Category Archives: 80’s Movies

Caveman (1981)

Posted on April 25, 2016 | 3 comments

caveman

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Caveman starts new tribe.

Caveman Atouk (Ringo Starr) is in-love with Lana (Barbara Bach) who unfortunately is infatuated with Tonda (John Matuszak). Tonda is the big muscular leader of their tribe and when he catches Atouk trying to make a pass at his girl he throws him out. Atouk is then forced to fend for himself. Fortunately he meets up with Lar (Dennis Quaid) and Tala (Shelley Long). Soon more cavepeople join his band of misfits only to have Tonda and his people track them down and challenge them to a fight.

This is yet another film where I’m at a complete loss for what type of intended audience the producers were looking for. There is no nudity, no sexual innuendos, and not enough raunchiness to attract the raucous college crowd. The humor is also too subtle and spread too thin, so it wouldn’t attract the kiddie crowd who prefer slapstick and a faster pace. In the end one is left with what amounts to being one really, really dumb movie that is virtually plotless and stretches out its threadbare concept until it becomes incredibly boring to sit through.

Starr may have been the member of one of the most influential and greatest rock bands of all-time, but as an actor he sucks. Granted the unimaginative script gives him little to go on, but a more creative actor could’ve added some interesting nuances that would’ve made the part more memorable and the movie more enjoyable. Even veteran actors like Jack Gilford, who are almost always funny, come off as flat and transparent here. The only performances that I liked were that of a young Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long, who looks surprisingly cute in her cave-girl getup.

The special effects involving the dinosaurs that were created by Jim Danforth are the film’s one and only saving grace even though it’s painfully clear that the beasts on shown on a separate screen from the one that the actors are in and thus making the moments where they are being ‘chased’ by the animals look quite cheesy. Also, the scene where a giant fly lands on top of Quaid’s face is genuinely funny, but unfortunately amounts to being the only laugh-out-loud moment in the movie.

How this pathetic excuse for a script ever got the green light is hard to fathom especially when so many other good ones get rejected year-after-year and yet it proves once again that Neanderthals are still alive and well even in this day and age and the majority of them work as heads of major Hollywood film studios.

caveman 2

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: April 17, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Carl Gottlieb

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Crude Comedy, Movies with a rural setting

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The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986)

Posted on April 19, 2016 | 3 comments

clan of the cave bear

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Girl gets new tribe.

After her mother is killed in an earthquake and escaping from the clutches of a hungry lion a very young Ayala (Daryl Hannah) gets taken in by a tribe of Neanderthals. Her addition causes strife amongst the other members particularly Broud (Thomas G. Waites) who feels she doesn’t conform enough to the subservient female role. When it is found that she has taught herself to hunt by using weapons that the women were forbidden to touch she is kicked out of the tribe and forced to survive on her own.

I realize that this film has been almost universally lambasted by movie goers and critics alike, but overall I found it to be watchable. The biggest issue in many ways were the action sequences. The opening earthquake bit as well as the lion attack comes off as stagy and phony and even border on being unintentionally funny. Later on when Ayala saves a young child from a wolf the movie reverts to slow motion, which gives it too much of an over-the-top Hollywood feel. There is also another segment where the cavemen torment a grizzly bear as part of an ancient tribal ceremony. Some of the men get torn up and killed by the bear, which to me was just fine as they should’ve left him alone in the first place!

Hannah is the perfect choice for this type of role, but for whatever reason her performance seemed a bit off and not as effective as it could’ve been. She was also probably too tall for the part as people back then was much shorter than they are now.

The movie has a little too much melodrama and eventually resembles just another cheesy Hollywood drama. The authenticity is questionable and the grittiness from the more popular Quest for Fire is definitely missing. I also wasn’t too crazy about the outdoor shots, which includes the opening one, that shows sunlight filtering through the tree leaves in a haze-like fog that gives it too much of a fairy tale-like look.

The part where Ayala is forced to survive on her own goes by too quickly and hardly seems as brutal as it should’ve been and I was also confused about how she was able to come upon this fur shawl to wear that protected her from the cold because when the tribe kicked her out she left with nothing but the flimsy outfit that she had on.

Yet despite all this I still found it to be reasonably compelling. Maybe it’s just the idea of seeing an individual learn to survive on her own, standing up to unjust authority and learning to find independence that manages to connect us no matter what the time period, but in either case it’s an okay time filler if you don’t think about it too much.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: January 17, 1986

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Chapman

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD (Warner Archive), Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity

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Big Top Pee-Wee (1988)

Posted on April 17, 2016 | Leave a comment

big top pee wee

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pee-Wee joins the circus.

Pee-Wee (Paul Reubens) is now living the quiet life of a farmer. He’s not too popular with the older townsfolk of the neighboring small town where he resides, but manages to find friends with the circus that blows in after a violent storm. Although he is currently engaged to Winnie (Penelope Ann Miller), who is the beautiful local schoolteacher, he soon finds himself entranced with the trapeze artist Gine (Valeria Golino), which causes a great deal of conflict especially after Winnie finds out about it.

I’m not exactly sure why Tim Burton wasn’t brought in to direct this sequel and it could have something to do with the fact that a different studio produced it, but his vision is noticeably missed. Randal Kleiser has directed some good movies of his own, but never anything in this type of genre. It was Burton’s direction and not Pee-Wee’s persona, which is rather one-dimensional and can only be amusing in small doses, that made the first film the success that it was.  Burton infused a lot of garishly colorful sets, oddball characters that complemented Pee-Wees’, and a surreal storyline that all helped to make it strangely intriguing and funny, but here we get none of that.

Instead it is a contrived and conventional storyline that goes nowhere and just isn’t original enough to be worth catching. The first half comes off as disjointed and makes little sense. Pee-Wee seems to have gone back into time as the people in the town where he lives all wear clothes and drive cars that look that they are from the 1940’s, but with no explanation for why that is. The presence of the circus is equally stupid as it seems to have quite literally ‘blown in’ with the storm and into Pee-Wee’s backyard.

The film really gets boring when it focuses on the romantic subplot, which is what takes up the film’s whole second half. One big issue is why would two really beautiful women find this man-child attractive to begin with? A much funnier scenario that would’ve kept more with the bizarreness of the character would be for him to have a romance with one of the sideshow freaks at the circus like the bearded lady, or even the Siamese twins, which could’ve been played up to an even funnier level by having both twins in-love with him and compete for his affections, or having one in-love with him while the other couldn’t stand him.

In either case the film is just not weird enough to be entertaining and it also leans towards the formulaic by having most of its humor aimed at the kiddie crowd, which the first one had thankfully avoided. A definite letdown when compared to the first one.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: July 22, 1988

Runtime: 1Hour 26Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Randal Kleiser

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Sequels, Surreal/Fantasy

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Quest for Fire (1981)

Posted on April 11, 2016 | 5 comments

quest for fire

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cavemen search of fire.

After their tribe is attacked by another one and their only source of fire put out three male members from the group (Everett McGill, Ron Pearlman, Nicholas Kadi) set out to find fire from somewhere else and bring it back to the others.  Their quest is not easy as they are forced to travel through harsh terrain, escape from man eating tigers, and fight off a tribe of cannibals. They also meet up with Ika (Rae Dawn Chong) who comes from a more advanced tribe where the members live in huts instead of caves and who also harbors the secret to starting a fire, which she just might share with the others.

Filmed on-location in Canada, Scotland, and Kenya this film brings to life the true nature of prehistoric times in vivid detail and better than any other movie that has dealt with the same subject. The male actors were fitted with masks that gave them ape-like features and except for one brief moment there is no discernable line of dialogue and communication is spoken through grunts and groans as well as words not connected to modern day language. Some DVD issues do have subtitles, but to me this is taking the viewer out of the experience as the whole idea is to allow one a true sense of how things where like back then and therefore forcing one to try to understand things through the primitives means of communication during that period is the only way to do it and I’m thankful that the theatrical version and the streaming version that I saw did not offer them.

While I applaud the filmmaker’s commitment to keeping things close to the true form as possible and not willing to compromise it simply to make it more accessible to a mainstream audience I still found it to be confusing at spots and even at times boring. The opening battle between the two tribes seemed almost unintentionally funny and the loud, booming music played over most of the movie is a bit off-putting as there was clearly no music at the time of the setting, so silence or natural sounds would’ve kept it truer to the authentic tone.

There is also a scene where the men come upon the remains of some meat left from another tribe. The men are hungry and begin eating the remains only to realize that what they are chewing on is human flesh, which sickens them and they spit it out, but I wasn’t so sure that genuine Neanderthals such as the ones portrayed here would be so ‘civilized’ and instead more concerned with simply satisfying their hunger needs.

Rae Dawn Chong’s presence is a major plus and the movie gets more interesting when her character appears. She remains fully nude at all times while covered in body paint, but isn’t as erotic as you might think. The scene where she gets raped by the men late at night is brutal, but authentic to the animalistic level that I would assume sex would be approached with during that time period. The way her character ends up bonding and even forming a romantic attachment to the one of them as the film progresses is genuinely touching.

The film has a lot of lulls and may be just too unique for some. I found myself intrigued at certain parts and bored at others, but the scene where the men watch in amazement when Chong creates a fire for the first time is a surprisingly exhilarating moment where the viewer feels the same emotion that people back then must’ve felt, which to be able to convey such a feeling to a modern audience is an achievement in itself and a sign of astute filmmaking at its finest.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 16, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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

5 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Outdoors

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Steaming (1985)

Posted on April 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

steaming

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Saving a steam room.

Three women (Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, Patti Love) congregate at a London steam room designed like a Turkish bathhouse. Despite their lifestyle differences they become good friends as they divulge their problems to one another and learn to lean on each other to help them cope with life’s difficulties. Then one day Violet (Diana Dors), who is the bath house owner, informs them that the place is set for demolition, which causes everyone to go on a mission to try and save it.

The film is based on the Nell Dunn play, which was highly regarded at the time, but makes for a very poor transfer to film. It starts out flat and never recovers. The dialogue has too much of a conversational quality that is not interesting and the problems that they discuss are not compelling, or original. The humor from the play is missing and the dry, somber tone only makes things even more boring. The only time it gains any traction is when it’s announced that the place is closing, but everything gets resolved in such a sitcom-styled way that it hardly seems worth the effort to watch.

The entire cast is made up of women and there is an abundance of nudity particularly from Miles, which doesn’t seem like a big deal these days. The biggest issue though is the fact that everything takes place from inside the bath house, which is gray, grimy, and rundown. The film should’ve had some segments shot from different locales if to only allow for some visual variety and to help the viewer understand the characters better by seeing how they react in different social settings.

Miles and Redgrave are wasted in drab roles and this goes likewise for Dors whose last film role this was. Love is the only one that shows any liveliness and although her character is a bit annoying she at least has an emotional breakdown near the middle, which adds some mild dramatic tension.

Joseph Losey was a competent director who made many interesting films, so it’s a shame that his career had to end with such a dud. He was already sick with cancer while he filmed this and like with Dors died a year before it was released. The disease may have sapped his creative energy and explain why this production is so ponderously sterile. It’s certainly a far cry from his other works as well as the Bruce Jay Friedman play Steambath, which had a similar setting, but a much more imaginative plotline.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: Joseph Losey

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD (Region 2)

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Major League (1989)

Posted on April 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

major league

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cleveland Indians become winners.

Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) is the new owner of the Cleveland Indians and her goal is to move the team to the sunnier locale of Miami. She finds a clause in the lease stating that if the team is unable to attract 800,000 in attendance for the season then she will be able to break the contract without penalty. Her plan then is to assemble the biggest bunch of misfits that she can, so that they’ll be so bad nobody will want to watch them, but her idea backfires as the losers somehow find a way to win.

I remember seeing this movie when it was first released and being unimpressed with it as it seemed to be taking the Rocky underdog, lovable-loser theme to redundant heights and beating a tired formula that was already getting stale. It was like The Bad News Bears, but without the interesting subtext. The plot is so obvious that you know where it’s going right from the start and thus making it almost pointless to watch. Unlike Bull Durham it offers no new insights into the nuances of the game and the crude humor is only amiable at best.

However, upon second viewing I found it to be a passable time-filler and the crowd scenes during the film’s climactic game sequence were impressive. Most films, even the good ones, have a hard time recreating the kinetic atmosphere of a live game, but this film manages to hit-the-mark and made me feel like I was watching an actual contest.

The casting is also good with each actor a perfect fit for their part especially Charlie Sheen and Corbin Bernsen. I also enjoyed Chelcie Ross even though he was 46 at that time and looking a bit too old to still be playing. However, his character’s attempts to convert everyone to Christianity particularly the player that practices voodoo is amusing. I also enjoyed James Gammons as the manager as his character is refreshingly sensible and grounded and works as a much needed anchor to the silliness.

Whitton, who hasn’t appeared in a film in over 20 years, is great as the bitchy owner and is hot-looking as well. However, I couldn’t quite buy into the fact that she stubbornly continued to cheer against the team winning even after it became painfully clear that her hoped for low attendance mark would never be reached. If anything their winning would help the team’s market value and she could sell them at a nice profit and move herself to the sunny beach. With all the national cameras most likely trained on her during the playoff game why not, at least at the very end, have her begrudgingly get with the crowd and show some appreciation for what the players had accomplished.

I also got a bit of a kick out of a life-sized cardboard cutout that is created of her and a piece of its dress ripped off with each win that the team gets, but writer-director Ward chickens out on his own outrageous concept by having the figure still wearing pasties and a bikini bottom even after the dress is fully removed. The players still cheer raucously at the sight of it nonetheless, but in real-life I think there would’ve been boos as they most likely would be expecting full nudity and disappointed when it didn’t materialize.

The side story dealing with Tom Berenger’s character trying to reconcile things with his estranged wife that is played by Rene Russo is contrived and unnecessary and with the runtime being so long, especially with such a threadbare storyline, should’ve been cut out entirely. I also found it a bit annoying the way Berenger’s character barges into her apartment and her fiancée’s unannounced and without even bothering to knock. Most people lock their doors behind them once they get inside and thus making his attempts to ‘sneak-in’ unlikely anyways.

The majority of the film was shot in Milwaukee and not Cleveland making me wonder why they didn’t just use the Milwaukee Brewers as the team since their history is almost a dismal as the Indians. It’s also important to note that we are only shown what happens in the pennant and never the World Series, which is just as well as the whole thing is a bit fantastical anyways especially given the rooster’s woeful talent and having them go all the way would’ve been too much of a stretch even for a wishful thinking, feel-good movie such as this.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 7, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 46Minutes

Rated R

Director: David S. Ward

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Baseball Movies, Crude Comedy, Sports Movies

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Black Devil Doll From Hell (1984)

Posted on March 30, 2016 | 1 comment

black devil doll 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: She fucks a doll.

Helen Black (Shirley L. Jones) is a devoutly religious woman living alone and spending most of her time going to church while also believing sex should only be within the bounds of marriage. One day she visits an antique store and spots a puppet that catches her fancy. She decides to buy it despite vague warnings by the store clerk that it possesses strange powers. When she brings it home it suddenly comes alive, ties her up and begins having sex with her, which she finds that she actually enjoys. When the doll disappears she decides to throw away her religion and become the neighborhood slut instead by picking up strange men wherever she can find them and bringing them back home for raunchy action.

This movie could best be described as the low budget, soft core porn version of Trilogy of Terror and while the story has some outrageously voyeuristic elements the production quality is so poor that it never allows the viewer to get into it. The whole thing is shot on a grainy VHS tape giving it a very amateurish look from the get-go. Certain scenes are out-of-focus and director Chester Novell Turner seems to have no understanding of editing as the camera pans wildly when simply cutting to a certain shot would’ve made more sense. There is a lot of extraneous footage as well including watching Jones walking down the sidewalk that seems to go on endlessly and an overplayed thumping music score that becomes headache inducing.

Just about all the action takes place in Helen’s cramped, rundown home, which has no visual appeal whatsoever. The sex scenes are gross and all the nudity comes from star Jones who is not exactly model quality or someone you’d want to see naked.

The only interesting aspect is the doll itself especially with its vulgar dialogue, but unfortunately he’s not in it enough. The effects used to create him are botched as it is clear when it gets shown from behind that it is not a puppet at all, but a small child, or in this case the director’s nephew.

Sitting through this is an arduous challenge. IMDb lists the runtime as 1Hour and 10Minutes, but the version I saw went almost a full 90 minutes. Some may find a few cheap laughs at the beginning due to its technical ineptness, but watching it all the way through becomes torturous and makes having sex with a puppet, or even killed by one seem enjoyable by comparison.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: August 5, 1984 (straight-to-video)

Runtime: 1Hour 27Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Chester Novell Turner

Not Rated

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Blaxploitation, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Movies that take place in Chicago, Movies with Nudity, Sex

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The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

Posted on March 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

legend of billie jean 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen becomes media sensation.

Billie Jean (Helen Slater) is a teen living in a small Texas town who one day decides to take a ride with her brother Binx (Christina Slater) on his motor scooter to a lake for a swim. Along the way they come into contact with some red neck boys who harass the two and damage the scooter. The police do nothing about it, so Billie Jean decides to approach Pyatt (Richard Bradford) who runs a convenience store and is the father to one of the boys. When she asks him for the money that it will cost to repair it he attempts to sexually assault her and Binx ends up shooting the man in the shoulder. This causes the two to go on the run and creates a statewide car chase, which makes Billie Jean a media hero to thousands of teens nationwide.

The movie is a real mixed bag with strong shifts in tone and no clear point-of-view. It starts out as a rather boring, run-of-the-mill teen bullying flick only to turn into a whimsical tale as the teens go out on the road and have one quirky adventure after another. It’s similar to Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express as both lead characters are females and go on the run from the law in Texas while become inadvertent media darlings in the process. Spielberg’s movie is the better film, but this one delves more into the media angle and could’ve made some strong statements, but unfortunately pulls back and keeps things on too much of a lighthearted, innocuous level instead.

Slater is fantastic in the lead and it’s great seeing the boyish Slater in his film debut. I felt though that Martha Gehman and Yeardley Smith as two teen gals who tag along with the other two on their adventure added nothing and should’ve been cut out completely.

Bradford makes for a pretty good heavy, but I had major issues with Peter Coyote as the sheriff. For one thing when Billie Jean reports that her brother’s bike has been stolen he does not immediately pursue the case, but instead decides to ‘wait on it for a few days’, which seemed like he was not doing the job that the tax payers put him into position to do. Then when the chase expands across the rest of the state he somehow gets in charge of tracking her down, which is ridiculous. Once she crosses over the county line, or gets outside of his jurisdiction then it is up to the authorities from that region to handle it, or the state highway patrol and certainly not some two-bit sheriff from a no-name, hick town.

The scene where Billie Jean saves a boy from his abusive father while hundreds of teens look on is great, but everything else is so-so. The film would’ve worked better had it taken a consistent satirical tone from the beginning and not have been so compelled to conform itself to the more simplistic sensibilities of its targeted teen audience.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 19, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated R

Director: Matthew Robbins

Studio: TriStar Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Adolescence/High School, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies that take place in Texas, Road Movies

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Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)

Posted on March 21, 2016 | 1 comment

pee wee big adventure

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for his bike.

Due to the release this weekend of Pee Wee’s Big Holiday I thought it would be appropriate to go back and take a look at the ‘80s classic that started it all. Here we have Pee Wee (Paul Reubens) living with his small pet dog Speck inside a home full of colorful contraptions. His prized possession is his bicycle, which he takes great care of and carefully chains up every time he leaves it alone. However, a hateful bully named Francis (Mark Holton), who is from an affluent household and used to getting whatever he wants, decides that he wants Pee Wee’s bike for himself. When his monetary offer gets rejected he then hires a professional thief to steal it for him, which sends Pee Wee on a mad frenzy across the country to try and retrieve it.

The movie is an exercise in high camp that could’ve easily failed, but instead it succeeds mainly because it doesn’t put the eccentric main character into the real world, but instead pulls the viewer into the quirky 10-year-old mindset of the protagonist. Here we don’t deal with people who reject or mock him, but instead much like with all children he becomes the ‘king of his own domain’ where he is liked and accepted by most everyone he meets and in control of all situations while the harsher realities get ignored or overlooked completely.

The film also manages to accentuate Pee Wee’s odd personality with garishly colorful set-pieces and odd contraptions that almost become the film’s main attraction. Reubens plays the role in an engaging manner, but the character’s persona is one-dimensional and could border on getting annoying had it been the film’s sole avenue of humor, but fortunately director Tim Burton manages to give the film a complete vision by instilling a storyline and visual design that match the weirdness of its protagonist and makes the proceedings come off as fresh and inventive.

I also liked that it wasn’t geared completely towards children, but instead made to attract those of all ages with a taste for the offbeat and absurd. Going the kiddie flick route would’ve made it come off as formulaic and infantile, but instead by emphasizing the surreal it becomes intriguing and impossible to predict.

The loosely structured script, which was co-written by Reubens and actor Phil Hartman, manages to go a long way on what amounts to being pretty much just a one-joke premise, but it does eventually start to lose steam by the 60-minute mark only to recover in grand style at the end with a delightful chase through the backlot of the Warner Brothers studio. It is similar to the ending used in Blazing Saddles where the film breaks the fourth wall and becomes a movie-in-a-movie although I felt this one was funnier than the Mel Brooks version.

The film is sprinkled with a lot of cameo appearances as well with my favorite ones being Milton Berle as well as James Brolin playing Pee Wee in the Hollywood movie version and Morgan Fairchild as the Hollywoodized version of his girlfriend. I also got a kick out of Jason Hervey who is best known for playing Fred Savage’s older brother in ‘The Wonder Years’ and who does a very funny caricature of a spoiled child film star here.

The film is also known for making the ‘50s instrumental ‘Tequila’ by the Champs a very recognizable melody. In fact it is almost impossible to think of the Pee Wee character and not have that melody start to play in your head, or if you do hear the melody playing somewhere you can’t help but have the image of Pee Wee pop-up when you do. However, in the actual film the song ends up being played only briefly.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 26, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Tim Burton

Studio: Warner Brothers

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Cult, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in Texas, Offbeat, Road Movies

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Independence Day (1983)

Posted on March 19, 2016 | Leave a comment

independence day 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Getting out of Texas.

Mary Ann Taylor (Kathleen Quinlan) works as a waitress at her father’s café, but dreams of leaving her sleepy Texas town and going to school in California to study photography. Her mother (Frances Sternhagen) though is in declining health and her current boyfriend Jack (David Keith) wants her to stay which makes her decision to leave all the more difficult.

Shot on-location in Anson, Texas the film is a pleasant time-filler that fortunately doesn’t go overboard with Texas stereotypes, but it’s also rather bland and predictable. Feeling trapped in a small town is by no means a unique feeling and the film doesn’t go far enough with that theme and for the most part just touches the surface. Adding in a second storyline dealing with Jack’s sister (Dianne Weist) being abused by her husband (Cliff De Young) is a bit jarring and doesn’t really fit as there are long periods where Mary Ann is not seen at all and it would’ve made more sense had it been her sister that was being abused and not Jack’s and thus giving her more screen time.

The dramatic arcs are a bit too obvious as well and at times even bordering on being corny. For one thing the abuse issue gets introduced by having Jack visit his sister and asking her husband to borrow some money and then for no reason the husband begins throwing lit matches at his wife while right in front of Jack. Abusive people can certainly be cruel, but they’re not stupid and hurting a woman while her well-built brother sits right there is most assuredly going to get the husband into trouble, so why do it? Having Jack find out about the abuse by coming to the home one day unannounced and hearing shouting and maybe looking into a window and seeing the husband hit her would’ve made far more sense.

Having Mary Ann’s mother, who otherwise looks and acts quite healthy, suddenly fall over with fainting spells and suffering from some disease that never gets explained seemed too manufactured. Mary Ann’s arguments with Jack over whether she should go to school or stay in Texas is equally transparent especially since the two really didn’t have all that much in common and could’ve easily found other dating partners quite quickly.

Having one of the official’s from the photography school drive out to her rural home and personally offer her a full scholarship while telling her she was one of the greatest photographers he had even seen was pretty loopy too. All she did was take pictures of the town’s buildings and people’s faces, so what this guy managed to see that was so ‘brilliant’ and ‘special’ from that is hard to figure.

Quinlan and Wiest give great performances, but the movie is nothing more than lightweight drama that fails to distinguish itself from all the other B-dramas out there.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 21, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Mandel

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD (Warner Archive)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies that take place in Texas, Movies with a rural setting, Romance

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