The Movie Journal

  Zelig (1983) The more I thought about Zelig, the more I think about Woody Allen’s feature in a favorable light. I thought the film was merely okay upon initial watch, but it ends up growing on me. Allen has a large filmography, and Annie Hall is generally seen as his best. Over time, people have now considered Zelig to be his best. I may have that same feeling…yet. Still, this is Allen’s most proficient film in terms of visual effects and editing. Filmed as a mockumentary, Allen uses old technology and stock footage to great comedic effect. With just the perfect amount of editing, he was able to insert himself into footage with Charlie Chaplin and Al Capone to name a few. You can see where later films such as Forrest Gump was influenced by. Allen has always been a king when it came to dialogue and this film is no exception. There are several lines that had me wheezing with laughter. Sadly, not every part of the film is funny but there is enough to please fans. The movie is a bris...

Uncommon Valor (1983) The 1980’s was a decade that produced many films about the Vietnam War and its lasting effects. Some of them are fantastic, some are bad, and others split the line in the middle by being average at best. 1983’s Uncommon Valor is one of those films. While the film is fun to watch and has some brutal action sequences, the film is loaded with clichés. The script, written by Joe Gayton, is predictable and you can see the plot coming from miles away. As I like to put it, this film is basically the last part of The Deer Hunter but slimmed down on a diet. The film is directed by Canadian director Ted Kotcheff. A year prior, Kotcheff directed the Sylvester Stallone-led hit, First Blood . One thing that works in Kotcheff’s favor is he always had a strong sense of male camaraderie in his movies. So, in a film that has male buddies going to save their friend, it makes sense about who directed this film. Per usual, Kotcheff did a solid job behind the camera an...

Scarface (1983) “Say hello to my little friend!” You know, when I saw Brian De Palma’s gangster epic Scarface for the first time, I hated it. I thought it was a loud, ugly film that is over-the-top in the most gruesome way. As a gangster film, I was also comparing it to The Godfather films which also starred Al Pacino. I guess I did not like that the films are basically the polar opposites within the same genre. Flash forward many years later, I took away my original negative review away because I actually quite liked this film. It became a cult classic and I understand why. The film remains loud and over-the-top, but it’s a gritty, dark, violent, and a more realistic take on the Latino gangster world of the 1980’s. The film was written by renowned filmmaker/screenwriter, Oliver Stone. Stone allegedly was fighting cocaine abuse at the time which actually made him the perfect writer for the film considering everything he was going through at the time. Those famil...

The Dead Zone (1983) As Stephen King literary adaptations go, 1983’s The Dead Zone is one of the best ones you’ll see. King’s onscreen adaptations always been tumultuous and divisive at best-until the recent King-aissance. Despite the recent rise of interest, I do believe this is one of his better ones. Why, you may ask, do I think that? David Cronenberg’s taut direction and Christopher Walken’s incredible performance are the main culprits. Despite a few small lulls in the story, I was hooked from the beginning to end. This movie is a genre film. Because the characters are people, I became attached to, I forgot the premise had a sci-fi/fantasy base. That is how you know that the movie is actually working. Written by Jeffrey Boam and directed by David Cronenberg, this is Cronenberg’s first foray into “big-budget” filmmaking per se. He has a weird style that people loved especially after his earlier films Scanners and Videodrome . His fans thought he became a sell out whe...

Rumble Fish (1983) Whether you love him or hate him, there is no denying what an auteur Francis Ford Coppola is. He works incredibly hard to make changes within Hollywood and always experiment with new techniques. He does have a flair for extreme visual style, which is prevalent in his 1983 film Rumble Fish . I admired this film, but I was left in too many bouts of frustration to truly enjoy it. Coppola chooses style over substance and that may have doomed the film in my eyes. This was Coppola’s second film of 1983-his first was The Outsiders which I thoroughly enjoyed. The screenplay was written and adapted from a novel by Coppola and the novel’s author, S.E Hinton. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Hinton also wrote the novel The Outsiders . Both are relatively similar films that deals with themes of brotherhood, parenthood, and the life of being hoodlums in the 1950’s. Coppola was attracted to this film because of the theme of brotherhood. This movie has th...

The Big Chill (1983) In my humble opinion, 1983’s The Big Chill is a classic. Up to this point, I have seen the movie twice. Each time I have viewed the movie, I was affected in ways I did not think I would have been. I find that funny because both times I have seen this film, I am not even close to the age of the characters. As a man still in my 20’s, obviously I haven’t had to ask the question, “What is it like to be in your 30’s”? But the theme of reminiscing about your past, about your college days is very prevalent to me. College shaped my life in an enormous way and five years after graduation, not a day go by as I think about these experiences I collected. I guess ten years down the line, I will be like the characters as seen in the movie. Also, this film is about friendship, love, and sex. Very important themes for any rational human. What I truly liked is how Lawrence Kasdan’s script and the performances from the ensemble cast were able to effectively use these themes ...

National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) The National Lampoon franchise was the face of comedy in the 1980’s, no doubt about it. Honestly, I initially shied away from these films because I thought they looked pretty lame if I am to be blunt. Given the fact that I really enjoyed National Lampoon’s Animal House and given the talent behind and in front of the camera, I knew I would have to give in at one point. Plus, there was a much-heralded remake of this film (which was maligned). I saw the movie, and well I can say I did not hate it. It was silly, but in a fun way. There are jokes that were actually hilarious. The script, which was written by 80’s lovable stalwart John Hughes, was pretty decent. Harold Ramis, who previously directed an 80’s favorite Caddyshack , was behind the camera for this feature and does quite well with the material that is given to him. This film introduces us to the Griswold family, headed by patriarch Clark (Chevy Chase). He, along with his wife...

WarGames (1983) WarGames is a strange movie. It is clearly stuck in the 1980’s, when computers were starting their rise to prevalence and the United States was still deadlocked in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Yet, in the 2019 world, this film is still strangely relevant (which happens to be a frightening thought). This film is all about using technology to start World War III. Considering the state of our world today, this is the kind of plot that can be realistically plausible. Which is one of the many reasons why this movie is effective. Despite the charms of the 1980’s, this film is a scary, but extremely effective thriller. Not only does it work as a thriller, it also works as an effective teen film thanks to the charming performances from Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. When this original idea came to fruition in 1979, technology was not even involved. The whole concept was about “a dying scientist with no one to understand him, except for one person- a r...

Star Wars: Episode VI- Return of the Jedi (1983) After the first two Star Wars films became enormously popular with critics and audiences alike, the original trilogy closes out with 1983’s Star Wars: Episode VI- The Return of the Jedi . I remember watching the movie for the first time all excited considering I thought the first two films were perfect (and still pretty much do!). I was wondering how this film would conclude the story arcs especially after how dark The Empire Strikes Back was. With Han Solo frozen in carbonite and the reveal of Darth Vader’s lineage to Luke, I was very excited. Now I have seen this film many times since, but my thoughts remained the same. This is a very fun, satisfying conclusion to the original trilogy. While it does not reach the height of its predecessors, there are enough highlights to make this one memorable sci-fi adventure. Just like in The Empire Strikes Back , creator George Lucas decided not to direct the movie. He teamed up wit...

The Outsiders (1983) Francis Ford Coppola is the visionary director who brought The Godfather films and Apocalypse Now to the big screen and he really made a name for himself directing these classics. After watching these films, I was very interested in what Coppola directed next. That film happened to be 1983’s The Outsiders . After watching this film, I thought it was…. merely fine. It was an interesting enough movie, but Coppola’s direction is actually one of the film’s biggest culprits. He really brought style to the movie in terms of lighting and the overall look, but he could have paid more attention to his characters. These characters were paper-thin and some of the dialogue was a bit sketchy. It was interesting to see what Coppola could do by tackling the theme of teen angst. I just wish he brought more life to the story. Coppola and screenwriter adapted this story from S.E Hinton’s famous novel-one that was written when the author was sixteen years old. Ponyboy ...

Bad Boys (1983) 1983’s Bad Boys is one of the grittiest, most brutal prison films ever made. It’s not the best prison/reform school film-that honor goes to The Shawshank Redemption . However, this is a powerful must-see film that features exemplary acting from all the young leads. The imagery shown is some incredibly brutal at times-even by today’s standards. As director Rick Rosenthal points out, he wanted to add realism to his story. Without any film depicting this violence, then there is no point trying to be realistic. The film came to fruition a few years prior when producer Richard Solo mentioned to writer Richard Di Lello that he wanted a “James Cagney version of a reform school film.” Di Lello wrote the script within ten days. What is truly remarkable is how the script came across as realistic with no research. Di Lello decided to do some research after he wrote the script and to his surprise, the events that he racked from his brain turned out to be as realistic a...

Tender Mercies (1983) I remember watching Tender Mercies for the first time. I sat in stunned silence after viewing this quiet drama. I really did not expect much, and I’ll be honest when I thought the plotline did not stand out to me. Considering the lead actor Robert Duvall and the fact the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, I decided to check out the movie. It is a small, contemplative film. Nothing stands out in an immediate way; no crazy dialogue, no action scenes, an intentionally slow pace. However, the power of this story enveloped me long after I finished this movie. It is a story about redemption, about love, and about trying to find positivity in a life where perhaps one does not have much of it. This story was written by playwright Horton Foote. If that name sounds familiar to you, he was the guy who brought How to Kill A Mockingbird to the silver screen in 1962. For a period of time, he lost interest in Hollywood because he felt their system lacked ...

Table for Five (1983) I can guarantee that ninety percent of my readers here have not seen this tear-jerking melodrama 1983’s Table for Five , yet alone heard of it. Hopefully after reading my kind words, you will be somewhat intrigued by this movie. When doing my research for the film, I was shocked to see how vastly underrated the movie is. There are only a few reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, hardly any information on Wikipedia or Google-hardly anything out there in this vast Internet landscape. Then, why on earth is this movie so good? Sure, maybe some folks will say the movie is just a predictable Lifetime TV movie, but honestly it is much more than that. There are some elements that makes this film seem destined for the television at times, but to me it is much more than that. I consider the movie to be an honest, emotional portrayal about fatherhood and family. Directed by Robert Lieberman, this film is about a man named J.P Tannen (Jon Voight) who fails at being fathe...

The King of Comedy (1983) Martin Scorsese’s 1983 feature, The King of Comedy is an underrated film that speaks volumes about celebrity culture-and not much in a kind way. This dark comedy features the legendary director at his best and at his darkest. Coming off the success of 1980’s Raging Bull , people were excited for the next collaboration between Scorsese and Robert De Niro. The people who initially saw the movie was let down. People misunderstood this movie big time. With the word “comedy” featured in the title, they expected full blown-out laughs. Oh no! That is not what Scorsese was aiming for. The man instead created a movie that blasts celebrity culture and the idea of people becoming famous just for the sake of being famous. While at times funny, the movie is also cynical, dark, and sometimes a bit open-ended. How this movie came to be is quite fascinating. Paul D. Zimmermann wrote the script in the mid-70’s and it fell in the hands of De Niro. The actor showe...