Re-awarding Best Picture (1980s)

[Hot Pepsi]

Well, the garage has got a ruddy great hole in it for starters.

Presumably, that got patched up but maybe there's structural damage.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I have never ever understood what the big deal is about Ferris Buellers Day Off. The whole thing leaves me cold and the eponymous leading character is an absolute dick. If we are doing a list of films that everyone seems to like but we personally despise then this would be my number one choice.

I'd echo this. And actually I think the same actor plays an insufferably smug prick in Godzilla, too. Maybe it's the roles he was born for.

[ursus arctos]

His forte is musical.comedy (and being married.to Sarah Jessica Parker)

[caja-dglh]

Sean of the Shed and elguapo4 need to take a leaf out of Treibeis' book and embrace Midwestern culture.

Ferris is a great movie because I can tie it in with a visit to the art gallery with Ms dglh when she watches it. Same way I might take my son, who is in second grade, to see the Home Alone house and surroundings this weekend as he is the same age as Kevin was in the movie. The inside of the church used in the movie is just down the road from me.

Bloody hell. Rogin the Armchair fan as well.

[treibeis]

Well, that's just incorrect.

I think the problem is the director. He's made just three good films in 85 years.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Sean of the Shed and elguapo4 need to take a leaf out of Treibeis' book and embrace Midwestern culture.

Ferris is a great movie because I can tie it in with a visit to the art gallery with Ms dglh when she watches it. Same way I might take my son, who is in second grade, to see the Home Alone house and surroundings this weekend as he is the same age as Kevin was in the movie. The inside of the church used in the movie is just down the road from me.

Bloody hell. Rogin the Armchair fan as well.

Home Alone is an abhorrent movie from start to finish. I won't ever watch it again. Every single person in it, and the whole set-up of the movie, is dreadful. Just, simply, dreadful. There's as much "comedy" in that film as there is in Saw.

[ursus arctos]

This all about the decline of Empire, isn't it?

[Lang Spoon]

Home Alone is an abhorrent movie from start to finish. I won't ever watch it again. Every single person in it, and the whole set-up of the movie, is dreadful. Just, simply, dreadful. There's as much "comedy" in that film as there is in Saw.

Wow.

[San Bernardhinault]

I agree with treibeis on Blade Runner. It's a brilliant book, and it looks great. But I've never really found any hooks that got me into the film. I've never found it to be very good (same, if we're allowed to drift out of the 80s, as The Matrix). I watch it, think it looks pretty, get bored, don't really care about anything.

I remember loving FB'sDO, but it's decades since I've seen it. I fully understand the hatred of Ferris himself, who seems to be a complete arsehole who has a total disregard for Cameron. He's clearly a terrible person, which makes it odd that the film is named after him.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Partly as a result of its topicality on OTF, I'm going to sit down and watch FBDO after dinner. I'm not absolutely sure that I've seen it all the way through before and I don't know if Mrs. NS has seen it at all, so...

From memory there are some very funny moments, mainly around the Mr. Rooney character, and it was all rather charming. Plus Mia Sara is lovely. The only things that slightly put me off were the breaking the fourth wall moments, which always irk me, and when Matthew Broderick is mothered. Given that he has a super-smug resting face to begin with, seeing him being treated like a 5-year-old is slightly toe-curling.

[Fussbudget]

If we are doing a list of films that everyone seems to like but we personally despise then this would be my number one choice.

Oh, this is a fun game. American Werewolf in London for me, tries to be both funny and scary but fails at both. Pick one and do it well! The main character is also incredibly irritating.

I've got some sympathy for the Ferris Bueller's Day Off detractors because before I saw it I imagined it to be exactly what they're describing, some grating US high school comedy about an unlikeable dickhead, and put off watching it for years. It sort of is that but to my great surprise I find it really funny and charming. The soundtrack is great too which doesn't hurt

Blade Runner is a great film (well the version without the voiceover anyway, whichever one that is) that suffers from being consistently overrated and overquoted, and from the crap retconning of Blade Runner 2049 which has removed a lot of the original's magic for me

[Hot Pepsi]

I think the problem is the director. He's made just three good films in 85 years.

I count 5 and I don't even rate Gladiator.
Tony Scott was actually a bit better, TBH.

[Sean of the Shed]

Oh, this is a fun game. American Werewolf in London for me, tries to be both funny and scary but fails at both. Pick one and do it well! The main character is also incredibly irritating.

Maybe should be a thread in its own right.

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh, this is a fun game. American Werewolf in London for me, tries to be both funny and scary but fails at both. Pick one and do it well! The main character is also incredibly irritating.

I've got some sympathy for the Ferris Bueller's Day Off detractors because before I saw it I imagined it to be exactly what they're describing, some grating US high school comedy about an unlikeable dickhead, and put off watching it for years. It sort of is that but to my great surprise I find it really funny and charming. The soundtrack is great too which doesn't hurt

Blade Runner is a great film (well the version without the voiceover anyway, whichever one that is) that suffers from being consistently overrated and overquoted, and from the crap retconning of Blade Runner 2049 which has removed a lot of the original's magic for me

This is not a fun game.

It's a game that lets people indulge the mistaken belief that disliking popular things makes them superior somehow, which is a bad habit that all of us, including me, should avoid.

But anyway, my answers are The Devil Wears Prada, Gladiator - as mentioned above - and almost everything by Quentin Tarantino, including - perhaps especially, Pulp Fiction. And 99% of horror films.

[Hot Pepsi]

I agree with treibeis on Blade Runner. It's a brilliant book, and it looks great. But I've never really found any hooks that got me into the film. I've never found it to be very good (same, if we're allowed to drift out of the 80s, as The Matrix). I watch it, think it looks pretty, get bored, don't really care about anything.

I remember loving FB'sDO, but it's decades since I've seen it. I fully understand the hatred of Ferris himself, who seems to be a complete arsehole who has a total disregard for Cameron. He's clearly a terrible person, which makes it odd that the film is named after him.

I like Blade Runner more the more times I see it. I was too young to see it in 1982, however and the better version didn't come out until about 10 years later, but I'm sure I would have been blown away if I had.

He's not really that much of an asshole as teenagers go. He just wants his friend and girlfriend to have a good time and to get away minor low-stakes transgressions just for the sake of it. The real asshole is Rooney who makes running a school all about himself. Of course, that's a projection from the kids' perspective. In the real world, principals don't spend much time worrying about few seniors skipping class.

One of the many holes in the story is that it's apparently spring of Cameron and Ferris' senior year but their plans for college are, at best, vague. That's not how that goes, especially in a place like that.

[Slightly Brown]

1. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
2. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
3. The King of Comedy (1982)
4. Videodrome (1983)
5. This is Spinal Tap (1984)
6. Witness (1985)
7. The Fly (1986)
8. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. When Harry Met Sally (1989)

I’d love to live in a world where Videodrome wins the best film. The explanations alone would make it.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I have never ever understood what the big deal is about Ferris Buellers Day Off. The whole thing leaves me cold and the eponymous leading character is an absolute dick. If we are doing a list of films that everyone seems to like but we personally despise then this would be my number one choice.

First time I watched it I hated it. Weirdly, though, saw it again later and enjoyed it.

[Sean of the Shed]

First time I watched it I hated it. Weirdly, though, saw it again later and enjoyed it.

You obviously didn't hate it as much as I did or you wouldn't have put yourself through that a second time.

[G-Man]

Back to the lists... I've gone for "plausible" Oscar winners -- films of artistic merit and high-brow aspitations, or whatever -- not necessarily films I enjoyed the most. I mean, Die Hard or Beverley Hill Cops or, indeed, The Princess Bride wouldn't win Oscars. I'll place my favourite movie of the year in brackets

1980 Raging Bull (The Blues Brothers)
1981 Das Boot (Raiders Of The Lost Ark)
1982 E.T. (same)
1983 The King Of Comedy (Trading Places)
1984 Once Upon A Time In America (same)
1985 Kiss Of The Spiderwoman (Back To The Future)
1986 Stand By Me (Little Shop Of Horrors)
1987 Withnail & I (The Princess Bride)
1988 Cinema Paradiso (same)
1989 Do The Right Thing (When Harry Met Sally)

Safe to say that the Academy and I didn't see eye-to-eye in the 1980s.

[Sunderporinostesta]

I moved to London in 86 and thought it’d be great to see all the new releases early. There was hardly anything caught my eye for the next couple of years. UAs linked to list shows why. 81-82 really was a golden age with Werewolf, Arthur, The Thing, Atlantic City, Cutters Way, Bladerunner, My Favourite Year, Das Boot, Diva, Gregory’s Girl, The Long Good Friday, The Verdict, Missing etc all better than anything from 85-87.