Reiner Remembrance Watch: Stand By Me (1986)

Watched:  12/30/2025

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Rob Reiner

There's a full run of movies we could have watched to salute Rob Reiner, but I was particularly onboard with Jamie's selection of Stand By Me (1986).  

In no way is my experience unique - but I did see this in the theater at eleven years old (I guess my parents were not deterred by an R rating), and it became a movie I watched over and over on VHS - rented and then taped off HBO at some point.  The soundtrack became part of my rotation, and is likely ground zero for my interest in Buddy Holly.  (There's a different conversation about how I was as likely to have my radio set to an oldies station as a pop station growing up, anyway, but you get the picture).  We adopted slang I use to this day - I am still known to describe things as "boss".  

If Stranger Things is any indication, with the right material, we can relate more to the ages of characters and the universality of that experience than anything about eras in which stories appear.  And I did.  

Holiday Watch: Die Hard (1988)

Watched:  12/20/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  John McTiernan

One of the great points of relief for me this year has been that, at long last, people are being shamed on social media for asking if Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie.  It is.  We're done.  Shut up.

What younger audiences won't know is how much Die Hard changed the game for action movies.  

I'll often point to Commando (1985) as the template for action movies, and in some ways, that's right.  But it also reflects the kind of movie being made where our hero was already a super soldier we understood stood above other men.  He could walk through a hail of gunfire without so much as a scratch and dispatch 100 anonymous henchmen before tangling with the Big Boss at the end of the movie.  And in the 1980's, action heroes were guys like Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris.  

Die Hard suggested that much more of a common man could be an action hero in the right situation.  He'd get the crap beat out of him, he'd get injured, he'd make mistakes, but as long as he kept a cool head and remembered Bonnie Bedelia needed him now, he just might save the day. 

Christmas Horror Watch: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Watched:  12/13/2025

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lee Harry

Sometimes horror fans complain that critics will say "this is pretty good for horror" or something of the like.  And I agree - that's a bit dismissive of a whole genre.  But my suspicion about why this happens is that sometime in high school, a person who would one day become a critic was with friends who rented something like Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987), and their takeaway was "this is what you guys are watching?"

On its face, yes.  This is a movie with problems.  It's three years after the first film's release, and this sequel - put out well into the age of VHS where most people probably saw the first Silent Night, Deadly Night - spends 36 minutes doing a mix of clip show of the first movie and having our new villain/ protagonist relay the story of the first film to a psychiatrist.  Then it spends ~30 minutes relaying the fate of the brother of the first Kill Krazy Kris Kringle (our hero/villain) before it unleashes our guy onto the world, where he immediately goes after his abusive former Mother Superior.  

There is, to my surprise, an added bit of pretension at the end as we learn the surviving nun was the same woman our Second Santa avenged after near SA - killing the dude with a Jeep.  I did not think this was the sort of movie to include dramatic irony, but here we are.

By the way, I did figure out immediately that at some point I'd seen the first half of Silent Night, Deadly Night, but I must not have finished the movie.  

But if your critics' only takeaway was "that wasn't very good", I am afraid they're missing the point.  This is the opposite of "elevated horror" - this is Santa Exploitation Horror.  This is a mad man walking around a suburban street firing off something like 20 shots from a six-shooter while he laughs stiffly and badly.  This is a guy murdering people for talking in the movie theater and punishing "naughty" people with an axe to the head.  It's not scary - it's basically a comedy.

So does it succeed as a film delivering on that premise?  

I mean, I think so.  This is a Rental movie to watch while drinking beer, and maybe cheer a bit when some murders happen.  

Thanks to the merging of the first film into the first act of this movie, it's also a wildly overcomplicated movie for a movie about a guy who puts on a Santa hat to kill people.  And it's part of the movie's charm.

I am only sad that I watched it by myself.

One day I need to do a post about how maybe the usefulness of critics and awards is minimal, and that what really makes a movie survive is a culture that can sustain those movies.  And horror and the horror fanbase is amazing about keeping movies alive and making lowkey celebs out of people who made a cheap movie 40 years ago.

80's Watch: Romancing the Stone (1984)

Watched:  11/07/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Robert Zemeckis

I have no idea how this movie would read to The Youths.  Fine, I expect, minus some of the jokes that would fly over their heads (ie: "The Doobie Brothers broke up?").  

Mostly it makes me miss Kathleen Turner in movies (yes, I know she's still very active... we just don't cross paths anymore).  And, man, she showed up fully formed as a movie star.  Her Joan Wilder (this is her third film and fourth screen credit) is a really pretty fun character even if they have to work overtime to make you think she's "blossoming" during the course of the film.

Maybe the action-packed climax goes on too long (I've felt this since I saw the movie as a kid) but it's otherwise a lean, tight movie with lots of solid stuff.  

But also, rewatching is a reminder of how 1980's the 1980's truly were.  Romancing the Stone is an astounding cultural artifact in that respect.  From turning Danny DeVito into a movie star (he was a huge hit from this, which is kind of odd when you see how little he's actually in this movie) to the Alan Silvestri soundtrack.  Michael Douglas exudes weird 1980's male energy that lacks any self-awareness.    And our odd relationship with South American countries in the 1980's as the drug trade was in high gear and the CIA was mucking about installing governments.  

Unfortunately, they rushed the follow up and made one of the single worst sequels I remember from the era, killing the golden goose.

Crampton Hallo-Watch: From Beyond (1986)

Watched:  10/25/2025

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Third?

Director:  Stuart Gordon

Pal @iffywizardry watched From Beyond (1986) as part of his horror-a-day Halloween watching, and I decided, yeah, I wanted to re-watch it this year.  Because who doesn't need more Barbara Crampton in their movie-watching, really?

I wrote this up just last year, so no real need to re-litigate.  If you read that brief write-up, I kinda underplayed the push the movie makes about the pineal-gland stuff and madness and sex intertwining.  And it's right there.  And leads to the most famous scene in the movie, which sure made an impression on a generation of horror fans.  

But, yeah, this is a movie about a bunch of people with sexual hang-ups, and very little in the way of discussing it, and instead manifesting as weird shit.  And it's kind of great.  

It's a movie with transdimensional monsters, a warped villain, and a guy eating brains.  What's not to like?

Anyhoo, like Re-Animator, this is an oddly perfect movie hitting all the right notes and gets better every time you watch it, which for genre film I think is *the* defining sign of greatness, whether we're talking horror or The Third Man.    

I would pick this up on 4K, but it's currently $47.  Which... come on, man.

Hallo-Watch: John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987)

Watched:  10/24/2025

Format:  Simon's 4K

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Carpenter

As I said to Simon 3/4ths of the way through this movie, "I would have loved this in high school".  

That isn't to say I didn't like it *now* on my first viewing.  I did.  I just never got around to it, which is kind of a bad call with John Carpenter.  

Once again Carpenter tells a story about a group of people stuck in a single location as things go sideways (Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing, etc...) but this time he's getting metaphysical.  

Donald Pleasance plays a Catholic priest who learns a secret Catholic sect has been keeping the world's biggest secret.  Apparently they have a cosmic horror buried under a church in LA, but they need SCIENCE.  

To this end, they recruit a world famous physicist and his PhD students to come in and take a look at what they've got (a cylinder spinning and full of green liquid), and scientists from a few other disciplines.  They all set up shop in an old church, and begin to try to sort out what's happening.

Team, what's happening isn't good.  

What follows is a bit of cosmic horror that plays out over about two days inside the church.  And I am not here to spoil it.

Now, the movie has some issues.  I think they could have cut off the first ten minutes and we'd lose very little.  We could have had more of the great characterization we got in other Carpenter films with large casts like The Thing and Escape From New York.   Someone could explain who was keeping all 700 candles going in the basement of the church.   And I kept wanting to know why the movie wasn't about a school like Georgetown that is both high end and is also a Jesuit school.  We could have had a nice connection there, but it also might have undercut the idea Carpenter had about faith in both religion and science failing in the face of horror.

And that's the bit that I would have dug in high school.  Gimme that "your much beloved rules aren't going to help you now" jazz, and back then, especially peering into the unknown.  

I do wish Carpenter had found more ways to tie in the quantum physics conversation into what was going on with our cosmic problem.  It's okay that it kind of doesn't, but so much time is spent worrying about Schroedinger's cat and the nature of reality once we're talking particle physics, I can make some loose connections narratively, but it would have been cool to see those things tie directly together, even with some hand waving.

Anyway, I'm super bummed I took so long to get to this one, but it sure feels like a great movie to team up with The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness.  

Fun fact!  That's a young Dirk Blocker in this movie, who would go on to play Hitchcock on Brooklyn 99.  

Hallo-Watch: The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Watched:  10/12/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Miller

I checked Roger Ebert's review of The Witches of Eastwick (1987).  Look, some movies are a product of their time, and this is one.  Ebert found it an edgy, sexy romp.  And that was how I remember the movie being discussed in 1987.

I finally got to the movie here in 2025, and in short, all of the interesting bits are left off-screen.  We hear about them, can infer or guess other bits.  But we're still in 1980's America here, and if you want to not wind up in the midnight movie ghetto, you keep it polite so Mom and Dad have a movie they can sneak off to go see and leave you alone with a rented copy of Beastmaster.  

The Witches of Eastwick is about two divorcees and a widow (Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher) who live in a small Rhode Island town where they are hit upon by married men and saddled with lives they don't want.  The three get together on Thursdays to eat processed crap food, drink, play cards and have someone listen.

During one such session, they describe what they want in a man, and, lo and behold, these three women - with what X-Men comics would call latent magical abilities - seem to summon exactly that man to their town in the form of Jack Nicholson/ some light version of Satan.  

Nicholson buys a massive mansion (think Newport on steroids) and proceeds to be an ass around town and impresses everyone he meets.  

He swiftly seduces Cher, Sarandon and... in front of the other two, Pfeiffer.  

Hallo-Watch: Re-Animator (1985) - w/ Crampton and Combs at the Paramount Theatre, Austin, TX - 10/06/2025

Watched:  10/06/2025

Format:  Paramount Theatre, Austin, TX

Viewing:  unclear

Director:  Stuart Gordon

Well, what a spectacular evening.

Last year I watched Re-Animator (1985) for the first time in forever, and was reminded of (a) what a great movie Re-Animator really is, (b) fired up a new appreciation for what the movie is doing, and (c) was reminded that Barbara Crampton is just an excellent idea all around.  

She's on socials, and she does not disappoint.  And so it was that I learned she and Jeffrey Combs were traveling to some cities to hype up the 4K restoration of Re-Animator on its 40th Anniversary.  And, fortunately, they were coming to Austin.

Horror Watch: Possession (1981)

Watched:  10/05/2025

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Andrzej Zulawski

Possession (1981) is one of those movies you see get routinely mentioned, but very rarely with *specifics* as to why it's on lists and recommended. 

Look, this is not a movie where one bops along with an A-B-C plot.  It's absolutely one of those movies - maybe like Inland Empire - where folks sure seem certain about what it is about but nobody agrees, including critics.  It is an easy movie to get engrossed in and like, mostly because it falls just on this side of adding up, and your brain is working overtime trying to stitch the pieces together.  Is it religious symbolism?  Is it not?  Is this a commentary on Berlin or using Berlin to make a point about divorce?  What's with...  you know...  the, uh... creature, I guess?

80's Art-Sploitation Film Watch: Ms.45 (1981)

Watched:  09/06/2025

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Abel Ferrara

Criterion Channel currently has a collection of "Nunsploitation" movies, and of their 7 offerings or so, I'd already seen three in my life (Haxan, Benedetta, The Devils) and I'd been meaning to catch Ms. 45 (1981) since seeing something about it a few years ago.  So here we are.  

And, yes, if I can watch 70+ Lacey Chabert movies, I can watch the remaining Nunsploitation movies.

Director Abel Ferrara was kind of a big deal when I was in film school, coming off of The Bad Lieutenant (worth seeing once, at least) and following up with The Addiction, with the Body Snatchers remake in between.  Unfortunately, I kinda stopped tracking indie film a while ago and lost sight of him, but he's been out there making movies all along.  He was not afraid of what was too much for an audience, and seemed not just to push margins but lived there.  

So this early film is a pretty good indicator of what he was capable of.  

Weird Al Watch: UHF (1989)

Watched:  08/08/2025

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Jay Levey

I was walking through Walmart and passed the $5 DVD bin and saw UHF (1989) sitting in the pile, and realized I didn't have a copy of the movie.  

I've already written this movie up twice before, so no need to do it again.  But it is a delight.  I may be suffering from some Space Jam Fallacy here, and I am pretty sure most of the jokes would make no sense to anyone under 40, but what the hell... there are things in this movie that I genuinely love, and I wish Al and Co. had made ten more movies.  

Also, how funny is it that Fran Drescher is in this in a supporting bit like 4 years before she launched one of the biggest shows of the 90's? 

Comedy Watch: The Naked Gun (1988)

Watched:  08/03/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Zucker/Abrahams/ Zucker

With the Liam Neeson-starring reboot out, I wanted to limber up those particular muscles again before seeing the new era of Naked Gun films.  

It's hard to know anymore if I'm laughing with The Naked Gun (1988) or with 13-year-old me who saw this in the theater and laughed so hard during just the opening bit with the police car driving through a variety of scenes that I literally slipped out of my seat at the Arbor IV theater.  

That kid, in 1988, was not prepared for what was coming for the next 80 minutes or so.  Or that he'd be quoting this movie in 2025.  Or still find it funny to just say "It's Enrico Palazzo!" for absolutely no reason, but find it makes him feel better.

I'm fairly certain if I had bracketed out all the comedies I like, this one *might* make it to the end as my favorite.  At least today that's true.  Leslie Nielsen is at his absolute apex of Nielsen-ness, the jokes land with a wry smile to a full laugh even now - and I've seen this movie maybe 25 times.  

I have no doubt this movie both plays to my sense of funny and helped shape it, just as Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker did for my entire generation with these movies, Top Secret! and the Airplane! flicks.  I mean, how many times as things are going south, do you hear someone say "looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue..."?

I miss Hollywood trying to be funny.  Look, my favorite show as the moment is probably The Bear, but it is insane that anyone is letting it get nominated for Emmy's as a comedy.  I can't remember the last time I paid to see a comedy in a movie theater that wasn't actually a genre film with a comedic bent - Google is claiming Knives Out is a comedy, and... maybe?  It literally may have been Crazy Rich Asians in 2018 - which was good.  Is there a sequel coming?  I feel like there is.

Anyway - Naked Gun would play well now, I think, even if I'm not sure what The Kids would make of timely and topical jokes (is Queen Elizabeth automatically funny in 2025?).  I'm far less worried about the un-PC jokes as they zip by - and we mostly knew they were in bad taste then, by the way, and that was the point.  And of course OJ's legacy did not turn out to be that of a wacky physical comedian.   But there's something timeless about accidentally setting off a player piano while the curtains are on fire or *gestures broadly at every baseball joke in the movie*.

I still love this movie, and I very much look forward to the new one, which I've heard from some corners is very, very good.

Super Watch: Supergirl (1984)

Watched:  07/19/2025

Format:  HBO Max

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Jeannot Szwarc

With Superman 2025 out, it occurs to me it's been a while since I revisited some Super-Media - and I cannot tell you the last time I actually watched Supergirl (1984) from start to finish - ie: I always give up somewhere in the middle.  

I always feel bad saying this, but the movie is a mess.  And there's no one place to point the blame, but the culprit is neither Helen Slater nor Faye Dunaway.  I don't know that you can even blame director Jeannot Szwarc, as this was the fourth Superman movie by the Salkinds, and he knew he was a hired gun.  So, yeah, as with all things going wrong with the Super-movies from this era, I blame the Salkinds.  But, without them, there would be no Superman: The Movie and Superman II.  And likely without those movies, no Batman '89.  And if none of that, then what...?

Life is complicated.  

Regret Watch: Jaws - The Revenge (1987)

Watched:  07/13/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Second (god help me)

Director:  Stanley Morgan

A while back, SimonUK and I podcasted this trainwreck.  Over the past six years, I'd forgotten how truly terrible this movie is.  Like - I don't understand how this is a studio movie with professional actors, and studio backing and intended for a human audience.

It's maybe not the worst movie I've ever seen, but.. for a studio movie?   it's up there.

Jaws: the Revenge (1987) is a movie that admits - in movie, by way of recycled footage - that the only reason it exists is that they hope you liked the first one.  But they have to admit, they do not know what this movie is about.  Because if it's about a giant shark, they all know to stay out of the water.  If it's about the lives of the Brody's, post-Martin Brody's untimely passing - no one asked or wanted to see it, and as a slice-of-life movie about mourning, they forget to be sad for the second half of the movie, and the movie instead gets very randy.

Waco Watch: Action USA (1989)

Watched:  07/12/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Stewart

After he'd recommended it to me twice, I took JAL up on his suggestion of this particular flick.  I meant to watch this for the 4th of July, but we got busy, so here you go.  My salute to America.

Action USA (1989) is probably the best high-action movie shot in Waco during the 1980's.

I very much remember Waco in the 1980s.  It was, aside from Baylor, a town that had seen its best days 30 years prior and was not yet recovered from the economic turns of the 1970's and 80's.  In a few short years, we'd have the Branch Davidian stand-off near here.  And then, much later, Joanna Gaines would convince people Waco was the shit, which... TV is a powerful drug, y'all.  Somehow, the second worst college town in Texas is now a tourist destination for people who like overpriced wooden spoons and mediocre football.

Anyway, it is always weird/ a delight seeing the landscape of my part of Texas in a movie.  And buildings that still stand that I am a bit familiar with from a job I had ten years ago when I was in Waco a lot.

Rock Watch: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Watched:  07/06/2025

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Rob Reiner/ Marti DiBergi

SimonUK and I took in the re-release of This is Spinal Tap (1984) at the Alamo on Sunday evening.  

I don't need to tell you what This Is Spinal Tap is, I hope.  Apparently, The Drafthouse has signed up to host Fathom events, and this included the viewing of the new 4K restoration of the movie, but it's sort of America's original faux-documentary.  It led directly to Christopher Guest's brilliant mockumentary* series and indirectly to the format of shows like The Office and Parks and Rec.  

I have lost track of when and how I saw this movie the first time.  I remember seeing it very young, and not really getting the jokes - minus the "it goes to 11" bit (I want to say as early as 1985 or 1986) but then seeing it again at the end of high school and absolutely getting it (maybe in 1992-93).  By then, I'd had a subscription to Rolling Stone, so some of the references and gags - like the cricket bat - made more sense.

80's Watch: Flashdance (1983)

Watched:  06/22/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Second all the way through

Director:  Adrian Lyne

If you want an idea of what a different world I was in as a kid versus where we are 40 years on, I think Flashdance (1983) is a pretty interesting test. 

First, Flashdance was huge back in the day.  It was referenced in other movies, on TV and elsewhere.  The soundtrack had a couple of great songs (I still think Gloria by Laura Branigan is phenomenal). And though it was Rated-R, it wasn't unusual for my classmates to have seen it by 5th grade, thanks to HBO.  

It's also not a very good movie, but people loved it at the time.  And I don't mean the movie is problematic by 2025 standards (which it is), but because it just sort of wanders around for long stretches.  Like, nothing is happening.  People walk around.  They goof.  The plot refuses to move along.

Oddly, there's barely any conflict.  It's a movie that pitches that if you believe in yourself, sorta, and don't really do the work, your new, rich boyfriend will buy your way into a dance school.  Because nothing about Alex's path to an elite ballet school makes a lick of sense.

Brooks Watch: Spaceballs (1987)

Watched:  05/31/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  10,000,000th

Director:  Mel Brooks

Rick Moranis should have gotten the Oscar for this one.

Back In Time Watch: Back To The Future Part II (1989)

Watched:  05/30/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Robert Zemeckis

I have a very strange relationship less with Back To The Future and the two sequels - maybe more strange than I maybe should have for three movies I don't really care about.  I think those movies are perfectly adequate 1980's movies that were kind of an entertaining carnival ride at the time, but that was it.  Over the years, like so much of Gen-X's media from our formative years, the Back To The Future movies have been elevated and elevated in the zeitgeist until, now, they're considered a major cultural touchstone.  Which, to me, is like "what if The Wraith or Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend were the movie that generated a cottage industry for a studio, inspired rides, a West End musical, and endless devotion?"  

Like, the movie was something I enjoyed, sorta, at the time, but it wasn't my jam.

First, as a kid I found Michael J. Fox as much fun as nails on a chalkboard.  It wasn't until Spin City that I found him remotely tolerable.  And in retrospect, that was probably that Connie Britton was such a distraction I didn't notice Fox as much.  I do not wish to speak ill of Fox, but his general Michael J. Fox-ness was a major factor in my reaction to all of his movies.  Sorry, dude.

I felt like, even at the time, "oh, here's more of that Boomer nostalgia about the 1950's and 60's" which was all over at the time.  I mean, 1986 gave us Peggy Sue Got Married, and the previous years had been giving us Happy Days, Grease, Sha-na-na...   As a kid who liked sci-fi, it felt like a waste of the potential for the concept, and only later did I appreciate that time travel was just the excuse to soak in this funny premise of a kid meeting his parents at the same age.  And hear music from 97.7 - all the oldies, all the time.  

The humor in the first one struck me as dumb.  The bit about "I am Darth Vader from the Planet Vulcan" just felt... lame to me. 

Muppet Watch: The Dark Crystal (1982)

Watched:  05/02/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Jim Henson

I remember seeing The Dark Crystal (1982) in the theater as a kid and it absolutely blowing my mind.  

Fantasy films were certainly a thing for kids in the wake of Star Wars, and Henson was already everywhere, from The Muppet Show to Empire Strikes Back.  But all of those fantasy films, that were live action, always starred humans.  I mean, understandably so.  

But for 90 minutes, Henson and Co. managed to create a world that had not a person in sight, a world both grounded in physical reality and utterly fantastic.  Taking what he'd learned from his many years of shows, commercials, movies, etc...  and getting his feet wet with things as different as Sesame Street and Emmet Otter, and enlisting artist Brian Froud, he cooked up this world.