In 1988, we were transitioning from Reagan to Bush. That may not sound like much, but when's the last time the same party managed three consecutive terms in the White House? Okay, still not impressive. But what about the movies?
Here's Jesse Walker's
top ten list from that year.
1.
A Fish Called Wanda
2.
Apartment Zero
3.
Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser
4.
My Neighbor Totoro
5.
Paperhouse
6.
Distant Voices, Still Lives
7.
Grave of the Fireflies
8.
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
9.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
10.
The Naked Gun
I'm a big fan of
A Fish Called Wanda. Not sure if it should be #1, but top ten, why not?
Back then I was planning to see
Apartment Zero, but I guess I never got around to it.
The Thelonius Monk doc does really take you inside as few music films do.
My Neighbor Totoro is another classic from Miyazaki.
I've usually seen most of the top ten, but I haven't seen
Paperhouse,
Distance Voices or
Grave Of The Fireflies.
Hotel Terminus is an impressive work, though Ophuls doesn't have much respect for your bladder.
The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen is a mess, but a fascinating one.
This was the first of
The Naked Gun movies, and the best. This kind of anything-for-a-laugh comedy is harder to pull off than it seems.
11.
Prometheus' Garden
12.
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History
13.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
14.
The Vanishing
15.
Miracle Mile
16.
Cannibal Tours
17.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
18.
Running on Empty
19.
Virile Games
20.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Didn't see #11 and #16.
#12 is certainly funnier than most documentaries. #13 is one of Almodovar's best. #14 is pretty good--certainly better than the English language remake. #15 is a little-known but fascinating movie. Quite dated today, but it's not what you expect it to be. What's most fascinating to me is not that long after I saw it, I moved to the area where it takes place. #17 I didn't think much of. #18 would make my top ten. #19 is a short (though a good one). #20 was a lot of fun.
Other films that would make my top ten (or twenty):
Beetlejuice
Big (goodbye, Penny Marshall)
Bull Durham
Coming To America
Die Hard
Heathers
Midnight Run
Red Sorghum
Tapeheads
The Thin Blue Line
Other film I liked:
Biloxi Blues, Big Business, Cinema Paradiso, Comic Book Confidential, Crossing Delancey, The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II, Earth Girls Are Easy, Hairspray, Married To The Mob, Mystic Pizza, Oliver & Company, Rain Man (Oscar winner),
She's Having A Baby, Stand And Deliver, They Live
Other films of note:
18 Again!, 1969, Above The Law, The Accidental Tourist, The Accused, Action
Jackson, Alien Nation, Another Woman, Arthur 2: On The Rocks, Bat 21, Beaches,
The Beast, Betrayed, The Big Blue, Big Time, Big
Top Pee-wee, Bird, The Blob, The Blue Iguana, The Boost, Bright
Lights Big City, Bulletproof, Caddyshack II, Casual Sex?, Child’s
Play, The Chocolate War, Clara’s Heart, Clean And Sober, Cocktail, Cocoon: The
Return, Colors, Cop, The Couch Trip, A Cry In The Dark, D.O.A., Dangerous Liaisons, Dead Heat, The
Dead Pool, Dead Ringers, Dirty
Rotten Scoundrels, Distant Thunder, Dominck And Eugene,
Eight Men Out, Ernest Saves Christmas, Everybody’s All-American, Far North,
Feds, For Keeps?, Frantic, Fresh Horses, Full Moon In Blue
Water, Funny Farm, The Good Mother, Gorillas In The Mist, Gotham, The Great
Outdoors, Hanna's War, Heart Of Midnight, Heartbreak Hotel,
High Spirits,
Hot To Trot, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, Illegally Yours, Jack’s
Back, Johnny Be Good, Kansas, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, The Last Before
Time, Last Rites, The Last Temptation Of Christ, License To Drive, Little
Nikita, Mac And Me, Madame Sousatzka, The Man From Snowy River, Maniac Cop, Memories Of Me, The Milagro Beanfield War,
Miles From Home, The Moderns, Monkey Shines, Moon Over Parador,
Moving, Mr. North, The Music Teacher, My Stepmother Is An Alien, A New
Life, The Night Before, A Night In The Life Of Jimmy Reardon, Off Limits, Out Of Tie, Patty Hearst, Pelle The Conqueror, Le Petit Amour, Plain Clothes, Poltergeist III, The
Presidio, Punchline, Rambo III, Rampage, Rattle And Hum, Red Heat,
Remote Control, Rent-A-Cop, Rocket Gibraltar, Salaam Bombay!, Satisfaction,
School Daze, Scrooged, The Serpent And The Rainbow, The Seventh Sign, Shakedown, Shoot To Kill, Short Circuit 2, Some Girls, Spalding Grey:
Terrors Of Pleasure, Spike Of Bensonhurst, Split Decisions,
Stars And Bars, Stealing Home, Story Of Women, Sunset, Switching Channels, Talk Radio, Tequila Sunrise, Three Seats For The 26th, A Time Of Destiny,
Torch Song Trilogy, Track 29, Tucker: The Man And His Dream, Twins, Two Moon
Junction, Vibes, Vice Versa, Willow, Working Girl, Young Guns
7 Comments:
Not sure if it should be #1
That was my first thought, but—are any of these other movies better than it? It's just about a perfectly constructed comedy.
I might have gone with Heathers, which isn't as well-constructed (though they changed the writer's original ending), but packs a wallop. Though I see it doesn't make your top twenty. And neither does Die Hard, which is perfectly constructed, and maybe the most influential action film of the past thirty years.
So neither of you like Working Girl? I thought that was considered a classic today.
I was watching more movies this decade. I remember so many of these.
A Fish Called Wanda came out when I was 8, and I saw it with my parents. Seen it a couple times since and still like it (it holds up way better than Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).
Miracle Mile didn't leave much of an impression on me when I rented it in high school, but I'd give it a re-watch.
Virile Games (or Manly Games or whatever) is one of my favorite Svankmajer shorts.
I don't see Akira mentioned even in the "other films of note". It's my top film of the decade, and will always hold a special place in my heart. It's the reason I learned to read Japanese (there were two ways to read the comic in the late-90s: the colorized and out-of-print American version, or the 6 Japanese "phonebooks." My suburban NJ comic store had the latter for some reason), which is in turn what got me my first "real" job. More importantly, before I saw it I thought Todd McFarlane was a great artist. After I saw it I stopped collecting Spawn.
Anyway, here's my list:
1. Akira
2. Die Hard
3. Drowning by Numbers
4. My Neighbor Totoro
5. Time of the Gypsies
6. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
7. Beetlejuice
8. Eight Men Out
9. A Taxing Woman's Return
10. Tiger On Beat
11. Dead Ringers
12. I Love Maria
13. The Thin Blue Line
14. I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
15. Dragons Forever
16. Lair of the White Worm
17. The Naked Gun
18. The Serpent and the Rainbow
19. As Tears Go By
20. A Fish Called Wanda
I was looking at mostly Hollywood films so I left out some fine Asian titles I should have listed.
Fair enough, it's just personally important so I couldn't not mention it.
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