Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Hello, and welcome to a podcast super show.
We've got five folks represented here between book author and
podcasters and just a bunch of crazy movie people who
love movies, love to talk about movies, and maybe a
little little friendly debate on movies. Today, we are here
to discuss and debate which year from the eighties is
the best for movies. I am going to be moderating
this one. I am John Reid. I am the host
of the thirty something Movie Podcast. We do movies that
are hearting their thirtieth anniversary, so this year being twenty
twenty three, we are in nineteen ninety three. We've been
doing some fun stuff with Jurassic Park, Groundhog Day, Fugitive,
one of my personal favorites, Demolition Man, tons of fun stuff.
So we are over there at the thirty something Movie Podcast.
I am going to kick it first over to Dayton. Dayton,
tell us a little bit about your podcast, and you
are representing the year nineteen eighty one, So tell us
about yourself and tell us what was fun about eighty one.
Speaker 2: Yes, Hi, thank you, John. I am Daton Johnson. I
am the host of the Documented Seventies fen podcast. What
we do is We talk obviously movies, music, We cover
some comic books, some books, and we recently did two
episodes on Ready Player, one the movie and the book.
I'm lucky and blessed to have a lot of friends
that like to nerd out about such things. And everybody
on this current episode had either been on or will
soon be on John on the podcast, So thank you
to everybody there. Eighty one is important because that was
right when I started going to the movies alone, without
the parents or whatever, and I just have very fond
memories of that. And also it was the year my
wife was born, so that is another reason why it's
my favorite year for movie. So there you.
Speaker 1: Go, and we've got Dave. He is representing nineteen eighty four. Dave,
you've got a couple of different projects that you have
worked on and in the work, So why don't you
tell us a little bit about you and nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I'm the only one here that doesn't actually
have a podcast of his own, but I do have
a YouTube cha where I talk about American soccer. I
do short form content designed for the new fan or
the curious fan. If you're not anti soccer, you don't
hate it, but you just don't have a way in
I could simplify that for everybody. So for new and
curious fans, short form content is on YouTube. It's called
American Soccer Quick Kicks. I'm having a lot of fun
with that in this gaining some traction. I am also
the author of the epic sword and sorcery fantasy series
of novels called Galahads Doom. Very excited about that because
I actually the third volume of that just came out
earlier this year, and I'm very pleased with how it
turned out. So Galahads Doom dot com and check out
my books.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Jeff, you got the fix for nineteen eighty six.
Why don't you tell us little bit about your podcast
and what you love about nineteen eighty six?
Speaker 4: Thank you, John.
Speaker 5: I am Jeff Johnson, co host of a film by podcast.
That's where we like to wax intellectual about our favorite directors,
their underrated hits, and what we love most about them.
In between that, we have found the time to do
a couple fun limited series, the first of which was
one called nineteen eighty six, which was all about to
celebrating the movies in nineteen eighty six to determine whether
or not eighty six was in fact the best year
for cinema in the eighties, and after several people had
a strong opinion, we find ourselves here today.
Speaker 3: I didn't say anything about nineteen eighty four. Let me
say this, Yeah, I'm willing to entertain debate on if
it was the best year for movies, although it's definitely
a contender, And honestly, I think we have the four
best years of the decade represented here. But when you
take everything, all aspects of pop culture all together and
consider what was the best pop culture year, so movies, music,
TV shows, folks, comics and everything, I think nineteen eighty
four is the clear runaway winter when you take an
all into consideration.
Speaker 1: Even though the McRib came out in eighty one.
Speaker 4: See, like I.
Speaker 3: Said, I'm already detecting a bias, but I'm going to go.
Speaker 1: And then Jason, Jason is bringing us up here the
end of the decade. Nineteen eighty nine was definitely fine. Jason,
tell us a little bit about your podcast and nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 6: So my name's Jason Colvin, my best buddy, mister James D. Graves,
and I do a podcast called Surely You Can't Be
Serious Podcast. We match up movies against each other or
music against each other. So we have done Raiders a
Lost Ark. We actually matched that up with Back to
the Future from eighty five. We've done The Terminator from
eighty four. We matched that up with Alien. Just recently
we did Cinderella's A Long Cold Winter. We're doing that
against van Halen's OUA one two. So we take two
different projects, we match them up, we compare them, and
then we kind of decide a winner. So talking with
you guys, my good friends, I started to make a
case for nineteen eighty nine, and I heard objection your
honor nineteen eighty four and eighty six and eighty one,
and so we're here today to talk about those. I
love nineteen eighty nine to me because it closes out
the decade.
Speaker 4: To me, it's the most.
Speaker 6: Eighties of the eighties years, and so eighty nine is
my my personal favorite years. So I'll be interested to
see where we go and what kind of fun we
can have with this.
Speaker 1: Excellent well, so our first segment that we've got here, Jason,
I think you've got some numbers for us. You're going
to start off with a little a little math. It
was my understanding there will be no math on this podcast,
but I love it.
Speaker 6: Box office, Yeah, that's right, just right out of the gate.
We want to go ahead and get these box office
numbers out there because facts are facts, right, So this
is really not something we can argue. But let's just
throw this out there and we can talk about what
these numbers mean and the impact of these But here
is a list of the top fifteen at the worldwide
box office by movie. Okay, so number fifteen overall is
Honey I Shrunk the Kids from nineteen eighty nine. Number
fourteen overall is Lethal Weapon two from nineteen eighty nine.
Number thirteen is Ghostbusters from nineteen eighty four. Number twelve
is Beverly Hills Cop nineteen eighty four. Number eleven is
Dead Poets Society from nineteen eighty nine. Ten overall is
Crocodile Dundee two from nineteen eighty eight. Number nine is
Return of the Jedi from eighty three. Number eight is
Coming to America at nineteen eighty eight. Number seven is
Look Who's Talking from eighty nine. Number six is Roger
Rabbit in nineteen eighty eight. Five overall is Back to
the Future two from eighty nine, Rainman from eighty eight.
Number three overall is Batman from eighty nine. Number two
overall is Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade from nineteen
eighty nine, and then number one, of course is et
from nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 4: So curious list right there.
Speaker 5: If it please the moderator, I suggest that this last
but information would be stricken from the record.
Speaker 4: I kept hearing eighty nine, eighty nine, O nine.
Speaker 3: You mentioned eighty nine way too often, the guys of
being objective.
Speaker 1: Well, let's move on to our next part. Our next part,
we're going to spend a little bit more time in here,
and each person is going to get their opportunity to
talk about kind of the pop culture impact. Pop culture
impact if you got Daton, in terms of how this
impacted the culture.
Speaker 2: I selected a few movies from my year to point
out that without these, the other years miss out on
some of their more iconic films. So first we're starting
off with the film An American Werewolf in London. We're
one of the first early horror films I truly enjoyed
because I also had that nice tinge of comedy and
it is definitely frightening for sure, but it also madeor
laugh at the same time, so that's very cool. So
I do have two major pop culture impacts with this
one feature film. First, it was the film that inspired
a very young Edgar Wright to become a filmmaker, giving
us classics like Sean of the Dead and Scott Pogrim
Versus the World and Baby Driver as well. So that's
the first one that was a movie he saw. I said,
you know what, this is cool. Movies can be two things,
not just a horror film, but it'd also be a
comedy at the same time. Without that, maybe we don't
get the Edgar right that we have today. Second, without
the success of this movie, we do not get the
video for Michael Jackson's thriller, same director, same visual effects,
So no American Werewolf in London. We did not get
that music video or a short film as it truly
should be called.
Speaker 1: I'll jump in there too and say it has the
greatest cut to credits of almost any movie I've ever seen.
I absolutely love how it cuts to the credits at
the end of that movie.
Speaker 2: My next film isn't exactly a great movie. In fact,
it's kind of a throwaway, but it is something that
I believe Jeff has talked about and is Prontatu the
spawning So Jason knows about this too, so I know
later he kind of denied it. But James Cameron was
hired and was working on this film and basically starving
because he wasn't getting paid anything, and has a fever
dream about a cyborg that is chasing him and he
cannot kill it, he cannot get away from it, which
of course inspired the screenplay for The Terminator. So without
the fever dream that he has while making this terrible movie,
we don't get The Terminator, which means we don't get
his version of Aliens, which means we don't get T
two or the Abyss and things like that.
Speaker 4: Like I said, it's kind.
Speaker 2: Of a throwway movie, but it has a major impact
on feature films that come afterwards, for sure. Another one
from eighty one is both the directorial debut of Lawrence
Ksden and also the feature film debut of Kathleen Turner,
and that's Body Heat. Now, the movie is quite good.
Kathleen Turner is just super sexy, like she was all
through the eighties, and it pretty much launched her career,
and without the success of this movie, we don't get
her in Romancing the Stone. Now, I did see the
other people that were in mind for that, it's not
the same without Kathleen Turner. So without Kathleen Turner being
in a Ranting Stone, it's not successful. And then Zameccas
does not get to make back to the Future. And
also he enjoyed working with her enough that he didn't
cast her in a voice for of course Hoophram Roger
Rabbit as Jessica Rabbit. Now with exuccessive body heat, we
also solidify kasd And as a writer director, leading to
later films like The Big Chill, Silverado, The Accidental Tourist,
and Grand Canyon.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you know Dayton, but adjusted
for inflation, body heat had I want to say something
like four tons of sweat in that movie.
Speaker 4: Yes that tracks I'm not a good mass but very sweaty.
Speaker 2: Yes it is okay. This one's for Jeff Escape from
New York, the first feature film collaboration between John Carpenter
and Kurt Russell. The success of the movie, however, wasn't
a huge box office success, but didn't have quite a
cult following. It helped Russell get away from his Disney
movie roots and led to of course many Carpenter Russell
films like The Thing and of course Big Trouble in
Little China from nineteen eighty six. So no Escape from
New York. We probably don't get The Thing or the
Big Trouble of China at least not at this points.
And Russell, for as his age, he's still having a
very good career. He actually is a great Santa Claus.
I will say that, yeah, he is. And then one
more I'm just gonna throw here real quick, Stripes.
Speaker 1: Fact.
Speaker 2: Sure, without the success of Stripes, we don't get Ghostbusters. Sorry,
def Dave, that doesn't happen without the success of that movie.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: They were pretty much trying to use the same cast again,
same rider or whatever. But no Stripes, no Ghostbusters. And
I also to rest of mind from my wild Card,
So there you go. Probably no Groundhog Day either, right,
Probably not right.
Speaker 1: I can just see the look in Dave's eyes because
he's up next to talk about nineteen eighty four, and
it's the kind of look that's like a Sam Jackson saying,
oh you were finished, Well, allow me to retort, So, Dave, you're.
Speaker 3: Rut okay, I'll take it. Nineteen eighty four it was
a massive year for pop culture impact. So, first of all,
at the top of my list I have this was
the year that was the star making turn for Eddie Murphy.
This shot Eddie Murphy into the stratosphere, made him a superstar,
made him the highest paid actors in the decade. Top
box office draw that Eddie Murphy, the superstar that we
know is the legacy of nineteen eighty four. You're welcome.
The other thing is that there's something that happened with
the movie industry in nineteen eighty four that changed the
movie industry forever. It left a permanent change on how
movies are rated. This was the year the invention of
the PG thirteen rating. It was Grimlins and Temple of
Doom that both came out in eighty four, and before
the year was over we had three EPG thirteen movies.
The first one to come out was Red Dawn, followed
by Dreamscape. I found out today thanks to the All
Ladies Movie podcast on Twitter, that Flamingo Kid was actually
the first PG thirteen movie made, but it wasn't released
until after those other two. So PG thirteen comes from
nineteen eighty four, and there's no denying that that was
a permanent impact. That's still it's still with us today.
Nineteen eighty four also gave the world the phrase electric boogaloo.
This is the perfect all purpose sequel subtitle. You can
add it onto anything and it works. Electric boogaloo. What
would our lives be like without that magical phrase? And
also nineteen eighty four gave the world Freddy Krueger, one
of the biggest icons in cinema history.
Speaker 1: You're welcome.
Speaker 3: This was also the year. And you can say this
about music too. There's a lot of career defining albums
in nineteen eighty four, but this was a year of
career defining movies for a lot of people, just right
off the top, Like I said, first of all, Beverly
Hills Cop a career defining movie for Eddie Murphy. Romancing
the Stone was a career defining movie for Michael Douglas,
Kathleen Turner and Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gail and Robert Zimmechis
on Romancing the Stone. If that doesn't work, we don't
get back to the future. Or Back to the Future
Part two from nineteen eighty nine. So this is also
the career defining year for Prince with Purple Rain, and
he had the triple crown with the album, the singles
and the movie. This was a year that Prince owned,
and of course the Terminator. Also we had Arnold Schwarzeneger
with a career defining role in nineteen eighty four with
the Terminator. So those are huge mass of permanent impacts
that nobody can deny. Then we have also a thing
I like about nineteen eighty four is the variety of
fair like. There was just a lot of variety what
I look at. I haven't compared this to the top
tens of the other years here represented, but I look
at the top ten that I just listed real quick,
top of the Show for nineteen eighty four, and out
of the ten, eight of them are not sequels. Like
there's only two sequels in the top ten, and there
are overall very few sequels. Comparably speaking, for the year,
there was a lot of original ideas being introduced, and
to that end, we had a lot of franchises introduced
a lot of what proved to be first movies in
a series, or some enduring franchises, things that I would
consider a little bit lesser, like Children of the Corn
Revenge of the Nerds. They all started in eighty four.
Police Academy had a movie every year for about six
or seven years. Ghostbusters has developed into this huge fandom,
this huge fan culture surrounding it, and it's a franchise
that continues today. Karate Kid still going strong with Coba
Kai and everything, and of course Nightmare and El Street.
All of these things came out of the original ideas
from nineteen eighty four. And speaking again to the variety
of the fair, it was a big year for comedies
when you consider that ghost Busters set the box office
record all time for a comedy and it was only
broken by Beverly Hills Cop, which also came out before
nineteen eighty four was over, and it became the highest
grossing comedy and it held that title for years. It
was a huge year for horror, which I'm going to
touch on a little bit later in the show. It
was also a massive year for sci fi and sci
fi and fantasy. For genre geeks like me, you can't
beat nineteen eighty four for this year. Quantity of sci
fi fantasy and horror movies that came out, and I'll
be talking about them later. So anyway, that's the pop
culture impact of nineteen eighty four. Good luck everybody else.
Speaker 1: I do want to after you mention it, I do
want to just hold up and give proof that I
do own break In two, Electric.
Speaker 6: Boogaloo, both of those breaking movies, both released in nineteen
eighty four.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, there were three break dance movies four and
I won't be talking about the place.
Speaker 1: Excuse me you're out here, Jeff, you've got eighty six.
Tell us a little bit about the impact of eighty six.
Speaker 5: Well, def Dave, respectfully, I don't need luck when I've
got talent.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you about nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 5: And John, I know you're keeping score, so I'm not
going to wow you with a bunch of cinema facts
about this year. The impact on popular cult I'm going
to talk about that happened in nineteen eighty six, and
I'm gonna do it with one, with just one movie.
Speaker 4: A lot of great films in eighty six.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna use top gun to talk about how
popular culture was impacted massively across the board.
Speaker 4: In nineteen eighty six, really easy.
Speaker 5: Everyone had a best friend in eighty six and you
regurgitated talk to me, Goose, and you can be my
wing man any time. But let's talk about fashion for
a second. Ray Band aviators get a forty percent boost
in sales because of Top Gun. Eighty six is considered
the peak of leather jacket fashion, with an average of
three out of every five people wearing them.
Speaker 4: And I'm not talking just about the guys.
Speaker 5: I'm talking about the girls too, because Kelly McGillis has
a very fashionableather jacket throughout most of the film. The
white T shirt is back in style, having not been.
Speaker 4: Cool since the days of Steve McQueen.
Speaker 5: And now let's talk about music, because thank you to
the Top Gun soundtrack.
Speaker 4: It is on every single radio station with.
Speaker 5: Hits like Danger Zone to Take My Breath Away, and
they're still popular to today.
Speaker 4: But let's talk about the.
Speaker 5: Renewed popularity for bands like The Righteous Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis,
and Otis Redding becoming popular again amongst the young people
of nineteen eighty six. Navy recruitment sees a five hundred
percent boost in applicants Go America Top Gun. Another win there,
and although pro beach volleyball is organized in the nineteen seventies,
it doesn't get officially recognized by the International Volleyball Federation
until a very popular scene in Top Gun featuring san volleyball.
Speaker 4: There you have it.
Speaker 5: Without Top Gun, nineteen eighty six does not get the
cultural tsunami amongst fashion, music, our armed services, pro sports.
It doesn't happen without Top Gun, and that is that's
why eighty six was such a big impact here for
pop culture.
Speaker 1: And adjusted for inflation, that volleyball scene, I think three
and a half tons of sweat.
Speaker 4: Well, don't forget the baby oil that Scott lauthered him
up with.
Speaker 1: Ye I know that my co host Pat who from
our podcast that loves Top Gun, is going to kill
me if I don't just stop for a moment and
say and motorcycle.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's all.
Speaker 5: Kawasaki was a I didn't look into that because I thought,
you know what, I don't want to be talking too long.
But yeah, I did have a little tidbit that Kawasaki
gets a significant boost in sales as well.
Speaker 1: Jason, you've got nineteen eighty nine finish off the decade
for us.
Speaker 4: I got three points. I want to bring up number one.
Speaker 6: Nineteen eighty nine is the year of the bat bat
Mania swept America like nothing else. And I know all
four of you guys were swept up as well. Well, right,
that was the incredible thing that happened that summer. Yes,
Superman nineteen seventy eight did it first, but Batman nineteen
eighty nine did it bigger and better than ever. You
had music, you had t shirts, you had toys.
Speaker 4: You still can buy the T shirt with a batsymbol
on the front. That summer.
Speaker 6: It was all about Batman and Joker. It was incredible.
Prince had a number one album. Because of this, Tim
Burton became a superstar director, and it set the pace
for every single DC or Marvel movie that you see today.
Speaker 4: We can't get away from these comic book movies.
Speaker 6: And it's because of the success of Batman nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 4: It is a pop culture nuclear bomb.
Speaker 6: Now then, also that summer, you had eighteen sequels. Okay, now, good, bad, ugly,
it doesn't matter. This is when the movie studio said,
let's take what works, give the people what they want.
The continuation of characters that we love still see it today.
If they have success with a movie, you're gonna get
a sequel. So let me just run through this list
of eighteen sequels. Like I said, some are good, some
are not good. But here you go, all eighteen of
these released in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: You're ready for this. Here we go.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna start what I think is the worst and
I'm gonna climb to the best here, okay. Toxic Avenger
Part two, American Ninja Part three, Eddie and the Cruisers
Part two, Police Academy Part six, Friday the Thirteenth Part eight,
Halloween Part five, Karate Kid Part three, Friday Night two,
The Fly two, Night Marin Elm Street five, Fletch Lives,
Star Trek five, Ghostbusters two, License to Kill, Back to
the Future Part two, Christmas Vacation, Indiana, Jones and the
Last Crusade, and Lethal Weapon Part two.
Speaker 4: It was the year of the sequel, and I loved it.
Speaker 6: Number three nineteen eighty nine gave us a movie that
I'm gonna bet is.
Speaker 4: Not any of you guys top five for that year.
Speaker 6: However, its pop culture impact is huge, and that is
the release of the movie The Little Mermaid that re
established Disney as a powerhouse entertainment company and gave us
like that second Golden age of Disney animated movies.
Speaker 4: My daughter loves it.
Speaker 6: That movie came out thirty five years ago and still
today people absolutely love it, and it gave us Beauty
and the Beast and Aladdin and the resurgence of Disney.
Speaker 4: Like it or not.
Speaker 6: The Little Mermaid was another pop culture nuclear bomb for
nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 4: I rest my case.
Speaker 1: I was ready to have you say electric boogloo after
every one of those part toos. All right, our next
segment is the wild Card wild Card Dayton, What have
you got for eighty one.
Speaker 4: Nine eighty one?
Speaker 2: You get not one, not two, but three three quality
sword and sorcery movies released that year, and actually mostly
all pretty close together. You have Clashed the Titans, featuring
the final work of stop motion artist Ray Harry Hoausen.
Ex Caliber gave us the big screen debuts of Gabriel
Burn and Sarian Hines, and the movie is just fregaging cool.
Dragon Slayer gave us the greatest cinematic Dragon of all time.
Not only do I think so, but Gierra Mo del
Toro thinks so, and George R. R. Martin thinks so.
And also the filmmakers that did Rain of Fire thought
so because they based their dragons off of that dragon
as well.
Speaker 4: You guys might not.
Speaker 2: Be a fan, but I am. The thrash metal band
Slayer took their name from the movie Dragon Slayer. Initially
they did call themselves Dragon Slayer. Once the music changed,
they dropped the dragon and just kept Slayer. Now, these
movies kick off what became a pretty much a staple
of the eighties, the sworden sorcery genre. We do get
many more, but I don't think we actually get three
quality ones in the same year, although Deaf Dave might
try to argue that point otherwise.
Speaker 4: But for me, those.
Speaker 2: Three are all solid sword and sorcery films, and we
got a lot of really bad ones after the fact.
Now another important big screen debut that impacts movies for
years to come. October fifteenth, nineteen eighty one, at the
Redford Theater in Detroit, The Evil Dead is screened for
the first time. This is big because we get both
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the screen for the
first time. This leads to, of course, two sequels. Evil
Did two and The Army of Darkness, my favorite of
the trilogy. By the way, Without this movie, we probably
don't get Dark Man, A Simple Plan for the Love
of the Game, and any of the Spider Man movies
starring Toby maguire. A couple of other notable big screen
debuts that affect the eighties. Tom Cruise appears in Endless Love.
He also appears and has a bigger part in Taps,
where he shares screen time with Sean Penn, making his
big screen debut. And let's not overlook Denzel Washington in
a not so great movie but carbon Copy. He of
course would appear in a social story in nineteen eighty
four and his Oscar winning performance in Glory for nineteen
eighty nine. Those are my few wild cards.
Speaker 4: So there you go.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Dave, you got eighty four? What have you got?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: First of all, we started to touch on this a
little bit, but for nineteen eighty four, Walcart and maybe
this isn't a big deal to the rest of the
people here on this show, but I know I have
an audience out there. This was the Apex year for
breakdancing movies. Okay, we had Breaking and then we had
Beat Street, which was actually fantastic And then before the
year was over Break into Electric Boogoloo, so Breaking in
its sequel both came out within the same year. But
it's also not just for breakdance movies, but it's an
apex year for movies regarding music in general. Okay, we
had two of the biggest soundtrack driven monster hits of
the eighties that maybe I should have put under pop
culture impact with both Footloose and Purple Rain monster movies
monster albums. In addition to that, the other music related
movies that came out in this year. For Loose Purple Rain,
you had Body Rock, you had give my regards to Broadway,
you had Cotton Club, This is Final Tap, and a
little movie you may have heard of called Amadeus, which
swept all the Oscars the next year. So is a
fantastic year for movies about music. And I have something
here that I think even Jason Colvin is gonna have
to concede to me, and that is nineteen eighty four
is the is the year for the best sports movie
of the decade. Robert Redford in The Natural. Don't even
try to change your tune now, Jason. You know The
Natural is the best Sports Movie of the decade. So
I mentioned earlier, is a big year for horror, big
year for sci fi and fantasy. This is the main
reason that clinchesn't for me in my mind. This is
what closes the deal for nineteen eighty four. This is
why I stand on this hill, and it's the sheer
quantity of movies that come out in these genres. So
you have the big hitters that we've already named, right,
The Terminator, Star Trek three, The Search for Spot Indiana Jones,
and The Temple of Doom, the very First Nightmare on
ELM's those are all huge. Then you also have movies
like This Is Final Tap, The Last Starfighter, The Adventures
of Buckero, Bonzai, The Never Ending Story Starman Gray Stoke,
The Legend of Tarzan, Run Away with Gene Simmons and
Tom Selling. We have Dream Skate, we have Twenty Ten,
we have Dune, we have Repo man Via The Final Battle, Firestarter,
and I'm gonna I got two guilty pleasures here. I
think you'll forgive me Sena and Conan the Destroyer. And
when it comes to horror, I'm not a big horror guy,
but I'm looking at this list and I'm thinking this
is pretty strong. I don't know if there's a year
in the eighties stronger in horror than this year. When
you consider that we have not only Friday the thirteenth,
the Final Chapter, we have the very first Children of
the Corn, we have Chud, we have a Nightmare on
Elm Street, and we have Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know how you beat that either. So when
you that's a long list I had to get and
I can't believe I haven't gotten any bonus points yet.
But the sheer quantity of this, not even counting things
like that Illy like Ice Pirates and Brother from Another Planet.
I mean, there's the list. Go it's too long for
nineteen eighty four. It just doesn't stop.
Speaker 4: You didn't even list the greatest Ski movie of all time.
Speaker 6: Hot Dog, the movie tweet and her absolute tweetiness.
Speaker 3: It's a close second too, of The Natural. I am kidding.
I'm giving that, Sha.
Speaker 4: I think they should both lose. For those comments.
Speaker 7: About Jeff eighty six Deaf Dave, I would ask you
to take a look at the abundance of awesome horror
films that came out in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 5: We went at the sidebar on that. However, John, my
wild card is short, sweet and a little sinister, because
here's where I go with a little bit of a
spear campaign against my fellow opponents. Here, here's what it
comes down to. He talks and Oscar walks. Let's talk
box office and the best picture winners. We're all physical
media guys. You know, we know the importance of owning
a movie so you can watch it time and time again. Right,
I think you're gonna see that some of the movies
that I'm about to share with you not only are
not on your shelves, they're probably not things that you
want to see ever or ever again. Nineteen eighty one,
Chariots of Fire wins Best Picture, does fifty nine million
dollars at the box office. Yeah, a bit of a
yawn there on that movie. Nineteen eighty four, As as
Dave did mention earlier, Amideis does rock the oscars. Does
not rock the box office though, because he does a
paltry fifty one million dollars. The man died poor and
his box office was also poor. Now I'm going to
skip eighty six and jumped eighty nine here for a second,
because at one hundred and six million, we have made
a significant jump. People are going to the movies and
seeing this one. But how many people want to see
Driving Miss Day over and over again?
Speaker 4: And put your hand down, Dayton, I love that movie.
Oh there's always one. There's always one. Yeah, you know
who else loves it, mamm all because you can.
Speaker 5: Find the vhs in the cabinet under the cobra underneath.
Speaker 2: I know it's not cobra, but come on, now, you
had your time, sir, You had your time, yes, I
and I was not and I talked about my year.
I didn't trash other people's years.
Speaker 4: Am Wow.
Speaker 3: Wild card baby, it's a wild card baby, right last
box office.
Speaker 5: Lastly nineteen eighty six Best Picture winner Platoon does one
hundred and thirty eight million dollars clearcut winner. I don't
care if you love war movies, if you love Charlie
Sheen movies, if you just love good movies, you love Platoon,
and more than likely it's going to be on your
shelf a lot more often than Chariots of Fire, Amidas
or Driving Miss Daisy. That is my wild card that
I'm playing, John.
Speaker 1: You probably won't want to hear which of those four
movies is on my shelf. Amadeus is the only one
that's on my shelf.
Speaker 2: There's actually only one of those that's not, and it's
Chariots of Fire. The other ones are all on my shelf.
Speaker 4: There you go see.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And for the record, for the record, Amadaeus is
a brilliant film. I absolutely love it, and you can
see it back there on my sholf right there as well.
Speaker 1: The best parts of Chariots of Fire is how how
much of a high stakes movie it was, because they
they go and they compete and if they lose, then
they got to go back to their high paying jobs.
So that's what really did it for me with Chariots
of Fire.
Speaker 5: I will say, to be fair, I think the best
moment of Chariots of Fire is the soundtrack that you
hear in National Lampoon's Vacation, and that's the hill.
Speaker 4: I'll die on.
Speaker 1: That was the I remember my mom The only time
I ever my mom just being absolutely irate when she
had to wait on the phone for something. Was she
was calling some kind of customer service line. And this
was back in the eighties and Chariots of Fire was
the hold music on the phone, and I just I
remember the only comment she was. I could just see
her fuming while she's on the phone, and she just
looks over at me as if I'm gonna know chariots
a fire at that point in my life, and she goes,
I hate chariots fire. Now, okay, Mom, I don't. I
don't know what that is. But okay, Jason, you've got
eighty nine.
Speaker 6: Okay for my wild card. I've got two things I
want to play. I've got two jokers, if you will.
First thing I'm gonna play is that the summer of
nineteen eighty nine was the greatest summer for movies in
the eighties. Dave is crossing his arms already, Dave, I've
already looked at nineteen eighty four, August of eighty four.
Speaker 7: Week.
Speaker 4: Okay, so here you go. Think back to me like,
I've seen three movies in the movie theater this year
this summer.
Speaker 7: Three.
Speaker 4: Okay. Now, when we go back and we look.
Speaker 6: At the list, let's just just in your head say, okay,
that's a watchable movie.
Speaker 4: That's a watchable movie. Some are better than others. But
starting May nineteenth of nineteen eighty nine, we go all
the way to August twenty fifth, before there is not
a new movie that's watchable. Okay, so listen to this.
Speaker 6: May nineteenth, road Ouse comes out the next week Indiana
Jones and The Last Crusade the next week, Dead Poet
Society the next week Star Trek five, the next week
Ghostbusters two, the next week Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
and Batman the next week Do the Right Thing, Karate Kid,
Gray Balls of Fire the next week Weekend at Bernie's
and Lethal Weapon two the next week, Licensed to Kill
and When Harry Met Sally the next week UHF the
next week Friday the Thirteenth, Part eight, and Turner on
Hooch the next week, Parenthood the next week The Abyss
and the Nightmare and elm Street Part five the next
week Uncle Buck. Finally, after Uncle Buck we get August
twenty fifth, where there's just crap, but that entire summer,
week after week after week, you have watchable, enjoyable movies
at the box.
Speaker 5: I will concede that that is a murderer's row of
summer box office.
Speaker 6: I'm going to pose to the jury that nineteen eighty
nine is the sexiest movie year.
Speaker 4: Okay, now, stay with me on this.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna talk about driving miss Daisy?
Speaker 4: Here's my question to you.
Speaker 1: You guys, can the judge object if you start with that.
Speaker 6: No, I'm not starting with that. Okay, good, good, This
is my This is what I'm saying here. Okay, stay
with me.
Speaker 4: We all enjoy when our lady wears lingerie.
Speaker 6: When she dresses up nice, she looks pretty, she's got
a sexy underwear on. It's all a part of the experience,
and the anticipation, I would say, is at least as
much fun as the actual experience. So think back to
a time with me in early nineteen eighty nine. This
is what we knew was going to happen that year.
We knew we had eighteen sequels coming. We knew we
had a Stephen King movie. We knew we had a
Star Trek movie. We knew we had Indiana Jones coming back.
We had Ghostbusters, We had Batman. We had the return
of Marty McFly and Freddy Krueger and James Bond and
Jason Vorhees. We knew we had a great Christmas movie
coming with Clark and the Griswolds. We knew all these
movies were coming we had two of the greatest baseball
movies coming at us, and just the anticipation of what
was coming down the pipe that year in nineteen eighty
nine was so much fun. Back then, the anticipation of
Batman Inny and Bond all in the same summer just
made it that much sweeter.
Speaker 1: And that's where I'm going to stop. So I do
have to ask, was No Holds Barred the week she
had a headache?
Speaker 4: You don't like? No Holds Barred was going to mention
that in a few minutes.
Speaker 3: So I had that one I was that was in
my pocket.
Speaker 1: Was mine too? Who doesn't love seeing Hulk Hogan say.
Speaker 6: Dookie, We're gonna get to our cinematic sins here in Justice,
and we're all gonna be on the table here.
Speaker 1: So that's the wild card now, as Jason said, we
are gonna get to the cinematic sins. Cinematic sins basically
what these are is these are the movies that are
so bad that they are gonna be weighing your year down.
So each of the guys is going to present bad
movies from the year, and these are the ones that
are basically this is the cement shoes that have been
given to you to sink you to the bottom of
the lake. These are your cinematic sins from each year.
So nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: So it's easy to go straight to the list of
Razzie winners, right, because, well, every year is gonna have
a worst movie. But here's the thing about the Razzies
of nineteen eighty one. Nineteen e one was the year
that was so bad they had to invent the Razzies. Okay,
this is where it starts. Okay, so Mommy Dearest sweeps
all the categories, takes home five Razzies, and at the
end of the decade, when they're giving out decade full awards,
like the worst movie of the entire decade, the raspberry
goes to Mommy Dearest, So nineteen eighty one just owns
that title.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that quote, Why are Hangers? And I
just contend that the Razzies are stupid because there's a
lot of years there's actually good movies on your list,
So the Razzies are stupid. Those are people that have
nothing better to do. So I don't care rejects the Razzies.
I reject the Razzies. I'm sorry, Jeff, what have you Got?
Speaker 5: For eighty one, one of the greatest heroes in American
literature gets his chance, yes to hit the big screen
in a way we are not ready for. You have
a beautiful woman playing the eleading lady. So how do
you explain Tarzan the ape Man to me? Because it
is so bad? Edgar Rice Burrough was rolling in his
grave when this one came out. Dayton, you may hate
the Razzies, but they sure loved this film because it
got nominated for six of them and Bo Derek herself
did take home the gold or the Golden Rasberry, whatever
they call it. Just trying to sit through this movie.
It is bad, terrible film. Tarzan the eight Man, Jason,
I can see my remaining time to you.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 6: I have that one as well. That was on my list.
Nudity has not been that boring since Showgirls. So my
cinematic sin for nineteen eighty one, I am going to
go with Galaxy of Terror.
Speaker 1: We have.
Speaker 6: That's a Roger Corman movie where James Cameron was actually
discovered was given the Piranha two job because he was
able to get worms to wiggle by electrocuting them. But
this movie stars Robert England of Nightmaray and elm Street
and Aaron Moran who played Cupcake on Happy Days. But
the worst sin in the Galaxy of Terror is you
have a full on rape scene where a woman gets
raped by a worm, a giant worm creature. It's unwatchable.
I try to watch it one time just so I
could see where James Cameron got his beginning, because I'm
a huge James Cameron fan. It was the worst piece
of crap I've ever seen in my life. So Galaxy
of Terror nineteen eighty one, nobody's ever seen that.
Speaker 4: I can tell. I've seen it, and it is everything
that you just mentioned.
Speaker 2: Actually, I'm going off what the mentioned video podcast said
about it, because yeah, everything they said, I almost like,
I'm never watching this.
Speaker 4: I'm just never.
Speaker 1: So let's see. Now we got nineteen eighty four, So Dayton,
why don't you give us the cinema sin from nineteen
eighty four?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I had quite a few, but I'm
just going to go with the one that's probably the
most offensive of all the ones I chose. Blame it
on Rio Michael Kaine's having an affair with an underage girl.
I'm just saying that's it. That's inappropriate, disgusting, and it's wrong.
It's not even funny. So blamemon on rio is a
terrible It has a meta score of twenty two. Okay,
twenty two, there you go.
Speaker 4: That's mine.
Speaker 6: Can I can I add to that dating because that
was that was my surprise pick that I was ready
to drop because the whole movie is sad because you
have this Michael Kaine who's middle aged and he's having
this affair with his best friend's daughter. The whole thing
is inappropriate.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing.
Speaker 6: Michelle Johnson was seventeen years old when she filmed this movie.
Speaker 4: She had to get.
Speaker 6: Special permission from her parents and a judge to be
in this movie. If she was twenty two, it would
be creepy. She's seventeen.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: Sorry, thank you for helping. Thank you for putting my
body even more, thank you.
Speaker 3: I have no defense.
Speaker 4: That's let's say.
Speaker 2: If you try to defend that, I'm just like, dude,
you're done.
Speaker 1: Jeff, what have you got?
Speaker 4: Less controversial?
Speaker 5: But let's talk about the superstar that Bill Murray was
in nineteen eighty four. This is the guy. He's a
ghost buster stripes caddy shack. Right along comes a movie
in nineteen eighty four that is so terrible. It is
such a dumpster fire that he questions whether or not
he should even be acting after it, and doesn't act
again until like nineteen eighty eight when he does Scrooge.
I'm talking about a film called The Razor's Edge. Try
to get through it, is what I would ask.
Speaker 4: Didn't he write that?
Speaker 3: He wrote part of it and it was like a
passion project for him, and Dan Aykroyd's suggestion he held
out of Ghostbusters. He used the idea of getting Razor's
Edge made as leverage, Like, if you want me in Ghostbusters,
you gotta let me do razors Edge first.
Speaker 4: You like that one, Dave.
Speaker 3: I like it because the scene that it's like eulogizing
a friend of his in the movie who had died.
Bill Murray wrote that scene and in his mind he
was speaking to John Belushi. I think it's kind of neat. Also,
it was a non comedic role, and we know Bill
Murray proved eventually to be a fan a dramatic actor,
and this is kind of like first step in that direction.
So that's all I got.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's okay.
Speaker 6: I'm backing up against the ropes here I come to
pounce on Dave with Supergirl. Supergirl. Supergirl is the worst
piece of crap DC movie. It's worse than Superman four
Quest for Peace. It's not even a question. You have
a witch. You have Clark Kent's cousin who can magically
change her hair color. She just changes clothes through voodoo
or something. There's terrible acting. It did so poorly it
caused the Superman franchise to fall into the Cannon Group's hands.
Speaker 4: Not even close.
Speaker 6: This movie is a giant wart on the nose of
nineteen eighty four Supergirl.
Speaker 4: Dave is owning his defeat on that one.
Speaker 3: There's no defending this movie. I do know that it's
partly nineteen eighty one's fault because whoa once again because
of I object because of Faide done Away. I know
the raspberry for her, you know, which helped her get
the worst actress of the decade. I believe. So I
think this movie's largely the legacy of nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4: How's that objection deflecting?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: Jeff and I both left Rhystone off the board too,
So actually that.
Speaker 4: Was on my list too.
Speaker 3: Was.
Speaker 2: I was kind of surprised jeffinga with Bolero, since he
was kind of kind of he might go like a
do a bo Derek.
Speaker 1: You know, I just I don't understand why you guys
can't get on board with the omegahedron. I mean, it's
just one of the most amazings of movie prop history.
And I'm so sad they never did make that sequel
where she could change her hair color, and then the
sequel she could change the color of the Great Wall
of China just by looking at it. We are to
eighty six, Dayton, what have you got for eighty six?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna stay on the offensive idea and I'm going
with Solman. Okay, see Thomas Howe in blackface. That's all
I need to say. Okay, thirty three metascore, racist as hell.
Speaker 4: There you go, soul Man.
Speaker 1: We had somebody come working on our air conditioning at
our house. And the guy came downstairs and he could
see all my podcasting stuff I have down here. And
he's the same guy that's been coming and working on
our house for years, and this is the first time
I was ever home when he was here working on stuff.
And so he was asking me about the podcast everything else,
and he's like, you know what, you know, what's one
of the worst movies I've ever seen. Soul Man said, yeah, yeah, understood.
Speaker 3: Noel, you know, not to defend that at all. But
isn't this where set Thomas Howell met raid On Chalk?
Speaker 4: It is, yes, and it is indeed right they got married,
right yea, she yeah.
Speaker 3: They were married. I'm I mean she didn't seem to
have too vivica of a problem, so but does not
play well at all these days. For sure. This was
I believe the apex of Ronald Reagan Junior's acting career.
Speaker 2: I remember that he that helps it helps you, That
probably helps charged.
Speaker 4: I am not going to defend that film.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 5: Probably not a not a good choice for Tommy Howe
back then obviously did not age well, and it's one
that I know he and we all should just forget.
Speaker 1: So, Dave, what have you got?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 3: Look? Eighty six is packed with some really bad movies,
so bad that the Razzie for Worst Picture of the
Year had to be shared between two movies. And there's
only two more chances to mention movies right now between
Jason and myself. So I feel like I should mention
one of those incredibly, like they could not decide which
one was worse. They just gave the razzie to both
of them. But I am gonna go a different way
because I discovered the existence of a movie preparing for
this podcast, and I've never heard it before, and it
sounds so awful that I have to mention it here.
But it's the kind of awful that I think is
probably going to interest all of you in trying to
go track it down and watch it. It's called No Retreat,
No Surrender. Has anybody heard it?
Speaker 4: I've seen it, I've seen this.
Speaker 3: This is a book. Tell this is I haven't seen it.
But it says that this guy he wants to like
avenge the death of his father, so he learns martial
arts karate kung fu from the ghost of Bruce Lee.
Speaker 4: It's the premise, who else do you want to learn from?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 4: Are you actually going to defend this? Jeff? How long
he gand is the bad? Yeah? Ben Damn is a
villain and that doesn't help it either, So don't even
go there.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna trust Jason to somehow mention the other two.
If he's going there but I'm leaving it on a
platter for him.
Speaker 4: He gets one.
Speaker 6: You have left me with a plethora of bad movies
where I can only choose one. Here, I'm looking at
a list that includes Nomads, which Jeff and I have.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, this is a cheap tactic.
Speaker 5: You can't.
Speaker 4: Just talking out loud. Well, make my decision here, objection,
I will.
Speaker 1: I will only consider the last one, he.
Speaker 4: Says, Nomads. We've Jeff and I have been on record
talking about how horrible that movie is. True.
Speaker 6: We have also been on record talking about how bad
Under the Cherry Moon starring Prince is. But I have
to go with the star of star bad movies by
a man that we all respect and adore, mister George Lucas.
Speaker 4: He came out with a movie so horrible.
Speaker 6: I can barely form the words to say the title
of this movie.
Speaker 4: Howard the duck? Well, that chain around your neck and
try to swim jack.
Speaker 8: Well, my response to that, that cheap shot answer, that
cheap shot statement, if you will, Well, here's the deal is.
Speaker 4: No Mad's bad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but without it, I quote Jason Colvin when I
say without it, there is no Predator, there is no
die Hard think about that for a second. And while
you're thinking about that, think about this is under the
cherry moon bad? Well, of course it is, but it's
still about a global superstar prince. I mean, the guy
could do no wrong even if he was doing it
under a cherry moon. And as far as as far
as Howard the Duck goes, is it bad? Yeah, but
it's so bad it's fun. And I think when you
go to the store, you'll find a four K steel
book on the shelves for Howard the Duck to celebrate Ittsaniver.
You won't find rhinestone, and you won't find tarzan.
Speaker 3: Oh here we go.
Speaker 4: But hey, you will find Howard the Duck.
Speaker 5: And you know what, I'm not ashamed to admit it's
it's on the shelf back there.
Speaker 2: So hey, do you have them shang high surprise back
there with your holend Duck?
Speaker 1: Or how about how about troll that one?
Speaker 3: Okay, so not counting like the old Captain America serials.
Isn't it the first Marvel like feature film release?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 4: It is?
Speaker 5: You know, thank you, def Dave. It is a It
is a Marvel superhero. It's a film about a Marvel superhero,
so it's got that going for it.
Speaker 6: It's also the same movie that we saw Duck get
aroused by Leah Thompson.
Speaker 4: I don't care who you are. I don't care who
you are, what you are, Leah Thompson will arouse you,
my friend.
Speaker 1: Among our podcast hosts, we did that one. It was
one of our first years we were doing the podcast.
We did that one, and it's one of the only
times one of the guys got up and actually walked
out as we were recording. And I don't know if
you if you guys have seen the old Three Stooges
episode where they I think it hypnotized. I think it is.
And anytime somebody says Niagara falls, they kind of turn murderous.
Anytime I just say the phrase Duck boobs yes to
quote Forrest Gump. That's all we have to say about
that eighty nine. Let's rip into eighty nine here, dating
you get it started.
Speaker 2: So this particular movie has no meta score on IMDb,
but it's score from the People is a one point eight.
I am referring to Going Overboard from Adam Sandler. Ew,
this thing is unwatchable. I'd rather have a case of
diarrhea than sit through this movie again. It's terrible.
Speaker 6: I have never seen that movie. Yeh, don't yeah, will
not defend.
Speaker 2: I would literally I'd rather shave my head. Didn't watch
that movie again. Okay, just say it, Okay, Dave, Okay.
Speaker 3: I was going to say no holds barred, but they
already got mentioned. I was gonna say going overboard. Dayton
took it. But I did find one incredibly horrible sounding
movie that is probably in the realm of craptastic, and
they're I'll probably all gonna want to find it and
watch it. I've never seen it, but this sounds so
terrible that I almost feel bad for completely burying Jason
with this. Okay, So the name of this movie is
over Sexed Rugsuckers from Mars.
Speaker 4: I saw that listed do.
Speaker 3: Okay. This is a sci fi movie where it talks
about aliens return to Earth after having started the human
race millennia ago, and the first human they see when
they come back is this like really gross, dirty, homeless guy,
and they conclude from that that all of humanity is very,
very dirty, and they obviously come to the logical conclusion
that the best thing they can do made this planet
better is to crossbreed humans with vacuum cleaners.
Speaker 1: You know what, I never realized that this movie is
a prequel to Prometheus.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: And the way they start this cross breeding is this
homeless guy accidentally drinks some alien pea and this causes
him to fall in love with the first vacuum cleaner
that he sees, and it creates this hybrid race of rugsuckers.
It's over sex rugsuckers from Mars from nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 4: What is what?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 1: What is what? My earlier Yeah, see my earlier comment
about people being coked out of their minds in the eighties.
All right, bring it, Jeff finishes off.
Speaker 5: Well, look, I am not gonna let you off the
hug Jason with some obscure or a little known film
like the last two. I'm gonna channel dgra Baves, your
co host here. I'm gonna offer up a movie that
should have been a hit and was so bad, was
such a turd, it's a crime against film. Okay, So
let's talk about a couple great things that you can
throw into a movie.
Speaker 4: How about a hit song from Michael Damien Rock Gone.
We were all singing it.
Speaker 5: How about a beautiful girl like Meredith Salinger and at
the height of their popularity, the Cory's Corey Hayn, Corey Feldman,
their their movies were fun.
Speaker 4: When they got together, they had a great time. So
I don't know what.
Speaker 5: The hell happened when they did Dream a Little Dream. Wow,
what a what a dumb movie. And again, this is
one of those the tropes where it's the body swap,
so a little freaky Friday action, and they can't even
do that, right.
Speaker 4: This movie is terrible. It's a crime. It should not
be this bad.
Speaker 5: It's it's like ninety minutes of Corey Feldman in his
most coked up Michael Jackson impersonator phase, and he just
just craps all over this movie the whole time doing it.
Speaker 3: It's awful.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely awful.
Speaker 3: This was when I started worrying about Corey Feldman. Like
he had a good run in the eighties, right, he
was in the verbs, right, he was like.
Speaker 4: He was in the Burbs in eighty nine, in eighty nine, and.
Speaker 3: Then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, and he
never really stopped this phase. I'm starting right here now. Yeah,
that's a bad movie.
Speaker 1: So from the lowest of the low. Now we're going
to go to the highest of the high. This is
this is one of your last chances to make the
case for your year. This is the pinnacle. This is
the top five movies. Top five movies nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I couldn't figure out how to break this down,
So I just went ahead and looked at June into July,
and you had the Great Muppet Caper, Dragon Slayer for
your eyes only, Raiders of Lost Dark, and Stripes all
came out within a basically a few weeks of each other.
And to me, and I saw all of those in
the theater except for Stripes, of course, because I was
too young. Side note, I've seen Raiders of Lost Ark
twenty times in the theater twenty times because it's that
freaking good. And if it wasn't for that, you wouldn't
get one in eighty four, and you wouldn't get in
a sequel in eighty nine. So anyway, those and some
people will consider the Great Webec Caper to be the
best of them movies.
Speaker 4: It's definitely a favorite of mine.
Speaker 2: Dragon Slayer is probably my favorite Sword and Sorrostree film
of all time. And for your Eyes Only is my
favorite Bond movie there. These are all favorites, and four
of the five I saw in the theater that summer,
So that's why I chose those five.
Speaker 1: Top five movies. Nineteen eighty four, Dave nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Okay, honorable mentions, Red Dawn and this is spinal Tap.
I've never quit watching Red don awesome movie. Number five, Ghostbusters,
number four, The Terminator, Number three. Indiana Jones in the
Temple of Doom too. I like about that real quick.
I love that the best majority of it is in
real time and we see it tie into the same
cinematic universe as Gunga Den, So I think that's pretty cool.
Number two. This is a movie I hadn't seen it
over thirty years. I just saw it a couple of
years ago. It brought back all the memory, all the
nostalgia I had forgotten just how great this movie is.
It goes almost to the top of my list. The
Karate Kid. I absolutely love this movie. It's amazing, but
at the number one spot considering who I was at
thirteen years old in nineteen eighty four and how that
just had me hook line and seeker on the edge
of my seat. I was along for the ride. I
have to put a number one Star Trek three the
Search for Spock.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Really I love Star Trek three.
Speaker 3: I like it more than four, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 4: No Beverly Hills Cop.
Speaker 3: Nope, they didn't made my top five.
Speaker 1: Okay, top five movies nineteen eighty six the court.
Speaker 4: I have prepared a written statement i'd like to read.
Speaker 5: And if you happen to notice twenty film titles from
nineteen ey six in this statement, I assure you it
is merely coincidental.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, right.
Speaker 5: I'll begin, Honorable John Reid, to quote Lieutenant Pete Mitchell,
call sign Maverick.
Speaker 4: I can see it's dangerous for you.
Speaker 5: After all, you've been given a fine mess during this
one crazy summer. Listen to our testimony and choose the
best year for movies in the eighties. But John, you're
the elite, the best of the best. You, sir, are
a top gun. Therefore, when you examine the years eighty one,
eighty four and eighty nine, the only question is, if
I may quote Ellen J. Ripley, You're going out there
to destroy them, right, not to study, not to bring back,
but to wipe them out. John, These ruthless people I'm
debating against can troll you day and night for nine
and a half weeks. But it doesn't take a witchboard
to point to yes when I ask if nineteen eighty
six is the best year forgive my gung ho.
Speaker 4: Attitude about this topic, but.
Speaker 5: These other guys should be running scared through the labyrinth
of average films their collective years offer, because eighty six
is in fact the most rad and only someone with
a short circuit would think otherwise. It's true my cinematic
sins can cause heartburn, but I don't believe I'm out
of bounds when I say it takes true wisdom to
appreciate that even bad movies become cult classics overtime. It
would be something wild if you chose one of the
years suggested by the other three amigos. Ultimately, as the
Highlander himself, Connor McLoud of the Klam McCloud not Clan
of the Cave Bear tells us there can be only
one John. I know you'll make the right choice. I
believe that you will stand by me. Top five are
top Gun Aliens, Platoon Ferris Bueler's.
Speaker 4: Day off and stand by me thank you. That was excellent.
I'm giving it up to you all that.
Speaker 3: Top shelf, sir.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I just I just appreciate the fact
that most of the movies you mentioned are not very good,
so that helped a lot.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Hey.
Speaker 5: As Dalton says in eighty nine's Roadhouse Opinions.
Speaker 1: Vary, guys, don't don't fall. I don't want you guys
to argue with each other. I want you guys to
be nice until it's time to not be nice. Top
five movies nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 6: My top five I wouldn't say are the best five movies,
but these are the movies that best represent the excellence
of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 4: Am I splitting hairs? Maybe? But here's my list. I'm
going to start with the.
Speaker 6: Greatest romantic comedy of the eighties at number five.
Speaker 4: I'm giving you When Harry Met Sally number four.
Speaker 6: I'm going with the greatest Christmas movie of the nineteen
eighties with National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Number three, I'm giving
you one of the great sequels of the eighties. We
get Part two, actually an improvement in my opinion, from
Part one. We get Riggs and Murtaw leave a Weapon too.
The Summer of nineteen eighty nine. That's my number three.
Number two overall, I give you Indiana Jones and The
Last Crusade. I am not a person who says it's
better than Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think that
is the best movie of the nineteen eighties, but I
know opinions vary, and I know people hold this movie
in very high regard, maybe the best of.
Speaker 4: The three Indiana Jones movies.
Speaker 6: And then finally, I give you the one movie the
stamp of nineteen eighty nine, Batman.
Speaker 4: We still quote Jack Nicholson's Joker.
Speaker 6: You guys probably have shirts with the bat signal on
the on the in front of it.
Speaker 4: You've probably had toys.
Speaker 6: We had the soundtrack, it owned the summer of nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 4: So I'm stamping this whole thing off with Batman. I
had the collector cards from the movie. I had the
entire set. Yeah, I have the soundtrack sitting behind me.
Speaker 1: So those are the top five movies and meet of
our years before I make a decision, And good lord,
you guys have made it really, really difficult to make
a decision. Here we are going to do in this
next piece, very very quickly, I want each of you
to vote for if your year didn't exist and you
had to vote for one of the other years, who
gets your vote? So basically, in your mind, which of
these years comes number two?
Speaker 2: So I was trying to figure out how many movies
I own for me to the other years, and it's
it's really close, So that that didn't really help my
thought process, you know what I think? In general, I'm
thinking I'm gonna go with eighty nine because he's right.
It's when Harry Mettzali is probably the greatest romantic comedy
of the eighties. I saw in the theater. Loved it
from the first time. Yeah, and I agree we cow
Up with two is better than the original. And yeah,
I'm a big fan of Indiana Jones and Last Crusades
is fantastic. So I think eighty nine wins out just
a little bit.
Speaker 1: David, what do you got?
Speaker 3: This was tough because it came down to a couple
of different years. Eighty nine, of course, being the most
recent year from the eighties. It's easy for me to
remember that one. It was also the summer that I
graduated high school in June of eighty nine, right there
with Batman's Star Trek five, Indiana Jones, all coming out
that month. I remember that summer very very well. I
was out of school, I was hanging with friends on
top of the world. I can't believe Jason never even
mentioned UHF in this entire episode. There's a big sentimental
gravity pool to nineteen eighty nine for all of those reasons.
But there's another year that had what I consider to
not only be the best movie of the decade, it's
my best movie of all time. And I don't say
that lightly because it's it's always neck and neck with
nineteen thirty eight Adventures of Robin Hood, which is also
just right there. It's Raiders of the Lost Art. And
on the strength of that movie, and on the strength
of the rest of June of eighty one, and on
the strength of ex caliber John Borman, my favorite fantasy film,
my favorite King Arthur adaptation, I have to go with
nineteen eighty one, and that is in spite of the
fact and in Superman two he rips off like the
cellophane layer of his symbol and throws it across the
forces of the solitude to ensnare the bad guys, I'm
going with eighty one.
Speaker 5: Jeff Well, for me, it was always about two years specifically,
and in my heart of hearts, I had to think
about it and I came down to the year that
almost was our limited mini series, and that's nineteen eighty
four for all the reasons I started my lifelong crush
for Phoebe Kate's when I saw Grimlins. It is absolutely got,
in my opinion, the greatest war movie ever made. Red
Dawn and what can you say, you know, if you're
looking for a hero the Karate Kid, we're talking about
the amazing redemption story of a young John Lawrence who
has everything set up for his senior year. This punk
LaRusso comes to town and just causes chaos, causes havoc
and even in the end, just like in Rocky, he
maybe he loses his title, he doesn't win, but he
lets he lets the audience know that he's he's gonna
be okay.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: He hands the trophy over to the cheater and says,
you're so. You know.
Speaker 5: Eighty four had it had its heroes, It had its
It had its adorable girls that you could you could
crush on, and it had its awesome war movies, you know.
Speaker 4: So for me, it's it's nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Jason, who does number two work for?
Speaker 4: Okay, this is really interesting. Okay.
Speaker 6: So Dayton, you chose eighty nine, Dave, you chose eighty one,
Jeff you chose eighty four. I'm going with eighty six, Okay, And.
Speaker 4: So here's the deal.
Speaker 6: So June of nineteen eighty one, I feel like is
the best month for movies, and then the entire eighties
just absolute killer after absolute killer and formidable movies.
Speaker 4: To me, nineteen eighty.
Speaker 6: Four, I would say there's more like sevens and eight
throughout the entire movie. But when I looked at my
personal top five movies from nineteen eighty six and the
impact that they had on me as a person, so aliens.
The James Cameron movie created a lifelong James Cameron van
in me ten ten out of ten. Top Gun made
me want to be a fighter pilot with every other
red blooded American boy in the entire country.
Speaker 4: Ten out of ten.
Speaker 6: Ferris Bueler's Day Off is one of the funniest movies
in the ninety eight I absolutely love it. Quoted all
the time, stand by me a Stephen King movie with
dramatic impact like that, and then kind of off the
beaten path. But what I think is the greatest horror
movie of the entire decade, and you have The Fly,
the David Kronenberg movie, The Fly, where Jeff Goloblum slowly
becomes this horrific monster. I mean, I saw that in
the theater, scared the crap out of me, grossed me out,
but broke my heart to so go with nineteen eighty six,
I can't argue with that.
Speaker 4: Top five.
Speaker 1: Well, it looks like it's time to close now, so
thank you all for coming to this episode. I just
I want to state for the record that I hate
every single one of you for all choosing a different
year because I'm like, ah, well, if three of them
fall back on the one that I think I'm leaning towards,
well then that's fine. But yeah, you leaving me out
to dry here. So I guess it's my turn now
to kind of make a decision based on the evidence
that you all have presented. Final judgment, I'm going to
go through each of the years just really really quickly.
Eighty one. All the stuff that you guys have said
Raiders is an amazing movie. I tie so many of
these things to experiences I had watching some of these
movies with my dad. Raiders I remember watching that with
my dad, and then I remember taking my son to
go see it when they brought it back out in
the theaters just down the street, actually from the hospice
that my dad passed In the movie theater was showing
it one more time, and there was even a guy
that came with prop replicas from the movie, and we
stayed there. My son is the most I think he'd
ever talked to another human being. He was asking questions
about the props and and everything else. It was just
it was awesome. Stupid fun movies like cannon Ball Run
American Werewolf in London one of my favorite movies, and
Clash of the Titans was one of my favorite movies
as a kid. I had all the toys, even stupid
little TV movies like This House Possessed was one that
I somehow watched over and over again as a kid,
one that we did on our show, and I was
blown away by this. I absolutely loved it, and the
premise seems so simple. I didn't think I would love it.
Was my dinner with Andre I absolutely loved that movie.
When we watched that, and I think the rest of
my co host on our show, it just they were
amazed too. They're like two guys having dinner, how good
is it's going to be? And we watched it and
we're like, this was actually an awesome movie. I actually
love this movie. So eighty one is just it's got
so much stuff to love from eighty one eighty four
twenty ten. I remember watching that as a kid, and
it was one of the first movies where I remember
the moment that you started to see spoiler alert, the monoliths.
You start to see some of those monoliths show up
in like the Great Spot of Jupiter, and I remember
getting just goosebumps as a kid, Like I loved astronomy
at the time, and this movie was messing with my
astronomy and it was just it was bone chilling. So
I remember that, and I mean, this is all the
stuff that my uncle used to take me to when
I was inappropriately too young to go to see some
of these movies, you know, when I saw Nightmare on
Elm Street and Terminator, The Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Sixteen Candles, Never
Ending Story, Muppets, take Manhattan, Spinal tap Amedeus. I've already
said Amadeus's is one of my favorites too. My dad
when he did have his stroke, you couldn't tell when
he was joking. He couldn't show emotion on his face
anymore after he had had a stroke. And at one
point they were wheeling him down through the hallway in
the wheelchair, and he starts turning to the other people
that are sitting off to the side working puzzles and
doing other things, and he just goes, Mediocrates, Mediocrates, everywhere,
I am your patron saint, and I go, okay, so
you have not lost your sense of humor. Eighty six
Little Shop of Horrors, Three Amigos, Hoosiers, Crocodile, Dundee, The
Fly Transformers. The movie maybe one of the first times
I cried in a movie as a kid. Stand by
Me Aliens, Labyrinth. I can't even tell you, between my
siblings and myself, the number of times we quote Labyrinth
on a daily basis. Big Trouble in Little China. I'm
so shocked nobody wanted to go the creep factor and
choose Poltergeist too, and tell us about how God is
in his Holy Temple Highlander, American Tale, Platoon, and then
eighty nine, I mean Christmas Vacation. These are a lot
of the movies in here are just the ones that
are on regular rotation. Just Back to the Future two
was probably one of the first movies I took my
son to go see in the theater. Little Mermaid, Parenthood
when Harry met Sally Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was
always a big one. Dead Poets Society was the movie
that probably most inspired me to become a teacher. Last
Crusade Roadhouse the Burbs, my son playing baseball. I mean,
there's not a game where, at least in my own head.
If I don't say it out loud, at some point,
I'm gonna say the phrase just a bit outside and
then I don't think anybody mentioned for eighty nine Bill
and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Well, I've taken all of your information,
and I've heard all of your arguments over the course
of this episode, and I am going to say that
I'm not gonna cop out, but I am gonna say, God,
all these years are just amazing. There's a reason why
these are the four that we ended up having for
this episode, because you really honestly can't go wrong. I'm
gonna have to go with and I think some of
the pop culture argument for this year, and I think
just I think it's one of the things that the
person who had this year, it was one of your
reasons for why this year was so pivotal, And I
think that's gonna be the same that I'm gonna have
to go with in my decision. And it's probably the
year where I own most of the movies that are
on this list. It's the year that probably inspired most
of my love of movies, my love of literature, the
types of genres I enjoy, all that other stuff. I
am going to have to go with the one that
started a whole bunch of these franchises. I'm gonna have
to go with nineteen eighty four. I gotta go with
eighty four. Like I said before, that was one of
the reasons we started our show was we were sitting
around arguing this point and we said, God, that's just
look at everything that got started that year. Yes, I
love and I'm a person that loves sequels too, even
bad sequels. I love having the sequels. I love having
all that fan service of bringing back those sequels and
just getting more of what I enjoy. But eighty four,
just man, that kicked off so many things that became
so huge. I love all of you, I love all
the years. I think I gotta go with eighty four.
Speaker 3: So it's totally reasonable, makes perfect sense to you.
Speaker 1: I kind of thought you'd say that.
Speaker 4: So there we none live with Dame now.
Speaker 1: And thankfully this is not just my decision, because the
listeners are going to weigh on this too. So so
we've heard all the evidence. I've said what I think
it is. I've said nineteen eighty four. But we want
the listeners to weigh on in this as well. Jason,
how do you want how do you want listeners to
let you know what their phote is.
Speaker 6: We're gonna put it out on Facebook, We're going to
put it out on Twitter. We'll share it for everybody
to weigh in on what they think is the best
year of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4: And if you say nineteen eighty seven, you're out, And
I'd just.
Speaker 6: John, thank you very much for moderating. Guys, thank you
so much for being here. I had a great time
and that was a great discussion.
Speaker 3: Enjoyed it, fantastic time.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Absolutely absolutely love these are these
big multi show collaborations we do sometimes and looking forward
to the next one already.
Speaker 4: This was this was a blast. Thanks so much.