There are a few decades in film history that have been as scrutinized as the 1980s, but to really understand the decade and its movies, it's going to take a couple of someone's who were there for it the first time around. Drew McLean and Scott Weinberg are ready to review every major film of the decade, one month at a time. The look at what worked then, what endoers now, and how it felt to be there when it all went down. Turn back the calendar with us. It's the 80s all over. Jimmy Carter was nominated for the presidency at the Democratic National Convention. 17,000 Polish workers went on strike kicking up the solidarity movement. John Lennon and Yoko Ono started working on their classic album Double Fantasy in Australia. A Zaria Chamberlain disappeared, an event which would directly lead to Merrill Strape's timeless proclamation. Even so, there were plenty of movies to keep us busy in August of 1980. Scott, how are you, sir? Hello Drew, good to hear from you again. We are now in August. That's crazy. We're at the end of the summer for our first year already. And we've done a pretty good job, I think, of covering the year so far. Although, say oops, side to head, say oops, side to head. Say oops, side to head. So once again, we pulled the motor and we got some of these release dates wrong. the first one one that we want to cover There's a little bit of a dispute as to what the release date is It's one of those movies that came out regionally evidently in several different sort of waves I see some of the release dates listed as January of 1980 Scott seen release dates in 1979 with the film was actually first shot in 77 and then reshot again and is basically two totally different productions sort of Frankenstein together into one movie called Silent Scream. What's probably most interesting about Silent Scream is that it was written by Ken and Jim Wheat who would go on to do R the black and uh... and we just covered them so canton jim we are uh... john rick green writers whom we we admire very much but uh... probably not a whole lot to say about the violence group well it had you know it has one of those supporting cast barber steal and camera and michael and vandicarlo a bunch of old pros and it's a really toothless, slasher film all set in a weird house. Also there are two Chuck Norris movies we're going to cover today. This is a force of one. It's directed by Aaron Paul and in this one, cops are being killed by a martial artist, so they bring in a kickboxer to help them stop the guy. It's ridiculous. It has a decent supporting cast though. If you kind of make a Chuck Norris movie, you better get some, you know, Jennifer O'Neill included the leader and it's an interesting people. Yeah, of the two of them that we're going to cover today, this is the better one of them, I think. The one that holds up a little better. I mean, they're both ridiculous, but at least this one, the reason for him being involved makes a little more sense. He doesn't do much martial arts than the other one, which is sort of a letdown. I've never been a Chuck Norris fan. My friends went a growing up. They were huge Chuck Norris fans and I think we probably did this silent rage and maybe missing an action part one in one night because they were just raw, you know, like anything with Chuck Norris. They instantly wanted to see me. My dad was a big fan man. So like we saw all of these theatrically they were events and we saw some of them at the drive-in I remember that. I'm pretty sure I saw this and the octagon together. They're disposable they're you know they're just as generic as old school age and martial arts movies that would play on Saturday afternoon. They're just very conventional and basic if you like the Chuck Norris formula. You know, these early ones are maybe, you know, a little bit chisier than the ones he did later, but I've just never liked him as a persona. I don't think he's an interesting action hero. He's not, like, old, he's not charming. My favorite Chuck Norris movie we'll get to later is in the USA, and even then I can't help but wish that somebody with more personality had been in it. And that would have been March of 1980, which also would have been the release date of the visitor. And the visitor is, how would you describe the visitor to somebody who hasn't seen it? I wouldn't. I would just say watch it because it's, you know, really weird. So why don't you explain it? Aliens and demonic kids and there's telekinesis and control of birds and I don't know, it's crazy. It is a crazy movie and it's one of those films where it feels like they took 12 or 15 different genre films that had done business in like the eight years before this and they just did one scene from each of them and considered that a movie. And it has crazy people and it has Glenn Ford and Sam Peckinbond, Shelley Winners and John Houston and it is packed with really recognizable Hollywood names, but it's madness the way it's actually made. Fool it around was April of 1980. It was a cable mainstay for a little while and it's a romantic sort of comedy with Gary Bucy, constantly trying to convince a netto tool to leave her rich boyfriend and be with him. It isn't awful and this is Gary Bucy back when he was still Gary Bucy back when he was that sort of charming Interesting character actor who had done the buddy Holly story and was and Hollywood was just trying to figure out what to do with him here It's not bad. It's actually it's if if you find it and you like either of those young actors It's pretty charming. We now closed out the boner section with two movies that clearly inspired Edgar Wright at one point in his career. And they both have very similar titles. Yes. Because both films start with the word don't. Don't answer the phone. And don't go in the house. There's not much you can do. Don't answer the phone. Don't go in the house. Don't do anything. Don't. These are both really boring movies. Yeah, and don't go in the house is nasty. Don't answer the phone is very basic and very generic. Don't go in the house is pretty grim. Well, it has that one filthy sequence. And the sequence is so stark that It makes the rest of the film feel heavier than it is. It's really kind of mild man or otherwise, but the scene is really insane. And this is coming from a guy who has dug up and seen most of the horror films available from the late 70s and throughout the 80s. Yeah, neither one of these is worth tracking down. So that was April 1980 and March 1980. We missed a few of these, but these are films that most of them were getting small regional releases anyway. We also already discuss the Hunter, which was the Steve McQueen film where he played the real-life bounty hunter, Ralph Papa Thorson. So instead now we will just jump right forward into the movies of August 1980 and we're

going to start with one that is pretty well known and I think moderately well liked.

It is a science fiction movie called The Final Countdown. You are on board the USS Nimitz, the most advanced nuclear super ship in the American arsenal, carrying a couple of 102 aircraft and 6,000 men. The Nimitz is on routine duty, guarding the waters of the South Pacific. Thank you for your series of real problem. But within minutes, a bizarre, unexplainable phenomenon of nature will transport the limits 40 years back in time, back to the day of inflating, back to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. My gosh, the final countdown. It's a little dry and starchy. You know, it's a little dated in that regard. It takes its time, like you can kind of see where it's going within 40 minutes, and then it takes its time getting there. But I wouldn't call it boring. It's definitely fun. If it was remade today, it would be a bit punchy or a bit quicker, a little more fast paced. But it's a very clever idea, and it's kind of very good ensemble too. Well, it benefits from two things. It benefits from the fact that it is shot all practical and they had access to the limits to an actual aircraft carrier. So they have a ton of footage of planes taking off and them actually on the aircraft carrier and everything's real, which makes it pretty interesting and exciting when they do the one real action scene in the film where they go up against some Japanese zeros and they have modern fighter jets go up against these zeros. He basically comes in right at the surface of the water and pulls up the last second does this like kind of hovering lift and it's a real stunt. evidently terrified pilots who saw it. Like it is a crazy bit of flying, but these were just Navy guys who were really good and they were giving a chance to show off on film and they did. And it really pays off because that stuff is pretty memorable. Not only does it have a very own aircraft carrier which back in 1980 would have added you know nowadays

You can build an aircraft carrier with a computer program in 10 seconds back then it was probably pretty novel And not only that but it's got Kirk Douglas Martin Sheen And the great girls learning And Katherine Ross James Verentino and James Verentino is such a lug that he makes me laugh R Ron O'Neill, who by the way, Ron O'Neill having a very big month on the podcast, Ron O'Neill was also in Force of One, the Chuck Norris film. So we're having a big Ron O'Neill month, but I enjoy Final Countdown. I think it's a fun movie. It feels like an episode of a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits time show stretched out to feature Link. And it's fairly, you know, fairly small scale all things considered. Yeah, it's funny you'd see that because the director, Don Taylor, I would say 90% of his career was done on television, very prolific. I remember his name mainly because he did the Dr. Moro remake in 77 and Damian, Omen 2 in 78 and this in 1980 but beyond that virtually everything else he's done has been television. Yeah, I remember him from the Jody Foster Johnny Whitaker TV Tom Sawyer movie, which I think was his. So maybe it's just that you know he had done a lot. He had come up on television and went pretty much straight back to television. Oh yeah this feels like it's a very small scale efficient version of this movie. You know if they did it today to be Michael Bay and it would have giant set pieces and they'd actually fight the war here the point is that they're ready to but they can't of course you can't have them refighted war war two or the movie become something totally different. The final countdown kind of plays like a very high budget ABC movie in the week. But definitely recommended. Yeah, yeah, it's worth it. And there's a really nice blue underground blu-ray of it that's available. I'm not only what our next movie is, but who you may watch this movie two weeks ago. Oh, I mean, do you watch this movie two Obviously, you know, a lot of times we'll rewatch movies and do a little bit of chat chatter so we can get ready for the show. And I had seen bits and it is really disheartening because this was Peter Sellers right at the end of his career. He was deadly ill when he was making it. He should not have been working. He knew he shouldn't have been working. I find it disturbing to watch the movie where they keep shocking him to bring him back to life because of his heart attacks, that he keeps having in the film, and knowing that he died of a heart attack, basically as this thing was trickling to a finish, it makes it really uncomfortable. On top of that, the film is terrible. And he's playing these multiple roles in this movie. The main two, he's playing obviously are Dr. F Fumenshu and then the detective who's chasing him. And you would think that a detective character in the hands of sellers would be something interesting or that he would do something with it. And there is nothing. There is nothing interesting about the detective character. There's nothing memorable about him. There's no jokes involving him. It's just a deadly

unfunny project to begin with. I know what he's doing is he's doing the tradition of white actors playing Dr. Fumin Choo and he's making fun of that to some degree. But I don't I don't know if I agree with that, Drew. I don't know if in 1980 we had gotten to the point where Peter Sellers would have been satirizing yellow face or white actors. I honestly think that at this point we were still in the,

there wasn't any damage back there's no,

yeah, there's no reason he should have played. would have been satirizing yellow face or white actors. I honestly think that at this point

we were still in the there wasn't any that much back. Well, there's no, and there's no reason he should have played it. And it's, oh, it's plain hope offensive. I mean, and this was right at the same time that people got upset about, and rightfully so, but the got upset about Peter Houston off and Charlie Chan and the curse of the Dragon Queen, which will cover in 81. And in both cases, I feel like the studios that made these movies went, wait a minute,

really?

You can't do that anymore?

Like they did- in which we'll cover in 81. And in both cases, I feel like the studios

that made these movies went, wait a minute, really? You can't do that anymore? Like they didn't realize that it had started to shift, but there was pushback, there was very public pushback against both of these movies. Now, you know, say what you will about Peter Sellers, he had a notoriously difficult life, but the man was a genius. making between Dr. Strangloff, Inspector Cluzzo, and being there alone, as opposed to his evening addition to his early work on the Goonshow, the guy was a genius. But like a lot of geniuses, he seems to make a lot of bad movie. You know, it's like the Reggie Jackson thing. I don't know if he still holds the record, but for the longest time, you know, who the leading leader in strikeouts was? Reggie Jackson. He was also the home run leader. Why? Because you don't get home runs unless you swing like crazy. So, you know, that's all I look at a guy like Peter Sellers, which is, you know, signed on for a lot of bad films and probably thought, oh, we can make it better throughout and then just couldn't. This is a movie where they went through director after director after director and sellers ended up directing part of it.

John G. Adelson was a director on it. Pierce Haggard gets the credit, but evidently sellers shot as much as anybody if not more. So it's really a sellers film. But I mean, just doesn't work as a movie. He has a weird relationship with young Helen Mirren, who plays a undercover police constable. Okay, if this movie is atrocious in every way, however, if you are a huge Helen Mirren fan and you've only known her as her older lady roles and you want to see her in something where she's young, she jumps into it with both the hard to tell if she knows it's crap or not, but she burned her paycheck

So she is the lone bright spot in the otherwise Virtually unwatchable Dr. Fritz right here and there is a brief appearance in the movie by Bert Quauke And it is meant to be this kind of hilarious moment where they they interact with one another They blow it and not even that is interesting and if you can't have fun with that connection then you just what are you doing okay so we're gonna move on this next one let's just jump in so bang it is back it's defended with two thousand miles to go two tons of pregnant pack of Germany's truck, and two thousand cops

on its tail. Universal Pictures presents brick rentals, Jackie Pleasant, Jerry Reed, Don Deloise, and Sally Field in the all new Smoky of Abandoned Part 2, rated PG. Now playing at a theater near you. Nonsense. This is the very definition of a victory lap.

Because this is just a lazy smug retread of the first movie. I remember when I saw this with my parents, because smoking in the band it was to my dad, what Star Wars was to me in 77. It was a big fucking deal. And we saw smoking in the band it a lot. So when this came out, it was a pretty big deal and I remember going with my dad to see it and it played like gangbusters but you have to remember that I lived in Chad Nuke at the time. This was like Fonzie for Rednecks. The bandit was an icon. So anything he did in the second movie, they went 8 shit for and adding Dom Deloise and a pregnant pregnant elephant is completely fucking ridiculous. Yeah, I really, I really love this movie as a kid. I have very fun memories of the third act and which all the tractor trailers are racing across the desert. It's a huge stunt sequence. Yeah, I remember loving that. And I thought several years later, when I watched Rewatch the first two, I thought, oh, the first one's a bit I remember I thought it would have been kind of tacky and gross but no it's actually kind of sweet and fun and I thought all right Let's keep going with the second one by the way it's like you said it's like help airplane two Burst steals virtually all the jokes from the first movie That's kind of what's looking in the bandit two guys. It kind of just it just re-ver the same bits with Sally Field and Jackie Tyson and now Jackie Houston has played multiple roles and not some of the best work. No, the good stuff with Jackie Gleason is where it's just him abusing Mike Henry who plays junior. Those two are funny together and there's a genuine chemistry. Yeah, that character, especially with his idiot son-in-law, that's funny. But they lean on it really hard this time. They also do. They come back and they give them a lot more where he's just abusing junior and that's a big running joke. A lot of times sequels make a mistake in attitude where they get some essential thing wrong, some relationship wrong. And it's okay if you evolve a relationship, but to get it wrong, to get what it was that the audience loved wrong, in this movie it's the fact that Bandit and Frog are fighting for the whole film. That's not what we liked in the first movie. We liked the fact that they were flirting with one another and clearly he wanted a fucker silly and vice versa. And there's such a weird, it's chemistry that's immediate and they can't stop flirting with one another. And that's what's charming in the first film in this movie because they were breaking up in real life. Everything they do in this movie sounds like a therapy session and it's unbearable being in the car with the two of them. Yeah, and the thing is that now it's written almost like we have to chart the, you know, like before sunset where those films like charted really the course of their relationship but these characters were never deep enough for that kind of meat so just you know a better angle would have been they had broken up between movies and are now trying to get back together that would have played a lot better and like you said a lot of their banter is very desperate very smug and and there's Dom Delawiz as the oh God. It does have a great final sequence. The one you refer to in the desert, where it's the 50 semis versus the cop cars, and it's a pretty big stunt sequence. As sequels go, this is kind of what I hate about sequels, where they really feel like they're doing you a favor giving you part two, and aren't you lucky that they did it for you. Oh, you liked our first movie. Well, here's another one you'll just eat up instead of trying to win the audience over. It's not fun when that happens. When a movie you remember liking it and see it again and you're like, oh god. This next one's just a weird train wreck of a movie where I don't even understand some of the choices that were made in terms of how they adapted a piece of material. I'm speaking about Raise the Titanic. What a lovely thing she was. Standing as high in the waters, one of your skyscrapers, and God himself, they said, couldn't't sink her then in two hours she was gone and 1500 souls with her. Starfish! It comes in! She's going out first and got us in wing. Release her to your thing! 90% of what I know about Ray the Titanic prior to seeing it was from what's like thealt and Guide. We had a couple other annual movie guides. And it was so bad that the author refused to sell any of his books for what another 25 years. It was a long time and because I didn't realize when Ray's the Titanic came out there as part of a series and this was the third in the series and by the time this movie came out they were already 40p into the books and they've now they've done something like twenty two and Sahara the math and McConaughey film is part of the same series watching this movie you would never believe that dirt pit is a franchise star and that the first of all Richard Jordan is not a guy you hang a franchise on and Richard Jordan plays dirt and raised the Titanic, which is mistake number one. The weirdest part of the idea is that you've got two totally different stories. The one is the idea of, okay, we're going to raise the Titanic and how are we going to do it and how are we going to bring this ship up and is that even possible. And then the other hand is, and on board the Titanic, there is this rare, super mineral It makes lasers work and the Russians want that and we're going to fight Russians for it. That half of the movie is so bachelors silly that you could have just done a movie about bringing the Titanic to the surface. You didn't need any of the other spy stuff but that's what makes it so bizarre. Yeah and it's the kind of movie that like even its producers were already like within a year were mocking it themselves. One of the producers infamously said it would have been cheaper to vote for the Atlantic. But yeah, I mean, if you want to look at mega bombs, late Irwin Allen, Arab ad, would you say it's that kind of film? It's pretty terrible and it's and the effects in it are confusing. I don't even want to call him bad. They're just confusing. They're they're weird effects where you look at it You go well, I know what you're doing. I don't know why you didn't like that, but okay. I guess Wasn't this re-released somewhat recently or shout factory? I think shout factory did a release of it not too long ago go and you know it's one of those movies that I think a lot of people know by title more than they know by actually having seen it and I think seeing it the

first time it, it's one of those movies that I think a lot of people know by title more than they've

Know by actually having seen it. And I think seeing it the first time it's kind of none of what you want from a movie called that. It's the kind of thing where you hear something's notoriously bad and you watch it and you realize, oh, it's not really fun It's just kind of higher than bad.

Whereas that's not fun bad.

I would say that the next film that we're gonna do

is very fun bad.

A place when nobody dead you've got The love that we came to know

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