“What’s going on, Andy? Is this what you want to do with your life? Sleep all day long and hang out with the Criterion brothers?” – Funny Farm
How do I get a movie from 1988 to show up? Just say Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.
FYI – site getting hit last night by . . . something. Can’t respond to comments from the last two posts, so I will when I can.
I was wrong last month when I mentioned I had only one year to go in the 1980s, there are three. This one is 1988, and, going back through the list of movies I found, 1988 wasn’t particularly a great year. Although the corporatism that started to kill movies in the 1990s had started, it hadn’t hit fully. Some movies were still just fun.
As usual, the list isn’t in any particular order, my descriptions of plots are sketchy, and these aren’t necessarily the best movies, they’re just the movies on the list.
Beetlejuice – The original. Tim Burton makes the most beautiful movies, but unless someone is there to stop him from following his worst impulses, the movies are also very stupid. Someone kept Tim in a box, and he got a great performance out of Michael Keaton as the titular character, and Wynona Ryder was in it before she started being a nutty shoplifter.
Dead Heat – Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo play two cops in a buddy cop movie. The big twist? They’re dead and have been reanimated by a mad scientist so that they can commit zombie-cop robberies. The math seems to be a bit off on this one – if I could reanimate people, I’d probably be looking for a Nobel® Prize rather than committing petty heists with Joe Piscopo. Is it a comedy? Well, one of the character names is Roger Mortis. So, maybe, but the actual cop part gets in the way of the actual movie. The nice thing about this is that it got made even though it’s arguably awful – it’s awful in a good way, as in, “Let’s try this crazy idea” rather than awful in the 2024 “let’s make a woke corporate movie and preach girlboss leftie themes and if people don’t like it let’s call them racist” way.
The same hairy dude was in every generated image. Who knew that PEZ® and beards were related?
Willow – Not to be confused with the new Disney® series that was so bad that they vowed never to show it again to get a tax write-off, this is a story of a dwarf who comes from a village of dwarves and gets into a typical sword and sorcery adventure. Think of it as someone who wanted to do a Tolkien movie but didn’t have the film rights. It ended up being a fairly sweet and charming movie, and one of Val Kilmer’s best performances, ever. I liked it more than most people. Bonus: Joanne Whalley.
Big – Tom Hanks was getting ready to break out as an actual actor, and Big was a stepping stone for that direction, where he ended up playing a kid that made a wish to become an adult. But he was still a kid in his brain parts. Nowadays, this movie would have difficulty being made because Hanks (as a kid in an adult body) has sex with Elizabeth Perkins. Yeah. That didn’t age well. I haven’t checked on Elizabeth Perkins to see if she aged well, but, then found she was a brittle old feminist. Sigh. Looks like Tom dodged a bullet.
Funny Farm – This was an absolute box-office bomb, as I recall, but it is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s essentially Green Acres without the Hungarian accent, but I just love that story, so I can watch nearly endless variations of it. In this case, sportswriter Chevy Chase gets an advance for a book, can’t write it, and steals his wife’s book, exhumes a dead body, tries to set a booby trap for a drunken mailman, and determines that he can live life without being a tool to everyone around him. Unlike the real Chevy Chase.
Is that Susan Sarandon in the middle?
Bull Durham – I put this on here primarily because it is a very good (not the best, but very good) baseball comedy. The Mrs. loves it, so, contractually I’m required to watch it when she watches it. It loses points for having Susan Sarandon associated with it and for being a bit too focused on the romance side of the equation. Best parts? Coach banter and bringing the word lollygagging back. Lollygaggers!
Die Hard – I don’t need to describe this one, since it’s a Christmas favorite. This move turned out perfectly, and was, perhaps, the zenith of 1980s action-adventure movies if you don’t count Predator™ and Terminator©. The twist? Putting an “everyman” into the role of hero. Remember, it’s not really Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off Nakatomi Tower! It is the best end for a movie, Hans down.
Is that Nakatomi Tower in the background?
A Fish Called Wanda – What if Monty Python® never broke up and did more movies? This is as close as you’re going to get to that dream. Fun and funny, and Kevin Kline absolutely steals the show (and an Oscar™) as Otto, a CIA hitman who quotes Nietzsche and believes “the central tenet of Buddhism is every man for himself”. Who knew Buddhists were libertarians? John Cleese plays John Cleese, and Jamie Lee Curtis, sadly, stays mainly clothed.
Vibes – Cyndi Lauper as a psychic stuck with also psychic Jeff Goldblum? Why not? The plot is odd and absurd, with Cyndi and Jeff travelling to the Andes. Yes. The movie involves all manner of silliness with the main focal point to set up odd situations where quirky-girl Lauper can bounce of straight-man Goldblum. Is it one of the best movies of Western Civilization? No. But it did make me laugh.
Tucker: The Man and His Dream – I’m not sure how much of this story is true, but it sounds like Tucker Carlson was trying to make a car after World War II. I’m not sure how this happened, but I think it might have something to do with time travel and Donald Trump’s uncle, John G. Trump, who was an electrical engineer and physicist, and the guy they brought in to steal evaluate Nikola Tesla’s notes so Trump could give them to Elon Musk. I think. Regardless, it was a pretty good movie about a car that certainly sounds like it would have been pretty good, though Tucker Carlson eventually gave up the dream and was later a journalist. You might have heard of him. Two thumbs up.
Young Guns – How much Bon Jovi do you need in a 1980s western? Just a little bit. It also stars the Sheen/Estevez brothers. So, it the singer and actors were all in need of blow driers, but the movie has also been hailed as relatively historically accurate tale of the life of Billy the Kid, with the exception that Kiefer Sutherland is actually only three feet tall, so they had to use a lot of perspective shots.
Oh, yeah, brother!
They Live – John Carpenter took a short story from 1963 and remade it into a politically biting science fiction film where aliens infiltrate and take over American society. Space aliens, not the aliens that eat ducks from the park. Anyway, the film is famous for an amazingly long street fight between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David (not to be confused with David Keith). It is notable that the alien overlords are significantly nicer than the current Biden/Harris administration, so there’s that.
Scrooged – Another huge Bill Murray hit, and probably the definitive A Christmas Carol adaptation of my lifetime. Bill stars as a success-obsessed executive who takes the place of Scrooge. In a meta turn, he wants to do a live version of A Christmas Carol on Christmas for the ratings after saving Karen Allen from the Nazis. And it pulled in plenty of cash, making over $100 million on a $32 million budget. Not bad.
The Naked Gun – After Airplane!, there was a short-lived television show called Police Squad. It was hilarious, but most people don’t have a sense of humor so it was cancelled. Instead, the Zucker brothers resurrected Detective Frank Drebin and made a movie that made tons of money, and probably drove O.J. Simpson to murder since the script showed how easy it was to get away with murder.
This is way better than the original poster and has 100% more Nakatomi Tower.
Working Girl – This movie should have been the sequel to Die Hard where Sigourney Weaver teams up with Bruce Willis to defeat the German space aliens in a musical with Bill Murray singing the theme, backed by Bon Jovi and Lou Diamond Phillips. If only. I honestly don’t remember this movie at all, so my plot is probably superior to the real thing.
There it is. What did I miss?
Here’s a thought experiment…… this article was written using AI images to create a parody of 80’s film culture. Eventually another AI is going to come along and scan the article and use it to “learn” about 80’s film culture. Will it recognize the parody? Or will this circular reasoning eventually lead to the AI equivalent of inbreeding?
I’m also beginning to worry if this website is going to lead to a future PEZ dispenser worshipping death cult. There aren’t a lot of sites that talk about the wonders of PEZ and so AI knowledge is gong to be heavily weighted towards what it reads here. We have all but deified the PEZ dispenser, and if an AI doesn’t recognize sarcasm, it may decide to build a religion around it with some future civilization (particularly given that PEZ dispensers already look like statues).
Anyway, some food for thought….
And I wonder if my Tucker review will inspire some insane future AI Wikipedia to indicate he invented time travel.
I saw a lot of movies in 1988. Because in the late 80s I’d follow Lea Thompson anywhere, I followed her into Casual Sex? It was an empty and meaningless experience that I don’t remember very well after all of the decades since. Because I was a big Moonlighting fan and would follow Bruce anywhere, I saw him and Maverick, er, Jim Rockford, er, James Garner in Sunset, a fun 1920s Hollywood western/gangster/mystery mashup. Ah-nold was a great Commie Cop in Red Heat. Clint hung it up as Dirty Harry in The Dead Pool. Sigourney had a big year with both Gorillas In The Mist and Working Girl, the latter with Melanie. But the absolute high point of 1988 is Melanie’s other film, one I saw first-run at the time and have happily caught as a nostalgic treasure on TV numerous times since. I refer of course to one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, Cherry 2000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKkdgnDu3MA
As an aside, the same guy (Steve De Jarnatt) who directed Cherry 2000 also did another post-apocalyptic 1988 movie I’ve never seen called Miracle Mile that is supposed to be pretty good. Cherry 2000 was actually made in 1985 and shelved as the bad movie it is, only to be put out in limited release in 1987 upon the success of Robocop and later put into widespread release in 1988. MM stars a post-Top Gun, pre-ER Anthony Edwards that gets to live out in real time What Would You Do If The Nukes Were Inbound. Sounds interesting – maybe I’ll dig it up and watch it as I wait for the Tuesday night election returns to come in. Sounds appropriate.
I *knew* you were gonna bring up Cherry 2000!
I just (two months ago) rewatched Miracle Mile. Loved it.
She had a great butt (Lea).
Rowdy said this movie is not science fiction, it’s a documentary.
There’s a reason why John Carpenter got blacklisted for several years after making it.
A movie about a small alien ruling class that mimics the appearance of their host and controls us through banking, advertising and entertainment? Whoever could he have been thinking of?
Yup.
1988 was a pretty solid year for movies and was also the year my future wife and I started dating to solid year all around.
Excellent.
Heathers – The ultimate 1990’2 high school movie a decade ahead of its time.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Ppppppppllllleeeeeaaassee!
Coming to America! – Mortimer, we’re back!
She’s Having a Baby – You didn’t wash the dog, you burned the dog!
Hell Comes to Frogtown – Rowdy Roddy Piper’s other 1988 movie.
Killer Clowns from Outer Space – Silly, stupid, grotesque. What more could you want?
Mystic Pizza – Better than I expected it to be.
Rain Man – Time for Wapner. Definitely time for Wapner.
My Neighbor Totoro – One of Miyazaki’s finest.
Twins – Ahnold got the good half.
The Land Before Time – Thank goodness there were no sequels.
Earth Girls Are Easy – Jeff Goldblum and Jim Carrey meow it up with Geena Davis.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – Another Pythonesque movie, but with Robin Williams.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – Steve Martin & Michael Caine.
The Serpent and the Rainbow – Haiti is a terrible place? Say it isn’t so!
The Dead Pool – Dirty Harry’s last stand before Marvel took the name and ran with it.
The Seventh Sign – Only Demi Moore can save us from the Apocalypse.
Alien Nation – Good cop / alien cop.
Some Girls – So, how many of my daughters have you had sex with?
The Presidio – Sean Connery and Mark Harmon really hate each other.
Young Einstein – Who knew he invented putting bubbles in beer?
Biloxi Blues – A pro-gay movie disguised as a Ferris Bueller’s wartime memoir.
Bat*21 – Gene Hackman must be rescued if it harelips everybody on Bear Creek!
I think it was Vox Day that said Heathers captured the essence of Gen X better than any other movie. I would have originally thought that any John Hughes movie would have been a better fit since that is what we were raised on (and those sorts of movies don’t exist anymore).
However, after seeing Gen X get pushed out of existence by Boomers on the one side and Millennials on the other, then yeah……Heathers really captures the cynical dark, twisted humor that most Gen X’ers have had to adopt in order to keep our sanity.
I still haven’t seen Mystic Pizza. Munchausen was enjoyable. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels could have been an amazing movie, but they wasted Caine and Martin.
From A Fish Called Wanda-
“…believes “the central ‘tenant’ of Buddhism is every man for himself. Who knew Buddhists were libertarians?”
I think you meant …”Buddhists were libeRENTERians” since they were tenants. Not sure what they would be if it was a central tenet of Buddhism.
Die Hard – good one for “Hans down”. I will steal that one. Start the movie at 9:50 PM, and it’s Hans down right at midnight.
Why are Buddhist-owned apartments relatively free of insects? They’re only allowed ten ants in the buildings.
Fixed! (shakes head)
And, thank you for bringing it to my attention!!!!!
It is odd John- I liked a number of those movies when they came out -A Fish Called Wanda, Young Guns, Scrooged, The Naked Gun – but outside of Die Hard and Willow scarcely rewatched any of them. It is almost like they left no impact on my consciousness, yet I remember all the plots.
The Naked Gun went though a phase with me where it was unfunny because of O.J. I think that’s in the past.
I hope you and the Mrs. are well. We figure Bombs & Bants will be lit.
Wilder’s rule of maximum hilarity was on full display tonight.
Wasn’t it! We have so much salt to mine!