Bizarre, Forgotten, 80's Mainstream Movies

My fiancee and I have been going through old 80s movies like these. In particular, Lair of the White Worm starring a slightly less goofy Hugh Grant and Warlock – a film that solidified Julian Sands as a fantastic villain.

We also watched Dead Alive which, while a movie from the 90s, was filmed in New Zealand so it may as well have been from the 80s.

And Catherine Oxenberg…holy cow I had a crush on her when I was a kid.

In spandex. With a bright blue headband. And a flying motorcycle.

Gymkata was an oddball. It looked like an attempt to create a new action hero actor in the person of Kurt Thomas because he was famous, athletic and hunky enough. But by gosh that film was a stinker.

Well, it was produced in the 80’s. I saw this in the theater. Some of the social commentary was pretty good actually.

I was thinking of stuff like The Final Countdown and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Does Gleaming The Cube count? What a weird-ass movie.

I loved Millennium, and I believe it’s available to watch instantly on Netflix now.

The Stunt Man
Local Hero

I don’t know if it qualifies as forgotten but how about Life Force as a clasic 80’s cult movie?

God I loved that movie as a kid.

Here we go:
Yor: Defender of the future.
After the Fall of New York (Shorty’s death is possibly greatest self-sacrifice in cinema ever filmed)
Remo Williams (what other film has gun fire as the main beat in the soundtrack?)
Doc Savage
Space Hunter: Adventures in the forbidden Zone (saw that in 3d)
Cherry 2000
Jake Speed
Heart Beeps
Less obscure but still bizzare and awesome
Enemy Mine
Innerspace
Buckaroo Banzai
Black Hole
Iron Eagle
Labyrinth
Dark Crystal

Almost forgot
Fat Guy goes Nutzoid (quiet possibly the worst film ever made)

To answer the original question it was the 80 and there was tons of money. I would love to be a fly on the wall in pitch meetings in the 80s. Think about it Ghostbusters… So then this Giant Marshmallow Man comes stomping through NY like Godzilla)
God Bless 80’s cinema

Subway and The Big Blue, both directed by Luc besson (of Leon and Fifth Element fame). Subway is a really strange movie starring Christofer Lambert. Didn’t really like it much. I really liked The Big Blue, however. Cool flick about competetive diving where the two leads keep trying to one up each other by going deeper and deeper. Then things get really weird at the end…

Also, looking up Mr Lambert on IMDB reminded me of Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. This was an attempt to make a more “realistic” telling of the Tarzan tale. Not sure if it holds up since I haven’t seen it since it was released.

How about Earth Girls Are Easy?

Damn you all for reminding me Buckaroo Banzai versus The World Crime League never happened. Ditto for Remo Williams sequels.

Subway does, at least, establish Luc Besson’s modus operandi: Awesome opening twenty minutes or so establishing a really great premise, which then goes stylishly goes nowhere at all.

I had somehow totally forgotten he directed The Big Blue. Jean Reno is ridiculously great in that.

HA, I watched Buckaroo last weekend…sucks about no sequel.

That was the one where they dubbed Andie MacDowell’s lines, right?

Well … it kind of did, in spirit anyway. W.D. Richter, who directed Buckaroo Banzai, was brought in to script doctor Big Trouble (which was going to be a western). It’s theorized that he may have integrated some of those ideas into the latter movie, though now that I am looking for citations I can’t find any. So it’s possible I made all that up.

Well of course Ken Russell movies are a category unto themselves.

Also from the 80’s there’s his Altered States with William Hurt getting all devo. “I’m … eating … a goat …”

I always liked Head Office, a comedy about 80’s big business with Judge Reinhold. It came out after Beverly Hills Cop, but it doesn’t seem terribly well known.

It’s uneven to be sure, and the plot is pretty standard stuff, complete with chase sequences. It shoehorns as many 80’s “stars” in it as possible. Rick Moranis, Danny Devito, Don Novello of Father Guido Sarducci fame, etc.

On the plus side, a lot of the satirical looks at the corporate world really work well, and some of the bits are hilarious. I especially liked Reinhold’s stint in the complaints department vs. the likes of the Unshorn Sisters of the Apocalypse.

edit: Hmmm, now that I think about it that last one comes from Bloom County, not this film - but there was a similar group in the film.

The Toxic Avenger