Let's talk about 80s movies

[Holdfast]

I love 1980s movies.

Almost regardless of genre, there's an energy and simplicity (naivety?) to them that can make me smile. They have a certain glamour/gloss/heightened-reality to them, even when the subject matter may not be glamorous. I love that feel.

Examples of this sort of quintessential 80s vibe across genre classes:

Coming of Age/Rite-of-Passage: Breakfast Club, St Elmo's Fire, An Officer and a Gentleman, Karate Kid, Flashdance, Footloose.
Corporate/Finance: Wall Street, Secret of My Success, Trading Places, and (more loosely) Brewster's Millions, Weekend at Bernies.
Action Blockbuster: Top Gun, Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop
Sci-Fi: Aliens, ESB, ROTJ, Blade Runner, Highlander, Star Trek II, III, IV.
Comedy, esp. teen comedies: Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller, Heathers, Risky Business, Teen Wolf, Wargames.
Arnie (deserves a category of his own): Predator, Commando, Conan, Running Man, Terminator

It would be difficult to imagine any of those movies being made in another decade and keeping their glossy feel. Even movies in that list that actually deal with quite unglossy subjects still feel very slick.

What do you love - or hate! - about 80s movies? Do you have a favourite movie or favourite 80s genre?

(this post is inspired by watching Secret of My Success earlier this evening. What other decade other than the 1980s could have made this corporate fairytale/fantasy? )

 

[T'Baio]

When talking about 80's action movies, people bring up Arnold, Sly, Bruce Willis, et al. The originator was Chuck Norris in the late 70's. His films set the template for what came from those men in the 80's.

 

[Holdfast]

Sure, but every genre has its roots in what's gone before.

The difference is the scale - and I use the word again - glamour of the 80s incarnations compared to the 70s. Chuck Norris films definitely planted the seed with stuff like Good Guys Wear Black, but it flowered during the 80s. The Delta Force would be Chuck Norris given the full-on 80s gloss, if you like.

 

[Jadzia]

I love 1980s movies.

Me too

Almost regardless of genre, there's an energy and simplicity (naivety?) to them that can make me smile. They have a certain glamour/gloss/heightened-reality to them, even when the subject matter may not be glamorous. I love that feel.

It's hard to describe what that quality is that makes 80s movie great. But one of the things I've picked up on is this:

The bad guy megalomaniacs were often more eccentric and had relatively small scale ambitions compared to what we see in movies from later decades.

Also, 80s films take themselves less seriously. The actors more often look like they're having fun doing the filming, like there was a more relaxed, more informal atmosphere somehow...

Anyway, here's a list of some favourites:

Karate Kid, Brewster's Millions, Beverly Hills Cop, Star Trek IV, Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller, Wargames, Short Circuit, Flight of the Navigator, The Golden Child, Beetlejuice, Clockwise, Labyrinth, Ghostbusters, See no evil hear no evil, Police academy 1-3, Gremlins, Project X, Innerspace ...

 

[T'Baio]

I completely agree. It's just that, outside of the silly "Norris' tears cure cancer" stuff, he doesn't get a whole lot of credit for his cinematic history. He's remembered nowadays for Walker or fighting Bruce Lee in the Roman Coliseum in Return of the Dragon...or whatever they're calling it today. But he almost single handedly started that genre of the 80's action movie...the lone indestructible man with guns and brawn and fighting ability, in that gloriously over the top 80's way. And it was the 80's. He did Good Guys and A Force of One in 78-79, but starting with his real leap to fame, The Octagon, it was 1980. Schwarzenegger defined the era with Commando in '85. By that point, Norris had already done The Octagon, An Eye For An Eye, Silent Rage, Forced Vengeance, Lone Wolf McQuade, Missing in Action, and had the trifecta in '85...Missing in Action II, Code of Silence and Invasion U.S.A.

The 80's owe it all to Norris.

 

[Too Much Fun]

It's definitely my favourite era of movies. I'm trying to watch every movie considered a classic or cult classic I can get my hands on, dating as far back as the 20s, and time and time again I find myself enjoying 80s flicks the most. Most of the time, if I want to tell a friend about a movie I saw for the first time that I was really blown away by, it's an 80s movie.

I was just talking to a friend about how I think maybe one of the reasons so many 80s movies work so well is because they were written more carefully than a lot of movies today. I mean even comedies had a lot more thought put into them...I feel like a lot of them were written as vehicles for certain stars, but with thoughtful consideration to how they might best highlight an actor's strengths. Eddie Murphy movies, for example, like "Beverly Hills Cop", "48 Hrs.", and "Trading Spaces". I've seen all three fairly recently and each time was delighted by how beautifully they utilized a unique comic persona and talent. That's why it saddens me to look at most of the movies centered around Murphy in the 90s and beyond.

You'd think people would learn from their mistakes and movies would be more polished as time went, but no. Special effects have certainly advanced, but I think in general the sophistication of writing has reverted, especially when it comes to action, comedy, and horror movies. Just because these aren't 'prestige' genres doesn't mean the movies written for them have to be so cookie cutter and cliche. People making movies in the 80s proved that, but lately action, comedy (aside from a few Apatow productions), and horror have been reduced to lesser genres. In all of the 2000s, I never saw an action movie that was even close to the classics of the 80s, except "The Rundown", which was (appropriately, I believe) compared to "48 Hrs." in positive commercials.

I also think movies were just generally more innocent and sweet back then. Look at stuff like "The Princess Bride", "Big", "Say Anything", "E.T." and The Muppet Movies. You don't see many movies as pure and good-hearted as those these days. I have a list of some of my favourite 80s movies here. I only wanted to do a top ten, but if I were to add more, I'd include "Innerspace" and some of the ones listed in the first post of this thread. It's hard for me to pick a favourite genre of movie from the 80s or any other era, so I just generally say what I like most are character studies: movies that focus very specifically on one or two characters...lots of examples of those on my list. My two favourite movies of all time are both from the 80s: "Say Anything..." and "Scarface".

 

[Shazam!]

The 80s is easily the greatest decade for movies. More specifically, 1986. The sheer number of 'classics' released that year is mental:

Aliens
Back to School
Big Trouble in Little China
Blue Velvet
The Boy Who Could Fly
The Color of Money
Crocodile Dundee
Down by Law
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Flight of the Navigator
The Fly
The Golden Child
Highlander
The Hitcher
The Karate Kid, Part II
Labyrinth
Little Shop of Horrors
Manhunter
The Mission
The Money Pit
Platoon
Raw Deal
Short Circuit
Stand by Me
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Three Amigos
Top Gun
The Transformers: The Movie

 

[tharpdevenport]

Maybe it is a lack of movie viewing, but I swear thinking of '80's films vs. '90's and upward, is that even when a fairly decent '80's film had "cheese" in it, the cheese was still gouda (), while films from the '90's onward that have "cheese", have nasty, moldy, dirty cheese lying on hte floor that it seems noone every cared about and just sort of picked it up and shoved it into the cheeseburger.


And a number of '80's films jsut had heart to them and CARED about plot and the characters:
"E.T."
"The Princess Bride"
"Planes, Traines & Automobiles"
"Labyrinth"
Hell, even the Beverly Hills Cop sequels (hope the 4th film in 2012 is good!)

Aside from Pixar films, I can't recall seeing anything like, say, "Explorers" after the '80's ended. Hell, even then, Pixar lacks a certain amount of creativity and youthfulness (just a damn hard thing to capture, no matter how good a writer you are).

That's not to say the '80's film were perfect -- there were turds!


But one thing I would also like to point out -- the AMAZING out put of classic film scores. I could probably name 50 off the bat, but I'll try to keep it down; a number of the greatest films scores ever written were done in the '80's -- it's like composers were "inspired":

"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (James Horner)
"Ghostbusters" (Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.)
"The Journey of Natty Gann" (James Horner)
"Something Wicked This Way Comes" (James Horner, and Georges Delerue's rejected score)
"Willow" (James Horner)
"Explorers" (Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.)
"First Blood" (Jerry Goldsmith)
"E.T." (John Williams)
"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (David Newman)
"PEe Wee's Big Adventure" (Danny Elfman)
"Spaceballs" (John Morris)
"Conan the Barbarian" (Basil Poledouris)
"Robocop [1]" (Basil Poledouris)
"Remo Williams" (Craig Safan)
"Back to the Future" (Alan Silvestri)
"The Mission" (Ennio Morricone)

Many, many more left off -- I just had to stop before I type out 50+ titles.

 

[data_lover]

all time favorite 80's movie ever has to be teen witch, hands down. i mean, the movie had bad rapping, classic 80's style, and the little creepy lady from the poltergeist movies. WIN.

 

[Jadzia]

The 80s is easily the greatest decade for movies. More specifically, 1986. The sheer number of 'classics' released that year is mental:

...

This is interesting to me. If we have truely advanced in the 20 years since, why can we not create another year with this many totally awesome movies.

One factor that was briefly mentioned above is creativity. Modern movies tend to be facelifts or variations of "successful" formulae. Almost like predefined templates are used to design them. A more mechanised approach maybe? More like an emulation of creativity, than creativity itself?

A second factor is that the 80s films were intelligently written. There may be some simple moral paradigm in the overarching story. Plus that intelligent design is reflected in smaller details.

Props that are designed in 80s movies often have a great deal of thought gone into them. The BTTF time machine for example is not a solemn and mysterious black box, which it could easily have been in a 00's movie.

As viewers we're invited to see the components that make it up. We're invited to learn about it's inventor, the charismatic and eccentric genius. There's a substantially consistent story surrounding the machine that's happening in the background of the movie. It doesn't take much imagination to believe it all. And what may be most important is that it's a fun and exciting thing to believe. The viewer wants to believe.

And it's the internal consistency in those small details that allows the idea to be exported from the movie, and become a cult concept.

 

[Shazam!]

But one thing I would also like to point out -- the AMAZING out put of classic film scores.

I was watching Jaws 2 the other day and when the kids were out at sea in their little boats there was an epic full orchestra score. Made today, it'd probably have Blink 182 all over it or whoever is popular these days.

 

[Shazam!]

There's a substantially consistent story surrounding the machine that's happening in the background of the movie. It doesn't take much imagination to believe it all.

The same for Ghostbusters. Proton Packs and Ghost Traps just 'appear' but we buy it.

 

[Hermiod]

The worst thing about 80's movies is, tragically, so many of them seem to have been shot on the cheapest film stock possible which means that some great films look like crap in HD.

 

[Luckyflux]

So many great movies to choose from! Here are three of my favorites not listed above.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai--A great, zany adventure. I always wished they made more than just one Buckaroo Banzai.


3 o'clock high--Great high school movie from beginning to end. It's better if you are a young, dorky kid....at least you'll be able to relate alittle easier.


Cloak and Dagger--Love this movie so much. I recently re-watched it again for the umpteenth time. Just fills me with pleasant memories of my youth with my Dad. Great father/ son type of movie.

 

[Mistral]

The 80's. I'm biased as that was my youthful heyday. That said, even today Beverly Hills Cop, The Breakfast Club, Back To The Future, Ferris, Platoon-they are just so much fun to watch. I enjoyed Dark Knight, The Prestige, and The Lakehouse-but they don't feel the same. I think the new Star Trek sort of got it-its a fun ride. But too many movies today don't leave you wishing for more. Breakfast Club sure did-or else there wouldn't have been a Brat Pack to speak of. I think the closest to that era I've seen recently would be Kevin Smith projects and maybe Aptow. I guess because they have a kind of goofy heart to them, a belief that things can be good-a feeling usually not found in today's movies. Even cynical 80s movies had traces of that heart-like Platoon, for instance. Plus the sheer volume of movies meant they were gonna make some gems. I don't think movies are made (by studios) in the same volume these days.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

We were actually discussing this at work the other day. For one thing, actors today take themselves WAY too seriously. As do the screenwriters. And for action films, they really aren't that campy anymore. And the one-liners today suck. And the actors today (Vin Diesel) can't pull them off at all. I'd love to see a return to movies like Commando, Conan the Destroyer, Real Men, et al. Really the only action movie I've seen lately that captures the feel of the 80s was Tropic Thunder.

Needless to say, at work, we're always yelling Arnold one-liners at each other in Austrian accents just for shits and giggles:

"GET TO DA CHOPPAH!"

"LET OFF SOME STEAM, BENNETT!"

 

[Gaith]

I totally agree that 80s movies have a certain flavor to them. I really felt it while watching Pretty Woman. It was sweet, hopeful, breezy and almost starred Ms. 80s herself, Molly Ringwald. On the other hand, it was about a prostitute, and the movie thus had a tinge of darkness that even Roberts' smile couldn't erase. Watching it, I felt as though I was witnessing the death of/transition out of the 80s. Appropriately enough, it came out in 1990.

I think a large part of it is the technological innocence. Starting with pagers, then cell phones and the Internet, we've forever lost that very Romantic sense that a person can be an island. The 80s are still recent enough that in spite of the hairdos and fashion, we recognize the psychological milieu of the characters even as we're conscious of a fundamental tech divide between us and them.

And then, of course, comes 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq... we can no longer view foreign wars as fundamentally foreign to our own lives, in the way we could with Reagan's conflicts and the first Gulf War.

Finally, the 80s were in large part Reagan's sunny optimism (like him or not), "Morning in America", etc. TNG is a perfect example: the Federation flagship's bridge looks like a Hyatt Regency Hotel. Compared to the 70s, with Nixon and Vietnam, a sense of improvement and idealism was partly inevitable.

(And I haven't even mentioned the profound effects of the country's rapidly increasing ethnic diversity, the fact of having a black #1 movie star, the mainstreaming of "gangsta" culture, the vague heritage of Jessica Alba, Obama, etc... !)

By the time the wounds of the Great Recession, 9/11 and the current wars finally heal (could take decades, IMO), we'll still have all our tech, and we'll still face Neo's existential terror of a plugged-in life.

But, in films if nowhere else, we'll always have the 80s.

This iconic representation of a 1980s American male represents a white person who's
never heard of email, and very possibly Baghdad either.
​

 

[Balrog]

Gaith, you bring up some great ponts, especially about the innocence of the 80s vs. today's realities. One show that I think truly captured that time to a tee was "Freaks and Geeks". Only 18 episodes, but a wonderfully rich bit of time specific pop culture. And Feig and Apatow mention one of the reasons they picked that timeframe (other than they gre up during that time) was it was right at the beginning of the MTV generation.

 

[Mistral]

I think, if there is an iconic film image of the era that represents the high school student of the 80s, its the one Gaith posted.

 

[Shazam!]

We were actually discussing this at work the other day. For one thing, actors today take themselves WAY too seriously. As do the screenwriters. And for action films, they really aren't that campy anymore. And the one-liners today suck. And the actors today (Vin Diesel) can't pull them off at all. I'd love to see a return to movies like Commando, Conan the Destroyer, Real Men, et al.

I imagine The Expendables will fill that void.