I Will Watch EVERY 80s Movie Ever Made!: Catching Up Pt 3

The massive hit film of 1985 (8th highest grossing, just behind films like Witness, Cocoon, and Rocky IV), this perennial favorite is always worth watching - although the older I get, the more I find the first twenty minutes or so tend to drag. Great cast, standouts everywhere, along with great direction (Richard Donner) and great script (Spielberg). Hard to say anything new about this one, although I will comment that Ke Huy Quan ("Data" here and "Short Round" in Temple of Doom a couple years later) really should have made a lot more movies. Highly recommended.

This is a real gem, and was a major smash success - 5th highest grossing movie of 1983, behind only Trading Places, Flashdance, Tootsie, and Return of the Jedi. That's serious clout, right there. Matthew Broderick (in my favorite role of his) is a young nerd who uses his computer to impress a girl (best use of computer). He hacks a local military installation, discovers "games" on the server, and attempts to play. His "game" starts a very real nuclear war simulation exercise that gets increasingly real, and the rest of the movie is about trying to convince the computer it's all a game after all. Really tight script, compelling plot, very few awkward moments, and most of all - it's exciting. Lots of chases and escapes and ingenuity. Highly worth seeing, especially for the window into the Cold War mentality of the early '80s, which I vividly remember. Fantastic cast.

Second time I've reviewed this: A personal favorite of mine, this is a crazy movie that could only have come out in the '80s - a long haul trucker dad (Stallone) who is also a professional arm wrestler (!) suddenly gains custody of his estranged young son (!!) and must learn to be a father while simultaneously avoiding the boy's sleazy rich grandfather AND making his way to Vegas for the arm wrestling championships(!!!). It's insane, and glorious. Nothing makes any sense, but it hardly matters - the movie has a lot of heart and soul, and Stallone has a lot of chemistry with the kid. Plus it's just *interesting* to watch professional arm wrestlers ply their trade - a real window into a little-seen world. This might be wacky and have a few cliched scenes you can see coming a mile away, but it's still really worth it. A real '80s time capsule.

A cult classic that leaves me cold at the end. Peter Weller is the titular Buckaroo Banzai, a kind of master-of-all-trades scientist/car racer/adventurer/agent/guy. He has to stop evil interdimensional beings from destroying/taking over, etc. The real standout here is Jeff Goldblum, who is solid gold and steals all his scenes. I can't love this movie, but I recognize all the qualities that make it an underground favorite - it's extremely quirky, intelligent, and there is little else like it, especially at the time. Worth investigating.

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would - it's very meta, and plays with genre conventions in a fairly novel way. The premise is that a group of filmmakers return to film a documentary/reenactment at a high school where a massacre happened in the recent past. Except now the killer begins killing off the actors! Meanwhile, there is a lot of commentary about '80s teen horror movies, with a seriously unexpected twist ending (which is actually two or three twists in one). It's not great, by any means, but it's a cut above most of the teen horror dross you find in the '80s. Worth checking out. Also, a young George Clooney is the first to die (!).

I Will Watch EVERY 80s Movie Ever Made!