#1980sfilms

[moonlxght-maniacness]

When you first meet your friend’s family and join them for dinner:

[trendprospector]

Trading Places: The Classic Comedy Film That Still Holds Up Today

- Trading places cast: Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, Jamie Lee Curtis - Trading places Director: John Landis - Screenplay: Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod - Genre: Comedy - Release date: December 15, 1983 - Box office: $68.4 millionIn the realm of comedy films, few can match the enduring charm and wit of "Trading Places." Directed by the esteemed John Landis, this 1983 American comedy masterpiece continues to captivate audiences with its hilarious storyline, brilliant performances, and thought-provoking social commentary. Starring the dynamic duo of Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, along with a talented ensemble cast, "Trading Places" tells a compelling tale of unexpected role reversals and the triumph of character over circumstance. 

The Plot: Nature vs. Nurture

At the heart of "Trading Places" lies a bet made by the wealthy Duke brothers, Randolph and Mortimer, played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche respectively. Curious about the age-old debate of nature versus nurture, the Dukes decide to experiment by swapping the lives of two individuals from contrasting backgrounds. Enter Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd), a privileged commodities broker, and Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), a street-smart hustler. The Dukes orchestrate a scheme where Louis is framed for theft and subsequently loses his job, while Billy Ray is given the opportunity to experience the life of luxury and success. As the story unfolds, both men face unexpected challenges and discover hidden talents within themselves. The film cleverly explores the themes of social inequality, personal growth, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Resilience and Redemption

"Trading Places" excels in portraying the resilience and redemption of its characters. Louis Winthorpe III, stripped of his wealth and status, finds himself thrust into a harsh and unfamiliar world. Through sheer determination and resourcefulness, Louis adapts to his new circumstances, ultimately proving his intelligence and integrity. Aykroyd's nuanced performance brings depth to the character, making Louis a relatable protagonist audiences can root for. In contrast, Billy Ray Valentine initially revels in his newfound prosperity but gradually discovers the emptiness of material wealth. Underneath his streetwise exterior, Eddie Murphy's portrayal of Billy Ray exhibits vulnerability, showcasing the character's growth and moral compass. The chemistry between Aykroyd and Murphy is a highlight of the film, contributing to its comedic brilliance.

Impact and Cultural Significance

"Trading Places" struck a chord with audiences upon its release and continues to resonate with viewers of all generations. With its witty dialogue, sharp social commentary, and memorable moments, the film has cemented its status as a timeless classic. Its success at the box office, grossing over $68.4 million against a modest budget, is a testament to its widespread appeal. Eddie Murphy's breakout performance as Billy Ray Valentine launched him into stardom, leading to a string of successful films that showcased his comedic prowess. Likewise, director John Landis solidified his reputation as a master of comedy, going on to helm other iconic movies. The impact of "Trading Places" on popular culture cannot be overstated, as it introduced catchphrases like "It's a jungle out there" and contributed to the lexicon of film quotes.

The Legacy Lives On

Decades after its release, "Trading Places" remains a beloved comedy film cherished by fans worldwide. Its timeless humor and thought-provoking themes ensure its relevance in the ever-changing landscape of entertainment. The film continues to inspire new generations of filmmakers, actors, and comedy enthusiasts. Overall, "Trading Places" is an exceptional comedy film that transcends time. With its compelling plot, stellar performances, and profound social commentary, it stands tall among the greatest films of all time. The enduring legacy of this cinematic gem is a testament to the power of quality storytelling and its ability to captivate audiences across generations. Read the full article

[libraryofthephantasmagoira]

The Macpherson Tape (1989)

Saw this at the weekend Great as the idea of a found footage 1980’s alien abduction film sounds, it translates into a lot of screaming at barely visible things to cover a lack of budget. 

[floridahomeoftheday]

Robert DeNiro, scene from Taxi Driver, 1976, enhanced photo. #RobertDeNiro #TaxiDriver #MartinScorsese #NewYorkCity #1980sFilms #UrbanGrit #GetApproved #Mortgages #FloridaLoanOfficer #FloridaMortgageBroker #buyingahome #homebuying #realtorlifestyle #realty #realestate #realestateagent #realestatelife #RealEstateBroker #realestateagents #floridarealestate #floridarealtor #floridahomes #FloridaRealEstate #SarasotaRealEstate #TampaRealEstate #OrlandoRealEstate #MiamiRealEstate #JacksonvilleRealEstate #BradentonRealEstate #StPetersburgRealEstate https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx-phRunOZT/?igshid=agkqpcisufgu

[learnedfromfilms]

Top Gun (1986)

On March 3, 1969 the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to insure that the handful of men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world. They succeeded. Today, the Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. The flyers call it: TOP GUN.

Top Gun is a classic 1980s film which despite being set during the Cold War and having elements of us versus them and a few dodgy 1980s computer graphic scenes stands the test of time.

Which is why I chose to review it as my final 1980s film, having decided that it was unfair to the decade of big hair, big ballads and trickle-down economics to end with Krull the Crappy.

Top Gun is the story of Pete Mitchell (Tom Cruise) a hot shot Navy pilot whose father was also a Naval pilot before his mysterious disappearance in the 1960s. This has spurned on Maverick, as he is known, to be the best of the best.

To do this he must go to Top Gun school, the premier training facility for the top Navy pilots. While there he and his ROI Goose (Anthony Edwards of ER and other things but none as big as ER) encounter other hot shot pilots (Val Kilmer as Iceman and Rick Rossovich as Slider) as well as scenes of a very homoerotic nature.

There are lots of sweaty guys in locker rooms. Sweaty guys in towels. Sweaty guys in tighty whities. Sweaty guys playing beach volleyball.

You can all but smell the Brut aftershave. Phwoar!

Sadly while undergoing the training, despite the perk of shagging his civilian instructor Charlie, Maverick has to come face to face with his own hubris and the worry that his hot shot antics are what caused the death of his best friend Goose. Eventually he is cleared of any wrong doing, it was a malfunction he could not have forseen, but his heart is broken with grief and he walks away. Charlie, who is older and wiser and getting a bit of cougar action, brings him back from the brink and a local airport where he was drinking ice water.

Maverick goes on to graduate from Top Gun school and fly again, in fact he’s sent to a coincidentally just happening right as they graduate situation in the Indian Ocean. There he is reunited with his earlier commanding officer and gets a new ROI, the barely in it at all Merlin (Tim Robbins). They take down those pinko commie bastards and save the day and Iceman and Slider too in the process. Maverick is so awesome and amazing that he gets his choice of assignments after that and he chooses to go back to Top Gun and become an instructor.

There are also some great iconic lines:

Iceman: You can be my wingman anytime.

Goose’s wife Carole (Meg Ryan): Take me to bed or lose me forever.

Maverick: I feel the need…

Goose:…the need for speed.

  Slider: Goose, whose butt did you kiss to get in here anyway?

Goose: The list is long, but distinguished.

Slider: Yeah, well so is my Johnson.

  Charlie: Where did you see this?

Maverick: Uh, that's classified.

Charlie: It's what?

Maverick: It's classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

  And one of the most iconic 1980s scenes too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzVbz2HHzo

It’s still possible despite all of this to find a bit of cheese however. There are also some noticeable continuity errors – like how Tom Cruise is sweatier in some shots in the lift scene with Kelly McGinnis (Charlie) than in others. Or how his hair is longer in the sex scene (this is because it was actually shot after the film finished).

What can we ultimately learn as girls from Top Gun?

All Navy pilots are hawt.

The married ones don’t cheat, but help their friends get girls by singing soulful classics.

It’s not at all wrong to enjoy the bent over the sink pose which Tom Cruise has during the entirety of his conversation with Tom Skerrit after Anthony Edwards’ character dies.

We all would love to have a hunky guy in uniform sing to us as a pick-up line; sadly it only ever happens in movies.

[learnedfromfilms]

Krull (1983)

This film was so bad I didn't know where to begin, so I will begin where it does, with the narrator at the start.

Krull, a 1983 medieval sci-fi (more cross-genre’ing, it was acceptable in the 80s) opens with a space rock/ship moving menacingly towards a planet. As it lands and transforms into a rock/mountain of doom we hear this:

This, it was given me to know:            

That many worlds have been enslaved by the Beast and his army, the Slayers.                 

And this, too, was given me to know: That the Beast would come to our world, the world of Krull… and his Black Fortress would be seen in the land, that the smoke of burning villages would darken the sky…and the cries of the dying echo through deserted valleys.           

But one thing I cannot know: Whether the prophecy be true…that a girl of ancient name shall become queen…that she shall choose a king, and that together they shall rule our world…and that their son shall rule the galaxy.

So we begin our adventure with Prince Colwyn, who through his marriage to Princess Lyssa (the girl with the ancient name) unites the two kingdoms of Krull into one. Only their wedding is interrupted before she can give him the sacred fire from her hand (no really, she took it out of a pool of water) and she gets kidnapped by the Slayers (alien beings who ride horses and have magical staffs that can shoot blue lasers with one end or fight like a sword with a red electrical current from the other – sometimes they even could turn into sticks of fire, for those moments while horseback riding in the deserts of Krull when they just needed a torch). Predictably, both of their fathers are killed as are all the welder helmet wearing royal guards, leaving only the prince (Ken Marhsall) to venture forth with the help of an healer named Ynyr (Freddie Jones).

Still with me?

To win against the forces of evil (some people have said Krull is like the film version of the bastard child of Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons, I say that contraception should have been offered and a lot of it) Colwyn must go and find a special mythical weapon known as the Glaive.

Ynyr: You will need more than men and swords. You will need the power of theGlaive. Colwyn: The Glaive is nothing but an ancient symbol. It doesn't really exist. Ynyr: It exists, up there. In a cave on the highest peak. Without the Glaive, you will never be able to reach Lyssa. Colwyn: I need weapons, not symbols. Ynyr: Once, the Glaive was a very powerful weapon. It can be so again. But only in the hands of the right man. For only the right man can retrieve the Glaive Colwyn: Am I that man? Ynyr: I wish I knew.

Is he that man? Of course he is!

It’s basically a golden starfish shape with pocket knife blades coming out of each point and a jewel in the centre. He has to climbs some rocks and…wait for it…stick his hand into molten lava (it looks a lot like strawberry gelatin) to pull out the mythical weapon which he is not allowed to use until he needs it.

Let’s stop to review our check list:

Pretty princess needs rescuing – to do

Get mythical weapon you don’t know how or when to use – check!

Get an army to fight with you – to do

 So now we move on to find people to follow our intrepid prince who’s stripped lycra trousers look like they came out of Steven Tyler’s wardrobe circa 1987, guess skin tight trousers seemed futuristic in 1983 and only hair metal four years later.

This film is a veritable treasure trove of then unknown but now fairly well known British actors. Colwyn recruits Ergo the Magnificent, the most likable character in the film. Ergo is played brilliantly by the late David Battley whom most people recognise as the teacher from Willy Wonka (1971). His introduction is quite funny given that he isn't any shorter than the main actor.

I am Ergo the Magnificent. Short in stature, tall in power narrow of purpose and wide of vision. 

Also recruited are a band of escaped prisoners, most of whom seem to be thieves. Among them are Hollywood A-listers Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane complete with 1980s footballer’s ‘tache. Also in the group are Mark from Eastenders (Todd Carty), and Alun Armstrong both regulars on British TV. There is also a Cyclops, a blind seer and his random boy child (it’s never explained how they’re related).

Being that this is an adventure film, they lose some people on the way: quicksand is a bitch, avoid it whenever possible. Finally to reach the Black Fortress (the entire TWO HOURS I was watching this film, see how I sacrifice myself for you people I kept thinking of black forest cake and wishing I had some) they must round up some fire mares – these are basically horses who run so fast that flames come out of their hooves, oh and…they can fly.

More people die once they get there and the Slayers, in their home uniform (they’re now all in white, it must be the thing to wear inside the Black Fortress, while they save their black armour for the away games as it goes better with murder and mayhem) open fire with their laser sword-gun-torches. The Cyclops dies holding open rocks for people to get through, but it’s okay as he was dying anyway – they have a short life expectancy and if they resist it they feel immeasurable pain (much like I did while watching this film). Next to bite it is Hagrid, sorry Robbie Coltrane. His final words are epic:

Rhun: The journey was worthwhile. Finish it...

I almost cried. Alas, Liam doesn’t last too much longer:

Kegan: My travelling days are over, my friend. 

Sadly for me there was another 15 minutes to go.

In the end Colwyn uses the Glaive to attack the Beast who while in his death throes spins around like he’s a little girl doing twirls. Seriously, his alien hair/tentacles even flare out behind him. But what is this? OH NO! The Glaive is stuck, Colwyn tries to summon it back to him. Here Ken Marshall uses his classical Shakespearean training, calling up all those days where he stood before the mirror practicing Hamlet’s soliloquy.

In the end the Glaive is stuck and Colwyn and Lyssa realise it is not the weapon…

Colwyn: The Glaive is gone. I have no way to fight him. Lyssa: Colwyn, it's not the Glaive, it's you. Colwyn: No, Lyssa, it's us. Lyssa: It's us he can't defeat.         Colwyn: It won't return to me except from the hand of the woman I choose as my wife. Lyssa: I give it only to the man whom I choose as my husband. Take the fire from my hand.

She opens her hand and that fire is still there, despite it having not been in her hand since, oh about 12 minutes into the film. Colwyn takes the fire and somehow now his hand can forever hurl fire at things – not like a fireball but more a stream of fire. It’s handy for say, defeating the nearly dead Beast, breaking open rock faces so he and his companions can escape the now crumbling Black Fortress and I imagine for lighting fires in draughty castles.

Did I learn any lessons from this film? No. But I have learned, with horror, since that there is a group of people out there who want to see a remake of this utterly dire film and that somehow it has a rating of SIX!!!!!! on IMDB!!!! How is that even freakin’ possible? There was nothing redeemable about the film, the only decent character was Ergo. This is like the fruitcake of films, show it to people you don’t like.

I am seriously going to have to watch another '80s film so I can get this one out of my head.

[learnedfromfilms]

Cherry 2000 (1987)

In my search for the penultimate film for May's 1980s posts I decided to settle on a film which fit into so many genres I have now created one for it. Cherry 2000 is a western, sci-fi, robomance. Yes, that's right a western, sci-fi, robomance.

Set in thirty years into the future, or in 2017, it is the story of lonely recycling plant worker Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), who amazingly wears a suit to work (just one of the many unexplained things in this film). Sam has, we think at first, a pretty wife but his wife is in fact a Cherry 2000 robot who cooks, cleans and in the parlance of Cabin Boy (1994) cleans his pipes. Only while getting frisky on the soaking wet kitchen floor (there is a sudsy sink which just keeps pumping out more and more water while Sam and Cherry roll around on the floor in some ridiculously unnecessary orgasm/sperm visual euphemism) poor Cherry's wiring gets too wet and she short circuits. 

Sam cannot be placated with a normal woman. They require you to sign legal agreements to have any kind of bodily fluid contact with them. These agreements are sold in nightclubs by lawyers, including one played by Laurence Fishburne (no, seriously). Sam is a romantic, he doesn't want sex after a legal contract. He wants a sex bot, but not just any sex bot. He wants another Cherry 2000.

However, there is a problem. They aren't made anymore and haven't been since before the border wars, of which Sam it just so happens is a veteran pilot of a plane which looks like a crop duster (he flies one later). So onward Sam goes, not into the west but rather east with the help of a tracker named E. Johnson (Melanie Griffith). They meet near a hotel known as the Gloryhole Hotel, it's as you can imagine with that name a charming place.

On their journey into the forbidden Zone 7 where they combat all sorts of crazies and eat rattlesnake, Sam learns that real women are much more interesting than fake ones and also more interesting than his rather emotionally detached and possibly mentally ill ex-real-girlfriend who is living out in the wilderness with a man named Lester who has a Messiah complex and a whole lot of weapons, but strangely makes his followers do the Hokey Pokey.

In the end Sam makes the choice to ditch the new Cherry 2000 that he picked up and loaded the memory chip from the old one into and rescue Edith, E. Johnson. They fly off into the sunset together.

Things I learned while watching this film:

Sex robots are not as good as real women.

Real women drive supped up hi-tech Ford Mustangs (no really) that never run out of gas, shoot guns that never run out of bullets and get horny after having a minor head injury in a car accident.

You should listen to the woman with a cooler full of sandwiches when she says to you that going out into desert heat without eating is dangerous to your health. You will get shot. Stop and eat first. Die happier and fuller.

In 2017 we will all wear suits to do our recycling.

In 2017 people will still laugh at you if you're from Southern California and go into another part of the country dressing and behaving like you're from Southern California.

Sex in 2017 will involve people revolving around one another with vacuum hoses, but only after they have agreed to a legal contract on the exchange of bodily fluids first.

Melanie Griffith and Laurence Fishburne (or Larry as he's listed in the credits) might want to erase this from their IMDB. Brion James seemed to make a career out of brief stints in 1980s sci-fi films. He was better in Bladerunner.

[learnedfromfilms]

Young Guns (1988)

It was a tough choice for this week, either Young Guns or Teen Witch. I opted to break out of the rom-com teen mould and go for something more rough and tumble.

I remember seeing Young Guns a few years after it came out and also seeing the sequel but here we're just going to discuss the original.

Young Guns is, as people probably can guess a western. It stars a multitude of film and TV legends, several of them when they were quite young. Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen (before he was winning, he dies fairly early on in this film). His brother, Emilio Estevez. Louis Diamond Phillips, playing a Mexican-Navajo. Even the legendary Jack Palance is in this one. It's not his best 1980s role, for that see City Slickers.

Young Guns had the potential to be good, really good. It was about Billy the Kid. It was about guys fighting injustice and corporate greed in the Old West. It had a stellar cast. What it did not have was a decent script. I hadn't realised this, but it is a risk you take when you rewatch old films you used to like.

There are some really awful lines in this film, clearly the screenplay writer decided to opt for big summer blockbuster type film rather than a good western like Unforgiven or even, to be fair City Slickers.

Dirty Steve :"Damn good riding with you, Chavez."

Chavez: "Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're all right..."

The stereotypes are endless. The Mexican-Indian throws knives, comes from a reservation and eats peyote. There is a learned reader-poet Doc (Sutherland), the uptight religious one (Sheen, no seriously), the naive virgin who dies after his unconsummated wedding night, the tobacco spitting ignorant one (Dermot Mulroney). For a change Terence Stamp is a good guy, but he buys the farm early on.

My advice to you? Don't reminisce over this one. Stick to the Bon Jovi song and just forget all about the film. And whatever you do, don't give in to temptation and google "Young Guns tattoo" because there are a lot of people out there who just can't let it go, it seems.