1980's Watch: Starman (1984)

Watched:  07/24/2024

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Carpenter

I'd not previously seen Starman (1984).  When I was a kid, I think my folks decided it would have hanky-panky in it when it started and we didn't make it past literally the first scene.  There was a briefly lived TV show based on the movie starring Robert Hays of Airplane! fame, and I caught that a few times.

When I was renting movies on my own, I just tagged it as "romance E.T." and took a pass.  

Anyway, here in 2024, Simon suggested we pay tribute to John Carpenter, who wrote and directed the film, so - with Jamie included, we took in a screening.

I don't take it as a knock that Starman is pretty much exactly what I expected out of the premise as I understood it from 40 years of occasionally stumbling across discussion of the movie, but if you watched 1980's media, it's pretty much what you'd expecting, and that's "romance E.T."  

So if that's true, we have to ponder the execution - and that's where I think the movie does okay.  

Karen Allen plays a Wisconsinite who has been recently widowed when her husband died suddenly in an accident.  Aliens from a distant planet have intercepted Voyager 2, and taken the messages of welcome at their word, sending a craft to Earth.

The ship crashes near Karen Allen's home, and an alien enters, taking on the form of her deceased husband.  The alien forces Allen into taking him to Arizona, where he is set to rendezvous with his people in a few days.  

Along the way, she sees he's benevolent and an okay alien.  But they're pursued by a military detail supported by Charles Martin Smith.  

As I say, all of this is pretty boilerplate stuff.  So what's asked of the film is that the actors - who mostly are just two people acting together in cars, motels, diners, etc...  sell the relationship which starts at uncanny terror and evolves into romance in a short time.  The vibe is a sort of romantic poem wherein an outsider sees us for what we are, and falls for an Earth woman and an Earth woman has reason to fall for an awkward alien wearing her dead husband's face.

And, for the most part, I think the movie works because of those performances.  Jeff Bridges earned an academy award nod for the part, to which he brings a charm and warmth instead of a hammy performance that would have turned this into slapstick or schlock.  Karen Allen gets the most screentime and dialog of any picture in which I've seen her, and she's really, really good.  There's so many things to play, both as an avatar for the audience dealing with an actual alien, and as a character who is still dealing with grief and trauma who now has this experience, and I can't think of how you improve on what she did.  

The movie kind of works on those performances, vibes and the occasional bit of wonder in acts performed by the alien.  

Anyway, yeah.  Like I say, in 2024 and having seen many movies, I don't know that the plot held many surprises, but as a movie it still works.  And would be a swell date movie some time.  

By the way spoiler here - but the alien doesn't just magically become Jeff Bridges as a full adult.  There's a pretty remarkable FX sequence that was made by a combo of work by Dick Smith, Rick Baker and Stan Winston - all on one brief sequence.  But it also is the only time I've seen a movie - where there's a clone or copy of someone - start as a baby, which, to me, is the logical thing to happen.  I'll accept it doesn't usually, but was impressed that's what they did.

Baseball Watch: Eight Men Out (1988)

Watched:  07/23/2024

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  Second or Third

Director:  John Sayles

I haven't seen a ton of John Sayles, but if you want to see me get excited, let's talk Matewan or Lonestar sometime.  Sayles has become sidelined in the movie conversation.  If folks like Coppola, Lynch and Cronenberg are having a hard time out there, you can only guess how it's going for a guy who has always had a hard time convincing exhibitors that people will like his movies when he was at the top of his game.  Sayles' general lack of huge Hollywood success is partially why I think we can safely ignore awards/ box-office and just enjoy a movie.

I remember watching Eight Men Out (1988) the first time back in college, well before I was watching baseball, and eventually kind of fell in love with the sport (I'm currently watching the Cubs try to lose to the Brewers here in the 9th - whoops.  Yup.  They lost.).  But movies were a huge part of how I developed an interest in baseball to begin with.  

1984 Watch: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Watched:  07/21/2024

Format:  Alamo 

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  W.D. Richter

We've already seen and discussed The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) a few times before.  

I saw it was showing at the Alamo as part of their 1984 ReWind series, and since I hadn't seen it in a theater since 1984, I figured it was probably fair to see it again on the big screen.  

Maybe the highlight of the film on this go-round was that, upon exiting, Jamie - who I thought was lukewarm on the movie - said "it just gets better every time you see it!" which is my firm-held belief.  It really is one of those movies that drops a million little things along the way, and every time one shows up - whether it's a watermelon in a press or Yakov Smirnoff as a Presidential Advisor or bubble-wrap eye protection - it's a reminder that someone pretty f'ing clever put this movie together.  

Anyway, here's to another viewing of a favorite from my youth.  40 years!  Where does the time go?  

The crowd, by the way, was a mix of aging nerds and somewhat younger nerds with kids in tow.  I can only imagine the car-rides home.

Richard Simmons Merges With The Infinite

Richard Simmons has passed at the age of 76.

He was one of the first people I remember recognizing on TV, and knowing their name as a real person and not a character.  The Richard Simmons Show encouraged clean living, healthy lifestyles and sensible eating.  I don't remember much more than it existed and was something I'd see on TV in the summer.

Once the show was over in about 1985, Simmons was just sort of omnipresent on television through, like, my 30's.  I remember tears from people talking about their struggles with weightloss, and Simmons, in workout duds, holding their hand and listening, absolutely sincerely.  Sure, at first you'd laugh like a snarky kid, but eventually, you had to say to yourself "this guy does this all the time.  He never breaks.  He maintains eye contact.  He listens and tries to help."  Like, you realizes he might be goofy in some ways, but at least that part was real.

He was also on celebrity gameshows, did guest appearances, was a late night TV staple, and sold millions and millions of VHS tapes to folks who didn't want to start working out at the gym or a Jazzercise class, they wanted to try it at home.  

In 1992-93, my high school drama class agreed to do "Sweatin' to the Oldies" once a week, as my drama instructor rightfully noticed, we were not the most active kids.  At the time it was the most notorious of Simmons' offerings, constantly advertised during daytime TV, playing music from the 60's as an army of, indeed, very sweaty people danced behind Richard in the background.  So, initially it was ironic.  But we all agreed - there was something to the videos.  Just enough to get you moving, but it wasn't like the Jane Fonda tapes that were a strenuous workout.  After that, I felt like I got his niche and what he was doing - providing a realistic lifeline for people to at least try to get moving, and make it fun.

Simmons retreated from public life around a decade ago, and after a lifetime of public engagement, eventually speculation about what he was up to begin to swirl.  But almost all allegations were denied or dismissed.  

I suspect we'll likely learn much more about Simmons' private life now that he's passed.

I don't know how much Simmons will be remembered by folks younger than myself.  He did have an online presence, but was fading for a decade before he officially disappeared.  And I don't know how many people will come forward with remembrances.  

Say what you will, and, yes, he made a lot of money selling tapes to people who probably watched them once, but he did offer some help and some hope, and he can't be at your house to get you to use your Deal-a-Meal cards, or find the 30 minutes for a workout.  I think he was probably an okay dude.

 I do still wonder if he owned any long pants.

80's Watch: Electric Dreams (1984)

Watched:  07/12/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Steve Barron

I have a memory of watching this movie during a family road trip.  I watched it in a shitty motel room with my dad after my mom and brother fell asleep.  Primarily, my memory was "it wasn't very good, and it didn't feel like a comedy, and it seemed like it was supposed to be a comedy but also wanted to be taken seriously, but was dumb."*

That was probably 1986 or so, and here in 2024, my thought is:  it wasn't very good, and it seemed like it was supposed to be a comedy but also wanted to be taken seriously, but was dumb.  But, in 2024, I also think the movie is oddly prescient - predicting some things that would have seemed ridiculous just 3-4 years ago, but now seem like they've entered the conversation.

Electric Dreams (1984) is a Futureshock movie, taking place what, I'd guess, is supposed to be a few years after its release, 1984.  That's just about the time computers started making their way into suburban homes.  The parents buying these infernal machines were hoping their nascent Gen-X'ers would be able to understand computers, but didn't know what the hell they were spending their beer money on.  In this era, computers were full of mystery and magic as far as the news and movies were concerned.  We're coming off WarGames - that posited a teen almost destroying the world by hacking into the US missile systems.  Tron was a neat analog of computer stuff, but people thought it meant computers were full of elves.  Superman III, thought computers would control the weather.  

Dr. Ruth Merges With The Infinite

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, celebrity sex-therapist and 80's TV icon, has passed at the age of 96.

It's hard to measure the impact of Westheimer on a couple of generations of Americans.  For Boomers, she was a clarifying voice for adults who had grown up in an era where the best hope for sex advice was friends and magazines featuring iffy articles (yes, I'm including Cosmo).  For Gen-X, she was there as that generation was exploring sex for the elder part of the generation, and if you were younger, like myself, opening our eyes that all kinds of sex was normal and we shouldn't treat it like a dirty secret.

For a while, Westheimer was on talk shows and she had her own talk-show where people would call in, and you'd hear their hang-ups and issues, and Westheimer would walk them through their feelings and make some suggestions.  

During her time on TV, I recall her mentioning her time in the Israeli army and that she could still disassemble and re-assemble a machinegun with her eyes closed.  This is because Westheimer was born in Germany in the 1920's, was one of her family's only survivors of the Nazis, and an early arrival foe what would become Israel - serving in Haganah.  

It is true that Westheimer, who was small (under 5'0"), adorable and motherly, plus she had the accent Americans already associated with European scientists, she became easy to caricature, and she became bigger than life.  She's even a character in the OG Dark Knight Returns comic in one of the darkest passages of that graphic novel.  

Westheimer co-existed with the Jerry Falwell's and the last gasps of the Catholic League having any say-so or strength in American cultural conversations.  But in a period where televangelists and politicians were getting busted for their shenanigans (all of which is way darker than you knew at the time) at least Dr. Ruth had bold-faced honesty on her side.  

Arguably, Dan Savage picked up Westheimer's torch, but throwing the gates open to all kinds of sex and a few campsite rules.  But Westheimer was a sensation for a bit there.  That said, she seemed to arrive very suddenly, was constantly on TV for a bit, and then somehow vanished while I wasn't looking.  And over the years, I've wondered what the hell happened to her as she just disappeared from public life.  For at least 10 years, I wasn't sure if she was live or not.

I find it fascinating how much impact this one person - with just the right credentials and persona - did have on America.  Sure, we kids watched out of prurient interest.  But we did watch!  And we accidentally learned stuff along the way.  

Doc Watch: Burden of Dreams (1982)

Watched:  07/03/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Les Blank

As I mentioned when discussing Fitzcarraldo, as good as the movie is, it's probably more famous for the impossible conditions around the production of the movie - which was shot on location in the Amazon with a crew and cast comprised of indigenous locals and Klaus Kinski, famously one of the least agreeable actors to have ever walked the face of the Earth.

Burden of Dreams (1982) documents the production.  

I won't say the documentary fails to convey the catastrophe that was the production, but if you also saw Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse, a documentary chronicling the epically horrendous filming of Apocalypse Now, everything else is going to suffer by comparison.

Hearts of Darkness was originally captured by Coppola's wife, Eleanor Coppola, and so there's an intimacy to the conversations and scenes shown that Burden of Dreams is unable to achieve.   Burden of Dreams seems shot like a respectful third-party observing with the good-graces of Herzog and crew, and while it's a catalog of many of the miseries of the set - and there were innumerable setbacks and problems - it's not a camera rolling during conversations that feel private or raw, until maybe the end, where Herzog is clearly at his breaking point.

And while the emotional intensity and feeling of creeping dread is not there while watching Burden of Dreams, it's still an absolute ride watching events unfold, and the very obvious problems baked into what Herzog seemed hellbent on doing, against reason and logic.  And I wish the movie had been willing to be less dispassionate about how Herzog's weird hubris fucked with the lives of thousands of people, and got people injured and killed and disrupted multiple native tribes and the massive impact he had during his relatively short stay.  

Part of the problem is that a lot of what happened seems to have happened when the filmmakers weren't around, and so it's being reported to them when there's spats with or amongst the locals.  We never really see the rainy season, and they missed the whole part where Jason Robards shot weeks of film before taking ill and quitting the movie - meaning the movie also lost Mick Jagger.

Equally odd about the doc is that only Herzog and a few locals get real interviews.  We don't hear from Kinski, co-star Claudia Cardinale (I would love her version of events) or Miguel Angel Fuentes, who seems like he'd have plenty to say as a young actor.  

But what is abundantly clear is the recklessness and naivete with which the film was mounted, and the trust and hope the locals put in Herzog that doesn't seem to really pay off.  They're not dumb, and they know that, for example, if the boat's pulley system breaks and people are hurt of killed, it will not be Herzog who gets hurt - and they seem very unsure why they're supposed to be taking this risk.

Managing the long shoot - which has full stretches where nothing is shot - is insane, and it seems like a lot of trouble could have been managed with a better producer or production manager to ensure boats were where they needed to be, people were where they needed to be - but it's also clear if anyone tried to control this chaos, they'd have gone crazy while failing.  This is a movie that went up against the jungle and - much like Fitzcarraldo - maybe barely got what it wanted out of all the trouble it went through.

But, yeah, when you see Herzog sort of shrugging off his discomfort about hiring a prostitute for his film set to keep the peace - on the advice of a priest - you've gone through a rabbit hole.

Further - you may have seen memes or clips of Herzog's meditation on the jungle and what it represents, but it is - by far - the most powerful moment in the film, and by that time, you're inclined to agree with Herzog's take.

Anyway - I do feel like Fitzcarraldo is a richer experience for having had seen the doc and having some "how did they do that?" questions answered in this film.  I just wish they'd been able to get some better access.  

Herzog Watch: Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Watched:  07/02/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Werner Herzog

Fitzcarraldo (1982) is not necessarily famous for being a great movie, although some certainly have considered it to be so.  Instead, it's mostly famous for being the most notoriously difficult movie to ever make, including having to start over well into production because the original star fell ill and they had to find a new star and then start over.  Also, they really did move a massively heavy metal boat over the top of a hill.

I'd been wanting to watch this movie for a while, then whilst writing up 8 1/2, I figured out Claudia Cardinale is in this movie, and that was, apparently the item that tipped me over.  

As a story, this movie will remind you of a few other things from the era.  Perhaps Mosquito Coast.  For me it was The Mission.  But it's the general idea that someone is going to go into the wild to go do something that seems foolhardy on paper, and, indeed, it turns out to be super hard.  And in the jungle.*

There's a poetry to the mad man with a vision disappearing into the jungle to try and achieve that crazy goal, witnessed by only a few from home, and surrounded by indigenous people.  And, because this is a post-1970/ pre-1990 movie, we're fine with showing them totally failing.  Because they challenged the world and the world pushed back.

Set in the early 20th century, our movie is about an Irishman in Peru, Fitzgerald (who goes by Fitzcarraldo) played by the very not-Irish Klaus Kinski.  Fitzcarraldo sees himself as a man of culture as he loves opera, and he wishes to bring that to the town he's watching grow.  We know he's delusional as he describes his small town as a growing city on par with the finest in Peru (it is not) - and he wants to bring opera to his town.  But to do that, he needs money.  

He stumbles upon a plan, which is financed by his friend and lover played by Claudia Cardinale, a local madame.  He's going to exploit a whole new part of the Amazon jungle for rubber - it's a section that even the biggest rubber concerns haven't hit yet as there are troublesome rapids on the river connecting that area to the port town.  

His plan, as you will have guessed, is to pull a boat over the hill separating the traversable parallel river and connect with the other river upstream of the rapids.  It's what we in the plan-evaluating business called a "hare-brained scheme" but, also "so crazy, it just might work".

The staff he brings on his boat is irksome, and the crew is initially threatened by locals, but the locals discover what he's up to (charmed by his playing of Caruso opera tracks) and assist him in his plan to move the boat.

Watching the film, it is absolutely an unbelievable spectacle by 2024 standards.  Herzog famously did go into the jungle, he did recruit locals to act in the film and work on the set.  And there's enough drama there to have spun off a whole two documentaries, The Burden of Dreams and My Best Fiend (neither of which I've yet seen).  But the results are there on film.  You can see a movie in which a 350+-ton boat is moved up a hill, bit by bit, with an army of extras.

Kinski as Fitzcarraldo is manic and absolutely believable as someone who thinks building a jungle opera house is a phenomenal idea.  His character isn't stupid - and Kinski manages to thread the needle of his character's obsessions and when he gets overclocked, and his awareness of the real danger he's in from time to time.  It's an ecstatic performance.

Anyway - at this point I'm mostly looking to watching Burden of Dreams to see how this thing was put together.

Do I rank it as highly as, say Roger Ebert, who placed this in his Great Movies list?  I'm going to sit with it a while.  It is certainly one that will stick with me, and I see myself thinking on it in the future.  We'll see.  For now, I'll say it was well worth the watch, and I would give it another spin.  And I think it has almost mythological components that make it worth seeing as a cultural touchpoint.

*It reminds me of the placard I saw that says "We do not do these things because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy."

Spite Watch: Babette's Feast (1987)

Watched:  06/24/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gabriel Axel

People lash out at their circumstances in a variety of ways, and your blogger is no different.  I am acting out by choosing to watch a staple of arthouse from the 1980's and 90's, Babette's Feast (1987).  

While I wait for La Dolce Vita to make it's way to my local library branch, I've been filling the time with what has turned out to be absolutely terrible movies.  And, so, I needed a palette cleanser.  So, one part of this spite-watch was to get hostile to the idea of bad movies and watch something so utterly different from, say, Shazam 2 and Ember Days, that it doesn't feel like the same art form.  And, maybe that's a real discussion to be had.

The second part of my spite stems from a dinner conversation which occurred about four years ago, when an art-film minded pal (who shall remain anonymous) was comparing something to Babette's Feast, and I admitted I'd not seen it.  He stated that Babette's Feast was not the type of thing I watch.  And so, just to spite him, I planned to watch the movie.  And here we are.  

See, I DID WATCH YOUR DUMB MOVIE,* anonymous friend!  HA HA.  Who's the Godzilla-watching dope NOW?**

So, Babette's Feast.

Angry Animal Watch: Alligator (1980)

Watched:  06/06/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lewis Teague

I very much remember, sometime in elementary school, a week or so when Alligator (1980) was going to show as a movie on TV.  Possibly even just late after I was going to bed.  But the commercials looked terrifying, and I found out about the urban myth of the sewer alligator.  

Anyway, somehow, I'd never seen this one.  Which is odd.  Y'all know alligators eating people is a favorite theme around here.  And this is maybe one of the first all-alligators/ all-human buffet movies.  

If you're me, you'll also be delighted to learn John Sayles wrote this.  Like, John Sayles...   you mad genius.  (I currently have a shiny new copy of Lone Star sitting on my table waiting to be watched.)

Director Lewis Teague has a checkered history of films, but this is from one of his better periods, and launched him from TV to features for a bit, where he'd go on to do Cujo and other pics before returning to TV and TV movies.

This movie *is* a horror film, but it also knows: this is insane, let's treat it that way.  It occasionally delves into comedy and camp, and even moments of "terror" are pretty wacky (thinking of our scaly pal bursting out of the sewer into the game of stickball).  The only scare I got out of the film was when Forester and his partner go into the sewers and a flashlight falls briefly on the giant croc in what was a shadow.  Like - man, that worked.  

Team Bear Watch: St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

Watched:  05/23/2024

Format:  Paramount+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joel Schumacher

Selection:  Household Joint Decision

Birth of a Nation.  The Jazz Singer.  Porky's.

All movies that captivated a nation at one point or another for a variety of reasons.  But, also, proof that, no matter their popularity in the moment, not every movie holds up over time.  

I had never seen St. Elmo's Fire (1985).  I was ten when it came out, so too young and not interested.  We only sporadically had premium cable during the era when I suspect a lot of my peers watched the movie.  But over the years, I had seen no particular reason to watch this film.  For a movie that was often mentioned as of a certain place and time - usually in talking about "The Brat Pack", it was never referenced textually or subtextually; ie: no one was suggesting that one should see this movie to be culturally literate - but there often seemed to be a belief that everyone *had* seen it.

However, St. Elmo's Fire co-star and 80's heart-throb Andrew McCarthy's documentary Brat is set to land on Hulu.  The film promises to cover the phenomenon of the Brat Pack from the inside, talking with the folks who were tagged in a notorious New York Magazine article "Hollywood's Brat Pack" by David Blum.  

But the thing is, I'm just young enough that a lot of the Brat Pack stuff didn't hit me.  I think they're mostly elder Gen-X, but in 1985, I was concerned with soccer practice and robots, not dealing with my friend's personal problems as they flexed to grow into adulthood.  So this movie was *not for me*.  Nor were a lot of the movies made by the Brat Pack in the general time of their release.  And as I'm sure the doc will cover, the Brat Pack stigma deeply impacted those actors as it made them a brand, a brand that spoiled as we hit 1990, when maybe I would have been interested in young Hollywood (which I never really was).*

The movie is most famous, really, for the cast of then-young stars, more than anything.  It was like an Avengers of former Tiger Beat features pushing into more adult territory.

Crime Watch: The Untouchables (1987)

Watched:  05/19/2024

Format:  4K

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Brian DePalma

When I was 12, it was, for reasons lost to time, very important for me to see The Untouchables (1987).  Something about the trailers must have set me off.  But I had also, in 1986, sat through the entirety of the Geraldo Rivera debacle, The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault.  And while we all sat there in real time watching Geraldo Rivera show his whole ass to the world by famously finding nothing,* they filled that time with biographical and historical info on Capone and the 1920's mob scene in Chicago.  So it's possible Geraldo had no small part in why I wanted to see this movie.  

My excitement was such that I bought one of those movies magazines (that you can still get at Walgreen's) with "behind the scenes" material and lots of glossy promo pictures and whatnot.  But, this one was not just filler - they actually got into the actual history of Capone and his cohorts, many of whom have unnamed parts in the movie.  I also learned, hey, there had been a popular TV series of the same name back in 1959-1963.

When the movie arrived, I was 12 and had no idea who Brian DePalma was.  Or Ennio Morricone.  And certainly not David F'ing Mamet.  Thanks to a dad who was a Bond guy, I was versed in Sean Connery.  And I knew Costner from Silverado, certainly.  But unless it was Harrison Ford, I don't think I was yet watching movies to see anyone in particular.

What I remember from seeing the movie the first time includes

Scorsese Watch: After Hours (1985)

Watched:  05/03/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Martin Scorsese

I have massive gaps in my Scorsese viewing - just huge, unforgivable gaps - and this movie was among the missing pieces.  I've been intending to watch it since watching the one-off episode of Ted Lasso, "Beard After Hours", which, to me, is one of the best episodes of TV ever produced.  And, you will guess, took inspiration from this movie.

The movie was pitched on the Criterion Channel as part of a collection of movies that happen over one night, and I assume After Hours (1985) was the first one they put on the white board when working out the idea.   It's the rare Scorsese comedy, steeped in 1980's-ness - maybe specifically New York 1980's-ness - and has a cast that is both very of the era, and maybe helped make some careers.

If Woody Allen made kids think that moving to New York was going to be all upper-middle-class shenanigans and politely having sex off-screen, Scorsese was tuned into other neighborhoods, and what happened in the city that never sleeps after Woody had turned in for the evening.  

Griffin Dunne was riding a wave of "maybe this guy is our next star" around this period, as a sort of charming everyman.  How and why these things pivot is anyone's guess.  He's kind of perfect in the role here, a guy who just works a dull office job in what we'd now call data entry, and who - despite his relative youth - is already pretty jaded.  He can't even feign attention when his trainee (Bronson Pinchot!) starts talking about his *real* aspirations.  

Finally Watched It: Road House (1989)

fighter, lover, terrible driver...  DALTON ROADHOUSE

Watched:  04/12/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Rowdy?

Selection:  Me

So.  Yeah.  I'd never seen Road House (1989). 

In 1989, there were a lot of great movies to see, and I saw a lot of them.  But seeing Patrick Swayze try on the part of action star in a movie about bouncers was not going to draw my interest.  My guess is that we didn't have HBO during whatever window most other people saw it, and so I didn't pay it much attention.

I do remember in college some folks effusing about the film, never quite an outright appreciation for the film, but the germ of what would become the meme-ification of the movie.  Also, in summer of 1996, I worked at Camelot Records, and we stocked magazines.  Kelly Lynch was the cover model on one of these, and the entirety of the summer, we did not move a single copy of the magazine, so all summer I pondered this woman on the cover I'd never heard of, and had to be told "oh, she's from Road House". 

And then, I dunno, the past 15-20 years, it seems like the movie took on a life of it's own.  "Road House is awesome" became the refrain.   But I still never got around to it.  Partially because people always assume you've seen it, so I'd had many parts of it discussed in front of me, around me, etc... and then folks would say "well, you must love this movie!" and I'd say "no, I never saw it."  And people would demand answers.  Which I think is kind of weird.  But is also a thing people do.  

Anyway, I have now seen Road House, and it's

80's Watch: Cloak & Dagger (1984)

Watched:  03/18/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Richard Franklin

Selection:  Me

We recently spent a weekend in San Antonio on the Riverwalk, a famed tourist trap where you can get a margarita the size of a fishbowl and try not to fall in Texas' second grossest body of water (Buffalo Bayou of Houston taking first), a thin ribbon of the San Antonio River that runs near the Alamo (which is directly downtown SA), and is now flanked by innumerable restaurants and bars.  The running joke when someone asks you where to eat on the Riverwalk is to say "oh, the Mexican place with the umbrellas" of which there are about a dozen.

On our first night out, Jamie and I discussed Cloak & Dagger (1984), and realized it had been many years since either of us had seen the movie.  As a kid, in some ways, the movie really hit home.  I was 9 when the movie came out, I played tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, had a budding interest in espionage-type movies and my family routinely went to San Antonio for local-ish vacations - So I knew some of what I saw in the movie very well.

Cloak & Dagger is essentially a Hitchcock thriller with a child protagonist standing in for a Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant.  Kid sees something he shouldn't, kid has a macguffin, kid is pursued by nameless, mysterious forces that will do him in if he can't stay one step ahead - and he might get people killed along the way.

E.T.'s Henry Thomas plays Davey, a kid who loves his espionage table-top RPG in which he plays as agent Jack Flack.  He loves all the spy stuff, and has an imaginary pal in Jack Flack (played by Dabney Coleman in one of two roles) who is constantly goading him into playing out the role of spy in every day life.  While sent on an errand by his pal (William Forsyth!) who owns a gaming store - both RPG's and videogames (there is nothing new under the sun), Davey sees a guy get killed.  The guy hands him an Atari 5200 game cartridge of Cloak & Dagger, which is also the tabletop game Davey loves.  

No one believes Davey saw what he saw, and he's soon pursued by the killers.  Up and down the Riverwalk and around San Antonio.  

Christmas Zombie Apocalypse Watch: Night of the Comet (1984)

Watched:  03/14/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Thom Eberhardt

Selection:  me

Apparently this one is a bit of an 80's horror-kid cult classic.  I can see why - it has a good mid-80's trash cinema vibe, and pits the teens against the adults in a sort of classic 1950's manner but with a Valley Girl-meets-punk vibe.  

The movie stars two people I like off the bat:  Catherine Mary Stewart, who may have the best 80's-hair of anyone who ever 80's.  And Mary Woronov as a scientist who cannot believe this shit is the end of the world (you will know her from Eating Raoul, her time with Andy Warhol and/ or possibly as Mike's mom who would not give him a Pepsi).  It's also got fellow Eating Raoul alum Richard Beltran as Hector, the last eligible dude in LA.  

I don't actually have much to say about the movie.  It's... fine?  I liked it well enough.  It's definitely got some funny bits in a dry, 1980's indie vein.  Catherine Mary Stewart is actually really good in this, riding the line between camp and not dipping into a schtick, while still managing to remain a young adult with other priorities than the end of the world.

There's something about this movie that it's fine on it's own, but feels like connective tissue between something like Return of the Living Dead and something punkier like Repo Man.  And certainly part of the continuum of youth-oriented horror flicks of the 1980's, including stuff like Night of the Creeps.  Anyway, fun horror-comedy!

Doc Watch: The Greatest Night in Pop (2024)

Watched:  02/14/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bao Nguyen

Selection:  Jamie

I was 9 years old (about to be 10) when "We Are the World" hit the airwaves.  And then played non-stop for what seemed to be about 6 months to a year.  I can't say when I first heard the song or saw the video, but I do remember unloading the car when my mom came home from shopping (that was one of our chores) and a copy of the vinyl record being in the back of the van.  

I also recall either that year or the next school year being brought into the cafetorium at Spicewood Elementary where we were shown a "making of" doc about the song and the famine in Ethiopia and nearby countries.  (This was the 1980's, VCRs were newish, and teachers were always finding some reason to show a film).  

We're almost 40 years out from the release of the record, so a lot has changed in that time.  And a lot of people have passed.*  And it's hard for me to imagine what this would look like now.  Do musicians even still do benefit work like this, or has streaming killed the potential for raising money?

But the doc, The Greatest Night in Pop (2024) - now on Netflix - is a neat exploration of what happened and why, how it came together and the bumps along the way.  

The film relies on first-hand accounts, pulling in top-tier talent that participated, from Bruce Sprinsteen to one of the masterminds, Lionel Richie.  And, because it was so star-studded, it also features a treasury of video shot from the event of the recording.  

Unfortunately, some of the key players either weren't available for a sit-down (Quincy Jones) or were very not available for a sit-down (Michael Jackson).  But you do get a very good picture of what it must have been like for the people who walked into the room, using interviews with Cindy Lauper, Smokey Robinson, Sheila E., to the camera crew and engineer.

Sometimes you watch a doc and they talk about the situation and the huge impact it had, and you know they're kind of playing it up.  After all, no one wants to watch a doc and at the end they're like "well, it didn't really work out that great."  But USA for Africa, at worst, raised awareness for how people could take action and not just be told that people were starving, and wasn't that too bad.  At best, it did get nutrional support to the people affected by the famine, as well as medicine and other aid.

From the point of view of the doc and the unique event that was USA for Africa, it's absolutely worth watching just to see all of these people in the same room, minus their support staffs and all the trappings of top-tier rock stardom in the 1980's.  It's not like "We Are the World" is still played on the radio, and it's been a minute since I didn't just say "oh, that's the song" and then mentally tune out again.  I'd forgotten you have Bob Dylan in the room, for example.  

But it's human without getting weird, and you're reminded - much as with the Beatles doc - these are people.  And in the 1980's, the media machine really wanted us to forget that pop stars were just good singers in funny clothes.  

When you're a kid, rock stars seem like a permanent fixture.  I didn't think of Huey Lewis as a *new* thing or that he might be star struck being in the room with these people.  But, really, aside from seeing each other at awards shows where they don't *really* interact all that much, when would this many people get together?  When do you get Ray Charles and Kenny Rogers sharing air? Or Dionne Warwick and Willie Nelson sharing a verse?

The doc has it's truly shining moments, and I won't spoil them.  It never does explain why Dan Aykroyd was there - and that someone specifically tried to get him is all the more baffling.  It also doesn't dwell on who wasn't there - beyond Prince.  But for every huge celeb, we're missing a Madonna.  But I also appreciate that they didn't talk about why people were left out.

Anyway, it's a fun one to watch.  

But, seriously, it's weird this didn't become an annual sort of thing. 

*we miss you, Tina  

G Watch: Godzilla v. Biollante (1989)

Watched:  01/30/2024

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  Kazuki Ōmori

Selection:  Me

For the most part, it's not that hard in our modern era to get your hands on most Godzilla movies.  In fact, you can find most of the Showa Era on Max and I've noted the Millennium era movies might be popping up on Hulu.  Plus, there's now that streaming Godzilla Channel on Pluto.  I have a pretty good run of the movies on disc on various formats, so I am good as long as those discs don't let their electrons scramble or something.  And, I've seen almost all of the Godzilla movies (one day I'll finish All Monsters Attack).

But Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989), in any format, eluded me for a long time.  It was out there on disc, but not through standard retailers.  You more or less had to go through eBay if you wanted to get a copy, and even those were pretty expensive as it hasn't been re-released in a decade.  And it never seems to show up on cable or streaming outlets.  It seems the distribution rights are weird on this one film for reasons I don't quite get, but it was originally put out by Miramax in the US, which is probably part of the problem.  

But, yeah, I found a disc cheap as I could, but still more than I wanted to pay, and finally just pulled the trigger.

Dug was Here Selections: The Skydivers (1963), Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967), Pumaman (1980)

Watched between:  01/12 - 10/14/2024

Format:  MST3K on YouTube

Viewing:  First on All (I think)

Director:  No

Selection:  Consensus - us, MST3K live feed

My father-in-law had some outpatient surgery and, thus, Dug, my brother-in-law, was here for a couple of weeks.  He capped off his visit with a stay with us.  Dug is the foremost MST3K/ Rifftrax fan in my life - and while I've been a fan since I was 14, he's the guy who remembers stuff about episodes from the show that I haven't seen since high school.

I won't be writing these movies up, but I can say I finally ticked Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967) off my list, which had been there since discovering Joi Lansing about 20 years ago via The Adventures of Superman.  But I also knew, for 20 years, this was going to be a rough ride.  The movie is a weird, all-star bash, including Lon Chaney, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine and a bunch of Nashville musicians, for whom it was intended to be a showcase.

you get two big guesses as to why Joi Lansing was included

There's also some yellow-peril as there's a spy story going on, also a gorilla and ghosts.  

this movie has everything

The Skydivers (1963) is a movie made by sky divers about sky divers, and it's like they knew one day MST3K would exist, and would need content.

The Pumaman (1980) is an Italian produced, British-shot movie about a superhero with alien-gifted powers of a puma.  Like flying, and walking through walls.  It makes no sense, and has Donald Pleasance as the villain, wearing a sort of leatherette jumpsuit.  Cannot recommend enough.

Anyway, a good time was had by all.  

  

Final Movie of 2023: Top Secret! (1984)

Watched:  12/31/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  ZAZ

For New Year's Eve, we had a small family dinner at Steanso's place and then set off those fire-free noise makers you can get at Target or the grocery store.  But his kids have elementary school kid bedtimes, so we mercifully departed around 8:00.  Minutes after walking in the door, Jamie had foregone my plan to watch whatever countdown trash was on TV and found Top Secret! (1984) on TCM.  And, dammit people, when Top Secret! is on, you watch it.  I think Gen X will largely agree with me on this.

Somehow Top Secret! doesn't have the same level of fame as Airplane or The Naked Gun, and that's a shame, because it's easily just as funny (I won't say funnier).   And it's just as quotable as the other films.  Heck, when I'm talking to colleagues from other lands, in reference to the US, I *always* drop  "You'd really like America. We've got the Liberty Bell, Disneyland on both coasts. It's happening!"  . To blank stares.  But I do it.

Anyway, maybe The Kids(tm) wouldn't like it because they didn't grow up on WWII movies, but I don't think it's necessary.  You basically get what they're doing.  And nothing beats a cow in rubber boots.

Like all good comedies, it's the absolute straight-faced delivery that saves it, and Val Kilmer's sincerity in the role is amazing.  But so is everyone.  Including Omar Sharif, Peter Cushing, Christopher Villiers, and countless familiar faces from the era.  I really like Lucy Gutteridge in this movie, but lady decided to hang it up around 1990 and that was it.  

Minute-for-minute, it's delivering amazing gags in every scene.  Visual, conceptual, sound bits...  it's absolutely nuts.  If nothing else, you have to appreciate the jokes-per-second ratio.

Anyway, everyone has their favorite bits.  I like the confession of love as they're parachuting and the wee singing horse.  But there's no right answer.