1987 films
Related: 1987 - film - 1980s films
Films: Bad Taste (1987)
More films
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) - Carl Gottlieb, John Landis
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) - Carl Gottlieb, John Landis [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon Women on the Moon is a 1987 movie written by comedy duo Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland.
The film is a compilation of twenty one comedy skits of various lengths by a group of highly regarded directors. Many of the segments are parodies of late-night television and low-budget movies from the 1950s. Some of the skits are in black and white.
The following directors filmed one or more of the segments:
- Joe Dante
- Carl Gottlieb
- Peter Horton
- John Landis
- Robert K. Weiss
The film also contains performances by some classic actors such as Jenny Agutter and Sybil Danning. It also includes a number of largely unknown actors, some of whom would go on to achieve stardom. These include Arsenio Hall, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joe Pantoliano, Rosanna Arquette, Steve Guttenberg, Kelly Preston and David Alan Grier. There are also several old time comedians and cameos by B.B. King and cult film director Russ Meyer. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Women_on_the_Moon [Apr 2005]
see also: spoof
Movies
- Marusa no onna aka A Taxing Woman (1987) - Juzo Itami [Amazon US]
A Taxing Woman (Juzo Itami) is the subtly hilarious tale of Ryoko, Tokyo's hardest working female tax inspector. The ruthless diligence of this innocent looking heroine is matched only by the intricate deceptions of Gondo, tax cheat extraordinaire. When Ryoko chances on one of Tokyo's busiest "love hotels," owned by Gondo, she realizes what a goldmine she has stumbled upon. Ryoko's attempt to audit Gondo is thwarted by his hilarious evasive maneuvers. Against a backdrop of stake-outs, searches and a spectacular raid, the two adversaries act out a madcap game of cat and mouse. The taxing woman and her clever prey test their respective skills of detection and deception in a scenario playfully complicated by stirring of mutual sexual attraction. The internationally acclaimed team of Nobuko Miyamoto and Tsutomu Yamazaki (stars of Tampopo and The Funeral) give performances in the best tradition of romantic farce, reminiscent of vintage Tracy and Hepburn. - From the Back Cover [...] -
The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993 (1987) - Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay [Amazon US]
The surreal visions of the Brothers Quay, identical-twin animators from Minnesota who have since made London their home, are an offbeat mix of clockwork mechanics, wire, thread, and 19th-century curios, all set to life in a series of beautiful but elusive set pieces. Directed in a highly stylized manner, with a shallow plane of focus that intentionally keeps certain objects blurred and a camera that moves with conspicuous mechanical precision, their works have a dreamlike quality about them. This is directly alluded to in the subtitle of one of their most handsome films, "The Comb (From the Museum of Sleep)," where scenes of a latticework of ladders shooting through an angular construction are intercut with shots of a sleeping woman. "Street of Crocodiles," their most famous short work, references turn-of-the-century cinema as a man peers through a Kinetoscope to watch the nightmare-tinged fantasy of a figure overwhelmed by mysterious forces on the deserted streets of a city after dark. These are the longest and most accomplished short films in The Brothers Quay Collection, a compendium of ten works from 1984 to 1993, but the tape contains other spellbinding works, from the early "The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer," a tribute to the great Czech animator and the Quay's spiritual godfather, to the inventive art history documentary "De Artificiali Perspectiva, or Anamorphosis," to the four short works in the "Stille Nacht" series. These films, along with "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and "Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies," showcase a vision of quivering objects and surreal narratives in a shadowy, self-contained dream world. --Sean Axmaker, amazon.com - Raising Arizona (1987) - Joel Coen, Ethan Coen [DVD, Amazon US]
Blood Simple made it clear that the cinematically precocious Coen brothers (writer-director Joel and writer-producer Ethan) were gifted filmmakers to watch out for. But it was the outrageously farcical Raising Arizona that announced the Coens' darkly comedic audacity to the world. It wasn't widely seen when released in 1987, but its modest audience was vocally supportive, and this hyperactive comedy has since developed a large and loyal following. It's the story of "Ed" (for Edwina, played by Holly Hunter), a policewoman who falls in love with "Hi" (for H.I. McDonnough, played by Nicolas Cage) while she's taking his mug shots. She's infertile and he's a habitual robber of convenience stores, and their folksy marital bliss depends on settling down with a rug rat. Unable to conceive, they kidnap one of the newsworthy quintuplets born to an unpainted-furniture huckster named Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson), who quickly hires a Harley-riding mercenary (Randall "Tex" Cobb) to track the baby's whereabouts. What follows is a full-throttle comedy that defies description, fueled by the Coens' lyrical redneck dialogue, the manic camerawork of future director Barry Sonnenfeld, and some of the most inventively comedic chase scenes ever filmed. Some will dismiss the comedy for being recklessly over-the-top; others will love it for its clever mix of slapstick action, surreal fantasy, and homespun family values. One thing's for sure--this is a Coen movie from start to finish, and that makes it undeniably unique. --Jeff Shannon for amazon.com - Cherry 2000 (1987) - Steve De Jarnatt[1 DVD, Amazon US]
At long last, one of the seminal films of the Melanie Griffith oeuvre is now available. Cherry 2000 is the heartwarming tale of Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), who will stop at nothing to find another model of his broken sex android. Griffith plays E. Johnson, the tough-as-nails tracker who helps him track her down. As deliriously chowderheaded as the premise of the movie sounds, it's actually not half bad and immensely fun to watch. The surprisingly mature plot (nobody gets naked!) involves Treadwell's gradual discovery that there's more to a good woman than a beautiful body and perfect subservience. Don't worry, there are plenty of explosions to keep you from getting bored. Griffith absolutely owns the movie--she looks like a complete badass handling surface-to-air missiles, though of course she still sounds like she picked up diction tips from early Shirley Temple movies. The DVD version includes the invaluable documentary "The Making of Cherry 2000" and the option of watching the entire film dubbed into French. Do not pass up the French version: it really brings out the art. --Ali Davis - Tin Men (1987) - Barry Levinson
[1 DVD, Amazon US]
Tin Men, the second in Barry Levinson's ongoing film series about his native Baltimore in the 1950s and '60s, focuses on a pair of competing aluminum-siding salesman at a point when the industry was loaded with scam artists. Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito play rivals who get involved in a fender-bender that quickly escalates from a minor argument into an all-out war, as they begin pulling practical jokes on each other. Dreyfuss takes it too far, however, when he sets out to seduce DeVito's unhappy wife (Barbara Hershey) and winds up falling in love with her. Much of the humor here comes from writer-director Levinson's keen ear for the way these people talk--and what they talk about (like the discussion of why four men are living together without women on the Ponderosa in Bonanza). Beside the leads, the cast includes a great host of character actors, including Jackie Gayle, Bruno Kirby, John Mahoney, and J.T. Walsh. Others in Levinson's body of Baltimore films are Diner, Avalon, and the most recent, Liberty Heights. -- Marshall Fine for Amazon.com - Babette's Feast (1987) - Gabriel Axel [1 DVD, Amazon US]
In 19th century Denmark, two adult sisters live in an isolated village with their father, who is the honored pastor of a small Protestant church that is almost a sect unto itself. Although they each are presented with a real opportunity to leave the village, the sisters choose to stay with their father, to serve to him and their church. After some years, a French woman refugee, Babette, arrives at their door, begs them to take her in, and commits herself to work for them as maid/housekeeper/cook. Sometime after their father dies, the sisters decide to hold a dinner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Babette experiences unexpected good fortune and implores the sisters to allow her to take charge of the preparation of the meal. Although they are secretly concerned about what Babette, a Catholic and a foreigner, might do, the sisters allow her to go ahead. Babette then prepares the feast of a lifetime for the members of the tiny church and an important gentleman related to one of them. --Ed Cannon for imdb.com [...] - Castaway (1987) - Nicolas Roeg [Amazon US]
This film just about cured me of my annual February fantasies about escaping from our bleak winters. Those who consider this a standard male fantasy film about sharing a desert island with a beautiful young woman weren't paying much attention. It does start out that way, paunchy, fifty something man advertises specifically for a pretty woman in her 20s to share the adventure for one year which he intends to write a book about. It rapidly blows up in his face. That they realistically portray this decidedly unheroic man facing his personal realities as he fails again and again to provide food, shelter, and be a source of sexual attraction to his increasingly frustrated, bored and literally starving young woman is what makes this movie stand out from the usual Hollywood "manly-man impresses woman right into bed" feature film. And it is a true story. At the end of the year together they go their separate ways happy never to have to see each other again. Interestingly, I hear the woman wrote the book and was published within months of leaving the island. I don't know if the man ever did. a viewer, amazon.com [...] - Angel Heart (1987) - Alan Parker [Amazon US]
Set in Harlem and New Orleans in 1955, this supernatural thriller stirred a brief controversy when released in 1987 because some scenes featuring Lisa Bonet (then a popular cast member of The Cosby Show) were considered too sexually explicit to be rated R. The edited material was restored for the unrated video release, and the movie now makes a fitting double bill with Fallen, with its similar plot about a sullen detective (Mickey Rourke) who is hired to find a missing person by a shady client with pointy fingernails named Louis Cyphre (Lucifer, get it?), played with subtle menace by Robert De Niro. Rourke's investigation leads him into an underworld of voodoo and forbidden desires, and as the mystery unfolds director Alan Parker fills every scene with conspicuous style and atmospheric excess, compelling critic Pauline Kael to observe that, "Parker simply doesn't have the gift of making evil seductive, and he edits like a flasher." And yet, this movie does cast a spell of its own (Roger Ebert's review was considerably more charitable), and the performances of Rourke, De Niro, Bonet, and Charlotte Rampling are well suited to the ominous mood. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com