Great piece, Chris! Thanks for this. I'm a Terry Gilliam fan, and a fan too of Tom Stoppard. I used to teach The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I very much admire that film. So much there that relates to our situation as well. It's also known in the film world as a textbook bomb since it did poorly at the box office but cost a fortune to make. Often seems like anything worth doing in a real sense has no value in our present society, and that's a clear sign that our culture has gone tits up... which is another fun euphemism for "completed". . . uh, I mean, "dead."
Thanks for the kind words, Asa. This was one of the last films I chose for "It Came From the 80s!" - and the one that took the longest to research - but I'm really pleased with how the piece came out.
I love Gilliam too, at least up to The Fisher King - but I have still never seen The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which I've been looking forward to seeing for some time, as a fellow Gilliamite has strongly recommended it to me. I often don't watch all the movies by a director as I don't like the feeling that there's no more to see (I still haven't seen Kursawa's Rashomon on these grounds - I would like to see it in the cinema if I can).
I find it oddly comforting that so many of the great fantasy and sci-fi movies of the 1980s failed critically and commercially, as this is a reminder that it is not just today that the self-appointed guardians of culture fail in their roles... 😉
Great piece, Chris! Thanks for this. I'm a Terry Gilliam fan, and a fan too of Tom Stoppard. I used to teach The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I very much admire that film. So much there that relates to our situation as well. It's also known in the film world as a textbook bomb since it did poorly at the box office but cost a fortune to make. Often seems like anything worth doing in a real sense has no value in our present society, and that's a clear sign that our culture has gone tits up... which is another fun euphemism for "completed". . . uh, I mean, "dead."
Thanks for the kind words, Asa. This was one of the last films I chose for "It Came From the 80s!" - and the one that took the longest to research - but I'm really pleased with how the piece came out.
I love Gilliam too, at least up to The Fisher King - but I have still never seen The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which I've been looking forward to seeing for some time, as a fellow Gilliamite has strongly recommended it to me. I often don't watch all the movies by a director as I don't like the feeling that there's no more to see (I still haven't seen Kursawa's Rashomon on these grounds - I would like to see it in the cinema if I can).
I find it oddly comforting that so many of the great fantasy and sci-fi movies of the 1980s failed critically and commercially, as this is a reminder that it is not just today that the self-appointed guardians of culture fail in their roles... 😉
Stay wonderful!
Chris.