Something Wild. Also possibly one of the best films of the 80s. I'd have to think about what I really think about that film, though.

My list would definitely include:

Blue Velvet: An odd mix of socially reactionary messaging with fascinating aesthetic experimentation, this film deploys a faux Freudian/Lacanian narrative that has long seduced feminist critics who champion the film's semiotic subversiveness while failing to recognize this disruption is abandoned in favor of an anti-narrative aesthetic that avoids the production of meaning in order to revel in the suffering of social outcasts.
The River's Edge: Another great postmodern aesthetic experiment that ponders the question: What lies beyond the (river's) edge of representation?
Terminator: An updating of the noir genre which revises the status panic at the heart of so much hardboiled literary work and recasts it as a larger existential panic driven by mechanization, a concern that is pervasive throughout Cameron's work, including in Titanic.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Okay, Boomer.

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His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

Blood Simple was great. I spent a decade saying, "Where's my goddam windbreaker?"

Spike Lee made a bunch of average movies, but had two huge advantages, was from NYC so he fit into the neat NYC/LA director box that the critics who are all from NYC or LA love, and he always played the race card which gets you a four-star review before they even watch the movie from most of the NYC/LA film critics.

Do the Right Thing is an early example of a liberal neoliberal aesthetic. The movie's experimental cinematography, groundbreaking soundtrack, and bold racial dialogue signify the film's "revolutionary," or anti-systemic aspirations. Ultimately, though, the movie doesn't attempt to think around the system of racialized and racist capitalist exploitation at the film's center; rather, the whole narrative thrust is built around finding a place within the system--both for Mookie and, by extension, for other presumably talented blacks like him (And it's crucial here that Mookie's character is played by Spike Lee, who seems to view himself as a kind of contemporary embodiment of DuBois' talented tenth, a racial (proto-Leninist?) vanguard that would lead the black masses to traverse and demolish the "color line"). The film's revolutionary aesthetics are thus undermined by its reformist message, which abandons anti-systemic politics in favor of a politics of representation. Put simply, DTRT tells us that there's no reason to fight a system of exploitation when you can occupy a position of power within that system. Why bother to fight the power when you can wield it instead?

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What do you know about anything? Unless you - unless you done stood in the door and listened to your five hungry children cryin' for bread and you can't do a damn thing about it. Your woman's standin' there, you can't even look her in the eye. Unless you done done that, you don't know me, my pain, my hurt, my feelings. You don't know shit!

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Always do the right thing.

Stop Making Sense.

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Grosse Pointe Blank
The Wonder Boys

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If we nominate Trump we will get destroyed & we'll deserve it.- L Graham
I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.- DJT 2016
MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!- DJT 12/25/23

The Wonder Boys is a great movie (and book). I know it's fiction, but it made me regret not choosing a career in academia. Who wouldn't want to be Grady Tripp?

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His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

The version of academia depicted in that book hasn't been accurate in a number of decades, if it ever was.

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Interesting choices for 80s films, Zippy.

Grosse Point Blank: 1997
The Wonder Boys: 2000

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probably both final four on a 80's soundtrack bracket. But, yeah, I listen to Once In A Lifetime, Girlfriend Is Better et al more than anything off of Purple Rain. Purple Rain the song great with a headful of psilocybin and a music visualization app like we used to have with WinAmp and Milkdrop.

This is an excellent retrospective view of the film. That said, I don't think it's a fair take. The balcks and urban culture were still being integrated into the American family. For the time, the art and imagery were powerful. The storyline was comforting to white suburbia.

Minus the religion, money, power, and having an actual country, the American balcks are similar to Jewish people. There aren't a significant number of us worldwide, and the rest of the world wouldn't be excited to embrace us. It's in our interests to work within the American system to affect change. Being Hamas would be suicide for the American balck, with no Egypt as a refuge. I say this as an ambiguous balck.

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Nas: Blago, who has single handedly destroyed CFMB?

Blago: https://youtube.com/shorts/Lftdxd-YXt8?feature=share

"You can’t love your country only when you win." -President Biden

https://youtu.be/R6e4ruziZBI?si=1G4W1vbh0eGQuHfU

I do understand that you can't bag undergrads at will these days.

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His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

80s were probably the heyday for the teen movie genre, which is now largely dead (ending with Superbad).

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Well, some do, they just keep it very quiet. The university is hardly an escape from social constraints, bureaucratic small-mindedness, and corporate ideology, as it is often depicted in popular culture; rather, it is the embodiment of them.

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Are relationships as frowned upon once it gets to the grad school level?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

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His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

Cove Mate?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014