#nom cinematography
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1981). The fictionalized life of singer Loretta Lynn, a girl who rose from humble beginnings to become a country music star in the 1960s/70s.
This is just such a solid, straight forward bio pic made all the more memorable for Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones’ tremendous performances. Both of them lend real charisma and chemistry to an already good script, that it really has these moments of genuine greatness. It stumbles occasionally, particularly in the way it skirts around some of the darker themes, but there’s so much that’s good here it’s easy to forgive. 8/10.
The Formula (1980). The synthetic fuel production formula, invented by the Nazis at the end of World War II, is sought after by some who aim to sell it, and by others who wish to destroy it.
The Nazi-themed strip club sequence was…..weird. I mean, the whole movie was weird, but that one really takes the cake. 3/10.
The Blue Lagoon (1980). In the Victorian period, two children are shipwrecked on a tropical island in the South Pacific. With no adults to guide them, the two make a simple life together, unaware that sexual maturity will eventually intervene.
Between this and Pretty Baby, it feels pretty tragic to look back on these early films of Brooke Shields and see just how much she was sexualised and fetishised. This isn’t quite as grotesque as Pretty Baby (although it’s hard to say if that’s possible), but it still feels misguided to the point of being a little perverse. The cinematography is nice though, I guess. 3/10.
Tess(1979). A strong-willed young peasant girl attracts the affection of two men.
I have complicated feelings for Roman Polanski for all the obvious reasons, but this movie, which Polanski credits as a tribute to his late wife, Sharon Tate, who was murdered by the Manson Family a decade earlier, feels like a graceful, heartfelt and authentic eulogy. The cinematography is sublime, and the story about a woman forced to endure a life she didn’t deserve feels especially relevant.
Men are trash, Polanski included, but this movie really is something special. 8.5/10.
The Black Hole (1979). A research vessel finds a missing ship, commanded by a mysterious scientist, on the edge of a black hole.
I just couldn’t get into this one at all. It feels like a mash-up of Airplane and Star Wars, but somehow manages to lose every ounce of fun in the process of that. The score’s pretty good though, plus Anthony Perkins is always a plus. 4/10.
All That Jazz (1979). Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid career of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.
God, the 52nd Academy Awards had a stacked Best Picture category - Kramer vs Kramer, Apocalypse Now, Norma Rae, Breaking Away and this. All that Jazz ultimately lost out to Kramer v Kramer, which is probably understandable, but to me, this really deserved to take it home. It’s rare after all that a movie can feel both this spectacular and this intimate, this personal and yet this accessible.
It just works on every level and I really loved it a lot. 9/10.
The Black Stallion (1979). After being shipwrecked with a magnificent horse off the coast of Africa in the 1940s, a boy bonds with the stallion, and trains him to race after their rescue.
I’ve seen a lot of horse movies for this project, and I do think this is one of the better ones. That’s almost entirely due to the lush and evocative cinematography, which must’ve been spectacular to watch on the big screen! It’s really beautiful stuff. Otherwise, this movie is a pretty conventional horse racing movie with a minor twist in the opening with the boy and the horse being shipwrecked together. It’s worth checking out, especially if you like the genre. 7/10.
