Adjust Your Tracking

It's our decade round up episode, the Trackies! Where we give out awards for the films we watched on this miniseries and as always we are joined by our friend Brandon Kahn to chat about what we learnt from this selection of films, the 80s in films and what we liked best. Also we announce our next miniseries.
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Set in a dystopian 2019, Akira tells the story of Kaneda, a leader of a biker gang whose childhood friend, Tetsuo, acquires incredible telekinetic abilities after a motorcycle accident, eventually threatening an entire military complex amid chaos and rebellion in the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Neo-Tokyo.  Katsuhiro Otomo's magnum opus Akira was released to international acclaim in 1988, not only was it a spectacular example of animated film, quite beyond anything that had been produced at the time, but it was the first Japanese anime that had been released uncut and unedited outside of Japan. It rightly took America and Europe by storm and issued an awakening of Japanese animation. 
All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! 
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The Great Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) decides to abdicate and divide his domain amongst his three sons;  Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), and Saburo (Daisuke Ryu) but there is no peace between the brothers as full war breaks out shattering the Empire that he built. Now the great Lord wanders his shattered Empire a broken man, but soon all of his past atrocities will come back top haunt him. Ran (1985) in a large part is the culmination of Akira Kurosawa's long career, and it would be his last epic that is as majestic as it is massive. A true masterpiece, and a profound examination of humanity and war.
We also talk about Dear Evan Hansen, The Guilty and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.
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In 1989 Spike Lee wrote and directed Do The Right Thing which, to this day is celebrated as one of the great American movies and at the time the biggest movie ever made by a black director. It tells the story of a Brooklyn neighbourhood during a heatwave, where rising tensions explodes after Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) becomes upset that the neighbourhood Pizza shop, run by Sal (Danny Aiello), who doesn't display any black actors on his wall of fame and refuses to change it. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to other people in the neighbourhood, and tensions rise. It's a film that is as relevant today as it was in the 80s, a timeless classic.
We also discuss new releases The Green Knight, Malignant, and Shang Chi.
All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! 
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Iconic Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar had his biggest international success in 1988 with this screwball black comedy that almost defies genre classification, it tells the story of Pepa (Carmen Maura) who resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover Ivan (Fernando Guillén) leaves her. However, she is interrupted by groups of different people from her life including Ivan's son from a previous relationship (Antonio Banderas), his fiancee Marissa (Rossy de Palma) and a Shiite terrorist cell who have been secretly holding her best friend Candela (María Barranco) hostage all whilst being pursued by her loves ex (Julieta Serrano) - who all add to the chaotic web of events.
We also discuss new releases Annette and CODA.
All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! 
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Natalie Gardner, who has portrayed Cher on screen, joins us this week to discuss the movie that finally earnt Cher her Oscar. Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison, explores romance and love in all of it's complicated aspects based around a New York Italian-American family, where Loterra (Cher) accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Johnny, but then she finds herself falling for his younger brother, Ronny (Nic Cage) who couldn't be more different to his brother and has the allure and promise of bringing passion back to her life. Also starring Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello, John Mahoney and Feodor Chaliapin.
We also discuss some new releases we've been watching; Old and The Suicide Squad.
All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! 
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It's big studio blockbuster comedy this week on Adjust Your Tracking. Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker were the most successful comedy directors/writers in the 1980s, with Airplane!, Police Squad, and Top Secret they made a name for themselves for creating wild fast slapstick spoof films that resonated with audiences. The would make one last film as a trio and they swapped spoof for much more standard farce in a film they did not write. Ruthless People stars Danny DeVito and Bette Midler, the story involves a couple who kidnap their ex-boss's wife to get revenge and extort money from him. However, they soon realize he was planning to kill her himself and does not want her back. Meanwhile, the boss's mistress is trying to blackmail him assuming that he did carry out his planned murder.
We also talk some new releases with Black Widow, Fear Street Series, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Masters of the Universe: Revelation.
All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! 
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Agnès Varda has been known as the mother of the French New Wave, and is amongst the most important and celebrated filmmakers ever. In 1985 she released what would be her most successful film, Vagabond, where Mona, played by Sandrine Bonnaire, is a young drifter who is found dead in a ditch in rural southern France. The movies plays out in a series of flashbacks and semi-documentary style 'interviews', which recount the last few weeks of Mona's life from the stories of the people she interacted with. A powerful movie which explores what liberty there is in pure freedom, and the ways in which people implant their own prejudice upon the perceived unwanted elements of society.  
Not only that but we also talk about In the Heights, The Tomorrow War, Fear Street, Loki, Zappa and more!
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Liam is busy, so Ollie asked James Raynor to sit in to talk about one of the more bizarre films of the 1980s - Repo Man, the debut film of director Alex Cox, a satirical science fiction black comedy starring Harry Dean Stanton and Emilo Estiveze. It follows a group of repo men who get caught up in the pursuit of a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu that might be connected to extra-terrestrials. Set in LA with a Punk Rock soundtrack the film is anything but conventional.  While the film didn't fair well at the box office, it did receive great critical acclaim and eventually gained wide spread cult classic status. We also talk School of Rock, The Brady Bunch Movie, Short Term 12,  Phantom of the Opera (1943), Tremors, The Psycho Sequels and 90s John Woo.  
All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! 
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This week we are joined by Sean and Frank from the long running Film Junk Podcast, and are looking back at Walter Hills 1984 neo-noir cult classic  - Streets of Fire . When Raven Shaddock, the a leader of a biker gang steals rock singer Ellen Aim, it's up to her ex-boyfriend Tom Cody and a small band of mercenaries to go an get her back. Starring Michael Pare, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan and Willem Dafoe. The film, which promised to be "A Rock & Roll Fable" bombed at the box office but slowly became a cult hit. We also take a look at Prince's 1984 film Purple Rain to compare these two rock musicals of 1984. 
All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! 
Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms