By Popular Demand: 12 Great Overlooked American Films of the '80's

With the glory days of the American New Wave already a distant memory, and with power firmly in the hands of the Jerry Bruckheimers and Mike Ovitzes of the world, the 1980's was a grim decade with regard to creativity and originality in Hollywood, if not for the bottom line. The Star Wars-Jaws, big opening weekend or pull it, marketing-is-king mentality had a grip on the industry as strong as Darth Vader's mind-chokehold on an incompetent admiral. Not that the news was all bad, of course. The studios, often in spite of themselves, still managed to turn out classics like Blade Runner, Reds, Brazil, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Right Stuff, Platoon, Blue Velvet and Do the Right Thing, as well as much outstanding work by the Spielberg-Scorsese-De Palma contingent. And in the films of directors like Jim Jarmusch and John Sayles, the seeds of the brief explosion of genuine Amerindie film that began in 1989 with sex, lies and videotape were planted.

In examining American film in the 1980's, therefore, we see a handful of masterpieces, some strong indie work and a whole lot of product. To be fair, that would describe most decades in Hollywood history; however, the scholck quotient of the 80's seems particularly high. Perhaps that perception will change as the decade recedes into history; in that spirit, I offer the following list of a dozen great films of the 80's that are worth another look.

12. Casualties of War (Brian de Palma, 1989) The decade was a wild ride for de Palma, featuring huge hits (The Untouchables), soon-to-be cult classics (Scarface, Blow Out), horrific failures (Bonfire of the Vanities) and the only movie I've ever walked out on in my life (Body Double). Overshadowed at the time of its release by Oliver Stone's films as well as by Full Metal Jacket, Casualties is only now getting its due as one of the great Vietnam films. Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox are the Barnes and Elias of this piece as they come to grips with the aftereffects of a My Lai-style incident.

11. Black Widow (Bob Rafelson, 1987) A most unexpected return to form by one of the early masters of the American New Wave, who at that point hadn't done anything noteworthy in a decade and a half. Debra Winger (why isn't she Meryl Streep today?) plays a work-obsessed FBI agent who comes to believe that a series of apparently unrelated deaths of middle-aged, wealthy men may in fact be connected by a mystery woman, played with her usual feline grace by 80's icon Teresa Russell. When they finally meet, the murders take a back seat to the unusual, complex relationship between these two women that transcends the standard cat-and-mouse games of similar fare. When the two leads kiss briefly and unexpectedly, it is one of the great moments in all of neo-noir.

10. Housekeeping (Bill Forsyth, 1987) Having created a memorable run of sweet, whimsical comedies with an edge in his native Scotland (Gregory's Girl, Local Hero and my fave obscure film of all time, Comfort and Joy), Forsyth's first American film was this adaptation of Marilynne Robinson's already-classic novel. It tells the tale of two young sisters, orphaned when their grandmother passes away, who are sent to live with their eccentric aunt, played with perfect believablity and restraint by Christine Lahti. And by the way, forget what I said about Debra Winger; why isn't Christine Lahti a star, instead of being forced onto the small screen as a poor man's Allison Janney? The story is a clear eyed, moving account of how the sisters begin to grow apart, as one becomes enchanted with the aunt's occasionally dangerous behavior and the other decides to take control of the situation and be the "grown-up." A brilliant central performance, and the exception that proves the rule about how great books don't make great films. The fact that there ended up being no room in Hollywood for Forsyth's unique and offbeat talent speaks volumes about the industry at that time.

9. Little Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz, 1986) The conventional wisdom is that the American musical film died with Grease, only to be revived nearly a quarter-century later by Moulin Rouge and the spate of musicals that have followed in the past five years. Little Shop puts the lie to this notion. It's actually an improvement on the wonderful Off-Broadway show, featuring strong leads by Rick Moranis and the sui generis Ellen Greene, and hilarious cameos by Steve Martin, Bill Murray, John Candy and many others. What's really crucial is that the show was written by the extraordinary team of Alan Mencken and Howard Ashman, and while the film was not really a hit, someone at Disney saw it and had the rare good sense to hire the pair in an effort to revive Disney's animated musical franchise, which had effectively died with Jungle Book. The two masterpieces that Mencken and Ashman produced before Ashman's untimely death, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, suggest that the classic Hollywood musical never really died; it merely morphed into animated form until Baz Luhrman pulled it kicking and screaming into the pomo new millennium.

8. The Big Easy (Jim Mc Bride, 1987) Many have tried, but few have been able to capture the glorious sleaziness of New Orleans as well as 60's-experimental filmmaker turned one hit wonder Mc Bride does here. The story is a fairly conventional tale of of police corruption; what makes this film worthwhile are the two lead performances by Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin and the pitch perfect attention to detail that gives you a real sense of place. Quaid's recent resurgence as a character player confirms in my mind that he was always undervalued as an actor; Barkin, in those days at least, was proof that sexuality did not require classic beauty. Together, they have the most explosive chemistry seen in an American film since Body Heat. Add to the gumbo a soundtrack that reflects all of the city's musical and cultural diversity, and you have a ripping good film.

7. Bird (Clint Eastwood, 1988) It warms the heart that Forest Whitaker took home the Best Actor Oscar this year; he has been giving consistently offbeat, authentic performances for over two decades now, from Ridgemont High teen to Idi Amin. But Bird may be his high point; he accomplishes what no other film actor ever has, and that is giving real flesh and blood to a jazz legend. When Hollywood, that most American of industries, has tried to take on jazz, that most American of musical forms, the results have been atrocious: The Benny Goodman Story, The Gene Krupa Story, The Glenn Miller Story, Altman's Kansas City...well, you get the idea (and I didn't even mention Lady Sings the Blues). But in the hands of Whitaker and true jazz aficionado Clint Eastwood, Bird Lives, as they used to say. Slow and sad, but a remarkable achievement. If it's too dark, catch another overlooked 80's classic from France--Tavernier's 'Round Midnight, with tenor great Dexter Gordon essentially playing himself.

6. Tucker: The Man and His Dream (Francis Coppola, 1988) By the time this film was released, Coppola was well on his journey from top-rank auteur to third-rate vintner. But in some ways, Tucker was the most personal film he ever created, and it holds up remarkably well. The true story of automobile inventor Preston Tucker, a visionary genius with limited social skills and business sense, who was thwarted and ultimately ruined by the greed and short-sightedness of his industry, must have resonated deeply with the director. In addition, Coppola had just lost his 22-year-old son in a freak motorboat accident, and Tucker's boundless optimism in the film seems to reflect how Coppola felt about his son. The narrative arc is remarkable, made even more so by the fact that many of Tucker's craziest innovations are now standard equipment on today's cars. In the end, what makes this film worth your time are the two central performances. Now that Forest Whitaker has been recognized by the Academy, I have to believe that there is hope for our greatest actor never to win an Oscar, Jeff Bridges. This is one of his best, and yet it's Martin Landau, returning from out of nowhere, who steals the film as Abe, Tucker's partner. This led to Landau's rediscovery, his brilliant turn in Crimes and Misdemeanors, and ultimately, his Oscar for Ed Wood. When you see this film, though, you'll wonder again why The Dude has yet to win his.

5. Last Exit to Brooklyn (Uli Edel, 1988) Fans of Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, admittedly a hard film to love, will find much to admire in this other Brooklyn-based adaptation of a harrowing novel by Hubert Selby, Jr. With the notable exceptions of On the Waterfront and Salt of the Earth (which you must track down at all costs), films about labor strife in America have not generally turned out well. Last Exit is an exception, as the tortured story of a dockworkers' strike in Red Hook becomes the backdrop for an evocative canvas of sexual torment and confusion, prostitution and other family fare. Featuring a great, if brief, performance by Jerry Orbach, and what is perhaps the most tormented character portrayal of Jennifer Jason Leigh's career, which is saying a lot. The excellent score by Mark Knopfler adds to the strong sense of time and place; hardly a date film, but it is brutal, powerful and unforgettable.

4. Running on Empty (Sidney Lumet, 1988) In one of my first posts on the Mondo Complexo, I railed about the self-righteous blindness of the Boomers and about how the world they are leaving their children is looks more like a bad acid flashback than like incense and peppermints. Perhaps no film illustrates this point more effectively than this small, overlooked gem of a family story. Small screen stalwarts Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti (there she is again) play a couple who, as members of a radical group in the '60's, blew up a napalm manufacturing facility, with fatal results. For the next fifteen years, they have lived on the run from the feds, picking up, moving quickly and establishing new identities when the law gets too close. It's a hard life for them, but much harder still on their two sons. The elder of the two, played by the doomed River Phoenix, begins to establish friendshps and even a budding romance in their latest town. Throughout, he is quietly heart-wrenching as a young man torn between these new ties and the knowledge that at any moment he might have to cut and run. Completely believable, and directed by Lumet with his usual quiet grace, this sad elegy for the exceeses of Boomer idealism is also an ironic reminder that had drugs not cut him down, Phoenix would have been the great film actor of his generation.

3. The Stepfather (Joseph Ruben, 1987) Speaking of small screen stalwarts, check out Lost's Terry O'Quinn as the title character in this minor masterpiece directed by Ruben, who also created such B-movie style classics of the era as True Believer and Sleeping with the Enemy. O'Quinn plays a fairly standard variation on the serial killer blueprint; he moves from town to town marrying single mothers, wiping his new family out with the nearest sharp object at hand when they inevitably fail to live up to his exacting standards of Brady Bunch perfection. To really appreciate this film, though, one must recall its historical context; 1987 was the heyday of Reagan-era "family values," of the kind most strongly espoused by rightie heros like Gamblers Anonymous poster boy William Bennett and oxycontin-freak Rush Limbaugh. The film sildes from horror cliche to sly sociopolitical satire as the stepfather takes this hypocritical concept of family values to its logical extreme. The best political horror film since George Romero set his zombies loose in a shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead.

2. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman, 1988) OK, OK, I know it's not Kundera, nor could it ever be. And perhaps it's hypocritical of me to chastise Barry Levinson and crew elsewhere in these pages for ruining The Natural while at the same time placing this adaptation so high on my list. Fans of the novel should overlook how wrong Daniel Day-Lewis is for the lead, and all the many other infidelities to the source novel and recognize this film for what it is: perhaps the best film ever made, in this country anyway, about the sexiness of politics and the politics of sex. Unbearable Lightness is the cinematic equivalent of What's Going On/Let's Get It On-era Marvin Gaye. The performances are universally great; Day-Lewis, though miscast, brings his usual intelligence to the lead; this was Juliette Binoche's first real introduction to American moviegoers, and she hasn't let us down once in the subsequent two decades. But it's Lena Olin and her bowler hat that provide one of the iconic images of joyful, unabashed carnality in all of 80's film. Director Kaufman, whose previous effort, The Right Stuff, is my favorite film of the decade and one of the great epics in all of American film, shines throughout. Particularly effective are the images of Day-Lewis and Binoche intercut with historical footage of Russian tanks rolling into Prague to quash the Spring uprising, and the sad, sweet, perfect ending.

1. Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg, 1987) It may seem odd to put a film by the most famous director of his era on a list of forgotten films. Recall, however, that this film came out in the middle of a really bad run for Spielberg, which, with the exception of the formulaic but wonderful Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, lasted a full decade, bookended by the successes of E.T. in 1982 and the double whammy of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in 1993. This was the period of the awful second Indiana Jones film, the highly questionable "artistic success" of The Color Purple (there's a reason this film is hardly viewed anymore), of Always, his appalling remake of A Guy Named Joe, and the beyond-egregious Hook. Buried in the morass of what might only charitably be called a slump is Empire, a film that failed terribly at the box office but which many people, myself included, have come to view as the director's masterpiece. All of the basic Spielberg elements are here. For starters, there's the WWII setting; the film centers around the young, spoiled son of privileged British diplomats living it up in Shanghai on the eve of the Japanese invasion in 1940. Then, there is the theme of parental separation; the scene in which young Jim, played by Christian Bale in his first major role, is separated from his parents as the panic-stricken residents of the city fight for any means of escape is perhaps the greatest single scene ever filmed by Spielberg, and that's saying a lot for the man who's made his reputation on such spectacular set-pieces. Then, as in many Spielberg films, the boy latches on to an alternative parent figure, here in the form of Basie, the crooked American pilot POW played with unusual restraint by John Malkovich. The bulk of the film details life for Jim and Basie and the other POWs in the Japanese camp, but it's not the plot that's the grabber here. Although we see things unfold from the child's point of view, which is classic Spielberg, of course, this feels like no other film made by the director. In fact, it has an episodic, jumpy sort of feel that is more like a French New Wave film than anything else. Slowly and patiently, the film details Jim's increasing fascination with his captors and the allegiances and inevitable betrayals typical of life under such conditions. Spielberg constantly defies cliche as well as the hallmarks of his own style, nowhere more than in the conclusion, where Jim's reunion with his parents plays out very differently than we might have expected. Of course, the film had the misfortune to be released right around the same time as Bertolucci's similarly-titled The Last Emperor, which was also an historical epic set in the East at a time of great transition; that may explain its poor showing. But more than any film in Spielberg's vast and profitable back catalogue, Empire deserves another look. Many of Spielberg's so-called "grownup films" are wonderful, but Polanski's The Pianist demonstrated the relatively superficial reach of Schindler's List, in the same way that Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima did the same for Saving Private Ryan. I've commented elsewhere how, in films like A.I., Minority Report and War of the Worlds, he has tried without success to bring an adult sensibility to the kiddie fare that made him famous. In the end I believe that it is only in Empire of the Sun that Spielberg fully realizes his goal of marrying a childlike approach to subject matter with a mature sense of storytelling and filmmaking. It is his masterpiece, and I believe that its reputation will ultimately reflect this.