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Movies, Movies We Still Care About

Movies We Still Care About – 1984 – Part 1 (A-M)

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(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction.  Other posts in this series can be found here.)

As I mentioned previously, I am now splitting up the discussion of films for each year in order to keep the length of the posts manageable.  This post covers 1984 movies that started with the letters A-M. The full yearly lists will be included with each post.

Movies We Still Care About

  • Amadeus
  • Ghostbusters
  • Gremlins
  • The Karate Kid
  • Neverending Story
  • Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Police Academy
  • Red Dawn
  • Sixteen Candles
  • The Terminator
  • This is Spinal Tap

Other Notable Movies

  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  • The Muppets Take Manhattan
  • Revenge of the Nerds
  • Romancing the Stone

Best Picture Nominees:

  • Amadeus (Winner)
  • The Killing Fields
  • A Passage to India
  • Places in the Heart
  • A Soldier’s Story

Top Grossing Films (US)

  1. Beverly Hills Cop
  2. Ghostbusters
  3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  4. Gremlins
  5. The Karate Kid
  6. Police Academy
  7. Footloose
  8. Romancing the Stone
  9. Star Trek III: The Search for Spok
  10. Splash

Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies

  1. The Terminator (100%)
  2. Amadeus (95%)
  3. Repo Man (98%)
  4. Blood Simple (94%)
  5. Ghostbusters (96%
  6. This is Spinal Tap (95%)
  7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (96%)
  8. The Karate Kid (90%)

Movies We Still Care About

Amadeus

This is kind of a weirdly structured movie, in that the protagonist is the villain, and the antagonist is the hero.  You follow Salieri in his jealous attempt to destroy Mozart, and as the audience you’re compelled by this even as you’re rooting for him to fail.

A lot of the critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning dramas of the 80s have fallen off the radar screen for modern audiences, but Amadeus has remained popular.  This is partly because being set hundreds of years ago lets it avoid becoming mired in its own time period, and partly because of the stunning visuals, sets, and music of the film.  But I think the stronger reason it endures is because of its universal theme of demonstrating just how destructive jealousy can be.

As an example of how this endures in our culture, here’s a scene from the 1993 film Last Action Hero where the kid warns Arnold Schwarzenegger not to trust F. Murray Abraham because he killed Mozart.

And just for fun, here’s Falco’s song Rock Me Amadeus.

 

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters combines the Laid-back comedy format that became popular in the early 80s with the stylings and tropes of an action-comedy, and ends up being among the best of both genres.  Written by its stars Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and with Bill Murray ad-libbing most of his lines, it is hilarious while still having a compelling and original story.  Of the films to come out in 1984, this by far has the strongest cultural legacy and has achieved a level of Mythology. You can instantly visualize elements from this film such as Slimer, the proton packs, the uniforms and car, the song, and of course, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

As a testament to its legacy, it’s still quite common on the Internet for people to hold out hope that there will be a Ghostbusters 3, even thirty years after the original, when Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray are far too old and Harold Ramis far too dead for that to make any sort of sense.

Side note, my wife and I have had a years-long running argument over who would win a fight between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the Michelin Man. I think she’s crazy for even arguing the point.  Stay Puft is a 100-foot tall incarnation of the demon-god Gozer.  He’s basically Godzilla.  While Michelin Man is just a 7-foot tall stack of tires. But that’s beside the point.

Gremlins

If you were alive in the 80s, you remember how stuffed Mogwai were everywhere, and you can recite the three rules of caring for them by heart. The cultural impact of this has faded over time, but it’s a fun movie and worth another viewing.

Also, it contains a rather odd scene where Phoebe Cates tells the story of the worst Christmas ever.

Other Fond Memories

(These are movies that fit the category of “Movies We Still Care About,” but for which I personally can’t think of anything interesting to say. Please don’t take a movie’s inclusion in this category as any sort of criticism.  You are encouraged to voice your thoughts on these films in the comments section.)

The Karate Kid

Other Notable Films

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

I think that this is a movie that gets unfairly maligned.  It’s nowhere near as good as the other two movies in the Indiana Jones franchise.*  But that’s not really a fair comparison, because Raiders and Last Crusade are two of the best action movies of all time.  Temple of Doom is still pretty good.  I has a lot of fun action and characters you can’t help but root for.  I’d say that it’s much better than most action movies coming out today, and is definitely worth another look.

I wanted to embed the mine cart scene, but I could only find it online set to the song Wipeout.

* I continue to insist that there are only three Indiana Jones movies, as I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that alleged film that had aliens, fridge-nuking, and Shia LeBeouf swinging from vines with apes.

The Muppets Take Manhattan

See my comments regarding The Muppet Movie.

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Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something?  Leave a comment below.

Movies

Best Improvised Lines

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I thought this piece about famous movie lines that were improvised was pretty interesting.

http://styleblazer.com/160633/the-best-parts-werent-scripted-15-of-the-best-improvised-bits-in-movie-history/

Movies

Insane Lessons in Popular Films

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I loved the Toy Story movies and The Incredibles, but I have to admit that this Cracked article about their moral lessons has a good point.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-most-insane-lessons-you-didnt-notice-in-famous-movies/

When you think about it, the villains in Toy Story 1 and 2 are only villains because they treat toys like inanimate objects rather than sentient feeling beings.  But in the real world, toys are inanimate objects.  In the world of the film, this isn’t the case, and audience knows that.  But there’s no reason for the humans to suspect this at all.  To them, they’re living in the same world we are.

When you recognize this, Sid is just a kid who is creatively repurposing junk to make new works of art.  And Al the Toy Collector is putting a lot of work and research into finding items that people are discarding as worthless junk, which could instead be put in a museum to bring happiness to many people.  They don’t know the toys have feelings. So why are they considered bad people? At worst, they’re victims of ignorance.

In The Incredibles, Syndrome is trying to invent technology that will improve everyone’s lives.  Yes, he’s also murdering people, so he can’t be considered innocent the way Sid and Al are.  But the film portrays the murder as secondary to his villainy, whereas his primary evilness comes from him wanting to create beneficial technology.

Some interesting stuff to think about.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About, Site Business

Some Changes to the Movies We Still Care About Posts

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As my Movies We Still Care About project has progressed into the mid-80s, there have been more and more movies per year that fit the category.

This is partially because it’s easier for a film to stand the test of a shorter period of time.  But mainly, this is a period where the craft of filmmaking was advancing, so movies were legitimately getting better.

Certainly a plethora of excellent movies is a good thing.  But it does make my task of cataloging them to be more difficult.  So I’m going to make the following changes:

1. I will start breaking up years into multiple posts.  This will help keep them at a reasonable length for you to read.  It will also keep them at a reasonable length for me to write, and allow me to post more often.  I will be breaking up my discussion of movies alphabetically, though I will keep the full lists on each post.

2. I will start including a section called “Other Fond Memories.”  This is for movies that fit the category of Movies We Still Care About, but for which I personally can’t think of anything interesting to say.  Please don’t consider a movie being placed into this category to be me passing judgement on it.  It’s simply that if I force myself to come up with commentary for everything, that will turn this project into a chore rather than something I enjoy.  And such forced commentary would inevitably be lower quality, making this blog less interesting for you to read.

This “Other Fond Memories” category is distinct from the “Other Notable Movies” category.  That is for films which don’t quite fit the topic of “Movies we still care about,” but for which I do have something interesting to say.

As readers, you are always invited to post your own thoughts regarding the films discussed, listed, or omitted in the comments.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About

Movies We Still Care About – 1983

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(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction.  Other posts in this series can be found here.)

Movies We Still Care About

  • Return of the Jedi
  • National Lampoon’s Vacation
  • Scarface
  • A Christmas Story

Other Notable Movies

  • The Right Stuff
  • Risky Business

Best Picture Nominees:

  • Terms of Endearment (Winner)
  • The Big Chill
  • The Dresser
  • The Right Stuff
  • Tender Mercies

Top Grossing Films (US)

  1. Return of the Jedi
  2. Terms of Endearment
  3. Flashdance
  4. Trading Places
  5. Wargames
  6. Octopussy
  7. Sudden Impact
  8. Staying Alive
  9. Mr. Mom
  10. Risky Business

Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies

  1. Risky Business (98%)
  2. The Right Stuff (98%)
  3. National Lampoon’s Vacation (95%)

Movies We Still Care About

Return of the Jedi

Many people consider this to the be the least of the original trilogy, and some will even go so far as to rank it among the prequels in quality.  (Which is just plain crazy.)  But I would argue that this really has a lot going for it, and is the equal of the other two.

Yes, many people find the Ewoks annoying.  But it’s not like they’re Jar Jar.  They’re cutesy and a bit silly, but what’s wrong with that?

Moreover, the Ewoks fit into the overall theme of the movie, which is that love and respect are more powerful than hatred, fear, and oppression.  The Empire treats the Ewoks with contempt as beneath their notice.  Luke, Leia, and Han treat the Ewoks as friends, and in doing so are able to use their help to defeat the Empire.  (They do lie about C3PO being a god.  But that wouldn’t have worked if they weren’t treating the Ewoks with respect.)

Jedi also has the moment where Darth Vader, the #1 biggest and best known villain in modern mythology, is redeemed through love.  That’s the entire point of the whole series, and to dismiss Jedi is to throw that theme away.

On a personal note, Return of the Jedi is the first movie I can remember seeing in a theater.  That’s what gave me a life-long love of film.  And to this day, the Jabba’s palace/barge sequence is my all-time favorite sequence in the history of movies.

National Lampoon’s Vacation

This is one of those movies that people just like to hang out with.  It’s the sort of laugh-a-minute thing where people have such affection for it that their like for the movie becomes part of their identity.  Consider that in the Blink 182 song “Josie,” the fact that the singer’s girlfriend is up watching Vacation at 3:00 AM is evidence of how great she is.

Scarface

The quintessential tale of someone who comes from nothing, and through his willingness to break the rules and be tougher than everyone else, rises to the top.  Then he becomes a victim of his own excess and is destroyed.  It has become a favorite of rap culture, which is a bit weird considering how it turns out, in one of the all-time most memorable endings in film.  Say hello to my little friend!

 

A Christmas Story

Another of those movies that people can watch over and over again.  For many, it’s a tradition to view this every Christmas, and it brings people back to their childhood.  The fact that it can do so either through people remembering similar childhood experiences as are portrayed in the film, or through remembering watching the movie itself, is a testament to how much this has become part of our culture.

Other Notable Films

The Right Stuff

Like with biopics, movies based on well-known true events tend to have their legacy overshadowed by the legacy of the actual events.  The Right Stuff was quite popular when it came out.  But today, people interested in the story are more likely to view the early episodes of the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon, or any of the tons of documentaries about the early space program.

Risky Business

We all remember Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear to Old Time Rock and Roll.

But the rest of the movie is not so memorable.  For example, check out this clip from Tosh.0, where two girls who made a video recreating that scene admit they’ve never seen the movie, and are shocked to find out what it’s about.

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Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something?  Leave a comment below.

Movies

Explaining the credits text on movie posters

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I found this article explaining the “Billing Block,” or the text that appears at the bottom of movie posters, to be very interesting.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About

Movies We Still Care About – 1982

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(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction.  Other posts in this series can be found here.)

Movies We Still Care About

  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  • Star Trek II
  • Tron
  • Blade Runner
  • The Road Warrior

Other Notable Movies

  • Tootsie
  • The Dark Crystal
  • Secret of Nimh
  • Annie
  • Gandhi
  • First Blood
  • Fast Times at Ridgemont High
  • Poltergeist
  • Conan the Barbarian

Best Picture Nominees:

  • Gandhi (Winner)
  • E.T. the Extra Terrestrial
  • Missing
  • Tootsie
  • The Verdict

Top Grossing Films (US)

  1. ET
  2. Tootsie
  3. An Officer and a Gentleman
  4. Rocky III
  5. Porky’s
  6. Star Trek II
  7. 48 HRS
  8. Poltergeist
  9. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
  10. Annie

Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies

  1. ET (98%)
  2. Blade Runner (91%)
  3. Star Trek II (90%)

There’s a long list of movies for this year, so I’ll try to keep the write-ups brief.

Movies We Still Care About

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial

This is another one of those movies that have become part of our culture and mythology.  I think the reason this connected so well with audiences, and continues to do so today, is that writer Melissa Mathison and director Steven Spielberg brilliantly took a (literally) alien experience that nobody has had, and used it as a metaphor for a universal experience everyone has.  Sure, we’ve never met an adorable extra-terrestrial who literally touched our heart before returning to his home planet.  But we have had similar experiences, both as children and adults, with a deceased pet or family member, or a close friend that moved away, or a lost love.

Given that Spielberg chose an image from E.T. as the logo for Amblin Entertainment, I think it’s safe to assume that Spielberg felt that E.T. was more important than his other early work, such as Jaws, Close Encounters, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

(WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

Before we get to the spoilers, here’s William Shatner yelling “KHAAAAAAN!!!”

This is widely considered the best Star Trek movie.  The Star Trek TV show aired at a time where episodes were independent and not part of an ongoing story, which meant that there couldn’t be any permanent changes to the recurring cast.  In contrast to modern shows like Lost and Game of Thrones which will kill off the stars at the drop of a hat, every episode of Star Trek had to end up with the main characters in exactly the same situation as they started in.  So imagine the shock of the audience of the day when at the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock dies.

Of course they undid this in the next movie, but Star Trek III will most definitely not be making this list.

Tron

Tron is a movie mired in its time.  The effects don’t hold up, the story is shaky, and it established the not-so-great tradition of completely absurd and nonsensical portrayals of computers that might as well be magic.  (Though at least Tron was meant to be fanciful, unlike the countless movies that came after it where the silly magic computers were meant to be a reflection of reality.)

But despite these flaws, it had a truly unique visual style that had never been seen before.  When I say “Tron,” you know exactly what to picture.  And it maintains a sense of fun that is quite rare for films to be able to pull off.  It’s the sort of film inspires enough affection that you look past all the problems.

Blade Runner

Blade Runner ushered in the film genre of bleak gritty (but not post-apocalyptic) sci-fi.  A product of the malaise of late 70s and recession of the early 80s, it posits a future world with amazing technology but where the lives of ordinary people are kind of crummy.  Like E.T., it uses an alien experience to highlight a common aspect of the human experience.  In the feelings among replicants and the way society treats them, we see a mirror of alienation and failure to connect among real humans.

It features a stunning production design and a vision of the future that is the most accurate of any film I can think of.  No, we aren’t likely to self-aware replicants indistinguishable from people in the next five years (the film is set in 2019), but you’d be hard-pressed to tell the cityscape in Blade Runner from modern-day Shanghai or Tokyo.

The Road Warrior

Quick, imagine how people would dress in a post-apocalyptic world.  You probably pictures a bunch of leather, chainmail, and possibly some repurposed football pads.  You know, stuff like this.

But if you really think about it, people in a post apocalyptic world would really be dressed more like modern-day homeless people, or the stereotypical castaway on a deserted island.  But because The Road Warrior has become such a part of our culture, you immediately thought of the imagery that doesn’t actually make any sense.

Other Notable Films

Given the sheer number of memorable films from this year, I’ll have to give short shrift the other notable movies in order to keep this post at a reasonable length.  Please don’t take that as me insulting your favorite movies.  If you love these films, I encourage you to write up your own thoughts about them in the comments.

Tootsie

Tootsie was a feminist movie for the time that would probably be considered mildly offensive today.  It’s based on the idea that a man pretending to be a woman can be better at it than an actual woman.  Plus the hero is trying to lie and manipulate his way into his dream girl’s pants, the dream girl is treated like a prize rather than a person, and while he’s pursuing her he’s also sleeping with/taking advantage of his emotionally vulnerable friend who’s clearly in love with him.  (The idea of lying into the pants of a woman as a prize is still a common trope, but you wouldn’t expect it to show up in a feminist movie.)  On the other hand, audiences of the day really connected with the idea of a man finding out what it’s like to be a woman.  And Dustin Hoffman turned in an excellent performance.

The Dark Crystal / The Secret of NIMH / Annie

I’m lumping these three together as movies that were beloved by children during the 80s.  If you weren’t of the right age to enjoy these when they came out or were frequently re-ran on television, you probably don’t have strong feelings about them.  But if you are of the right age, these were a major part of your childhood and you still have quite a bit of affection for them.

Gandhi

Biopics are a strange genre, because a life is not a story, and it’s hard to portray a life in a way that works on film.  That’s why most biopics end up being about substance abuse, mental illness, or a specific event.  Those are things you can wrap a story around, and get out the details of the person through that mechanism.  Gandhi is a rare biopic that avoids this.  However, when you look at a Biopic of someone who is extremely well-known, over time the legacy of the film gets overshadowed by the legacy of the person.  We remember who Gandhi is and what he did, rather than the movie about him.

First Blood

When you think of Rambo, you think of him killing bad guys by the dozen.  But that was Rambo II.  (Or III, or John Rambo).  First Blood is a drama about a Vietnam veteran who is abused and snaps after being pushed too far, taking an entire town hostage.  It’s a bit weird that this drama was followed up with cheesy hyper-violet action movies, but it was the 80s and everyone was either ten years old or on cocaine.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

This was the forerunner of the “alienated teen” genre that became popular later in the 80s.  And there’s this scene. (Not safe for work)

Poltergeist

“They’re here…”

Conan the Barbarian

“Conan, what is best in life?”

“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.”

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Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something?  Leave a comment below.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About, Site Business

Update to Movies We Still Care About – 1981

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I updated the 1981 entry of Movies We Still Care About, to talk more about Raiders of the Lost Ark’s role in the development of the Fun Action Movie sub-genre, and to include Stripes in the Other Notable Movies section.

So if you read that entry when I initially posted it, you might want to revisit it.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About

Movies We Still Care About – 1981

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(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction.  Other posts in this series can be found here.)

(This post was edited on April 6 to discuss Raiders of the Lost Ark’s role in the development of the fun action movie sub-genre, and to include Stripes in the Other Notable Movies section.)

Movies We Still Care About

  • Raiders of the Lost Ark

Other Notable Movies

  • Superman II
  • Clash of the Titans
  • The Great Muppet Caper
  • The Evil Dead
  • Stripes

Best Picture Nominees:

  • Chariots of Fire (Winner)
  • Atlantic CIty
  • On Golden Pond
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Reds

Top Grossing Films (US)

  1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  2. On Golden Pond
  3. Superman II
  4. Arthur
  5. Stripes
  6. The Cannonball Run
  7. Chariots of Fire
  8. For Your Eyes Only
  9. The Four Seasons
  10. Time Bandits

Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies

  1. The Evil Dead (98%)
  2. Das Boot (98%)
  3. Raiders of the Lost Ark (95%)
  4. Diva (96%)
  5. An American Werewolf in London (91%)
  6. Blow Out (90%)

In the introductory post to this series, I mentioned that various factors can skew the Rotten Tomatoes rankings, and that seems to have happen here.  If you look at that Rotten Tomatoes list, #1 is a microbudget amateur film that would have been forgotten if it didn’t spawn two popular sequels.  #2 is a foreign film beloved by cinephiles but not known to a widespread American audience.  I’ve never even heard of #4 and have barely heard of #6.  And #5 is a cult film that is unknown to modern mainstream audiences.

Movies We Still Care About

Raiders of the Lost Ark

This is the best action spectacle movie of all time.  Like Star Wars, this is at the highest level of mythology for modern film.  Everyone knows Indiana Jones.  The hat, the whip, the ark, fear of snakes, etc.

It’s a spectacle movie because it isn’t structured like a normal film.  There’s no character development – Indy is exactly the same at the end as he is at the beginning.  And rather than the traditional three acts with rising action, it’s an episodic string of distinct action sequences.  In a lesser film, the audience would be bored and confused, even if they didn’t have enough film theory knowledge to explain why they felt that way.  But Raiders is so awesome that nobody cares about its lack of structure or character growth.

In fact, nobody cares that Indiana Jones is entirely superfluous to his own movie, as explained on The Big Bang Theory:

Raiders of the Lost Ark was a deliberate attempt by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to recall the Saturday morning movie serials that they loved as kids.  Those were in turn based on radio serials.  Which were based on pulp/dime novels.  Which were inspired by the late 19th century adventure novels by authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard.  Haggard’s character Allan Quatermain specifically is considered to be the template for Indiana Jones.  This came full circle in 1985 and 1986 with the Richard Chamberlain movies King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold.  These movies are blatant rip-offs of Indiana Jones, even though the character of Allan Quartermain predates Indy by a century.

 Raiders is important for the development of cinema as an art-form, as it established the sub-genre of the Fun Action Movie.  You can generally split action movies into those that are intense, and those that are fun.  These easiest way to see which category a film belongs in is to ask yourself if you would want to be the main character.  Would you want to be Indiana Jones, traveling the world having fantastic adventures and punching Nazis?  Of course you would.  Because the most important thing about Indiana Jones as a character is that even when things go wrong, when he’s captured, beaten up, or exhausted by a string of fights, he still absolutely loves being Indiana Jones,

Look at the bringing a gun to a sword fight scene.  He’s fatigued and exasperated, yet every single person watching the movie can live vicariously through him and would delight in being Indy in that situation.

(Side-note: That scene was ad-libbed.  The script called for Indy to get into an elaborate sword fight. But Harrison Ford was sick that day, and didn’t feel like doing it.  So he used his gun instead, Steven Spielberg realized that was much better, and cinema magic was born.)

In the 70s, action movies had taken a gritty turn, as exemplified by films such as The French Connection.  And prior to the 70s, action wasn’t quite so dark, but still was more dramatic than fun.  Films like The African Queen, North by Northwest, and John Wayne westerns.  Some excellent movies, but that sense of playfulness was mostly absent.

There were a few fun action movies before Raiders, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, James Bond films, and Star Wars.  But  It was really Raiders that brought this feeling of fun into its own, and sparked countless imitators trying to capture that high-spirited adventure.

Raiders expanded the medium, such that from the 80s through today and into the future, we are able to experience both fun action movies and intense action movies, and as fans we are all better off.

Also, if you ever get the chance to see the shot-for-shot remake of Raiders made by twelve-year-olds, do it.  It’s amazing.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find it online.  (I saw it 15 years ago on a VHS tape owned by someone who knew one of the guys who made it.)  The best I could find is the first 10 minutes with no audio.  (If any of you can locate the full version online, please link to it in comments.)

The official website for the Raiders remake is here, though unfortunately it doesn’t have the full movie.

Other Notable Films

Superman II

“Kneel before Zod.”  That’s all that needs to be said for this.  And all that really should be said.  Because aside from a great villain, this film is an incoherent mess that is much better in your memory than in reality.

Clash of the Titans

“Release the Kraken!”  This is a special-effects spectacle movie whose effects were amazing in 1981, but really don’t hold up today.  And without that to carry it, there’s not much point to watching this.

The Great Muppet Caper

I talked about this in my write-up of The Muppet Movie in the 1979 entry.

The Evil Dead

I love Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness.  But the original Evil Dead isn’t in the same league.  It’s notable to see the clever techniques that Sam Raimi used to stretch his limited budget while still having a unique feel.  But the story’s generic, and the humor from the later films is lacking here.  Plus the entire events of Evil Dead are re-done with much better acting, humor, and production value in the first 10 minutes of Evil Dead 2.  So you can just watch the sequel and skip the original.

Stripes

Stripes continues the Laid-Back Comedy tradition developed by Caddyshack, featuring Bill Murray, John Candy, and Harold Ramis being Bill Murray, John Candy, and Harold Ramis.  While it doesn’t still enjoy widespread appeal after 33 years, it does have a small but devoted following of some who consider it among the all-time great comedies.  It’s certainly worth checking out or revisiting if you’re a fan of Murray/Candy/Ramis.

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Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something?  Leave a comment below.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About

Movies We Still Care About – 1980

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(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction.  Other posts in this series can be found here.)

Movies We Still Care About

  • The Empire Strikes Back
  • Airplane!
  • The Shining
  • Caddyshack

Other Notable Movies

  • The Blues Brothers
  • Friday the 13th

Best Picture Nominees:

  • Ordinary People (Winner)
  • Coal Miner’s Daughter
  • The Elephant Man
  • Raging Bull
  • Tess

Top Grossing Films (US)

  1. The Empire Strikes Back
  2. 9 to 5
  3. Stir Crazy
  4. Airplane!
  5. Any Which Way You Can
  6. Private Benjamin
  7. Coal Miner’s Daughter
  8. Smokey and the Bandit II
  9. The Blue Lagoon
  10. The Blues Brothers

Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies

(This is a new section to this series, as Rotten Tomatoes only has these lists starting with 1980.  I will include every film with a rating of 90% or higher, up to the top 10 for the year.)

  1. Raging Bull (98%)
  2. The Empire Strikes Back (96%)
  3. Airplane! (98%)
  4. The Shining (92%)
  5. The Big Red One (91%)

(I don’t know why Empire is listed above Airplane despite having a lower rating.  I’m just copying Rotten Tomatoes’ list.)

Movies We Still Care About

The Empire Strikes Back

Everything I said about Star Wars in the 1977 entry applies to this.  Empire expanded on and introduced new pieces to the mythology created by the first film.  Yoda, Hoth, tauntauns, Lando, Boba Fett, Cloud City, the feisty argumentative love between Han and Leia.  And of course, the greatest twist ending in the history of cinema.  The twist by which all other twists/spoilers are measured:

To get a good idea of how shocking that truly is to someone who didn’t know it, watch this compilation of children reacting to seeing that scene for the first time:

I also like when James Earl Jones talked about that scene on The Big Bang Theory.

Here’s a fun fact about Empire that you’ve probably never thought about.  Most movies have what’s called an external plot goal.  It’s the specific difficult task that the heroes are trying to accomplish.  Their efforts to do so are what drives the action forward and moves them from scene to scene.

In Empire, this goal, the thing that drives all the action, is that Han is trying to get the Millenium Falcon repaired.  Seriously, rewatch the movie.  It’s all about him trying to fix his broken down ship.  And all the amazing stuff that happens is because of those efforts.

Airplane!

Generally considered one of the funniest movies of all time, and certainly the best of the pure spoofs.  It’s just a joke a minute laugh riot.  I can’t pick a best joke to include here.  So instead I’ll post one of my all-time favorite moments on Jeopardy, in which Kareem Abdul Jabbar gets a question referencing one of his lines in Airplane, answers “Who is Kareem Abdul Jabbar,” and is wrong.

The Shining

There are so many cultural touchstones from this movie.  The blood in the elevator.  The creepy twins.  “REDRUM.”  “Here’s Johnny.”  The story is largely incoherent, with random elements that don’t make the slightest bit of sense to anyone who hasn’t read the book.  But Kubrick is such a master of creepy atmosphere that you end up on the edge of your seat regardless.

Just for fun, check out this recut trailer portraying it as a wacky family comedy.  And note that this is only funny because we already have such an ingrained understanding of what the movie should be.

Caddyshack

The first of what I call the 1980s “laid-back comedies,” where there isn’t much of a plot, and the film is just an excuse for funny people to stand around saying and doing funny things.  Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield act like Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield.  Bill Murray is the crazy groundskeeper.  And Ted Knight chews the scenery as the cartoonishly evil judge.  This is the sort of movie that you just want to hang out with.

Other Notable Films

The Blues Brothers

Everyone knows this movie, but I think few people care about still watching it.  Like many spectacle movies, it doesn’t really hold up.  There are better song-and-dance numbers.  There are better car chases.  There’s better laid-back comedy.  So there isn’t much reason to watch this.

Friday the 13th

Certainly people still care about the Friday the 13th franchise.  But the first film is missing the iconic elements.  Jason is a child who drowns, and his mother is the slasher killing off the promiscuous teenagers.  (Because they were doing drugs and having sex when they should have been watching over him.  This has become a standard horror movie trope, but it actually had a reason here.)  There’s no hockey mask, machete, or Jason as a monster in the first film.  When you think of Friday the 13th, you aren’t thinking of this.

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Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something?  Leave a comment below.