Time and again guys with abusive tendencies have seemingly tried to immolate themselves — almost trying to taunt #MeToo women as an exercise in self-destruction. Please vent about my appalling sexual behavior on social media…please! This is how I want to die.

I’m fairly certain this famous Pauline Kael quote is from her New Yorker review of Barry Levinson’s Diner (‘82), although it could’ve been sparked by a scene in Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat (‘81) in which Rourke, initially glimpsed lip-synching to Bob Seger’s “Feel Like A Number”, played a soft-voiced, settled-down felon who’d begun to think twice about…everything.

Rourke seemed to be in a state of charmed, almost magical ascendancy back then. I could go on and on about what happened or didn’t happen, but the glow had begun to fade by the late ‘80s. His last truly alluring performance that decade was in Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (‘87). Then came the early ’90s and boxing.

How deep of a cultural imprint was left by the standout films of 1986? How many were really and truly worth the candle, or are remembered with genuine affection or excitement?

A little while ago I kicked this topic around with Sydney-based movie hound Nathan Laird, who is quite the whipsmart gabber. It’s loading as we speak — maybe it’ll post by midnight. Or by 9 am tomorrow…who knows?

HE’s top 28 films of 1986, and not necessarily in this order:

(1) Oliver Stone‘s Platoon, (2) James Cameron‘s Aliens, (3) Oliver Stone‘s Salvador, (4) David Lynch‘s Blue Velvet (5) Jonathan Demme‘s Something Wild, (6) Michael Mann‘s Manhunter, (7) Neil Jordan‘s Mona Lisa, (8) Woody Allen‘s Hannah and Her Sisters, (9) David Cronenberg’s The Fly, (10) Jim Jarmusch‘s Down By Law, (11) Mike Nichols‘ Heartburn, (12) James Ivory‘s A Room with a View, (13) Jean-Jacques Beineix‘s Betty Blue, (14) Roland Joffe‘s The Mission, (15) Claude Berri‘s Manon of the Spring, (16) Tony Scott‘s Top Gun, (17) Spike Lee‘s She’s Gotta Have It, (18) Fons Rademakers‘ The Assault, (19) David Zucker‘s Ruthless People, (20) Paul Mazursky‘s Down and Out in Beverly Hills, (21) John Hughes‘ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, (22) Adrien Lyne‘s 9 1/2 Weeks, (23) Hal Ashby‘s 8 Million Ways to Die, (24) Randa Haines‘ Children of a Lesser God, (25) Martin Scorsese‘s The Color of Money, (26) David Anspaugh‘s Hoosiers, (27) Sidney Lumet‘s The Morning After, (28) Bruce Beresford‘s Crimes of the Heart.

According to World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, Eric Roth recently dumped on….sorry, recently confessed to having genuine feelings of disappointment about Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon. Naked honesty! Clear light!

Roth: “Leonardo was concerned that it would be too much of a great white hope story, so he decided to play the other part which is fine…except I had already written five years worth of scripts [based on David Grann’s novel).. I have some mixed feelings about the movie…not, uhm, I love the movie all and all, Marty made an incredibly sorrowful and accurate portrayal of what we did to these people and the greed. I think it’s a very important movie. I just wish it had more entertainment. I love Tom White, the [originally conceived] main character who Jesse Plemons ended up playing. I wish we had more of him.”

“All Hail Tom White, Taciturn Hero of Killers of the Flower Moon”, posted on 1.20.24:

Here’s how I put it to a screenwriter pally a couple of hours ago: “My God, what a truly compelling and fascinating film Killers of thge Flower Moon could have been. Hats off to Roth for some wonderful writing, sublime tension, terrific structure. It really lives and breathes!

“And what a great, soft-spoken, drillbit character Tom White is! His laconic, man-of-the-prairie dialogue is so spare and true and eloquent.

“If only John Sturges had directed this screenplay in his prime! Or Oliver Stone in the ’80s or Michael Mann, Chris Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson…Sam Peckinpah even.

“If only Marty and Leo hadn’t lost their nerve…if only they hadn’t been so scared of provoking the wokesters and suffering their ferocious wrath, i.e., “We’re done with white heroes! Only racists-at-heart would tell such a tale! And fuck David Grann!”

“My head was completely turned around by reading this, and Roth wasn’t even afraid of including racist cracker dialogue from time to time. (Brave.) And Mollie Burkhart actually conveys a certain gratitude (i.e., a slight smile) to White at the very end. I don’t know if Lily Gladstone even read this version of the script, but if so she almost certainly would’ve hated it.

“I wish I had read this six or seven years ago. It would have clarified a lot of things. Roth and Scorsese went with a woke version of Grann’s tale, of course, but in the early stages Roth truly did himself proud.”

If you weren’t much of a fan of Killers of the Flower Moon or even if you were, please read this early Roth draft — it’s a revelation.