Movie Mezzannine‘s Sam Fragoso has polled several critics and posted several lists pondering the ten best films of the 1980s. What wankery. You can’t pick ten effing films to represent the cream of the crop of an entire decade. It has to be least 30 or 40. Here’s Hollywood Elsewhere’s picks, a blend of the best, the most significant, the most enjoyable and and the most influential. I’ve settled on 47.

Warning: It is the respectful opinion of this columnist that anyone who picks Brian DePalma‘s Blow Out as one of the great ’80s films either (a) has a serious aesthetic perception problem or (b) is being intentionally perverse. I tried watching the Criterion Bluray and I couldn’t get past the first 45 minutes or so.

Notice that Josh Brolin is crawling out of a trunk, not a coffin. You know what I see in this? I’ll tell you what I see in this. I see an obvious resemblance to the attitude and stylings of Park Chan-wook, who directed the original Oldboy as well as the loathsome Stoker, and that scares the shit out of me. I see a nod to 1920s German expressionism and to a late 1960s R. Crumb drawing of Weasel J. Weisenheimer, the neighborhood drug dealer. Either way I see high style and black humor. Please, Spike…please turn down the Chan-wook. You’re better than that.

If Fred Maalox of Gainesville, Florida…sorry, if Fred Maalox’s 19 year-old son who’s going to film school had shot this and if everyone in the Hollywood blogosphere was somehow persuaded to watch it, 98% of them would say “this?…what?…whaddaya want from me?” But because it’s from Jean Luc Godard‘s Goodbye To Language, a 3D film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, and because it’s the great Godard, who arguably peaked in the late ’60s but kept plugging and is still at it at age 82, everyone is respectful and “interested.” Does it feel like a Godard film? Yeah, kinda…but so? I’m not saying it’s a wank, but it could be.

I’m head over heels in love with the idea of Guillermo del Toro directing a new version of Kurt Vonnegut‘s Slaughterhouse Five with a script by Charlie Kaufman. The presumption is that GDT would direct in his adult mode — i.e., not overshooting and just letting the material stand on its own, as George Roy Hill did for his 1972 version. GDT has worked out an adult take on the material “that is perfect for it,” my excellent source says. GDT is pushing Universal to belly up and pay Kaufman to bang the script out, but Uni won’t pay CK’s fee unless GDK assures that Slaughterhouse Five will be shot within 12 months.

I’m not feeling the energy to write a full-on review of Guillermo del Toro‘s Pacific Rim (Warner Bros., 7.12) because I felt…well, a form of admiration mixed with a growing fatigue and disconnect when I saw it a couple of weeks ago, and I just can’t get it up today, man. No more than I could write an Architectural Digest review of a huge 75-story office building in midtown Manhattan. I admire the obvious fact that this Jaeger vs. Kaiju (i.e., super robots vs. supersized amphibious monsters) flick was made with heart and steel balls and technical mastery second to none. A lifelong believer in monster realms, GDT presided over every last detail of this gargantuan enterprise, delegating nothing and working his ass off 18/7 and delivering, in the end, a visitation that feels relatively fresh, imaginative and (as far as it goes) non-derivative. And it’s very briskly edited.

18 and 1/2 years ago L.M. Kit Carson‘s Direction Man, a five-minute short starring the immortal “Larry Williams,” played at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. I saw it at the Egyptian toward the end of the festival, and came to the immediate conclusion that it was one of the funniest found-footage shorts ever shot, made or shown. Ignore the poor video quality — the material and personality are what count. All I know is that there’s very little likelihood of anyone running into a Larry Williams today with smartphone GPS and whatnot. In my mind Williams is a legend, a kind of genius, a jazzman. And nobody knows where he is today, or so I’ve been told.

In a 7.6 piece about Hollywood’s mania for franchise blockbusters, Vulture‘s Gilbert Cruz notes that would-be tentpoles based on old-shoe brands (The Lone Ranger, John Carter, The Green Hornet, The Shadow, The Phantom) have all flopped. Which has had no apparent effect as zombie studio execs only care about market pre-awareness, even if it’s the “who gives a hoot about a decades-old comic book or radio show?” kind. Give Pacific Rim this much — at least it’s an original.

I riffed on this Carnal Knowledge argument scene two and a half years ago. I return to it every so often. How would today’s Man of Steel fans respond to a scene like this? Why can’t more filmmakers try for this kind of thing more often? I know, I know…Richard Linklater came close in the big Before Midnight argument scene. Ann-Margret‘s portrayal of Bobbie-the-alleged-ballbuster delivered in a way that was aching, vulnerable, pathetic. “All hail Mike Nichols for making this scene work as well as it does, and for generally hitting the film out of the park,” I wrote. (Effing WordPress embed links not working again.)

Nat Faxon and Jim Rash‘s The Way, Way Back (Fox Searchlight, 7.5) is as good as nearly everyone has been saying so far. Not so much a coming-of-age drama as a Tale of Two Dads, it boasts on-target performances (particularly from the great Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney), a relaxed and confident freshness (even though the dysfuctional-family-on-vacation setup is familiar as hell) and a first-rate script — smart, adult, layered, zingy. There’s just one problem — one significant thing that doesn’t happen. And it’s a killer.

Liam James (an interesting if overly recessive actor) is 14 year-old Duncan, whose life is frequently made miserable by Trent (Steve Carell), the bullying asshole boyfriend of his mother (Toni Collette). The irony is that Trent is on Duncan’s case for being a hider and an avoider, which is precisely the kid’s problem. Trent earns his dick badge because he thinks he can harass the poor kid into waking up. (He’s a diluted and more personable version of Robert De Niro‘s asshole in A Boy’s Life.). On top of which he’s a bit of a philanderer. Was Trent a warm-up exercise for Carell before he played a much darker role in Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher? Or was it a followup?

I’m starting on a list of “troubled” women characters (lead or supporting) with a certain mesmerizing duality — beautiful and classy in public and yet susceptible to black-dog mood pockets at the drop of a hat, and yet blazing and snap-crackling and radiating a vibe that drives straight men and lesbians to madness. And they know it. The trick is trying to think of one who hasn’t been featured in a Woody Allen film. Charlotte Rampling in Stardust Memories, Diane Keaton in Manhattan, Juliette Lewis in Husbands and Wives. Let me think…uhhm, Bette Davis in All About Eve. And…give me a minute.