Star 80 - 1983

Oops! Forgot to include the trailer.

Eric Roberts was incredible in that movie, among the greatest performances of the 1980s.

Looking back now, funny that when the movie came out, nobody had yet heard of Julia Roberts.

Totally agree R2

Is it worth watching? I have never seen it and am surprised to hear it was directed by Fosse; seems so random...

Hugh Hefner even stated that Eric Roberts nailed Paul Snider.,,, and Hef hated the movie!

R5 Absolutely!

I remember Siskel & Ebert giving it a rave, so not everyone disliked it. Might have even made their Top 10 lists.

Mariel probably had to put out to Fosse to get the role.

The real Dorothy...

r9 she said he tried to sleep with her but she declined. He told her "But I sleep with all my leading ladies!"

I agree that Eric was absolutely brilliant. A chilling performance, devastating. How he was not nominated for an Oscar is a shame. I guess the grim nature of the story was too much.

Roger Ebert's review is very good.

If I'm not mistaken Mariel got implants specifically for this role.

Runner-up to Hemingway was Daryl Hannah. If you watch clips of the real Dorothy Stratten, Mariel Hemingway looks nothing like her. But Hannah definitely could have pulled it off.

It is actually a masterpiece in my opinion. Not fun to watch by any means, but technically very well done.

Dark, lurid, and hopeless. Stunningly shot. Eric Roberts brings a darkness and hopelessness to it that makes it like no film I have ever seen.

It's so menacing. It's almost a satire.

Its very DePalma-ish as well.

sad, heartbreaking movie with an unforgettable Eric Roberts. Too dark to get its deserved accolades.

I've told this before but since we are on the subject...............I was once sitting in a Broadway theater and an elderly woman and her pretty daughter sat next to me. The woman kept yammering on about her three houses she owns. Then the daughter got up to go somewhere and the woman started unloading about how she's so upset because her daughter is married to a much older man. Then the daughter and Peter Bogdanovitch came in and sat with the woman. I then realized that the daughter was Dorothy's sister whom Bogdanovitch married and the mother was the woman Carol Baker played in this film.

So then I was interested in her yammering.

I loved it. But I didn't see it until years later on VHS. I didn't get a VCR until 1988.

R16, three houses? Poor Bogdanovtich is living in a townhome w his mother in law!

Really, R18?!? As in, currently?

Is it currently on any streaming platform (with subscription, like HBO)? Or are you guys renting it or do you own the DVD?

$2.99 on Amazon, r20.

Okay, thanks, R21!

R16 and I think I've read it every time you've posted it. But it's a great story!

Brilliant sequence. Kind of surprising the movie didn't at least get a nomination for Best Editing.

I love this movie. First saw it in 1993, while in college. Just achingly beautiful.

Mariel Hemmingway described Fosse literally chasing her around his desk like in an old movie saying the stuff about how he has slept with all his leading ladies and she'd break the streak. Andrew Lloyd Weber outed Fosse and Liza as sleeping together in his recent bio.

She did have breast implants for the movie. It was her idea. After her first auditions the word was that they thought she was too athletic looking and not big breasted enough since that was Playboy's big thing. (so to speak.)

She went out and got the implants and had them for her second audition.

I think Darryl Hannah might have been a better choice. Hemmigway was sort of quirky and not the bland beauty Stratten was. Hannah was blander.

Here's an odd video of Stratten dancing with the Village People with Patty Hearst watching. Jenna from the Real Housewives of Orange County is one of the other playmates. (and then Bruce Jenner jumps up onstage to dance towards the end but is hard to see.) What an odd group.

Some DL thread from a few months ago about a recent Bogdanovich interview and the magazine article referenced his living in a townhouse with his MIL. Also he lived w Tarantino for a bit. He sounded homeless. Will sort of but certainly he was no longer wealthy.

Yeah- after watching that video, I think Hannah might have been a better choice.

But for me, the movie has settled very well and I love it just as it is!

R10- She was gorgeous.

Anybody recall the tv movie that preceded Star 80? Death of a Centerfold. It starred Jaime Lee Curtis. It was decent by MOW standards, and she was good, but way too hard looking. Practically no resemblance at all to Stratten.

If made today, I think Margo Robbie would be the closest choice.

[quote]What an odd group.

What's odd about it?

I love that movie.

Dianne Kay ("Eight is Enough") would have been the perfect Dorothy Stratten for Star 80 - 1983.

R33 - If she gained a bit of weight.

R16. That woman really has quite a story to tell. She's living an average, uneventful life in small town, Vancouver. One daughter is snatched, becomes famous by being Playboy Playmate of the year, then tv and movies, then becomes even more famous as the unfortunate victim in a grisly, horrible crime. Her second daughter then hooks up with the famous director who was grooming her first daughter, and..... I'd read that book!

I think Star 80 is just too uncomfortable even almost 40 years later. The grim nature of Dorothy's death, but also the lead-up to her death, of three men basically using her, objectifying her, trying to own her.

R36, The story is hopelessly lurid.

I like the film on the "film making merits". Cinematography, lighting, production, performances.

Technically well made with a story that is completely depressing and off putting.

It always reminds me of Boogie Nights (or vice versa) yet Boogie Nights is much more fun to watch.

In fact, the production and the direction of the film is also lurid, depressing, and off putting. The most lurid of all is Robert's indelible performance.

It's an accurate telling of the story. The bad reviews seems to be just about it being so lurid, but the truth of it was lurid. I don't know what other people were expecting, but there's nothing wrong with Star 80, imo.

Boogie Nights has a somewhat happy ending: Everybody is still doing porn, but they've created a quirky family and accepted their lot in life. Nobody we like gets shot. Way less depressing than John Holmes' real life.

Imagine if at the end of Boogie Nights, Dirk dies of AIDS. That would have put it on a par with Star 80 in terms of depressing tabloid drama.

Fosse also made the movie too quickly. It came out only 3 years after Dorothy died. The public wasn't ready to hear that story yet.

Interesting commentary.

I think this film and Looking for Mr. Goodbar are two of the most unforgettable films - grim, dark, violent, visuals that are ingrained into your psyche.

DEFINITELY worth watching. I own the DVD. Very eerie, dark, sad film. Eric Roberts is incredible in this. His best work hands down. Chilling. Mariel is so badly miscast. Totally wrong. It always bothered me. I actually remember thinking why didn't they use Daryl Hannah and now hearing that she was runner up! And they didn't choose her! Dumb. She would have been perfect. Mariel is ok looking. But those implants were gross and her big ass shoulders, NO. She was all wrong for Dorothy. Dorothy was GORGEOUS with a natural full curvy body and great hair.

It's a great movie, I appreciated it when I was younger. But, when you reach a certain age you start to think life is too short to spend on flms that are such bummers.

Why'd the Peter Bogdanovitch based character have a pseudonym?

wow Linklater is really articulate and interesting

Mariel says of Fosse: "He was nice, but he was obsessive. His focus was pointed and without wavering. He was extraordinary that way and was so admirable in my opinion. He didn’t want me for ‘Star 80’ for the longest time. We shared the same agent. Sam Cohn, who kept saying ‘Mariel is obsessed with this role. She really wants to read for her.’ He’s like, ‘She’s too tomboyish. She this. She’s that.’

“Then I went in and read for him and he was like, ‘Oh you get it.’ I probably learned more from Bob than anybody I ever worked with about process, about creating a character based on really diving deep and of becoming — without being a method actor — the character in the moments that you’re doing it.

“He was a challenging person. He was really kind, but he would get frustrated and he would get angry. Not at you, but you could tell he was angry inside and he didn’t know what to do with it. So there were moments where you were cautious because he was grappling with something.

“We became very close friends during the process of making the film, which I think you can only do with somebody you’re working intimately with. He was one of the great artists.”

Hemmingway was a much bigger star and an Oscar nominee at this time. Darryl Hannah had really only done Blade Runner and some other low profile stuff. Odd though how a year later Hannah would break through with Reckless and Splash but Linklater says above that Hemmigway's career suffered when the film flopped.

R49, Hemingway only has one "m."

Eric Roberts is brilliant as Snyder, but because of that, he and therefore the film are hard to watch. The scene where he's practicing introducing himself into a mirror? Holy shit, just makes me want to find a hole to crawl into.

Hemingway was horribly miscast. Dorothy had a lovely softness to her. Hemingway looked like a tranny.

^^^YES. That's why I think she's lying about sleeping with Fosse. She looked like a damn linebacker with a bad boob job and a face like a bird. Her performance came across as retarded to me. Jamie Lee Curtis in the TV version is a joke too. Look at the real Dorothy Stratton. Come on.

Trailer to the quickie TV Movie version (rushed to the TV screens to be first before Star 80)

With Jamie Lee Curtis as Dorothy Stratten

^^^Hahaha!

Jesus, the Jamie Lee Curtis thing looks horrible. And it's got Robert Reed, a sure sign of a flop!

Jamie Lee Curtis shot that film the day after she finished her last day shooting Halloween II

I thought Hemingway was fine in Star 80. She's a much better actress than Daryl Hannah.

I agree R58. I don't get the criticism for her.

I found her extremely sympathetic in a VERY unsympathetic picture.