1980s – Page 19 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Akira

Akira (1988)
Written by Katsuhiro Otomo & Izo Hashimoto
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo

While there are a decent number of science fiction films that could be classified as masterworks, I personally believe it is the rare few that could be called visionary. I use that word in the sense of building a world that feels so unique and real, taking elements of our present and showing them taken to an extreme in the future. Every time I’ve watched Akira, I get that sense; it’s the same feeling I have watching Blade Runner. This is a fully realized world; we just see a small glimpse of a critical moment. Neo-Tokyo is one of the best science fiction settings ever created, and this story captures the best of the science fiction genre, particularly the subgenre of cyberpunk.

Movie Review – Moonstruck

Moonstruck (1987)
Written by John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Norman Jewison

Moonstruck was a continuation of what a strong journeyman director Norman Jewison was. This time he tackles a screwball romantic comedy that at once hearkens back to his days making movies with Doris Day yet a more modern feminist take on the genre. He works from a screenplay written by John Patrick Shanley, who would write and direct Joe Versus the Volcano and Doubt. This was Shanley’s first screenwriting gig, but he’d been writing for the theater since the early 1980s. Moonstruck is an enchanted picture, much like Joe Versus the Volcano; it’s a subtly heightened world where the moon can appear exaggeratedly large in the sky and have a magical effect on the people of New York City.

Comic Book Review – X-Factor: Genesis and Apocalypse

X-Factor: Genesis and Apocalypse (2017)
Reprints Avengers #263, Fantastic Four #286, X-Factor #1-9, X-Factor Annual #1, Iron Man Annual #8, Amazing Spider-Man #282, material from Classic X-Men #8, 43
Written by Roger Stern, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Bob Harras, Louise Simonson, Tom DeFalco, Chris Claremont, and Jackson Guice
Art by John Buscema, John Byrne, Jackson Guice, Keith Pollard, Paul Neary, Bob Layton, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Terry Shoemaker, John Bolton, and Mike Collins

It was 1986, and for five years, Jean Grey had been dead. In a shocking development within the pages of Uncanny X-Men, she became possessed by the Phoenix Force, driven mad, and gave up her life to stop the cosmic entity from wreaking any more havoc. The original X-Men: Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, and Angel grew apart and left the team they started with. Then something miraculous happened, a cocoon was found in Jamaica Bay in New York City by the Avengers. With the help of the Fantastic Four, they discovered Jeany Grey inside, apparently without any memory of the tragedy that occurred. Her return would spur on events that would resonate throughout the Marvel Universe for decades to come.

Comic Book Review – Superman: The Man of Steel Volume 2

Superman: The Man of Steel Volume 2 (2021)
Reprints Superman v2 #5-11, Action Comics #588-593, Adventures of Superman #429-435, and Legion of Super-Heroes v2 #37-38
Written by John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, & Paul Levitz
Art by John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Erik Larsen, and Terry Austin

One of the things that were always a bit confusing during this era of Superman was how much the character remembered the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Crisis had been DC’s way of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company and was used to condense the elements of the Multiverse into one cohesive reality. Part of that was John Byrne’s reboot of Superman, erasing certain sillier Silver Age elements from the characters and reducing his powers. A significant piece of Superman’s backstory that was axed was his early days in Smallville as Superboy. Under Byrne’s version, Clark Kent’s powers developed slowly, and only when he was an adult did he have them all. His costume wasn’t made until then, so Superboy never existed.

Movie Review – Prizzi’s Honor

Prizzi’s Honor (1985)
Written by Richard Condon and Janet Roach
Directed by John Huston

John Huston only had two years left in his life. I suspect he realized this. By 1982, he had to use an oxygen tank almost all hours of the day for his emphysema. He didn’t slow down in his filmmaking though making seven movies in the 1980s, even one the year he died in 1987. Prizzi’s Honor was his second to last film, the picture that won his daughter, Anjelica, her first Academy Award. Once again, he’d gather a cast of strong actors to deliver a deceptively dark comedy about love & business in the world of organized crime. I don’t think any of the films I’ve watched previously were overtly a comedy as much as this one. And it is a strange creature.

Movie Review – Annie

Annie (1982)
Written Carol Sobieksi
Directed by John Huston

The 1970s were a fruitful period for Huston, with several acclaimed films and an expansion of his aesthetics to fit a modern style. Huston also worked in front of the camera as the iconic villain Noah Cross in the neo-noir Chinatown. He voiced Gandalf in the Rankin-Bass animated production of The Hobbit. Huston even starred as the lead in Orson Welles’ final & delayed film, The Other Side of the Wind. On the bleaker side of life, Huston was diagnosed with emphysema in 1978, which would plague him for the rest of his life. He’d been a heavy smoker since he was a young man, so it was only a matter of time until it caught up with him. In the early 1980s, Huston was approached by producer Ray Stark to direct an adaptation of the Broadway musical Annie. Huston had never made a musical in his forty years directing, so he decided to give it a shot.

Movie Review – The Last Temptation of Christ

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Written by Paul Schrader
Directed by Martin Scorsese

It’s absolutely fascinating to see two artists who have delivered masterpieces (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) so spectacularly bomb a film. I think it’s especially interesting because this was such a passion project for Martin Scorsese. He first read Niko Kazantzakis’s novel while filming Boxcar Bertha for Roger Corman in 1972. In turn, Scorsese gave the book to Schrader, and the two planned to make this as the follow-up to The King of Comedy. Right-wing fundamentalist Christian groups and Catholic morality organizations started letter writing to complain about the production, and Paramount pulled back.

Movie Review – The Color of Money

The Color of Money (1986)
Written by Richard Price
Directed by Martin Scorsese

The Color of Money is a very appropriately titled film because it feels like Martin Scorsese made it to progress other projects, mostly The Last Temptation of Christ. This was essentially a work-for-hire picture that helped keep Scorsese busy and honing his craft. He doesn’t really use any of the stable of actors you might expect, even in minor roles. John Turturro, who had a “blink and you’ll miss him” cameo in Raging Bull, has a small supporting role, but overall, this is a group of performers Scorsese was working with for the first time. Paul Newman and Tom Cruise are the co-male leads, with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as the female lead. It’s also a sequel to a film made twenty years earlier. All these elements make for a movie you probably wouldn’t guess Scorsese made unless you saw the opening credits.

Movie Review – After Hours

After Hours (1985)
Written by Joseph Minion
Directed by Martin Scorsese

Following Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese made The King of Comedy, a thematic companion piece to Taxi Driver. The audience’s expectations didn’t match what the director had in mind and so it did not perform well at the box office while being well received by critics. Roger Ebert tussled with the film and declared it “one of the creepiest […] and best of the year.” The 1980s would prove to be an odd decade for Scorsese and he seemed to embrace that strangeness in After Hours. This was a dark comedy based on a stage monologue and Scorsese would come to explain that the film reflected his personal frustrations dealing with studios while trying to get The Passion of the Christ produced.

Movie Review – Raging Bull

Raging Bull (1980)
Written by Paul Schrader & Mardik Martin
Directed by Martin Scorsese

By 1979, Martin Scorsese wondered if he might die soon. The depression that hit after New York, New York’s box office and critical failure was tremendous. He entered into a period of wild partying, with cocaine being his self-medication of choice. Scorsese abused his body to the point that he was hospitalized for internal bleeding and was thoroughly addicted to cocaine. Robert De Niro is credited as one of the people vital in saving Scorsese’s life. He visited the filmmaker in the hospital and proposed that the two collaborate on adapting a book DeNiro had given Scorsese years earlier. The book was Raging Bull, a memoir by Bronx boxer Jake LaMotta. Scorsese had been reticent to make the film because he didn’t get it initially. Now, as he lay in a hospital bed, his body ravaged, he began to understand how people destroy themselves and climb to get back to where they started.