“The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It’d take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you’re lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go.” – Mad Max
Whole lotta 1980 in that picture.
There is, after this, just one more year to go through in the 1980s, and that’s 1981. I’ve got to say, when I thought back to 1980, I was thinking that I was going to see a lot of garbage. There is a lot of garbage, so I was right. But I was also very pleasantly surprised – there were a lot of great movies that were hiding in 1980, some of which I utterly forgot about.
1980 was one of the first years where video was a big deal (from my recollection). When VCRs became available, they were stunningly expensive, so the first VCR outside of school that we used was a rental – it actually came in a fluffy soft case and you had to hook it up to your TV. I missed many of these at the box office, and although they had a *very* liberal interpretation of who could get in to see an R rated movie (the definition was: did you have money, if you did, you were old enough to get in) I didn’t have a car or a way to get to the theater. Consequently, I saw the rest either on HBO® or on a VHS tape, mostly rented.
Once again, no sequels are on the list. To be fair, in 1980, most movies weren’t sequels – most were original creations. Looking at this list, I see that as a huge loss of cultural wealth and our Current Year as one of uncreative stagnation, mainly mining the past for ideas. Obviously, that will change.
Regardless, here’s the list:
Mad Max – I was one of the few in school that had seen Mad Max (HBO® again) before I saw The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2 for you Aussies). There was something very unique about the visual style and the practical effects that I enjoyed. The time where Max tosses the hacksaw to the handcuffed villain is classic – something Dirty Harry would have done. This movie gave us St. Mel, so, for that, I’m forever grateful.
A.I. can’t spell, apparently.
Saturn 3 – I’ll be honest, I stayed up late to watch this movie on HBO® primarily because I heard that Farrah Fawcett was nekkid in it. She was, but on a tiny television screen without zoom, well, she might as well have not been. I later found out that she was nekkid because Kirk Douglas demanded a love scene with her, take from that what you will. The movie itself is middling at best: a retelling of Frankenstein in space, and they spent most of the budget on the robot/monster. I heard that Harvey Keitel, who plays Dr. Frankenstein, did it all in a weird New York accent, so all of his lines are dubbed by another actor. Like I said, a nightmare. Oh, and, um, it looks way better on a big screen.
Breaker Morant – Ok, I didn’t stay up late at night to watch this movie because it was on in the middle of the day on HBO®. I started watching it while I was building a model tank, and got hooked. I had no idea that there was such a thing as a “Boer War” and watching this film didn’t add much to my knowledge, but it was fascinating and well done. Of the first three films, two were Australian. Good on ya, mates!
Where the Buffalo Roam – This has Bill Murray playing Hunter S. Thompson. One memorable scene has Murray having miniature-sized hotel staff play football in his room during the Super Bowl®. Bill and Hunter apparently became friends on the set, to the point that they got so drunk that Hunter tied Bill to a chair so he could do a Houdini-level escape and threw him into a pool. Thompson then had to save Murray, who apparently didn’t Houdini that well.
Friday the 13th – The original. A very disappointing movie to me that I saw after I’d seen Friday the 13th 3-D at the drive in, but without 3-D. Where did Jason® go? It was just a deranged mother? Then were did the monster come from? Bonus points for dead Kevin Bacon.
Chee-chee-chee . . . aww, it’s a kitten!
Fame – Ugh. Artsy movie about teen angst and trying to convince stodgy old people to get with the program. It’s really a generic movie, but I was dragged to it by an older sibling, and this movie alone convinced me that STEM was a much better way to not end up waiting tables.
The Long Riders – Okay, I was dragged to see this one by Ma and Pa Wilder, especially Ma. I’m not sure why, but she kept muttering, “There’s gotta be some clue as to where Jesse hid that gold,” and then something about a family legend. Dunno. Regardless, the people who were actual brothers in the James-Younger Gang were played by brothers in the movie. Couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a Carradine, a Keach, a Quaid, or a Guest.
The Shining – To this one, I dragged Ma and Pa Wilder. One of my teachers(!) had lent me The Shining novel, and, being very, very innocent, I skipped over or didn’t understand the disturbing sexual bits. Ma was a bit horrified. As we had to drive 3 hours from Wilder Mountain to see this one, well, it was a very long, very silent ride home.
A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.
A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.
A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.
Urban Cowboy – I have no recollection of how I got into the theater to see this movie, but I recall seeing Debra Winger on a mechanical bull that wasn’t even remotely trying to buck her off. My take while watching this was, “Huh, this must be how stupid people live and fall in love,” because everyone in the movie except Madolyn Smith was stupid. Stupid. I watched it again when we moved to Houston, and didn’t change my opinion. Stupid. But, a nice soundtrack.
The Blues Brothers – Many hold this to be a classic. It is, but I think the best joke is that Ackroyd and Belushi ended up making one of the most expensive movies (at the time) ever. Why? Because Belushi was “cool” and was the flavor of the moment, which was also cocaine. Had John not died so tragically (injected by the woman who was the subject of Gordon Lightfoot’s song Sundown: some people are just trouble) I think it would have been largely forgotten. Instead, it’s almost a shrine to what could have been. The movie is really about six Saturday Night Live skits strung together with a very thin plot and a lot of music. And, yeah, I’ve seen it a dozen times.
Airplane! – The tragic and heroic true-life story of Trans American Airline flight 209’s nearly fatal crash over Macho Grande, saved by passenger/pilot Ted Striker. And, no, I don’t think I’ll ever get over Macho Grande.
Just not enough sombreros in this poster.
Used Cars – I saw this one on HBO® late one night. And it was glorious. It’s a comedy from the guy who brought you Dirty Harry, Red Dawn, and Conan the Barbarian, and it stars Kurt Russell. That’s it. Why haven’t you seen it? Hal knows what I’m talking about.
Caddyshack – My big brother, John Wilder, took me to see this one. It was awesome, funny, and he made me promise to not tell Ma Wilder that we’d been to see it. I immediately went to K-Mart® and bought the soundtrack. On an album. Unlike The Blues Brothers, the manic energy (also fueled by cocaine) on this film set really worked. One of the best comedies of all time.
The Final Countdown – It’s not a horribly good science fiction movie, but it does answer the question of every kid (like me) who grew up in Reagan’s America: what would happen if we took a modern aircraft carrier to the Battle of Pearl Harbor? No, wait, it doesn’t answer that question AT ALL. Grrrr.
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu – Rock a Fu. It’s Fu music. It’s not good, but it is Peter Sellers.
Flash Gordon – This movie is fantastic. The science is awful. The acting is uneven – some great, some not so great. But it’s a hero, being a hero. There isn’t any politics (though now Flash is considered a “racist movie” because Ming is supposedly a Chinese alien?) and there is a feeling of optimism throughout the movie, along with a soundtrack by Queen®.
I asked A.I. to draw “piles of white powder” but that was a violation. But when I asked for a pile of flour? Sure!
Also made the cut, but the post is already too long, so I’ll be brief:
The Octagon – Why does the UFC® use and octagon? Chuck Norris in this movie.
Super Fuzz – If you like stupid Italian westerns with Terence Hill (I do), this is your cop movie.
Somewhere in Time – Art Bell (and every girl in middle school) loved this time travel romance starring Christopher Reeve.
Altered States – Sitting in a warm, dark tub of water makes you a monkey. I guess.
Chuck’s hair, feathered like the wings of a majestic bird.
There it is, an embarrassment o f riches, and there are even more from this year I didn’t mention. Hollywood should be ashamed.
Urban Cowboy was the movie version of Fonzie jumping the shark. They cast the guy who was typecast as Vinnie Barbarino paired opposite with ((Debra Winger)) to portray a Southern storyline and actually thought this was a good idea. The fake accents were just horrible and the infamous line “Are you a real cowboy?” coming from Winger epitomized how fake and gay the movie really was. It truly was a slap in the face to Southerners.
To my mind, Urban Cowboy was just Saturday Night Fever with a country soundtrack. NOTE: I’ve never fully seen either movie, just bits and pieces which is more than enough.
Agreed. And made him stupid, though in all fairness, Travolta can’t play smart characters.
The Empire Strikes Back is the absolute pinnacle of the entire Star Wars mythos. Prove me wrong.
— gah! TESB is nothing but a hallway that connects two rooms. They get to the ice planet, they have to leave. Get to Degobah, have to leave. Get to the cloud city, have to leave. Start learning to be a Jedi, stop learning… Nothing is resolved, only started- to be finished later in Revenge of the Jedi. **
One good thing, Harrison Ford finally takes the job seriously. Watch the first one and he’s phoning it in. Barely able to bring himself to stay on set and in character… just doing it as a favor for his buddy. The contrast with the british actors is especially telling. In TESB, for as long as we see him, he’s actually there and acting…
But I know I’m a contrarian.
nick
** (the originally leaked working title- which if they’d have been guided by the title would have made for a better film. But Jedis are above revenge, or something…)
I wasn’t even double-digits old yet in 1980 so the only one I saw in the theater on that list was Flash Gordon. While it hasn’t aged well, dang it was pretty awesome back when it came out. There are some classics on that list but a bunch I have never seen.
The thing I liked is, like I said, the optimism. Give us a few strong men? We can take on the world.
Well, we have “Caddyshack” & “Used Cars” on VHS, along with “Animal House”, among other classics, including Rodney in “Easy Money” (co-written by PJ O’Rourke). Use our “3-prongs” to hook up the ancient VHS Player to our 13 year old VISIO Stupid TV. And it works just fine. Plus, love to stop & rewind the classic scenes.
99% of flicks today are fake & gay. Sad.
Yup, PJ based Easy Money on Romeo and Juliet. Pugsley uploaded much of our stuff to a hard drive. Good times.
Your “no sequels” rule is fair, but I’m not gonna let a discussion of 1980 movies pass without noting that The Empire Strikes Back is the absolute pinnacle of the entire Star Wars mythos. Prove me wrong.
As a long time fan of Get Smart, I remember seeing The Nude Bomb. It was as corny as it sounds.
Bronco Billy is one of Clint Eastwood’s forgotten treasures, a charming look at the essence of America. Any Which Way You Can that came out in the same year is just silliness with an ape.
The Big Red One is one big war movie; I can still vividly remember its key scenes. Its D-Day beach invasion scene is as gripping as Saving Private Ryan’s epic sweep, only filmed with just tight camera shots of guys crawling around on sand. One of Lee Marvin’s best, and an excellent type-cast breaking role for Mark Hamill, who toted around an M1 instead of a light sabre.
The Gods Must Be Crazy is one crazy (South African) film. Who knew that recycling a single glass Coca Cola bottle could result in such mayhem?
Everybody decades later still loves the iconic picture of Jack busting through the door and saying Heeeeere’s Jonny! from The Shining, but Mad Max is by far the key cultural movie artifact from 1980. We are sadly moving closer to entering Max’s world every single day.
https://x.com/i/status/1864092222091657502
I watched The Big Red One a few months ago and the underlying story was good, but when they used a tarted up Sherman as a stand-in prop for a German Tiger, it just killed the mood. Apparently the film had a really low budget.
D
TBR1 was indeed a very good movie with a very low budget. It was a semi-autobiographical recounting of director Sam Fuller’s own personal WW2 experiences. After his death the movie was reedited with 42 additional minutes added (out of the 4+ hours he actually filmed during the original shoot) and this “extended” version was released in 2004. You can find scene-by scene comparisons of the 1980 and the 2004 versions online, along with interesting commentary.
thanks, I’ll have to check out the update as the storyline was good.
Your best bet is to get a twenty-year-old 2-disc Reconstruction DVD set on EBay for under $10. There’s a dozen or so for sale there.
I suggest you get a twenty-year-old Reconstruction 2-disc DVD set on Ebay for $10 or so. There’s a dozen or so of ’em for sale.
“Sam Fuller’s The Big Red One was already one of the best films of 1980, despite the fact that the version released to theaters ran barely half as long as the director’s cut. Fuller had been America’s ballsiest B-movie auteur, an ex-newspaper reporter of the hardnosed breed who made fiercely personal, radically stylized, and politically outspoken films between the early ’50s (The Steel Helmet, Pickup on South Street) and the early ’60s (Shock Corridor). The Big Red One was his long-dreamt-of account of World War II as experienced by his own squad of the 1st Infantry Division, USA, from the first shot fired (by a dead man, on the coast of North Africa) to the last (in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia).
Even in the studio-truncated version, there was no shortage of astonishing moments and sequences: the squad choking on dust in a bat-filled cave in North Africa as German tanks clatter past the entrance; Fuller’s cold-blooded distillation of the D-Day slaughter on Omaha Beach, with a wrist watch on a dead arm in the surf marking time as the water slopping over it grows redder; the rifle squad delivering a Frenchwoman’s baby in a German tank on a battlefield full of corpses; a commando-like raid on Nazi troops bivouacked in a Belgian insane asylum. A quarter-century later, film critic Richard Schickel and Warner Bros. executive Brian Jamieson succeeded in restoring 15 never-seen sequences and fleshing out 23 others to create The Big Red One: The Reconstruction, a “new” film nearly an hour longer.
Above all, BR1: The Reconstruction has a rhythm the 1980 cut lacked. The arc of years, battles, and battlegrounds is so much more satisfying. Greater play is given to Fuller’s feeling for children caught up in the sidewash of history and atrocity. And the 2004 cut puts sex back into the movie, not orgiastically but as a fact of life and a rarely forgotten driving force. We can see now that Fuller touched, bluntly and shockingly, on the phenomenon of infiltrators–English-speaking German warriors who donned GI khaki and moved among their enemies waiting for a chance to strike.
It’s also apparent, as it was not in 1980, that Lee Marvin as the eternal Sergeant leading the young squad is magnificent. This was Marvin’s greatest role, rivaled only by his walking dead man in John Boorman’s Point Blank. Just beneath the masterly implacability, we glimpse the tenderness, rage, dark humor, experience, and wisdom beyond guilt that have enabled him to survive, to preserve others and to soldier on. His performance, like Fuller’s film, is a masterpiece. –Richard T. Jameson”
SsssssssssekurrrraaaaaaaaaH.
Whhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyy?
Myy Brothhhhhhhhheerrrrrrrrr.
Chuck Norris working the bugs out of his new invention: The Inner Dialogue.
Bonuses. Bare breasts. Mac10s. My eleven year old self soaked that movie up like Dean Martin touring the Whiskey Trace.
Yes.
Yeah, almost broke my rule, but I’m glad I didn’t. I liked Empire, but the entire series should have ended with, “Now, young Jedi, you die.”
You CANNOT truly appreciate “Airplane” until you’ve seen “Zero Hour”. I stumbled onto this shitfest years ago on TV and realized it must be the movie “Airplane: was based on. Seriously, watch it if you can find it.
They even bought the rights to that movie.
“The Shining” is my all-time favorite.
1980 also saw the release of “Maniac,” which featured this jaw-dropping scene:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yngGjSgztJ0&pp=ygUObWFuaWFjIHNob3RndW4%3D
Hey, I recognize Tom Savini . . . .
John, since you name dropped me (thanks!) I’ve watched USED CARS at least 100 times. My favorite film ever. Never gets old. Still found bits of business I never noticed before about 50 viewings in. 12 year old me knew the Oscars were bullshit during this movie year when neither Jack Warden (for this) or Ted Knight (for Caddyshack) received nominations. Warden improvised most of Roy L. Fuchs’ most quotable lines; he would do the same in SO FINE a year later.
I’d like to mention Floyd Mutrux’ HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS, the film he made after leaving URBAN COWBOY which he was originally set to direct. A mess, but an often very funny one. Gets overlooked in the embarrassment of riches that was 1980.
As you mention, the post got lengthy, so no room for STIR CRAZY. A good, funny Pryor/Wilder collaboration.
And a few NOT good movies which I still remember from this year:
GONG SHOW MOVIE was no classic, but a fascinating time capsule for sure.
Pryor also appears, as does Andy Kaufman, in IN GOD WE TRU$T, in which Marty Feldman directed and starred with Peter Boyle. Doesn’t really work in the wake of Monty Python’s superior spoofs on the same theme..same fate WHOLLY MOSES! suffered that year.
12 year old me was mighty interested in LITTLE DARLINGS at the time, and I remember seeing HONEYSUCKLE ROSE at the theatre because Willie was considered almost as cool as Belushi then.
Always loved Cindy Morgan in Daddy’s back and later Tron.
It’s said there was so many drugs on the set Sarah Holcomb who played Danny’s Girlfriend had to go to rehab and it ended her careet.
Yup. She was also the checkout girl in Animal House.
And a few more came to mind:
TOM HORN, remembered this one was released early in 1980. Yes, a relative of mine. The TV Movie with David Carradine covered more ground, but still, Steve McQueen playing him is very cool despite the film’s flaws.
Mom and Dad always took me to the Monday night bargain show, and if Dad really liked a film he’d go back and see it again. I remember we saw URBAN COWBOY, CADDYSHACK (my Dad laughed all the way through it, great times) and …CHEECH AND CHONG’S NEXT MOVIE twice.
I got a kick out of MOTEL HELL. I mean, Rory Calhoun, Wolfman Jack, Beulah Ballbricker from PORKY’S. what’s not to like? WITHOUT WARNING was another cheesy horror flick I remember, with my hero Larry Storch playing a scoutmaster of all things (he didn’t last long, the aliens got him).
Local actor (I think he still lives near here) Barry Corbin had quite a year, with good parts in URBAN COWBOY, STIR CRAZY and ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN.
whoops that was me
Hal, I recognize that both you and I share the love for this unsung classic. Which is just frigging awesome, as it’s in my best 100 movies of all time.
John, you are right – an embarrassment of riches, even bad ones. I saw The Road Warrior first but in retrospect wish Mad Max had been more widely distributed; it gives a great deal of nuance to Max’s character.
The Blues Brothers remains a personal favorite. Flash was indeed campy (but a great soundtrack by Queen); I wish someone would pick up that ball and run with it but based on the current world, I doubt it will ever happen.
As noted above, The Gods Must Be Crazy came out as well – it appealed to my quirky teenage self though I have no idea how it aged. And how could overlook Xanadu? Gene Kelly, Olivia Newton-John, and ELO’s one and one soundtrack?
I have still never seen Xanadu, because I can’t roller skate.
The Empire Strikes Back is the absolute pinnacle of the entire Star Wars mythos. Prove me wrong.
— gah! TESB is nothing but a hallway that connects two rooms. They get to the ice planet, they have to leave. Get to Degobah, have to leave. Get to the cloud city, have to leave. Start learning to be a Jedi, stop learning… Nothing is resolved, only started- to be finished later in Revenge of the Jedi. **
One good thing, Harrison Ford finally takes the job seriously. Watch the first one and he’s phoning it in. Barely able to bring himself to stay on set and in character… just doing it as a favor for his buddy. The contrast with the british actors is especially telling. In TESB, for as long as we see him, he’s actually there and acting…
But I know I’m a contrarian.
nick
** (the originally leaked working title- which if they’d have been guided by the title would have made for a better film. But Jedis are above revenge, or something…)
Chuck and Superman scheduled a fight. After debate the loser would agree to wear has underwear over his clothes forever.
Heheheheh
Missed them all (probably) but The ESB in the theater. Money was tight, but you could get “see a movie” instead of “desert at Farrell’s” for a birthday.
And yes, I had my own money and bus transpo downtown, but that was earmarked for the used bookstore
and Andre Norton. 1980 was the year I discovered James H. Schmitz. I still have The Universe Against Her I bought that summer.
Lots of good movies we saw 2-3 years later after Dad made flag and we bought a VCR.
Excellent. Yeah, most of these were films I saw on VHS. Most.