1984
Noah’s Barks pages relating to the year 1984.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street
After so many lackluster slasher “legends,” I expected A Nightmare on Elm Street to be a bore—but it’s damn good. It has the two things so many slashers lack: pacing and logic. The threat is established early and, instead of repetitive gore-fests, an actual plot exists where the characters come to understand and fight against… (read more)
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Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer
Noteworthy for being one of Mamoru Oshii’s first directorial outings, ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ has the classic ‘Urusei Yatsura’ cast trapped in a world of dreams. However, it spends far too much time in reality when it should be dreaming. (read more)
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Repo Man (1984)
1984 seemed a bit early for a retro ’70s movie, but only the post-punks with their newfound cynical self-awareness could influence one of the most hilarious comedies of the ’80s. A neon-green radioactive ooze pervades and perverts Repo Man into absurdity beyond definition, because every character is too stupid to bother to define it. This… (read more)
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
At first it seemed some more camp would do the film some favors. Indiana Jones is inspired by old adventure radio serials, yet Raiders lacked much of a sense of danger. The problem? The camp is bland, and it never stops. Gone is adventuring, instead we have a series of rollercoaster happenstances as if Indiana… (read more)
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Once Upon a Time in America
I want to love Once Upon a Time in America (OUaTiA). Sergio Leone‘s sense of scale and ability to capture the landscape have not diminished at all, and there’s a great basic story here with a very cool generational progression, but at times the acting is extremely poor for such a major feature, and the… (read more)
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Super Dimensional Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?
While not a replacement for the excellent original series, ‘Do You Remember Love?’ is a gorgeous victory lap across some of the series’s most poignant moments. (read more)
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Amadeus
Amadeus has a pretty mediocre beginning filled with crude humor that borders on slapstick, and the film throughout has some ridiculous modern dialect despite otherwise being a period piece, but as the story escalates and becomes increasingly serious, the writing changes with it and the true power of Amadeus begins to rise. Fantastic, but could’ve… (read more)
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Dune
This is a terrible movie. The combined force of hardcore David Lynch and Dune fans ensure it gets more respect than it deserves. I’ve heard people say that Dune‘s costume and set design is worth praise, but it’s really not. Detailed and expensive yes, but thrown together horribly. Clashing colors fill frames in a chaotic… (read more)
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Siouxsie and The Banshees – “Hyæna”
Hyæna is probably Siouxsie and the Banshees’s most underrated album. It’s in sort of a rough spot, sandwiched between their best and most fully-realized albums and best general sound, but that’s also why it’s reliably more than meets the eye. It can be tempting to downplay how genuinely adventurous the Banshees were because they had… (read more)
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Manuel Göttsching – “E2-E4”
Manuel Göttsching may not have been the first artist to make electronic music, but he was certainly the first artist to make good electronic music, as far as these ears are concerned and as E2-E4 demonstrates. E2-E4 is yet another excellent release by Göttsching, the man who discovered how to make electronic music feel as alive and… (read more)