Category: Comedy

#717 The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

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A musical comedy loosely based on real life events, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas revolves around a small town bordello run by Mona Stagley (Dolly Parton) that gets busted by Melvin, a showy TV reporter played by Dom DeLuise. The long-running bordello is part of the community heritage and protected by the city officials and its law enforcement led by the sheriff (Burt Reynolds)

My expectations for the movie were extra low, but I have to hand it to The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for surpassing them. The dance and music numbers are refreshingly original, many shots and cuts are well thought out and inventive and there’s just a good amount of good mood and thought work put into most aspects in the production.

My biggest beef with the movie is that I’m always having a hard time trying to stomach Reynolds with his facial hair, chest rug and cocky smile. There’s a lot of half-naked Burt here, but luckily also much more to warrant sitting through the film.

80s-o-meter: 72%

Total: 65%

#716 Wrong Is Right aka The Man With The Deadly Lens (1982)

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Wrong is Right or The Man With The Deadly Lens as it was released in the UK is a rare mix of comedy and thriller.

Starring Sean Connery in a playboy network star reporter role that although his James Bond fame seems a bit off to him, the movie suffers from its subpar, made-for-tv like production values with the special effects and camera trickery and zooms that reek of the 70s. The newsflash portions with public reactions and interviews are unintentionally comical and the action parts are pretty much on par with the classic 60s James Bond or Batman series.

In other words: Not good.

It’s a shame because the movie’s grim message of the dirty international politics, behind the curtains machinations, assassinations, oil money and how the news has turned into an entertainment business is as topical as it was almost 40 years ago. Not only are we currently reaping the results of these politics, but many of the predictions presented here have actualised in one way or another.

80s-o-meter: 51%

Total: 60%

#715 Ernest Goes to Camp (1987)

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There are two kinds of family movies: Those that have many things to offer to both the kids and the adults, and those with very limited interest to the grown ups. Ernest Goes to Camp falls in the latter category.

A second movie to feature Jim Varney’s Ernest character, this is your typical kids’ movie where the kids are smart, every adult is a one-dimensional dimwit, and the humor never manages to evolve beyond the cartoony slapstick. Ernest Saves Christmas, released the following year is a much more well rounded movie in this sense.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 58%

#714 Into the Night (1985)

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I really should’ve loved Into the Night.

Starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer and directed by John Landis, Into the Night is an action comedy thriller taking place in the nighttime Los Angeles, it has chases, stolen emeralds and such, but as the minutes tick by it starts to become painfully obvious the movie is going nowhere.

The experience is problematic on many levels. First of all, the movie seems to suffer from an identity crisis, never quite knowing if to present itself as a comedy or an action thriller. For a comedy it just lacks the laughs – excluding the scene where Goldblum paces through a movie set like an elephant in a porcelain store – and for an action thriller it’s just much too tame and generic. The overall pacing of the movie is drowsy, even so that the movie grinds to a full halt at times, like when the leading duo sits inside a small tunnel waiting for the sun to set again.

The movie must hold some kind of record for the number of cameos included, but now – over 30 years after its original release – most of them are totally unknown to an average viewer, so instead of adding any value they make the overall experience feel patchy. The hitman character played by David Bowie would’ve suited the movie well, but woefully he’s the only one of the cameos that understays his welcome.

80s-o-meter: 78%

Total: 52%

#712 The Ninth Configuration (1980)

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A fairytale-like action drama comedy war mystery movie, The Ninth Configuration is a genre bender if I’ve ever seen one.

The movie follows a crew of post-traumatic military personnel in a castle being used as an insane asylum. They are soon joined by Colonel Kane, an eccentric and grim psychiatrist who’s arrived to help the patients. The movie starts off as a farcical, even slapsticky comedy, but as soon as Kane’s brother arrives at the castle, the movie takes a turn to much darker waters and deals with themes like sacrifice and faith. This is the part of the movie that I much preferred. The act two culminates to the palm-sweating bar confrontation scene that’s a textbook example of building up a tension.

Even if its weirdness feels self righteous and artsy at times – especially during act one – a credit has to be given to the writer and director William Peter Blatty for creating something entertainingly different.

80s-o-meter: 58%

Total: 77%

#711 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

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Totally surprising chemistry between Steve Martin and Michael Caine provides a great amount of laughs in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a tale of two money-swindling riviera playboys set on a war path.

This is one of those 80s comedies that leaves very little room for improvement. The setup is original, the pacing feels just right and the plot itself bears a strong resemble to its two protagonists, always hiding an extra ace up its sleeve. Although Martin’s and Caine’s performances are impeccable, a two man show this isn’t: The two male actors are perfectly complimented by Glenne Headly who gives the two veteran actors a run for their money.

For whatever reason, we humans are drawn towards lovable rapscallions, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels provides two of them – best in the business – for the price of just one.

Almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

80s-o-meter: 88%

Total: 96%

#710 The Blues Brothers (1980)

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Paradoxically, the actual music in many musicals can often be pretty lousy sometimes. Not the case with The Blues Brothers.

Not only are the songs themselves top notch, they are also performed with such a positive vibe and pure energy that pretty much cannot leave anyone cold even if blues or rock music isn’t your thing. To underline the its credibility music wise, The Blues Brothers includes cameos from legends such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles.

The Blues Brothers is an iconic piece of pop culture that has continued its life outside the movie still to date. It’s a musical tailor-made for those of us that don’t actually really care for musicals.

80s-o-meter: 68%

Total: 87%

#708 Teen Wolf Too (1987)

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Everything I said I didn’t like in Teen Wolf goes for the sequel as well. You see, Teen Wolf Too plays it too tame and safe and pretty much just reprises everything seen in the first movie, just replacing the actors involved and takes the story to another high school. Every character in the movie and the members of the audience already know how the movie is going to play out and Teen Wolf Too goes to great lengths to make sure it doesn’t take one step outside that sandbox.

Michael J. Fox, a force of nature who pretty much was the only reason to watch the first movie is now gone and replaced with Jason Bateman in his feature film debut. He plays the role just as as predictably and safely as the rest of the movie with little to none surprises.

Whatever little freshness there was in the concept in the first run, it’s all gone, and Teen Wolf Too is stale like a bowl of yesterday’s oatmeal.

80s-o-meter: 88%

Total: 32%

#707 Teen Wolf (1985)

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I’m pretty sure that by 1985 Michael J. Fox knew he was destined for something bigger but just needed the right vehicle to get there.

Teen Wolf isn’t that vehicle.

It’s a weak movie and I’m not even hundred percent sure why. Michael J. Fox seen here is pretty much carbon copy of the same likeable Marty we saw in Back to the Future. The manuscript isn’t anything to write to home about, but I can see the whole concept working if given to the right hands.

Most of the right elements are there, but Teen Wolf just misses that special something that a few directors can deliver. Some call it magic, some plain talent, but whatever it is, this movie lacks it and the end result feels flat throughout.

A part of the wave of werewolf movies in the early-mid 80s, Teen Wolf was launched simultaneously with Back to the Future, which undoubtedly helped in boosting the box office result of this movie. Without it the movie would be very much forgotten.

80s-o-meter: 82%

Total: 52%

#702 Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

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Being a huge box office hit, Airplane got its followup, but here’s the interesting part: Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker weren’t involved in it. Unaware that Paramount had the option for the sequel – with or without the consent of the trio – they felt the aviation humour vain was already drained and passed the chance to do the sequel. Paramount then handed the job over to Ken Finkleman who wrote and directed Airplane II: The Sequel. Zuckers and Abraham weren’t too happy about the situation and still claim not to have seen the movie to date.

Considering all this, Finkleman did a surprisingly good work here! Ok, so the sequel recycles the jokes from its predecessor quite a lot, but it also manages to come up with gags so good you could swear the original trio was behind them. Structurally it’s not as tight package as the previous one and some of the iconic deadpan style is unfortunately lost and replaced with people being silly, which feels less true to the first movie.

Airplane II: The Sequel is less iconic, less recognised movie that will always be left in shadow by its bigger brother. But even so it outshines most of the similar attempts by a long shot. If you liked the first movie and can cope with the fact that this is in a way an unofficial sequel, Airplane II is an easy one to recommend for watching.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 90%

#701 Airplane! (1980)

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A proof that many cooks sometimes don’t spoil the broth, Airplane! is a milestone in a comedy movie history that perfected the spoof comedy formula by taking it over the edge – and then some. A co-written and co-directed by Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker, Airplane became a commercial and critical success, and a movie that paved the way to the top zany comedies of the following years: Top Secret, Naked Gun and Hot Shots.

A lot of good insights went into making Airplane a reality. Firstly, instead of casting a gang of worn comedy actors get silly on the screen, they hired actors with no comedy background whatsoever to play their parts with a straight face, which contrasting with the surrounding absurdity added a lot to the comedic effect of the movie. This is where Leslie Nielsen, aged 54 at the time, got his second wind as a comedy actor.

Secondly, if there was an opportunity for a joke, Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker went for it: The movie and its screen estate is constantly loaded with gags, happening on and off the camera. This contributed to the movie’s rewatchability value and it has had a very healthy off box office lifespan in VHS, DVD and on the TV.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 94%

#700 WarGames (1983)

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Visionary both in its thematics and the execution, WarGames was ahead of its time probably in much more ways than the team creating it could ever anticipate.

In the early 80s the video and co-op games were a huge craze and were featured in many movies, but the computers were still a rare subject in a movie, and very much remained to be so for a long time to come. WarGames was not only one of the first big budget film to feature home computing, but also presented us with one curious, relatable, mischievous youngster that spent his free time phreaking and hacking into remote computer systems. And made it all a huge, exciting adventure.

That adventure quickly gets way out of hand as he manages to hack his way into a computer wired to the thermonuclear arsenal of the United States and thus capable of launching a full scale nuclear assault. The themes of balance of terror and the fear of AI turning against the humankind presented here are just as topical now as they were back in 1983 – if not even more so.

As the movie makers really did their homework with the subject and presented the hacking in believable way – more than can be said about most Hollywood movies to date – WarGames just leaves very little to improve. The great production quality holds up throughout the movie, and the end showdown with Joshua playing Thermonuclear War on the big screen is truly one palm sweating scene, as well as a visual treat.

80s-o-meter: 96%

Total: 100%

#697 The World According to Garp (1982)

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The World According to Garp is a intriguing tale about an unorthodox family in a twisted world, told in an episodic fashion through the eyes of one T.S.Garp, whom Robin Williams portrays with such easiness you’d think the movie was written with especially him in mind.

It’s that other early 80s movie based on novel by John Irving, and clearly the superior one of the two. While it does suffer from the same problem of trying to cram in a whole whopping novel into a film, given the challenges involved the end result is very admirable and the movie feels much longer than its running time – in a good way.

The World According to Garp is an prime example how the written fiction and movies sometimes manage to create a world of entirely their own: It might be far fetched, improbable, even implausible make belive – but boy, if the narrator knows his stuff we really want to buy it all.

80s-o-meter: 55%

Total: 80%

#696 Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

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You know the drill: A movie with a huge financial success gets the inevitable sequel. This time around it’s not entirely bad news as most of the key players from the first movie were willing to participate, with some beefed up payroll no doubt. The big investment paid of as Lethal Weapon 2 netted a whopping $147M total gross, making it the third biggest box office hit of the year.

In addition to the amped up action sequences there’s also lots of additional humour and one liners this time around. Much of the credit is due to the Joe Pesci’s hilarious man child sidekick character, who successfully walks the tightrope of being annoying but still likeable, and does deliver some good laughs along the way.

Lethal Weapon 2 is in many ways more well rounded and mature action movie than its predecessor, but also a bit more calculative which shines through every now and then, making the end result feel less organic than the first iteration.

Still, most people who loved the first movie will feel right at home here – and that’s what really counts.

80s-o-meter: 94%

Total: 88%

#695 Lethal Weapon (1987)

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An iconic 80s action movie and a subject to numerous imitations, spoofs and even blatant copies, Lethal Weapon soon became a fundamental part of the 80s pop culture imagery that still gets referenced to.

As with always when you watch a movie you’ve seen many times when it first came out, but missed it for the last 25 years, the question arises if the movie is really as solid as you remember it to be. Not a problem here: Lethal Weapon is a tight-wound guilty pleasure action pack that leaves very little to improve.

Danny Glover and Mel Gibson make a good pair here, and Gibson delivers the intensity that perfectly suits the part of the suicidal cop on the verge of a breakdown. With that same vigor he absolutely nails the part of fighting off his demons in a suicidal rage in his trailer. It’s a scene that could’ve turned embarrassingly awkward and phoney if done by an actor with less acting chops.

The only minor gripe lies with the ending. Passable, but surely the immense buildup until that moment had a promise of a showdown of a much more epic proportions. As a proof of that, Lethal Weapon is a movie much better known of its other scenes, not its ending.

Lethal Weapon is a landmark 80s a-class action movie that totally belongs up there with the greats like Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop and Predator.

80s-o-meter: 97%

Total: 94%

#693 Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989)

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Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death somehow falls into the uncanny zone between a crazy comedy and your usual adventure comedy. It’s too zany and out there to be taken seriously in any way, but still hopes to convey the idea of a jungle adventure and the discovery of an ancient tribe therein without bothering with any sort of set design. The resulting movie experience is flattened by failing to establish a sense of place where the adventure happens.

I know it’s a weird thing to complain in a movie that’s intentionally campy by design, but even many wackier comedies out there even try to pretend that the movie isn’t shot in the producer’s back yard.

The prominent theme in the movie is feminism and the battle between the sexes – which is bit of a hit and miss. It plays on the easy stereotypes and isn’t nowhere as snappy as it would like to be, but there are certainly some good ideas and moments of self-realisation here as well. It’s not a mean spirited movie per se, but those who get easily offended might still want to steer away from it.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 59%

#690 Little Darlings (1980)

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If you’re like me and bored to tears by the half way of Little Darlings, I strongly urge you to go on and finish it anyway. It’s only after 50 minute mark that the movie grows from an adolescent summer camp comedy to a touching depiction of what it is like to be like to live on that verge between childhood and maturity, and how our actions at the time may have bigger implications that we originally bargained for.

I was initially put off by the theme and felt the sex life of the 15-year old girls is an exploitative subject for a movie. The setup felt forced as well and both the quarrel between the two female leads and the whole bet thing just seemed very much out of the place. The following few lighthearted comedic scenes show the camp life in a more believable fashion, but leave no lasting impression. It’s only when the movie turns into a coming of age story watching Little Darlings finally pays off.

Here’s the part where Kristy McNichol really shines, and the pure honesty she pours into the closing scene with Tatum O’Neal makes it one of the most touching ones I’ve seen in a long while.

80s-o-meter: 61%

Total: 76%

#687 Nightmare Sisters (1988)

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What do you do when you have some leftover 35mm film from your previous movie you just finished? You could haphazardly come up with a story and shoot another movie in four days.

Well, that’s what the team behind this movie did anyway. A direct to VHS movie release that soon disappeared from the public eye, Nightmare Sisters has since become something of a cult classic, famous for bringing three cult b-movie actresses for scenes of full frontal nudity that borderline soft porn. The early 90s versions shown on cable networks featured a cut of the movie with the most raunchy scenes cut out, and those rumoured cut out scenes present on current releases naturally added to the cult status of the movie.

It’s a strange mix of sub B-movie plot and FX (all the actors did their own makeup, which mostly consists of a set of plastic fangs purchased from a novelty store), paired with a solid production work in the camera and the lighting departments. The end result looks quite professional and not shoddy at all, but as a movie .. well .. it is pretty lame.

With a plot good enough maybe for a 30 minute short movie, the editor has really struggled in the cutting room to meet the 80 minute mark. Every scene is about two to three times as long as they really need to be, and there are very obvious fillers all over the place. Given all this, it’s still a surprisingly fluid experience.

80s-o-meter: 88%

Total: 41%

#686 The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988)

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Sometimes a movie relies far too much to the audience’s tendency of teaming up with the main character no matter what kind of low-life he is.

In The Prince of Pennsylvania that main character is Rupert Marshetta, an oddball with a grudge with his family, his school and the small coal mining community he resides in. His father Gary, played by the always superb Fred Ward is a modest blue collar man who’s worked his fingers to the bone to have a nice house for his family to live in, to clothe them and put food on their table. After his no-good wife gets caught sleeping with Gary’s best friend, his no-good son decides to rub some more shit in his old man’s face by kidnapping him and intenting to rob the $200,000 Gary was offered to sell his land.

With a despicable family like this I really just felt sorry for Gary throughout the whole movie. Even when his crackpot son turns out to be the kidnapper, Gary at first refuses to believe it, and as the grimm reality sets in, he is being a really good sport about it all. And in the end, after finding out his wife had teamed up with his son to split the money Gary, the man with a heart of gold forgives her, even for the nasty cheating part.

The Prince of Pennsylvania is a massive misfire from the writer and director Ron Nyswaner who later got it together with Philadelphia (1993). The little cozy mining town succesfully established in this movie surely would’ve had tons of more sympathetic, believable stories to tell.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 8%

#685 Microwave Massacre (1983)

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An exercise in bad taste, Microwave Massacre is an indie horror comedy about Donald, a disgruntled construction worker growing tired of her wife’s cooking first wasting her wife, and then consuming her among all the other people he manages to invite to his house.

And a true exercise it is as the movie deliberately and unshamedly aims to be as bad and politically incorrect it can be. Most of the sexist jokes are kind of useless, but some of the other dialogue that just consists of a one liner after another are funny in a face-palm shake your head kind of way.

A line like ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a whore’ as Donald chops a prostitute with an axe is as high brow as this movie goes.

Microwave Massacre is a movie so stupid it hurts to watch and you definitely have to be in a right mood for it. As a good kind of bad movie it’s just about as good – or bad – as they come.

80s-o-meter: 61%

Total: 64%