Category: 1984

#870 American Dreamer (1984)

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A stay at home suburbians housewife gets involved in a crime plot after winning a trip to Paris and soon afterwards loosing her memory due to an accident.

Part of a wave of Hollywood international crime thrillers set in Paris (Frantic, Gotcha!, Target), American Dreamer is one of the movies I found the Paris setting least distracting, although given the adventurous, mysterious tone of the movie, some northern African location would’ve probably worked better.

JoBeth Williams complete surprises as the strong lead carrying to movie with ease giving credible performances both as the home maker and an action star. Although no classic of the genre, American Dreamer is an above average fluff with an undeniable charm to it.

80s-o-meter: 66%

Total: 79%

#853 The Naked Face (1984)

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Based on the 1970 Sidney Sheldon novel of the same name, The Naked Face is your pretty standard thriller fare. Roger Moore plays a psychiatrist that gets tangled in a murder plot where his patients and subordinates are getting killed, leaving him the prime suspect.

The movie looks and feels old beyond its years – and honestly isn’t anything to write to home about – but it still manages to create a good kind of whodunnit vibe to it that makes it an easy watch movie. Although this is not a perfect vehicle for Moore, he proves to have plenty of charism to carry through a full length feature film.

The Naked Face was heading for a solid low 70 score, but the idiotic and totally unnecessary last minute plot twist spoiled the show for me.

80s-o-meter: 58%

Total: 51%

#851 Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)

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Voyage of the Rock Aliens is made to spoof the swinging beach movies of the 60s with an element of extra terrestrial synth pop band traveling to study earth.

Wanting to be one of those crazy comedies, Voyage of the Rock Aliens makes an endless number of desperate attempts for humor. The most amount of wittiness you will see though is a convict attacking a cop with an electric can opener, and the cop then defending himself with a can of tomatoes, or a robot transformed to a fire hydrant then getting peed on by a dog. And both of these gags sound funnier in writing than they come out in the movie.

Much of the humor is built upon the fish out of water aspect of it all that grows stale already during the first minutes into the movie. There are also a lot of lengthy pop songs along the way, all of which have a strong vibe of if the soviet union had produced some music videos, and tried to pass them as the real thing.

Voyage of the Rock Aliens is one of those movies that is shoddy by design, and approach which sometimes works, but here the end result is just one cringeworthy mess.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 3%

#849 Roadhouse 66 (1984)

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A poster can sometimes say a lot about a movie. In Roadhouse 66’s case the poster is unimaginative, totally forgettable and executed in an uninspired way – and all this goes for the movie as well.

Marketed as a action comedy, Roadhouse 66 is short on both. Counting out a few gunshots along the way, the most action we see is the Burt Reynolds style car race towards the end of the movie, which also ends up the weakest part of the already so-and-so movie.

It’s only one year later that Judge Reinhold and Willem Dafoe both became household names with their box office hits Beverly Hills Cop and To Live and Die in L.A., respectively, and as such the movie is an interesting look into their earlier career. Although neither of the lead actors do a particularly good or memorable work here, they’re still very much the glue that holds the movie together and save it from being a complete failure.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 58%

#846 The Cotton Club (1984)

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Directed by the legendary Francis Ford Coppola and made with the top talent of the era and a budget the size of the GDP of a small nation, I should’ve liked The Cotton Club. But, this wasn’t a movie for me.

The Cotton Club is a mobster movie with some jazz and dance thrown in. It lifts all of its imagery from the prohibition era cliché book and the end result is very movie like, and detached from reality. I would’ve kind of applauded the effect if it was restricted to the scenes inside the Cotton Club, underlining how it is a wonderful world of its own, outside the harsh day to day life.

Counting out the few nice musical numbers there are, the narrative in The Cotton Club falls flat and I found myself indifferent about the events and the people involved.

It feels like Coppola never quite knew what he wanted to accomplish with this project.

80s-o-meter: 27%

Total: 52%

#841 Iceman (1984)

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Iceman begins when a group of explorers in a isolated research facility somewhere deep in the arctic region stumble across an old life form trapped in a block of ice that is then transported to the base for a closer inspection. The setup reminds me very closely of that of The Thing, and I loved it to bits!

Soon after the iceman wakes up from his frozen state our protagonist-anthropologist finds out that he is able to communicate with him, and begins to form a meaningful relationship with him that soon makes it hard for him to treat the prehistoric man as just a scientific specimen.

John Lone does an extraordinary job in his humane portrayal of the almost mute iceman, a role that could very easy turn into unintentionally comical or an uninspired ape imitation.

The movie feels cut short and ends before we really get into the most interesting parts like exploring the true innings of the iceman, moral of the science and the essence of humanity. A miniseries might’ve been a more suitable format for subject this interesting.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 81%

#837 Streets of Fire (1984)

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I’m fond of movies that don’t look like real life – I get plenty of that just by looking outside the window. It’s in this aspect that Street of Fire more than delivers, taking place in an alternative reality, even making a note about this at the start of the movie.

It may be due to the amount of music involved coupled with the lead actor Michael Paré’s mysterious presence, but Street of Fire reminds me a lot of his earlier movie Eddie and the Cruisers, released year earlier. Street of Fire ends up a weaker movie of the two, both in storyline and the music, which mostly suits the mood, but that last music video part movie really just felt like a filler for to make it to the 90 minute mark.

Streets of Fire is style over substance, which is definitely not a sin in my book. But if all that great cinemating style was stripped out of Streets of Fire you simply wouldn’t have that much of a movie going on here.

80s-o-meter: 74%

Total: 68%

#830 Protocol (1984)

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A definition of a dedicated star vehicle if there ever was one, Protocol is a light hearted comedy built upon the very lovable girl next door qualities of Goldie Hawn — and it’s the role she pulls of with flying colors.

Although the movie is complete fluff, it’s fortunately mostly of the entertaining kind and manages to press a whole combination of feel good buttons that make the movie an easy to watch experience.

While the first portion of the movie builds up an intriguing setup, the latter part about arabs and sheiks feels like an unneeded diversion and entirely plastered on. Both the story and Hawn’s perky character would’ve benefited a lot if the writers would’ve just dug deeper into the already established plot. This decisions seems due to the makers of the movie struggling to meet the 90 minute mark as evident in some of the scenes that just seem to drag on and on.

This is a one woman show and it’s Goldie that makes the movie worth your time. The movie is fluffy, outdated and completely irrelevant, but similarly to its heroine, Protocol somehow manages to have some irresistible qualities to it.

80s-o-meter: 84%

Total: 75%

#750 Halloween 2017: Friday the 13th Part IV The Final Chapter (1984)

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Marketed to be the last movie of the series, Friday the 13th 4 The Final Chapter forgets all the 3D nonsense seen in the previous movie and returns to the old formula. Considering the rankness of the third installation, this can only be a step up.

Since Kevin Bacon was seen in the first Friday the 13th movie, the serie hasn’t featured any well known actors. The Final Chapter is an exception in this sense, starring both Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman, former of which performs one of the most memorable moments of the series so far in a form of an awesomely awkward living room dance routine.

The production quality has improved from the previous movie, and in this movie we finally see Jason in the form he is remembered in the popular culture. Otherwise the final part can’t really offer anything not already seen in the silver screen a thousand times before.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 60%

#734 The Woman in Red (1984)

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A new version of a 1976 french comedy film adapted to the american silver screens by Gene Wilder, The Woman in Red is a movie about a man finding himself in a middle of a midlife crisis and falling for a young model he starts chasing after.

There are a few positive sparks here. Gilda Radner absolutely steals the show as the disgruntled secretary caught between the affair by mistake, and Charles Grodin once again proves he can make the best out of any material thrown his way. Gene Wilder also reminds us with the horseback riding scene that his comical abilities are still there.

Otherwise the movie is a mess. The overall pacing is off, the relationship between the office worker and the super model doesn’t seem to follow any logic and all the numerous disjointed plot lines are patchy and never followed through. Although the movie is short at only 80 minutes, the struggle in both writing and directing to tie a bunch of mediocre ideas together to an actual film is obvious.

The Woman in Red was heading to the ballpark of 40% overall rating until it performs its ultimate sin with its 70s style ending by first carefully painting the protagonist to a corner and then resolving everything with an idiotic shrug of a shoulders.

80s-o-meter: 67%

Total: 17%

#733 Birdy (1984)

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Birdy (Matthew Modine) is a young boy obsessed with birds who befriends with Al (Nicolas Cage) who seems equally interested and frustrated with Birdy’s obsession. The film follows up them in two timelines, reminiscencing their past while following them later, broken mentally and physically by the Vietnam war, shut inside a mental institute.

Modine and Cage give good performances here, and both manage to capture their uncommon friendship convincingly. But similarly to Al, I also soon wore tired of Birdy’s single-minded obsession with the birds. As he doesn’t seem to be interested in nothing but the aviary world. it seems like there’s nothing else to the character, leaving him hard to grasp and paper thin.

The unchronological pacing of the movie works well at times, but the flashbacks fail to really reveal anything fundamental of how the characters really ended up where they are now, and thus Birdy – including its ending – leaves much too many open questions to be really a satisfying interpersonal drama.

80s-o-meter: 60%

Total: 64%

#726 Paris, Texas (1984)

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Wim Wender’s moody, slow and absorbing road movie Paris, Texas is an affectionate European take on the deserts and the cities of America, and a study of people lost somewhere there in between.

Similarly to the movie being an outside view, the same alien feeling of not belonging is present throughout the movie. As is the theme of losing and finding again.

Harry Dean Stanton who plays the lead character found wandering around a desolate Texas landscape makes this movie. His ability to portray great emotional depths in such a subtle manner is in a league of its own.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 90%

#724 The River (1984)

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Life is a struggle for Tom Garvey (Mel Gibson): His family house resides in a valley with The River that keeps on flooding violently, drowning the fields, destroying the property and making the day to day life a living hell for Garvey’s family and his livestock. Soon all the debts for the broken equipment and spoiled crop pile up to the point where bank no longer grants an additional loan to him.

At the same time a local businessman – Joe Wade (Scott Glenn) – wants to build a dam that’d offer work to hundreds of locals who have ended up bankrupt and homeless, but flood the whole valley with Garvey’s homestead and so Wade is willing to buy out Garvey. But Tom is a hard headed man and his head won’t be turned even if it will kill him.

It has to be said that camera loves young Mel Gibson and his charming presence adds an extra notch to every scene he is in. Very disappointingly the movie leaves his character very distant to the viewer, and we never see the actual softening and opening up that the dialogue implies.

In the end the family avoids yet another close call with the flood. It’s a very unsatisfying triumph that leaves the story pretty much where it began; the river will keep on flooding, life keeps on being hard and Wade will keep on paying low price for the crop.

Maybe moving out wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

80s-o-meter: 60%

Total: 62%

#723 Firstborn (1984)

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A 1984 film that collected an impressive amount of actors that would later became big: There’s Sarah Jessica Parker playing a girlfriend, Robert Downey Jr. in a small side role as a class mate, Corey Haim is seen in his debut film role as the little brother and Peter Weller – who’d later hit a homerun with Robocop – plays the mother’s home invading boyfriend.

Interestingly, it’s Christopher Collet who plays Jake as the lead role here that soon disappeared from the big screens.

Firstborn is a drama about a mother’s shady new boyfriend who moves in with Jake, his brother and his mother, and soon turns nothing short of a shady person. The movie depicts well the kids’ lack of power to prevent the downhill their mother is being dragged and the following repressed frustration that bursts out as violent attacks towards the class mates and the teachers. Unfortunately the movie then opts to solve the situation through an action thriller chase and fight scene that feels an extremely unsatisfying cop out solution to a well built, intriguing setup.

80s-o-meter: 76%

Total: 58%

#720 The Karate Kid (1984)

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A movie responsible for putting the crane kick on the map for a whole generation of young wanna-be-karatekas, The Karate Kid is a culmination to the martial arts trend that started back in early 70s.

Despite its name, The Karate Kid is in its core a movie about an unique friendship. What starts as a master-apprentice relationship between the protagonist teenager Daniel and his unwilling sensei-to-be Miyaki deepens into an friendship believable enough to last a lifetime. It’s this unlikely companionship that keeps the movie interesting until the end, and feeling fresh still after 30 years of its initial release.

Unlike other martial arts films or the era, the actual choreographed karate is pretty non-existent here and while I’m not an expert on the subject, Daniel’s combat skills don’t really seem that impressive. Yes, including that unbeatable crane kick.

A hand must go to young William Zabka for creating one stylish and memorable baddie as the opposing karateka. For the baby-faced Ralph Macchio The Karate Kid was the part of the lifetime and his portrayal outside the actual karate fights is maybe not relatable, but never tiresome to watch. I was astounded to learn that Macchio, who portrays a 14-year old teenager, was already 23 at the time.

Pat Morita is so iconic as the sensei Miyagi that now in retrospective it’s impossible to even think about anyone else being able to replace him.

As whole the movie is entertaining, well balanced and very 80s in a good way. If I was to pick five most iconic 80s movies that shaped the pop culture, The Karate Kid would be a no-brainer addition to that list.

80s-o-meter: 94%

Total: 90%

#698 Night of the Comet (1984)

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A low budget horror action movie that’s become something of a cult classic, Night of the Comet is a collection of good and bad, still outperforming its modest budget.

First and foremost Night of the Comet gets its mood just right: The feeling of the apocalyptic Los Angeles void of all its inhabitants is captured efficiently with smartly framed early morning shots. The kick ass soundtrack no doubt adds a lot to the overall feeling, and this awesome collection of songs is a sought after collector item.

It’s therefore unfortunate the plot itself doesn’t quite match the superb setting. Far too many events and reasons are left vague and unexplained, and the whole zombie approach feels totally uninspired and unnecessary.

Ultimately and very regrettably the cult status and the positive vibe of the movie have a promise of something much greater than Night of the Comet can deliver.

80s-o-meter: 84%

Total: 70%

#680 Brewster’s Millions (1985)

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One of the many filmatizations of the 1902 novel of the same name by George Barr McCutcheon, Brewster’s Millions tells a tale of a baseball journeyman who gets to inherit a cool 300 million dollars on the condition that he first spends 30 million in a month which – of course – turns out to be harder than anticipated.

Despite the obvious plot holes (it just kills me he doesn’t hire more people, throw around multiple parties across the town or duplicate any of his successful money spending schemes) Brewster’s Millions plays just like an 80s comedy should and it makes for a entertaining watch. For Richard Pryor this is definitely one of his better movies of the era, and there’s a good deal of chemistry between him and John Candy.

80s-o-meter: 88%

Total: 84%

#668 Johnny Dangerously (1984)

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A crazy comedy in the vein of Airplane and Top Secret, Johnny Dangerously is a little known box office failure that gets a pretty good amount of chuckles out of its absurd comedy style.

Starring Michael Keaton, the comedy is a far cry from his best ones like Gung-Ho that followed this movie – and quite honestly, if you liked his work elsewhere, having him starring here isn’t a good enough reason to bother watching this one.

But instead, if you’ve already seen Police Squad, UHF and Airplane more times you care to count, Johnny Dangerously could well be your ticket to spend 90 silly minutes.

80s-o-meter: 43%

Total: 76%

#662 Cloak & Dagger (1984)

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Cloak & Dagger is an action adventure movie tailor made for the kids of the 80s. In other words, its the kind of movie where all the adults are completely useless: Parents that don’t listen to their kids and baddies that fall again and again to a ten year old ‘s Home Alone tactics.

Watching the movie now, more than 30 years after it was first released I was struck by its gruesome nature: There’s lots of visible gore, deceased parents, people getting executed with bullets shot through their face, menacing bad guys talking about shooting the protagonist’s brains out and imaginary friend giving the protagonist one bad idea after another (like: just run to the traffic, the cars will surely stop). A stuff like this wouldn’t cut it in the cushioned world of today – which sort of makes the 80s even more amazing.

The movie is also notable for having tons of videogame references; sponsored by the then-giant game company Atari the movie is totally in-your-face in the product placement department.

Cloak & Dagger is kind of an odd bird movie that I missed seeing as a kid – but I’m positive the then 12-old me would’ve loved it to bits.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 80%

#649 Crackers (1984)

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A loose remake of an italian movie Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958), Crackers at first has the look and feel of a movie that’s going to be a tiresome movie with some relationship drama and comedic but dull insights about adult life and unemployment.

Instead, what we have here is a pretty snappy caper comedy about five dimwits planning to rob their friend’s pawn shop. The characters are well fleshed out caricatures that feel like they’ve started writing themselves in the manuscript phase and they compliment each other in a believable fashion.

Crackers is a positive experience that much to my surprise even managed to stir up some actual laughworthy moments.

80s-o-meter: 65%

Total: 81%