The 1980s is my favourite decade for films. There is something about the movies that came out in those 10 years that really, well i think, changed cinema at points. After the jump is my list of 5 awesome 80s films, some you may know, some you may not, but these 5 are favourites of mine so please check out my little mini reviews and let me know what I might have missed....
This
post is inspired by a top five rundown over on Ben's Basement (here),
Ben's a former work colleague and a good film reviewer, so being a bit
older than Ben and having a seen way way way more 80s films than him,
I thought i'd do my own count down of top 5 80s films. Now my own top
5 films of all time contain three 80s films, Rocky 4, Streets Of Fire
and Road House so I'm going to leave those off this list because I’ve
talked about them quite often so here's my not all time top 5 but
general top 5 80s movies...
HEAVY
METAL (1981) Dir. Gerald Potterton
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Heavy
Metal is awesome, it's pure Anti-Disney animation. It came out at a
time where Disney were struggling with their films and alternative
animation studios, usually based in Canada were taking the
opportunity to get their films out. A few great titles come to mind
like The Last Unicorn, Star Chaser and Rock & Rule, all fantastic
films, Ralph Bakshi was making his American Pop and Fire & Ice
but Heavy Metal, at least for me, was a snap shot of what animation
could do outside of the confines of a Disney animation department.
Anyone who watches South Park may now be familiar with Heavy Metal as
it was lovingly parodied in the “Major Boobage” episode, and
while that is nice, you really need to see the actual film for your
self. It consists of a series of random stories, each made in a
different animation style but all connected via a glowing green orb.
It's based on the french comic book Metal Hurlent and features music
from bands such as Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Devo and Cheap
Trick, just to name a few. Each story is about 10-15 minutes in
length and feature the voice talents of everyone from John Candy and
Eugene Levy to John Vernon. Along with afore-mentioned bands it also
boasts a fantastic Elmer Bernstein score, especially during the final
segement called Taarna. It's a fantastic animated film which should
be more widely recognised, anyway it's one of my favourite 80s films.NIGHTMARE CITY (1980) Dir: Umberto Lenzi
Italian
Gore maestro Umberto Lenzi, brought us the infected crazies way
before 28 Days Later brought them to London.
Featuring
a stellar performance from Hugo Stiglitz' beard and Mel Ferrer as a
military general, Nightmare City is fast paced and bloody good fun.
It's gory but not OTT gore like Ferox and works well as an
Action/Horror hybrid. Out of all the 80s Italian gore fests,
Nightmare City is one I can continually return to without it being a
chore to sit through, which, and i'll get shot for this, is more than
I can say for Lucio Fulci's films, which I must add I find tediously
boring (Pete runs and hides). I had a hard time choosing between this
and Antionio Margheriti's Cannibal Apocalypse which I find a
fascinating film even if it is classed as an exploitation film, but
Nightmare City is a much more fun film and that's why I love it.
EXPLORERS
(1985) Dir: Joe Dante
Oh
man did I love this film. Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Robert Picardo
and space-craft called The
It's
a really fun film and encapsulates the mid 80s perfectly, almost as
if Dante had watched E.T and emulated his mid America Sububian
setting. There's good performances all round from a very young Ethan
Hawke and River Phoenix as well as Jason Presson, the lesser known of
the three leads, but not only those three youngsters, but you get
Robert Picado cameo as a character in a fictional film playing at a
drive in and he also provides the voice for one of the Aliens and
also a uncredited James Cromwell as River Phoenix' scientist father.
Dick Miller pops up as a police chopper pilot but if you are familiar
with Dante's work you'd expect Miller to show up at some point. The
fun is played out to fantastic score by Jerry Goldsmith. Such a great
little film and well worth tracking down.
MALONE (1987) Dir: Harley Cokeliss
Burt
Reynolds, Muscle Cars, Hershel from Walking Dead, A sawn off Shotgun,
Government Hitmen, Evil land barons who are trying to set up a new
world order, Cliff Robertson, Moustaches and giant explosions can
only mean 1 thing.....MALONE. One of the most underrated action films
of the 1980s, Reynolds is Malone a government assassin who decides
he's had enough so goes on the run. Ending up on a farm owned by
Scott Wilson (Hershel) and his daughter played by Cynthia Gibb. He
agrees to help out on the farm for room and board. Cliff Robertson
wants hershel's land and will do anything to get it, but he didn't
figure on Malone. Cue fist fights, gun fights, car chases and
explosions aplenty. By the end of the 80s, Reynold's leading man
stature was declining, most of his 80s films had flopped with the
exception of a few. To raise his leading man status, studios tried to
turn him into a bona fide action hero but Reynolds was in his late
50s and the attempt came too late, he couldn't compete with the likes
of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis so Malone kinda disappeared
which is a shame because it's a hugely entertaining action film, it
has it's flaws, the plot has been used many times previously but
there's just something inherently cool about this film and to be
honest I only discovered it this year thanks to MGM HD. The film is
available on the MoD program from MGM but if you have blu-ray you can
pick up a cracking German Blu for about £10. One of my new favourite
80s films.HIGHLANDER (1986) Dir: Russell Mulcahy
Who
doesn't love Highlander? The film with a French man playing a scot
and a scot playing a Spaniard across a timeline that goes from
medieval Scotland through to modern day New York, all set to an epic
soundtrack of Queen songs and Michael Kamen scoring. Highlander
follows immortal scotish swordsman, Connor McCload, the last of the
Highlanders, he is trained by Sean Connery's Spanish (?) swordsman to
fight the Kurgan, a beastly immortal played by the ever reliable
Clancy Brown, who wants all the immortals dead so he can be the only
one and have all of their power. It's a really great fantasy film
with good performances from everyone involved especially Brown who's
menacingly awesome through-out the film. The film opens with a great
sword fight in a parking lot of stadium and it continues with good
action scenes all the way up until the final epic fight between
Connor and The Kurgan. Russell Mulcahy's direction looks fantasic,
shot in widescreen with sweeping shots of the Scottish highlands and
some spot on uses of light. It's fair to say that Mulcahy should
forget about his sequel, the utter mess that is The Quickening
because this is the definitive highlander film. I remember the first
time I saw it, I was still in primary school and went a friends
house, his mother was out and he said do you want to watch this? Then
he showed me the cover of Highlander, I didn't know what it was but
it had a 15 cert on the box and knowing my parents wouldn't allow me
to watch it at home I said yes, I've loved it ever since.So there we go that's 5 of my favourite films from the 1980s, it's not a definitive list of course, but how do rundown your top 5 films of the 80s when there are so many, and before people ask “ where's Blade Runner? Star Wars? Platoon? E.T?...etc, I am a massive 80s movie fan, I love all those films but I didn't want to list the same films everyone else lists, that would be too generic. Hope you enjoyed my little 5 films of the 80s, what are your favourites films of that decade? Comment below and let me see what I might have forgotten.
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