Category Archives: 80’s Movies

St. Helens (1981)

Posted on February 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

sthelens2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Codger refuses to evacuate.

Art Carney plays Harry Truman, an 83-year-old man who refused to evacuate from his lodge at the base of Mount St. Helens even as experts warned that the volcano, which had been inactive for 123 years, was ready to explode. Tim Thomerson is the local sheriff who tries to convince him to change his mind and David Huffman is a volcano scientist who travels to the area to study the potential eruption. Initially he tries to get Harry to leave too, but eventually decides to stay, so he can record the eruption from what he believes will be from a safe distance.

The film is based on the actual event which began on March 20, 1980 when local wildlife was observed behaving erratically, and ends with the climactic eruption, which happened on May 18th. I was alive when it occurred and the film manages to correctly reflect the energy of the period where people where both fearful, but also excited. Not everyone though was happy with the movie, David Johnston’s parents were not pleased by the portrayal of their son, played by Huffman who goes by the fictional name of David Jackson, nor 36 other scientists who knew Johnston in real-life and signed a letter of protest.

Since I didn’t know Johnston myself I’ll reserve judgement, but I was not happy about a dumb secondary storyline dealing with a helicopter pilot, played by Ron O’Neal, flying into a flock of quail, which forces him to drop a log that his helicopter was carrying onto a group of men below and almost killing them. Bill McKinney, better known for playing the mountain man in Deliverance, thinks the pilot was intentionally trying to injure them and has his buddies harass and eventually attack the pilot, but this didn’t seem necessary. The men on the ground should’ve easily seen the birds fly into the copter, as it wasn’t that high up, and when it lands there’s clearly blood and feathers on the windshield, which is spotted immediately by the sheriff therefore making the fight scene, which is what it leads to, completely pointless and just put-in as mindless action.

Carney, who was ironically Harry Truman’s favorite actor in real-life, plays the part in a highly entertaining way and helps give the film humor and human interest. Truman really did drive a pink Cadillac and swore a lot, which he does here, but he also owned 16 cats, but the film changes this to him having a dog even though the 16 cats would’ve been far more fun. I couldn’t help but wonder though with the scene where Harry talks to a group of reporters about the greatness of the US constitution and how USA was the ‘greatest country in the world’, which got the reporters to cheer, but today those same statements might give him the derogatory label of ‘nationalist’ and push-back from the reporters instead of applause.

The film is also notable for having two of its stars, who are adversaries here, meet tragic ends in real-life. For Huffman he was stabbed to death in February, 1985 when he tried to chase down a mugger and for Albert Salmi, who portrays a bar owner who plays down the fears of the volcano, ended up, in 1990, killing his wife of 26 years when she filed for divorce, before then turning the gun on himself. I’ve seen Huffman in other films and came away feeling he was a rather bland actor though here he displays a little more spunk. Salmi’s acting is okay, but I didn’t understand why he’s shown working two jobs as he’s a manager of a bar at one point and then supervisor of a saw mill at another. Since the bar he runs is apparently ‘the only one in town’ and seemed packed with people I didn’t get the need for an extra income.

We know how it’s going to end right from the start, so it’s important that the climactic eruption come-off impressively. They do cheat by showing the same footage of the side of the mountain exploding over and over as well as cropping in animated volcanic ash creeping in, which looks tacky. Off-screen wind fans were clearly used to blow dust over the actors and create a white-out effect, but overall it wasn’t too bad and I liked the final shot of a small tree sprouting up amidst the ash. For those who were living during the event, or just curious about the history of it, this is an adequate recreation.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: May 18, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ernest Pintoff

Studio: Parnell Films

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies with a rural setting

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ffolkes (1980)

Posted on February 19, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Loves cats, hates women.

Rufus Excalibur ffolkes (Roger Moore) is a cat loving misogynist who dislikes women because he grew up the youngest of five sisters and forced to wear their hand-me-downs until he was age 10. As an adult he is a counter-terrorism expert and trains a team of men to go onto ships at sea that have been hijacked. When a North Sea oil production platform nicknamed Jennifer gets taken over by a group of men posing as reporters their leader (Anthony Perkins) demands an enormous ransom and it’s up to ffolkes and his team to board the platformed and kill the terrorists without allowing the ship, which has been booby-trapped with bombs by the criminals, to blow-up.

The film, which was based on the novel ‘Esther, Ruth & Jennifer’ by Jack Davies, who also wrote the screenplay, starts out well and has all the ingredients to being a compelling thriller. The on-location shooting done on an actual ship makes the viewer feel like they’re out at sea themselves and I found the foot chase done on the vessel during a raging rainstorm to be riveting. Perkins makes for a particularly slimy villain and Micheal Parks, as the mastermind who constructs and implements the bombs, was also impressive wearing glasses that make his eyes look like they’re bulging and it’s just a shame these two men had to co-star together as they’d be able to eat-up the scenes had they been allowed to do it alone without any henchmen.

The ffolkes character works against type playing a good-guy that tests the viewer’s assumption of what’s acceptable behavior for a protagonist. Too many movies create a hero-like caricature of someone who is overly noble, brave, and virtuous until it becomes boring and contrived. At least here the guy we’re supposed to cheering for is interestingly flawed therefore more human-like than super-heroes in most other films, especially those made today, who are just too-good-to-be-true.

ffolkes though does spend too much time sitting in the background working on a crochet of a cat while giving-off glib remarks and not being as active as he should. He’s also constantly drinking scotch at all hours of the day, straight out of the bottle, which should’ve made him inebriated and this most likely would’ve come into play at some later point where he wasn’t able to pull-off an intricate task because he was too drunk, but after introducing his drinking problem during the first half, it gets completely forgotten by the second.

While the character acts extraordinarily arrogant and cocky he’s not able to pull-off the assignment quite as easily as you’d think for someone with his amount of confidence. One scene has him stupidly walking right into a gunmen and it takes the sheer luck of someone hiding in a lifeboat to save him. Another scene has him almost killed by one of his own men making him seem like he’s not as good of an instructor as his reputation suggests and all leads to him unintentionally coming-off more like a deluded idiot than the crafty mastermind with a few personality quirks that he’s supposed to be.

The story, while having a solid set-up, ultimately becomes the biggest letdown. For one thing it never shows us how they’re able to pull-off the fake explosion of Ruth, another oil platform. They talk about rigging it to seem like it exploded to fool the bad guys, and we do see something exploding, but no explanation of what it was since the real Ruth secretly remains standing. Also, most ships have a radar system, which should’ve shown that the real Ruth never went away and that they had been duped, but for whatever reason they never catch-on.

The ending surprisingly lacks very little action, which is what was blamed for the film’s poor reception at the box office. People are expecting a movie that stars Moore to have a lot of stunt work and special effects and for the most part it never happens. The villains go down too easily making it not very satisfying to see them go. There needed to be more wrinkles to the scenario and more unexpected twists as the pay-off and climactic finish is weak making one feel, despite the excellent performances, like it wasn’t worth sitting through.

Alternate Title: North Sea Hijack

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: April 3, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Drama on the High Seas, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Thrillers/Suspense

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Deadly Weapon (1989)

Posted on February 13, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Geek acquires lethal laser.

Zeke (Rodney Eastman) is a high school student frequently picked-on by his jock classmates as well as an abusive alcoholic father. As a refuge he imagines that he’s secretly an alien from another planet and writes stories about it. One day he comes upon a military weapon in a river bed near his home that landed there when the train it was being carried on crashed. He takes it home and begins using it to scare away all of those who harassed him and this catches the attention of Traci (Kim Walker) who used to date the jocks, but now finds Zeke and his newfound laser gun far more interesting. However, Lieutenant Dalton (Gary Frank) is the military official assign to retrieve the weapon and he’ll stoop to any low ball tactic to get it back.

This was another Charles Band production who was notorious for making a lot of low budget sci-fi/action flicks during the 80’s/90’s that were of a dubious quality. This was originally intended to be a sequel to Laserblast, a much maligned bottom-of-the-barrel stinker from the 70’s, but budgetary reasons caused them to pull back on that idea and turn it into a separate story. For what it’s worth this is far better than that one and surprisingly has enough of a budget to mask its shortcomings and even comes-off like it could’ve been Hollywood studio produced. There are though some over-the-top moments like a one-eyed vice principal who beats Zeke with a paddle inside his office and a cliched drunken father who acts like a stereotypical hayseed straight out of the local trailer park that made it seem like it either wanted to be a campy comedy, or unintentionally funny, but it’s hard to tell which one.

The script isn’t realistic as the kid is able to open up the crate that houses the gun with his bare hands without having to use a crowbar even though you’d think such a dangerous weapon like this would be packaged more securely and not so easily accessible to just anyone. Zeke is also able to figure out how to operate it much too quickly. Again, such a dangerous weapon should have a safety feature to make it difficult for unauthorized personal to use, such as having to put in a secret code before it’s operational.

The segment where Zeke and Tracy force four men into the trunk of their car and drive around with them as hostages is kind of funny, but the two able to open the trunk door from the outside too easily. If the men are truly locked into the trunk then a key must be placed into the keyhole to open it, but instead they’re able to raise the door open with their hands and not having to bother to unlock it, which means the men inside should then be able to easily kick the door open and escape.

The film is mostly known for the two stars who are more famous for their appearances in two other cult hits. For Eastman his best remembered for playing Joey in the Nightmare on Elm Street series while Walker’s signature role is that of the snotty Heather Chandler in Heathers. Walker is the more interesting of the two as she performs her role in a duplicitous fashion where you’re not sure if she’s a genuinely nice person trying to help Zeke, or just a narcissistic brat looking for attention and escape. Her character though is poorly fleshed-out as she sees Zeke blow-up a building with his gun, which scares off the other jocks, one of whom she is dating, but she then invites Zeke into her car, but how would know she could trust him and he wouldn’t use the gun on her? Why too would this beautiful teen be into a geek like Zeke anyways? To have it make more sense she should’ve been a nerd, who had been bullied by the cool kids and now connected with Zeke’s need to ‘get back’ at them.

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s best moment is the ending, which has a surprisingly surreal vibe as Zeke sees the lights of the military vehicles and thinks it’s from the mother ship of some outer space aliens and goes towards it like they’re going to ‘take him home’ and away from earth where he doesn’t feel he belongs. While this intriguing theme has strong similarities to Liquid Sky and Shirley Thompson versus the Aliens it doesn’t fully gel. Had it been approached with a better realized manner of what genre it wanted to be (satire/sci-fi/action/dark comedy) then it might’ve succeeded, but trying to juggle all four genres together gives it a convoluted feel that’s not quite able to cross the finish line and be fully satisfying.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 15, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Michael Miner

Studio: Empire Pictures

Available: dvdlady

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Sci-Fi

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C.O.D. (1981)

Posted on February 8, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Signing-up bra models.

T. B. Dumore (Nicholas Saunders) is the aging owner of the Beaver Bra Company who’s finding that consumer interests in their product is waning, so he comes-up with what he feels is a ‘can’t-miss’ campaign, which entails them bringing-in 5 world famous women, including the President’s daughter (played by Teresa Ganzel in her film debut) to model their bras in their new ads. Albert Zack (Chris Lemmon), the company’s advertising salesmen, is commissioned to seek out the women and get them signed to a contract. Albert feels the task is monumental, but uses the help of Holly (Olivia Pascal), a beautiful German woman that he meets as he travels the globe to find the 5 women, to help him do it.

This film was directed by Chuck Vincent, who gained notoriety in the 70’s for directing a lot of X-rated fare, but decided to break into mainstream movies in an attempt to list a more ‘respectable’ product on his resume. His first stab at ‘legit’ filmmaking was American Tickler, a slap-dash, skit oriented parody of the current hit movies of the 70’s that was universally derided by both critics and audiences alike. This feature marked his second go at ‘legit’ that fared even worse and sent him pretty much back to porn making where he was slightly better until dying at the young age of 51 from AIDS in 1991.

At least with the porn flicks they had some redeeming value, namely helping those get-off while this movie offers nothing. To call the humor mind-numbingly lame would be an understatement, but the plot, which is incredibly stupid to begin with, goes nowhere and filled with a lot of cheap unimaginative gags that wouldn’t impress a 4-year-old. There isn’t even any nudity, a little bit, but not as much as you’d expect making you wonder what exactly was the audience that they were aiming for as the insipid comedy alone was clearly not going to cut-it.

Chris Lemmon, the son of the far more famous Jack Lemmon, is the one who should be really embarrassed. His father prodded him to become a professional pianist, of which he’s apparently quite good at, but Chris wanted to follow in his father’s foot steps and get into acting. Some children of famous stars, like Michael Douglas, the son of Kirk, can end up having a flourishing career of their own, but Chris’ was nothing to write-home-about mainly because of being in cheap-o stuff like this making me believe his dad knew what he was talking about when he prodded him to stick with the piano playing. It’s not like his acting is bad, he resembles his father with a fuller head of hair, but the material gives him little to work with.

Unbelievably there are a few scenes that had me chuckling a little. The best one is where a guest at an upscale dinner party is forced to fight with a live lobster on his plate because Lemmon, who was pretending to be a gourmet cook, didn’t have the heart to kill it, which had potential, but needed to be played-up more. Everything else though falls flat. Had they approached it in a satirical vein, or had a synopsis that people could actually relate to, then maybe, but playing it as an unrestrained farce that nobody asked for is a dismal failure that’s best left at the bottom of the forgotten movie vault shelf.

Alternate Title: SNAP! 

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Release: July 3, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Chuck Vincent

Studio: Metro Film

Available: dvdlady

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Foreign Films, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Ice House (1989)

Posted on February 6, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Transient wants girlfriend back.

Pake (Bo Brinkman) and Kay (Melissa Gilbert) grew up in a small town in Texas and were high school sweethearts. Despite having a good paying job in the Texas oil fields Pake longs to pursue his dream of making it in the music industry, so he and Kay head-off to Hollywood, but Pake finds it more challenging than he thought to break into the business and be discovered. He becomes homeless and eating out of trash cans. Kay turns to prostitution and eventually meets Vassil (Andreas Manolikakis). He is a Greek immigrant looking to marry her so he can become a permanent U.S. citizen while Kay likes the fact that his family has money and feels if she marries him she’ll have a more stable life than with Pake, but just one day before the wedding Pake arrives at Kay’s cramped apartment wanting to win her back.

This was the third film directed by Eagle Pennell who shot to fame with his break-out indie flick The Whole Shootin’ Match, that won him a Hollywood contract, which didn’t pan out, but it did at least get him enough financing to make a couple of other movies, with this one being one of the few that he did in color. Yet, the production, like in his first film, is mired in the constraints of shooting on a threadbare budget including having the entire thing take place in one tiny apartment. Some films have shot things in one setting and gotten away with it, but this location lacks any visual flair and quickly becomes static. There’s a few cutaways to flashback scenes shot back in Texas, but they aren’t particularly interesting. The most frustrating aspect is having Pake describe a surreal dream he had, but instead of having it recreated onscreen like a smart movie should we just see his sweaty face talking about it, which diminishes its impact.

Having Melissa Gilbert, better known as Laura Ingalls Wilder in ‘Little House on the Prairie’ helps a little though she’s a long way away from Walnut Grove including being dressed in a provocative 80’s style hooker outfit. I realize she wanted to prove herself as an actress by taking on more edgy fare in order to get away from her ‘goody-goody’ image and she certainly does that here where at one point she even described guys ‘cumming in her mouth’ and does a simulated sex scene with Vassil while Pake, tied-up, is forced to watch. Some may be impressed with her acting range, or shocked, but in either case, she’s effective.

Brinkman, who also wrote the script, which is based on his play ‘Ice House Heat Waves’ is excellent in his role as well, but the dialogue needed serious work. Too much of a colloquial sound including such overused phrases as ‘you can talk until you’re blue-in-the-face’ and ‘you don’t have a pot to piss in’, which gives the conversation a remedial quality and like it was thought up by a teenager. At one point the character even describes Hollywood as being ‘Hollyweird’ and he thinks he’s being clever in saying it even though that’s been a mocking phrase used by many to describe the California scene and shows how a script rewrite by a professional script doctor was needed.

Despite the flaws I still found on a modest scale for it to be strangely compelling. Maybe it’s Pennell’s way of capturing Texas showing a couple carrying on an elicit affair under the nigh sky alongside a dark oil rig that gives it a moody vibe that I liked. Pennell, who later became homeless himself, seems to understand the desperation of the characters, which helps give it some grounding and may make it worth it for viewers who are patient.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 16, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 21 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Eagle Pennell

Studio: Cactus Films

Available: None

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Low Budget, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in Texas, Obscure Movies

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Super Fuzz (1980)

Posted on January 31, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cop acquires super powers.

Dave (Terence Hill) is a newly hired policeman sent to do tasks non of the other officers want to do, which is why he’s given the assignment to deliver a speeding ticket to a remote Native American village deep within the Florida Everglades. Once he arrives he finds the place evacuated due to a secret nuclear missile test being done that he wasn’t aware of. When the bomb goes off and he becomes exposed to the radiation he begins to have various super powers including: super human strength, speed, telekinesis, psychic ability, and even hypnotism. He puts these new found abilities to use during his police work even though his partner, longtime cop Bill Dunlop (Ernest Borgnine), is skeptical about it at first. While the powers come in handy in their efforts to thwart a local counterfeit ring Dave soon realizes that there’s one hitch; if he sees the color red, which was the same color as the plutonium explosion, his powers will temporarily cease.

This was the third and final attempt to make Hill, who’s quite legendary in Italy especially in films where he teamed with Bud Spencer, into an American star. The first two attempts that he did here, Mr. Billion, March or Die, were flops and this effort, which was aimed solely at the kiddie crowd, wasn’t much better and its dismal failure both critically and financially sent Hill back to Europe permanently. Many adults who grow up in the 80’s will remember seeing it on Pay-TV where it was in heavy rotation. I recollect catching bits and pieces of it on Showtime, but the only thing that stood out for me was its cheesy soundtrack that had a chorus singing: ‘Super, Super, Sup-eee-rrr’ every time Dave did one of his tricks.

The film’s biggest downfall are the special effects that amounts to a lot of tacky, fast-action photography that can be seen in a wide assortment of other mindless low budget fare and is nothing special. There’s also just not enough trickery, too much dim witted dialogue, and lame humor in a plot that evolves too slowly to hold the interest of either a child or adult.

Having Dave acquire all these powers after being exposed to nuclear energy instead of getting terminal cancer like anyone else would makes no sense. The story would’ve been helped somewhat by reeling-in the powers aspect and giving him only one special ability instead of allowing him to do virtually anything making him almost like superman. Entering in more limitations than just the color red would’ve, if done right, brought in some tension and creativity, which is otherwise lacking.

While it’s sad in some ways to see a legendary, Academy Award winning star like Borgnine in such mindless tripe he is the best thing in it as he provides much needed energy, which help contrast Hill’s overly laid-back demeanor. Watching the tubby guy dance on top of a giant balloon, or try to dance with Joanne Dru is funny as are his overreactions, which would be considered cartoonish in any other movie, but here only helps to lift it up from its simplistic foundation. It’s also a great chance to see Dru, her first movie appearance in 15 years and also her last, ham it up as the villainous of which she’s pretty good.

The ending though, where Hill is somehow able from a tiny piece of gum to form this gigantic bubble is where the thing, which wasn’t floating too well to begin with, really sinks. How can Dave’s super powers get a piece of gum to expand far more than it should and since bubbles from bubble gum are very flimsy and can easily pop why doesn’t this one end up doing the same? You can also clearly see the seam of the sewn fabric on the bubble, which an actual bubble would never have.

While the movie was notoriously ridiculed by the critics at the time of its release, some critics today have taken more of a softer stance. Maybe it’s because they remember growing up watching it on TV, but feelings of nostalgia doesn’t make it any less stupid. This isn’t even good for kids who I believe are more discerning than adults think and will right away recognize the dated quality, tacky effects and won’t be impressed. 

Alternate Title: Super Snooper

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: September 18, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Sergio Corbucci

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Farce, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Movies that take place in Florida, Surreal/Fantasy

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Fandango (1985)

Posted on January 18, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: The privileges of youth.

Gardner (Kevin Costner), Phil (Judd Nelson), Kenneth (Sam Robards), Dorman (Chuck Bush) and Lester (Brian Cesak) are five college friends from the University of Texas in 1971, who are getting ready to celebrate their impending graduations when Kenneth announces that he’s been drafted into the Vietnam War and Gardner has too. To help lighten the mood the boys decide to take an impulsive road trip where they travel to unique areas of Texas, including searching for buried treasure in the Rio Grande, sleeping under the stars at the old filming site of Giant, and even taking part in parachute jump near Pecos.

This film is based on a 24-minute film that Kevin Reynolds directed while attending the USC film school. In that movie the boys were all from Baylor University and traveled to Pecos, Texas in order to test the courage of their most frightened member and use the help of eccentric flight instructor Truman Sparks, played by Marvin J. McIntyre, who reprises his role in this one, to teach and train the young man on how to jump from a plane. The student film managed to catch the attention of Steven Spielberg, who was so impressed with it that he offered Reynolds the chance to turn it into a full-length movie. Unfortunately once it was completed Spielberg for whatever reason disliked it and had his name removed from the credits while also refusing to help distribute it forcing the film to suffer a limited engagement though in recent years its cultivated a cult following.

The movie does have many funny moments including the opening bit where Phil’s parents (Stanley Grover, Jane A. Johnston) visit his frat house during one of their raucous parties. The sky diving sequence, which gets copied shot-for-shot from the original is quite engaging as is their attempts to hook their disabled car up to a speeding train. Costner is also very amusing, he had actually auditioned for the student film, but lost out, but when he found out it was going to be remade into a feature film he re-auditioned. I’m so used to seeing him play serious roles that I didn’t realize he had such great comedic timing, but for the most part, he’s the life of the movie.

Where the film fails is that it’s too unfocused. The setting is supposedly 1971, but you’d hardly know it and very little effort is made to give it a feel of that era. Even the opening song sung by Elton John that gets played by over the credits was released 2 years after the events in the movie supposedly took place, so to keep it accurate with the time setting only songs that came out in 1971, or before should’ve been used.

The side-story involving Gardner having dated Kenneth’s fiancee, played by Suzy Amis, seems unneeded and really doesn’t go anywhere. Normally, in most real-life friendships, having a friend date and ultimately marry one’s former girlfriend could be a deal-breaker that would lead to a lot of jealousy and potential anger. I’m sure there’s a minority of friendships where the participants would be mature enough to overcome this issue, like here, though this isn’t interesting, so why bother introducing this wrinkle if its dramatic elements aren’t going to get explored?

The part where it really jumps-the-shark is during the planning of the wedding, which is too full of logic loopholes to be able to buy into even on a whimsical level. It features Gardner and Phil being able to pull off his massive wedding ceremony in the town’s square on very short notice by conning too old guys sitting on a nearby park bench into agreeing to help out, which leads to more people getting involved until the whole town, even the mayor, takes part in a wedding ceremony, and its preparation, of people they don’t even know. If anyone can show me an example in the whole history of the world of when this has ever happened in reality then I’ll take it back, but otherwise I found it ridiculous.

The ending is way too abrupt. The whole reason Phil agreed to go on the parachute jump was for Kenneth and Gardner to agree to not dodge the draft, but whether they withhold their end of the bargain is never shown. Everyone just basically wanders off like they have better things to do, which is how the viewer, despite some fun moments, ends up feeling about the movie, which would’ve had more impact had it chucked the whimsy and had a little more serious drama.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 25, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Kevin Reynolds

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Cult, Movies that take place in Texas, Road Movies

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Double Deal (1983)

Posted on January 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Double crossing each other.

Christine (Angela Punch McGregor) is a young model married to Peter (Louis Jourdan) a much older man. While Peter is rich and they live in a big house their marriage lacks passion and Christine becomes bored with her existence while Peter continues to have a long-running affair with his secretary Miss Stevens (Diane Craig). One day while out shopping Christine meets a handsome young man (Warwick Comber) on a motorbike. Even though she doesn’t know his name she becomes entranced with his good looks and carefree demeanor. He’s the exact opposite of the stuffy and exacting Peter, so she decides to run-off with him. The two go on many quirky adventures including robbing a grocery store while in clown make-up not so much because they need the money, but just for the thrill of it. They then plot a scheme where the man will pretend to have kidnapped Christine and insist that Peter relinquish his prized opal gemstone in order to get her back. Peter complies, but in the process sets off an array of unexpected twists where nothing is as it seems.

Normally I like films with an offbeat slant and this one certainly has its moments, but the characters aren’t well fleshed-out, which makes for a placid experience. A good case-in-point is the way Christine comes upon the young man, which is while she’s in a shopping center parking lot. Having found that someone has double parked their car behind hers she patiently waits for the owner of the vehicle to come out and move it, but in the process the young man comes along, and noticing that the keys of the car are still in the ignition, jumps into the car and drives away with it while also following Christine home. Once there the two proceed to tear up the place before she packs her bags and runs off with him onto the open road without ever even learning what his first name is.

While as an actress McGregor is quite competent she doesn’t have the looks of a fashion model, which she herself admitted to, and her role and that of the secretary should’ve been reversed with Diane Craig looking far more the model type especially with her piercing blue eyes. Comber is a bit off as the handsome stranger as well. He certainly has a hunky build and chiseled face, but his droopy eyelids give him a odd, sad eye appearance. I also got tired of seeing him constantly wearing a silver bike riding suit that seemed to resembled more of an outfit worn by someone on a spaceship.

Jourdan’s presence helps a lot. This was at the twilight of his career where he was no longer getting leading man roles in his home country of France and therefore open to accepting offers abroad, which is what lead to him traveling to Australia to do this. The filmmakers wanted a big name star to help give the production stature and the movie definitely works better with him in it though the scene where he and McGregor are in bed together was reportedly quite awkward for the two stars given their wide age difference of almost 33 years and took many takes to film.

There are a few memorable moments with my favorite being the grocery store robbery, which occurs in a small outback town, where Christine accidentally releases the money they have just stolen into the air as she gets into the getaway car causing the store owners, who had just been robbed, to run out and busily try to recollect the money blowing in the wind. However, the story lacks soul. The twists get thrown in for the sake of being offbeat, but the characters never grow, or resemble real people in any way. The winding plot ultimately burns out and ends with a fizzle.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: September 15, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Brian Kavanagh

Studio: Roadshow Films

Available: dvdlady.com

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Posted in 80's Movies, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Road Movies

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Fraternity Vacation (1985)

Posted on January 6, 2022 | 6 comments

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Guys hit on babe.

A late season blizzard hits central Iowa just as Easter arrives causing two college chums, Larry (Tim Robbins) and Joe (Cameron Dye), to decide they need to get away to a warmer climate. Their socially inept friend Wendell (Stephen Geoffreys) has a cousin with a fully furnished apartment in Palm Springs that is open for them to go to. Wendell’s parents (Max Wright, Julie Payne) even agree to pay for their plane tickets, but there’s one catch: the boys must bring Wendell along and help him get over his awkwardness, so he can finally meet some girls and get laid. Joe and Larry reluctantly agree, but when they get there they find Wendell to be an almost hopeless case while also bumping into two guys: Chas (Leigh McCloskey) and J.C. (Matt McCoy) from a rival fraternity.  Chas is particularly arrogant and bets the two that he can manage to have sex with a hot babe named Ashley (Sheree J. Wilson) before they can, which causes the boys to go on a slew of wild antics to get Ashley’s attention, and hopefully heart, so she’ll agree to go out on a date with Joe and then hopefully afterwards back to her bedroom.

I know I’ve been told by readers of this blog that I’m a ‘tough critic’ and rate these films ‘too harshly’, but the truth is going-in I want to like these movies because who wants to waste 90-minutes of their time watching a dud, but I do have one main rule. If the movie causes me to openly groan, or rub my forehead, which is something I do when I get annoyed, then it’s going to get a low rating and this one had me doing that several times.

The main thing that irritated me was the piss-poor characterizations, which are cliched to the max. The most annoying one is Wendell, played by Geoffreys, who started his acting career doing mainstream films only to by the 90’s devolve into starring-in gay porn flicks under the name of Sam Ritter and then returning to doing mainstream movies by the 2010’s. I felt his nerd vibe was over-the-top. Being geeky and slightly out-of-it is one thing, but this young man is completely oblivious to obvious social cues that anyone with even a minor intelligence would pick-up on making him seem like he must be mentally-ill to be that extremely out-of-touch.

The Ashley character is poorly defined as well. Why is such an incredibly hot woman single, and if so why aren’t a lot of guys hitting on her instead of just these two? Why would an attractive woman undress (performed by body double Roberta Whitewood) by an open window at a busy apartment complex and not fear that it may attract peepers? If she’s an exhibitionist that’s one thing, but the movie plays it like she isn’t, so how could she be so clueless? She also stupidly falls into the boy’s pathetic scheme too easily. I was hoping she’d secretly be clever enough to see through their shenanigans and set them up into a trap of her own, but that doesn’t happen, which is another thing that I hated is that the film lacks any surprises.

Some may like it just to see Robbins in an early role in a film I’m sure he’d like to live down. It’s also fun seeing Amanda Bearse, who’s better known for her later work in the TV-series ‘Married with Children’, and veteran character actor John Vernon as an obnoxious police chief. There’s a few other familiar faces that pop-up here-and-there, but I was shocked at the cameo role Britt Ekland is given where she’s on screen for just a minute playing a waitress at a bar. Usually when famous people are given brief walk-ons they’re at least able to say something clever or funny, but here she just asks the guys for their ID’s and then leaves. It’s a thankless part and I can only presume she must’ve been really desperate for the work to take it.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: April 12, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated R

Director: James Frawley

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, College Life, Drive-In/T & A, Movies with Nudity

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Iceman (1984)

Posted on January 2, 2022 | 1 comment

iceman

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Brought back to life.

Stanley (Timothy Hutton) is an anthropologist working in the arctic where his team of explorers discover a neanderthal man (John Lone) frozen in the ice from 40,000 yeas ago. The man is taken inside a block of ice to the base where he gets thawed out and resuscitated and then placed inside a simulated environment where he can be studied, but Stanley insists on treating him like a human versus a specimen. He initiates an encounter, which leads to a bonding and Stanley gives him the name of Charlie. Despite the inability to speak the same language, but through the use of a linguistics specialist who is brought in, he begins to learn more about Charlie and how he was on a lonely walk where he was trying to sacrifice himself to the gods in order to save his tribe. When Charlie sees a helicopter flying overhead he races towards it in the belief that it was the mythical god he was looking for called ‘Beedha’ and this motivates him to escape from the lab sending everyone else into a panic in an effort to find him.

Initially, the story does have a ‘roll-your-eyes’ effect with the way Charlie gets revived, which seems too effortless and causes no side effects as he becomes as ‘good-as-new’ even 40,000 years later. Outside of his face he has no body hair, in fact his skin appears baby smooth, even though the presumption would-be that men would’ve had more hair on them than they do now.

Fortunately director Fred Schepisi keeps the proceedings as authentic looking as possible, which helps overlook the story’s implausible leanings. I thought the close-ups the of the red laser cutting through the ice sheet was pretty cool (no pun intended). Filming it on-location in Churchill, Manitoba reflects the arctic climate and far better than having it done on a sound stage. Even the way their personal living quarters where furnished had a nice homey feel though I was confused why there would be a TV present in Lindsay Crouse’s room as I don’t think there’d be any TV station signals in the arctic and thus nothing to watch. (No video stores, satellite dishes, especially in the mid-80’s, or cable either.)

The acting is all-around terrific. Hutton manages to finally lose his boyish appeal that post Ordinary People he had trouble shaking. I liked the curly hair and the grungy post-graduate persona and I enjoyed the short-hair of Lindsay Crouse whose presence does not precipitate a romance, or sexual interest between the two leads. The film intimates that it’s because the Crouse character is supposedly gay, which I didn’t think was needed as it’s quite possible someone could be straight, but still not magically ‘fall-in-love’ with members of the opposite sex even if working closely with them over an extended period of time. The best performance though is that of Lone, who’s Asian, but you’d never have known it and his ability to recreate a troglodyte behavior in a way that seems quite organic is excellent.

The ending created some behind-the-scenes controversy as Schepisi agreed to film the original concept as intended, but then pulled-back on that promise and went ahead and did a different one without informing the studio, which got him canned. I’m not sure what the original ending was like, but the one that gets shown here is perfect as it keeps all the action in the arctic since moving the story off to a different location, or trying to continue the drama of having Charlie enter into modern civilization would’ve been a whole other movie into itself and made the script overly cluttered. Whether the viewer considers Charlie’s ultimate fate to be a happy or sad is up to personal perspective, but for me I found it satisfying.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: April 13, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 minutes

Rated PG

Director: Fred Schepisi

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies with a rural setting, Sci-Fi

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