August '85 continues with Pee-Wee, John Candy, and some more weird science

That first installment was a beast, right?

Ten movies in one weekend is crazy. And while there's not another weekend quite like it all month, every single weekend in August was busy, and this one was no exception. It was a big weekend for comedy, both from the studios and from smaller distributors as well. While the indie scene wasn't what it would become in the '90s, there were films released by specialty distributors that would play in the two or three smaller theaters in town. I was starting to make the effort to seek out these films and these theaters, even as I was hoping to start working at a multiplex as soon as I turned sixteen.

I was still living in Chattanooga at this point, but I started the month in Memphis, where I was visiting both of my grandmothers. I must have been there at least through the start of this weekend, because I saw My Science Project in Memphis, but I think I must have gone home right at the start of the week. It was Wednesday or Thursday when I finally went to the theater where my friend worked, and I asked him what I should see first, even though I already kind of knew what my priority was. "You have to see Pee-Wee," he told me. "It's amazing." I knew I was going to see at least two films, and one of them would probably be Summer Rental, but his recommendation tipped it for me, and I ended up seeing Pee-Wee twice back-to-back. It was one of the biggest lightning bolt moments of the summer, and this is the same summer that I saw Back to the Future for the first time.

As we continue our running theme this month of movies about "weird science," including last week's Weird Science, there are two this weekend, and one of them is a longtime favorite of mine. I'm excited to dig in, so let's kick it off with a moody little import from the UK...

AUGUST 9

Dance With A Stranger
Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett, Ian Holm, Matthew Carroll, Tom Chadbon, Jane Bertish, David Troughton, Paul Mooney, Stratford Johns, Joanne Whalley, Susan Kyd, Lesley Manville, Sallie Anne Field, David Beale, Martin Murphy, Tracy-Louise Ward, Michael Jenn, Alan Thompson, Nicholas McArdle, Miki Iveria, Lizzie McKenzie, Ian Hurley, Charles Cork, Patrick Field, Colin Rix, Tony Matthews, Charon Bourke, Elizabeth Newell,
cinematography by Peter Hannan
music by Richard Hartley
screenplay by Shelagh Delaney
produced by Roger Randall-Cutler
directed by Mike Newell
Rated R
1 hr 36 mins

A moody, noir-tinged telling of the story of Ruth Ellis, who was hanged for murder in Britain in the ‘50s.

I remember seeing the posters for this one in the theater, and then it never opened near where I lived. That was a frequent phenomenon in the ‘80s, even in a city as large as Tampa, and even with several arthouse multiplex theaters. It’s not that there were no independent films in the ‘80s… it’s just that theaters were more reluctant to book them on mainstream screens. The explosion of indie films in the ‘90s was all about the way they got distributed and how much easier it was to see them. It took me a while to finally track this down on video, but the whole time, I had that poster image in my head. Evocative black and white. Miranda Richardson almost like Marilyn Monroe as the Venus de Milo. It was burned in, and I felt like I had to see the film that went with that image.