Category Archives: 80’s Movies

Sudden Impact (1983)

Posted on September 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Harry investigates revenge killings.

Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) continues working in the San Francisco police department despite his perpetual disregard of proper police procedures, which gets many of the crooks that he has arrested freed due to legal technicalities. His superiors are frustrated with him, but since he does get results keeps him on the force though reassigned to the small town of San Paulo where he works with a sheriff Jennings (Pat Hingle) in hopes he’ll be less problematic. It’s there that he comes upon a case of various men being found shot to death in similar ways. This is being done by Jennifer (Sondra Locke) an artist in residence who 10 years earlier was raped along with her younger sister by a group of men and now she’s out to get her revenge by killing them off one-by-one. Harry is starting to piece together the clues but is surprised that Jennings is reluctant to follow-up on them giving him the impression that the sheriff may have something to hide.

The story is based on a script written by Charles B. Pierce better known for his rural horror movies from the 70’s that were shot in Arkansas and loosely based off of real events like The Town that Dreaded Sundown. This was meant to be a starring vehicle for Locke, but when Eastwood decided to renew the franchise after several years of dormancy, he felt the plotline here would be a good fit for the next Dirty Harry movie and thus hired Joseph Stinson to revise it.

The result is a mish-mash that’s never quite as compelling as it should. For the majority of the runtime Eastwood’s heroics and Locke’s crimes are working in a parallel universe and not connected making it seem like two different movies. Harry’s non-stop shootouts with crooks becomes redundant and cartoonish while Locke’s killings and flashbacks make it too reminiscent of other better-known films like I Spit on Your Grave and Death Wish. The bad guys are caricatures to the extreme making their moments boring and predictable. If the violence wasn’t so over-the-top you’d be convinced, like critic Pauline Kael mentioned in her review, that this thing was meant to be a parody.

Locke and Eastwood are both good and this is the last film that they did together as a couple before their break-up. In Locke’s case I liked how her cynical and brash persona mixes with Eastwood’s brooding and quiet one. Eastwood speaks more here than in the previous entries, but the character doesn’t seem to be evolving. The opening scene inside a courtroom where Harry is shocked to learn that the criminals he apprehended will be set free because he didn’t get a search warrant seemed ridiculous as after being on the force for so many years, and going through the exact same predicaments in the earlier films, that you’d think by now he’d learn his lesson and do things that conform within the legal framework, or at the very least not be so surprised when a judge sees it differently. The number of near-death shootouts he goes through is exhausting making me wonder how he maintained his mental state and didn’t take the vacation time when he’s asked even if he’s ‘not up for it’.

My biggest grievance though is with the structure. I really felt it would’ve worked better had it been approached as a mystery. We could’ve still seen the killings being done, but the identity of the killer would’ve been masked. Instead of Locke being an artist she could’ve been on the police force working on investigating the case and Harry could’ve started up a friendship/quasi relationship with her and at the start been impressed with her work only to slowly become aware that she was intentionally mudding the evidence. Sheriff Jennings too could’ve initially been portrayed as a ‘good guy’ with down to earth sensibilities that Harry liked and then as it progressed would his intentions become more dubious. The flashback sequences, which get interspersed throughout, could’ve instead been saved until the very end.

Spoiler Alert!

The film also continues to reveal Harry’s zig-zagging moral logic. In the first film he was all for playing outside the rules, then in the second installment he came to determine that vigilantism wasn’t the answer. Now here, by letting Locke off-the-hook and not arresting here, he’s acting like street justice is okay. It makes you wonder; is he really growing as a person and seeing things differently or simply floating along with whatever way the plotline wants?

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 9, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Clint Eastwood

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies with Nudity, Police Drama, Rape/Revenge, Sequels

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The Boss’ Wife (1986)

Posted on September 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: She comes on strong.

Joel (Daniel Stern) works at a stock firm and wants to impress his boss (Christopher Plummer) with some stock analytics and competes with fellow employee Tony (Martin Mull), who’s a major corporate brown noser. The boss though is not the smartest and misreads everything including thinking that Joel is a smoker, which he isn’t, and giving him the nickname of ‘smoky’. He also thinks that Joel is gay and having a fling with Carlos (Fisher Stevens), which neither is true, but this allows the boss’ wife Louise (Arielle Dombasle) to openly come-on to Joel while the boss, so worried that Joel may come on to him, feigns naivety at what his own wife is doing. Joel tries to avoid the woman because he fears that if he doesn’t, he’ll get caught, which will not only hurt his job advancement, but also his shaky marriage to Janet (Melanie Mayron). 

The film is the product of Ziggy Steinberg who started his careers in the 70’s writing for episodes of TV-shows and then graduating to feature films like Porky’s Revenge and then ultimately Another You, which to date has been the last writing gig he’s done. This film marked his debut as both a writer and director, but the results are so-so. The concept is predictable and better suited for an episode of ‘Three’s a Company’, which he also wrote for, than the big screen. While the attempt is for screwball the pacing is slow and not a lot of gags going on and as satire/parody its target is so obvious and been done so many times before that it hardly seems worth the effort as one could simply watch How to Succeed at Business Without Really Trying and get a lot more laughs. In fact, the only amusing moment comes when Plummer has a toy choo-choo train ride onto his desk carrying drinks and hamburgers and then Stern fumbling around to get ketchup on his burger, which causes a red mess on the boss’ desk.

The acting from the two male leads is adequate. Stern’s character is benign, but he plays it in a likable way making you connect to him and his quandaries. Plummer is quite good particularly with the way he roles his blue eyes every time he comes to a mistaken conclusion to something. Stevens has some good crude moments who initially starts out as Mayron’s employer only to create a haphazard buddyship with Stern while on the train. 

Dombasle though is quite possibly the film’s weakest link. She enters in almost like a fantasy figure and has little dialogue. Why this voluptuous woman would get so focused on Stern for no apparent reason doesn’t make a lot of sense. He does not stand out in any way and therefore a woman like her would overlook and even ignore him. She comes onto him in such a shameless and extreme manner even while in public you could argue she was mentally ill. Even if she’s desperate for sex cause she’s not getting enough from her older husband she could still, with her money, find ways to get it, through like male escorts, than groveling in such a ridiculous level towards a chump like Stern. Later it does come out that she is ‘attracted to men who resist’, which helps explain her motivations a little, but it would’ve been more entertaining had the Mull character paid her, or worked out some deal with her, to come onto Stern in  order to get him into trouble with Plummer, which would’ve offered a nice unexpected twist, which unfortunately the script doesn’t have. 

Spoiler Alert!

The final 10-minutes in which Plummer corners Stern in his rental home with both his wife and Stern’s and the myriad excuses Stern comes up with to try and get out of the jam is sort of funny, but it takes too long to get there. That frantic, hyper-pace should’ve been present from the very beginning and it just isn’t. Stern’s character arc where he finally concludes that the company culture is too conform-ridden for his liking is strained as well. If anything, he should’ve figured that out long before he goes to a company party and asked to where a silly hat like everyone else, which was one of the least problematic things at that place and yet this is where he suddenly decides to ‘draw-the-line’. 

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: November 7, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 23 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ziggy Steinberg

Studio: Tri-Star Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Farce, Movies with a train setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Jekyll and Hyde…Together Again (1982)

Posted on August 28, 2025 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Drug changes surgeon’s personality.

Dr. Daniel Jekyll (Mark Blankfield) is a respected surgeon who’s become tired of the pressures of his job and working for Dr. Carew (Michael McGuire) a hospital administrator whose only concern is the monetary bottom line and who wants Jekyll to perform experimental surgery on ‘the world’s richest man’ (Peter Brocco), which Jekyll resists. In private during his off-hours, he begins experimenting with a white substance while inside his lab, but the demands from his personal and private life cause him to fall asleep where he accidentally inhales the drug, which causes him to have a secondary personality. His new persona is a party animal that is more confident and outgoing to the point of being obnoxious. This split personality causes issues with the two women in his life Mary (Bess Armstrong), a snobby socialite and Ivy (Krista Errickson), a loose living sex worker. 

This marked the directorial debut of Jerry Belson, a very talented comedy writer who wrote for such classic sitcoms as the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ before graduating onto movies where he penned scripts for the brilliant satire Smile as well as the dark comedy classic The End. While those other films were consistently funny and observational this film panders more on the crude side with a lot of drug references that may have seemed hip at the time but will most likely come off as dated and in bad taste to today’s viewers. It does have a certain Airplane-like element to it where there’s a lot of visually humorous non-sequiturs going on in the background as well as amusing ‘announcements’ that gets said over the hospital’s intercom, which I found to be some of the funniest stuff in the movie. However, there’s just not enough of it to keep it afloat and there’s also a lot of juvenile silly stuff that also gets thrown in, which does nothing but tank the whole thing making it seem like its intent was to be a party movie to be enjoyed by those who are either half-drunk, or high when they viewed it.

The script almost didn’t even see the light of day and stayed stuck in turnaround for several years as most producers and studio execs were not thrilled with it, but in the Spring of 1981 with a director’s strike pending Michael Eisner, the then head of Paramount, choose this script as something that could be shot on the cheap and quickly produced, so that the studio would have something to release should the strike occur. Unfortunately, four different writers were hired on to help doctor it, which only further diluted things making it a comic mishmash that never really gels.

Blankfied, who at the time was best known for his work on the ‘Fridays’ TV-show, which was ABC’s irreverent late-night answer to NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ does not play the main role, at least during his scenes as the strait-laced doctor, all that well, which further hampers things. For one thing he looks creepy when he’s supposed to be normal. As the crazy Hyde character, he’s quite funny, but as a regular guy he’s dull. Tim Thomerson, who plays the narcist plastic surgeon, has the dashing good looks of what you’d expect for a leading man while also being engaging, which is why he should’ve played the Jekyll part and then Blankfield brought in to play Hyde and the whole thing would’ve worked much better. It still could’ve on paper revolved around the split personality of the same person, but just having a different actor play each part. 

Brocco, who’s almost unrecognizable as he sports a long white beard, is good as the elderly, but arrogant rich man and McGuire has one really good scene where he goes on one long, uncontrolled laugh attack. Errickson is cute, which helps things, though it would’ve been great had there been a little nudity on her end, which with the film being so utterly sophomoric and drive-in worthy anyways, you would’ve expected some, but there actually isn’t any. Armstong though plays her part too much like a caricature and thus her moments aren’t interesting and even a bit annoying. 

The scene where Hyde steals a car with the middle-aged lady driver in it and then lodges her head inside the car’s rooftop window, which causes her screams to sound like a siren to others as the vehicle tears down the road, is a gem of a moment. Hyde’s singing performance at an awards ceremony, where he does a striptease to show that he’s got nothing to ‘hyde’, is really inspired too. There’s even a quick scene involving George Wendt as a man with a severed hand who decides he’d rather have his wife ‘sew it back on’ than the doctor. I might even give an extra point to the segment where Blankfield accidentally sniffs up the white stuff in his sleep, but some of the other jokes dealing with the late 70’s drug culture I didn’t particularly care for and hence the movie doesn’t succeed as well, which also most likely helps to explain why it fared poorly at the box office.  

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jerry Belson

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies with a Hospital setting, Parody

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Dead Ringers (1988)

Posted on August 18, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Twin brother’s relationship erodes.

Twins Elliot and Beverly (Jeremy Irons) work at a clinic as gynecologists with Elliot being the more outgoing of the two. Elliot routinely dates women many of them patients at their clinic but will then ‘hand them off’ to Beverly who is the shyer of the two and unable to get women without Elliot’s help. Since Elliot likes variety in his relationships, he’s okay with Beverly getting the women once he’s lost interest in them and the women can never tell the difference. Things though begin to change when Claire (Genevieve Bujold) enters into the picture. She, like the ones before her, was a patient whom Elliot is quickly able to hook-up with and then after a brief fling is given to Beverly, but this time Beverly falls for her in a deep way and not so eager to drop her. Claire also becomes aware that she’s been tricked by the two and has a confrontation with Elliot about it while she continues to see Beverly on the side. Beverly though becomes conflicted with his dual loyalties unable to handle how fractured his relationship with his brother, who he used to be quite close to, has become spiraling him into a depression that ultimately leads to a dangerous drug addiction. 

In 1981 David Cronenberg became interested in doing a movie about twins and producer Carol Baum sent him articles about Steward and Cyril Marcus. These were identical twins who were gynecologists working and living together in New York City. On the morning of July 17, 1975 both were found dead inside Cyril’s cluttered apartment in what had initially been perceived as being a suicide pact, which was later ruled out, but both did die within a few days of the other. While their deaths generated may articles and even a novel the cause to what circumstances lead to them dying together has remained open and thus Cronenberg decided to ‘answer’ that question with this story though he had to go through many years of different producers, screenwriters, and various different drafts before this version was finally given the green light.

If you’re a fan of Cronenberg, particularly his gore, which he’s best known for, then you may be disappointed with this as there really isn’t much. There are still some disturbing moments including the garish genealogical instruments that Beverly pays an artist, played by Stephan Lack, to create which he then plans on using on one of his patients, to the shock of his medical staff, which is a creepy moment. There’s also a dream sequence where Claire bites off a membrane connecting the two brothers, which is cool, but brief. There was also a scene shot that had the head of one of the twins coming out of the stomach of the other one, but this didn’t go over well with the test audiences, so it got cut, but I really wished had been left in. 

It’s really Irons and his incredible performance as the twins that makes this such an engaging movie to watch. Having one actor playing dual roles has certainly been done before, but never quite this effectively. Even though they look exactly alike I really got the sense these were two different people and Irons ability to craft such diverse personalities and postures, this was achieved by putting his weight on the balls of his feet while playing one of them and having his weight put on his heels while playing the other helps to, in a very subtle way, create a strong distinction and a hypnotic presence that sucks you into the story and never lets you go. 

My only quibble is that rarely have I seen twins that you couldn’t tell apart in some way. I noticed that Irons did have some minor moles on his right cheek and then another on the left side of his head near his eye. In the movie both of the brothers have these lesions in the exact same place, but I think in reality they wouldn’t, so they could’ve masked the moles on one of the characters through make-up, so it would only show on one of them and that could’ve been a way to tell them apart physically. There’s also the issue with one of them given a women’s name, which Claire does question at one point. Beverly gets quite defensive when it’s brought up insisting that his name is spelled in the ‘masculine’ way, but on the credits it’s spelled out just like it would had the name been given to a female, so I felt there should’ve been more explanation of why he’d been given an unusual name as it was something that would certainly come off as odd to many and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a man with that name. 

I also had some problems with Bujold’s character as she seems to be plopped in solely to get the story going and start the process of having the brother’s strong bond dissolve, but for a character to generate such a pivotal thing I think she should’ve stood out more. What was it about this woman that created a division between the boys that the other women hadn’t? I would’ve liked seeing her more involved in the conflict possibly confronting Elliot in an angry way, not the conciliatory one we see here, and forbidding Beverly to see him, which would’ve helped make her more prominent versus just being a story device. 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: September 23, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Cronenberg

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Peacock, PlutoTV, Roku,Tubi, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Psychological

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Mommie Dearest (1981)

Posted on August 12, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Treating her children cruelly.

Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is a famous actress who longs to have children, but unable to have any of her own. The adoption agencies reject her attempts to get a child because she’s divorced and a career woman, so she gets her boyfriend Gregg (Steve Forrest), who’s rich and influential, to pull-some-strings, which ultimately gets her a baby girl named Christina (Mara Hobel). Joan though proves to be a very strict parent and enforces harsh rules, which Christina rebels from and this leads to even harsher consequences. As Christina grows older, (Diana Scarwid) she begins a life on her own away from her mother including a fledgling acting career where she stars in the soap opera ‘Summer Storm’, but when she gets ill her mother, desperate to recharge her failing career, takes over Christina’s role while she’s recovering in the hospital that further erodes their already tenuous relationship. When Joan ultimately dies and Christina finds that both her and her brother have been written out of the will she decides at that point to write a tell-all book that will scratch away the glossy image of her famous mother and instead paint a ‘true’ portrait of who she really was.

The film is based on the autobiography of the same name written by Christina Crawford that was published in 1978 to much controversy as both family and friends denounced it as sensationalized and not an accurate portrait of Joan. Nonetheless it was a best seller, which quickly lead to a movie deal. Dunaway was excited to take the role convinced it would lead to her second Oscar, but instead, despite being directed by the talented Frank Perry, it was perceived as camp by both the critics and the public alike forcing Paramount to retool its marketing campaign selling it more as a dark comedy much to the dismay of the film’s producer Frank Yablans, who insisted it should be perceived as a serious drama.

On the one hand I think some of it is true. I have no doubt that Joan was a very strong-willed woman who had very particular ideas on child-rearing. Anyone who’s scratched-and-clawed their way to the stardom and able to maintain it over several decades would certainly have to be a driven person and I’m sure some of that would have to rub off in their home life. The scenes where she pushes Christina to be a better swimmer, so that she learns to understand the competitive world out there, made sense and parents pushing their children can happen a lot. Having her being controlling and a clean freak wasn’t all that surprising either and these scenes felt honest and revealing.

The problem is that the film makes no attempt to humanize Joan and instead becomes obsessed with portraying her as being a monstrous kook that scares everyone who’s around her including her dedicated servants who act in petrified fear every time they come near her.  The film fails to show any nuance and becomes a big trash feast intent at making her look as awful as possible and leaving no room to even consider the other side, which because she had already died by the time this movie was released, she wasn’t able to give. The most ridiculous moment, which wasn’t in the book, is when she goes into Christina’s room late at night while wearing white face cream that makes her appear almost demonic and then flies into a rage when she notices a wire hanger in her closet that is so over-the-top I’m surprised the cast and crew didn’t break out laughing while it was being shot.

There are issues with Christina too as she’s a little too good to be true. There are several scenes that had it been tweaked just a bit could’ve made her the difficult one instead of the mother. Case in point is when she refuses to do things that her mother asks that could easily be seen by some as Christina being a mouthy brat unwilling to do as she’s told and Joan simply stepping to create some discipline, which is why some attempt at balance would’ve helped and made it seem less like a cheap soap opera.

Spoiler Alert!

Another dumb scene comes near the end when Joan jumps on Christina and begins to strangle her and needs to be pulled off by two other women in the room (Rutanya Alda, Joycelyn Brando). It makes it look like she was close to dying had the two ladies not intervened, but Christina was at the time a grown woman and much younger than Joan, so she should’ve been able to defend herself and fight back. Having her essentially just lay down and take it seemed unrealistic and turning it into an all-out physical cat fight between the two would’ve far more entertaining and believable. Yet despite all this the production values are still top notch and in a tabloid sort of way it’s entertaining.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: September 16, 1981

Runtime: 2 Hours 9 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Frank Perry

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels

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Nothing Personal (1980)

Posted on July 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Saving seals from slaughter.

Roger (Donald Sutherland) is a college professor who becomes aware by one of his students, Peter (Michael Wincott), that seals are being systematically slaughtered by a construction company trying to build homes in an area populated by them. Roger then goes on a crusade to stop this and hires the services of Abigail (Suzanne Somers) a young lawyer bent on proving herself. The two though come up with major roadblocks when they attend the stockholder meetings of the company. While the CEO Ralston (Lawrence Dane) seems to listen to their concerns the company still decides to push through their construction agenda prompting Roger and Abigail to find other ways to prevent the homes from going up, which then causes the heads of the company to resort to nefarious means to stop them.

The screenplay was written by Robert Kaufman and sold in 1972 but then languished in the studio’s slush pile as it couldn’t find any director interested in filming it. Then in 1980 after the success of Love at First Bite, which had also been penned by Kaufman, director George Bloomfield decided to take a stab at this one, but for tax write-off purposes it was filmed in Canada despite the setting being Washington D.C.

A lot of the issue with the movie, which was not well received by audiences or critics alike, and ended up tanking at the box office, is that it’s just not all that funny. The humor is dry and amounts to a few throwaway lines said by the characters just before the scene cuts away and if you’re not listening carefully enough, you’ll miss it though even if you do catch it it’s nothing that’s going have you rolling-in-the-aisles. Would’ve worked better had it been done as a drama, or even a thriller, as neither the comedy or romantic elements add much and in a lot of ways detracts from the main story.

While Sutherland is traditionally a good actor his presence here hinders things. He comes off initially as completely oblivious to what’s happening and only manages to get informed by Peter who’s very passionate about the cause and even interrupts a class that Sutherland is teaching to inform him about it. Sutherland immediately poo-poo’s the news and only after doing more research does he decide to take on the cause, but I felt that Peter, who gets largely forgotten and not seen again, should’ve been the one to lead the charge since he was already heavily into the issue and being a student would have more time on his hands while Sutherland was working a job and therefore shouldn’t have been able to devote his full attention to it like he does. Having a romantic relationship grow between Peter and Somers would’ve worked better as they seemed more around the same age while Sutherland looks to be more like her father.

Somers’ character is quite problematic. Initially she’s someone that wants to prove herself and be taken seriously but then turns into a complete slut almost overnight as she gets in bed naked when she invites Sutherland into her room and immediately makes overtures that she wants to get-it-on. This though is not a proper way that someone who wants to gain the respect of her peers and clients as she moves up in the business world should be behaving and therefore it’s hard for the viewer to take anything that she says or does seriously.

Too much time also gets spent on them fooling around to the point that it seems they’re more into sex than saving the seals. The movie should’ve waited until the very end to introduce some romantic overtures after they had succeeded with their mission when it would’ve been more appropriate, but the way it gets done here makes them seem like vapid juveniles with hyper hormones and not much else.

The film though really jumps-the-shark when the CEO of the company and his trusted assistant, played by Dabney Coleman, resort to criminal means in an effort to stop Sutherland and Somers from shutting down their project. Even going as far as trying to kill them by trapping them inside a barn and then setting it on fire. There are certainly CEO’s out there that can be corrupt, but they have enough money that they’d pay someone else to do their dirty work and would most certainly not be doing it themselves. Supposedly these are successful businessmen that have worked their way up the corporate ladder, so why throw it all away by so obviously going after their foes, which is something that could easily be handled through bribery.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, which was described by one IMDb reviewer as being of the ‘surprise’ variety and makes sitting through the rest of the movie ‘worth it’, had me more confused than anything. It has Dane and company planning to build more homes on a different site that would require them to kill off more wildlife. They then get a knock at the door and when they open it, it reveals a smiling Sutherland and Somers, but it’s not clear whether they appear in order to stymie this new project or are somehow in on it. Since Dane and Coleman have annoyed expressions when they see them I think it’s meant to show the former, but the IMDb reviewer thought it meant the later and I really couldn’t blame anyone for not being sure, which makes this yet another problem for a movie that already had a ton of them.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: March 28, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: George Bloomfield

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Tubi, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Dry Humor, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada, Obscure Movies, Romance

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Back to the Beach (1987)

Posted on July 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple revisits surfing culture.

25 years ago, Frankie (Frankie Avalon), was a hot shot surfer known as the ‘Big Kahuna’, but now he’s a middle-aged, frustrated car salesman living in Ohio.  His wife Annette (Annette Funicello) was also a part of the surfing culture and that’s where the two first met, but now she’s a suburban housewife raising a rebellious kid named Bobby (Demien Slade). Frankie longs to revisit his old stomping ground, so the family takes a trip to California to visit their daughter Sandi (Lori Laughlin) not knowing that she’s living on the beach with her boyfriend Michael (Tommy Hinkley). Frankie also runs into Connie (Connie Stevens) his old sweetheart that still has a crush on him. Annette becomes jealous of all the attention Connie gives him causing a rift between the two, so they spend the rest of their vacation doing things on their own. Annette then catches the eye of Troy (John Calvin) who chases after her while Tommy gets in with a group of punk surfers who try to take over the beach prompting Frankie to challenge their leader to a surfing contest.

The film came out at a time when many 60’s shows and movies were getting revisited usually with the same cast members, or at least those that were still alive. Frankie had been shopping around the script for many years before finally finding a taker though the studio had insisted on more campy approach, but producer/writer James Komack resisted insisting that having it a light comedy dealing with the travails of growing into middle age and being a modern-day parent was enough.

It starts out almost like Airplane!, with visual sketch-like comedy, but then meanders into being almost all talk with not a lot happening. More confrontations or dilemmas, even the comic variety, would’ve helped, but instead the second half stagnates. Frankie and Annette ‘breaking up’ is a good example as the minute after having their spat they secretly long to get back together. It would’ve been a more intriguing story had the two genuinely went their separate ways only to decide at the very end that being a part wasn’t worth it and then make an attempt to reconcile, so there would at least be some dramatic tension, which is otherwise totally lacking.

Frankie is amusing and looks almost like he hadn’t aged a day and the potshots at his ‘perfect hair’, which looks suspiciously like a hair piece, are fun. Connie enlivens things as the beach blonde bimbo and Bob Denver is fun playing off his Gilligan persona, this time as a bartender known as ‘little buddy’. Some of the other cameos don’t work as well including Don Adams as The Harbormaster who initially seems like he’s going to ruin the festivities but gets neutered away too easily making his presence seem rather pointless. Having the son Bobby dressing and acting like a punk right from the start is off-putting and not funny. Would’ve been better and allowed for some character arch had he been super clean-cut, maybe in an effort to emulate his dad, only to get ‘corrupted’ when he meets the punks and then changing his look.

Funicello’s presence was disappointing. She hadn’t been in a movie in a while and was better known to younger audiences for being a spokesperson for Skippy peanut butter, which the film does parody, but her acting is rather stiff. This was when she began experiencing MS symptoms, so that may have had something to do with it, but her character is one-dimensional. She never says or does anything outrageous and is too ‘goody-goody’ making her moments flat and forgettable. It’s possible she didn’t have the acting chops to play anything different though it would’ve been nice had she at least tried to go against her image a little.

The film ends on a high note. I enjoyed seeing Frankie back on the surfboard even if he does it in front of a green screen, but I really felt there needed to be more jokes and a faster pace. Trying to turn it into a ‘dramedy’ was not what these cartoon characters needed. A surreal edge was necessary and though it teases this concept at times it wasn’t enough turning it into a misfire that never quite takes off.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: August 7, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lyndall Hobbs

Studio: Paramount Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Musical, Parody

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Beyond Therapy (1987)

Posted on June 15, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Therapists nuttier than patients.

Bruce (Jeff Goldblum) is a bisexual who’s tired of his relationship with Bob (Christopher Guest) and thus decides to place a singles ad looking for a female companion. Prudence (Julie Hagerty) answers and the two meet-up at a restaurant, but they find there’s too many differences between them and fail to hit-it-off. Bruce then goes to Charlotte (Glenda Jackson), his therapist, while Prudence visits Stuart (Tom Conti) who’s her therapist and works in the next room beside Charlotte’s. After some counseling, and at Charlotte’s suggestion, Bob places another ad, but changes some of the personal details, causing Prudence to again answer it thinking it’s a different person. They meet at the same restaurant, but this time things click and they agree to go out again, but Bob and his meddling mother Zizi (Genevieve Page) don’t like the fact that Bruce is seeing somebody else and become determined to ruin the potential relationship as does Stuart, who once had a fling with Prudence, and wants to rekindle the old flame, but only if he can get Bruce out of the way.

The film is based on the hit stage play of the same name by Christopher Durang and while that one got rave reviews this version falls off its hinges right away and a lot of the blame should be pointed at director Robert Altman who rejected the screenplay that Durang had written and instead revised it severely causing Durang to feel that very little of his original work was left and lamenting in later interviews that his experience working on this project was an unhappy one. The story is supposed to be set in New York City, but because Altman was living in Paris at the time he choose to shoot it there, but New York’s ambience, where the single’s scene is quite strong, would’ve helped accentuate the theme and allowed for a more vibrant backdrop versus here where everything takes place in a bland cafe, or in the therapists office, with the exception of a few scenes done in Bruce and Bob’s pad, that hampers the visual flair and makes the production look stagnant and cheap. It also ends with a bird’s eye shot of the Paris skyline, but since everyone was speaking in English and without a French accent it makes it off-kilter, and they should’ve at least pretended it was New York even if it wasn’t.

Goldblum comes off as too detached and thus isn’t effective for this kind of role. Hagerty has her moments and at least gets some laughs, but her open disdain for gay people, along with some of her character’s other quirky hang-ups, may not go over well with viewers. Guest plays the gay lover role in too much of a cliched way making him seem like a walking-talking parody, while Page, as his overprotective mother, is excessively hammy and her exaggerated behavior gets in the way and doesn’t add much.

Jackson is a big disappointment though it’s not all her fault as Altman insists on shooting the majority of her scenes through the window of her office making the viewer feel cut-off from her and like she’s intended to be a caricature. Her confusion over words is more disconcerting than funny. Having a therapist that’s a bit daffy is okay and might even be good enough for a chuckle or two, but here she seems genuinely nuts to the extent that you wonder why Bruce would continue to see her. How she’s able to pick-up words said by Stuart in the other office is never made clear, they also seem to have sporadic sexual rendezvous in the room that’s in-between their offices, but this only gets implied and never actually shown though it should’ve been. Conti’s performance is annoying as he speaks in this fake sounding Italian accent, which he finally drops near the end, but should’ve done way sooner.

There are a few in-jokes in regard to Jackson that I did like. One is a refence where her son, played by Cris Campion, asks her to cry, which she does in a comic sort-of way and I think this was alluding to her performance in A Touch of Class, where the script asked for her character to cry, but she refused insisting that crying was just something she didn’t do, so here you finally get to hear her do it, which is fun. Later there’s another bit where Bob talks about the movie Sunday Bloody Sunday, a film that Jackson was in, though here he describes her as being ‘that English actress’, which is amusing, but would’ve been even funnier had, when he later meets her, he could’ve said ‘you look exactly like the English actress in that movie.’

Spoiler Alert!

While the film does become semi-engaging even with its rough, awkward start it manages to blow it up with a dumb conclusion, which has Bob shooting at Bruce with a toy gun while inside the restaurant. We already know it’s a toy because he tried to use it on Charlotte earlier, so having this extended slow-motion sequence where all the customers duck for cover, doesn’t work and becomes overdrawn instead of funny, or suspenseful. Having the group then remain in the restaurant afterwards and even get served food was equally ridiculous as anyone that would’ve caused that much of a melee would most certainly be asked to leave or arrested by the police for causing a disturbance.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: February 27, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Altman

Studio: New World Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Gay/Lesbian, Movies Based on Stageplays

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Double Negative (1980)

Posted on June 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Who killed his wife?

Michael (Michael Sarrazin) is a photojournalist tormented by fragmented memories of his wife’s murder. Paula (Susan Clark) is his girlfriend who’s trying to help him sort through these flashbacks, so he can find some answers. However, she too has things to hide as she’s busily paying off a man named Lawrence Miles (Anthony Perkins) who threatens to go to the police about what he knows about the killing. There’s also Lester (Howard Duff) a private investigator who sticks his nose too deeply into the case and finds himself at deadly odds with both Lawrence and Paula.

The film is based on the 1948 novel ‘The Three Roads’ written by Ross Macdonald under his real name Kenneth Millar. Macdonald later went on to have a stellar career writing novels about private investigator character Lew Archer and this story has plenty of potential but gets mishandled and ultimately becomes a misfire. A lot of the problem stems from the production employing three different writers who all had different perspectives on where they wanted the story to go and then relying on director George Bloomfield to cram it all together, which he doesn’t succeed at. The result is a fragmented mishmash that takes a long while to become intriguing and even then, remains interesting only sporadically. Lots of extended scenes particularly at the beginning that should’ve been trimmed and a poor pacing that barely manages to create any momentum.

It doesn’t help that the main characters are wholly unlikable and uninteresting. Clark especially comes off as arrogant right from the beginning when we see her drive by what appears to be Amish people in a horse and buggy fighting through the snow and cold while she enjoys things in her warm ritzy car, which makes her seem detached and uncaring. The scene where she’s trying to procure an important real estate deal and then gets hampered by Michael playing loud music in the other room, so she then excuses herself and promises to be right back. I was fully expecting her to yell at Michael for his misbehavior, but instead she strips off her clothes and the two make love, but it seemed like sex should be the last thing on her mind during such an serious business meeting and what would happen if the clients, who were just a door away and waiting for her return, would walk in on them? 

Sarrazin doesn’t cut it either. I know he’s been lambasted by critics in his other film appearances for being too transparent and forgettable and yet I’ve usually defended him as I feel he can sometimes be effective even given the right material. Here though he falls precariously flat. Some of it is the fault of the writing which doesn’t lend him to create a character with any nuance, or likability, but in either case he’s a complete bore and the viewer isn’t emotionally invested in his predicament. His flashback moments where he sees himself in some sort of prisoner of war camp doesn’t make a lot of sense, or have much to do with the main plot, and seems like something for a whole different movie. 

On the other hand, Perkins is fantastic and the only thing that livens it up to the extent that he should’ve been given much more screen time as the film sinks whenever he’s not on. It’s great too at seeing SCTV alums like John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas, and Catherine O’Hara in small parts where with the exception of Candy they’re not comical but instead make a rare turn at being dramatic. Duff is kind of fun and has one great moment, really the only good one in the movie, where he gets trapped in an elevator and must escape being shot by Perkins, who has his arm lodged in the otherwise closed doors, by desperately running back and forth in the closed space that he’s given. Michael Ironside has a memorable bit too as a bar patron who becomes incensed at Sarrazin when he refuses to allow him to buy him a drink. 

Spoiler Alert!

The denouement just leaves more questions and fails to tie up the loose ends as intended. For one thing it shows Sarrazin as being the one who strangled his wife, which I had started to suspect a long while earlier, so it’s not a ‘shocking surprise’ like I think the filmmakers thought it would. It also has Perkins leaving the scene, as he was having an affair with the woman, and even briefly speaking to Clark who witnesses him going, so why he’d insist Clark needs to pay him hush money didn’t make much sense. Sure, he could still go to the police and say that it was Sarrazin that did it, but Perkins fingerprints were at the scene of the crime, so I’d think either way he’d get implicated, and Clark could come forward saying she was a witness who saw him leaving. If anything, Clark should’ve been pushing him to go to the cops versus bribing him to stay away.  

Also, the way it gets shown, Clark comes into the bedroom after Sarrazin has already strangled his wife, so all she sees is him weeping over his wife’s dead body. For all she knew, from that perspective, is that Perkins really did kill the woman and Sarrazin was simply the first to come upon her dead body and thus for it to be crystal clear Clark should’ve entered while he was still in the middle of the act versus when he was already done.

Beyond that is that question of why would Clark want to stay with someone she knew had such violent tendencies? Wouldn’t she be afraid he could get upset at some point and do that to her? Sarrazin even asks her at the very end if she is afraid and her only response is: ‘aren’t you’? This though only muddles things further cementing it as a botched effort. 

Alternate Title: Deadly Companion

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 12, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Director: George Bloomfield

Studio: Quadrant Films

Available: Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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Real Genius (1985)

Posted on April 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: House full of popcorn.

Mitch (Gabriel Jarret) is a 15-year-old prodigy who attends college at a young age and rooms with Chris (Val Kilmer). The two though don’t hit-it-off as Chris is rebellious and irreverent while Mitch takes his studies seriously but doesn’t know how to have any fun. Both are assigned to work on a project called ‘Crossbow’ that is headed by an arrogant Professor Jerry Hathway (William Atherton). Neither student realizes that the laser project has been commissioned by the CIA that will allow them to commit political assassinations from outer space. Once they find this out, they band together to infiltrate the headquarters in order to corrupt the weapon and not allow it to function properly.

The film is best known as being the second starring vehicle for Val Kilmer who plays the type of smart ass that some may find amusing while others could consider it obnoxious. While he does have his moments, I did find it hard to believe that he was ever the studious type, which he insists he was during a ‘heart-to-heart’ conversation with Mitch and only became the goof-off after burnout, but if that really were the case the viewer should’ve seen that versus having it described. Since he plays the party personality so well it’s hard to imagine him being any other way and it would’ve been interesting to have witnessed the transition.

The real star is Mitch, and I’m surprised why he wasn’t given top billing as he’s more three dimensional, relatable, and has a genuine character arch while Kilmer seems brought in mainly just for comic relief and throw some spice into the proceedings. Atheron is a major scene-stealer that almost knocks the other two out playing the snobby jerk of all jerks, in an even more pronounced way than in Ghostbusters, which I didn’t think could be topped and in fact he plays it so well you don’t see the acting and begin to wonder if that’s the way he really is and in his case start to fear being potentially typecast.

While these characters are all engaging in their unique ways the supporting cast doesn’t work as well. Mitch’s parents, played by Paul Tuller and Joanne Baron, are just too dumb to be believed particularly when Atherton asks in snarky fashion if their son is adopted and for them not to catch-on that he’s insulting them was for me not plausible. Jordan, played by Michelle Meyrink, I felt was a bit over-the-top as she’s this super nerdy girl who spends seemingly every waking moment working on her inventions making it almost like it was a compulsion and it would’ve been nice seeing, at least for a few seconds, her doing something else.

The way Mitch, who has a crush on her, and she consummate their fledgling relationship gets completely botched. For one thing it didn’t need to turn sexual as I thought it worked better having things evolve between them slowly and not have it get serious until after school year was over and they could focus less on their studying. Either way the genesis that motivates them into sex is when Sherry, played by Patti D’Arbanville, appears in his dorm room and comes-on to him, but there’s no explanation for why she’s there and just popped-in out-of-the-blue. What’s worse is that you never actually see Mitch and Jordan get-it-on as the film cuts away, but seeing them in bed under the covers struggle to do it, as the first time could be quite awkward for many young people, could’ve been comical exposing how these geniuses were dumb at something to the point they decide it’s not worth it.

The pranks, which the film is best known for, are amusing, but seem a bit exaggerated. Coating the dorm floors with ice would cause massive damage once it melted and the water seeped through the floorboards making me believe the pranksters would’ve been kicked out. Same with Kilmer breaking one of the windows in his dorm room, which in the next scene is fixed, but no explanation with who fixed it, or more importantly paid for it. Getting the car of one of the students inside a dorm room was for me a jump-the-shark moment as there was simply no way that vehicle frame would’ve been able to fit through the doorway. Some may argue that because these pranks were based on real incidents that had occurred in other colleges, I’m being overly picky complaining about them, but I suspect they weren’t carried out in the exact same way as shown here, nor is there anything said about the aftermath because once the jokes are over somebody’s going to be paying for it. Here nobody ever gets into trouble or deals with the consequences, but in real-life they would.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending in which the students are able to infiltrate a military complex was wish fulfillment particularly the way they’re able to get in using ID cards they had made themselves, which I’m pretty sure would not have passed professional scrutiny. Just because these kids are smart doesn’t mean they can’t make mistakes or have oversights.

I did however love the house getting filled up with popcorn. Actual popcorn was used and had to be popped continuously for three months and then treated with a fire retardant so as not to combust. A 2009 episode of Mythbusters tried to recreate it and found that it wouldn’t be possible as the popcorn was not able to break glass or knock the home off of its foundation like in the movie, but it’s still a fun sight regardless and the film’s top moment.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 7, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Martha Coolidge

Studio: Tri-Star Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, 4K, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, College Life, Sci-Fi

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