80s Gems You Need to Watch At Least Once (Trust Me)

There’s something about 80s movies…

They weren’t always perfect…
 they weren’t always polished…

but somehow—they stuck with you.

In this episode of Mostly Me Occasionally Wise, I’m breaking down a list of 80s gems you need to watch at least once—the ones that flew under the radar but still left a lasting impression.

We’re talking about movies that were:

•  a little weird 
•  a little wild 
•  and sometimes… watched WAY too young 😂 

From hidden horror to offbeat comedy, emotional stories to straight-up chaos—these are the films that didn’t always get the spotlight, but definitely deserve your time.

🎬 Featuring:

• The Gate
• The Blob
• The Monster Squad
• The 'Burbs
• 48 Hrs.
• Awakenings

This episode is all about nostalgia, discovery, and those random moments that somehow stick with you years later.

Because at the end of the day…

it’s not always the biggest movies you remember—

it’s the ones that made you feel something.

Thanks for listening to Mostly Me, Occasionally Wise.

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Until next time — stay mostly you, and occasionally wise.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Quick question. When was the last time you watched an 80s movie and thought, wait, how have I not seen this one before? Because there are a lot of absolute gems from this era, and I've got a list of the ones you need to watch at least once. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Mostly Me Occasionally Wise. I am your host, Brian, and this is episode 11. And today we are diving into 80s gems you need to watch at least once. But before we progress any further in this episode, let's get into the dad life debrief. So if you're new to the show, Dad Life Debrief is a weekly segment I do where I invite you into my life outside of the podcast. It gives you an opportunity to see what I go through as being a husband and a family man. And this week has been unpredictable to say the least. Thursday afternoon, I woke up to a text from my wife that simply said, please call me. And so I'm like, okay, my wife usually doesn't send me texts like that unless something's up. And we had let our 13-year-olds, you know, stay home from school because we're just awesome parents. And so my my mind begins to gravitate towards that. Okay, he is home. What has happened? What has what have I missed since I was asleep because I have to work Thursday night? So I give her a call and she's like, don't freak out. Of course, you don't ever start out a conversation with, don't freak out. Because the person on the other end is going to start freaking out. They're going to try to figure out, okay, why am I being told not to freak out? Because there's always a reason to freak out. She then proceeds to tell me that our 13-year-old son has saved a baby duck, and now we have a new member of the family. And I immediately start thinking a million things. I'm like, okay, how is this duck going to live in this house? How are we going to afford this duck? And why a duck? So she she tells me that he was out riding his bike, uh, taking a break from electronics, and is out riding his bike and saw the baby duckling wandering around in the middle of the road. Of course, my 13-year-old has a big heart when it comes to animals, and so he brought it home and cleaned it up and did his research on Google because we know that everything you read on Google is 100% accurate. But he's done his research and he feels that he can take care of this baby duck and it can grow up to be this beautiful mallard, I think is what we determined it was. So I'm stressing out from that that side of things. I'm not necessarily stressing out the fact that my son, you know, who's an animal lover, has saved a baby duck because I would have done the same thing. So, you know, we talked to him, we talked to him a little bit about responsibility, you know, how, you know, now you've essentially got two pets to take care of because he's already got a pet lizard, but he doesn't need to steer away from his household responsibilities. You know, taking care of a baby duck is it's a lot of responsibility, and there are a lot of unknowns because if you do your research about baby ducks, they usually don't tend to live very long without their mother. And that was in the back of my mind because for me that was common knowledge. It was something that I learned growing up just from animal science classes in high school and junior high. So I was worried about that and I was kind of preparing myself on how I was going to handle that situation when it came in, you know, when it came to my 13-year-old. So that night, you know, we got to see the baby duck. We realized that the baby duck likes to poop everywhere, and it got it pooped on him. We took it to the chiropractor's office because he wanted to leave it at home. So all the ladies there at the chiropractor's office were just, you know, melting at this baby duck. But then we let we set it down to run around on the floor and it proceeds to poop everywhere. So as the boys are getting adjusted, you know, we're having to clean up poop at the same time. So that night we set up a little a little area for it to sleep, and we're thinking everything is, you know, copacetic. Everything's gonna go smooth. And I go to work, and the next morning my four-year-old is in here with me hanging out because he's an early riser. He gets up, you know, five, six o'clock every morning, and the 13-year-old comes around the corner, yells my name, and shows me that the baby duck has died. So, of course, there were a lot of unknowns when it came to this baby duck as far as surviving. And of course, you know, I showed my four-year-old and I explained a little bit about what may have happened, and so he was okay. You could really tell it bothered the 13-year-old, but he put on this strong front, I guess, to just not show emotion. And he had to get ready for school too, so there were a lot of other things going on. So he wasn't really allowed time to process as far as what had happened overnight, and so we're gonna fast forward to when we come home from school. I can clearly see that something's bothering the 13-year-old, and he's kind of getting an attitude with me, and I'm like, okay, something's up. And I knew what was going on, but I wanted him to tell me. I wanted him to talk to me about it because those are awkward conversations for him. He he he's still trying to get a hold of his feelings and how to show him when it's appropriate, things like that. And I wanted to give him that opportunity, but he started getting disrespectful, and I essentially had to just force it out of him. And he opened up, and he was sad, but he was beating himself up because he felt that the duck died because of something he didn't do. Essentially, it was his fault that the duck died. And of course, I proceeded to explain to him you can't you can't do that because there were so many variables here. Yes, it was our house wasn't the warmest. We didn't have a heat lamp going because the heat lamp is being preoccupied by the lizard. We don't know how old this baby duck was, we don't know how long it's been away from its mother. You know, there were there were just a lot of variables. Of course, I tried to explain that to him, and he heard me, but you could still tell it was still bothering him. And of course, I reassured him, you can't you can't beat yourself up. But my main focus of the conversation was he needed to allow himself some time to grieve because as soon as he got home, he did his chores and then he went to playing video games. And yes, I understand video games are an escape, but they're an they're a temporary escape because it's essentially like a band-aid, the way I but I best described it. The boo-boo's still there, even though the band-aid's on top of it. It's a temporary fix. So I told him to stop playing. I told him to go take 20 minutes and just grieve. I said, cry, be sad, man, because you were you were attached to this duck. You know, this duck had a name. You really were looking forward to taking care of this duck. I mean, it is kind of cool to to potentially be able to say, hey, I raised this duckling from a baby to a full-blown adult duck, and now it's flying south for the winter, but it didn't work out that way. And so I wanted him to go and grieve, you know, and process the emotions, and he did that. And he came back and we talked a little more about it, and I kind of stressed again, you don't need to beat yourself up about something that you don't necessarily know occurred because you know, he his initial thought was there wasn't a heat lamp on the duck, so the duck died because it was cold. And that could have been the that could have been the case, but again, after doing our research, and I even talked to a couple of people at Tetractive Supply Company here in town, you know, there were just a lot of unknowns. And uh it was not an easy conversation to have with my 13-year-old son because you know parent ever likes to see their kid cry. And so we're doing better now. You know, we're on the up and up. He's got a girlfriend, so everything is all good with him. So was me. Just got home from the chiropractor's office uh as I'm recording this. Sunday night. So we have a rule in our house we don't run in the house because we have all hard, we have hardwood floor, we have tiles, we don't have a whole lot of carpet in the main areas. So we tell our boys not to run because a lot of times they run with socks, and that's just a recipe for a disaster. And so I was telling everybody Sunday night that dinner was ready, and I walk into the kitchen, and my 13-year-old's on all fours twerking, so I was gonna do the typical dad thing and run up to him and and kick him in the butt. Well, God had other plans, and so I went to poo I went to try and kick him, and I don't really know what happened, but next thing I know, I am on the floor. I I land right on my tailbone, and I hit the hard tile kitchen floor, and immediately the breath inside of me exits my body, and I'm struggling to breathe. I'm also extremely nauseated, but the lower half of my back is burning and numb. And that's a new pain for me because I've never felt that before. So immediately I go on to all fours, and I'm I'm trying to process what has just happened, and I'm trying to self-diagnose because I try to think I know my body pretty good, but that was new for me. And of course, my wife was in there and she was asking me, you know, what's going on. Of course, the first thing that came out of my mouth was, I knocked the breath out of me. I can't breathe, I can't breathe. So I'm on all fours. And, you know, I'm going through the self-diagnostic, you know, internally, and my four-year-old walks up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder and he's laughing. Because he thinks I'm playing around and he's laughing, and he says, Daddy, why'd you fall that way? And immediately in my brain, I'm like, you know, bud, I I didn't plan this out. I don't like falling. Especially, you know, the now that I'm older, I don't bounce and I don't recover as quickly as I used to. So this was this was something that was unplanned. And then he proceeded to tell me right after that that, Daddy, there's an ant on the floor. I need you to kill the ant. I'm not I'm not focused on ant. I'm trying to breathe. And of course, you know, when he tells me this, I look, I say to my four-year-old as I'm struggling to breathe, I'll get right on top of that, bud. And at this point, my wife's like, you know, he tells the four, she tells the four-year-old, you just need to leave because you're not making the situation any better. But here's the here's the funny thing about the ant. So a lot of times when you're like stressed out or you know, something you you really need to focus on something, you try to find one thing and focus on it to kind of reel your thoughts back in and just kind of get things under control. And that's essentially what I did. I stared at the ant that was crawling around on the floor until I could catch my breath and kind of realized that I wasn't going to die in that moment. Because, you know, immediately the first thing that popped into my mind when my back started burning and I couldn't feel my lower back was I've done something to my spine or I'm paralyzed. Of course, neither one of those are true at this point. But then and there, you kind of work through all the all the things that could be wrong. And so after three or four minutes, I I got up and sat down on in on a kitchen chair and just kind of okay. I'm obviously hurting. My my back is hurting now. I can barely move around. Of course, I have to reassure my kids that I'm okay because the 13-year-old was was scared. The four-year-old was more concerned about the ant and whether I killed it or not. So yeah, I fell down, thought I'd broken my butt bone, thought I had paralyzed the lower half of my body, but I didn't. I didn't do either one. But I will say this I did kill the ant. So before we get into my list of 80s gyms, you need to watch at least once. Let's talk about what actually makes something an 80s gym. For me, it's not about box office, it's not about the awards, it's definitely not about being perfect. But to me, an 80s gym is one of those movies that you might have stumbled across randomly. It didn't get a lot of hype like the other big releases at that time, but it's a movie that stuck with you somehow. It's the kind of movie where you don't remember every detail, but you remember how you felt watching it. Maybe it was weird, maybe, maybe it was intense, maybe it was just completely different, but it made an impression. And a lot of these movies had something in common. They took chances. They didn't always follow the formula, they weren't obviously trying to play it safe, they just went for it. And sometimes that made them a little messy, but it also made them memorable. So the first movie on my list is called The Gate, and it stars Steven Dorf. So this is essentially supposed to be a scary movie, but it's it's not. It's it's it's your cheesy scary movie. And essentially, two kids that find a strange rock, they crack it open, and it ends up being a portal to hell. And of course, you know, things start out small, the parents go missing, you have the late-night curiosity from the kids, you know, they're messing around with things they don't understand, but then as the movie progresses, it escalates into full chaos as the gate opens wider and all these creatures start coming out. You start to see peak 80s CGI graphics. And what I mean by that is it wasn't incredible. You could clearly see that these aren't real creatures, nor did the creators of this film try to spend a whole lot of money because it is a lower-tier scary movie, it's a low budget horror movie, essentially. So the graphics aren't gonna be the greatest. But you know, when these these demons come out, the kids, you know, realize, oh gosh, we're in trouble. We need to try to figure out how to close it. But of course, while they're trying to figure all this out, everything is falling apart. More demons show up, they start getting bigger, they're getting more aggressive, and they're just everywhere. And it it gets so intense with these these demons being everywhere that you get that that claustrophobic feel. Uh even even in the open spaces, you know, there's really one standout moment where the graphics are just superior, and that's just me being sarcastic. There's a there's a hand, one of the kids that has an eyeball in it, and he he decides just to have the eyeball because he wants nothing to do with this. Well, then the eyeball and the hand start melting, and the next thing you know, you just see a skeleton hand. It completely unexpected. But with this movie, it it kind of shows how far creativity can go with practical effects and a simple idea. It's this movie is not going to be for everyone, it's gonna be mainly for your cheesy, cheesy horror movie fans that appreciate a low budget, a low budget film that didn't obviously spend a whole lot of money. And this movie didn't do great in box office. It is considered a cult classic, it got appreciated later down the road. But if you're looking for a good, cheesy, scary movie where you're just you're laughing more so than being scared, this is a good start. I highly recommend the gate. Next we have Awakenings, and this one stars Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. So I didn't really stumble across this movie until I was older. Because growing up, to me, Robin Williams was comedy. I didn't see a whole lot of serious films with him. I saw a lot of his stand-up with Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal. I saw Mrs. Doubtfire, and you know, of course, Jumanji was a big movie for me when I was growing up. But I've always enjoyed Robin Williams' movies, and I really kind of wanted to go in depth with his career because I'm like, there's gotta be more to him than just comedy. And with The Awakenings, you get that. Robin Williams, this is a really serious role for him, and it really shows the dynamic acting ability of Robin Williams. So in this movie, Robin Williams plays a doctor who's experimenting with a new treatment, and with this treatment, it discovers a way to bring patients out of long-term catatonia. And of course, as he's testing these, you know, this treatment on the patients, Robert De Niro being one of them, you start to see they start slowly regaining movement, personality, and it's almost like they're getting their lives back. And there's there's small moments like where they're relearning how to talk, how to move, how to reconnect and just be functional again. And it really focuses on Robert De Niro because he's got a lot of past, and it just so uplifting when the medicine's working. But then, of course, just like every movie, the medicine works for a while, and then it starts to there's starting to be side effects, and it it doesn't last as long as everyone hopes. So the emotional shift from hope to reality is what carries this story a lot. There are a lot of highs and lows. You're gonna be crying, you're gonna be laughing. It's just it's one of Robin Williams' best movies, in my opinion, besides Good Morning Vietnam, which I really love. Good morning Vietnam. Probably one of my favorite Robert De Niro, or not Robert De Niro, Robin Williams movies. Of course, Robert De Niro's fantastic in this. Of course, you don't see a whole lot of comedy with Robert De Niro, so you know he he's really excelled in the drama side of things. But the real reason to watch this is it's it's an emotional storytelling film that feels human and grounded. There's not a whole lot of special effects, it's more focused on the story and it's more focused on the human emotions. So just thinking about it just makes me want to watch it again. So I may actually put it on tonight and the wife and I may watch it. So now we have the blob, and now the blob is a remake of the 1958 science fiction film, which was in black and white, which I love the old school blob, and I really enjoy this one. Now, essentially, a meteor crashes, releases a strange organism, and it starts small, but it grows every time it eats a victim, and it stars Kevin Dillon. People are disappearing throughout the movie, and no underst no one understands what's happening. But you got Kevin Dillon, who is just he is a troublemaker, he's an outcast in the small town. So essentially everybody starts blaming him for the disappearances. But of course, as the movie progresses, you know, each scene, each scene raises the stakes, you get more people that are disappearing, you know, less escape because the blob's getting bigger, there's more panic, and and the town starts to slowly realize okay, it's not necessarily Kevin Dillon. We're dealing with something that we just don't know how to handle and it's completely out of control. And of course, throughout the movie, they try to contain it, but it only makes it worse. And it's it's one of those slow burn horror movies. And it's not again, it's not really a horror movie because they're they're dealing with essentially Jell O the person. Purple jellow and the they the the practical effects aren't the greatest but it's just it's so it's so silly that it's enjoyable and of course you know there's relentless tension throughout the movie the unforgettable visuals which are just primo. It's it's a fun movie to watch and it it to me is it has a lot of the 80s in it. The the cheesy graphics, the the one-liners, the music. It's just it's a great movie to watch when you're you don't want to have to give a lot of thought and attention into. Yeah, it really is. It's just an overall fun movie, and I highly recommend anybody who just enjoys those kind of mindless, cheesy 80 movies to check this one out. So next is the is a Tom Hanks classic, and what I mean by that is it's it's one of his movies that obviously didn't do very well in box office, but it's a it's a cult classic, and I'm talking about the movie The Burbs. So it has Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Carrie Fisher is Princess Leia in Star Wars. But to summarize the plot for you, you know, a man becomes suspicious of his new new neighbors and starts investigating. And what essentially, you know begins as curiosity turns into an obsession as he starts connecting the dots on what may or may not be real. And it's it's it's a slow burn movie, and that's the point, because it starts as curiosity, then it's you know, suspicion, and then it's just full-on obsession. And Tom Hanks is so unappreciated in this movie. And Carrie Fisher's not bad either, but you don't really see a whole lot of Carrie Fisher in this movie. It's really based around Tom Hanks and then, of course, his wacky neighbors, as they try to figure out, you know, why this house with these neighbors is so strange, and some of the things they do to try to figure out what's going on, it's just uh it's it's great. It I laugh a lot in this movie. You know, like the standout moments as far as this movie goes, it's just like I said, where they where moments where the assumption just spiral out of control because they're so, so crazy. And if you live in a suburban neighborhood, you kind of can relate because there's always that one neighbor you're like, hmm, I don't know, there's something up with this neighbor. There's they they don't seem like they got it all figured out. So yeah, definitely check this one out. It's it's it's it's a great one to me. It's one of Tom Hanks's more underappreciated roles. Thinking of so many scenes, but I don't want to spoil it for you. Try not to laugh really hard right now because there's one scene in general that just really stands out. So next we have one of my favorite 80s horror movies that are based around a group of kids, and that is the monster squad. And so essentially what it is is a group of kids discover a that classic horror movie monsters are real and they're heading straight for their town. And they're they they're trying to piece together what's happening, and then they decide to take it upon themselves to stop it. And this movie moved fast, there's no wasted time. You got planning scenes, action scenes, funny moments. It it it balance it all out without dragging. I honestly, if you're a parent and you're looking for a a decent, not necessarily scary movie, but a movie based around monsters, this is a great one to start out on. My 13-year-old started out on it. My 18-year-old, this is one of the first ones that she watched. And we, you know, during Halloween, this is one of the ones that gets put on quite a bit because I just love this movie. It it's it's a cute movie, it's fun, it's just 80s wrapped up all into one, dealing with the classic monsters that we all love. You know, Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, Dracula, of course. There's one scene that really stands out that I thought was really creative from a writing standpoint. So they're going to try to find Dracula and kill him because they kind of found out, okay, he's the ringleader in all this. So they grab this pizza that's got all this garlic on it. Because if you know anything about Dracula, Dracula doesn't deal well with garlic. And so they stumble upon Dracula in this house, and next thing you know, he throws his slice of pizza on this on the Dracula's face, and of course it's successful, but it's just the fact that they used a slice of pizza with a huge amount of garlic on it to buy themselves some time to escape it. That this is one of those movies. I definitely highly recommend it. It's it's just fun to watch. So the last one on this list that I have thrown together is 48 hours. And it stars Eddie Murphy and Nick Nulty. And in the 80s, you started to see a lot of buddy cop movies start being pushed out. You got Tang On Cash, Lethal Weapon, Another Stake Out. There were a few more I just can't think of off the top of my head. But when I think of Buddy Cop movies, this is the first one that comes to my mind. Yeah, essentially Nick Nulty plays a cop who temporarily who temporarily teams up with Eddie Murphy, who's a criminal, to track down a you know dangerous suspects. And of course, Nick Nulty is your dark, gritty police officer who bends the rules but doesn't work with other people. He wants to work alone. And when he has to bring in Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy bring is a sarcastic, smart aleck criminal, you know, who oftentimes tries to escape, but by the end of the movie, you realize, okay, he's not that bad of a guy. But there's there are scenes in this movie where they fight each other. I mean, they're they're calling each other's names. It it does have a lot of language in it, but to me that's what that's what drives the movie is the tension, the fact that they don't trust each other. But as as chase leads, you know, as they chase leads, you know, things go sideways, forcing them to rely on each other more more than they expect. And the contrast between these characters creates constant tension and humor. And as the movie grows, you know, goes on, the partnership evolves, but never really fully settles. And Eddie Murphy's delivery keeps everything going in this movie. This is one of the better Eddie Murphy movies. For me, Eddie Murphy's best movies were in the 80s, early 90s, and this is one of them besides Beverly Hill Cops. And, you know, as far as standout moments in this movie, it's just it's just the back and forth between Eddie Murphy and Nick Nulty. It's just it's incredible. There's a lot of chemistry there. It was they were calling each other names. They were they were fist fighting. It was just it's it's so good. I, you know, I with these list of movies, I recommend all these movies, but this is one as far as if you're looking for a really good buddy cop movie that's along the lines of lethal weapon, tango and cash, movies like that. This is definitely one to check out, and it's just it's a great movie, and you laugh a lot. So I'll be honest with you. These movies aren't perfect, but they're memorable. And to me, that's what last because at the end of the day, you know, we really don't remember every detail of the biggest movies. We remember the ones that made us feel something, the ones that surprised us, uh, the ones that stuck with us, the ones we randomly think about years later for no reasons, the ones that we quote all the time. And to me, a lot of those movies came from this era. Uh, you know, they were movies that took chances that didn't follow the rules, and and they weren't trying to check every box. They were just trying to tell a story and make an impact. And honestly, that's that's kind of something I think about now, especially as a parent, because we try so hard to control everything, what our kids see, what they experience, you know, what they're exposed to. But some of the things that shaped us the most came from those unexpected moments, those those weird, slightly wild, yeah, I probably shouldn't have watched that moment. And somehow those are the ones that stuck, not because they were perfect, but because they were different. Because they made us think or laugh or or even just sit there like, what in the world did I just watch? And to me, that's kind of the point. So, yeah, these weren't just movies to watch, they were experiences. And if you've never seen any of these, you're missing out on a little piece of that. So now I want to hear from you. What's an 80s movie you recommend? Send it my way at mostlymecontact at gmail.com or look for us on Facebook at mostlyme occasionally wise. If this episode hit for you, share it with someone who needs a new movie to watch, or someone who grew up watching things they probably shouldn't have. I appreciate you taking the time to listen. I mean, it means a lot to me, seriously. And remember, it's not always about the big moments to stick. Sometimes it's the random, unexpected ones that end up meaning the most. And that's what this is all about. So stay mostly you, a coach, and it's a good idea.