The Best and Worst of 80's Cinema

                                      Prom Night is an 1980 Canadian slasher (starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielson) about a mysterious killer stalking four teenagers responsible for the death of a child six year earlier. This all takes place on the night of the prom, so the movie can have a killer disco soundtrack.                                   The first time I viewed Prom Night , it was a dismal experience. The reason being that it was a terrible video transfer, so it was damn-near unwatchable, especially the darker-lit scenes. Also, the movie seemed like another run-of-the-mill slasher so it just felt like a lost cause.                                  So I rewatched it, this time on Tubi, and the video qual...

                                      Urban Cowboy is an 1980 drama starring John Travolta as a young rural Texan who moves to the city to find work at an oil refinery. He hangs out at Gilley's, an iconic Texas nightclub, where he meets Sissy (played by Debra Winger) and starts a rocky on-off relationship with her and a tense rivalry with a macho convict bull rider (played by Scott Glenn) .                                     Urban Cowboy  is mildly entertaining in a shallow way, but not a terribly good movie. It has the slick 80's sheen to it: it's got some mechanical bull-riding, it's got some toe-tapping country music, it's got plenty of dancing (you can't have Travolta in your movie and not have him dance; I think that's what Gotti  was missing), it's got good acting (Winger especially)....

                                        Where the Buffalo Roam  is an 1980 comedy about the exploits of journalist Hunter S. Thompson (played by Bill Murray) and his drug-addled attorney Oscar Acosta (played by Peter Boyle; named Carl Laszlo in the film), who was the basis for the character of Dr. Gonzo in Thompson's classic novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . The movie was adapted from Thompson's "obituary" article about Acosta and his 1974 disappearance.                                       The movie was not well-recieved by critics (and hated by Thompson himself), and I can understand why. It's a rather pointless film. It's cobbled together from a few of Thompson's articles but they don't cohere into anything resembling a narrative. The movie is a series of episodes of Thompson r...

                                      Terror Train  is an 1980 slasher film (starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Ben Johnson) about a group of medical students celebrating their graduation by having a party on a train. However, there is a killer on board who kills off the students one by one, disguising himself in his victims' costumes.                                       The Lady Vanishes,  this movie is not. Though not terrible, it lies somewhere in the middle between boring and semi-enjoyable. The boring aspects: the story/plot being overly standard and predictable, the characters typical, the kills uninteresting. The location is ideal for a slasher, with its claustrophobic spaces and unique lighting, but it wasn't enough to suppress the yawns.           ...

                                          The Sea Wolves is an 1980 WWII espionage caper starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Roger Moore. It is based on the true story of the Calcutta Light Horse, a group of British expatriates in India who, having not seen military action since the Boer War, embark on a covert mission to infiltrate a German merchant ship that's sending messages to German U-boats from an Indian harbor that's under Portugal's neutral control.                                           The Sea Wolves  is like watching one of those fluffy old-timers' baseball games: a bunch of old kooks brought out of retirement so they can play one more fun game, as long as they don't exert themselves too much due to their crippling arthritis. The movie is like one big r...

                                    Popeye is an 1980 live-action adaptation of EC Segar's iconic muscle man. Popeye arrives in the coastal town of Sweethaven, searching for his father, Poopdeck Pappy. Along the way, he meets his life-long love interest Olive Oyl and his life-long nemesis, Bluto.                                     Popeye  is......an awkward film, to say the least. For the obvious reasons, of course. Live-action adaptations of cartoons are risky, especially trying to recreate the anatomically ridiculous character designs of many Popeye characters. I mean, you can't really pull off Popeye's balloon-like forearms or the prominent fist-like chin without obvious prosthetics. Nor can you pull off the physics-defying slapstick of the cartoons. I rewatched a few of the old Fleischer shorts a...

                                      Seems Like Old Times  is an 1980 screwball comedy written by legendary playwright Neil Simon. It stars Chevy Chase as a writer who is forced to rob a bank by two criminals and hides out from the authorities at the abode of his ex-wife (played by Goldie Hawn) and her aspiring district attorney husband (played by Charles Grodin).                               Seems Like Old Times is a charming little trifle, though not one of Neil Simon's best works. I adore Neil Simon, a master of comedic dialogue, though he was never strong on structure. The movie is, of course, a farce so it's forgivable but the story lacks thrust so there's times when the movie doesn't seem to go anywhere. Chevy Chase's character just sort of sticks around Goldie Hawn and her house without really doing an...

                                    The Long Riders  is an 1980 western following the exploits of the James-Younger Gang until their separation after the Northfield raid and the death of Jesse James. The movie is distinctive for having real-life brothers portraying the various brothers related to the gang (the Keachs portraying the James's, the Carradines playing the Youngers, the Quaids playing the Millers, and the Guests playing the Fords).  It also was directed by Walter Hill, best known for The Driver  and The Warriors .                                  It's.....okay, I guess. A competently shot Western, has fine acting, has a compelling, gruesome climax in Northfield (with slow-motion straight out of a Peckinpah movie), and....all for what? I don't know what the point of this movie was. The ...

                                              Stardust Memories is Woody Allen's homage/parody to Fellini's 8 1/2 (a meditation on 'director's block'), with Allen starring as a director (somewhat based on himself) who tries to make more artistic films rather than the silly comedies he's known for (somewhat based on Allen's career trajectory, from the silliness of Take the Money and Run  to the more artistically inclined Manhattan ). Along the way, he reflects on his past relationships (somewhat based on EVERY movie Allen's ever made).                                             I never knew what to make of Stardust Memories (I still don't after three attempts). It can be both very funny and admirable for its audacity, but annoying and dull in its naval-gazi...

                                    American Gigolo is an 1980 drama written and directed by Paul Schrader. It stars Richard Gere as an emotionally disconnected male escort in Los Angeles who finds true love in the wife of a senator (played by Lauren Hutton). However, his life is interrupted when he becomes the prime suspect in a murder and tries to clear his name.                                     American Gigolo is shallow, empty, and vacuous. These are obvious adjectives to describe the world of the movie (posh Beverly Hills culture, the Armani suits, the detached sex, the cool posturing of its main character, the slickly produced Blondie song that plays during the opening credits). I mean, that's what Schrader going for, I presume. Under all that superficiality, there's a beating heart somewhere. But...

                                    The Lathe of Heaven  is an 1980 science-fiction TV movie based on Ursula K. Le Guin's novel. It tells the story of George Orr (played by Bruce Davison), a young man who has effective dreams that affect reality. George sees a psychiatrist, Dr. Haber, who wants to harness George's dreams to change the world.                                  I watched this film on a mediocre film transfer that looked grainy and muddy, add to that, obnoxious motion blur. Despite being a popular TV film for a good eight years on PBS, the broadcasting rights expired in 1988 and was shelved by WNET because it's an apparently expensive process to rebroadcast. Now, all we have is this 2000 remaster and they have not cleaned it up or polished it properly. It frankly looks like shit, but whatever. ...

                                        Herbie Goes Bananas  is the fourth film in the Love Bug franchise. This time, Herbie's in Mexico and Brazil, befriending little Mexican orphans, getting into bullfights, and taking down planes by "biting" them with his trunk.                                       This is the first Herbie film I've ever seen so I can't compare this one to the other chapters; but am I to assume that this is the film where Herbie finally goes bananas? Was he relatively normal in previous entries and he finally loses his grip on sanity? This is probably an irrelevant question so let me continue this review.                                       This movie was surprisingly n...

                                    He Knows You're Alone  is an 1980 slasher/perpetual film trivia question about Tom Hanks' first role. It's about a young lady named Amy who is stalked by a serial killer whose M.O. is brides-to-be because he had a lover that left him for another man (she's his first kill). I don't know why it's called He Knows You're Alone.  I think a more accurate title would be  He Knows You're Getting Married Soon.  Something something  Halloween  rip-off, blah blah blah.                                     He Knows You're Alone  is boring and dumb. Boring because the killer and his motivations are revealed in the first five minutes. Boring because the movie spends half its time watching Amy going on her pre-wedding errands (shopping for dresses, han...

                              Out of the Blue is an 1980 drama (directed and starring Dennis Hopper) about a damaged family affected by the aftermath of a tragic accident. Hopper plays the patriarch released from a five-year prison stint after crashing his truck into a school bus full of children. Sharon Farrell plays the unfaithful, heroin-addicted matriarch and Linda Manz as the rebellious but vulnerable daughter.                              I found this movie at my local library, but the DVD was released by a public domain hack distributer called "Passion Productions", with a crappy package cover and poor video quality. It's a shame because the movie is a forgotten gem of 80's cinema.                              It shares the same thematic subjects (aliena...

                                        Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown  is an 1980 animated film and the fourth Peanuts feature-length film (and the last one for 35 years before the recent computer-animated film). Charlie, Linus, Snoopy, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie are part of a student-exchange program and travel to England and France. Charlie is invited to stay at a sinister French chateau by a mysterious girl, leading to a mystery as to why he was invited.                                       My only experience with Peanuts  is A Charlie Brown Christmas (which I watch every year) and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown . The Peanuts animated ventures have remained surprisingly consistent over the years, what with the unpretentiously crude animation style, corny humor, ...

                                          The Last Metro  is an 1980 drama by legendary French New Wave director, Francois Truffaut. The story follows Catherine Deneuve as a theater owner and actress during Nazi occupation in France. While trying to keep the theater's integrity during a time of extreme censorship, Denueve hides her Jewish impresario husband in the theater's cellar and strikes up a relationship with the play's lead actor (played by Gerard Depardieu).                                          I confess that this is my first travail with Truffaut so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's basically a WWII melodrama that reminded me of better films (Deneuve's character seems reminiscent of Rick Blaine from Casablanca  and Melanie Laurent from Inglorious Baster...

                                The Gods Must Be Crazy is a South-African comedy about Xi, the leader of a primitive tribe of Bushmen, who encounters a Coke bottle that falls from the sky. Thinking it evil, Xi travels across the Kalahari Desert to the "end of the world" to rid his tribe of the bottle. Along the way, he encounters violent guerrillas, a schoolteacher, a dung expert, and many other wacky characters along the way.                                 I guess you could call this movie a mash-up of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and  Koyannisqatsi (peaceful primitive farming life brought up against ridiculous, mind-numbing modern life). Was it a mash-up that anyone wanted? I don't know. Critics seemed to like it. For the life of me, I don't know why.                   ...