The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

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My Top 40 80s Movies, Part 2

As some of you may have read the beginning of my series last week, here is the latter half of my top 40 80s movies in random order. And again, these reflect the stereotyped genre of classic cheesy 80s film. Enjoy.

21~Top Gun: The acting is generally average, with a kick ass script and soundtrack. The plot is quality; even though sappy love plots get involved, the true emotion comes from the camaraderie of the pilots and co-pilots, along with the instructors. Great flick. When two friends are at a bar and the one is kind enough to “take one for the team” and talk to the not so attractive girl so his buddy can talk with the hot one; he’s being “Goose,” the wingman. Goose hails from Tony Scott’s direction of Anthony Edwards’ character in Top Gun. Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis, and Tom Skerritt star in this coming of talent story about a fighter pilot, Maverick, (Cruise) who finds his father’s death high in the skies fighting bogies. “That’s right Ice….man. I am dangerous.”

22~Weird Science: Contending the All-80s Title, Anthony Michael Hall kicks up the competition through his performance in this classic 80s film. Take the title and there’s your plot, plus hottie Kelly LeBrock acts as their scientific guide to women. Written and directed by the most paramount director the 80s produced, John Hughes. Bill Paxton and Robert Downey, Jr. co-star in this awesome film with cheesy special affects and tons of one-liners. “You’re stewed, buttwad!”

23~Caddyshack 1&2: The first movie may quite possibly be one of the funniest movies to date. Part one deals with Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Bill Murray and a prestigious golf course’s new, obnoxious member. “This crowd has gone deadly silent, a Cinderella story outta nowhere. Former greenskeeper and now about to become the masters champion.” The second deals with the same plot, just a bit more modern. “Unsolved Mysteries” host Robert Stack, Jackie Mason, Jonathon Silverman, Dan Aykroyd, Randy Quaid, and the only returning character, Chevy Chase. “[Lawyer (Quiad) speaking with prosecution in a pre-court hearing] Now let me tell you the Peter Blunt system of law……I find out where you live, and I come to your house and beat your door down with a f***ing baseball bat!…”

24~The Police Academies: True 80s, true humor, truly bad acting. The Police Academies revolve around the new recruits in each film, six in all. Stars include reoccurring roles of Steve Gutenberg, Bubba Smith, Michael Winslow, David Graf and Bobcat Goldwaith, while stars that appeared in only one are David Spade, Sharon Stone, Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero. All movies are all 80s and worth seeing. ” [Police Officer (Goldwaith) with a high, screachy speach impediment says to another officer] ‘People just don’t understand me.’ ‘Maybe if you talk slower…’ ‘No, I mean who I am. Man, now I have to worry about my diction too?'”

25~Teen Wolf: Trying out for captain of the high school basketball team and for the All-80s Title, Michael J. Fox does both in Teen Wolf. When a pubescent high schooler finds out that he’s a werewolf, what else could happen other than leading the team to the States! Bad costumes and acting. “[coach telling player] There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.”

26~Indiana Jones Series: Great action, good effects for the 80s and funny twists and turns. Harrison Ford, Kate Kapshaw, Jonathon Ke Quan, Sean Connery, and River Phoenix star in these first three of four films. Part four is to be released in 2005. Archeologist and evil eradicator, Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. (Harrison Ford) travels throughout the globe conquering bad and saving villages and humanity.

27~Enemy Mine: Dennis Quaid stars in this sci-fi flick about a soldier space pilot from earth who crashes on an alien planet, finding the only other survivor is his enemy in whom he was fighting; a Drac. The two band together and survive the hostile planet in which they have been deserted.Possibly the only true sci-fi movie I ever enjoyed!! Rent it if you care, but make sure you are alone, because others may tease you when you are getting teary-eyed over a Drac. “Chheezzbawww”

28~Wildcats: Goldie Hawn, Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes and James Keach star in this hilarious and indifferent comedy. Hawn’s character, Molly, once a track coach at a decent high school finds herself coaching football at a rough inner city school. Although qualified to coach with the best, Molly is paddling upstream, with no oars… nor arms, to gather round her tough bunch of players to win States. “Give ’em back the chillens you worm!”

29~Fletch and Fletch Lives: Chevy Chase gives one of his funniest performances in Fletch. Irwin Fletcher (Chase) is an LA journalist who is above all a good writer, but finds himself in mishaps. Luckily for him he talks his way out of them, and luckily for us he’s funny as hell while doing so. ” ‘I’m sorry, who are you again?”I’m Frieda’s boss.’ ‘ Who’s Frieda?’ ‘My secretary.'”

30~No Retreat, No Surrender: Possibly the most 80s oriented movie, everything from martial arts to music to film to acting….pretty much the whole film was 80s-ed out. It’s also responsible for the start of Jean Claude van Damme’s horrible acting career. The story goes as follows: kid moves to Seattle from LA, gets ass kicked all over, hallucinates Bruce Lee trains him in Jeet Kune Do, gets kicked out of house because Dad doesn’t approve of ass kickings, gains Dad’s love by saving him from bar fight, beats bad guy (Van Damme). The end. “NO NO NO, bring it over here!”

31~Lost Boys: The only thing that defines this movie as cheesy is its script. Vampires take over… again. But this time the plot is actually kind of cool. Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Kieffer Sutherland, and Diane Wiest star in this flick about two brothers (Patric and Haim) who find out their mom is dating the head vampire. “What, you don’t like rice? Tell me Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?”

32~Revenge of the Nerds 1 & 2: The title says it all. Robert Carradine, Anthony Edwards, Curtis Armstrong and Donald Gibb star in these crusades of the nerd nation betterment. Model 80s. ” ‘She’s not that kind of girl, Booger.’ ‘Why? Does she have a penis?'”

33~Gremlins: This movie is so unorthodox of anything before. Little furry things are the main characters that seem to be the sample for Furbys- Thanks a lot “Gremlins.” Back to the movie….these furry things would multiply when you pour water on them and turn into Beelzebub’s. Nobody stars, but Corey Feldman and Judge Reinhold appear.

34~Overboard: Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn co-star in this comedy slash all around good movie. It’s one of the only love stories that is original. In fact, it even blossomed one of Hollywood’s long lasting relationships, Russell and Hawn, although never married. The movie is about a snobby yuppy lady who treats a man badly, who builds her shoe rack on her yacht. She falls overboard, suffers amnesia and the man claims her to the police and puts her to work as revenge. The two fall in love anyway and happily ever after they live. “I loved it when you glued Joey to the toilet seat.”

35~Bloodsport: The true story of Frank W. Dux, the first western to win the Kumite; an underground martial arts tournament that is a fight to the death. Van Damme stars as Dux with Donald Gibb and Bolo Yeung co-starring. Good fighting, although Van Damme only studied ballet, and really lame lines. “You break my record, now I break you, like I break your friend.”

36~Pee Wee’s Big Adventure: Excluding that whole movie theatre thing with Pee Wee’s pee wee and those little kids, his movie did survive two decades to remain towards the top of 80s film. Great movie. Even my mom tries to impersonate his voice! “There’s no basement in the Alamo!!” “You don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I’m a loner. A rebel.” “I want to see Francis.’ ‘Francis is busy.’ ‘Busy doing what?’ ‘He’s having his bath.’ ‘Oh really, where are they hosing him down?!'”

37~Ghostbusters: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weever, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Rick Moranis star in this movie that you have all seen! They bust ghosts. “Where do these stairs go? They go up.”

38~Rocky III&IV: Classic ascending battle, the underdog, and dumbass from Philly who can box. Meathead Stalone, Carl Weathers, Burt Young, Mr. T and Dolph Lundgren
rock in these triumphant stories of the little engine that could. Rocky IV was the supreme US vs Commie story and it was a paradigm of what really happened to Mother Russia.

39~Beverly Hills Cop: Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold pave the way in this action comedy about a Detroit cop (Murphy)who goes out to Beverly Hills to investigate a friend’s murder, illegally. Two Beverly Hills cops are assigned to tail Axel Foley (Murphy). The film is funny as Hell and contains loads of one-liners. “[Murphy talking in gay voice]Tell Victor that Ramon—the fella he met about a week ago?—tell him that Ramon went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have, um, herpes simplex 10, and I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off on the man.”

40~Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, and Forest Whitaker star in this instant 80s classic; a tale of high schoolers doing what high schoolers do. Lots of one-liners and a decent plot. Its, perhaps, considered to be the essential 80s flick.

Honorable Disclaimers:

The following films are of good reproach and don’t deserve to be on this list. In other words, they are actually all around quality films.

1~The Princess Bride ( With the exception of Fred Savage and Peter Falk scenes, you couldn’t tell it was an 80s movie.Thoroughly funny, witty and creative- a cornerstone to any DVD collection.)

2~Hoosiers (A traditional tale of the underdog done well.)

3~The Outsiders (An awesome storyline by S.E. Hinton and direction by Francis Ford Coppola. Unbelievable cast, including: C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane, and Lief Garrett. It’s the touching side of the Greasers, a 50s gang from Tulsa.)

4~Sideout (It was made in 90, but is 80s style. C. Thomas Howe, Randy Stokley and Sinjun Smith co-star in this tale of a law-graduate turns beach volleyball pro. In real life, Stokley and Smith were former Beach Volleyball champions themselves.)

5~E.T. (One of the top grossing films of all time with a toddler version of Drew Barrymore.Henry Thomas as a pre- Haley Joel Osment!)

6~The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi ( The start of a geekdom/ geek nation due to an incredibly well written script.)

7~The Toy (Incredibly hilarious with a quality script. Prior is hilarious)

8~The Great Outdoors (Funny plot, actors, cast, characters, lines ….pretty much collectively funny.)

9~Stand By Me ( Perhaps my favorite movie of all time…or up there at least! An excellent soundtrack, as well. All-star cast, before they were all-stars! In my opinion the film starred what could have been the best actor of all time-the prematurely deceased River Phoenix. Also starring Will Wheaton, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, John Cusack, Casey Siemaszko, narration by Richard Dreyfruss, and based on the Novella, “The Body,” by Stephen King.)

10~ Good Morning Vietnam ( An unique turn on war film, Robin Williams lends an amazing role to this amazing story.)

11~ See No Evil, Hear No Evil (Ultimate duo, Richard Prior and Gene Wilder are funnier than anything. The original Farley/Spade caliber. Kevin Spacey co-stars.)

12~Rain Man ( A funny and touching tale of an autistic man, Dustin Hoffman, and his long lost brother, Tom Cruise.

13~Planes, Trains and Automobiles (On my top 20 funniest movies….Candy and Martin are hilarious!)

14~Caveman (It was a parody on evolution and was meant to be bad! Ringo Starr, Shelly Long and Dennis Quaid co-star.)

15~Dead Poets Society (A must see, Robin Williams’ potential unraveling.)

Plus many more….

Additional research and moral support by Sports Editor and lover of the 80s, Mark Rowland.

If you enjoyed this article, readMy Greatest 80’s Movies, Part 1