In 1987,
The first Starbucks opened outside the US;
AZT was approved to treat HIV / AIDS;
Wrestlemania III, featuring Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, set attendance records;
The Simpsons debuted as a series of bumper shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show;
Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall;
Klaus Barbie was sentenced to life in prison for his activities during WWII;
93 year old Rudolph Hess killed himself at Spandau Prison;
Michael Jackson released Bad;
Fiji became a republic;
KFC opened in China;
Meryl Davis, Kristin Cavallari, Evan Peters, Jose Abreu, Becky Lynch, Ronda Rousey, Darren Criss, Henry Golding, Michael B. Jordan, Rose Leslie, Jon Ossoff, Miles Teller, Ashley Greene, Elliot Page, Kesha, Bow Wow, Mackenzie Davis, Joss Stone, Brooklyn Decker, Brendon Urie, Maria Sharapova, Novak Djokovic, Kendrick Lamar, Lionel Messi, Sidney Crosby, Katie Leung, Blake Lively, Evan Rachel Wood, Wiz Khalifa, Tyler Hoechlin, Tom Felton, Hilary Duff, Michaela Coel, Zac Efron, Frank Ocean, Kevin Jonas, Jason Day, Karen Gillan, Sarah Snook, Shane Gillis, and Ronan Farrow were born;
While Ray Bolger, Norman McLaren, Alistair MacLean, Liberace, Andy Warhol, Randolph Scott, Woody Hayes, Dean Paul Martin, Robert Preston, Maria von Trapp, Buddy Rich, Erskine Caldwell, Mike Von Erich, Dick Shawn, Sammy Kaye, Geraldine Page, Fred Astaire, Jackie Gleason, Clarence Brown, Bayard Rustin, John Huston, Lee Marvin, Peter Tosh, Mervyn LeRoy, Dan Rowan, Bob Fosse, Mary Astor, Clare Boothe Luce, Jim Folsom, and James Baldwin died.
The following is a list of ten favorite films released in 1987:
10) Babette’s Feast
A pair of elderly sisters preside over an austere convent like community founded by their deceased father several years before. Both woman eschewed love and independence to serve their father’s vision.
One day, the refugee Babette arrives at their door on the recommendation of one of the sister’s former suitors. The sisters dutifully take her in and she becomes a part of their community as their housekeeper.
When Babette wins some money in the lottery, she prepare a lavish meal for the sisters and their community. While initially aghast at such a sensuous, potentially sinful undertaking, everyone eventually relents.
After dinner, Babette reveals she was a once famous chef at a renowned Paris restaurant and her lavish, lovingly prepared meal is her way of expressing her deep appreciation for them.
Like many of the earlier Danish / Swedish films of Dreyer and Bergman, this is a deceptively deep film about the desire for the divine and how ordinary people connect with the extraordinary and supernatural.
To drive the point home many of the actors employed were veterans of Bergman’s and Dreyer’s work.
Movies like this are often more successful extrapolating the message of God’s love and grace than the most delicate of sermons.
It’s a beautiful film about sacrifice, love, what constitutes a spiritual gift, and the relationship between the divine and art.
For late Gen-Xers / early Millennials, this is a part of the fabric of our childhood and adolescence.
Andre the Giant, Fred Savage, Peter Falk, Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon.
Each of them has an instantly recognizable role in the formative years of millions.
The movie is eminently quotable. “My name is Inigo Montoya.” “Mawwiage. Mawwiage.” “Inconceivable.” “As you Wish.” All of the puns from Andre the Giant.
It’s a clever film, adapted from the even more clever novel from William Goldman.
It has an energy reminiscent of the screwball comedies of the 1930s. The dialogue is rapid and relentless, the action is swift. Whenever there’s a scene which could get bogged down, it deftly pivots to Savage and Falk reading the story.
In many ways, it’s a movie about our love of story, about why we love adventure and romance, but it’s also a damn good adventure on its own. Even people that don’t like or have never seen the film must acknowledge its influence and can quote whole passages.
Forty years on, it still punches a wallop, and single handedly cemented Andre as a beloved larger than life character.
Rob Reiner has had a fine career as a performer and director, but he’s unlikely to surpass the heights he reached scaling these Cliffs of Insanity.
8) Withnail & I
Unemployed actors / roommates Withnail (Richard Grant) and Marwood (Paul McGann) visit Withnail’s wealthy homosexual uncle, Monty (Richard Griffiths). Marwood has told Monty that Withnail is a fellow traveler, a secret homosexual. In essence, Marwood has indirectly pimped out his friend to curry his wealthy uncle’s favor. Monty aggressively propositions an unsuspecting Marwood, who successfully parries him off and learns of Withnail’s deception.
This causes a rift between the friends, who part on less than amicable terms after Marwood accepts a job in Manchester leaving Withnail alone to contemplate his fate.
It’s a great character study. Their nonsense banter is reminiscent of Estragon and Vladimir and their energy approaches Marx Brothers levels of insane spontaneity.
Richard Grant was incredible and Richard Griffiths gives a career best performance (although his Dursley was sublime).
This beautiful psychological study is peppered with insightful nuggets about friendship, love, sexuality, and purpose.
It’s the kind of movie that just feels important; it stays with you and grows in estimation.
Elderly sisters Libby (Bette Davis) and Sarah Logan (Lillian Gish) spend their summers vacationing in Maine.
Nearing the end of their lives, old slights and jealousies rear their ugly heads.
Ninety-three-year old Lillian Gish was an incredible presence, showing she still had juice despite her advanced age and demonstrating why she was one of the first breakout stars of the cinema.
Bette Davis had her own recent health issues, including a stroke, but she too rises to the challenge and proves a formidable screen partner for Gish. Knowing Davis’ history, she unsurprisingly did not get along with her costar.
Vincent Price is his usually charming self in a supporting role and Ann Sothern earned her sole Oscar nomination.
I’m a sucker for older performers and this was a wonderful showcase for two screen legends. Right up my alley.
After he randomly encounters a dying valley, Elzéard Bouffier takes it upon himself to replenish the valley to its former splendor.
He dedicates his life to this seemingly minor act act of preservation.
His patient dedication leads to a totally revamped valley and this short animated film becomes an allegory for the value of persistence.
Christopher Plummer narrating the English language version is an abundance of riches for this beautiful painted Oscar winning short.
New priest Donissan (Gérard Depardieu) arrives in a rural parish to apprentice under an older priest. Donissan is full of religious fervor but his unorthodox techniques make people uncomfortable.
A promiscuous sixteen year old girl accidentally kills one lover and blackmails another to cover it up. Donissan sees through her ruse and urges her to repent. When she responds by committing suicide, Donnisan brings her body to church to save her soul, and he’s promptly transferred to another parish.
Donissan successfully fends off Satan once, but a second attack is successful as the demands of his parishioners and the intensity of his own intense faith has weakened him.
It’s a ponderous, mysterious film about the demands of faith in the modern world. It reminded me of Carl Dreyer’s existentialist films or Bergman’s trilogy of faith. I’m an absolute sucker for movies like this. The more navel gazing, the more I love it.
It’s the kind of deep movie which provides real nourishment. To know people twenty years ago, thirty years ago, forty years struggled with the same questions about God’s role in the universe provides a surprising comfort against the evils and doubts we all face.
4) The Dead
Adapted from a James Joyce short story, John Huston’s swan song is a poignant film about how the past informs and, in many ways, defines the present.
A pair of fading spinsters host an annual party so they can remain relevant. The story focuses on the circle of relatives and friends who dutifully come to the party, their lost love and the missed opportunities which continue to haunt them.
At the party, Gretta (Anjelica Huston) is reminded of a former lover who died when he got sick singing outside her window. She blames herself for his death and clearly still has deep feelings for him despite her marriage to Gabriel, an aloof academic, who wishes he could love his wife the way her former lover did.
A lot of Anjelica’s best work came under her father’s direction.
This is lovely paean to the Irish spirit and its modern patron saint, Joyce.
As the characters reflect on their past, and look back ruefully on the life that was, you can feel the weight of Huston processing his own emotions as his various illnesses brought his life to a close.
Julien Quientin arrives at a boarding school during WWII era France and befriends the new kid, Jean Bonnet, only to discover Jean is one of three Jewish refugees headmaster Pere Jean has secretly sheltered at the school.
Through his experience with Bonnet, Julien learns the harsh realities of racism and antisemitism and the cowardice of collaborators.
Louis Malle’s masterpiece is a powerful film about innocence shattered; a little bit like Hannah Arrendt’s theory of the banality of evil come to life.
In 1967, a set of US Marine Corps recruits, including James “Joker” Davis (Matthew Modine), and Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence (Vincent D’Onofrio), arrive for basic training where Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) breaks them down with cruel precision.
Tragically, his sadistic techniques prove too much for the simpleminded Lawrence.
After training, Joker becomes a war correspondent. At the beginning of the Tet Offensive, his squad locates a deadly sniper only to discover it’s a teenage girl. After Joker is forced to execute her, he shows symptoms of PTSD.
Vincent D’Onofrio is perfection as the slowly deteriorating Pyle, Ermey’s Hartman is just callous enough without devolving into caricature, and Matthew Modine is exactly the generic everyman the film needs.
The first half is electric, but once the film shifts to combat, it loses momentum and becomes just another film about the quagmire of Vietnam.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, roam Berlin, watching the humans in the city and listening to their inner thoughts.
Damiel falls in love with a trapeze artist, Marion and, growing bored with infinity, renounces his immortality to be with her.
It was remade for American audiences as the more conventional City of Angels (1998), but this film is about more than the sacrifices of love. Wim Wenders creates a black and white rumination on the nature of existence with Peter Falk giving a career defining performance as a fictionalized version of himself.