Kategoria: Road Movie

#1924 Chattanooga Choo Choo (1984)

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Chattanooga Choo Choo is one of those happy-go-lucky titles you might have found if you dug deeper into the shelters of your local video rental store. You know, the row where all the movies are ordered like books, with only the spines of the movie visible.

A road movie taking place in a train, there’s heritages, race to be won, cheating tycoons, football team wearing lavender outfits, near deaf and blind locomotive engineers, an amazingly acrobatic waiter who never spills a drink, laxative pranks, cheerleaders, and some peeping tommer. And it’s all quite tame: never raunchy nor edgy – but never side splitting funny neither.

Watching the movie fell to a good spot for me as a Sunday matinee to watch before napping. And for that purpose it does it’s part very well. It’s not the most original comedy out there, but the few well known actors – George Kennedy amongst them – and gorgeous actresses keep the show rolling steadily to the end.

80s-o-meter: 82%

Total: 72%

#1810 Bad Manners aka Growing Pains (1984)

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Partly road movie, black comedy and coming to age story, Bad Manners seems to try and abandon a lot of avenues, but never quite gets very far in any.

This is one of those quirky comedies where everyone is just outright weird, which soon becomes plain stupid, and renderers the viewer indifferent about the events on the screen.

The movie gets a few points of its edginess, but everything else here is just horribly messy.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 22%

#1777 National Lampoon’s Movie Madness (1982)

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Advertised in the poster as the spiritual followup to the vastly popular 1978 Animal House, Movie Madness is nowhere near the same quality. As in: absolutely nobody remembers this movie.

An anthology of three short films, every one less funny than the one preceding it, Movie Madness is a horrible misfire from the director Henry Jaglom who clearly grasp even the basics how to put together a mainstream comedy.

The only even remotely interesting aspect of the movie is seeing young(er) Christopher Lloyd playing a role in the last segment.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 2%

#1746 Things Are Tough All Over (1982)

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Just a personal reminder here that every stoner film of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong is worse than the previous one, starting from the strong 1978 Up in Smoke, all the way to the very appalling 1984 The Corsican Brothers.

Things Are Tough All Over already sits in the lower end of this spectrum. The stupidity is still definitely there but it isn’t that lovable any more, just more stale and uninspired. The humour in Things Are Tough All Over consists of Cheech and Chong dressing up as arabs or women and never really getting more inventive than playing through all the tired stereotypical jokes.

These two C’s really should’ve called it a day while they were still ahead.

80s-o-meter: 75%

Total: 2%

#1646 Patti Rocks (1988)

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You know that screw up of a friend you don’t want anything to do with, but who for one reason or another manages to get you involved in his affairs, ”just for this one more time”.

In Patti Rocks that guy is Billy, played by Chris Mulkey. Billy is unlikely many other lovable bastards often seen in movies in a way that he at times manages to hover over likeable, but more often than not comes across just obnoxious. He is the kind of a guy with his sexist jokes that would make me want to switch tables at bar, and kind of a guy who would accuse anyone doing so of not having a sense of humour.

But his friend Eddie seems to be able to stomach him, and drives him on a long road trip filled with sexist jokes to settle the score with a girl – Patti Rocks – he got pregnant.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 40%

#1638 Assault of the Killer Bimbos (1988)

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Ok, so the name here sounds much worse than what the movie actually is.

Assault of the Killer Bimbos is more like an early, rough version of Thelma & Louise. Actually, to them actually contemplating to sue its production team. Truth be told, Assault of the Killer Bimbos is no Thelma & Louise, but some of the similarities here are uncanny.

But Assault of the Killer Bimbos is really a feel good comedy, and actually not a bad one at that.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 75%

#1632 Carny (1980)

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I’ve always been a theme park aficionado, and as such I’ve a soft spot for carnivals and fairs, and similarly themed popular media. It was therefore a delight to see Carny during its first 30 minutes.

By that time many good and interesting things had taken place, and both Gary Busey’s and Jodie Foster’s interesting characters, and their relationship was established successfully. But as the carnival takes off from the town with Jodie Foster with it, so does the plot, going into all sorts of needless directions, none of which as interesting than what the movie had already going in its first minutes.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 52%

#1622 Truckin’ Buddy McCoy (1982)

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There was apparently something alluring about the name, the premise and the VHS cover art of Truckin’ Buddy McCoy as it apparently turned out as one of the enduring favourites in the home video stalls for many years.

And admittedly there was a promise of a easy, mindless entertainment in the name as I saw it for the first time. But really, there’s nothing much going on here. There’s a truck driver who turns his new truck into bachelor hideout, drives around picking people up (in reality he just runs through outskirts of Los Angeles throughout the movie) pondering if he should get back with his girlfriend.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 21%

#1613 Think Big (1989)

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The second movie featuring The Barbarian Brothers isn’t bad one either.

In fact, it is pretty enjoyable one – flawed no doubt, but easy to watch and something I would consider a near-perfect rental for a late 80s stay at home Friday night.

A road trip comedy, Think Big is ultimately a spitting image of its two leads: often childish and silly, at times annoying and stupid – but always with a heart.

80s-o-meter: 93%

Total: 79%

#1605 Honkytonk Man (1982)

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Moving from 70s to the 80s Clint Eastwood’s career was stuck (and built upon) repeating permutations of this lone ranger character, and it was only in City Heat and Heartbreak Ridge where he was able to break somewhat free from this mold. Well, arguably he still kind of played first and foremost Clint Eastwood in all of his movies, and this is what the audience (me included) were looking forward to seeing.

Then, there are movies like Bronco Billy and Honkytonk Man here where Eastwood gets to play a flawed anti-hero that needs others to save him from himself. Here Eastwood plays a worn-out alcoholic travelling musician playing in honky-tonk bars, and who recruits his 15-year old nephew (played by as his son, Kyle Eastwood) as the chauffeur and road manager.

The movie plays its hand straight away, and while the show is somewhat entertaining to watch, there’s very little progression or growth going on here, and I can’t help but to think that without Clint himself in the lead role the movie would’ve been completely forgettable.

80s-o-meter: 7%

Total: 57%

#1541 Emerald Cities (1983)

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A disjointed indie movie about a woman who leaves her home and her father dressed up as a Santa Claus in Death Valley. Father then follows him to San Francisco through various small towns in a road movie fashion.

While the movie would have been ok’ish small budget project, it’s constantly interrupted with excerpts from TV news, faked interviews, movie clips and miscellaneous footage from concerts, which makes it very hard to following the plot, and the movie.

I liked the few quirky moments in the movie, but as Emerald Cities finally ended I could not help but cheated as a viewer.

80s-o-meter: 61%

Total: 17%

#1510 Pink Cadillac (1989)

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Pink Cadillac is one of those movies I watched at the very beginning of starting out this project, but it turns out I never got around reviewing it.

Turns out I remember at the beginning with Clint Eastwood as a skip tracer going after the trailer park beauty queen Lou Ann (Bernadette Peters) who has fled to Reno with a briefcase full of her husbands counterfeit money – but the second half with them battling together against a camp full of white supremists I’d totally forgotten about. Probably due to it being more forgettable and less impactful than the plot twists that preceded it.

So, Pink Cadillac is a totally enjoyable movie – but not quite as iconic as I remembered it to be.

Still, you can never go much wrong with Eastwood.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 81%

#1501 The Trip to Bountiful (1985)

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A movie that thematically reminded me quite a lot of The Whales of August, The Trip to Bountiful is one of those slow-paced movies where not too much happens.

Similarly to The Whales of August, this movie is about home, roots and inevitable change and passing of the time.

Geraldine Page – who was only 60 at the time – does a great role as the old, rough around the edges mother, and despite our age and gender difference, it was easy to empathise with the her throughout the movie.

80s-o-meter: 20%

Total: 60%

#1305 Bronco Billy (1980)

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Bronco Billy is in many ways very similar to Clint Eastwood’s other films of the era, like Every Which Way but Loose or Any Which Way You Can in depicting himself as an everyday dude who road trips around and gets into occasional classes with the locals, or the authorities.

Made purely to entertain, the plot itself feels secondary in Bronco Billy, and the movie mostly concentrates on showcasing Eastwood and his captivating screen presence. Compared to some other films he’s made at the time, what makes Bronco Billy interesting is the way that Eastwood reveals personal flaws in the main character, depicting him as the despotic leader of the western show, but also subjects him to some humiliating encounters with the local law.

For anyone viewing it for the first time, Bronco Billy Makes for a very easy movie to watch, but is less likely to leave any lasting impression.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 61%

#1296 Blame It on the Night (1984)

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Look, I totally get what the team behind Blame It On The Night was trying to achieve by joining together a free spirited rock’n’roll star father and a high-strung son studying in a military academy.

But this obvious setup of mixing two very different elements together, having them going through a set of clashes before each one learns a lesson from each other pressed all the wrong buttons to make its point. The movie features useless and overlong segments of lame adult pop concert footage that serves no purpose after the first time the status of the father as a pop star figure was established and uses only a little time establishing believable relationship between the father and the son. The way the movie sets up the clashed feels very artificial, and the resolution of those clashes feel equally lame and forced.

The name of the movie remains a testament of how much of a misaligned mess Blame It on the Night is, as it has absolutely nothing to do with what’s seen on the screen.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 4%

#1295 Mutant War (1988)

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A sequel to Battle For the Lost Planet, Mutant War shares the same production values than its predecessor. Meaning, it’s poor.

And while it has the same kind of charming underdog feeling to its predecessor (the team has aimed ridiculously high, including camera and video effects, matte paintings and stop motion animations, all of which way beyond their capabilities), the charm only carries the movies so far.

80s-o-meter: 55%

Total: 31%

#1270 Bustin’ Loose (1981)

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Many of the 80s movies still feel fresh and topical, while others have it quite badly, and Richard Pryor’s Bustin’ Loose definitely falls into the latter category.

Not only does Bustin’ Loose feel badly aged, but it also has some questionable aspects to it. Like when Pryor’s small-time conman arranges a strip poker session with a bunch of 12-year-olds, and later physically attacks one of the kids after losing his temper.

I never was a fan of priors movie work – excluding Brewster’s Millions and the brilliant See No Evil, Hear No Evil – and the much outdated Bustin’ Loose is not going to change that.

80s-o-meter: 60%

Total: 33%

#1264 Cohen and Tate (1988)

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Again, a movie that has totally gone under the radar for me, Cohen and Tate is a thriller of two assassins transporting a young eye witness to a mob boss after wiping out his family and bunch of officers of the Federal Witness Protection Program.

The movie is minimalistic; most of the running time is spent inside the car, with tension building up between Cohen and Tate, two very opposites sides of the same coin. The violence presented in the movie is similarly spartan: very quick and over before the viewer has time to react, making it consequently extreme impactful.

Cohen and Tate is a triumph of an action thriller in both its cinematography and story telling for the director Eric Red, and well ahead of its time, resembling the formula that Coen brothers perfected a decade later.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 95%

#1260 Land of Doom (1986)

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Mad Max wasn’t the first movie to the post-apocalyptic wasteland genre, but its success resulted to the genre to skyrocket, with unfortunate consequences: if the original Mad Max wasn’t much of a masterpiece, the copycat movies are generally completely worthless uninteresting, uninspired pieces of cheap trash.

Land of Doom lands somewhere in between. While the setup and the baddies are your typical carbon copy leather dudes on basic motorcycles with some dodgy frames welded on, it’s not a total stinker and has some ok moments in it, including interesting landscapes shot in Turkey – again, compared to shooting it in the nearest sandpit like so many similar movies do.

80s-o-meter: 60%

Total: 28%