5 Eighties Movies-Spotlight - 1987

What a year.  I started it as an 11 yr old, and ended it as..a 12 yr old.


Here are 5 movies from that year that I will stop channel surfing for (unless I have absolutely anything going on at all)

1. 3 O'clock High-Casey, we are so glad you grabbed Buddy Revelle.  This is one of my favorite pieces of 1987 nostalgia--loved this movie.  I linked one of my favorite clips where he gives his 'racy' book report.  The teacher in this movie was very hot.  Like I said, I was 12 or maybe 13 when I first saw it--13 is a very horny age.  I'm still waiting for that to wear off.  Very quotable movie--possibly my favorite "Hey Mitchell.  Tell all your little friends.  There's no escape from the Duker.'  No wait, I used to love my sister's rendition of 'Don't Fuck It Up Mittcheellllll'

2. Robocop-Pretty dark.  Again, as a tween, I was a little intimidated by this semi-post-apocalyptic (I made that up just for this movie, but if you've seen it you know what I"m talking about..no nuclear holocaust, just somehow..sucky near future landscape).  this was a pretty graphic movie--the shooting scenes were way over the top and the bad guys were...really scumbags.  Anyone remember the line from the sicko TV show guy?  Overall though, great special effects from 1987 and it showed us that movies need have no redeeming value to be watched 10+ times.  This list is giving you a good picture of my generation vs guys that were born in the 50s and 60s.  One Christmas I was asking everyone which movie they'd seen the most and how many times.  Everyone my age or younger had a dozen movies they'd seen at least a dozen times.  My Uncles were like 'The Getaway' with Steve McQueen--it's the only movie I've ever seen twice.  haha  Back to Robocop--this clip I linked was my initial introduction to hating guys in suits.  Guys in suits synonymous with money-grubbing killers.  They just want some coke and hookers and care about nothing else.

3. Adventures in Babysitting-Besides the fact that she was hot, again I was 11 or 12 when I saw it, Elizabeth Shue (photo is a magazine cover strictly for dog lovers) was made for the role.  I will always remember her as the girl who grew up during one night of babysitting in the city.  The casting was great, all staples of 1980s awesomeness and it was just far enough away from campy (for the most part), so it had enough appeal that we can all quote from it shamelessly.  I don't think there is much to say--epitome of an 80s storyline, well produced (for 1987) and deserving of its spot in 1980s arcana, dug in like a tick sucking your blood.

4. Can't Buy Me Love-What a great picture.  Boy I love the Internet--at 12 years old, this image has been burned in the back of my mind like resin in an overused bong bowl...yow!
Before he was McDreamy, my Maine man Patrick Dempsey was in a great romantic comedy where he is the king of the dorks and he gives a ton of money to the hottest chick in school--played by Amanda Peterson; I linked to her IMDB to show you that this was almost literally the last thing she ever did but then I found a blog post centered around what she did and what she is doing now.  Interesting  Great movie though, totally brings me back to my tweenage.  I know I am sticking to 1987, but in 1989 McDreamy made an even better movie called 'Loverboy' where a job delivering pizzas somehow turns to his becoming a gigolo and it has one of those cheesy chase scenes where a bunch of people are adding in until a ridiculous culmination of car and party crash that is just so craptastic that I love it.  I got in on the ground floor McDreamy, I hope you remember that you sonofabitch.


Before I get to 5, let me just tell you that I had a hard time coming up with just 5--apparently 1987 was a bonanza for me--Dragnet, Predator, The Princess Bride, Innerspace, Spaceballs, White Water Summer, Leonard 6 (haha)--I eventually decided I need to go a little low key and get off the mainstream tip, so here is the 5th and final film of the spotlight

5. Amazon Women on the Moon-This is the cornucopia of late 80s stars--like a petri dish for under performing box office 'almost were' stars!  I have to be honest, I didn't see this in 1987.  It is pretty R-rated and not mainstream enough that I would have been able to snag it on HBO, (which is hardly as old as I am).  But I do remember the first time the gang and I picked this up at the video store, probably in the early 90s in high school.  It is a montage movie with some really really funny stuff going on; the frame device weaves a late night movie (think Matt Helm) into seemingly endless nonsensical shit that goes on and on.  Over the course of the movie the list of stars is impressive:
Arsenio Hall
Phil Hartman
Michelle Pfieffer
Peter Horton
Sybil Danning
David Alan Grier
B.B King
Rosanna Arquette
Steve Guttenberg
Archie Hahn
T.K. Carter
Rip Taylor
Slappy White
Henny Youngman
Steve Allen
Ed Begley Jr
Kelly Preston
Andrew Dice Clay
Carrie Fisher
Bela Lugosi (albeit just footage)
Ronny Cox
Huey Lewis and finally
Robert Loggia.

For the attached clip, I couldn't decide if it was going to be the Arsenio clip, or Ed Begley as 'The Invisible Man' --but then I found one of my favorite scenes with Andrew Dice Clay and I knew instantly which would be linked for all time in the blogosphere--I found a couple of the actual clips, which were a little more graphic than I thought necessary, and then I stumbled upon this sanitized version and it fights just right.
  'Your cheating days are over street meat!'  Enjoy and au revoir 1987, you are gone but we still have you on youtube.com and off hours cable!