“Why don’t they ever bring back or remake good shows, like BJ and the Bear? Now there’s a concept I can’t get enough of, a man and his monkey.” – Mallrats
Thankfully, if A.I. ever tries to attack us, it will try to drive trucks on water.
Back again with movies from the 1980s. This has been fun, but I think there may only be one year that we haven’t done – 1980. I’ll verify that, and if so, that’ll be the next one. It seems like people enjoy taking these walks through history, and perhaps we’ll hit the 1990s next.
Or not, still haven’t decided, though it’s certain I’ve seen some great movies based on your recommendations. Keep in mind that I’ve excluded sequels (mostly, there are one or two that I did allow for various reasons). On that, note, off to the races . . . and let me know what I’ve missed in the comments.
DeepStar Six – This1989 underwater movie starred Peter Weller . . . oh, no, that was Leviathan. Right. DeepStar Six is the 1989 underwater movie that starred Ed Harris as a Navy . . . oh, that was The Abyss. What was Deepstar Six? The 1989 underwater movie with the guy that played BJ from BJ and the Bear? Never mind.
The Experts – This was a random pick of a movie back when I was at the grocery store getting Cheerios® or something. Really, I think I was getting Cheerios™ that night, which are the perfect food if you like miniature donuts that taste like sawdust and despair and yet dissolve into a slimy mushy paste when exposed for more than 20 seconds to milk. Regardless, this was John Travolta doing what he was meant to do: play an idiot. The plot is simple, stupid night club guys from the United States are drugged and taken to the Soviet Union to help make their spy school more effective. It’s not serious, but it is funny.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – Again, another random video pick about the same time as The Experts. A time travel story done by the son of Richard I Am Legend Matheson about two idiots who travel back in time for a history report so that their band can save the universe. Surprisingly well done and internally consistent with the appropriate 80s-rock soundtrack. Party on, dude!
Apparently, A.I. isn’t interested so much in Ted “Theodore” Logan.
The ‘Burbs – Spielberg with a very dark comedy about serial killers moving into the neighborhood on a suburban cul-de-sac. I saw this one in the theater, and wasn’t disappointed. Tom Hanks before he became all “actor-y” and Carrie Fischer before she became all “dead on an airplane”. Not a hit, but some pretty good performances.
Leviathan – Okay, this is really the “creepy thing under the sea” movie from 1989 that I wanted to write about. I thought this was far superior to The Abyss and to DeepStar Six. I caught this while just driving through a city, decided to stop and watch a movie, and really enjoyed it. The screenwriter, David Peoples also did the screenplays for Blade Runner, 12 Monkeys, and Unforgiven. The movie does star Peter Weller, and is really a version of Alien, but under the ocean.
Heathers – Yet another dark comedy. I’m sensing a trend. In this one, Winona Ryder plays Veronica, who finally made the right high school clique with three girls named Heather, which is a really weird coincidence, because that’s the name of the movie. Anyway, suicides ensue, and maybe just a bit of light murder. Heathers was intended to be a counterpoint to movies like Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club, but still maintained a comedic edge without going too dark.
Apparently, the Heathers are all Phoebe Cates, including black Phoebe Cates, and one of them stole Doc Brown’s DeLorean. Lick it up, baby. Lick it up.
Dead Calm – Another video pick, random off of the rack. The moral of the story is if you’re traveling around the world on a sailing ship with Nicole Kidman never stop to pick up Billy Zane because Billy Zane always sweats a lot is always going to try to take your woman and your ship. Bonus? Sam Neill.
Major League – Tom Berenger got tired of killing Willem Dafoe, and decided to become a major league baseball player. But he chose the Cleveland Indians® (note, they changed the name of the baseball team so that they could erase the memory of Indians from the continent) and they sucked, so they had to hire a bunch of loveable losers to destroy what was left of the team so a Las Vegas showgirl could move it. Made buckets of money.
Looks like Ricky Vaughn has been cloned?
Field of Dreams – Yet more baseball, but this one is more serious. Kevin Costner plows under his corn to make a baseball field so he can have a last game of catch with his deceased father after watching the Chicago Black Sox.
How I Got into College – Who would believe that Anthony Edwards could snag Lara Flynn Boyle? The casting director, apparently. It’s a fun, wacky comedy that Savage Steve Holland put together. It cost $10 million, made $1.6 million. Bomb. Still funny.
Miracle Mile – More Anthony Edwards. This time he’s a guy who’s chasing Mare Winningham, who is much more in his league: Winningham looks sort-of like a short Irish linebacker with a punk haircut in this one. Edwards gets a wrong number call at a phone booth by a guy trying to call his dad to warn him that the United States is getting ready to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviets, probably to kill John Travolta before he makes superspies. Not a comedy. I’m watching this one right now. Also, who names their daughter “Mare”?
Batman – Tim Burton’s last good movie, but I hate it because after this Michael Keaton started to do things other than comedy and I think he had a lot more funny movies in him. It is the only movie where someone kept all of Tim Burton’s bad instincts in check. Burton makes pretty movies, but can’t do a plot to save his life, so his first three were okay.
You knew there would be unnecessary PEZ® and cats, didn’t you?
Weekend at Bernie’s – Two junior employees end up with their dead boss and have to convince people he’s alive so that they can party. Reminds me of the Biden administration.
UHF – This movie showed up and left the box office before I had any idea it existed, which probably explains why it was unprofitable. What is the movie about? Give Weird Al a television station, and what shows would he put on? This. Although the movie was a bomb, I’m certain that it’s made a profit since then. It’s a classic, and very funny. Okay, it’s very funny if you like Weird Al. If you don’t like Weird Al, it would be torture and probably be prohibited by the Geneva Convention.
Uncle Buck – This may be John Candy at his best, a wise-cracking uncle who doesn’t want to but will take care of kids. John Candy was a comedy treasure, and left us too soon – some people like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles better, and that’s a very strong movie, but Uncle Buck is sharp and smartly written, though Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is the very best Thanksgiving movie.
Is this Henry V if he was guest starring on Miami Vice?
Henry V – I though that this was the sequel to Henry IV, but was disappointed to find out that this was a standalone film about some dead British guy written about some dead British guy. Yawn. Oh, wait, it has this:
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Tango & Cash – Tango & Cash could have been titled “Generic Buddy Cop Movie Between Cops That Are Opposites And That Also Features A Monster Truck And Features Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell”. What more do you need?
Like I said, sound off for other movies from this late, great year.
“Sexually perverse photography exhibits involving tennis rackets.” IYK,YK.
And I have a soft spot for “See No Evil, Hear No Evil.” Wilder and Pryor were priceless.
Good times, all.
You should do a study of Keanu Reeves movies (e. g. Bill and Ted thru John Wick) as sn analog to the evolution of Gen X.
-Stilicho
I was so engaged by the tension of the extended drowning scene in The Abyss that it’s one of the few movies I went back to see again the very next night (the other being Die Hard). The War of the Roses was a tough one for me because I was waging one of my own at that time. Dark comedy is one thing, but divorce comedy is a whole different and deeper level of hell. Only Michael and Kathleen (and Danny) could have pulled that off from the goodwill of their previous Romancing The Stone films.
The War of the Roses was . . . so dark I don’t even like to think about it.
Stilicho – I like it, and I’ve got it on the list, but in a slightly different take. More, what they thought of us, and what we’ve become . . .
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Dead Poets Society
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Say Anything
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
Lean on Me
Wow. Was Henry V in 1989? That seems so long ago. It was treasure of a movie, although I wish Kenneth Branagh had gone on to do more of them. He has struck me as someone who could have been more than he was.
I did not always appreciate John Candy at the time, but I have come to appreciate him immensely. In the same vein, I had not heard of Hayao Miyazaki (Kiki’s Delivery Service) until the 2010’s, but have come to treasure his movies.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Say no more.
The Little Mermaid as well. Say what you will about Disney now, but that run of The Little Mermaid/Aladdin/Beauty and The Beast was great and they are movies I can still enjoy.
Henry V has a young Christian Bale way before Batman Begins. The dirty surrender monkeys attack the baggage carts and kill the boys left to guard the supplies.
Branding carries him off the field as they sing Non Novus Domine.
Cool!
Branagh has starred in and directed (often simultaneously) several excellent movies. Try his Poirot trilogy (starts with Murder on the Orient Express), they’re quite well done. I didn’t realise that was him playing Poirot until the credits rolled.
He also did a terrific Much Ado About Nothing when he was younger. It’s got Keanu Reeves, Michael Keaton, Brian Blessed, Denzel Washington, Kate Beckinsale, and of course Emma Thompson.
His reading of the audiobook is also exceptional.
n
‘From the legendary Studio Ghibli, creators of Spirited Away and Ponyo, and Academy Award-winning director Hayao Miyazaki, comes the beloved coming-of-age story of a resourceful young witch who uses her broom to. . .’
Aaaaand no. Given that my nation is ruled by literal witches (hello D.C.) and their brand of what Scripture calls ‘sorcery’, I won’t be watching any movies or related propaganda assuring me that witches are cute, beloved, kind and etc.
Started, modernly, with ‘Bewitched’. 1964 and I was in fourth grade. Golly, somehow 1964 just happened to be the year the culture was first Fundamentally Transformed from Christian King/Christian to the pagan/masonic sideshow it’s been since.
Doubtless a coincidence. Program is an innocent word.
’64 . . . Civil Rights Act (that empowered everybody except white males and led directly to the Woke-Fem Politburo) and Immigration Act (completely changed the character and makeup of the U.S.) and so many more wonderful things!
A nation so immersed that the occult is the air we breathe.
I skipped Indy (even though it was the best Indy) because it was a sequel. Is Kiki’s Delivery Service good?
John, I would argue it is not his best, but it does have some great insight into learning to become yourself.
In some ways, I think Totoro is still his finest work, although Nausicaa Valley of The Winds, Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle are all great. Ponyo is sweet but maybe not quite as deep as some of the others. There are some of his I have not seen, but my daughters assure me they are all good.
I’ll keep an eye out for it. I’ve heard good things.
Can confirm on Kiki. The most insightful movie of his is Princess Mononoke. It is Solzhenitsyn’s admonition of the line between good an evil with poetic beauty in. The most powerful is Grave of the Fireflies. I can only bear to watch it once a decade… or two.
Forgive my poor memory, but did you do 1981 or ’82 while I wasn’t noticing?
Also, “Bill and Ted:” when that was released, my engineering associates and I were still young enough to appropriate bits of the dialogue for work conversation. We’d be having a design review and someone did a neat piece of work — somebody would say, “Most triumphant, dude!”
https://wilderwealthywise.com/it-came-from-1982/
And you’re right! We still have 1981 to go. Thought I’d done it. Excellent news, dude!
The Burbs is a comedy classic. Good choice to include.
Indeed!
“Pet Sematary” gave me nightmares.
‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” was a hoot
I didn’t include Pet Sematary because of how much of a tool King is now. I agree, I liked it.
Christmas Vacation? We used to watch it every year at Christmas – we’ve probably watched it 50 times. Best of the Vacation movies, but, alas, a sequel.
Uncle Buck … one of my all-time favorites … and yes … John Candy left us way too soon.
He did. A genius.
I can’t believe you trashed Major League – the GREATEST baseball movie of all time.
OK, so I’m a native Clevelander, and it’s my spring training ritual to, once again, binge Major League I and II. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Greatest baseball movie of all time? I’d agree. Close second? Mr. Baseball. The Mrs. would probably go with Bull Durham.
Major League. “Do you wanna coach the Indians?“Weeeeell, I dunno, I gotta guy who needs a new set of snow tires…”
Then Field Of Dreams (overwhelmingly for one epic James Earl Jones “People will come, Ray” monologue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SB16il97yw
that is literally in the Cooperstown Baseball Hall Of Fame, and still makes the room dusty whenever I hear it.
Then Moneyball.
Then Bull Durham.
Then Pride Of The Yankees.
Then The Natural.
Then Trouble With The Curve.
Then For Love Of The Game.
Then Major League II.
Then Cobb.
Then The Bad News Bears.
Then Mr. Baseball.
Baseball movies are an embarrassment of riches for Hollywood.
In fact, after making Bull Durham and Tin Cup, there should be a law in Hollywood that Kevin Costner and Ron Shelton should do nothing but sports movies together until one of them dies.
I liked Moneyball and Bull Durham, just not as much as I liked Mr. Baseball. I like Tom, I guess.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
The military marketers did make it sound attractive for members of a subspecies to fratricide to the Darwinian advantage of other subspecies, didn’t they?
Except, men are made to fight. What we need is something worthwhile to fight for.
Oh and about the knife…
https://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/01/powerful-black-effect-v-peltzmans-hyped-effect.html
Ha! Great article!
Tango and Cash produced one of the best buddy movie lines ever. I shall not reproduce it here because … well, IYKYK.
It really was fun. If put out in 2024 it would probably get an Oscar and be the top grossing movie of the year.
I think that’s more a measure of how utterly irredeemably craptastic current movie making is, than anything about how good T&C was.
They tried to cross Rambo with Big Trouble In Little China, and got this disaster, which IMHO was City Heat’s shoulda-been-aborted red-headed little brother.
In any year from 1980-1988, (actually any year the entire century from 1888-1988) the script would be thrown in the trash can and never get a greenlight.
And the world would have been the better for it.
But Russell and Stallone were hot enough then their star power got it made.
It turned into a legendary three-director over-budget abortion.
But in 1989, there were so many other movies to focus on, no one got too upset about it.
At any rate, it never had a sequel (and almost everything in the 1980s had a sequel, Stallone even had one ready), so that tells you everything you need to know about how it actually did on the books the studio doesn’t show to the IRS.
Ugh, City Heat. So very bad.
This was better. And better than anything released last month.
True.
But yet again, that bar is so low to the ground at the bottom of a bottomless mine, the altitude cannot be measured with existing instrumentation.
1989 was a pretty poor year for movies, makes sense as morning in America was coming to a screeching end.
It was the beginning of a Kinder, Gentler Conservatism.
I was thinking the same thing. That explains why that was about the time we quit going to movies and within a few years, cancelled Blockbuster.
The only exception were the decent kids movies we took them to, back when they made decent kids movies…
Hey, that Henry V speech is one of the first poems I memorized and performed for YouTube.
St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V by William Shakespeare
https://youtu.be/VL5SmYP9nPE
And you now have a new subscriber!
Better titled, The Year 1980s Hollywood Lost Its Collective Mind And Went Too Far.
Sorry to say it, but nearly half of those picks are horrible.
I’d keep Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, for pure stupid fun.
Major League has become a cult classic, and made Bob Uecker a national treasure.
Field Of Dreams was exactly what it needed to be. If they had to remake it, they should have left most of the Amy Madigan school board subplot out. It wouldn’t have cost them anything, and would have made it an even better movie.
Batman? Meh. Might have made my Top Forty, but not the Top Ten. Because Tim Burton. Who’s in need of deep, intense psychological help, in a rubber room and heavy-duty psych meds sort of way. This was the only pre-Christian Bale one that wasn’t entirely execrable, and they got worse from here.
Weekend At Bernie’s: tolerable fun, and exactly what you’d expect from anything in the ’80s with Andrew McCarthy. And it had Catherine Mary Stuart, who we saw far too little of in anything.
Henry V: Kenneth Branagh made this film at all of age 28, his very first film, in which he starred and directed, was nominated for Oscars in both categories, he out-Oliviered Lord Laurence Olivier in the role (watch the two St. Crispin’s day speech performances side by side, and Olivier looks like he’s doing the part on barbiturates by contrast), the supporting cast has as many Oscars between them as this movie was nominated for, and he single-handedly revived Shakespeare for at least the next generation or two.
Oh, and it’s one helluva great epic for any year, on a level with flicks like Lawrence Of Arabia, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Jeremiah Johnson, or Dances With Wolves. If this was the only movie made in 1989, it would have been worth it.
The rest of those I mostly skipped then, and wouldn’t miss now if they’d never been made.
What You Skipped Over (And Probably Shouldn’t Have):
Dead Poet’s Society: O Captain! My Captain!
Indiana Jones And The Last Good InstallmentAlmost better than the original, and the only one other than the first one you should ever watch.
The Abyss Cameron/Hurd sci-fi at its best.
Say Anything John Cusack, in his last really good movie before his career dropped off a cliff until Con Air.
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids Disney live action before they became Disney-tarded.
Glory Some kid named Denzel. Morgan Freeman. Matthew Broderick. Cary Elwes. Civil War. Epic.
Always Spielberg is to movie-making what Eric Clapton is to guitar playing.
Fatman And Little Boy It’s Oppenheimer, without the revisionist commie propagnda. And a far better film.
The Package Gene Hackman killing it again, in one of the 917 movies he made in the 1980s.
Dead Bang Proof Don Johnson could act.
True Believer James Woods. Robert Downey Jr. before the fall.
Picking ten is hard. IMDb lists I-Have-No-Wild-Idea how many movies that came out in 1989. I stopped reading the titles after 800, and I stopped scrolling after 1300! Yeah, some of them are foreign releases.
But that’s about four movies a day for the entire year.
Literally not something, but ten somethings for everybody.
So I think you could have worked a wee bit harder coming up with your ten.
Just saying.
Seventeen or twenty really good flicks in a year? Out of 500+ serious offerings?
Hollywood 2024 would kill their mothers for 1/3 of that kind of box office gold.
Instead, they’re killing their industry with their woke crapola, and burping up maybe 1-2 flicks a year even worth looking up when they come out on video.
How far have the mighty fallen.
I’ve seen all of those (many only the one time when they came out) except True Believer, Dead Bang, and The Package.
I absolutely will take the criticism. I just wish they had made more Indiana Jones movies. Still can’t figure out why they stopped at three.
I was disheartened that they stopped after only two.
The first fifteen minutes of the intervening abortion had promise in the club scene, right up until the raft into the Himalayas.
It is explainable only insofar as Steven Spielberg needed a wife, which he got from that epic disaster.
In return for which, the audience was shat upon, from a great height.
But Short Round got an Oscar, so it all worked out in the end.
If you never saw it, I commend the abortive Young Indy series, which teased all the backstories we never got, at a level three stories above most of TV at the time, and for a commensurate price.
Hopefully, before they die, Spielberg and Lucas will pick it up, and give us the sections from 1938-1947, and 1950-1968ff.
As long as they don’t let Disney finger-bang it, and someone helpfully shoots Kathleen Kennedy in the head several times with a 12 ga shotgun and then drives an oaken stake through her heart, just to be sure, such a thing might be okay.
I won’t be getting my hopes up.
Oh, and of the three, see The Package first, and without fail.
See if you can spot The Fugitive forming in the director’s head, four years before it was made.
With virtually the same cast.
Heck, an Andrew Davis movie-fest would make a pretty good week.
Code Of Silence Chuck Norris v. Chicago. (Spoiler alert: Chuck roundhouse kicks the Windy City.)
Above The Law Steven Segal before he ate Texas
The Package Hackman v. Tommy Lee Jones
Under Siege Segal v. Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Abusive
The Fugitive Tommy Lee Jones v. Harrison Ford
Chain Reaction Keanu Reeves v. Morgan Freeman and Brian Cox
The Guardian Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher v. Neil McDonough and the Arctic Ocean
Then True Believer.
Then Dead Bang.