Posted on 06/16/2012 6:25:40 AM PDT by Saije
Rock of Ages" revels in the big hair and tight leather pants of a very specific place and time: the Sunset Strip in 1987, when bands like Guns N' Roses and Poison got their start. But a lot of great movies came out that year, too. Here are five of them:
"Full Metal Jacket": One of Stanley Kubrick's best — and I really should find a reason to compile that list one of these days — this Vietnam War drama lulls you in with its humor in the first half, then blows you away with its brutality in the second...
"Raising Arizona": Still one of my all-time favorites from the Coen brothers and a great example of the off-kilter vibe that arose from their brief collaboration with then-cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld...
"Moonstruck": I've always enjoyed the balance that director Norman Jewison and Oscar-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley strike here. This is a movie that's unabashedly old-fashioned and sweet but with a no-nonsense and slightly shaggy streak...
"Less Than Zero": A lurid depiction of the drugs and decadence of the time. Having grown up in Los Angeles in the 1980s, I can attest that this is not necessarily what it was like — not in my tame little corner of the San Fernando Valley, where sneaking wine coolers felt rebellious...
"Dirty Dancing": This is a nostalgic choice, admittedly. I probably should have picked something artsier and more respected like "The Last Emperor," which won nine Academy Awards including best picture. But looking back, which film left the most enduring mark on the culture, on the era? Of the five listed here, it's "Dirty Dancing," far and away...
(Excerpt) Read more at superiortelegram.com ...
Indeed it is.
Never saw the Running Man, but since I like the rest of your list, I’ll try to find it somewhere.
“I went through each day knowing that tomorrow was going to bring something better.”
That perfectly sums up the 80s/Reagan for me. To a ‘T’.
And for movies, Charlie Sheen, before everyone knew what a space cadet he was, was fantastic. The Brat Pack stuff as well. I find it funny how many times Hollywood has conceptually gone to the 80s well, if not straight re-dos, and fails miserably every time. There have been a few ‘spiritua;’ remakes of Pretty in Pink/Breakfast Club and they never work. Why? Probably because of the ‘innocence’ thing I mentioned earlier. Kids/younger people today are too jaded to relate. Plus the acting leaves a lot to be desired.
Unles the sex/nudity can be called acting. In that case they all need Oscars today. Not that I’m totally opposed to nudity in films but come on. It’s gotten ridiculous.
Running Man is awesome, imho. Richard Dawson (RIP) really does a great job playing the “game show” host.
I’d say being a child in the 60s and early 70s in a Southern California beach town beats that.
Uncrowded, 100% safe, fun, perfect weather — we kids were allowed to run free from sunrise to sunset, play in the local parks, explore the local canyons, play in the surf, build bonfires on beaches — set off fireworks on the 4th of July. Truly Wonderful!!
Now? Come to Southern California and see for yourself!! Local beaches regularly receive grades of F and F - for the quality of the water. Homes have expensive security and surveillance systems. Local parks have been taken over by gangs or large Mexican families blasting ranchero music, fireworks are illegal almost everywhere. No one dares to take their eyes off their precious children for even one nano-second here. Doors are locked, people are suspicious. Decades of unfettered illegal immigration have ruined this state.
And taxes! Don’t get me started.
This is what leftist maniacs have done to my home state.
Yep.
It is obviously difficult to separate being in your 20s from deciding what were the best times of your life, and so the '80s were the time I float back to in my daydreams. The music, the hope, the optimism.... In the early '80s I was in the Marines and Reagan was my Commander-in-Chief. Then came marriage, kids, a new house.. The economy was roaring back to life and the sky was the limit. Morning in America was warm and sunny.
And now I'm making myself sick thinking about pushing 60, the era of the Kenyan communist Ubama, the sodomization of the military, the celebration of depravity, the handing over of a nation to third-world, next-gen, Democrat parasites, and the irreversible decline of America.
Whoop-de-freaking-do..
As the great Rodney Dangerfield once said, "Death, where is thy sting?"
I lived in Orange in 78-79. Cali was tanking already, but even then it was still a great time. Height of skateboarding’s golden era. “The Big O” skatepark was heaven ;)
Was back for a couple months (Riverside) in 2001. It didn’t take long to leave.
My Top Faves from ‘87:
Barfly - My second favorite Mickey Rourke movie after The Pope of Greenwich Village.
Hellraiser
The Last Emperor
Predator - Maybe not Oscar-worthy cinema, but a heck of a lot of fun!
Robocop
The Untouchables
***
Honorable mentions:
Tin Men
Full Metal Jacket
The Running Man - another fun Arnie flick. The scene with Maria Conchita Alonzo working out in her lingerie is reason enough to watch (yowza!)
***
My least faves from 87:
Wall Street
Fatal Attraction
Superman IV: Pee-YEW!
I had a recent conversation with someone regarding just how ‘available sex is today for anyone that wants it and why porn/sexual fetishes ect gets more and more extreme as time goes by.
Even in the 80s, we had to work for it. The romantacized notion of the ‘thrill of the hunt’ was still quite real. But today, it’s just ‘friends with benefits’ and literally less of a big deal than calling someone to hit a show or concert was back then. Today it just a text message “Wanna FXXX later?”
And that’s considered 100% normal. By 16 YOs. Literally. Absolutely no emotion attached. Purely self infulgent physicality.
Now granted, I had my fun, but there was ‘fun’ to be had. Today? Not from what I’m told. Purely a mechanical act and the ‘fun only comes in with seeing just how far one can degrade the other. Gee...can’t understand why things are as they are now....
A terrible movie, properly skewed.
“First half good; second half crap. Why did Matthew Modine speak like he had some sort of brain injury throughout the film? “
He did sound like John Wayne with autism.
The 80s.. growing up, high school, my first job, my first apartment. Great music, never knew how good I had it living at home. No real worries, Mama and Dad took care of everything. Now, staring at 46, heading into a divorce, bills bills bills. Sometimes I would give anything to go back to sitting in my room, reading and listening to my stereo or going over to my friends Steve’s place to play video games on that new fangled NES he just got. Things were much simpler then.
I was 8 or so and stayed home all summer by myself during the day with nary a worry. Can’t think of doing that now, its sad how far we’ve fallen as a society.
1987? Seems like a different world, now. What’s funny is that I remember thinking in the early 80’s about how edgy we kids were compared to my WWII era parents.
Now, looking back on it, compared to today and what my kids face, the 80’s seem like Mayberry.
Just watched “The Untouchables” again recently. Great flick.
Xer Ping
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Dirty Dancing left a mark on our culture.....sort of like a skid mark in your shorts.
1987 was the last year of being “young” for me. Indiana University’s last NCAA Championship, newly married living in a dumpy apartment, settling into my career. Weekend canoe trips and Cub games and concerts with my college buddies. Bachelor parties & weddings (espcially the Serbian Orthodox one that set some sort of drinking record). The infield of the Indy 500.
By the end of the year we had our first house and the first kid wasn’t too far off. Times were gonna change....
Where is THE UNTOUCHABLES? A stellar David Mamet script, a Morricone score that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up straight, tense direction by Brian DePalma, and an Oscar winning turn by Sean Connery as Jimmy Malone. DeNiro’s Al Capone is the icing on the cake.
I remember the fan press playing up SUPERMAN IV like it would be a return to the greatness of the first two movies, making up for the underachieving SUPERMAN III. I was stunned when I finally saw the film. What a fustercluck! Now, SUPERMAN III looks like an epic in comparision to the fourth film, which was an unqualified disaster.
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