Monday, March 07, 2022

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1987


Picking back up my "Siri Says" series after a couple of busy weeks as we plow into its final stretch of entries -- as I explained one month ago I've only got around a dozen years left out of one hundred total to write up, so maybe we'll finish this series off before the world ends even! Wouldn't that be a hoot? This series, you might or mightn't know, involves me asking my iPhone to assign me a random number between 1 and 100, and then I give you my five favorite movies from the year that corresponds. Anyway that's how I did it for the majority of these posts, but now that we're down to such minuscule options I've just written the remaining years out on slips of paper, and I pick one that way.

Which brings me to this week's selection -- we'll be choosing our favorite movies from the movies of 1987! Which, well, all of these movies are coincidentally turning 35 this year, so prepare your cake-based celebrations accordingly. And you know what else? This is the last year that I had left from the 1980s! Whenever I finish off a decade like this I collect up links to all that decade's entries, so here those are for your glance-back pleasure:

Here are my favorite movies of 1980
Here are my favorite movies of 1981 
Here are my favorite movies of 1982
Here are my favorite movies of 1983

Here are my favorite movies of 1984
Here are my favorite movies of 1985
Here are my favorite movies of 1986
Here are my favorite movies of 1988
Here are my favorite movies of 1989

Personally speaking I have a deep fondness for a lot of 1980s cinema since I saw my first movie in that decade and slowly, across its span, found myself becoming the obsessive who types before you today, but... the 1980s? Not really the greatest decade for movies when it comes down to it. I can admit that. Don't get me wrong, there are heaps of great films, as all of those links above will show you. But when I steep myself in the general sense of 80s Cinema it's a lot of big budget nonsense that dominated, while even foreign art-cinema was in a kind of strange in-between place. But hey if the 80s are your favorite movie decade please let me have it in the comments! And it's possible I'm feeling less than enthusiastic about them today after going through 1987's specific offerings, which were a little wobbly in particular. But I found some great ones! (It's a really great year for horror movies, actually.) On that note here are...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1987

(dir. Wim Wenders)
-- released on October 19th 1987 --

(dir. Sam Raimi)
-- released on March 13th 1987 --

(dir. James Brooks)
-- released on December 13th 1987 --

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)
-- released on July 17th 1987 --

(dir. James Ivory)
-- released on September 18th 1987 --

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Runners-up: Opera (dir. Dario Argento), The Princess Bride (dir. Rob Reiner), Full Metal Jacket (dir. Stanley Kubrick), Moonstruck (dir. Norman Jewison), Raising Arizona (dir. Coens), Fatal Attraction (dir. Adrian Lyne), Adventures in Babysitting (dir. Chris Columbus), Outrageous Fortune (dir. Arthur Hiller), The Last of England (dir. Derek Jarman), House of Games (dir. David Mamet), Near Dark (dir. Bigelow), Dolls (dir. Stuart Gordon)...

... Empire of the Sun (dir. Spielberg), Prince of Darkness (dir. John Carpenter), The Stepfather (dir. Joseph Ruben), River's Edge (dir. Tim Hunter), Hellraiser (dir. Clive Barker), Predator (dir. John McTiernan), The Running Man (dir. Paul Michael Glaser), Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (dir. Bruce Pittman), Withnail & I (dir. Bruce Robinson), Street Trash (dir. James Muro)

Never seen: My Life as a Dog (dir. Lasse Holstrom), Au Revoir Les Enfants (dir. Louis Malle), Angel Heart (dir. Alan Parker), The Believers (dir. John Schlesinger), Matewan (dir. John Sayles), Making Mr. Right (dir. Susan Seidelman), Ishtar (dir. Elaine May), Who's That Girl (dir. James Foley), The Dead (dir. John Huston), September (dir. Woody Allen), The Last Emperor (dir. Bertolucci)

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What are your favorite movies of 1987?

15 comments:

Shawny said...

Damn, you haven't seen The Last Emperor? I highly recommend it.

Jason Adams said...

It's possible I saw TLE when I was a kid, far too young for it -- my memory is hazy. So I may as well have never seen it, and really need to get on it. I'm a big Bertolucci fan so I am sure I'll love it when I do!

Shawny said...

Yeah, the camerawork in the second half is stunning.

JackieD said...

Well you should see My Life As a Dog and The Last Emperor. Good movies. Was Moonstruck on your list? I think it is worthy. Cher slapping the very slap able Nic Cage was worth the price of admission.

Anonymous said...

"The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" (one of Maggie Smith's great performances) and "The Dead" (one of Anjelica Huston's great performances)

par3182 said...

broadcast news*
hope and glory
prick up your ears
the princess bride
raising arizona

dre said...

Can I just say...Guttenberg, Campbell and that "Simon to Simon" guy were smoking HOT.

mrripley said...

Fatal Attraction,The Lost Boys,Secret of my Success,Dolls,Hellraiser,The Whales of August,The Last Emperor and the Cher trifeca of Suspect,Moonstruck and The Witches of Eastwick,

Anonymous said...

Who's the hunky shirtless guy talking to the other guy?

Jason Adams said...

Anon -- that is Colin Firth and Hart Bochner in the movie Apartment Zero

verbocity said...

Moonstruck
Robo Cop
Withnail and I

Anonymous said...

this was a particularly rich year of fave movies for me. Kudos for including Broadcast News, which i could watch every week and quote it mercilessly to this day. Add Moonstruck, Princess Bride and Raising Arizona to my particular faves of that year.

Anonymous said...

Thanks! Hart Bochner - quite a name. ;)

joel65913 said...

My favorite feature!! Yikes how did I miss this for two days?!?!

I’ve seen four of your top 5. I’m not much of a horror fan (though I do have a horror/sci-fi in my top 10), especially gore and while I’ve heard the Evil Dead movies are laced with humor, I’ve just never been curious enough to give them a shot.

As to the others I LOVE Broadcast News, it was quite prescient about what was ahead in regards to the cheapening of the news and loss of integrity of networks and some reporters.

Maurice is a special film; it isn’t quite as perfect as some other Merchant/Ivorys, but a young Rupert Graves makes up for any slight shortcomings it might have!

I like but don’t love Wings of Desire. It has a great ethereal feeling and I love Peter Falk in it.

You’ve got some great runners-up though I couldn’t get into House of Games. I found Dolls rather enjoyable much to my surprise!

Of what you haven’t seen The Dead and Au Revoir Les Enfants are wonderful and totally worth your time. Ishtar and Who’s That Girl are water torture tests of endurance however! I detested Angel Heart, but I’ve found it a divisive title, I have friends that loved it.

I don’t see it in either your runners-up or the haven’t seens but that picture from The Bedroom Window (a not great, not bad movie) reminded me what an adorably hot piece Steve Guttenberg was in the 80’s.

joel65913 said...

This year is full of movie memories, not all good but not all bad and some downright painful. I was managing a movie theatre at the time that was on a downward slide-the owner of the chain had inherited it from his father, who cared about the business which Sonny most definitely did not. Junior cared how much money the theatres produced only so far as it could feed his coke habit which was immense. He didn’t put a dime more than he had to back into the business which led to constant horror stories of leaking (or collapsing) roofs, broken seats, parking lots that were mostly potholes, malfunctioning projectors which would leak oil onto the films and make them combustible (the thought of The Last Emperor-which I hated anyway-still makes me queasy since it burst into flames during a matinee losing an entire reel, the film’s actual runtime is about 2 ¾ hours by the time we sent it back it ran about 50 minutes shorter than that!) and on and on. It got to the point where my assistants and I walked around with a roll of passes in our pockets to placate irate customers!

On the upside I was able to see any movie that played across the chain for free, so I saw pretty much everything-the good and the bad.

This isn’t a premier year but still there’s plenty worth seeing.

My top 15:

Baby Boom
84 Charing Cross Road
Broadcast News
Adventures in Babysitting
Outrageous Fortune
Suspect
From the Hip
Overboard
The Hidden
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Maurice
Moonstruck
No Way Out
Stakeout
The Dead

Runners-Up:
Babette’s Feast
Can’t Buy Me Love
Dirty Dancing
Hope and Glory
Innerspace
Prick Up Your Ears
The Princess Bride
Radio Days
Roxanne
Three O’clock High