Randomness... 1987 (Part 1)

by Nathaniel R

BROADCAST NEWS (1987)

Once we reached the late 80s young Nathaniel was fully immersed in Oscar passions so there are less glaring omissions in films screened. Why am I talking about myself in the third person? Nevertheless 1987 is now so long ago that I really wonder about my initial take on so many of the movies. For instance, a lot of people I respect think very highly of The Dead – and it even gets a very loving homage in Almodovar’s current film The Room Next Door. I remember it as a high minded, intermittently potent drama but also kind of dull. It’s probable I was too young for it at the time (I did see it in theaters…and went specifically because Anjelica Huston had won the Oscar the previous year for 1985’s Prizzi’s Honor so I was in the flushes of new fandom). But we’re jumping ahead of ourselves.

NATHANIEL’S TOP TEN OF 1987 

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Monday Monologue: "Three kinds of pipe" in Moonstruck

Bringing back an old series Monday Monologue* for fun - will try to do this weekly since we love amazing combos of actors and screenplays.

The women of Moonstruck (1987), mother and daughter Rose (Olympia Dukakis) and Loretta Castorini (Cher), get all the credit. It's not hard to see why since both actresses won richly deserved Oscars but the men in the movie are indispensable to its pleasures, too. Though we've seen Moonstruck many times, when we were prepping for a recent episode of Streaming Roulette, we chanced upon a brief character comedy scene we'd completely forgotten about. In the scene, the family patriach and plumber Cosmo Castorini (Vincent Gardenia) is trying to convince a couple that they need to pay for a huge upgrade to fix their a bathroom leak...

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Horror Costuming: Hellraiser (1987)

by Cláudio Alves

Last October, I had a lot of fun exploring the art of costume design in horror movies. This Halloween season, the miniseries is back with new misadventures through the annals of horror history and some of its boldest sartorial visions. To get some semblance of order, the write-ups will start with an iconic nightmare of 1980s cinema and move, decade by decade, until a grand finale in the form of an Oscar FYC for the current awards season. So let's start things off by looking towards the meeting point of pleasure and pain, seeking where they become indivisible, and contemplating how such ideas can be materialized in costumes. Clive Barker's Hellraiser has such sights to show us…

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Links

• Bloody Disgusting design for a new steelcase edition of American Psycho
• Screen Crush Sonny Chiba, legendary martial arts star, has passed away at 82 from COVID related pneumonia
• IndieWire Cinematographers speaking out about unsafe working conditions
• Deadline turns out Disney released that petty victim blaming statement against Scarlett Johansson when she was in labor delivering her new baby
• AV Club ...and perhaps to prevent another lawsuit, Emma Stone obviously got a *very* sweet deal for Cruella 2 aka... um, a second live-action 101 Dalmatians remake.

Julianne Moore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Eternals, Anthony Mackie, Billy Eichner, Manny Jacinto, Gloria Swanson, Denzel Washington, and The White Lotus after the jump...

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Encore - The 1987 Discussion

by Nathaniel R

Before we move on to the final push for 2020 and a special trivia-filled overview of where the Supporting Actress Smackdown has been over the years (we know how y'all love stats), here's one last push for the 1987 Discussion with the rising busy actor Ato Essandoh, former TFE member and now author Manuel Betancourt (seriously buy his book "Judy at Carnegie Hall" - it's a perfect stocking stuffer gift!), and the critics Kathia Woods and Naveen Kumar. Listen in at the bottom of the post on on iTunes

Index (1 hour and 15 minutes)
00:01 Meeting the Panel
04:30 Throw Momma from the Train
19:00 The zeitgeist impact of Fatal Attraction in 1987 and Glenn Close's brilliance
37:15 Disability drama Gaby and the Old Hollywood actresses of Whales of August
53:30 Moonstruck has aged beautifully. And why Olympia Dukakis won
1:06:00 Final 1987 Recommendations from our panel and Role-Switcheroos

Other pieces on 1987

• 1987 Vintage -An overview of what was hot that year
• Baby Boom
• Carmen Maura in Law of Desire
• Cher, She ruled the world in '87
• Child acting in '87, an unusually Oscar-calibre bunch
• Cinematography Nominees
• Costume Design Nominees
• The Dead, John Huston's Swansong
• Faye Dunaway in Barfly
• Karen Allen in The Glass Menagerie
• The Last Emperor's Forbidden City
• The Living Daylights, unpopular Bond
• Maurice, James Ivory's misunderstood gem
• Moonstruck, over and over
• Robocop, a discussion
• Sally Kirkland's historic Oscar campaign
• Supporting Actress Profiles
• Supporting Actress Smackdown
• Vanessa Redgrave in Prick Up Your Ears
• Veronica Cartwright in The Witches of Eastwick

Fatal Attraction, Moonstruck and More