Category: 1980s

Masters of the Universe (1987)

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Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that this might be one of the very worst span of four weeks during one summer movie slate ever?  It started with July’s Jaws: The Revenge and Superman IV: The Quest of Peace, and now ends with one of the more spectacular Cannon Films failures, Masters of the Universe.

The origin of how this movie came about takes root from the Mattel smash toy hit of the same name.  Trust me, when I was little, everyone had He-Man toys.  We’d walk around and ask each other if they want to play “He-Mans” and usually had our figures in tow at all times.  We fucking loved this shit.  What’s funny is that the toys were super cheaply made.  For the most part, every figure had the same overly muscular body spray-painted different colors with different heads and different accessories or attachments.  When you have a bunch of of the very same body for every male figure, it makes production costs quite a bit lower and gives you much more of a profit when these things sold like crazy hotcakes. Continue reading “Masters of the Universe (1987)” →

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

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What’s this?  Another utterly disappointing fourth film in a franchise to be released in July of 1987?  You bet it is!

In a span of four weeks in the middle of the summer of 1987, moviegoers had to be subjected to Jaws: The Revenge from Universal, this week’s feature, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and Masters of the Universe.  The latter two being massively popular intellectual properties for young kids – both released by Cannon Films.

That’s fucking depressing to know that much shit flew out of screens into your face in such a short period of time. Continue reading “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)” →

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

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Oof magoof…  Talk about your ill-advised sequels.

1975’s Jaws is a cinematic triumph in proportions never seen before.  It broke box office records.  It was the first, true “blockbuster”.  It changed the way movies are released.  Hell, it created what would become the “summer movie”.

The funny thing is, it shouldn’t have worked out the way it did.  The production was a disaster with mechanical sharks used to depict “Bruce the Shark” constantly breaking down and nearly unusable to the point that direct Steven Spielberg had to become incredibly creative on how he shot the shark.  The production shot at sea which caused lots of problems when unwanted boats simply drifted into frame.  The film went way beyond schedule and way over budget. Continue reading “Jaws: The Revenge (1987)” →

Megaforce (1982)

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Ah Megaforce.  What took me so long to come around to you?

I think I probably subconsciously waited for this exact moment – to commemorate Megaforce’s 35th anniversary of release.  There’s a bit of insanity surrounding this masterful piece of cinematic art.  First, you probably didn’t know that it has a deep connection to another 1982 classic sci-fi movie – Blade Runner.  Yeah.  There was a film company in Hong Kong who put together the funding for MegaForce, Blade Runner, and two other films to hopefully breakthrough in the United States.  All of them were box office failures (well…  technically High Road to China was not a failure, just forgotten). Continue reading “Megaforce (1982)” →

Paradise (1982)

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Let’s jump back, for a moment, to 1980.  At the time, a young actress by the name of Brooke Shields was considered both a very pretty girl, and an up and coming actress.  In 1978, Shields starred in a movie called Pretty Baby which covered the taboo topic of child prostitution in the early 20th century.  She was 12 at the time of shooting, and she appeared nude in the film.  If you were 10 to maybe 15 years old at the time, you might have thought that was the tits, but if you were older, you’d probably be some sort of sex weirdo if you found any pleasure in that. Continue reading “Paradise (1982)” →

Date with an Angel (1987)

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I think I’m going to wish I had picked a different movie to include in Phoebe Cates Month.  I mean, Shag is a charming little movie (despite how awkwardly I was turned on by dance numbers including the Confederate flag).  Baby Sister was actually much better than I expected a disposable movie of the week to be.  Next week’s movie, Paradise, has a whole lot going for it despite it being a pretty bad knockoff of an already bad movie.

But, no, I had to include 1987’s Date with an Angel. Continue reading “Date with an Angel (1987)” →

Baby Sister (1983)

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Phoebe Cates Month rolls on with our next movie, the 1983 possibly-sultry-but-maybe-not-tv-movie Baby Sister!

After Cates dove into all our fantasies in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (her second film role, and if you can just hold your damn horses for a couple more weeks, we will certainly be discussing the first film role), she was able to continue to work relatively steadily for the next few years.  Later in 1983, she would get another big-time part in the coming of age comedy Private School before returning to TV to deliver this cherry line in the miniseries Lace where she played a sex symbol actress searching for her natural mother. Continue reading “Baby Sister (1983)” →

Shag: The Movie (1989)

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It’s a new month and a new opportunity to have a new theme.

Back in December, I covered Alyssa Milano in a way that only a real creep, or possibly that undertaker character Tom Petty played in the “Last Dance with Mary Jane” video, could.  That was a way to look at the body of work of a 90s dream girl who blossomed into a girl who really liked making movies teenage boys liked to watch.  For April, I decided to step back to the 1980s and talk about another brunette vixen that boys love to this day – Phoebe Cates. Continue reading “Shag: The Movie (1989)” →