Revenge of the Nerds is the Animal House of the 80s, the grandfather to all nerd movies and a real glowing gem in the garbage pile that is frat movies.
Category: 1984
#297 Oh, God! You Devil (1984)
This time around George Burns doubles as the devil and the end result – even if still very naive and preachy – is lots better and thus even a watchable experience.
#278 The Ice Pirates (1984)
It gives me no pleasure bashing The Ice Pirates as I’m sure the team had all the right intentions, but – despite some working scenes – it’s a really tiresome comedy to watch.
#257 Against All Odds (1984)
A neo-noir erotic sports thriller action movie, Against All Odds just tries too hard and ends up wasting Jeff Bridges’ screen presence and Phil Collins’ amazing title song.
#172 Supergirl (1984)
Supergirl continues on the unfortunate trail lead by Superman II and III, both of which are similar incoherent mess. Helen Slater is Super cute as a super girl, though!
#150 The Toxic Avenger (1984)
Troma Entertainment’s cult classic Toxic Avenger sets out to be as stupid, inane, tasteless and campy sub-B-movie as possible – and succeeds on all accounts.
80s-o-meter: 55%
Total: 88%
#144 Where the Boys Are (1984)
Where the Boys Are is a straight forward comedy that doesn’t bother with boring stuff like plot or character development, but just features one irrelevant and weird scene after another.
80s-o-meter: 91%
Total: 55%
#141 Hardbodies (1984)
Three middle-aged business men rent a seaside flat to hit on young chicks – the Hardbodies. It starts from nowhere and ends up absolutely nowhere .. but it’s still pretty ok waste of time.
80s-o-meter: 81%
Total: 62%
#139 Up the Creek (1984)
Although the movie loses some of its initial momentum along the way, Up The Creek, a relatively unknown comedy gem of the 80s should definitely have a bigger recognition.
80s-o-meter: 85%
Total: 83%
#109 The Terminator (1984)
Although it doesn’t hold up in comparison with it’s awesome nineties sequel, The Terminator remains an extremely tight and well-paced scifi action movie – and a true classic.
80s-o-meter: 91%
Total: 91%
#101 Blood Simple (1984)
Blood Simple, The Coen Brothers’ first feature film is filled with dark humor, slowly creeping suspense and scheming characters who soon find their twisted plots plunging out of control.
80s-o-meter: 46%
Total: 82%
#100 The Last Starfighter (1984)
To celebrate the 100th post, here’s a very special movie I must’ve watched a hundred times as a kid, so this was definitely a good time see it once over again.
The Last Starfighter tells the story of Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), a young guy who’s only way to escape the dullness and woe of living in a trailer park is by playing the Starfighter coin-op game, which unbeknownst to him is actually a test for recruiting the best space pilots in the known universe. When finally beating the game he gets some unexpected visitors from outer space.
Much of the games art style is due to the space action scenes and establishment shots being computer made and the movie is among the first full length feature films to feature CGI in this scale. The coin op game itself is also done with love and the whole idea of video games being this awesome and possibly taking you to unknown worlds and exciting adventures really captivated me back then.
I’m a small town kid as well, you know.
The Last Starfighter has it all: Humor, adventure, thrills, scifi in a very well balanced package, and to top it off, it also features an actually likeable and memorable cast of aliens – something virtually non-existent in scifi movies up to this date.
The movie isn’t usually listed among the eighties great adventure movies along with the likes of The Goonies, E.T. and Gremlins.
But it sure as heck belongs there.
80s-o-meter: 98%
Total: 101%
#94 Unfaithfully Yours (1984)
A neurotic composer is plotting to kill his allegedly cheating wife and plant it on her lover in a dull romantic melodrama-comedy called Unfaithfully Yours .. and I really couldn’t be bothered if he’d succeeded or failed.
80s-o-meter: 76%
Total: 45%
#82 Top Secret! (1984)
While not quite as solid as Airplane or Naked Gun series, Top Secret is still a classic and seems to pack in more visual gags than all the other Abrahams-Zucker-Zucker movies combined.
80s-o-meter: 49%
Total: 88%
#55 Red Dawn (1984)
Communist Soviet Union invades USA in an action movie that has much better premise than the actual execution and is interesting mostly as a Social science study of the era.
80s-o-meter: 94%
Total: 68%
#50 Ghostbusters (1984)
What do you know, we’re up to movie number 50 already! To celebrate that let’s take a look at a very special movie from 1984.
Ghostbusters originated as brainchild of Dan Aykroyd of the Saturday Night Fever fame in the early eighties. After several rewrites with the co-starring Harold Ramis the shooting finally started on late 1983 with Bill Murray, Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver on board.
Everything in the movie is top notch: It’s funny, scary, exciting and still fresh after 30 years. It’s one of those rare movies where just about everything locks into place: It’s unique, it’s funny, it’s adventurous, scary, iconic, and sounds and looks awesome.
80s-o-meter: 98%
Total: 100%
#47 The Flamingo Kid (1984)
A Gin rummy playing working class teen gets illusioned and then disillusioned after taking up a job in a posh beach resort in The Flamingo Kid, a working early-sixties coming to age story.
80s-o-meter: 19%
Total: 81%
#46 Rhinestone (1984)
Watch Sylvester Stallone fumbling as an amateur country singer in one of those (luckily) forgotten movies that could’ve cost everyone involved here their entire careers.
80s-o-meter: 55%
Total: 41%
#20 Starman (1984)
Starman is a movie that is either eye opening, uplifting and miraculous – or sappy and ridiculous, depending how cynical you feel at the moment.
Either way it’s something refreshingly different and should be on your 80s watch list.
80s-o-meter: 72%
Total: 75%
#15 Blame it on Rio (1984)
Blame it on Rio is a sort of exploitative comedy in the vein of the sexual freedom that was a big thing in the movies from late 70s to the early 80s, but feels a bit awkward these days.
Watch for the palm trees, titties and Michael Caine who seems to suffer through the film.
80s-o-meter: 70%
Total: 45%