The Legend of Billie Jean made about three million dollars, got shrugged off by critics, and by rights it should have disappeared into the ether. Many films like this do. But Billie Jean keeps jumping back onto the pop cultural radar, and every time it does, people find a different film inside it. For the … Read more
After my mom saw The Exorcist in ’73, she swore off horror films for good. That movie traumatised her, and she spent the next decade telling me how terrible horror movies were, and that she hated everything about them. Which probably explains why she side-eyed me when my head spun 360 degrees as a toddler … Read more
In 1985, hip-hop was still a curiosity to Hollywood. We were about a year away from Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell and Walk This Way crossing it over for good, and Krush Groove caught the culture right before that explosion. Run-D.M.C., Kurtis Blow, The Fat Boys, Sheila E., New Edition, the Beastie Boys, and a seventeen-year-old LL … Read more
The first time I saw Jim Carrey, he was a perfectly reasonable lead in a teen horror comedy. He was charming enough, and pretty good-looking, with just enough goofball relatability. That kind of actor was the genre’s bread and butter in 1985, a sort of handsome, self-deprecating kid who could carry a lightweight comedy about … Read more
National Lampoon’s European Vacation arrived on Home Video this week in 1986, after a July 26th, 1985 theatrical release. The French are snooty. The English are incomprehensible. The Germans are, well, very German. Every country is boiled down to its most recognisable clichés, and the Griswolds barrel through all of it with the cheerful obliviousness … Read more
The sleeper hit that nobody saw coming, and the movie that catapulted its star from cult curiosity to 80s pop culture icon, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is the stuff of nostalgic royalty. It’s tour-de-force of Dada-esque absurdist whimsy dreamed up by Paul Reubens, Phil Hartman, and a then-no-name director with a twisted, cartoonish imagination named Tim … Read more
Thanks to some gorgeously lavish full-body makeup effects by Rob Bottin, to me, Tim Curry will always be the definitive rendering of the devil. Legend was Ridley Scott’s attempt to course-correct after Blade Runner pretty much tanked. Fantasy was supposed to be bankable and the studios were desperate to find the next Star Wars by … Read more
Alas, Remo’s adventure ended as quickly as it began. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) is notable for what it wanted to be as much as what it actually was. You’ve got an attempted franchise-starter based on the Destroyer pulp novels, which shakes and stirs equal parts Doc Savage and James Bond. It’s got Fred … Read more
When Alexander and Ilya Salkind set out to create Santa Claus: The Movie, they went straight to their Superman: The Movie playbook from ’78. Same formula: massive production values, international cast, mythic origin story followed by a contemporary evil supervillain scenario. “The Movie” indeed. They even brought back David and Leslie Newman to write it. … Read more
Starring Marc Price, Jackie Earle Haley, Tiffany Helm, Bobby Jacoby, Eric Gurry, Jason Gedrick and Ben Vereen is absolutely a real film that happened. Not only that, but it’s also one of the first films to don the PG-13 rating. This flick’s a proper historical artifact and it’s been mostly dust-covered and forgotten since it … Read more