1980s

The devastating loss which Do the Right Thing slowly builds towards might initially seem at odds with Spike Lee’s stylistically bombastic colours, compositions, and hip-hop rhythms, but in the extremity of such expressions it effectively becomes part of the fiery clash between righteous anger and profound joy, both of which burn vividly in this Brooklyn…

The terminal illness metaphor is not wasted in the subtext of this intelligent screenplay, nor does David Cronenberg ever falter in intelligently picking apart the mad scientist’s disturbed psyche, yet in binding The Fly’s narrative so closely to the gripping, visceral decay of Seth Brundle’s body, it becomes a film that sticks in the mind for the…

The strength of Wes Craven’s fresh approach to horror filmmaking in A Nightmare on Elm Street still stands almost forty years later, playing into the genre’s conventional corruption of innocence by directly attacking deeper, more vulnerable areas of the human subconscious than so many other films before or after its time.

The blend of dry English humour and the brazen smarminess of American comedy in A Fish Called Wanda makes for a delicious mix of character dynamics, setting up the patriotic egos of both countries and then knocking them down a few pegs purely through their hilarious, bitter, and petty distaste for each other.

A great achievement in screenwriting for Lawrence Kasdan, The Big Chill is his comical but touching ode to the lost idealism of the Baby Boomers living in Reagan’s America.