Archive for Release Year: 1984

10 posts from 08 December 2023 to 11 July 2017.

  • Footloose

    For a musical about organising a dance off, there’s less dancing than you would expect. It’s more ugly brawls, sermons and grieving over dead loved ones.

  • Ghostbusters

    The 80’s equivalent to the Fleischer cartoons. A smörgåsbord of dated effects, product placement, smoking in inappropriate locations and sex jokes. You know … for kids!

  • The NeverEnding Story

    Kids falling down: The Movie of the Book. Eat you heart out, Labyrinth and The Princess Bride.

  • Police Academy

    A higher-brow Porky’s (with Kim Catrall too, sadface), still very unfunny. Aged very badly, but I think it was already bad when it came out. Still not much copaganda…

  • Conan the Destroyer

    Conan does The Hidden Fortress, while being driven by a girl, and hearing the lamentations of that woman.

  • The Terminator

    I like this “modern” The Outer Limits adaptation, it’s very old school.

  • Red Dawn

    This is… Wow. Puts the Cold War in perspective, in this particular case, the Walter Sobchak’s perspective.

  • Blood Simple

    A reversed noir with an horror twist. A great start to a meteoric career.

  • Beverly Hills Cop

    Damn, Eddie Murphy is like a charismatic Dave Chapelle. The film is a weird blend of Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, on the comedic side. It’s all script, with minor Bruckheimer action scenes peppered within.

  • Romancing the Stone

    Well well, Robert Zemeckis, notorious second fiddle to Spielberg, does a better Indiana Jones than the real deal, much superior to Temple of Doom and even Raiders. That wasn’t on my bingo card.