1980s – Page 18 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Written by Lawrence Kasdan
Directed by Steven Spielberg

It’s interesting watching these movies and seeing them juxtaposed, realizing the gap in quality between what Disney was putting out in 1981 and Paramount in the same year. Raider of the Lost Ark came on June 12, putting it up against Mel Brooks’s History of the World Part 1 and Clash of the Titans. Both of these are delightful films but compared to Raiders, I just don’t think they can hold a candle. The script here is tightly written with some of the best set pieces in an adventure-action movie to date. However, as I have revisited films during my flashback series, sometimes I discover a beloved classic has many more flaws than I remembered, and that can reshape how I feel about the movie.

Movie Review – The Devil and Max Devlin

The Devil and Max Devlin (1981)
Written by Mary Rodgers
Directed by Steven Hilliard Stern

This Disney film began life in 1973 as a concept developed at Hammer Films. It was going to be called The Fairytale Prince and star Vincent Price as a dead actor who collects children’s souls for The Devil. Now that would have been a movie. Instead, we got this uneven, poorly written & directed embarrassment. By the 1980s, Disney was not in a good spot. Changes in leadership since the death of Walt led to a company that seemed to lack a clear identity. They produced live-action movies like Escape From Witch Mountain or Freaky Friday, which performed poorly at the box office. Their animated fare (The Rescuers, The Fox and The Hound) weren’t doing too well either. But even those look good compared to this one.

Movie Review – Time Bandits

Time Bandits (1981)
Written by Terry Gilliam & Michael Palin
Directed by Terry Gilliam

Over the last 20 odd years, I’ve held varying opinions on the work of Terry Gilliam and Monty Python. I can’t say I was ever a superfan of either, but I certainly have enjoyed pieces of their work. For a long time, I counted Brazil as one of my favorite films ever. The more I rewatched it, the more I cooled on that opinion, and I still regard it as one of the best movies to come out in the 1980s. I think the problem I have with Gilliam is the inconsistency of his work, especially within a single film. There will be moments of sheer brilliance followed by sloppy, amateurish content. I always feel like I am on the precipice of greatness watching his pictures, only to walk away with the sense that some vital component was missing. I first saw Time Bandits on television when I was a child, and it left an impression on me to the point that specific images were seared onto my brain after a single viewing. Revisiting the movie, I found it once again had great ideas but poor execution.

Movie Review – The Great Muppet Caper

The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
Written by Tom Patchett, Jay Tarses, Jerry Juhl, and Jack Rose
Directed by Jim Henson

By 1981, the Muppets were a scorchingly hot media franchise. Puppeteer Jim Henson had been growing a collective of fellow puppet enthusiasts since the 1950s. In the late 1960s, he was a major creative force in developing Sesame Street. Throughout the 1970s, Henson pitched the Muppets with a series of television specials. American networks weren’t interested in developing the concept into a television series; however, a British producer was. The Muppet Show debuted in 1978 on ITV and was later aired in first-run syndication on CBS. This led to the Muppet Movie in 1979, and it was clear a sequel would be in the works. Jim Henson had great ambition not just for these characters but the art form of puppetry.

Comic Book Review – Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1 (of 9)

Crisis On Infinite Earths Part 1 (of 9)
Reviewing stories found in DC Comics Presents #78, Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, All-Star Squadron #50-52, Fury of Firestorm #41, Infinity Inc. #18, and Green Lantern #194
Written by Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Dann Thomas, and Steve Englehart
Art by Curt Swan, George Perez, Mike Clark, Arvell Jones, Rafael Kayanan, Todd McFarlane, and Joe Staton

Worlds lived. Worlds died. And nothing was ever the same again. It began with The Flash #123 (Sept. 1961) when Barry Allen discovered another Earth vibrating at a slightly different frequency than his own. This was labeled Earth-2, and here he met Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. Garrick had become the Flash in the 1940s; historically, he was the first to bear the name. However, Garrick was a fictional comic book character in Allen’s world, the character he took his name from. This team-up would lead to an annual event in the pages of Justice League of America where the team would cross worlds and help out their allies in the Justice Society combatting their mutual villains.

Movie Review – Robocop (1987)

Robocop (1987)
Written by Edward Neumeier & Michael Miner
Directed by Paul Verhoeven

As an adult, I have developed an entirely new appreciation for the work of Paul Verhoeven. He was born in The Netherlands but managed to create a framework for American action movies in the 1980s while simultaneously delivering brutal satire about the United States. Robocop was his second English language film and his first pass at skewering the direction of Reagan’s America. The result is a science fiction classic, a combination of themes from Frankenstein mixed with commentary on the rise in corporatization of the public sphere. It’s not as biting as Starship Troopers, but it is full of brilliant takes on the United States’ ease & comfort with war and violence.

Movie Review – Aliens

Aliens (1986)
Written & Directed by James Cameron

It had been a good decade or more since I last watched Aliens and since then I’ve gotten two viewings of Alien under my belt. It is astonishing how different these movies are in almost every regard. It’s a true case of the aesthetics and tone changing to accommodate a different type of story and it doesn’t diminish from staying true to the one character that is a constant in this series. Alien is a claustrophobic, horror story that emphasizes a sense of being alone. Aliens is a more bombastic aggressive film, yet still fills its future with plenty of details. I think I found myself appreciating Aliens more while also understanding why Alien is still my favorite of the two pictures.

Movie Review – They Live

They Live (1988)
Written & Directed by John Carpenter

By the end of the 1980s, John Carpenter had grown increasingly furious with how Ronald Reagan had transformed America into a capitalist’s wet dream. Houseless populations were rising while corporate profits skyrocketed. He saw Reaganomics and its acolytes as aliens from another world, harvesting humanity for its labor and resources, leaving a dried, empty husk. Carpenter started to pay closer attention to marketing and saw the embedded consumer propaganda that underlies everything, pushing people to constantly spend money on things they didn’t need. An encounter with a Universal Studios executive who didn’t see a problem with selling out because “everyone does” served as a significant catalyst for Carpenter to make this film. The result is cult classic and science fiction masterwork.

Movie Review – Predator

Predator (1987)
Written by Jim Thomas & John Thomas
Directed by John McTiernan

After the release of Rocky IV, a joke went around Hollywood that he’d run out of people to fight. His next opponent should be an alien. Brothers Jim & John Thomas decided to bang out a script inspired by this joke. The original script, titled Hunter, featured a band of alien hunters from various species hunting down targets. This was revised and refocused to one alien hunting down a group of human soldiers. It was initially envisioned as a pulpy low budget science fiction picture, but producer Joel Silver saw it as a perfect follow-up to his recent Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger. John McTiernan was hired to direct, having only made one previous film. Predator would be his studio debut and would lead to one of the career-defining action films of the era.

Movie Review – Videodrome

Videodrome (1983)
Written & Directed by David Cronenberg

Few voices in science fiction and horror are as unique as David Cronenberg. He often makes films that are intentionally complex and reality-bending enough to confound audiences. Videodrome is a masterpiece of body horror touching on the themes Cronenberg found most fascinating during this part of his career: sexuality and the inner development of humanity. We’re thrust into a world like ours but where reality is slightly off from the start. It’s never clear if this is the near future or an imagined present. This lack of detail about when this happens is precisely what the film needs to exist in an uncanny space as it tells its story of humanity’s psychic transformation at the hands of mass media.