Boiling Down the Year’s 405 Movies to Find the Best 12

As far as I can figure on these lists in Sneaks ‘89, if we were serious about going to movies, we would have to see eight movies a week to get them all in.

It’s hard to imagine most of us making the effort, even if the Guinness Book of World Records offered to cover our expenses and “Geraldo” promised to devote a show to us survivors. A brain is a precious thing to waste.

Anyway, the assignment here was to read through the list as if, like the average “heavy” moviegoer, I would only get around to seeing 12 pictures all year. One a month! Based on the available information, filtered through a personal mine field of taste and prejudices, which dozen would emerge?

Not an easy task. We film buffs are like wine lovers, January optimists ready to clean the palate of last year’s swill and engorge our taste buds for the pleasures ahead. “Surely, the ’89 menu will be richer, fuller, better balanced.”

Narrowing the list begins easily enough. You throw out the Thunderbirds, Mogen Davids, Boone’s Farms, everything with screw-on caps and hidden lineage. (What does “a dry red table wine” really tell you?) For me, that means no low-budget action or horror films, no teen comedies with barnyard titles, nothing written or directed by someone with the same last name as the producer, nothing starring Aldo Ray or Bo Derek, and nothing featuring cross-morphic interplanetary forms (i.e., “The Lobster Man From Mars”).

In reading through the year’s encyclopedic menu, the mind must be alert to these key factors:

THE DISTRIBUTOR. If it’s a major studio, you know that the film cost a lot of money, that it was probably shot in focus and that it will have a first-rate sound track (for those profitable album sales). Don’t overlook the independents; some handle very good, very serious movies. (I watch for Cinecom, Atlantic, Goldwyn, Miramax, Alive, Island, New Line and Orion Classics and ignore Crown, Galaxy, Concorde and Troma.) On those films that say “distributor pending,” don’t hold your breath.

THE DIRECTOR. You can’t always trust them (for the filthy lucre, Francis Coppola made “Peggy Sue Got Married,” and Martin Scorsese did “The Color of Money”), but the good ones usually select challenging scripts that play to their stylistic strengths. They also have the reputations to attract the actors they want, and the clout to throw studio intrudniks off the set.

THE STARS. We all have our favorites. I will see--and like--anything starring Jack Nicholson and Steve Martin, and in my mind, I collect Meryl Streep accents and Theresa Russell nude scenes.

THE WRITER: It’s risky to base a decision on the writer’s name, since their scripts are subject to more compromises than a congressional ethics law. You can feel a little more confident when there is one writer’s name attached rather than two (especially, if the solo credit is say, Woody Allen, or Robert Towne), but where there are more than two writers, you’re witnessing a gang rape.

THE PLOT. It’s not fair to judge a movie based on a one- or two-line synopsis. Still, when you read that “Daddy’s Little Girl” stars Tony Danza “as a single dad attempting to survive his teen-age daughter’s transformation from wallflower to knockout,” the list has been reduced by one.

Overall, the films of 1989 reflect the current rethinking in Hollywood, the healthy confusion among production and marketing people attempting to understand their aging film audience. There will be the inevitable hit sequels: “Ghostbusters 2,” “Indiana Jones 3,” “Star Trek 5,” “Fletch 3,” “Lethal Weapon 2” and “James Bond 16.”

But those summer and holiday entries are among the few safe bets on a schedule that will be juggled throughout the year by distributors wrestling over theaters, publicity and advertising time and space. Somewhere between the sure things and the doomed are about 75 films with some element of interest.

It was from that upper-middle class group that I found my must-see dozen for 1989. The urge to include “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” was almost overwhelming.

In alphabetical order:

“The Abyss.” Writer-director James Cameron reteams with wife-producer Gale Anne Hurd (they did “The Terminator” and “Aliens”) in a horror-suspense film set 700 fathoms beneath the sea. Cameron is the best director of sci-fi adventure now at work and this one, about oil drillers who tap into a monster’s ocean-bottom lair, ought to deliver.

“The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.” Terry Gilliam leaves a trail of terrified businessmen behind each film, but he is the most gifted fantasist in a vanishing art, and he takes us places we’ve never been before.

“Batman.” Holy miscasting! Michael Keaton as Batman? Oh, well, Jack Nicholson seems just right as the Joker, and director Tim (“Beetlejuice”) Burton appears to have the right comedic touch for a big screen tribute to the Caped Crusader.

“Blaze.” I love Paul Newman’s Southern accents (I prefer his “Hud” to either his “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” or his “Cool Hand Luke”) and can’t wait to see which one he’ll dust off for his role as Louisiana Gov. Earl Long in this film by Ron (“Bull Durham”) Shelton.

“Eric the Viking.” Terry Jones, the Monty Python trouper who co-directed (with Terry Gilliam) “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” adapted this from a series of stories he wrote for his young son. Word from the set was that it’s verrrry Python, and that’s verrrry good.

“Fat Man and Little Boy.” The liberal conscience movie of ’89 stars Paul Newman as the man who selected A-bomb proponent Robert Oppenheimer and is directed by the talented and historically meticulous Roland Joffe (“The Killing Fields”).

“I Love You to Death.” Lawrence Kasdan films figure to be among the 10 best of any year they appear. His current “Accidental Tourist” won the New York critics’ award as best film. This one stars Kevin Kline, whose comedy performance in “A Fish Called Wanda” was one of the best surprises of 1987.

“Lawrence of Arabia.” They really don’t make movies like this anymore, and if you have only seen it on TV, where two-thirds of the magnificent images are missing, you haven’t seen it. Restored to its original Super Panavision 70 wide-screen glory, with enhanced sound and color.

“Letters.” I like its creative blood lines. Marty Ritt directing Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro from a script by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. (“Norma Rae”).

“New York Stories.” Anthology films rarely work, but Disney improved the odds on this one by hiring America’s top three resident directors--Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola--and gave them creative freedom.

“True Believer.” James Woods is the best big-screen tantrum thrower this side of Jack Nicholson, and as a tough lawyer defending an Asian kid in a murder trial, he figures to throw some beauties. This is also director Joseph Ruben’s first film since the brilliant and inexplicably overlooked psycho-horror film, “The Stepfather.”

“Wired.” Hollywood and John Belushi’s family are said to be very nervous about this surreal dramatization of the talented comedian’s tragic life. Larry Peerce (“The Other Side of the Mountain,” “Country”) was a curious choice as director, but good or bad, it’s bound to be one of year’s most talked-about pictures.

Close contenders: “A Dry White Season” (Marlon Brando’s first film since 1980), “Casualties of War” (Robert De Niro and Ed Harris make a strong entry), “Earth Girls Are Easy” (first film for director Julien Temple since his amazingly stylized “Absolute Beginners”), “Sea of Love” (Al Pacino is back as a sort of calmed-down Serpico), “Born on the 4th of July” (writer-director Oliver Stone is always provocative), “Johnny Handsome” (Walter Hill directs Mickey Rourke), and “Skin Deep” (every other Blake Edwards movie works; his last was “Sunset”).