Kategoria: 1983

#1799 Stuck on You! (1983)

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After suffering though Waitress! I thought I might as well look into the other Trauma sex comedies of the early 80s, and Stuck on You! comes definitely from the same assembly line, even including the exclamation mark in the title.

If there was no plot to speak about in Waitress!, here the whole concept is even looser, consisting of a divorcing young couple talking to a judge who takes them back to the totally unrelated totally crazy historical elements a bit like in Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I. There’s fart and belching jokes aplenty, few tits, and that’s pretty much about it.

The whole thing is a failure, and already in the first 15 minutes I ended up hating the movie, wishing it had never seen the light of the day.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 4%

#1781 Going Berserk (1983)

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This year we’ve witnessed the big breakthrough artificial intelligence breakthrough, and no doubt soon it will be easy to prompt any actor do you whatever you like, and to eventually even ask AI to manuscript and play a movie from 80s that never existed.

Going Berserk feels like an early AI attempt to produce a comedy, but getting most aspects all wrong; the humour is not funny, plot does not really connect and feels more like a multiple unrelated segment, and actors like John Candy and Eugene Levy look familiar, but the result feels badly out of character or residing in a wrong movie. It is especially painful to see Candy delivering one unfunny line after another, or getting into raunchy language.

Made in 1983, Going Berserk is not made by AI, but an example of human stupidity in action instead. But, maybe we can harness AI in the future to rewrite and fix this movie to the standard that better suits John Candy.

80s-o-meter: 78%

Total: 25%

#1761 Tough Enough (1983)

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Whoa, Dennis Quaid was ripped back in 1983.

Pretty much unlike what I expected, Tough Enough is a boxing movie about a country singer that takes part in a Toughman amateur boxing competition to make the ends meet. This different approach and the human story behind it all is the side of Tough Enough that I enjoyed.

What I did not enjoy though was the endless staged boxing matches with random fighters that quite frankly weren’t really that interesting. The movie has all the usual shortcomings and dramatic structure than all the sports movies, which makes the movie also a bit less interesting if you know the formula. Ultimately I feel it’s Quaid who single handedly carries this movie through, transforming something quite mediocre to a passable movie experience.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 61%

#1739 Wild Style (1983)

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Ok, so there isn’t much of a story going on with Wild Style, but what it has going for is an amazing time capsule look into the early 80s graffiti and hip hop culture.

Starting from the beautifully lettered opening titles to the equally stylistic end credits, Wild Style is not something artificial put together by Hollywood film moguls, but 100% street credible from start to finish.

Recommended even if you aren’t in to hip hop culture, and a definite must-see if you are a fan.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 90%

#1738 Born in Flames (1983)

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I guess a point that Born in Flames tries to make is that even with a socialist revolution the women and ethnic minorities would continue to be repressed.

Because that’s the premise of the movie; a socialist revolution has taken place in the USA in the past, but now the women are displeased and want to make another revolution by forming a militant Women’s Army.

I feel there’s a message here that is important, but as a movie the end result shot in this pseudo-documentary style is just not very watchable. Especially the ending with the World Trade Center exploding has not aged very well in the 911 world.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 38%

#1735 My Brother’s Wedding (1983)

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My Brother’s Wedding was presented to me as a lost Charles Burnett movie, now remastered to its previous glory.

The movie tells a small, passing by moment in the life of low achiever Pierce Mundy living in South Central whose successful brother is getting married to a middle class family, much to the contempt of Pierce. As his low life friend Soldier is freed from the prison, Pierce has to decide whether to attend his brother’s wedding as the best man, or be there when Soldier needs him.

For most people this would not be any kind of a problem, but this is exactly where the movie taps into as we try to understand the motivators behind Pierce’s choices and hoping he goes for the right choice.

80s-o-meter: 71%

Total: 63%

#1726 The Scarlet and the Black (1983)

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Over these years I’ve grown fond of underdog made for TV movies that punch far above their height in terms of telling an interesting story. In The Scarler and the Black that a real-life story is of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish Catholic priest who saved thousands of Jews and escaped Ally soldirs in Rome during WWII.

Seeing John Gielgud, Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer work together in this movie is a treat, is capturing the essence of their characters perfectly, and adding that little flair of their own to keep things interesting.

Although the scarcer budget shows, for a made for TV movie The Scarlet and the Black is well made movie that doesn’t really give away its modest origins, other than fading out and pausing for the very apparent commercial breaks.

80s-o-meter: 43%

Total: 83%

#1722 Shallow Grave (1987)

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We’ve seen this hicksploitation plot before: bunch of city slicker passer-bys get involved with the crooked arms of law in a small rural town. What makes Shallow Grave more interesting though is the way it’s only the sheriff here who is the wrongdoer, and constantly walks on tightrope trying to cover his tracks and not get caught.

And it’s his somewhat clueless deputy slowly closing up on him that also adds to the movie.

All in all Shallow Grave is a better movie than it deserves to be, and makes for easy 90 minutes watch. If it wasn’t for the lousy horror movie like ending, the movie could’ve stood a chance of getting my cautious recommendation.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 70%

#1721 Bless Their Little Hearts (1983)

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There’s mixed information in the internet of the movie’s release, IMDB stating 1983 and Wikipedia insisting on December 1984 release. Either way the theatrical release has been extremely limited and the movie is not the kind of popular movie to make it big on VHS, so it was more or less forgotten upon its release.

But make no mistake, Bless Their Little Hearts is a gem of an indie movie.

Following the life of an unemployed African-American father of three struggling to find work and make the ends meet, the real star of the movie is Kaycee Moore whose portrayal of his wife frustrated by having to provide to her family and her husband while trying to keep the family somehow functional. Watch her as she is having a 10-minute long, quite verbal argument with her husband and tell me she does not deserve an Oscar for her role play.

80s-o-meter: 61%

Total: 81%

#1703 Halloween 2022: The Demons of Ludlow (1983)

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As per usual there hasn’t been a side of crappy horror movies this year either, and The Demons of Ludlow falls in there somewhere between bad and totally useless.

So there’s basically a haunted automatic piano and villagers getting attacked by people dressed in 19th century clothes apparently living inside the said piano – and it is all as lame as it sounds.

The Demons of Ludlow misses its mark pretty much on all ends, and does not even provide an intentional humour for those looking for giggles and laughs.

80s-o-meter: 1%

Total: 7%

#1687 Halloween 2022: Play Dead aka Killer dog aka Satan’s Dog (1983)

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Perhaps the saddest concept for a movie this Halloween, Play Dead tries to sell us the concept of old madame doing some voodoo magic in her home and sending her dog to plot and carry out imaginative killings on her enemies.

It’s a stupid premise executed in a poor and uninteresting way.I can’t imagine the movie being able to entertain or scare anyone in 1983, let alone today.

80s-o-meter: 60%

Total: 5%

#1654 Wavelength (1983)

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Last one in late unexpected wave of surprisingly good low budget scifi movies arriving to my desk is Wavelength, a movie that had a feeling of something being off (in a good way) from the get go.

But it was only after the actual secret and its alarming consequences are revealed that Wavelength starts to find its own unique tone and plot line unlike anything I’ve seen to date, and really starts to whet one’s appetite as what will happen next.

Obviously done with a shoe string budget, Wavelength manages to stretch that dime amazingly far, concentrating on the atmosphere rather than special effects. The few effects there are are made in good taste, and don’t feel distracting at all unlike other low budget movies.

80s-o-meter: 86%

Total: 71%

#1643 Cross Creek (1983)

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I’ve a strange kind of romantic longing for the Everglades, and similar wetlands located in the southernmost states of the eastern USA. Strange because I could likely not stand the weather or humidity, or the isolation. But I guess its the quite unique, secret and hidden world of these parts that manage to catch my imagination.

80s offerings in this area has been something of a hit and miss. Starting from a-ok Swamp Thing and The Return of Swamp Thing to pretty nice The River Rat to complete stinkers like Shy People and Soggy Bottom, U.S.A there hasn’t been one definite movie that has been able to provide me the swamp experience what I’ve been looking for – until I came across Cross Creek.

On paper Cross Creek is a movie that was likely to be one of those slow, pompous, utterly boring period pictures, but this director Martin Ritt’s depiction of the author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings pushes all right buttons, managing to capture an array of greatly interesting and multi-dimensional characters. I was eager to get back to the movie’s world every time I had to pause the movie, and I felt the movie inviting me already to revisit it some time in the future.

80s-o-meter: 11%

Total: 96%

#1619 Foxfire Light (1983)

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Romantic drama does not invoke my interest, especially if it looks like a made for TV movie. But Foxfire Light did feel a bit more interesting to me after I learned that Leslie Nielsen – mostly known for me from his comedy roles – stars in it.

Contrary to all the expectations Foxfire Light actually works as a movie, and all the complex relationships shown here do have that soap opera setup for them, but with much more depth added. It’s easy entertainment, but something that still manages to have an actual heart.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 70%

#1617 Lianna (1983)

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Look, I don’t know about the history of movies about homosexuality to say how much Lianna was ahead of its time upon its 1983 release – if any – but at least to me the movie felt quite genuine and earnest in its depiction of a housewife suffering from codependency, who then finds consolation and a love interested in the opposite sex.

Earnest in the sense of how the movie depicts the getting out of the closet and the relationship in a quite realistic manner, and as well how Lianna’s codependency is not fixed with getting out of the closet – it just finds a new object, and it’s only when Lianna starts to learn being alone and being comfortable with herself that the growing as a human begins.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 79%

#1592 Halloween 2021: Amityville 3 aka Amityville 3-D aka Amityville III: The Demon (1983)

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Another movie that took part of the early 80s 3D craze, Amityville 3-D (like the formerly reviewed Silent Madness) has since then seen a Blu-Ray release in good old 2D. Excluding the overall blurriness towards the edges of the screen, and the few awkward scenes obviously set up with 3D in mind, the movie luckily does not suffer from its 3D origins much.

And as the case was with Silent Madness, this third installation in the Amityville series is actually surprisingly potent horror movie – contrary to all the expectations. The ominous hole in the room, the various types of scourge in the house and possessed daughter; it’s all good classical horror that relies more on the eery presence of evil, instead of them cheap jump scares.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 71%

#1584 Halloween 2021: Sweet Sixteen aka Sweet 16 (1983)

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Here’s another slasher I’ve mixed up with many similarly named slashers – Bloody Birthday, Happy Birthday to Me 15 and to name a few.

Sweet 16 draws its inspiration (quite loosely) from native Americans, mixes in some weak mythology and puts them up against racist rednecks and watches them clash. Everyone bad gets what’s coming to them and then it’s up to the viewer to start the guesswork who was the actual killer, and watch through to the totally expected last minute jump scare attempt.

The movie is not exceptional in any sense, and was going for a passable rating. But here’s the thing: I really hate the exploitative sexual angle in the marketing of this movie that has nothing to do with the theme (or the actual content) of the movie – and loathe it even more for it targeting 16-year olds.

Cheap trash, this one.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 18%

#1551 The Sting II (1983)

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A sequel for the 1973 The Sting starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, The Sting II loses all of its star power that no doubt helped to leverage the original scoundrel comedy to success.

But what The Sting II loses in Newman and Redford, it gains in Jackie Gleason who is a perfect fit for the role of the gang leader aiming to pull off a boxing match scam of a century.

The movie establishes well its 1940s New York era, and Gleason’s persona and the natural appearance of the golden era star no doubt helps to sell this idea. While not exactly match for its predecessor, The Sting II makes for a totally worthy heir to the original.

80s-o-meter: 2%

Total: 70%

#1546 The Dead Zone (1983)

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Stephen King’s movies got translated to the silver screen in a quick pace after the success of Carrie and The Shining, but for the better of worse they rarely matched the sheer brilliance of these two movies. While The Dead Zone featuring Christopher Walken in the lead also falls somewhere far behind Carrie and The Shining, it’s still one of the more stronger King adaptations of the decade.

Despite the mild horror and supernatural elements, with The Dead Zone it was never that obvious that this was in fact a Stephen King movie, being more of a thriller. In fact, there’s nothing in the movie that would suggest an exceptional manuscript, and without reading the original 1979 novel of the same name, I can’t really tell how much has been lost (or found!) in translation with Jeffrey Boam’s screen write, or David Cronenberg’s directing.

Even if something has, The Dead Zone still makes for a decent movie with an interesting premise well worth one’s time.

80s-o-meter: 71%

Total: 80%

#1542 High School U.S.A. aka The Race (1983)

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Look, I’m not 100% sure if High School U.S.A. really exists, or if I’m trapped in a matrix, comatose or in some kind of psychosis. It’s just that seeing Michael J. Fox and Crispin Glover together in a high school movie in roles not too different to those seen in Back to the Future, and coupling that with some random 80s names such as Anthony Edwards as the rich kid and Michael Zorek in his typical slob role feels like something I could’ve very well cooked up in my sleep.

Other than that, this is your very basic high school comedy with the typical characters and events that go with the territory. There’ the rich, the jocks, the nerds, and the brainiacs and High School U.S.A. does not even aim to do things differently; it mostly just wants to be a TV movie passable for a theatrical release, and in that aspect it does no worse than most of the similar movies of the era you’d watch in a theatre.

Michael J. Fox already shows likeable traits straight out of his forthcoming teen star roles, but does not leverage this movie up that much. The real star of the show is Crispin Glover whose perfect timing and laconic replies got me laughing aloud quite a few times.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 74%