Kuukausi: helmikuu 2019

#1017 My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1987)

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A spinoff of the teenage werewolf subgenre, My Best Friend Is a Vampire, an underdog of a horror comedy is one pleasant surprise.

The movie gets the mood right straight off the bat. Young Robert Sean Leonard – who’s only 17 at the time – makes for a perfect foundation for the timid teen undergoing the change of a lifetime.

Sure, it’s all done before, but My Best Friend Is a Vampire manages to find the tone of voice of its own, offering an entertaining little adventure that doesn’t just settle for recreating the most obvious clichés of the genre.

80s-o-meter: 91%

Total: 85%

#1016 Sunset (1988)

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Second cooperation between the director Blake Edwards and the up and Bruce Willis (the first one being a failure of a comedy called Blind Date) Sunset is a modern Hollywood take of a crime story taking place in the classic Hollywood of the late 1920s.

Willis shows a lot of the same onscreen magnetism that made him a superstar later in the same year with the release of Die Hard, and fits well to the part of a fancy pants silent era western star. James Garner also plays the role of the aged Wyatt Earp with a similar charism and his presence on the screen is always a pleasure to follow. And that’s pretty much all the movie has going for it.

Despite all the action the movie just doesn’t have the momentum to keep things interesting enough and I did notice I had to struggle a little to keep up the interest, and Sunset is ultimately kept afloat solely by its above average cast.

80s-o-meter: 59%

Total: 61%

#1015 Young Doctors in Love (1982)

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A crazy comedy no doubt inspired by the iconic Airplane, Young Doctors in Love many cues from its paragon, but doesn’t really measure up to enough for any further comparison.

The usual problem with crazy comedies – making an attempt for a joke all the time and at all the cost – easily makes the plot and the events in the movie feel trivial. This is very much the case with Young Doctors in Love as well, and I noticed getting somewhat indifferent about the events and characters in the movie.

Young Doctors in Love is not a total dud, but I have this nagging feeling that the movie could’ve worked better as a more traditional comedy – with a bit less crazy in it.

80s-o-meter: 71%

Total: 50%

#1014 Big Top Pee-wee (1988)

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While Pee-wee’s Big Adventure made a good effort in taking an remarkably insignificant event and making it an amazingly big adventure, Big Top Pee-wee tackles somewhat bigger things, but ends up a more insignificant movie.

Like with the original I really can’t tell who this movie is made for. Its lush and colourful scenes seem perfect for a kiddies movie, but many of the themes presented here really aren’t suitable for the young ones, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable watching the movie with my offspring. All in all it feels like an episode of Teletubbies edited some Youtuber who added some raunchier elements to the mix.

Big Top Pee-wee is an easy-to-watch, easy-to-forget movie that, unlike the original, leaves absolutely no lasting appeal.

80s-o-meter: 84%

Total: 47%

#1013 Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985)

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It was only now during my second time watching the movie that I realised how much Spongebob Squarepants (and his movie) owe to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

I never was big fan of the lead who seems mostly annoying most of the time and rarely likeable. In fact, he always seems the weakest link in an otherwise above average movie. Although the premise with the character is finding your inner child and overcoming problems with sheer stupid luck, there’s just something very dark and heinous about him.

A Tim Burton’s directorial feature debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is colorful and technically well made movie, but a very hard one to to recommend to anyone since I’m not quite sure to whom it is aimed for. In the end, being something of a catalyst and a paragon for Spongebob might just be the movie’s best asset.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 59%

#1012 Meatballs Part II (1984)

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The 1979 Meatballs movie starring one Bill Murray started a wave of summer camp comedies over the following years and in this sense Meatballs Part II was sort of a latecomer to its own party. Rebranded to an official sequel from a title that was originally going to be just another Meatballs ripoff, it’s clear that part II should’ve just been released as a separate movie.

Pretty much everything the movie introduces to the old mix is for the worse, aliens and flying pugilists to name a few. Otherwise the movie sticks to the worn out formula or horny elder teens and younger clueless kids on a camp, with some pranks thrown in – and does it all in a much less interesting way than the competition.

What it comes to goofy comedies, there’s certainly good kind of stupidity and the bad kind. While its predecessor and even its successor both manage to find the right balance, Meatballs Part II just goes badly south.

80s-o-meter: 84%

Total: 31%

#1011 Wheels of Fire (1985)

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Six years after the first Mad Max movie started the post-apocalyptic wasteland craze, Wheels of Fire finally joins the party as a latecomer pretty much at the following day when the host is already done cleaning up the pool.

But it’s ok to come in late if you bring something new to the table, right? Unfortunately in Wheels of Fire’s case the movie feels exceptionally void of any innovation as it seems to follow the very same route set by other ripoffs. In fact, Wheels of Fire might be closest one to original Mad Max series – and this is not a compliment, believe me.

Driving around the desert with the 80s cars, wearing hockey elbow pads spray painted to black and shooting useless weirdly modded weapons has always represented the lowest form of scifi to me, and Wheels of Fire serves as a prime example why.

80s-o-meter: 76%

Total: 13%

#1010 Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988)

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Made a whopping seven years after the original, Arthur 2: On the Rocks picks up remarkably well from where the first movie left off, looking like it was shot pretty much back to back with the original.

Four years in the movie time have passed and Arthur and Linda are enjoying the life of the filthy rich. After their decision to adopt a child the dark clouds start to gather as Arthur’s old arch enemy Burt Johnson appears out of the blue and strips the couple out of every penny they have in a hostile business deal.

As a movie the sequel is much less tight than the original, especially including the final payoff, but on the other many of the jokes themselves are much to my surprise actually funnier. And the side plot of clueless butler Fairchild trying to grow into the shoes of his predecessor is smartly written and offers some of the most genuinely heartwarming moments of the movie.

But most importantly for the fans of the original: The once-in-a-lifetime chemistry between the two leads is still most definitely there.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 85%

#1009 Arthur (1981)

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Watching Arthur, one of the most renowned comedies of the 80s after many years has been a mixed bag.

One of my favourite aspects of the original, the endless wisecracking between the drunk Arthur and his butler Hobson actually got old pretty fast this time around. But to my delight I found myself enjoying some of the other aspects of the movie I’d never noticed before, like Linda’s old man who at times seems to be the one most emotionally moved by the rocky relationship of the two lovebirds.

Despite all this the movie is still a delight to watch. Dudley Moore’s and Liza Minnelli’s witty, but genuine chemistry is one of the most delightful ones of the decade and very much the glue that still holds the movie firmly together.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 84%

#1008 Irreconcilable Differences (1984)

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As soon as Irreconcilable Differences opened up with the young Drew Barrymore hiring an attorney to sue her parents, I collapsed mentally as I really wasn’t in a mood for yet another smart kid, stupid adults movie.

But Irreconcilable Differences is actually very little about precocious kids, and more about the love relation of the parents, demanding careers and how all that reflects to the family unit. And it isn’t kids movie at all, blissfully.

Watching Ryan O’Neal and Shelley Long continuously clash together only to drift apart puts the viewer successfully to the position of the daughter forced to witness this endless tug of war throughout the years. And much like that child we also feel like shouting from to top of our lungs, just to make it stop.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 73%

#1007 Working Girl (1988)

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I don’t know how I’d managed to avoid Working Girl for so long. My guess it that I somehow got the movie mixed up with Blind Date, the stinker of a romantic comedy that featured the hottest names in the Hollywood.

Mind you, this movie is nothing like the Blind Date. Starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith the movie is a triumph especially for Griffith who plays the underdog of a business woman to such a perfection that us viewers can’t help but compassionate with her, and we really want to see her getting the lucky break she’s long time due for.

Romantic comedies can notoriously be sort of an agony for us men, but in the few special cases like Working Girl, they’re just plain old good movies first, and romantic comedies just on top of that.

80s-o-meter: 95%

Total: 93%

#1006 She’s Out of Control (1989)

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A middle-aged family man panics as her daughter starts dating young men in She’s Out of Control, a comedy with very little laughs to spare.

Playing with the safest hand possible, everything from the ugly duckling to the queen storyline to the scenes of the overprotective father controlling the life of his firstborn that the movie has to offer have that definite lowest common denominator vibe written all over them, and the plot does little to nothing to shake off that predictability.

She’s Out of Control is downright dull, witty as a sitcom take on an interesting subject many of us family men could’ve really find relatable.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 47%

#1005 Missing Link (1988)

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Missing Link depicts the journey of the last of his kind ape man through the landscape of the Africa after the ancestors of the modern man have murdered his tribe and his family.

The most of obvious problem here is that there’s not really enough stuff here for a feature length movie; the kindness and the tragic loss of the man ape are established right in the very first minutes to the film, and most of the actual run time of the movie is nothing more but a nature documentary with scenes of the missing link cut in.

But, there’s a certain power to the story and as the kind ape man finally makes his way to the oceanfront I did take a guilt trip on behalf of the violent mankind that caused the extinction of the missing link – whether true or not. Like Koyaanisqatsi, Missing Link is more of an experience than a movie and as such, it felt like a refreshingly different one.

80s-o-meter: 0%

Total: 64%

#1004 Grease 2 (1982)

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Grease 2, the sequel for the original 1978 runaway musical hit starring John Travolta was a critical and a box office failure. Oh boy, I thought as I pressed the play on my remote, assured I was facing a torture even worse than having to watch through the original.

Pessimism be blessed, as the experience didn’t turn out to be nearly as bad as I’d anticipated. The movie is inept – that’s given – but it all seems to have been done in a good humour with a fair amount of tongue in cheek. Grease 2 does a remarkably bad work at establishing the early 60s setting and the movie never seizes to feel like 80s kids doing a cosplay of the former era.

Personally I count this only as a definitely plus for the movie.

80s-o-meter: 41%

Total: 48%

#1003 City Heat (1984)

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What was it with the obsession with the 1940s gangster movies? City Heat is another movie to join the club with Harlem Nights, Hammett, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Cotton Club, Johnny Dangerously and many, many others in this seemingly pointless exercise of taking a hard boiled classic crime story and recreating it in color.

Sure, I get it. These are the movies that generation lived up with and they want to pay a homage to the bygone era, and possibly get a spark of that old movie magic along with it. But the movies often rely too heavily on just the atmosphere with a paper thin plot, and if told in contemporary setting just wouldn’t fly at all. So is the case with City Heat as well.

On top the 1940s visuals the movie relies heavily on the personal charism of the two major leads, Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood, but the chemistry is just anywhere to be found. To save your time, just watch through the last minute of the movie and you get a thorough overview of what the movie has to offer.

80s-o-meter: 21%

Total: 17%

#1002 Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982)

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Obnoxious teen with an obnoxious band goes on tour with with an english punk band with an annoying lead singer in Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, a mouthful of a movie.

On top of the unpleasant cast, the movie offers very little to like. Plot is all over the place and the smallest hopes of some human interest story are never actually followed through.

As the musical numbers are nothing to phone to home about and both the turning point the movie as well as the denouement are amongst the most inane I’ve ever had to witness, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains ends up a movie I won’t be revisiting anytime soon.

80s-o-meter: 82%

Total: 22%

#1001 Mannequin (1987)

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If a shopping mall doll coming to life as a real life woman sounds a bit far fetched, no worries; Mannequin has the back story covered from the get go as she’s helped by the Egyptian gods to escape an arranged marriage.

While its kind of a mess as a movie, its kind dodgy storyline, overacting and sheer stupidity become somewhat easier to stomach once you accept that you are actually watching a farce – or a modern fairytale – instead of your typical comedy. With this mindset even the nocturnal musical number inside the shopping mall gets not only tolerable, but actually pretty delightful.

The leads Andrew McCarthy and Kim Cattrall pull through the nonsense with charm. On the other hand James Spader’s overacting as the shopping mall manager is really taxing to watch and the comedic talent of G. W. Bailey is wasted in the dimwit night watchman role written very much in the vein of his Police Academy Lt Harris – minus the funny.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 60%