Category: 1980s

When a pair of quarry workers discover a strange white substance bubbling up from the ground, the powers that be decide to sell the sweet, addictive Stuff as a food replacement. Discovering that the Stuff has unusual properties including turning his family into a type of zombie, young Scott Bloom teams up with industrial saboteur Michael Moriarty and advertising executive Andrea Marcovicci to put an end to all consumption of the product. An absurd premise is made even more ridiculous with strange story choices and awful editing. Regardless, it makes for a perfect 1980s blend of 1950s SciFi horror mixed with Reagan era consumerism that somehow managed to bring in the talents of Paul Sorvino, Garrett Morris, and Danny Aiello to tell its strange tale.   

Having hired actor Michael Caine to portray his Sherlock Holmes character so he can continue pursuing his career as a doctor, Ben Kingsley’s John Watson is left in a lurch when Caine quits, taking with him the year’s of perceived expertise the public believed he deserved. While the central mystery is forgettable, the role reversal is quite fun. Kingsley and Caine are fantastic working off of each other and make up for the weaknesses in the rest of the film.    

Disgusted with her inability to find certain classic titles in New York City bookstores, Anne Bancroft reaches out to Marks & Co., a London secondhand bookshop located on Charing Cross Road. Thus begins a decades long correspondence between her and shop manager Anthony Hopkins that quickly exceeds the basics of book procurement. A completely charming and cozy tale, it’s the perfect film for letter and/or book lovers which I count myself as if only on a casual level. The simple relationship that develops through their letters is one based on intelligence and respect with the slightest hints toward unrequited romance, but it’s not just about them as there’s additional chains of friendship that develop between all of the bookshop employees and their families.

Years after their beach party adventures, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello are married and living a doldrum life in Ohio. During a layover in Los Angeles, they meet up with their adult daughter Lori Loughlin and find their beach fever reignited. Only having a basic knowledge of who Frankie and Annette were back then, I still remember when this film came out and had a passing desire to see it as one of my first experiences of film reboots. I probably shouldn’t have bothered. Maybe in a different mood, it might have hit better, but it essentially is just wall to wall clichés of irritating corniness with strange references (like Annette being obsessed with Jif peanut butter), lame ‘punks’, and annoying narration by the king of the punks, their young son Demian Slade. What little it has going for it is an earnestness and one of the strangest mix of cameos committed to film, from Bob Denver to O.J. Simpson to Pee-wee Herman to Fishbone. 

Anthony Edwards meets Mare Winningham, the woman of his dreams, at La Brea Tar Pits, but before they can even go on one date, he accidentally intercepts a phone call that indicates nuclear war will be starting within seventy minutes and spends the rest of the film trying to find Mare so they can somehow escape the apocalypse together. I hadn’t gone into this expecting much. Not having heard anything about it, I thought maybe it would just be another forgotten bizarre 80s film similar to my most recent watch of Society. Instead what followed was a pretty solid end of the world scenario that changes tones frequently but never strays far from its blend of romance and apocalyptic drama. It has an unexpected mix of standouts in its cast including Kurt Fuller, Denise Crosby, and a very young Mykelti Williamson, but the pairing of Edwards and Winningham makes for a kooky but surprisingly appealing lead couple that are hard not to root for.    

Adopted teenager Billy Warlock feels out of place in his Beverly Hills family with a sexy sister and two perfect parents. After his sister’s coming out party, his instincts were spot on. Absolutely screaming its 1980s California setting at every moment, it’s also an unexpectedly bizarre and disgustingly gory film. The writing and acting are rather lame, though the special effects are pretty good for what they’re trying to portray, but in many ways none of that matters after seeing the climax which I cannot imagine anyone saw coming. 

In 1982, somewhat incompetent engineer Dudley Moore is working on a targeting system to use for the United States Army tanks. Fast forward two years, Army lieutenant Eddie Murphy participates in a demonstration of the technology in Kuwait. A weird amalgam of a movie, it initially did not include Murphy at all. After the original tested poorly, his role was added even though he doesn’t interact with any of the other main cast members. There are probably many ways that that mixing could have worked and been a really funny movie. Though there are hints of its possible humor, this is not one of those ways which is a shame because it squandered a chance to bring together two great comedic actors at high points in their careers. Regardless, there is the small interesting bit of seeing the United States involvement in the Middle East much earlier than the first Gulf War.