It probably goes without saying, but by 1984 a lot of the trends seen in earlier years coalesced into what most people now think of as "the 80s." This development can be seen in the movies of that year.
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Some things that happened in 1984:
- Brunei became an independent nation.
- Astronauts made the first untethered space walk.
- The Winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
- The U.S. Marines were pulled out of Lebanon.
- Teachers at a preschool in California were charged with Satanic ritual abuse. These charges were later dismissed as completely unfounded.
- Ronald Reagan called for a ban on chemical weapons.
- Terms of Endearment won the Oscar for Best Picture.
- The AIDS virus was discovered.
- The Soviet Union boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
- Bruce Springsteen released Born in the U.S.A., featuring the most misunderstood title track of all time.
- Tetris was released in the Soviet Union.
- Ghostbusters and Gremlins were killing it at the box office.
- Metallica released Ride the Lightning. (Oh yeah.)
- People in the Philippines demonstrated against Ferdinand Marcos.
- Jeopardy and the animated Transformers aired on TV.
- The UK and the PRC agreed to a handover in 1997.
- The IRA tried to kill Margaret Thatcher.
- The Vatican officially forgave Galileo for that whole "Earth orbiting around the sun" thing.
- Reagan won a second term over Walter Mondale.
- A famine raged across Ethiopia, triggering later aid efforts from Western pop stars.
- Crack cocaine appeared in Los Angeles.
Linked entries can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.
Excellent
1. The Natural
Robert Redford stars as an over-the-hill baseball player given one last shot at glory. But what makes this movie great is that it's about a lot more than baseball. It's also about the value of integrity in the presence of the corrupt. This was director Barry Levinson's second film, following Diner by two years. I applaud its idealism.
Some Good Ones
1. Threads
The Day After, Barefoot Gen and this movie. In the mid 1980s the threat of nuclear war had an immediacy it just doesn't have now. If you don't believe me, just look at the metal albums of the time. That theme presents itself over and over again. Yet of such books, movies and songs Threads has to be the most relentlessly depressing. I got about 3/4 of the way through and had to skip through the rest. It was just too depressing to watch straight through.
If you were looking to make a big movie on a small budget, however, Threads is worth seeking out. What they achieved with minuscule resources is indeed something to behold. The only films which approach it in that respect are some of the Russian war movies like Come and See, which were also made in the absence of appreciable funding.
2. The NeverEnding Story
Probably the best movie you could see after watching Threads above. Where that movie's all dark and depressing this one's very upbeat - at least toward the end.
I was nine when this appeared in theaters, so of course I saw it in the theater. Watching it in 2020, I remembered the flying dog thing and the theme song, but aside from that my memory of this movie was very hazy.
The plot? Uh... something Fantasia something princess something The Nothing something. The story ranks a distant second behind the visuals, though it's still an entertaining film. Weirdly enough, director Wolfgang Peterson did this between Das Boot (!) and Enemy Mine. It marks his transition into Hollywood movies.
Fun Fact: This movie was adapted from a German children's book. The NeverEnding Story covers the first half of this book, while The NeverEnding Story II covers the second half.
3. Stop Making Sense
Today I learned that P-Funk alumnus Bernie Worrell was also a member of Talking Heads. This fact makes more sense (ha ha) after watching this movie. You could regard Talking Heads as an offshoot of the whole P-Funk thing. As with all such concert movies, I'm not sure where director Jonathan Demme is to be found in this film, but it's still very good.
4. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Anime by Topcraft, the studio that would later morph into Studio Ghibli. It's set in a future where radioactive insects dominate the Earth, and wherein a young princess tries to teach her people how to live in harmony with nature. Director Hayao Miyazaki would go on to direct several celebrated films, the best known being Spirited Away. I watched the restored version, released long after the anime appeared in Japan, and while it's on the slow side it's definitely worth watching.
5. The Last Starfighter
Must have watched this dozens of time when I was a kid. Arcade game + Star Wars = The Last Starfighter. The early-stage CGI is memorable - and was cutting edge at the time - even if the plot is an afterthought. Still an entertaining movie, though they probably could have spent more money on the sets.
Fun Fact 1: Lance Guest, who stars in this movie, was 24 at the time of filming. WAY too old for high school.
Fun Fact 2: The director of this movie played Michael Myers in John Carpenter's Halloween. He also co-wrote Escape from New York.
Fun Fact 3: Actor Robert Preston, who carries most of this movie, frequently collaborated with director Blake Edwards.
Fun Fact 3: Dan O'Herlihy, who plays the Alex's co-pilot, was an Irish actor who also played the villain in Halloween III: Season in the Witch and the chief executive in RoboCop.
Fun Fact 4: Atari planned to release an arcade version of this movie, but decided against it after seeing an early cut of the film.
6. The Philadelphia Experiment
Michael Pare stars as a man accidentally sent into the future. It's similar in many ways to John Carpenter's far superior Starman, which came out the same year. Carpenter was also one of the producers of this movie.
7. Purple Rain
Poor Prince. He just wants to play his music and sexually dominate Apollonia, but his father is abusive, and Morris Day is trying to steal his spotlight. I remember seeing parts of this movie as a kid, and I was happy to learn that it still holds up. Especially the sex scenes with Apollonia. That woman could've given a dead man a hard-on.
And as much as I hate to say it - Bolan being my favorite of the two - I think Prince had the kind of rock/pop stardom Marc Bolan was always striving for. Bolan of course enjoyed tremendous success in the U.K., but his fame (and talent) never approached what Prince enjoyed in the mid-80s.
Fun Fact 1: The director of this movie went on to direct Tango & Cash.
Fun Fact 2: Morris Day and Prince went to the same high school in Minneapolis, and were frequent musical collaborators. The Time, Day's backup band in the film, started as one of Prince's side projects.
8. The Element of Crime
Lars von Trier's first movie, and also the first movie in his Europa Trilogy. It's early Trier, so expect a lot of people saying cryptic things against multiple screens - shots within shots within shots. It requires a certain kind of patience, but I liked it a lot more than the later Europa. The murder mystery plot makes it more accessible.
9. The Whale Hunter (a.k.a. Whale Hunting)
South Korean men rescuing women from lives of prostitution. This seems to be a popular theme in older South Korean movies. The Whale Hunter explores this theme a bit less seriously, with touches of Hong Kong-style slapstick throughout.
10. Top Secret
Hilarious if you're around 10 years old, and as it happened I was around 10 years old when I first saw it. I thought it was hysterical at the time. Almost four decades later? Eh, it's OK. Most of the funniest bits happen in the background.
Top Secret is notable for being Val Kilmer's first movie. He'd go on to do Real Genius the following year and Top Gun the year after that.
Well That Escalated Quickly.
A high school band teacher tries to reach a group of psychopathic young learners. The teacher goes from reasonable to unreasonable in a surprisingly short amount of time, but this movie is nothing if not entertaining. Michael J. Fox appeared in this before Family Ties aired, and it's a lot of fun to see an earlier version of him, long before he was a household name.
I'm not sure how this film compares to later genre offerings like 187 or The Substitute - it's been a while since I've seen those two - but I'm sure Class of 1984 has a special place in many people's hearts.
Some Bad Ones
1. Stranger Than Paradise
Jim Jarmusch is 50/50 for me. On the one hand I loved Ghost Dog, on the other hand some of his movies have bored me to tears. Stranger Than Paradise falls into the latter category. It's slow, nothing ever happens, and the "surprise" ending isn't really a surprise. Critics loved it, and it won a lot of awards, but its appeal was lost on me.
2. Firestarter
To be fair, only Drew Barrymore could have carried this movie, but the director and the script weren't doing her any favors. It's something of a spiritual successor to 1978's The Fury, though it's not nearly as good as Brian De Palma's film. Everyone involved does their best John Carpenter impersonation, but this movie lacks the dramatic insight of Carpenter at his best. The biggest problem is "The Shop" organization, which doesn't seem to operate in the most practical manner.
Fun Fact 1: Director Mark L. Lester would go on to do Schwarzenegger's Commando the following year.
Fun Fact 2: John Carpenter almost directed this movie. He was involved in its early development, but the studio replaced him with Lester after The Thing proved to be a financial disappointment.
Fun Fact 3: Blumhouse has plans to remake this movie. I'm not optimistic about these plans.
Like Firestarter, another Stephen King adaptation. This one is the worst of the two. It has three major flaws, which are, in descending order: 1) It starts off from the children's point of view. This destroys a lot of the mystery which should surround them. 2) Peter Horton's character is a thundering dumbass. 3) The "corn demon" at the end should have been hinted at in the beginning. As it is it just seems to appear out of nowhere, and its presence isn't that necessary to the overall plot.
Fun Fact: Linda Hamilton is in this.
4. Roadhouse 66
Oooh... "exotic Mezcal." These days you can buy that in most Walmarts.
Judge Reinhold and Willem Dafoe star in this lifeless attempt to resurrect American Graffiti-style nostalgia. At no point is it interesting, and this movie has some serious continuity issues.
Paul McCartney and co. lipsync their way through a plot that's just barely there. It's self-indulgent in the way all of the Beatles' movies were self-indulgent, and this kind of self-indulgence is only more annoying two decades after the British Invasion. Just compare this to Stop Making Sense and Purple Rain above. It's obvious which two of the three movies are better.
6. The Hills Have Eyes Part II*
I often think that Wes Craven was a really, really overrated director. He had a lot of cred in the horror world, but how many genuinely good movies did he do? The Last House on the Left, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes -- none of these movies are particularly good, even though they play with some interesting concepts. Even Scream -- an undeniably good movie -- rests more on its screenplay than on Craven's skill as a director.
The Hills Have Eyes Part II only proves my point. It makes the first entry in the series look much better by comparison, and even that film wasn't especially well done. Neither this nor the original hold a candle to Alexandre Aja's remake, and both are easily overshadowed by other classic horror movies from the late 70s and early 80s. To some extent Wes Craven knew what shocked people (i.e. he was good at spotting trends), but as a director? I don't think he lived up to the hype.
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Beyond the Valley of the Cringe
1. Rhinestone
Both the Dolly Parton/Sylvester Stallone team up nobody wanted and the one movie Stallone wishes he could erase from this timeline. Want to hear Stallone hear country songs? This is your movie. Yearning for a lot of awkward sexual chemistry (or the lack thereof) between Stallone and Parton? This, again, is your movie. I deserve an award for sitting through it.
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*According to some sources this movie came out in 1985, not 1984.
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