cinemadiso's - 1980s In Films Vol. 3 List

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The timeless story continues with the late Jean de Florette's daughter Manon (Emmanuelle Beart), now grown up into a beautiful and free-spirited young shepherdess on her father's Provence farm.

But when she finally learns the tragic truth behind her father's death, Manon plots her revenge on the dim-witted Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil) and the scheming Le Papet (Yves Montand).

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Iquitos, Peru, is a town Isolated in the middle of the jungle at the turn of the century. On the outskirts, a few shacks are rotting in the mud. In the centre are the splendid houses of the nouveaux-riches rubber barons.

It is in this setting, rich in grotesque contrast, that Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - Fltzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski), as the natives call him - has his dream of bringing together Enrico Caruso and Sarah Bernhardt for one great celebration of Grand Opera. To finance his fantastic dream, Fitzcarraldo decides to exploit a vast area of rubber trees growing beyond the impassable Ucayala Falls. In order to circumvent this barrier, he literally has his huge steamboat lifted over a mountain from one branch of the river to the other. With the aid of a tribe of Indians bewitched by records featuring the voice of the greatest singer of all time, Fitzcarraldo fights fever, mosquitoes and suffocating heat to achieve the impossible.

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Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is an idealistic filmmaker…until he is offered a lucrative job shooting a flattering profile of a pompous TV producer (Alan Alda).

Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) is the pillar of his community…until he learns that his ex-mistress (Anjelica Huston) plans to expose his financial and extramarital misdeeds. As Cliff chooses between integrity and selling out, and Judah decides between the counsel of his Rabbi (Sam Waterson) and the murderous advice of his mobster brother (Jerry Orbach), each man must examine his own morality, and make an irrevocable decision - that will change everyone's lives forever.

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The Christmas spirit isn't served up with more heartfelt warmth or observant hilarity than it is beloved adaptation of Jean Shepherd's holiday story. In 1940s Indiana, nine-year-old Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) dreams of his ideal Christmas gift: a genuine Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle.

But when gruff dad (Darren McGavin) and doting mom (Melinda Dillon) regularly respond with "You'll shoot your eye out!" Ralphie mounts a full-scale, hint-dropping, Santa-begging campaign. He also endures all kinds of childhood calamities from snowsuit paralysis to the yellow-eyed Scotty Farkus affair to the dreaded tongue-on-a-frozen-flagpole gambit.

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'Paris, Texas' is probably Wim Wenders' most well known, critically acclaimed, and successful movie, winning a number of international prizes including the Cannes Palm D'Or for best film in 1984.

This unusual road movie, with screenplay by acclaimed playwright Sam Shepard, tells the tale of Travis, a man lost in his own private hell. Presumed dead for four years, he reappears from the desert on the Mexico border, world-weary and an amnesiac. He traces his brother Walt who is bringing up Hunter, his seven-year-old son, his ex-wife Jane having abandoned him at Walt's door several years before. As virtual strangers, Hunter and Travis begin to build a wary friendship and conspire to find Jane and bring her back to be a real family. With extraordinary performances from Harry Dean Stanton as Travis and Nastassja Kinski as Jane, the film also boasts a soundtrack by Ry Cooder, ideally suited to the film's sunbleached landscapes and melancholy undertones.

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Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) has just discovered he has an autistic brother named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) and is now taking him on the ride of his life.

Or is it the other way around? From his refusal to drive on major highways, to his obsession with watching popular TV game-shows, Raymond first pushes hot-headed Charlie to the limits of his patience... and then pulls him completely out of his self-centred world. But what begins as a reluctant and unsentimental journey for the Babbitt brothers becomes a remarkable story which connects these two vastly different people in this poignant and powerful look at the unlimited potential of the human spirit.

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The heart-stopping story of the first black regiment to fight for the North in the American Civil War, "Glory" stars Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes and Morgan Freeman.

Broderick and Elqes are the idealistic young Bostonians who led the regiment; Freeman is the inspirational sergeant who unites the troops; and Denzel Washington, in an Oscar-winning performance is the runaway slave who embodies the indomitable spirit of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts. Despised by the South, distrusted by the North, the 54th overcame seemingly insurmountable odds in their fight to join the war for freedom. Underpaid and ill-equipped, facing certain death at the hands of the Confederacy, the 54th rose to every challenge; their courage, skill and sacrifice paying the way for the Union's ultimate victory.

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It's only a state of mind. Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry in this surrealistic spectacle about a daydreaming bureaucrat trapped in a future dystopia where love is forbidden from interfering with efficiency.

But with the help of an underground superhero (Robert De Niro) and a beautiful mystery woman (Kim Greist), Sam learns to soar to freedom on the wings of his untamed imagination, or so he thinks.

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The sky over Wenders' war-scarred Berlin is full of gentle, trenchcoated angels who listen to the tortured thoughts of mortals and try to comfort them. One, Damiel, (Bruno Ganz) wishes to become mortal after falling in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, Marion (Solveig Dommartin).

Peter Falk, as himself, assists in the transformation by explaining the simple joys of a human experience.

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Brian De Palma's 'The Untouchables' is a must-see masterpiece - a glorious, fierce, larger-than-life depiction of the mob warlord who ruled Prohibition-era Chicago...and the law enforcer who vowed to bring him down.

This classic confrontation between good and evil stars Kevin Costner as federal agent Eliot Ness, Robert De Niro as gangland kingpin Al Capone and Sean Connery as Malone, the cop who teaches Ness how to beat the mob: shoot fast and shoot first.

A literal landmark in modern Actioa-Cinema, Woo unfolds his story about the bond between a moral assassin and an amoral policeman with incredible skill and precision, whilst still managing to overwhelm his audience with some of the most incredible action-sequences ever committed to film.

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The film that brought world acclaim for Edward Woodward, tells the true story of Lieutenant Harry Morant in the Boer war in South Africa, which has deteriorated into a bitter guerilla war.

His Australian unit, the Bushveldt Carabineers, are ordered by British High Command to fight the Boers and to "take no prisoners". In revenge over the death and mutilation of his friend during a Boer ambush, Morant's unit captures and then executes prisoners - an act which leads to most controversial court-martials in military history.

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Directed by Roland Joffe and brilliantly scripted by Bruce Robinson, 'The Killing Fields ' is based on the true story of the relationship between Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston), a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times correspondent, and Dith Pran (Haing S.

Ngor), the Cambodian aide who remains behind following the evacuation of Cambodian citizens by the US army.

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During the final hours before a nuclear war threatens to wipe out humanity, Alexander, surrounded by his family and friends as they descend into fear and turmoil, makes a deal with God: he will sacrifice all he holds dear to avoid the impending apocalypse.

Tarkovsky's final film, 'The Sacrifice' is a visually breathtaking meditation on existential terror and a melancholic swansong from one of cinema's true auteurs.

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The eldest daughter of show-biz parents, Hannah (Mia Farrow) is a devoted wife, loving mother and successful actress.

A loyal supporter of her two aimless sisters (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest), she's also the emotional backbone of a family that seems to resent her stability almost as much as they depend on it. But when Hannah's perfect world is quietly sabotaged by sibling rivalry, she finally begins to see that she's as lost as everyone else, and in order to find herself, she'll have to choose - between the independence her family can't live with… and the family she can't live without.