Red Heat - 1988 - USA

Red Heat - 1988 - 6/10 

 
Drug lord kills Russian policeman, flees to USA, where he is detained, only to escape again.
Dispatched to bring him back is Danko (AKA Gumby, AKA Schwarzenegger).
Chicago cop (Belushi) assigned to watch him – anticipate violence.
Action oriented buddy flick / fish out of water. 
Arnold a dour straight man to Belushi’s quips, yet his facial reactions are priceless.
Clash of procedures plays out, as do the bullets.
Under appreciated, needs a reappraisal.

The Siege At Firebase Gloria - 1988 - Australia

The Siege At Firebase Gloria - 1988 - 6/10

 
Marine long range unit comes across a Vietnam village massacred by the Viet Cong.
They realize something big is afoot and report to HQ … and are ignored.
Just before the Tet Offensive.
The squad finds an existing firebase, barely defended, low morale.
Outnumbered 5-to-1, the combat assaults are bloody messes.
More thoughtful than many films, as both commanders wonder about leaders behind the lines.
English subs = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3371358

Powaqqatsi - 1988 - USA

Powaqqatsi - 1988 - 6/10

 
“Life In Transformation”
Followup film to Koyaaniqatsi (1982) is not a sequel, is more a view of changing cultures.
This implies the simplistic life is superior to our modern one.
Better to be a farmer or fisherman than toil in an industrial, urban world.
The message was repeated ad nauseam, until it felt preachy and ham-fisted.
Did not care for the Glass music this outing.
Exceptional photography, although not assembled / edited as well as before.

Pervert Ward: White Uniform - 1988 - Japan

Pervert Ward: White Uniform - 1988 - 6/10
AKA - Love Letter In The Sand
AKA - Hentai Byôtô: Hakui Seme // 変 態 病 棟 白 衣 責 め

 
The man had been assaulted with a metal baseball bat.
Later wakes in a small hospital; only he has amnesia.
While the nurse shows interest, she’s into exhibitionism.
The doctor injects drugs to both, experimenting with transgenderism.
Out on the streets, the baseball bat assailant continues.
At barely an hour, this packs in a lot, along with copious, wetted nudity.
BluRay features insightful commentary by Samm Deighan.
The urban landscape sterility strips humanity into lonely shadows, pretty fair assessment.

Saya: Perspective In Love - 1988 - Japan

Saya: Perspective In Love - 1988 - 6/10
AKA - Saya no Iru Tousizu // 沙耶のいる透視図

 
Softcore photographer gets drawn into a triangle by his publisher.
The female, Saya, is one of those moody types, gloomy, likely clinically depressed.
Nevertheless, a type of honeypot tempting to certain males.
Like the publisher, then the photographer.
Backstories for two are sordid, incest and parental misconduct.
Film is more arthouse than exploitation or pinku eiga.
Afterward, I felt I had watched something repellent.
English subs = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3367796

The Dreaming - 1988 - Australia

The Dreaming - 1988 - 7/10

 
While the native girl struggles for life, the doctor on duty enters the dreamworld.
Previously, an archeological team unearths a hitherto unknown burial site.
Graves are disturbed, items taken and relocated to the white man’s museum.
While the dreams, visions of past atrocities, mount in frequency.
Eventually, the doctor takes to road to the Isle Of The Dead via an ill-named hamlet.

 
Standout photography elevate this slow-burn outing (not precisely Horror).
The cinematographer has an artistic eye, and almost every scene is interesting or compelling.
Polarizing film deserves a wider audience, a restoration, perhaps commentary.

Madame Sousatzka - 1988 - UK

Madame Sousatzka - 1988 - 6/10

 
Russian pianist, who never quite made the professional ranks, trains gifted pupils.
Her latest is from India, and his mother works slavishly to move his career.
Sousatzka is a fire-breather … with a heart of gold.
Sounds like a cliché?  Well, not quite.
She finds the talent, grooms them, hones them, only to watch them vanish up the ladder.
To the wealthy agent, the famous instructor.  Sousatzka is forever a minor league manager.
MacLaine excels in this, and I am not normally a fan of her work.

Faceless - 1988 - France

Faceless - 1988 - 6/10
AKA - Les Prédateurs de la Nuit

After his sister is horribly disfigured in an acid throwing attack, Doctor Flamand turns to heinous methods to restore her beauty.  Partner Nathalie in lockstep, perhaps even more brutal.
Beautiful women are kidnapped, butchered, discarded after one failed procedure after another.
Then he seizes the daughter of a tycoon / gang boss who dispatches a fixer.
Sleazy, exploitation fare dives into Slasher territory with giddy delight.
Late Jess Franco film has a cohesive plot, hefty budget, quality performers.
Oscar bait, hardly, yet should interest fans of the genre, who appreciate Euro attitudes.
English Subtitles (Commentary with Jess and Lina) = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3360251

Another Woman - 1988 - USA

Another Woman - 1988 - 7/10

 
Professor Pope takes a year off to work on a book.
Her apartment, undergoing construction, is too distracting, so she rents an office space.
Where, via the HVAC duct, she overhears a young woman and her psychiatrist.
The sessions are painful, and eavesdropping, Professor begins to identify.
Partly with the despair, partly by identifying herself as something of an oppressor.
One of Woody Allen’s serious films, filmed in subdued colors.
Quiet, thoughtful, yet brimming with self-identity and perceptions.
Casual viewers desiring his comedies might pass on this.

Vampire In Venice - 1988 - Italy

Vampire In Venice - 1988 - 5/10  
AKA - Nosferatu a Venezia

200 years earlier, the last known sighting of Nosferatu was in Venice.
Where he supposedly boarded a ship, disappeared, possibly drowned.
Such is Professor Catalano’s theory, and yet he is investigating.
Even to the point of taking part in an ill-advised séance.
Which ends up as a summons of sorts, and Nosferatu responds.

 
Frustrating film is steeped in atmosphere.
Venice, shrouded in mist and fog, makes a suitable location.
The mansion, locus of activities, is a rambling home, well-appointed, yet better days far behind.

 
Kinski, returning as Nosferatu, is an exhausted creature.
Unable to die, weary of the world, yet still answering a beckoning siren.
The narrative is messy (3-4 directors), money ran out, the result is a patchy affair.
If outtakes survive, one hopes a reedit might improve this.
Otherwise, worth a look.

Dead Ringers - 1988 - Canada

Dead Ringers - 1988 - 7/10

 
Disturbing film (particularly to female audiences) of identical twin brothers, both gynecologists.
One is a Casanova, preying on his patients.  The other, mild mannered, appreciates discards and leftovers.
After an emotional triangle erupts, drug abuse from one leads to sanity unraveling.
Jeremy Irons is dazzling as the twin brothers,
I freely confess I found it hard to separate the pair as the story progressed.
The unpredictability of behavior is what proves so unsettling – not to mention new surgical instruments.
Loosely based on reality = https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a35522434/marcus-twins-gynecologists-death-story.

On The Run - 1988 - Hong Kong

On The Run - 1988 - 6/10
AKA - Mong ming yuen yeung // 亡命鸳鸯

 
Heung meets with his ex at the restaurant.  She is a police inspector emigrating to Canada.
After he asks her to take him with her, her reply is evasive.
He leaves and soon after she is assassinated.
Homicide quickly hunts for the hitman, though Heung searches for who hired the hitman.
The plot, if you can call it that, rapidly goes into cat n mouse chases and shootouts.
Although Yuen Biao is the lead, he is overshadowed by a coldly menacing Pat Ha.
Sufficient action sequences, along with a dark tone, weakened by too much comic relief.

Apartment Zero - 1988 - UK

Apartment Zero - 1988 - 7/10

 
Adrian rents out a room to help pay mounting debts.
He owns and operates an arthouse movie theatre in Buenos Ares, ticket sales are minimal.
New tenant Jack is handsome, carries himself with dash, and is a social mixer.
Adrian is drawn to Jack, though it is uncertain whether this is loneliness or homosexual in nature.
What else?  Adrian’s mother was insane and the condition may be hereditary.
Oh, and a string of serial murders are plaguing the city!
Early on, I tried to connect Adrian’s political activist employee and the killings, but that was slippery.
Equal parts disturbing character study and psychological thriller.
Intense performance by a young Colin Firth.

The Lair Of The White Worm - 1988 - UK

The Lair Of The White Worm - 1988 - 7/10

 
In rural England, archeologist (Peter Capaldi) unearths a large, mysterious skull.
Afterward, the sleepy village seems to rouse.
Lady Sylvia (a sinuous Amanda Donohoe) returns to Temple House.
Young Lord D'Ampton (Hugh Grant) participates in the village fete and cuts the gigantic snake in two, as did his ancestor.
Disappearances, deaths, and bewitchings.
Ken Russell’s campy horror is massively entertaining, if you are one for wry humor.
Sexy, wicked, blasphemous, laced with innuendo.  Steeped, not so much with Stoker, but rather Oscar Wilde.
Almost as much fun, Russell’s commentary.
Ophidiophobics, slither yourselves away from this one.

The Making Of A Legend: Gone With The Wind - 1988 - USA

The Making Of A Legend: Gone With The Wind - 1988 - 8/10

 
Gone With The Wind, I have screened three distinct times.  1969, 1979, 1989.
The 30th  anniversary, the 40th. and the 50th.  Each time in a full-sized theater.
Even though I own a copy on Laserdisc (sealed) and DVD (sealed), I never felt right watching on TV.
The documentary on the making of GWTW, however, I have viewed a dozen times.
Truly outstanding.  Acquiring the rights, finding a Scarlett, director burnout, music issues, endless editing.  
For movie buffs, this is spellbinding.  For creative aspirants, this shows how difficult the process was for Selznick.
Absolutely irresistible.

L’Étudiante - 1988 - France

L’Étudiante - 1988 - 6/10

 
Breezy French romance.
Ambitious student, bracing for exhausting finals, enters steamy affair with musician.
Each barely has time for the other, even making time is possibly career destroying.
Yet they recognize they share a spark and recklessly hold onto the relationship.
They chase across the region trying to carve time for themselves, then hurry back to the classroom or concert appearance, exhausted.
A young Sophie Marceau is pouty and luscious.
Quite an 80’s experience, from music, to clothes, to the photography, to makeup, to the romantic attitudes.
One can’t help but wonder how much physical desperation has been lost in our era of love via digital.

The Tribulations Of Balthazar Kober - 1988 - Poland

The Tribulations Of Balthazar Kober - 1988 - 7/10
AKA - Niezwykla Podróz Baltazara Kobera

Balthazar, not so much a simpleton as an uncomplicated soul, is already marked.
He talks with dead family members, and at times is guided by the angel Gabriel.

 
Excuse me, archangel Gabriel.  And the Devil, genial, perhaps helpful, lingers nearby.
Balthazar’s role involves a path.  Naturally, this betokes a mission, which he barely grasps.
He is soon caught between the Holy Inquisition, an underground resistance, and a circus troupe.
Various guides include a puppet master, a gentleman merchant, a harp strumming lovely.
Throughout, I kept wondering how much was an oblique commentary on current Polish events.
(Poland was then breaking Soviet shackles, replacing one onerous ism with another.)

The Big Heat - 1988 - Hong Kong

The Big Heat - 1988 - 6/10
AKA - Seng Fat Dak Ging  // 城巿特警

 
From the opening drill through the hand to the final fireball, this film is balls to the wall.
Two cops initiate the rookie into unrestrained gunfights, foot chases through hectic freeway lanes, and squaring off against the high powered, well heeled, businessman / mobster.
The narrative is tucked into the furious proceedings.  The death of an ex-partner and suspected smuggling.
Violent mayhem includes decapitation, dismemberment, shootings, stabbings, carvings.
There is also the criminal undercurrent, frequently alluded to, that the 1997 Takeover is coming, and time to profit is now, right now!
A lesser known Hong Kong film starring Waise Lee and Philip Kwok, and an early directing hit by Johnnie To.

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story - 1988 - USA

Superstar:  The Karen Carpenter Story - 1988 - 7/10

 
Probably because I just watched a Paul Williams doc, I dug out this controversial film.
Superstar is a loving, banned, documentary/tribute to Karen Carpenter.
For multiple reasons, all too obvious, this is illegal to sell or distribute, yet easy enough to locate.
Todd Haynes short (45”) charts the rise, fame, and self destruction of the 70's singer.
Unfortunately, he failed to get any sort of rights at all - no doubt because denials would have been across the board.
The Carpenters estate launched an injunction against the film.
Most of the music is from The Carpenters, as well as label mates, so another cease order came from A&M Records.
Finally, there were no clearances from his troupe of actors - Barbie dolls - so Mattel sued.
For all that, a brilliant, inspired work, that has never vanished.

Note:  Audio is fine, video has always been nth generation.

Testament - 1988 - UK

Testament - 1988 - 8/10

 
Outstanding seven part biblical series hosted by John Romer.
Archaeologist, scholar, historian, Egyptologist, and serious Bible reader, Mr Romer wanders from Mesopotamia and Egypt, trailing Abraham.
Episodes show the gradual coalescence of Israel, the formation of the state, then the writing of the history - which became the Old Testament.
From there the splinter group of Christians, the spread and rise of the faith.
Romer is infectious, his love of the history and the land is apparent.
Most of the photography hails from digs across the holy land.