Flyover Guys
Just a couple middle-aged midwestern fellas who are here to yap about pop culture and sports. Occasionally, we'll fly over some random, forgotten about topics from the past that we hold near and dear to our hearts.
Flyover Guys
Episode 31: 80s Summer Movie Draft
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Joel and Seth just can't get enough summer movies. This time, the two draft their favorite movies from the 80s. Thank you for listening and enjoy!
Welcome to the Flyover Guides, a show by two middle-aged Midwestern fellows who are just trying to figure out what was, what is, and what will be about aspects of American culture from our little plot of soil here in the Heartland. So jump on board with this week's episode. I'm Joel, this is Seth, and we are dealing with uh summer blockbuster movies, and we're gonna do a little draft from the 1980s, going back to our childhood. So, have you seen any summer movies yet or not?
SPEAKER_00My son and I went to watch the Mandalorian and Grogu adventure movie Star Wars.
SPEAKER_02I don't want to start off on a bummer note. I did too. I saw that one as well. It was fine.
SPEAKER_00It was fine.
SPEAKER_02It was kind of an extension of the show, I felt like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, we took our kids, uh oh no, I should say we took one of our kids and we saw Power Ballad with Paul Rudd, and that was a blast. That's by the guy who that Irish filmmaker I love. Um Nick Jonas and Paul Rudd. He's the guy who did once and Sing Street. And right. So that was a blast. And now I'm super excited because this weekend we got an original, like back in the 80s, original Spielberg movie, and that makes me feel like we're going back to the 80s with hey, it's not a sequel, it's it's original, just disclosure day. I don't want to really know anything about it. Um I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00I know nothing, so I'm gonna go into it. I haven't even watched, I kind of saw stuff on TV because it's showing all the trailers, but that's it. I haven't read anything about it.
SPEAKER_02I know. I'm see this summer, I'm pumped because I've already seen one original power ballad, Spielberg, uh, Chris Nolan's The Odyssey. I know my kids are excited for Spider-Man. So there's this is kind of feeling like an old school summer in a way, and I like it. So that's why we talked about maybe going back to our childhood, back to the 80s, and doing a draft of what are movies that stick with us after all these years that we saw back in the 1980s in the summer. Um, so that's what we're gonna do. Um, it should be fun, and hopefully it allows everybody to go down memory lane. Uh, maybe you hear some movies that you're familiar with or not. Uh, I'll run you through the categories and then we'll spend a lot of the show talking about what would be our picks. We're each gonna get choose 10 movies. So uh we're gonna do our five traditional categories. So we're gonna start with an action movie, a comedy, a drama or romance, a thriller or horror, and a science fiction movie. So those are kind of our five traditional categories, and then our non-traditional categories, we're gonna do sequel, uh, a must-watch with kids, something that's distinctly 1980s, something that's outdated 1980s, like oh, we couldn't make that movie anymore, and then finally a movie that has a non-human as a lead. So that can go in interesting directions as well. So we have kind of almost like two mini drafts going. Um, what we'll do, we'll just go back and forth. And so, Seth, I'm gonna let you call the coin toss here so you can see. Here we go. Nobody wants to challenge my integrity. All right, you want to call it? Yep. Here we go. Go ahead. Tails. What is it? It is heads. That gives me first pick. All right. All right, so I am gonna go into my wheelhouse with my first pick because I remember watching this at the drive-in in the summer of 1985. I was 10 years old. This came out July 3rd. It grossed over $212 million, and that is Back to the Future. I find Back to the Future to be almost a perfect movie. Um do you remember when you saw that for the first time?
SPEAKER_00I watched it at home. I I would say it was probably just a something on TV like a Sunday night. I don't remember seeing it in the movie theater or the drive-in. Uh, but one thing that I do remember is we've talked a lot about movies and we've talked a lot about going to the theaters and rentals and stuff like that. But on Sundays, getting the Wichita Eagle, and you had that TV guide, I would look every week and I would probably flip towards the weekend and see what movies because we grew up out in the country and we didn't have cable TV, so we basically got to see whatever came on the four channels or whatever we had. So I would always look at those Saturday, Sunday, uh, what came on, and that's distinctly. I I remember watching Back to the Future on TV. Um, and anytime it came on, it was such an event. And we rented it. I don't think we ever owned it growing up. Um, right. But yeah, that is like you if you had a number one draft pick for 1980 movies, that's gotta be on the short list. So that was like a knockout of the park, no-brainer.
SPEAKER_02I I if you haven't seen it, have you seen the John Mullaney sketch about Mac to the Future about why nobody quite the plot? Yeah, you told me, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Maybe that's why it can't be redone anymore if you could throw it into that category, but no way.
SPEAKER_02Well, no, no, no. Just don't think too much about it. So was this action or sci-fi? Yeah, I was gonna ask you, are you okay with me putting this in sci-fi? I feel like this is sci-fi. Yeah, I feel like this is I mean, it could be action too, but yeah, I felt like you know, 1.21 gigawatch and going 88 miles an hour. It's just total science fiction. It's time track. Some of these don't yeah, nothing falls into a simple genre. All right, you're up, you got the next pick.
SPEAKER_00Um well, I was thinking about this and what ways I wanted to go. And we've talked about like movies that defined who you are, define who you are, and um so back to the future was on my list. Um so I guess if I had to draft something, it should be kind of a wheelhouse of um the movie that I saw in a theater. Um, and it's I'm gonna go with non-human. Is that okay if I go down to those categories? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Okay. So I'm gonna draft E.T. because I think ET is I mean, it's the name of the movie, so it's gotta be a lead, non-human, right? That's where that fits. So I just remember uh I don't really remember seeing it except for the part where I was devastated when he got sick at the end, and and I've said this on this podcast, but my aunt said that I was bawling in the movie theater. Um but E.T. 1982, June, it was a summer blockbuster, and it's one of the most iconic VHS covers, posters, movie in general, and and that one was something that I grew up with, uh, was always kind of in the back of our minds as kids. You know, you got this is kind of like the precursor to like the stranger things where you have the kids out and they're riding their bikes all over town, and that's really 80s right there. And then you know you have this alien that comes to your and nobody believes you, and it's kind of the kids versus the parents versus the authorities, and so I I gotta pick E.T.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's obviously it's a great call. It's I don't know how much people know about it that Spielberg was not expecting it to be much of a movie, he thought it was gonna be more of his an indie movie. Um, and yeah, it it's fantastic. Uh, I did not like it as a kid, I I remember rebelling. This is just everybody has weird streaks of rebellion when they were kids. And I'm like, E.T. sucks. Who likes E.T.? I mean, Star Wars is so much cooler, E.T. is just lame. And I grew out of that to the point where I saw how wonderful the movie was. I do think E.T. getting sick and dying, that like scared me to death. Because I think I would have been seven years old, and it was so upsetting to me to see that. That I think that was enough for something in my brain to click to go, this movie sucks. And like I said, that was a stupid seven-year-old take. Um, and so I uh I remember everybody dressing up as E.T. I remember the whole Reese's Pieces craze around it when we were little. I remember Yoda made an appearance, I feel like, in E.T. as somebody as somebody's Halloween costume when the kids were all dressed up. So there's a lot of powerful memories for me, too, with E.T. Um, and that I think that movie just reveals what a little punk I was. Um, all right. Well, here we go. Number three, I'm gonna go to action, and I struggled with this more than I thought. I'm picking Raiders of the Lost Ark. Um, I almost wanted to go with The Last Crusade because I saw that in theaters where I remember my parents saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the movie, but I would have been six. I I don't remember seeing that in the movie theater, but I remember watching it on VHS repeatedly uh in the late 80s, and almost like every summer I would watch this movie again and again. And so that I'm because I mean that one came out in 80, I feel like it's 81, yeah, if I'm not mistaken. Um, and that movie grossed 200 million dollars, it came out in June. But like I said, all I heard is that the ending was scary with faces melting, and so when you hear that when you're six years old, you're like, that sounds terrifying and awesome. Yeah, and I will stand by the action sequence on the truck where Indy has to get the arc where it's on the trunk and he's riding horseback, is the greatest action sequence in movie history. Um, between John Williams' score and him getting shot, and I I and you're defeating Nazis, every element of that scene that it's probably a 10-minute sequence, it's it's perfect for me. That that is the perfection of action movies. So that's my choice for number three.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you yeah, you have two of the movies that I literally are the top two on my list. So those are kind of define the decade. So those are good picks. Um I'll go I'll go with a movie that I did not see in the theater. I saw the second one, um, but the first one is one that was a big time rental, especially on sleepovers. Um and I'm gonna go comedy and I'll go with uh Ghostbusters.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I guess you took my next pick. June.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So Ghostbusters was such a great pick. Uh it it was an escape to a place that is a city in the United States, but it's such a good twist on there are ghosts there, and and we have these comedic guys that are all gonna fight the ghosts, and and their whole I don't know. I just love it. It's an original, it's a simple story, but it's it's great.
SPEAKER_02So good. And and Bill Murray is so funny. The chemistry with Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd. It it appeals to everybody. I mean, adults, kids. I remember having a lavender t-shirt with the Ghostbuster on it, and I wore that all summer of 1984, like a weird nine-year-old kid that I was. Thought I was the coolest kid that had that t-shirt. Um, yeah, it was a cultural phenomenon in the 1980s. And the way they even played it up in the the last 20 minutes of the movie where New York's cheering them on, it's like they knew this movie was going to be a cultural phenomenon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's just great. And the thing that and the last thing I want to say about this movie, it it kind of spawned the whole real Ghostbusters cartoon, which is about the that was the age that I was. So then you have the movie, and then you had the cartoon, and and then eventually I saw Ghostbusters 2 in a movie theater with my friend, but that was later on in the decade, and I I loved all of it. I I liked the movie, I liked the cartoon, I liked the toys, uh, everything. So it was cool. Good IP.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, you it's kind of tough these first picks to make a bad pick. I mean, we have E.T. Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, and Raiders. I don't think I don't I don't know. It's gonna be tough to make a bad pick with some of these. Um, I'm gonna go then to You Must Watch with Kids because the way you're trending, you're taking fantastic movies. I'm gonna take the Goonies. Um, I just I just feel like that was something that again, I could watch that over and over again every summer. I'm so happy there's not a sequel to it. Um, but the Richard Donner movie, uh what would that have been? 1985? 1980. Yep, 1985.
SPEAKER_00June 7th, 1985.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, Richard Donner made it. He he had done the Superman movies, and I don't know, it's just this idea. The I will say, when you go back and watch it again, the ending, the last five minutes are awful when they're all on the beach. Yeah, it it wraps up like a sitcom show. But everything else up to that, um, you get the introduction of Josh Brolin, uh actor that we still watch today, uh, that we actually saw in Wyoming. And I told my son as he circled Josh Brolin in a t-shirt shop in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was like, hey man, there's Thanos. Um, but I thought of him as Brandt, uh, the big brother in the Goonies. Um, but it's just it's the thing. Uh everything about the group of friends hanging out together, that that was the world of teenagers and kids on the cusp of being teenagers. And so Brandt and his friends were a little older than Mikey and Data and Chunk. And so I would have been in that 10-year-old range as well. I notice I've taken two movies from the summer of 1985. What a great summer that was. Um, so yeah, I'm gonna go with Goonies. And please don't ever make a sequel.
SPEAKER_00Well, it'll happen one day. Uh the cool thing is, is my brother went last summer on a trip out out there uh to the Pacific Northwest and they went to the shooting location. So in Oregon.
SPEAKER_02Um, that's right. Wasn't it and I think that Rob Reiner made that kind of his studio at like Castle Rock or something like that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they can't remember. Somebody actually owns the house, and you can take pictures and see all the spots on the beach and uh the town, the jail, and all that stuff is still there. So um I that would be a good location to visit one day just to bring back the memories of that. Alright, I'm gonna go back up to action. I know you already took one, but I had to take this. Um probably the this is when I was 10, and it was probably the most anticipated summer movie that I remember coming out and getting ready to go watch, but I'm gonna take Batman 1989. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I was I was actually thinking of that for uh a different category, but I'll explain my reasoning, but that would have been my that would have been in my top ten too. Yeah. I love I think I had that for distinctly 80s. Yeah. Yeah. It works in either one.
SPEAKER_00I I just love uh and Tim Burton was a part of our decade that we grew up in, so his version.
SPEAKER_02Oh, he'll be coming up again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Yep, that's what I got for action. Everybody knows Batman and whatever rendition, or whether it's the comics or the TV show uh back in the 60s, Adam West and all that stuff. Everybody has kind of their own Batman, but that was mine, so yeah, and and they uh it was a controversial choice, Michael Keaton.
SPEAKER_02He was a really controversial choice because he was a comedian, and he and Tom Hanks were kind of following the same trajectory of careers in the 1980s. Uh, we're at a point where Tom Hanks was not the bona fide star we think of him yet. He had made a lot of clunkers, yeah. Um, volunteers, bachelor party, turner and hooch, nothing in common. I mean, punchline. There's a whole bunch in a row. Um, I mean, he had made Splash earlier in the decade. And so a lot of people thought Michael Keaton and Tom Hanks with their parallel careers that that maybe Michael Keaton would surpass him. And then obviously Tom Hanks kind of wins out in the 90s with the roles that that he got with Philadelphia and Forrest Gump and saving Private Ryan and on and on. But I do remember everybody's like, Michael Keaton is Batman? And now here we are all these years later, going, he might be the best Batman ever. Yeah. I mean, I think he I think he's my favorite Batman ever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and it had a more cartoony quality. The fact that Prince did the music for it, um, that's so different of an iteration than Chris Nolan's, which felt like a well, how would you describe Chris Nolan's Batman series? It's almost like gritty real-world crime. Uh it doesn't have a cartoony feel at all. And so people love that about those.
SPEAKER_00I just it's a different interpretation. I think I think Burton is in between Dark Knight and the Adam West. It's it's kind of yeah, right in the middle.
SPEAKER_02Um, that's a good point. That's a really good point.
SPEAKER_00Hey, but don't knock early Tom Hanks because I remember standing in line to go to Joe versus the volcano. So I was in that line.
SPEAKER_02Okay, just for that, I'm gonna go Tom Hanks, and I'm gonna go ahead and take my comedy. I'm gonna take Big. So uh since we're here, I I had a whole bunch of I mean, the 80s, there's a ton of choices for comedy. But I'll go with Big because you know, that's that is the role. This and a league of their own, I feel like are the roles where that blew Tom Hanks up, and I stand by that he should have won Best Actor for that in 1980. Well, I don't know, 1988. I can't remember who won. That might have been Dustin Hoffman for Rain Man. But Big came out in early June, um, grossed over a hundred million dollars, and we could question some of the whole love interest bit um with time travel and all that, but we again it's a fantasy Penny Marshall fantasy movie. I think um the most criminally underused character in that movie though was John Lovitz, and that he was the in the cubicle, and this was the apex of how John Lovitz was so funny on SNL, and they just didn't have a lot for him to do in that movie.
SPEAKER_00He everything else about this movie is fantastic. Yeah, his deadpan humor of just trying to give him a he was kind of the really odd mentor in his job. Like, hey, the pay's terrible, but the fringe benefits are great, you know. Say hello to her and she'll wrap your legs around. I'll stay away from her then. I'll stay away from her then.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a good thing. And then trying to do that like Jimmy Jim Coco Bot, Jimmy, Jimmy Rock, you know, all trying to do all that. That's just like, yes, that stuff you did when you were, you know, 12 years old, 11, 12 years old. So um I uh my kids have watched it, they love big. It's it that movie holds. Again, another movie that I can't believe in the 1980s they didn't make a sequel to, and I'm so thankful.
SPEAKER_00Uh so yeah, I saw that one in the theater, and it's to this day is one of my literally one of my favorite movies just because it hit at the right time uh when it came out. I I was close to their the kids' age, so it it was just perfect. Alright, you're up. Alright, I'm up. I don't know what to to get. I'm gonna um let's see. Alright. Sci-fi. I will get I have two in mind, but I'll probably just go with we I feel like we've talked about a lot of this stuff lately, but um I'm just gonna take Blade Runner. It came out in June of 1982, and I I love the world that they created in that in that movie. And Philip K. Dick uh kind of uh gave the story that it's based on. Uh I like some of his books that he writes, and then you you take that novel and then you turn it into a movie. And in 1982, this movie came out, and I still think it looks perfect for what they had technology to create that world. It's awesome. And everything everybody that creates something like that cyberpunk futuristic world, they can't top what they did in 1982. So that's what I'm taking.
SPEAKER_02That is our dark horse one because that only made 20-something million dollars. So it wasn't really revered at the time. We had talked before doing the podcast about doing a Harrison Ford category. I would say that like 1981 to 1985, or 1980 to 1985, maybe 84. That might be the greatest run of an actor in movies ever. When you talk about Empire and Raiders and Jedi and Blade Runner, um, I know I'm forgetting something. Temple of Doom. I think Witness might have been 85. But yeah, and that's the one that got overlooked from him. And I will say I watched it when I was probably in my young 20s, and I thought it was fine. Um I've come back to it once again, probably in the last 10 years, because I watched the new one uh with Harrison Ford and Ryan Gossling, which I actually thought was fantastic. Uh Denis Villueva, I can never pronounce his name. That guy does not make a bad movie. And uh Yeah, that that's a solid. I mean, that that is a trendsetter, kind of like um, kind of like Terminator. That's a trendsetter. Um all right, here we go. Thriller Horror. I was wondering if you were gonna take Terminator or Blade Runner. I wasn't sure which one you were gonna go with. Um Thriller Horror. I'm gonna go because it was so impactful. I'm going to Lost Boys.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The Vampire Kiefer Sutherland, my friends Smart just sent me. It was up for 12 Tony nominations on Broadway. What the heck? I can't believe that that movie uh was made into a musical. Came out at the end of July of 1987. It grows $30 million. Uh, this is where you get the Coreys. I had figured I had to have one representative of the Coreys. I now have two Corey Feldman movies on here. So Corey Haim, Corey Feldman. Um, I think they were in Santa Barbara, California, and it was like the murder capital of the world, is what the plot of the movie is. And then you get Diane Weist as their mom, and Kiefer Sutherland rocking the kind of the Don Johnson partially shaved, not shaved look with the black trench coat. And so that was my thing in middle school. I looked like such a dork. I wanted to wear a black trench coat to look like Kiefer Sutherland. Um everything about the Lost Boys from the soundtrack to um Jamie Gertz. Um do you know she's the richest actress in uh in the world? What she she married like some billionaire, and so now she's worth like three billion dollars. No idea. Yeah, but anyways, did you see The Lost Boys? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I'm just making sure. Yeah, you know, I have this collection room, and that's one of my favorite uh finds that I had. Somebody that wasn't very far away from me had the the poster, the original poster up for sale. So I just kind of said, hey, I'll take that. The poster is so iconic based off of the VHS VHS cover and all that stuff. Uh but the opening scene of Lost Boys with the the carnival and the boardwalk, uh, and then also like the beach scene with the guy that doesn't have a shirt on playing the saxophone. I mean, a lot of this stuff just doesn't exist outside of this decade. So I love that.
SPEAKER_02I'm embarrassed to say that I've seen that received that as a gift in the last few days. That's that chest-bearing saxophone player all greased up. So I don't want to get into it, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00I it was on my list. It was almost taken by me, but uh yeah. You're up. All right, so I'll just we'll just stick with that uh category and I'll take uh the thing, John Carpenter. I love it. It's yeah. Great special effects. Um any uh Kurt Russell uh movie, he he almost made it, you know, with like being one of the top guys with uh um you know Big Trouble in Little China and some of these movies that he was Escape from New York. Escape yeah, Snake Pliskan. I mean if if he could have added like maybe two more big time movies that were in that kind of in that genre, he could have really pushed uh like Schwarzenegger and Stallone and some of those guys for action star. I he maybe not the I don't know, I don't know how people feel. I I would say he's a tier below those guys in the 80s action. I I like those three movies, the the thing and Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China, they all kind of have a soft spot. So that's where I'm going. I I like the movie. It I like the the setting, I like uh how they're kind of isolated there uh on their research plot in the Arctic, and they don't know what's happening to everybody around them. So uh it's a good one.
SPEAKER_02That's a that's a great pick. We're at our halfway point, so let me go ahead and say at our halfway point. We each have filled out action. Um I have Raiders of the Lost Ark, you have Batman. Uh we each have done a comedy, you have Ghostbusters, and I have Big. We've yet to touch drama and romance, which kind of makes sense because we were probably not thinking much about that in the 80s. Thriller Horror, you just took the thing, and I have Lost Boys. Science fiction, you have Blade Runner, and I have Back to the Future. And then our random categories, the only one we've touched is you have the non-human lead with ET, and I have must watch with kids, the Goonies, and hanging out with your buddies. So now that leads me to, I guess I'll just go ahead and fill out the our traditional categories with drama and romance. Um I g I get so can let me ask you a question. Can romance be now, you know what? Forget it. I'll just do this. I'm gonna do when Harry Met Sally. Um in lieu of Rob Reiner and how much uh I love his films in the 80s. Um I I don't know if I liked this a lot when it came out because I would have been 12. Um, but as I I know I saw it in high school, I know I've watched it in college, I know I've watched it after college. I think the chemistry between Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan is picture perfect. Um I I love the scenery. This was the Harry Conic soundtrack. Uh, there's so many classic lines. My wife and I will even say some of these lines in random conversation, like when we to break up a fight sometimes, just to cool the tensions. It'll be like, oh, I'm the dog. I'm the dog. Just to kind of ease things and start laughing a little bit. Um, and so I I love everything about this movie. So I'll take this for romance, even though it's kind of a romantic comedy, it's still a very romantic movie, I would say.
SPEAKER_00It's a good one. Um, I'm gonna just stick with that category. Let's just knock this out. And so this is good timing for this because Friday is is my old historic theaters monthly uh movie that they show, and I create the trivia sheets for them and stuff. So um this month is Dirty Dancing from 1987. Patrick Swayze, man. I'll tell you what. Um this this this is a move that's drama, right? Drama romance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're you're totally fine with this one. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, body-to-body dancing around dirty. Um I this is summer. I mean, they go off for the summer on vacation and they go to this this old resort. I think it's set in the 60s. And Patrick Swayze, between this and Roadhouse and uh and uh what's the Russian movie? Um The Wolverine. Oh, and Red Dawn. Red Dawn. He he kind of had multiple lanes that he was just cruising down the highway and whatever he he was dancing, he was fighting Russians, he was beating up guys in bars. I mean, he could do it all. Um, but dirty dancing to me, uh it was a hit with all the women, I think. So, yeah, so I I'm gonna choose that and just knock that off my list. 1987. Great call.
SPEAKER_02Um you know, I what was that? Now I've had the time of my life. That was the song, right? The time of my life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he that wrote and sang it. Or he did one of them. Maybe, maybe it wasn't it was uh he didn't do that one. Maybe not that one, but he did one of the other there were like three or four songs on that soundtrack, and he did one of them. Um which one was it? Now I you gotta look it up, but she oh he she she's like the wind. Yes, she's like the wind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So there's Bill Medley. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, hey. And I will say Hungry Eyes was a great song, too. Um again, it's so funny when you start to talk about memories of movies. That movie for me is wrapped around a particular girl who dumped me, and so I hated that movie because I saw her at that movie with another guy. Oh like, you know, when you're that age, that's the end of your world. So I'm just like, forget this movie, I hate it. And I've never looked back. Hey, plus when we were in London, we went to the show. I didn't oh you didn't go.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_02No, I I had a group of kids who didn't want to go, so I took them to Chinatown in London. Yeah, I was with the group that went to the to the show, Dirty Days. Yeah, that sounded like that was a steamy, sweaty show. Yeah. Was yeah. My wife and girls loved it, and I had a group who we went to Chinatown and we went to King's Crossing so you could do Harry Potter stuff. Uh, I will say I had a great time with my son uh at night in Chinatown in London. What a cool experience. Um but all right, so but was it the time of your life though?
SPEAKER_00All right, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02The time of my the time of my life was when we were walking down the street in London and there was there was a uh there was a shop that said the muffin man, and you just randomly said, Hey, have you seen and just point back at it? And I was I still laugh at that every now and then. Uh okay. So sequel. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a curveball at you with a sequel here because you would think I would choose Empire Strikes Back. But I was only five and I have very vague memories of Empire Strikes Back. So I'm not choosing it. I'm not choosing it. Although I could say I could take it and I'd feel pretty good about it. I'm gonna choose I'm gonna choose Rocky III because that to me is the 80s.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I just I I must have worn out a VHS tape of watching and re-watching the final fight of Rocky III uh against Klubber Lang. And I he beat him in round three. He came out and was blitzing him in round one, and then you know, the manager's like, come on, come on! And every time the camera cuts to Klubber Lang's uh corner, he comes back and whoops up on Rocky before you start Rocky comes back, and then in round three, it's like the greatest fight sequence that would never actually happen in a boxing match. And I man, like eight-year-old me, nine-year-old me, that was awesome. And then he was buddies with Apollo Creed, and I just think now the the yellow tank top and the black short shorts running on the beach, and just in the end, they were there gonna punch each other. Everything about that spoke to me about like this is what a Rocky movie is. Yeah, and so I thought about Rocky IV, but I was too scared. I saw that in Towne East, and I remember I had to walk out of the theater for a minute when Apollo Creed was killed. I was so upset. So I don't think I ever got that upset. And I had to have one movie with Mr. T.
SPEAKER_00I wanted one movie with Mr. T. That movie you could almost fill out a Mount Rushmore of you know t early teenage boy iconic characters from the 80s when you start to put up who's in that movie, and it it hits a lot of the right checks a lot of the right boxes. So that's a good one. Alright, your call. Um I will go we'll just get this off the list because I think it's probably on probably on the top of yours as well, so I'll go ahead and take it. But the outdated um I'm just gonna say revenge of the nerds, because we we've we've mentioned that sucker's not getting made today. Um there's a lot of there's a lot of bullying, there's a lot of like potential rape, there's well not a lot, but there's a scene. Um and then there's it's just the nerds, you know. I don't know what people would pick up on today, but I I actually loved these movies growing up, or at least that one. I liked it a lot, and uh, but then when you look back and you're like, no, that's it's probably not good to do something like that.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, you're right. That is a movie that I don't see really out much anymore on people talking about it. I mean, I I remember Booger and um Anthony wouldn't Anthony Anthony Edwards wouldn't be in that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, but you can't, you know, even just like putting cameras in sorority houses. I mean, you just you just can't do I don't think you can make it different worlds. I mean you can make movies, but this is like a mainstream movie. Like this is how you learn, right? Yeah, I mean it's I thought that that was normal. Like, hey, let's you know spy on people. You know, that's not you can't do that. I mean, you're gonna end up in jail, obviously. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So okay, I have a controversial pick. I'm gonna I'll let you be the judge if I can have it or if I can't have it. Non-human lead. Non-human lead. Is a bike count?
SPEAKER_00A bike.
SPEAKER_02A bike. I was gonna quit this movie. I was like, every if you bring up Pee-wee's big adventure, everybody knows you're talking about the bike. That the bike is so iconic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Where else do you where else do you the whole movie, the adventure is to find the bike.
SPEAKER_02It's the bike. And so I have to have it because I love this movie. I I almost said no just so you couldn't take the movie, but I understand I would have understood because holy crap, we gotta have. You know what's funny is it was, you know, when this came out in '85, again, another this is my third movie from 1985, the summer of 85. Um it was kind of panned by uh a lot of critics. I it killed me that it was on Ebert's 10 worst movies of the year. I'm sorry, this is aged just beautifully, and I loved it at the time. I think the jokes are so funny. I get I get back-to-back pics now where Mr. T is referenced in it, so I feel great about that. Um and I I'll say lines from this all the time still, and maybe that speaks more to who I am as a person, but well, I think in 1986 I probably would have said this was my favorite movie, you know.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I didn't see it in the movie theater, but when it came out for rental in '86, that's when I would have seen it. And this is seven. I was seven probably when I saw this. So it was Pee Wee's Big Adventure, it was Garbage Pale Kids. That's who I was at that age. And I Francis. Yeah, I love that movie. It because it's such a visual spectacle in his adventure. Everything is it's like Pee-Wee's Playhouse to show. It it you just want to look at you want to look at everything. You want to look his house was like a dream house when you were a kid growing up.
SPEAKER_02When you're a kid, that's the the secret code stuff uh to unlock to get to the bike, all that stuff. His line deliveries, like, shh, I'm listening to Reason. I mean, everything. All of his line deliveries are just great. So, okay, that's my non-human lead. Thank you for giving me two that you didn't have to give that to me, but thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Alright, so I'm up, and I'll say I'll go into the so 80s category. Distinctly 80s, okay. Distinctly 80s. And I don't know what everybody's thinking for this or what you're thinking for this category, but I had to have something that was Jim Henson, it had David Bowie, it had Jennifer Connolly, and I'm taking Labyrinth. I think Labyrinth is so 80s. Just with the it has all three of those things fit perfectly together. And in 1986, again, this is about the same era of when I would have watched it. Um Jin anything Jim Henson at this time I thoroughly enjoyed. So uh whether it was Muppets or Fraggle Rock or Dark Crystal or Labyrinth or anything like that, um, eventually Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the movie when that came out. I I think this fits nicely and it hasn't been redone, has it? Have they redone? No, no. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh-uh. Uh what what did they just redo? The they did uh a series on um they did Dark Crystal.
SPEAKER_00Dark Crystal. Dark Crystal. They did that, but they didn't do Labyrinth. They're David Bowie's gone, so we can't, you know, he can't be it. I mean, it's a time capsule. So so is Jim Henson.
SPEAKER_02So okay, well, I'll stick with this category then. And I think for distinctly 80s, I think I'm gonna choose because in the early 80s, for people who don't know the first five years of the 1980s, everything revolved around Star Wars. Shoot, even Ronald Reagan was referencing SDI as Star Wars Strategic Defense Initiative, and so you had a lot of ripoffs, and I felt like The Last Starfighter was a fantastic ripoff of it. Um, with Alex playing a video game, and he was so good at the video game that they recruited him in to come out into outer space and then actually played the video game for real, and it's so cheesy and so tacky, and I loved it. Uh, you know, that was like 1984, so it's totally using the winds of Return of the Jedi, and you get Grig, the alien, who's his sidekick, and I don't know.
SPEAKER_00There were if somebody had there were a lot of those like War Games and Tron and a lot of that stuff where you started to blend like video.
SPEAKER_02War Games is just ahead of its time, yeah. I mean, war games is talking about artificial intelligence and all that stuff, and I show that in my pop culture class, and he's almost like using a version, a crude version of the internet. I mean, that movie's I I thought I didn't that doesn't work because all of that still carries up to today. It's true. Um, but not the last starfighter. Last Starfighter is distinctly uh of that decade.
SPEAKER_00So all right. Now I'm questioning if if Labyrinth fits in there because there's like a kidnapping of a child and when she was, you know. I don't know. Maybe that maybe that was a bad thing. I I think you're right though.
SPEAKER_02I think no, I think what you're saying though, with between David Bowie being in movies and Jim Henson productions, that is that's that that's kind of the the apex of that would have been the front half of the 1980s. Unless you picked Willow. Wasn't Tom Cruise in Willow? Oh yeah. Yeah. And Legend, right? Yeah. Oh, and Legend. Yeah, yeah. All right. You got two picks left? I got one left.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh I'm going to this is I'm going to say this just because this happened to me. And I've referenced this on this podcast. I feel like all these that maybe that's because they mean so much to me. But for watching with kids. Now depending on what type of parent you are but stand by me. I watched this with wait a second when did it come out?
SPEAKER_02It's I have written down August of 86. Is that right? Because I wanted this one but I thought this came out oh you're right. Shoot. You're right. I saw it at Christmas. That's how long movies dang it. This is fantastic bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah but it's right it's it's a summer movie. I mean the kids are on summer break. It's right before Labor Day before they go back to school that the end of their their trip is them wanting to see each other in middle school and and maybe not and they kind of drifted apart. But for that adventure of trying to find the dead body they were as close knit a group of four boys as as you can get and I watched it with my dad my dad maybe just because he happened to be there when we watched it it wasn't like a father-son thing but but I go back to this movie every summer and I watch it.
SPEAKER_02This is a slam dunk pick. I totally screwed up because I thought this came out I remember being 11 and what and my parents you said depending on kind of parents they took me to see this at Christmas time. So it was still in theaters. Wow. And so I'm like oh I can't pick Stand by me because it came out in the winter and I was just assuming because I remember seeing it. This is a slam dunk pick. I might have picked this in my top three if I would have been smart enough to look up when this was because you're right this move my kids love this movie. I still love this movie. I mean River Phoenix is amazing. Every kid's amazing in it though. Kiefer Sutherland Kiefer Sutherland is fantastic I was so scared of him when I watched this movie. You thought real violence was going to happen. I mean oh my gosh this this is your best pick because it came so late in the game this is like pulling out an amazing draft pick. So I applaud you on that one. Okay so I'm just left with outdated 80s and um okay I'm going to make my case for it and again you can veto it but I'm going to make my case this is outdated. I'm picking stripes because we can't make a movie that makes fun of the military that we're completely incompetent as a military. No. It also has uh John Lithgow looking at women peering at women in the shower as well but the whole thing is that our military is so bad that we will let these guys in we'll let John Candy in you know we'll all everybody and and again I think I obviously this could have come on a comedy but this is one of the most quotable movies um funniest movies about how bad our military was and that we would let these ding bats have access to some high gear equipment to go what rescue people in Eastern Europe or like Czechoslovakia or something at the time in a Winnebago. So that's my pick for outdated 80s is is well the 80s were so unique.
SPEAKER_00That's what I love about it because everything was on the table like police academy made fun of the police spies like us made fun of our intelligence and strike I mean everything was just it was all fair game. And we all knew that it was just Hollywood so it was yeah that's a good one. That's funny. Maybe the funniest one on the list so um I have sequel I have two on my list and oh there's some good choices. Yeah I'm debating between do I you know do we need to pick a like Rambo 2 was the Sylvester Stallone movie that I I I think I identified most at that time. That was 1985 but but you you picked Rocky III so so I won't take that. So I'm going to go with we haven't done Eddie Murphy movie so I'm going to take Beverly Hills cop two. It's a great choice yeah I love that movie I love that franchise I thought he was as like the height of comedy Eddie Murphy in the 1980s that that was my guy so you're right I I I got to pick it just to represent Eddie Murphy.
SPEAKER_02We could easily put him on there for trading places 48 hours Beverly Hills cop coming to America mid 80s coming to America I have that down too you're right coming to America so I'm glad you did I'm glad you picked Beverly Hills cop too because we needed an Eddie Murphy in there and that was a great call let me let me go through quickly some movies that we left off because I know people will be like how could you not choose because we only get 10 each we left off in my opinion well obviously Empire Strikes Back we left off Caddyshack. Yep I wanted to talk about Superman 2 because I thought Superman 2 was even better than the original. We left off Porkies movie that could never be made obviously Return of the Jedi Trading places we just mentioned Vacation I'm surprised you didn't do anything with Gremlins I'll be honest. I thought you were going to do something with Gremlins My Son Will Kill Me because I did not say anything about the karate kid which again fantastic Ferris Bueller's Day Off The Untouchables we didn't put a Schwarzenegger movie on there. I wondered if Predator I had Predator on my list I had that as my back isn't that great that I had that my backup if you didn't accept Pee Wee Herman I had Arnold Schwarzenegger as my backup to Pee Wee Herman. Full Metal Jacket Roxanne Spaceballs Adventures and babysitting for me and my friends Can't buy me love was like a legendary movie. I didn't know where to fit that one we didn't do anything with lethal weapon movies. No John Hughes right yeah I thought about see that was my last pick was stripes it was between stripes and 16 candles but I I felt like you had covered the ground though with inappropriate dating and such yeah um weird science would have been another possibility but it just goes to show you that for all of these movies the summer was where it was at in the 1980s to to just go to the movie theater and so let me recap for everybody action I had Raiders you had Batman comedy I had big you had ghostbusters drama romance I had when Harry met Sally you had Dirty Dancing Thriller Horror I had the Lost Boys you had the thing sci-fi I had Back to the Future you had Blade Runner sequels I had Rocky III you had Beverly Hills Cop 2 must watch with kids I had the Goonies you had Stand by Me. I think you beat me in that one dang you Distinctly 80s I had the Last Starfighter and you had Labyrinth outdated 80s I had Stripes and you had Revenge of the Nerds and non-human lead I had Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and you had ET I wouldn't really declare a winner in this I think we're all winners from watching 1980s summer movies so yeah and like you mentioned the other winner is summer because now I feel now I feel like they try to strategically strategically release things according to what's coming out. In the 80s they just said everything's coming out in the summer so yeah who cares go watch it go watch it multiple times go to the theater every day it was the best time to grow up I think so and and you picking stand by me also speaks to that came out in late August and as I mentioned I saw it at Christmas time they were still there those movies would would be there three four five months because we'd go back to them and I even noticed when I was looking up um movies from the 80s like ET re-release gremlin's re-release were tracking three years later in the summer of 1985 and in the and later in the uh later in the 80s as well making real money because people wanted to go out and that's right see I'm behind everything I I read Project Hail Mary and then I was like I'm gonna go watch it now it was already out of the theaters I it was gone I was like what I thought it made a lot of money why are they still not milking that you got a whatever week run basically should have that's what happens when you don't read a book in the first ten years that it came out and then the movie comes out and you miss it. So uh well hey thanks for doing this this was a blast yeah um although you revisited some painful memories with Dirty Dancing and that's rough but sorry I'll get over it I'll get over so you're not gonna go watch it at the theater with me on Friday night at my little theater no and didn't they do a sequel wasn't it like Havana Nights or something? Oh yeah maybe I feel like they did a sequel to that one that's the other thing we had how many how many movies with a sequel did we have we had one two three four uh five six seven and uh eight nine ten ten out of our twenty movies had a sequel so that makes sense for the 80s too so um well hey this was fun we will uh hopefully you all enjoyed this and maybe there's an 80s movie that you uh forgot about um that this kind of triggered your memory so if you want to go back and dig out that Deborah Winger Robert Redford Legal Eagles movie or La Bamba you know have at it so take care everybody we'll see you next week see you guys thanks