In 1988,
The Soviet Union began perestroika,
The Winter Olympics were held in Alberta, Canada and the Summer Olympics were held in Seoul;
Al-Qaeda was founded;
The Morris worm (one of the earliest computer viruses) was first distributed;
George H.W. Bush was elected President;
Benazir Bhutto became the first woman elected head of government of an Islamic state;
The first Royal Rumble and Summer Slam took place;
The Wonder Years, Roseanne, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, In the Heat of the Night, China Beach, Chip n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Alf Tales, Empty Nest, Midnight Caller, and Discovery Channel’s Shark Week debuted; while The Facts of Life, St. Elsewhere, Magnum P.I., and Punk Brewster ended their runs;
The inaugural Kids Choice Awards were held;
Kirk Gibson hit a walk off home run off Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the World Series;
Skrillex, FKA Twigs, Zosia Mamet, Matthew Stafford, Rihanna, Stephen Curry, Jhené Aiko, Clayton Kershaw, Jessie J, Brenda Song, Haley Joel Osment, Vanessa Kirby, Lizzo, Ana de Armas, Adele, Blac Chyna, Awkafina, Michael Cera, Mae Whitman, Julianne Hough, Tyson Fury, Kacey Musgraves, Rupert Grint, James Blake, Kevin Durant, ASAP Rocky, Alicia Vikander, Derrick Rose, Hope Hicks, Glen Powell, Emma Stone, Russell Westbrook, Russell Wilson, Zoe Kravitz, Vanessa Hudgens were born;
While Pistol “Pete” Maravich, Trevor Howard, Emeric Pressburger, Divine, John Holmes, Gil Evans, Robert Heinlein, Kim Philby, Chet Baker, Sammy Davis Sr., Louis L’Amour, Joshua Logan, Nico, Alan Ameche, Anne Ramsey, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Enzo Ferrari, Art Rooney, Jack Dempsey, Roy Kinnear, Charles Addams, John Mitchell, Christina Onassis, John Carradine, Roy Orbison, Hal Ashby, and Jess Oppenheimer died.
The following is a list of my ten favorite films released in 1988:
The OG Making a Murderer. Pre-Innocence Project, Erroll Morris’s gripping documentary exposed the corruption in the US judicial system and the way it treats poor / disadvantaged people.
Morris’s innovative approach (including interview styles and inventive camerawork) brought many techniques typically used in fiction films to documentary work. Every true crime series on Netflix and elsewhere owes this a debt.
Despite being still relatively obscure, it’s cultural impact is profound.
Nearly ninety year old director Joris Ivens (a fictionalized version of the film’s actual director) explores Chinese mythology and culture as he contemplates the wind.
Ivens intersperses numerous clips from his oeuvre, transforming this into a film essay about his life and work.
There’s an homage to Méliès (complete with a lunar trip), a visit from Chinese mythology entitles, Chinese opera, Buddhist statues, and beautiful imagery of Chinese landscapes and cultural landmarks (still largely unknown in the West). The terra cotta army makes an obligatory appearance as well as the Great Wall of China.
It’s the kind of navel gazing film I find annoying from young artists, but when it’s an older director contemplating the end of his life, I find it inspiring and comforting. In my opinion, age earns the right to be contemplative.
When famed movie director Salvatore Di Vita learns his former mentor, Alfredo, has died, he reflects on his childhood in a small Italian village.
Alfredo was the projectionist at the local cinema (the titular Cinema Paradiso) and reluctantly took Salvatore under his wing. When Alfredo was blinded in a freak accident, the film loving Salvatore became his replacement.
Salvatore falls in love with a girl in the village, but when her father sabotages their relationship, Alfredo encourages his heartbroken friend to abandon his hometown and dedicate himself to his true passion: cinema.
Now a successful director, but with a lonely and isolated personal life, Alfredo’s death causes Salvatore to contemplate if the sacrifices he made were worth it. He returns for Alfredo’s funeral and finds a movie his former mentor had made out of discarded, censored parts of the films he had shown (primarily romantic scenes the local priest objected to), and is reminded of the power of cinema.
This is an engaging exploration of the cost of greatness, questioning what should and does define success.
Krzysztof Kieślowski expanded episode five of his sublime Dekalog is an allegorical film about the Jewish command not to murder.
Jacek Łazar’s sister was killed by a drunk driving friend when he was younger and now he’s irreversibly damaged. After deranged Jacek murders a random taxi driver, he’s represented by young attorney Piotr Balicki who (despite a valiant effort) loses the case; Jacek is sentenced to death.
It’s a ponderous, difficult film about grief, our capacity for evil and how we punish / forgive.
Kieślowski turned each of the Ten Commandments into a parable, each one a puzzle box of exploration, a Russian nesting doll of what it means to sin.
The story is simple, but the layers run deep, revealing much about the conundrum of the human condition, our separation from God and the consequences of a fallen world. The Ten Commandments are conceptualized as an attempt to impose order on chaos and structure the world. Kieślowski asks us to question the structure, to examine what parts of it come from God and which are open to interpretation.
The world is a shit show. But maybe, just maybe there’s something worth the fight.
A heartbreaking tale of two Japanese children towards the end of the second World War.
With their father in the Imperial Navy and their mother deceased, Seita and his younger sister Setsuko move in with their resentful aunt who doesn’t feel they contribute enough.
Feeling unwelcome, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter, but resources are scarce and both slowly starve.
It’s a beautiful, bleak film about the most vulnerable people in the most precarious of situations.
It’s depressing, but in a the good way that Studio Ghibli specializes in, beautiful melancholy.
5) Big
After thirteen-year-old Josh Baskin makes a random wish to carnival machine Zoltar, the next day he wakes up as an adult (Tom Hanks). A thirteen year old in a grown man’s body, he gets a job at a toy store.
It’s a thin plot, but Hanks is amazing and carries the movie to heights it shouldn’t have reached. He was already an established actor, but this movie made him a star. John Heard is perfectly cast as Baskin’s rival at the toy store. Robert Loggia is perfection as the elder CEO. Elizabeth Perkins career peaked with her role as Josh co-worker / love interest.
Penny Marshall’s direction was restrained and kept the film grounded without going too broad: a real danger in films like this.
It’s the kind of film which encapsulates the 1980s: over the top idea, bathing in excess, so problematic it can never be remade (especially the love interest storyline), but nonetheless a beloved touchstone for a generation.
Nearly forty years later, it’s still one the first films people think of when they think of Hanks.
For millions of us, we grew up dreaming of our own big musical number on the walking piano.
4) Alice
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is the quintessential story about the uncertainty of childhood. To a child, the world is a mystery and its myriad rules often seem nonsensical; we have to learn to be rational.
This odd blend of live action and stop-motion animation embraces the twisted, scary parts of Carroll’s work. The inhabitants of Wonderland look dangerous, and it feels like Alice is in genuine jeopardy.
It uses a recurring close up of Alice’s lips while she recites a line from the book as a transition between scenes. This forces us to keep the book in mind, which, in turn, forces us to see this movie as an extension of the novel and not an independent thing, raising questions about the nature of adaptation.
Part Labyrinth (1986), part Adaptation (2002), this is one of my favorite works inspired by Alice in Wonderland.
3) Scrooged
Everyone knows the basic story of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, and this movie hits all the expected beats.
The cast is incredible. From Murray (making his return after a self-imposed post-Ghostbusters exile) on down.
Karen Allen may be better here than in her most memorable role from Indiana Jones. The chemistry between Murray and Allen is top notch (especially the scene taking about the Kama Sutra).
I saw this when I was ten and immediately fell in love. A large part of my personal affinity for Murray stems from my adoration of this movie .
I think fondly of pretty much everyone involved, and, in my opinion, this is a career highlight for most of them. Carol Kane, John Houseman, Robert Mitchum, Bobcat Goldthwaite, David Johansen, Alfre Woodard, John Forsythe, John Glover, Buddy Hackett, Lee Majors, and for some bizarre reason, James Brown.
I love taking a beloved classic and twisting it without devolving into the obvious hyper-parody like Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
I look forward to seeing portions every Christmas when it plays constantly on cable; it’s a breezy, fun, miracle of a movie.
The director of Superman and Lethal Weapon does not feel like a natural fit for a Christmas fantasy movie starring Bill Murray. And while Murray doesn’t think as fondly of the movie and his time making it as I do, this may be my favorite Christmas film.
2) The Last Temptation of Christ
This is a lovely exploration of faith.
Dafoe is a great Christ and casting David Bowie as Pilate gives the film an interesting flavor. I loved Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene.
Jesus’s final temptation (a possible life with love and a family) is incredibly believable and mirrors the temptation many people of faith face in their own journey. Sacrifice is a necessary component of faith and knowing what you’ve given up with clear eyes is important.
The reception the film received was. It’s a misunderstanding of what Scorsese was saying. Even if you disagree with his perspective on the difficulty of faith, his viewpoint is worth engaging with, instead of reflexively pillorying.
It seems to me, the response to this film is not far removed from the response Christ received. Challenging conventional norms and asking people to stretch themselves to see the world a little differently often encounters violent opposition from those entrenched in the status quo, especially those who stand to lose from a switch in attitude.
In my opinion, this film is a fairly faithful look at the gospel message, and if you object to the use of fictional devices to tell the story, where is your condemnation of Jesus’s frequent use of fictional parables to illustrate His message?
Scorsese once aspired to be a priest and you can tell from his filmography. He has a deep affinity for asking tough spiritual question about the confluence of the practical, real world and the spiritual one.
1) Who Framed Roger Rabbit
When Marvin Acme is murdered, cartoon superstar Roger Rabbit is the primary suspect and private investigator Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) reluctantly agrees to help prove Roger’s innocence. Eventually, Valiant discovers Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) framed Roger and is secretly working to destroy Toontown and replace it with a freeway.
Robert Zemeckis (who also directed Back to the Future and Forrest Gump) has a clear talent for visually inventive films, and while technological advancements make this movie seem a little dated, it still works because its premise is every kid’s fantasy: cartoon characters are real.
As a kid, Judge Doom was my hated nemesis in one of the toughest video games I ever played. Beating him is on my video game bucket list.
If you like classic animation and have ever dreamed of seeing your beloved characters on screen together, this is a must see.