Movies Of The 80's - 1989

   

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 1989.

It's been nine weeks of eights movie posters, and it's time to wrap up the decade with 1989. I've also started buying up some great soundtracks as I've finding them, but that's another post for another time. For now, let's take a look at the films of the final year of the 80's.

Part five was by far the last film in the Elm Street series, but the Dream Child did bring back survivor Alice from the prior installment. Freddy gets down and dirty, using her unborn child's dreams to attack and kill Alice's friends.

I really didn't understand The Abyss as a child, and honestly, I never got around to watching it as an adult to see if it really is as good as people profess. I did, however, purchase the soundtrack recently.

All Dogs Go To Heaven was never one of my favorite animated films. It was okay, but it just didn't have that polish that Disney was bringing to the table in the 80's.

It's interesting that The Abyss went over my head, but Always resonated with me as kid. It's one of the last great true love stories of the decade.

Who would of thought that Back to the Future would finally get a sequel in 1989? I certainly didn't. I always felt cheated by part two because it literally was just a retelling of the first film, with a splash of new stuff. Of the three in the series, it's my least favorite.

Batman brought back the excitement of super hero films not seen since the original Christopher Reeves Superman films. Michael Keaton remains my favorite Batman of all time. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Jack Nicholson's Joker. Don't get me wrong, he was great in the roll, but Heather Ledger killed it.

I remember my mom taking my brother and I to see Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in the theater. While we kids laughed and laughed, my mother couldn't get over how stupid the two were.

Born On the Fourth of July is an iconic film, but I honestly didn't get it as a kid. Sadly, this too is one I never circled back to as an adult. War movies in general don't interest me.

Highly underrated, The Burbs is one of Tom Hanks' finest. It's also one of the last good performances from Corey Feldman before falling into obscurity.

My mom took me to the theater to see the film Dad. I'm not sure how I ended up being a part of her movie theater trip, but I remember being bored to death.

I didn't see Dead Poet Society until my late teen years, and I honestly didn't see what all the fuss was about.

The Dream Team is a movie I vaguely remember when I see the movie poster, but beyond them all taking a road trip, I don't remember much about it.

I tried watching Dream A Little Dream when it was streaming a year or two ago. I couldn't get into it, despite being led by the two Corey's.

Baseball plus slow premise didn't hit any notes with me. As such, while I saw bits and pieces of Field of Dreams, I haven't made it from start to finish.

I am, however, seeing a ton of movies that I own soundtracks for, despite not seeing them all.

Jason Takes Manhattan was initially thought to be the last Friday the 13th film in the series. Being the eighth film in the series meant it had long since missed its opportunity to bow out gracefully, and then it went on to beat that dead horse even further with progressively worse films.

Ghostbusters II gets a lot of flack for being a "bad" sequel, and I don't get why. Not only is the film great, but the soundtrack is superb!

Much like Friday the 13th's final entry in the decade, part five of Halloween was also thought to be the last film. Much like the aforementioned series, it was far from over.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids makes me angry. Not because it's a bad film, but because it, and its sequels were essentially the last films we got from icon, Rick Moranis. Sadly, the death of his wife led to the actor winding down his career, so I guess it's a good thing he got so much money from the franchise to never have to work again.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade should have been the last Indy film. Admittedly, I was never a fan of the series, but the third film was definitely the best of all of them.

What a misstep The Karate Kid III was. The first two will always be far superior, with the third being skip-able all day long.

I watched the Lethal Weapon films backwards. Mainly because it took the third film for me to appreciate the franchise.

Does anyone remember the plot for License To Kill? Cause I don't. I feel like it was a typical throw away plot, villain and Bond film.

Who remembers the controversy of the original clam shell The Little Mermaid VHS? That was how I first saw this movie, when my sister owned her own copy. Great film!

Little Monsters...Not a great film.

In my teenage years I had my own personal joke that the next installment of the Look Who's Talking franchise would be, "Who the F*** Keeps Talking?" Of course, by this point there were already three unnecessary films in the series.

I've seen bits and pieces of Major League, and would like to see the film in its entirety. I'm just waiting for it to come to streaming. Too bad that I'm whittling down my streaming services as of the beginning of the year, and my options are disipating.

I could watch the first three Vacation films every year, and never get tired of them. I just did so again last December. Classics!

As kids, my brother and I were so excited to see No Holds Barred. Great when you're a ten year old. Idiotic when you think about it in hindsight.

When my family sat down to watch Parenthood, I expected to be laughing non-stop at the Steve Martin led family film. I was not...Well, with the exception of the Cowboy Gil scene.

The writing was on the wall by Police Academy six that the franchise had outstayed its welcome. It's second to Mission to Moscow as my least favorite in the series.

When I got big into comics, The Punisher became a mainstay in my VHS collection. Dolph Lundgren played some of my all time favorite characters as a kid, Ivan Drago, He-Man, and now Frank Castle. The story was messy, for sure, but that didn't stop me from watching it often.

Roadhouse was the movie that made me realize that things were changing "physically" for me. Kelly Lynch...Oh my.

She-Devil wasn't for me. Sure, Rosanne was big money back then, but a movie star, she was not.

Shocker may have been the last horror flick I saw from the era. It wasn't your traditional scary monster story, but it was definitely a slasher flick.

People often look at me like I'm crazy when I say Star Trek V is the best in the franchise. It takes everything that was the series, to boldly go where no man has gone before, and adds all the big budget and action that the films were famous for.

I saw Tango and Cash, and while I remember parts of it, the scene that stands out the most is where Cash's birthday is stated as being August 16th, my birthday!

I don't know if I remember the film Turner and Hooch.

Poor UHF. It was one of my favorite films of the year, but simply couldn't compete with the likes of Batman, Ghostbusters II, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The film was supposed to save Orion Studios, but instead only helped pave the way to its demise when filmgoers favored the other noted blockbusters.

Do I like John Candy? I don't know. He was okay in some things, but he was never one of my favorites of the decade. Uncle Buck was kind of forgettable.

I saw the War of the Roses as a teenager, but I'd be lying if I said I was watching it for the story. I was hoping to see things...and that never happened. This was before the internet could have told me not to waste my time.

The Wizard, so bad it's good. Northing short of a commercial for Super Mario Bros. 3, and iconic to kids everywhere as one of the greatest films of all time...until we grew up and knew better. It's odd how much original VHS cassettes go for.

Well, that looks like it wraps up 1989, and my series on films of the decade. Now it's time to get busy on tracking down soundtracks. But, like I said above, that's a post for another time. 

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