1980

Today is my 30th Birthday! (gulp! & gasp!), so to celebrate the joyous occasion I decide to review the year of my birth.

For what I know 1980 was an eventful year and a leap year. In 1980  The Steelers won the super bowl and the Phillies the world series: The world saw the miracle in the snow in the Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid and the american boycott of The Moscow Summer Olympic Games.  The Post-it were invented;  Robert Deniro, Sissy Spacek and Robert Redford won the Oscar; Evita won the Tony for best musical;  Blondie release “Call Me”; a little band of Ireland named U2 release Boy; Pac Man was release; CNN is launched as the first all news network; and of course December 8th is truly the day that music died when John Lennon was murder.

So in order to commemorated the occasion I decide to create a list of the best 10 movies of that year.

10. Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa)

This is another master piece from the director who introduce the west to the samurai film genre.  This movie was produced by 2 of the most important american filmmakers: George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. The story is about a common thief who poses a remarkable resemblance with the warlord, so he is chosen as the warlord double when the warlord is mortally wounded the thief takes his places; for 3 years the thief lives like the warlord and nobody  can’t tell the difference. The story basically is about illusion becoming a reality as the thief died as the warlord in combat.  As in all the movies of Kurosawa the images are utterly beautiful and full of meaning.

9. The Last Metro (François Truffaut)

This film is part of the original trilogy of the red curtain. The movie is a subversive movie about a theater company in Paris during the Nazi occupation. This a magnificent love story where the lovers are not recognize. The story is about Lucas Steiner a Jew and his wife Marion and how they try to keep him conceal in the theater’s cellar while she act and  directed the company with a new leading man. This is a story about lives surrounded by melodrama and courage.

8. The Gods Must be Crazy (James Uys)

This is a South African movie that was really popular in South America and Europe, and finally became a cult movie in the rest of the world.  The movie start when tribe of African bushman find a Coca cola bottle thrown from a plane, they assume it must be a gift from the Gods. The bottle is put to several uses, its become a musical instrument,  a cooking instrument but above of all a piece of controversy. Finally the bottle starts to cause all kinds of trouble within their social order. But when Xixo decides to return the offering (by throwing it off the end of the Earth), he runs into even more problems — in the form of civilized man. This a real funny movie in a very original way always looking for the next logical thing that ends being ridiculous.

7. 9 to 5

One little secret about me, I’m a big Fan of Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda ergo I really enjoy this movie.  The movie is a feminist Ode of the 80’s whit a great song. The movie is about 3 hard working women living out their fantasy of getting even with, and their successful overthrow of, the company’s autocratic, “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” boss. This is the perfect movie for everyone who had deal with an a** of a boss.

6. The Elephant Man (David Lynch)

This is one of the most famous movies and most quoted movie of David Lynch; who haven’t heard: I AM NOT AN ELEPHANT! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL! I AM A HUMAN BEING! I…AM…A MAN!. The movie is based in a true story in the Victorian England.  the story is about a  surgeon who rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous facade, there is revealed a person of intelligence and sensitivity.

5. Ragging Bull (Martin Scorcese)

This is the movie that gave DeNiro an Oscar. The movie is based in Jake La Motta memoir Raging Bull: My Story. The movie tell the story of how a middleweight boxer whose  rage,  jealousy, and animalistic appetite exceeded the boundaries of the ring, and destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Simply this is consider one of the best films ever.

4. Ordinary People (Robert Redford)

This movie is the Directorial debut of Robert Redford, ans according to the academy the  movie of the year and the best directed. The movie tell the story of  the accidental death of the older son of an affluent family deeply strains the relationships among the bitter mother, the good-natured father, and the guilt-ridden younger son. Mainly focusing in the journey to healing of Conrad the younger son. It’s one great drama!

3. City of Women (Federico Fellini)

If you think in perfect teams in film there is one legendary: Federico Fellini and Marcelo Mastroianni. The film had thiss dream-sequence quality and male complexities of chasing women. A man is traveling in a compartment on a train when he lapses into sleep and dreams the story. He follows a woman off the train and through a field and then loses her. Soon,  he finds himself in a hotel, among myriad women attending a feminist conference. Surreal episodes take him through a villa and references to his sexual exploits.

2. The Sining (Stanley Kubrick)

This is one of the most popular horror movies ever and one of the best. The movie is really a big part of pop culture, Here’s Johnny! is one of the most famous movie quotes. The film is about a family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

1. Star Wars: The empire strike back

This is definitely the best Star Wars movie, one of the best cliff hangers , it has everything. And the movie that change the history of movies forever.