Movies Of The 80's - 1988

  

Introduction

As an 80's music aficionado, I've found myself interested as of late in the world of 80's soundtracks. Be it scores, or various artist albums, I'm always on the lookout for a CD to add to my collection.

Of course, there are the staples. Top Gun, Footloose, Flashdance, Ghostbusters, and the list goes on and on. These albums have been a mainstay in my collection since relatively the start of it. But, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I wanted to dive deeper.

The problem I quickly found was that while searching based on films that popped into my head randomly, I wasn't necessarily delving very far. After mulling it around for a while, I finally broke down and decided that to truly find just what was out there, I first had to educate myself on what films were out there.

It took months of cataloging, which was based on limited time between work and other obligations, but finally I was able to reach the finish line. Utilizing links to Wikipedia by year denoting the List of American Films of (insert year here), I created a series of posts with each movie poster, ad, or some form of representation for made for television movies, to have a reference guide. Now I could truly begin my search into just what soundtracks were out there.

Not wanting all this work to go to waste, I decided I would take the next several weeks to present to you the Movies of the 80's! We've already looked at the freshman year of the decade, and it continues here with 1988.

I did pretty good with my watch ratio from 1987, so hopefully, 1988 will fare just as well. I know I'm excited to find out, so let's go!

Ugh...dumb movie. At least for a child me. I couldn't get into A Fish Called Wanda. While everyone else saw a star studded cast, I saw a boring flick.

There's not much I can say about A Nightmare On Elm Street 4 that I haven't said about the franchise as a whole already. The Freddy series was great!

Back when Steven Seagal was cool, there was Above the Law. A new action star was on the cutting edge...but, I guess we all know how that ended.

When I first saw Alien Nation, I thought, "Neat! A new sci-fi movie!" Well, let's just say it didn't have the action that my young mind was hoping for to keep it interesting.

I mean, come on. It's Beetlejuice. Of course I've seen it, and of course it's amazing.

Big was fun for me as a kid. Josh Baskin, AKA Tom Hanks, kind of turned into the adult I think many of us are today. Young at heart, still playing with toys.

I was never a big Pee-Wee Herman fan, so when I got the chance to see Big Top Pee-Wee, I think I made it thirty minutes in before walking away, and that's being generous with the time stamp.

I watched Bloodsport at some point because all the kids were raving about it. I honestly didn't get the hype.

I didn't know a Bravestarr movie even existed until I got the original series on DVD. It's a fantastic movie!

Michael J. Fox doing cocaine, and living the night life? It really didn't jive with his wholesome nature. I think in general, the actor probably had a difficult time breaking free of that image.

Definitely not as good as the original, but at least Caddyshack II had some returning faces.

I watched Child's Play during my teenage horror flick binging days. I definitely didn't think it was on the level of Freddy, Jason or Michael Meyers, but it intrigued me enough to watch some of the sequels.

It was way over my head as a kid, but Clean and Sober had that guy from Beetlejuice in it.

Oh my goodness. Coming to America is one of the best comedies of all time. It's such a shame what they did to the sequel.

Of course I saw Crocodile Dundee. Everyone did. I think it's funny in this era how some people try to make it seem like it's some type of controversial movie for portraying Australians in such a poor light. Yet the film remains the biggest grossing of all time there. People really need to learn to keep their opinion bus in their own lane.

Sure, it was just a clip show, but Daffy Duck's Quackbusters is a great cartoon film. In fact, I just recently picked it up on DVD!

Die Hard kind of came out of left field, and really took the world by storm. It felt so different from all the action flicks of that time, and Bruce Willis doing his own stunts really sold it.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels didn't make sense to me as a kid, so unfortunately the humor was lost on me.

I saw Elvira: Mistress of the Dark in 2022, and man was it a terrible movie. It was definitely a product of the 80's.

I probably wouldn't be able to sit through Ernest Saves Christmas these days. It feels like a movie I want to keep locked in my mind where I can still say that it was a good film.

Another year, another Friday the 13th film. At this point in the series, it was pretty much just a generic slasher flick, but that didn't stop me from watching it.

I vaguely remember Funny Farm. I think it was about a writer living in a small town with his wife, and then humor ensued.

The Great Outdoors was something I enjoyed as a kid because it had that guy from Ghostbusters and the other guy from Spaceballs. Little did I know how John Candy and Dan Aykroyd would become a household name in my vocabulary.

Hack, hack, slash, slash. Enter Halloween 4 in 1988. There's nothing more I can say about this series at this point.

Heathers was a unique film from my childhood. I'd never seen anything quite like it, and it certainly left its mark in my pop culture oriented mind.

I didn't think Clive Barker could improve on Hellraiser when I first saw the original, but the sequel delivered big time.

If I've seen Hot to Trot, and I want to say I have, I really don't remember anything about it.

I tried watching Killer Klowns From Outer Space when I owned it as part of a three DVD film set (the others two films were Spaceballs and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension). Unfortunately, I couldn't get into it.

Man, I used to drive the kids on at school nuts with my verbatim regurgitation of the film The Land Before Time. Yeah, I was that annoying kid in class. I was floored the other day when I saw a complete DVD set of all the films. When the heck did they make thirteen sequels?

I don't remember where I was, but it had to have been high school. A kid said to me, "When I took my driving test, the instructor put a cup on the dashboard, and told me if I spilled his coffee that I failed." I caught the reference, and responded, "It sounds like you watch too many movies." He wasn't pull one over on me with that reference to License to Drive.

I picked up the soundtrack to The Moderns off Discogs because I needed to buy something else to meet the seller's minimum sale requirements. To date, I haven't gotten around to listening to it, nor do I have a clue what the film is about.

Michael Jackson's Moonwalker was freaking awesome! My sister used to own it on VHS, and we watched it quite often. Love the extended Smooth Criminal segment.

Say what you will about O.J. Simpson, his portrayal of Nordberg was classic. That whole trilogy was comedic genius. Leslie Nielsen was the best! 

Oliver and Company continued the trend of massive hit Disney animated films. I remember seeing this one in theaters with both my brother and sister.

Picasso Trigger was the first Andy Sidaris film I saw, and it certainly wasn't the last. Whoo wee...

The writing was on the wall for many when Police Academy 5 launched without Mahoney, but not for me. While as an adult, I agree it was certainly a decline from the previous installment, it was still a great flick as a kid. 

Rain Man may be critically acclaimed, but it was never my cup of tea. Even to this day I don't get the hype.

Of course, in hindsight, Rambo III was certainly in poor taste. What with him helping the Taliban and all. Oops.

A rare moment of mom and me time occurred when I saw Scrooged in the theaters with her. I was always pretty content to be alone, so the two of us didn't often have a day with just us.

I saw Shoot To Kill with my dad when he bought it on Laserdisc. I remember it being okay, but couldn't really tell you how it went from start to finish.

Short Circuit 2 was just a bad idea from start to finish. I get that Hollywood was eager to capitalize on Johnny Five, but really? You choose the utmost background character to star in it? It was doomed from the start.

Dude! They Live was one of my all time favorites when it came out. It was during the height of my brother and I being big fans of WWF...Which I don't think either of us are anymore.

Twins didn't really make sense to me as a kid, and in hindsight, while I get that was the joke, it still doesn't make it all that interesting.

I caught Vibes in 2022 on Amazon Prime, and surprisingly, Cyndi Lauper wasn't all that bad in it. She certainly pulled off acting better than Madonna and Prince, but that's not exactly a far stretch of skill by any means.

Two of my favorites side by side! Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Willow! Classics! Pure classics!

Young Guns is probably my favorite western film series of all time. It may have been a bunch of pretty boys on horses, but man, those flicks are the best. I'd love to see a third film with everyone now.

Well, we've got one more year to look at, and we'll hit that next week. I hope to see you there.

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