nights" (Taylor Hackford, Columbia)

November 11, 1985

Directed by Terry Gilliam. A brilliant black comedy, clearly inspired by George Orwell’s “1984”, but totally unique and original. There are three versions of this film. The original director’s cut is 142 minutes. The theatrical version is 132 minutes; it has a sad ending. There is also a 94 minutes studio cut with a happy ending, which includes footage not found in the 132-minute version.

October 10, 1985

Ran (1985) ****

Magnificent epic film by Akira Kurosawa, an adaptation of "King Lear" set in Japan.

L'Effrontée (1985) ****

Come And See (1985) ****

Colonel Redl (1985) ****

Silverado (1985) ****

Silip (1985) ****

Back To The Future (1985) ****

Tremendously entertaining and exciting action comedy starring Michael J.Fox.

The Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985) ****

One of the Woody Allen's most sublime movies.

Prizzi's Honor (1985) ****

Runaway Train (1985) ****

Two escaped convicts (Jon Voight and Eric Roberts) flee aboard a runaway train in the Alaskan wilderness. The screenplay was written by Akira Kurosawa.

After Hours (1985) ****

The Company Of Wolves (1985) ****

The Emerald Forest (1985) ****

Witness (1985) ****

September 9, 1985

Sweet Dreams (1985) ***

Jessica Lange gives a performance of her career as Patsy Cline. Songs include:

"Walking After Midnight" ***
"I Fall To Pieces" ***
"Crazy" ***
"Blue Moon Of Kentucky" **
"Sweet Dreams" **

A Chorus Line (1985) ***

Barbarian Queen (1985) ***

Shoah (1985) ***

Celebrated documentary about the Holocaust. The film consists of long interviews with survivors, witnesses and even former Nazi guards. Historically an extremely significant work, but stylistically uneven and often needlessly manipulative. Pauline Kael, who wrote a negative review of the film, went as far as to say that it wasn’t well made. That's an exaggeration, but she was correct in claiming that it was not a movie that (like a Holocaust documentary she loved, "The Sorrow And The Pity") opened the mind, but that it was a film that closed the mind. Most of all, she was right in arguing against the dubious contention that a nine-hour-plus movie about the death camps necessarily had to be a masterpiece of cinematic art. Timothy Snyder wrote an excellent review of the film.

Subway (1985) ***

Strange drama set in the Parisian metro.

Trois Hommes et un couffin (1985) ***

Three men are forced to take care of a baby.

White Nights (1985) ***

Michail Baryshnikov's best film.

Pulgasari (1985) ***

The most famous North Korean film of all times; the story of its creation being far more dramatic than its plot. A South Korean film director has been kidnapped and forced to make this campy “Godzilla” rip-off. But he managed to smuggle some clearly anti-Communist themes into his film – Pulgasari, the iron-eating monster that helps the peasants to overthrow an oppressive king, ends up devouring their iron farming tools as well. The anti-Communist message is clear – the Revolution (Pulgasari) can destroy oppression, but it also leads to starvation and misery, and it ultimately ends up eating its own children (as Pulgasari does - literally - at the end of the film).

Film Dictionary