Tagged: 1980s
The Four Seasons: Alan Alda’s Fall Soccer Sweatshirt and Wranglers
Alan Alda in The Four Seasons (1981)
Vitals
Alan Alda as Jack Burroughs, married lawyer
Connecticut, Fall 1980
Film: The Four Seasons
Release Date: May 22, 1981
Director: Alan Alda
Costume Designer: Jane Greenwood
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The start of each new season this year tends to send me back to The Four Seasons for content. Written and directed by Alan Alda, this 1981 comedy follows three couples on their seasonal group trips as they navigate their own complicated relationships.
Alda stars as Jack Burroughs, stably centered in a marriage with Kate (Carol Burnett), who typically plans each vacation. The fall trip follows the Burroughses and their four friends up to Connecticut for Parents’ Weekend with two of their daughters who are enrolled in the same college, resulting in a hyper-competitive soccer game which reveals a deeper conflict within the group, from Jack’s anger at the womanizing Nick (Len Cariou) to Kate’s resentment at having to plan each trip. Continue reading
When Harry Met Sally: Billy Crystal’s Field Jacket as Harry
Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Vitals
Billy Crystal as Harry Burns, sarcastic political consultant and recent divorcée
New York City, Fall 1988
Film: When Harry Met Sally…
Release Date: July 14, 1989
Director: Rob Reiner
Costume Designer: Gloria Gresham
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Rob Reiner’s 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally is often (deservedly) included on lists compiling the greatest fall movies. As tomorrow will be the first day of autumn here, I return to my own frequent celebration of Billy Crystal’s fall wardrobe as Harry—specifically during his fateful visit to comfort Sally (Meg Ryan) at her apartment after she learns that her ex-boyfriend is getting married. Continue reading
Wild at Heart: Nicolas Cage’s Snakeskin Jacket as Sailor Ripley
Nicolas Cage as Sailor Ripley in Wild at Heart (1990)
Vitals
Nicolas Cage as Sailor Ripley, an A #1-certified manslaughterer who just broke parole
Cape Fear to Texas via New Orleans, Fall 1989
Film: Wild at Heart
Release Date: August 17, 1990
Director: David Lynch
Costume Designer: Amy Stofsky
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
This week continues to explore unconventional style from David Lynch movies with a long-overdue look at Nic Cage’s snakeskin jacket as the swaggering Sailor Ripley in Wild at Heart, Lynch’s darkly comic adaptation of Barry Gifford’s 1989 novel of the same name. The film premiered at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival where it garnered some controversy for winning the Palme d’Or, three months prior to its wider North American release in August 1990.
Specifically considered for the role after Lynch read Gifford’s novel, Cage described Sailor as “a kind of romantic Southern outlaw,” reunited with his girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) after spending 22 months and 18 days in the Pee Dee Correctional Institution for fatally defending himself—and Lula’s honor—against an attacker hired by Lula’s domineering mama Marietta (Dern’s real-life mother Diane Ladd) after Sailor spurned her drunken advances. Two years has done little to dampen Marietta’s dislike for Sailor, who again sends paid killers on Sailor’s trail as he and Lula flee Cape Fear on their way west to sunny California. Continue reading
Blue Velvet: Dennis Hopper’s Black Leather Jacket and Bolo Tie as Frank Booth
Dennis Hopper on the set of Blue Velvet (1986). Photo credit: Jim Bridges.
Vitals
Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, sadistic drug dealer
Lumberton, North Carolina, Spring 1985
Film: Blue Velvet
Release Date: September 19, 1986
Director: David Lynch
Costumer: Ronald Leamon
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
After his early low-budget debut Eraserhead (1977) and adaptations The Elephant Man (1980) and Dune (1984), David Lynch finally unleashed many of his cinematic signatures when the neo-noir thriller Blue Velvet premiered forty years ago today during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), one week before its wider release.
Blue Velvet‘s themes of disturbing violence and surreal absurdism among a neo-nostalgic Americana backdrop became Lynchian trademarks, as well as his cast of frequent collaborators like Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Nance, and Isabella Rossellini. The movie also revitalized Dennis Hopper’s stalled career through his explosive, Golden Globe-winning performance as the chilling criminal Frank Booth—a psychopathic, amyl nitrate-addicted Roy Orbison fan with serious mommy issues. Continue reading
Manhunter: William Petersen’s Dark Sport Jackets as Will Graham
William Petersen as Will Graham in Manhunter (1986)
Vitals
William Petersen as Will Graham, tortured FBI criminal profiler
Across the United States, Fall 1986
Film: Manhunter
Release Date: August 15, 1986
Director: Michael Mann
Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
While the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs is a deservedly great movie that brought Thomas Harris’ fictional killer psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter to widespread public attention, the cannibalistic murderer had actually made his cinematic debut a half-decade earlier when Brian Cox portrayed the renamed Dr. Lecktor in Manhunter. Adapted by writer/director Michael Mann from Harris’ 1981 novel Red Dragon (with its title changed by producer Dino De Laurentiis), Manhunter was released 40 years ago this week on August 15, 1986.
Cox starred opposite William Petersen as FBI agent Will Graham, establishing the characters’ antagonistically layered screen dynamic that would be repeated in the 2002 remake Red Dragon and the NBC TV adaptation Hannibal. Continue reading
The Four Seasons: Alan Alda’s Sky-Blue Summer Shirt and White Trousers
Alan Alda in The Four Seasons (1981)
Vitals
Alan Alda as Jack Burroughs, married lawyer
Saint Thomas, Summer 1980
Film: The Four Seasons
Release Date: May 22, 1981
Director: Alan Alda
Costume Designer: Jane Greenwood
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Six months ago, I observed Alan Alda’s 90th birthday with my first post of his seasonal wardrobe in The Four Seasons, his 1981 comedy following four pairs of couples vacationing together throughout a tumultuous year in their lives, scored by Vivaldi’s concerti of the same name. (The film was recently adapted as a Netflix series co-created by and starring Tina Fey with Alda’s endorsement, as the actor also appears as Fey’s father.)
The second segment of The Four Seasons is set during the summer when the group sails their rented boat Sandavore through the U.S. Virgin Islands. The dynamic has shifted since the salesman Nick (Len Cariou) left his wife and has brought his much younger girlfriend Ginny (Bess Armstrong) on the trip, distracting the rest with loud sex at night and nude swimming in the morning. Alda’s moralistic lawyer Jack tries to openly explore how this has affected the group, but denies to his wife Kate (Carol Burnett) that he harbors any fantasties of his own around Ginny or a woman like her, instead venting his frustrations about Nick and Ginny treating the group expedition like a private holiday:
They’re not even on this trip! They walk around mooning all the time, making goo-goo eyes. My God, if one of them farts, the other one thinks it’s Guy Lombardo!
Paris, Texas: Harry Dean Stanton’s Red Road Trip Shirt and Ranchero
Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas (1984)
Vitals
Harry Dean Stanton as Travis Henderson, once-wandering drifter
Los Angeles to Houston, Fall 1983
Film: Paris, Texas
Release Date: September 19, 1984
Director: Wim Wenders
Costume Designer: Birgitta Bjerke
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
One of my favorite actors, Harry Dean Stanton, was born 100 years ago today on July 14, 1926 in Kentucky. Following his U.S. Navy service during World War II, Stanton began an acting career that lasted more than six decades until his death from heart failure at age 91 in September 2017 after completing his penultimate film Lucky, which also afforded Stanton the rare starring role. He was a close, respected friend of many A-listers like Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch, and Jack Nicholson, who included Stanton as best man in his 1962 wedding and habitually scrawled “H.D. Stanton” on the sets of his films.
Stanton typically made the most of supporting roles in films like Cool Hand Luke (1967), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), Christine (1983), Red Dawn (1984), Pretty in Pink (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Green Mile (1999), and The Avengers (2012)—a filmography so prolific that Roger Ebert once declared that, with the sole exception of Dream a Little Dream (1989), “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”
Despite his prolific supporting career, Stanton was cast in leading parts for back-to-back films released in 1984: Alex Cox’s dark sci-fi comedy Repo Man and Wim Wenders’ elegiac road drama Paris, Texas. The latter won the Palme d’Or when it premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and, though overlooked by most American award bodies, has grown its cult reputation as one of the greatest movies ever made. With additional style provided by Ry Cooder’s original score and Robby Müller’s masterful cinematography, the script was written by L.M. Kit Carson and Sam Shepard, who offered Stanton the part after the two connected at a Santa Fe film festival. Continue reading
Kill Me Again: Val Kilmer’s White Shirt and White Cadillac
Val Kilmer in Kill Me Again (1989)
Vitals
Val Kilmer as Jack Andrews, cynical private investigator
Nevada, Spring 1989
Film: Kill Me Again
Release Date: October 27, 1989
Director: John Dahl
Costume Designer: Terry Dresbach
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
This summer’s Car Week wraps with Kill Me Again, John Dahl’s little-known (at least to me, before last year) 1989 neo-noir thriller starring the late Val Kilmer and Michael Madsen opposite Kilmer’s then-wife Joanne Whalley as a dangerous femme fatale.
I’ll admit I was drawn to this as a subject this week due to some stylistic similarities with one of my favorite “car movies”, Vanishing Point (1971), which also features a man in a white shirt and jeans desperately racing a white two-door hardtop V8 through the desert until the car meets a fiery end. In this case, it’s not the nihilistic Kowalski in a Dodge Challenger but our widowed gambler P.I. in his quarter-century-old Cadillac, racing through the sand for a bundle of stolen cash. Continue reading
Rocky IV: The Italian Stallion’s Adidas Sweatsuit and Lamborghinis
Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV (1985)
Vitals
Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, two-time heavyweight world champion boxer
Philadelphia, Fall 1985
Film: Rocky IV
Release Date: November 27, 1985
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Costume Designer: Tom Bronson
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 80th birthday to Sylvester Stallone! Born July 6, 1946, the carved his own path to Hollywood success by writing and starring in Rocky as the fictional Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa. What started as a simple sports drama with a million-dollar budget has advanced over a half-century to $2 billion-grossing franchise of nine films and counting.
The first six films were all entirely written by Stallone who also directed four of the sequels, including Rocky IV (1985), which essentially pits Rocky as a symbol of American greatness against the cold-hearted cruelty of the Soviet Union as embodied by his deadly rival Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren).
A brief but memorable scene finds Rocky washing his pair of Lamborghinis outside his Philly mansion while his son Rocky Jr. (Rocky Krakoff) plays with the robot they gave Rocky’s brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young) until this domestic bliss is interrupted by a phone call from Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) to discuss Drago.
Let’s continue this summer’s Car Week with a look at Rocky’s look and his Lambos! Continue reading
Kurt Russell’s Tank Top and Trucker Style in Big Trouble in Little China
Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall in Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Vitals
Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, troublesome truck driver
San Francisco, Fall 1985
Film: Big Trouble in Little China
Release Date: July 2, 1986
Director: John Carpenter
Costume Designer: April Ferry
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
John Carpenter’s cult classic Big Trouble in Little China was released 40 years ago today on July 2, 1986. Following their initial collaboration in The Thing (1982), Kurt Russell stars as cocky trucker Jack Burton, who indeed lands in big trouble in little China—specifically San Francisco’s Chinatown district—when his friend’s fiancée is kidnapped by a local street gang and then again kidnapped by henchmen serving the reclusive sorcerer David Lo Pan (James Hong), who needs a green-eyed wife to break an ancient curse. Jack and his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) are joined by appropriately named attorney Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) on their quest through the literal underground to retrieve Wang’s betrothed. Carpenter has explained he envisioned Jack as a sidekick who thinks he’s a hero, while the more comparatively reserved Wang more closely exemplifies the traditional leading man. Continue reading
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