Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Living Out Loud (1998)

Judith: It's amazing, isn't it? 

The things you find yourself agreeing to?

I will always grab onto it being Holly Hunter's birthday to give a little love to not just her, one of the greats, but this apocalyptically underappreciated movie. It makes me so mad that nobody has given this movie a proper fancy release since the ancient DVD came out! It's a perfect movie, perfect. And now I'm probably gonna have to haul out my copy of the aforementioned ancient DVD and watch it for the 10,000th time tonight. Perfect. All that and Eddie Cibrian in tighty-whities -- what else do you need??? Perfect.

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

Wings of Desire

(dir. Wim Wenders)

-- released on October 19th 1987 --

Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn

(dir. Sam Raimi)

-- released on March 13th 1987 --

Broadcast News

(dir. James Brooks)

-- released on December 13th 1987 --

RoboCop

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

-- released on July 17th 1987 --

Maurice

(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?

Celebration (In the Tune of "Celebration")

Happy Criterion Announcement Day! This one sneaked up on me as I'm so super distracted with ballyhooed Other Things, but we've got to take a quick glance at the just-dropped slate of January 2022 releases from our favorite movie-nerd house of home-releasing. First up is the one we already knew was coming because they mentioned it when they announced in August that they were going to finally start releasing discs on 4K, and that's Jane Campion's 1993 masterpiece The Piano, with that lovely artwork seen up top. You can check out all of the extra features on their site but looks like they (to borrow a line from a different "Sam Neill in 1993" movie) spared no expense on this sucker. It streets, as the kids say, on January 25th. Next up...

... is Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 flick The Celebration, which has some of the most delightful Criterion artwork I have ever seen with that stripped-down visage seen above -- I feel like somebody thought up that case first and realized they had to do it. Genius. This movie kicked off the Dogme 95 movement, which was all about stripping movies of their "movie-ness" -- this is where I admit I still insanely have never seen this movie! I have been meaning to for 20 years -- I guess this will finally make that happen. This one hits on January 11th. Then the other three titles that they're releasing are the Beatles' flick A Hard Day's Night, and the two terrific recent documentaries Dick Johnson is Dead from Kirsten Johnson and the prison-family heartbreaker called Time from visual artist Garrett Bradley. This is one stacked month!

Criterion's Crashin' Into Me

Y'all shoulda heard the sound that squeaked outta me when I opened my email from Criterion today, with our December release announcement, and David Cronenberg's delicious NC-17 perv-fest Crash was staring right back at me. Believe me when I say that it was... basso profundo, my friends. Twas a helluva squeak.

I actually haven't seen Crash in quite awhile, so I look forward to spending my holidays rubbing my scars up and down its smooth surfaces -- it hits right on December 1st! Here are the extra special features on the set:

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New 4K digital restoration supervised by director of photography Peter Suschitzky, and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray, both approved by director David Cronenberg
Audio commentary from 1997 featuring Cronenberg
Press conference from the 1996 Cannes Film Festival featuring Cronenberg; Suschitzky; author J. G. Ballard; producers Robert Lantos and Jeremy Thomas; and actors Rosanna Arquette, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, James Spader, and Deborah Kara Unger
Q&A from 1996 with Cronenberg and Ballard at the National Film Theatre in London
Behind-the-scenes footage and press interviews from 1996
PLUS: An essay by film critic Jessica Kiang

But that, of course, is not all Criterion's got up their sleeve for the holiday season -- they're also dropping Robert Bresson's Mouchette, Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amoros Perros, and William Greaves' two-part "one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid" Symbiopsychotaxiplasm -- I bet they're breathing a sigh of relief that they had Greaves (a black filmmaker) on tap for release after that recent NYT piece rightfully took them to town for their lack of diversity. Anyway you can read all about them over on Criterion's site! Thoughts on these choices? 

15 Off My Head: Siri Says 1998

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Siri is giving me the whiplash! The last few editions of our beloved far and wide "Siri Says When" series -- in which I ask the voice inside of my telephone for a number between 1 and 100 and then use that number to name my favorite movies from the corresponding year -- have taken us from the 1920s to the 1960s to the 1990s to the 1930s and now, today right on back into the 1990s again. I think the fewer numbers that remain the wilder these swings will get, but funny enough Siri gave me a number we've never done on the very first try today -- 98! So I guess Siri really wants us to look at The Movies of 1998 today! Whatever you says, Siri!

And you know, 1999 gets all the credit for being an amazing year of cinema -- which it really admittedly was, and funny enough 1999 remains the only year of the 90s I have yet to do one of these posts for -- but 1998 really should get more credit than it does, because hot damn there are a ton of movies from 1998 that rocked my face off. So many that today's list isn't the usual 5 -- it's not even the occasional stretched-out-to-10. No today we're doing a Top 15 because I couldn't possibly chop off a single one of these 15. I refuse! And unless you can find the secret sub-basement from which I am now posting this post and chop off both of my hands before I hit "publish" you can't make me! Ha!

My 15 Favorite Movies of 1998

The Truman Show

(dir. Peter Weir)

-- released on June 5th 1998-- 

Happiness

(dir. Todd Solondz)

-- released on October 16th 1998 -- 

Wild Things

(dir. John McNaughton)

-- released on March 20th 1998 -- 

The Opposite of Sex

(dir. Don Roos)

-- released on May 22nd 1998 -- 

Babe: Pig in the City

(dir. George Miller)

-- released on November 25th 1998 -- 

Hands on a Hardbody

(dir. S.R. Bindler),

-- released on July 10th 1998 -- 

Love is the Devil

(dir. John Maybury)

-- released on October 7th 1998 -- 

Velvet Goldmine

(dir. Todd Haynes)

-- released on October 23rd 1998 -- 

Dark City

(dir. Alex Proyas)

-- released on February 27th 1998 -- 

Pleasantville

(dir. Gary Ross)

-- released on October 23rd 1998 -- 

A Simple Plan

(dir. Sam Raimi)

-- released on January 22nd 1998 -- 

Out of Sight

(dir. Steven Soderbergh)

-- released on June 26th 1998 -- 

Gods & Monsters

(dir. Bill Condon)

-- released on November 4th 1998 -- 

Living Out Loud 

(dir. Richard LaGravanese)

-- released on November 6th 1998 -- 

Rushmore

(dir. Wes Anderson)

-- released on October 9th 1998 -- 

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Runners-up: Saving Private Ryan (dir. Steven Spielberg), There's Something About Mary (dir. Farrellys), A Bug's Life (dir. John Lasseter), Shakespeare in Love (dir. John Madden), Apt Pupil (dir. Bryan Singer), Great Expectations (dir. Cuarón), The Big Lebowski (dir. Coens), The Spanish Prisoner (dir. Mamet)...

... Lost in Space (dir. Stephen Hopkins), High Art (dir. Lisa Cholodenko), The Last Days of Disco (dir. Whit Stillman), The X-Files (dir. Rob Bowman), Buffalo '66 (dir. Vincent Gallo), Pi (dir. Aronofsky), Lolita (dir. Adrian Lyne), Halloween: H20 (dir. Steve Miner), Snake Eyes (dir. De Palma)...

... The Slums of Beverly Hills (dir. Tamara Jenkins), Blade (dir. Steven Norrington), Pecker (dir. John Waters), 54 (dir.), Cube (dir.), Your Friends and Neighbors (dir. Neil LaBute), Urban Legend (dir. Jamie Blanks), Beloved (dir. Demme), American History X (dir. Tony Kaye), Psycho (dir. Gus van Sant), Croupier (dir. Mike Hodges), The Faculty (dir. Robert Rodriguez), The Thin Red Line (dir. Terrence Malick)...

... Hurlyburly (dir. Anthony Drazan), I Stand Alone (dir. Gaspar Noé), Ringu (dir. Hideo Nakata), Meeting People is Easy (dir. Grant Gee), Very Bad Things (dir. Peter Berg), Beseiged (dir. Bertolucci), God Said "Ha!" (dir. Julia Sweeney), Hideous Kinky (dir. Gillies MacKinnon), The Butcher Boy (dir. Neil Jordan), Clay Pigeons (dir. David Dobkin), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (dir. Sullivan)

Never Seen: Life is Beautiful (dir. Robert Benigni), Mulan (dir. Barry Cook), Little Voice (dir. Mark Herman), Affliction (dir. Paul Schrader), The Prince of Egypt (dir. Brenda Chapman), Spice World (dir. Bob Spiers), Bulworth (dir. Warren Beatty), He Got Game (dir. Spike Lee), Clockwatchers (dir. Jill Sprecher), Sliding Doors (dir. Peter Howitt)...

... Hilary & Jackie (dir. Anand Tucker), Can't Hardly Wait (dir. Harry Elfont), The Wedding Singer (dir. Frank Coraci), The Boxer (dir. Jim Sheridan), The Celebration (dir. Thomas Vinterberg), Rounders (dir. John Dahl), Henry Fool (dir. Hal Hartley), Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss (dir. Tommy O'Haver), Practical Magic (dir. Griffin Dunne)

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What are your favorite movies of 1998?

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For the Love of Sigourney

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This is the week that the annual and beloved "Scary Movies" series at FLC opens, showcasing new and old horror flicks, and so I'm talking that along with one of the older movies that they're screening (you'll never ever guess which one it is!) over at The Film Experience today for our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series. Click right here to read it, please. And thanks!
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Piano (1993)

Flora: Actually, to tell you the whole truth,
Mother says that most people speak rubbish,
and it's not worth it to listen.
Aunt Morag: Well, that is a strong opinion.
Flora: Aye. It's unholy.

Jane Campion's film came out 25 years ago today.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged 

Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993)

Shanna: Momma, isn't it true that only a certain amount
of people are allowed in heaven, and we're saved, right?
Wanda: Uh huh. That's 'cause we're Missionary Baptists
as opposed to the other kind of Baptists who if they make
a mistake, they have to start all over again. But
Missionary Baptists - once saved, always saved.
Your grandma and grandpa were real smart.
They chose a sect that has guarantees.

I have never seen this, can you believe it? I suppose I was in High School at the time it came out and missed it and back then when you missed things you often just... missed them, ya know? That was a thing that used to happen, kids. Anyway I missed it and then time forgot it and now it is Holly Hunter's 60th birthday and I want to see it right now. Anybody remember it? Or seen it lately? it is available on DVD, surprisingly. Here's the trailer:

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Anyway a very happy birthday to one of our greatest actresses.

What's your favorite Holly Hunter performance? Mine will always

be Living Out Loud but there are loads of #2 contenders...

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Just Can't Get My Poor Self Together

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"I like to see myself as something of a free spirit," says Darcy Baylor, to which her best friend immediately replies, "There's nothing free about your spirit." Since Darcy Baylor is played by Holly Hunter we get it right away. Is there any actress who can seem so steely and yet so delicate at the same exact time as she can? Who can be so simultaneously wistful and erratic? She's a free spirit like a banshee is a free spirit.

Strange Weather is a road trip movie (written and directed by Katherine Dieckmann) and so this conversation takes place behind the wheel, as many of them do - Darcy's on the road looking for answers about the death of her son, only seven years have passed and so those answers have begun to scatter on the wind. Her own shock and grief held her in a daze - the only thing that snaps her free is the realization that the world around her has started forgetting, and she might never know if she doesn't come to.

The world that Darcy walks in is awash in signs of forgetfulness - the sea is rising up and taking away even the roads across southern Louisiana that she is driving. Darcy has an entire conversation with an important character from her past whose wandered into early dementia, their face an uncomprehending mask as she feels for meaning, or glimpses therein. And so Hunter's determination, brittle as it may be, is imperative to sweep together a picture of what was lost as best she can.

Oh what a pleasure it is to spend an hour and a half watching Holly Hunter, an actress of entirely particular and marvelously unique gifts, stretch free and scatter. You get halfway into a film like Strange Weather and you realize you've been dehydrated, parched, thirsty af, for the long cool beverage this movie is providing. 

Surrounding her with screen partners as rich in feeling as Carrie Coon and Glenne Headly doesn't hurt - Coon continues to deliver on the promise she's been showing off on TV in The Leftovers and Fargo (where did this woman come from, and why hasn't she been in everything for all my life?) but it's Headly's brief couple of scenes at the midpoint that gave me my favorite lived-in little portrait of smart Southern ladies of lower-class status, and not just because we sadly lost this fine actress earlier this year. The way she delivers the line, "Relax that smart thing, baby," while waving around french-tipped nails... it will stay with me always.

But in the end Strange Weather is Holly Hunter's show and Strange Weather proves it's a show I never want to end, and a show I will always come back to for more. Holly Hunter is a gift, and may she always keep giving.

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Strange Weather is out in theaters and on demand today.

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