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#1905 Lady Street Fighter (1981)

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This one landed on my table in the form of Blu-Ray release restored from the last remaining copy of the film. So it’s one of those ”lost movies” nobody has heard of. And to be honest, it should have stayed that way.

Apparently shot sometime in the mid 70’s and released during 80s (different sites list different dates ranging from 1980 to 1989), Lady Street Fighter is an awful piece of trash, and a reminder that sometimes bad movie is just bad movie. Not only is there no plot, but the movie manages to mix in every worst aspect of the 70s and sprinkle on top with some really stomach turning imagery of repulsive characters licking telephones, sucking on celery and showcasing some really unnecessary nudity I was not expecting or hoping to see.

This does not happen too often, but I absolutely hated the movie. Glad it’s over.

80s-o-meter: 0%

Total: 0%

#1904 Deadly Embrace (1989)

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A soft porn movie disguised as erotic thriller mostly likely to just make it to the rental VHS space outside the adult corner, Deadly Embrace is a totally brain dead movie shot probably over just a few days.

Most of the running time is spend on endless dreamy erotic sequences and lingering stares.

If anything, the movie remains a testament to Jan-Michael Vincent’s at the time downhill spiralling life and career, of which Deadly Embrace is just another example of bad choices that were made.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 1%

#1903 That Championship Season (1982)

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A different kind of sports movie, That Championship Season depicts four of the former college Basketball players now in their 50s gathering together to remember state championship 25 years earlier.

As with the likes of 12 Angry Men, the action in That Championship Season – which is based on a play of the same name – takes place in one location, and concentrates on interpersonal relationship and drama. We get to be the flies on the wall witnessing long time secrets revealed, personas clashing and well built facades toppling over.

The cast is strong, with the coast portrayed by Robert Mitchum being the father figure still keeping his team together no matter what. With all of this good out of the way, That Championship Season gives a portrayal of a late 70s Pennsylvania team of middle aged men, and while realistic, this portrayal is at times not socially apt in 2024.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 65%

#1902 The Delta Force (1986)

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One of the definite action movies of the 80s The Delta Force inspired by hijacking and resulting two-week hostage drama of TWA Flight 847 taking place only year earlier, in 1985

Directed, co-written and co-produced by Menahem Golan, the movie itself is heavily connected with Israel and Israeli officials with the filming taking place there and backing the movie up with airplanes and other gear needed for the movie.

The first half of the movie is actually quite well done with the events inside the airplane, and the building up tension, where the second part of the movie with liberating the hostages gets as ridiculous as a Chuck Norris movie can get, with him riding a rocket shooting motorcycle and being basically immune to any kind of projectiles or bullets. The fans of Norris and these kind of over the top action movies who know what they are looking for will find tons of guilty pleasure to enjoy here.

80s-o-meter: 86%

Total: 78%

#1901 Brenda Starr (1989)

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I should have loved Brenda Starr a lot more: a fantasy adventure based on a comic strip taking place in distant, exotic places. But I didn’t.

Reason is, the movie makes a bad case of telling its story, all the way from the comic book artist getting sucked into the world of comics he created, as well as most of the events that follow. There’s baddies and chases and piranhas and all that but nothing that really grasps the viewer. There are a few funny moments of poking fun of the artificial cartoon world, so maybe they should’ve doubled down on this in the first place. To my understanding Brenda Starr not also not a known figure in Europe and is definitely not one in 2024, so this might have hindered my experience also.

Visually the movie is just about perfect, and grasps the sense of adventure well, and the period picture like South American scenes took me back to adventure games like Flight of the Amazon Queen. Brooke Shields and her clothing and mannerisms and stunning dreamy looks fit the role perfectly.

80s-o-meter: 3%

Total: 42%

#1900 Thrashin’ (1986)

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Now I’m puzzled. If Gleaming the Cube was a definite rad California 80s skating movie, so is Thrashin’, both totally cool for partly the same, and partly different reasons.

Like Gleaming the Cube, the movie has just about everything one would love from the era; warm Californian landscapes, beach, boys from The Valley, skating baddies, famous skaters like Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Steve Caballero, music and a live performance from nobody else than Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a totally bitchin’ title song of the same name from Meat Loaf.

After saving this one for later on for quite some time, I’m glad to say that Thrashin’ did definitely not disappoint. Comparing the two, Gleaming the Cube might edge it out slightly, but my suggestion? Watch them both and enjoy the ride!

80s-o-meter: 100%

Total: 91%

#1899 Cage (1989)

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The Vietnam war hero Billy (Lou Ferrigno) gets shot in head, and survives with severe brain damage, reducing him to a child like state. Taken care by his friend Scott (Reb Brown) they open a bar together, but quickly get drawn into the world of illegal cage fights where they are forced to compete – or face death.

Before the introduction of UFC, Cage fights had notorious clang to them during the 80s known by name by every boy and man, and the movie successfully taps into this world, plus the crime related to it. Ferrigno himself is the strongest (literally) part of the movie, as well as weakest, not quite having the acting chops to portray the mentally disabled role in a believable fashion. But he gets the job done, no problem there.

The movie itself as as stylish as they came in 1989. The camerawork and cinematography is solid, and the movie is generally entertaining and thrilling to watch.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 80%

#1898 Wild Thing (1987)

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Wild Thing is basically a modern day Tarzan in a concrete jungle. After seeing his hippie parents get killed and being risen in a slums with a philosophy of never being seen and helping the oppressed, Wild Thing has become something of a urban myth on the streets.

The concept has potential for a different kind of a superhero (cartoon) franchise, by really making the main character a cool and mystical creature. But, Wild Thing ultimately fails to pull this off.

It is all in all quite tame ride that – while mildly entertaining – does not really live up to its full potential.

80s-o-meter: 78%

Total: 61%

#1897 What’s Up, Hideous Sun Demon aka Revenge of the Sun Demon (1989)

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What’s Up, Hideous Sun Demon is a 1989 redubbed spoof of the 1958 horror/scifi B-movie Hideous Sun Demon. The idea to even produce something like this and then sell it is downright ridiculous, and something you could barely pass in Youtube these days, but surprisingly What’s Up, Hideous Sun Demon does has its moments, and some of the lines are actually quite funny.

And some are not.

Despite the stupidity the movie was easy to watch through, and whet my appetite to see the original one in an unspoiled form some time in the future.

80s-o-meter: 3%

Total: 31%

#1896 New York Stories (1989)

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An anthology film, New York Stories weaves together three distinct tales taking part in New York. The movie begins with Martin Scorsese’s Life Lessons where Nick Nolte portrays a painter balancing between his love interest, and upcoming art exhibition. Next up, Francis Ford Coppola takes us into a whimsical world with Life Without Zoë co-written with his daughter Sofia Coppola, depicting a rich kid living independent live of her own while her family is travelling and working, and getting caught up in a story of Arab Princesses and lost jewelries. Lastly, Woody Allen finishes with Oedipus Wrecks, a quirky story of a middle age man being tormented by his possessive and overbearing mother.

Anthology films with different creative force behind each segment are harder to rate. I was the most happiest with seeing Nick Nolte portraying such a different role (and succeeding in it with flying colors), with Life Without Zoë seemingly written for completely different audience and age group.

Finally, Oedipus Wrecks has an interesting setup, but relies on a gag that was funny at first, but both grows old and takes disappointing dramatic turns that ultimately make it the weakest (or, single use) short story of the bunch.

80s-o-meter: 82%

Total: 65%

#1895 Slapstick Of Another Kind (1982)

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After suffering through Jerry Lewis’ Smorgasbord aka Cracking Up recently I was even less looking forward to seeing another one.

But Slapstick Of Another Kind was luckily quite different, not relying on short gags and Lewis’ silliness. But it does rely on trying to deliver Kurt Vonnegut’s original novel Slapstick from 1976, which is probably as difficult as a novel can get to adapt to the silver screen, and was also met with mixed opinions by the readers and critics alike. With this in mind it was a bold move trying to pull this one off.

Unfortunately it just does not work at all. The story including Chinese in with shrinking rays in flying saucers and deformed twins from outer space born on earth feels just plain silly, without any intelligent message or subtext behind it. Still better than Cracking Up – but that’s not saying much.

80s-o-meter: 42%

Total: 12%

#1894 Nobody’s Perfect (1989)

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Ever since Chaplin and the dawn of the cinema men dressing as women has been an often visited theme to create comedic situations. This is where Nobody’s Perfect taps as well, this time with the motive of college freshman disguising himself as the opposite sex in order to be closer to his crush.

As imagined, nothing of much depth is to be found here, so it just all down to how entertaining the movie manages to be. And in the case of Nobody’s Perfect it actually fares quite well.

The story proceeds in a predictable path, but the whole experience is quite likeable, and definitely fits the bill if you’ve subscribed to having something easy to watch through and young Chad Lowe in the lead role does a perfectly passable job here.

80s-o-meter: 89%

Total: 72%

#1893 Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

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A movie that I have earlier managed to mix up with Crimes of the Heart (likely due to somewhat similar posters), Hannah and Her Sisters is a routine work from Woody Allen.

Even so that I found myself drifting off multiple times when watching it. Allen plays his trademark neurotic self, and other cast is populated by the typical cultivated, cultured and self-interested New Yorker types. The main storyline is about the toned back husband played by Michael Caine having a crush on the sister of his wife, and struggling with his thoughts, and this part of the movie is interesting to some extend. The other storylines, not so much.

For me personally seeing Caine here was the high point of the movie, with everything else falling to the generic Woody land. Allen has done better, both before and afterwards.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 42%

#1892 Nuts (1987)

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A mistreated woman (Barbra Streisand) ultimately accused of murder wants a fair trial, while her family and doctors insist her to be declared mentally incompetent in Nuts, a courtroom drama that faces the viewer with a few interesting questions about basic human rights versus justice system and the powerful psychiatric and mental health care machinery.

A lawyer played by Richard Dreyfuss sets out to defend her, and the dynamics between these two is a joy to watch on the silver screen.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 71%

#1891 A Time To Die (1982)

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A Time To Die feels like a case of someone reading through the original book by Mario Puzo too many times over, and then explaining it to someone else who also knows the novel.

As for someone with none of this background information the movie and the way that it tells its story of an U.S. Intelligence agent on a revenge killing spree feels cryptic; you can kind of understand and follow what happens, but the movie never leads you close to the characters. It’s like well you can read this in the book if you want to dig deeper.

With A Time To Die doing such a poor job in basic story telling I cannot but view it purely as a plain stupid action thrilller – which is where it fails as well. The action is poor, with no real sense of tension or showmanship. What’s worst, the revenges lack the real sense of satisfaction many exploitative revenge movies double down on.

80s-o-meter: 21%

Total: 17%

#1890 Split Image (1982)

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A cult exploitation movie at its heart, Split Image depicts a youngster lured into brainwashed by a religious cult. But ever more interestingly, it also depicts him getting kidnapped back and deprogrammed by his family.

But all this peeping Tommery is pretty much the only interesting part of the movie, and other drama falling behind. And even that is not too interesting.

There is a small foreshadowing from the cult, but perhaps the movie would have been more interesting if it tried to present itself less as a documentary movie (which it is not), and more just a thriller where the main character has to flee the cult at the risk of their live.

80s-o-meter: 71%

Total: 26%

#1889 Slashdance aka Slash Dance (1989)

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When it comes to B-movies, I often mention the padding, meaning trying to make the movie last more than an hour with insufficient footage and content by making each shot last too long and generally lingering on with one scene for much longer than necessary.

Slashdance takes this to the very extreme, with most of the movie just feeling like a filler.

There’s a theatre, young women dancing around and then getting killed one by one. And boy do they dance: endlessly, just improvising badly and trying to keep the film rolling.

80s-o-meter: 76%

Total: 3%

#1888 Hard Country (1981)

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jan-Michael Vincent in a movie I would care for, nor in role I that’d had me admiring his acting skills – but Hard Country could very well be an exception.

In this film, he stars alongside Kim Basinger as a young Texan couple. He aspires to be a blue-collar worker, enjoys getting drunk on weekends, dreams of marrying his teenage sweetheart, having kids, and staying in Texas. She, however, has bigger ambitions for herself.

Vincent’s portrayal is spot-on, embodying a stubborn, womanizing, traditional redneck with surprisingly likable, almost puppy like qualities to him. Their dynamic keeps viewers engaged, wondering if she will muster the courage to pursue her dreams.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 72%

#1887 Fast Forward (1985)

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Fast Forward is a rare dance musical where the dancing is actually enjoyable to watch, and there’s not too much gringe here in the form of melodramatic teen agony that makes many of the movies in this genre typically hard to watch.

Coupled with pretty ok soundtrack this (at least to my eye a bit Michael Jackson inspired) dance movie is also generally quite enjoyable, and I found myself rooting for the small town ensemble trying to make it in the big city.

80s-o-meter: 81%

Total: 74%

#1886 Two Moon Junction (1988)

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A few of the most painful experiences during watching all these movies have been with those ”daring”, ”intimate” and ”passionate” erotic dramas that cause endless amount of cringe to watch through. Knowing this was going to be a case with Two Moon Junction as well, I honestly weren’t looking forward to this one.

To my surprise, not only is there kind of a movie and drama going on here, but the erotic tension of the movie is actually high on this one, thanks to great casting with Richard Tyson and Sherilyn Fenn, both on the very top of their game. Tyson as the rugged carnival odd-jobber with his piercing gaze wins over his love interest and the viewer alike at the first look, and has just the right amount of that free spirit and danger to sell the character with ease.

80s-o-meter: 75%

Total: 77%