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. I'm gonna have to go back to the hotel.

I'm gonna have to go back to the hotel.

I'm gonna have to go back to the hotel. It's the 80 of all time lost his 61st and final fight forever. Dreamgirls open at the Imperial theater in New York for the first of 1,000 Pimer in 22 performances in on December 31st as the year came to a close CNN headline news made its debut. Well, all of this was going on. We wrapped up our movie going year with the films of December 1981. Hi, everybody. I'm Drew McQueenie. And as always, I'm joined by my esteemed co-host, Scott Weinberg. Drew is my co-host. All right. It's true. It's true. I've been trying to pull this one over on people but it's so uncool when you stay on my co-host all right. It's true. It's true

I've been trying to pull this one over on people but it's so uncool when you stay on your co-host when it should be the other way around man Stop it. I know all right. Well, hey as co-host I am pleased to say that we have welcomed a number of new Patreon Supporters this month and it is always exciting to see how many of you join each month We just posted an interview today with Stephenie D'Souza, one of the screenwriters who helped to find the 80s. And there's some, even if you're a big fan of diehard, I guarantee there's some stuff in this episode you probably never heard before. Like most writers, that man can spin a yarn. So we drive over to Cross Town to Arnold for today'sger's office. And Arnold, again, you're talking about like the, you know, the game of domination. He has, everybody has photographs on your desk, right? There's one photograph that's facing you in whatever chair you're in, which is his father in a Vermont uniform with a German shepherd leaping at the lambs, so violently it's blurry. So I said, my dad is a picture just like that, but he's in a different uniform. So that's... So that broke the ice. What's wrong? Boy. But yeah, if you're not a subscriber, please check out our Patreon Patreon page.

Listen to our interview with Steven D'Souza, the co-writer of Die Hard, Commando, Running Man, 48 hours like Drew Stead, one of the most influential and entertaining screenwriters of the decade. Say oops, oops, side to head, say oops, side to head.

Say oops, oops, side to head.

Very quickly, the last episode I said that the pralor was also known as fall break. That is a mistake several cool horror nerds reminded me. The fall break moniker belonged to the mutilator, not the pralor. So there we go. That's the kind of people who listen to our show and I love them. We also have a friendly complaint that we did not cover pinball summer, aka pick up summer from March of 1981, a Canadian teen sex farce. And appropriately we're gonna back up and we're gonna talk about a movie that we missed that came out in earlier in 1981 and that is the night the lights went out in Georgia. Monday. There are long ways from the top. But they've come too far to turn back now. I can't just think and you're some kind of trouble. It's crazy and I am. You know that? The night the lights went out in Georgia. Yeah, occasionally we will overlook a medium or very small release films, but this of course was a major studio wide release film. Night the lights went out in Georgia based on a country song of the same name, which is now here following here. The night the lights went out in Georgia is an interesting song in that not only does it have a plot, but it also has kind of a cool twist ending.

So go listen to that song and you'll see what I mean. Now you figure, oh my god, if any song would make for a cool movie, it would be a song that has a story and a twist ending. So they made a movie out of it, except the movie has literally nothing to do with the song except the title. It really is a strange decision because you figured that, you know, I know that Convoy

they re-record recorded because they wanted to make it fit the film a little better but at least there there's a convoy in the movie i will grant them they got a convoy in the film but they so clearly didn't want to do the story of the song that i don't understand what value there is in putting that title on this film. You know, I know that when Nashville, when Robert Altman made Nashville, one of the things that they talked about a lot was that the people who played songwriters in the film wrote their own music for the movie, like Keith Caradine wrote the song that he played and everybody was trying to literally be those characters and write their own music. And in this thing, there is a lot of stuff about writing country music and Dennis Quaid's character being, you know, a potential star who's too big of a personal train crash to pull it off. When you watch Quaid perform, I know that later in life, he did more country music scene, he's recorded some stuff. It matters to him. Like, I think he really loves this music. I wonder why wasn't this used as a way to kind of launch him as a country star? If if it's something he genuinely wanted to do and you see he's Dennis Quaid, he's got charisma and a spare. You know, the film is a very ramshackle loosely plotted story about an aspiring country singer as played by Dennis Quaid. It's very charming and likable even very early in his career. And his Ram Bunctious but responsible little sister, as played by Christine McNichol, and the two of them are very loyal and devoted siblings as they travel across the country and get play in hazeed bars. And they run a foul of a dirty nasty cop played by Don Stroud, who was great at playing villains. And on the other side, they meet a very amiable and helpful police officer as played by the young and charming Mark Hamill. It's so interesting to me how Mark Hamill really didn't become a movie star away from Star Wars. I don't get how he didn't get at least four or five other big movies right around this time. I think that he was so quickly defined as Luke Skywalker

that he got kind of trapped in the role.

And to be honest, when he was younger, I don't think Mark Hamill was that great of an actor. I think he's definitely gotten better. Well, he's, and I think part of what he embraced was the voice acting and the way that sets you free as a character. And I think there's a looseness to him now, definitely that is very different you look at him here and there's he could be any young dude in Hollywood at that point

There's no there's a looseness to him now definitely that is very different. You look at him here and there's he could be any young dude in Hollywood at that point. There's no there's nothing here that really jumps out as he's a movie star. Quaid is easily more charismatic than him in this movie and more memorable. It's just it is weird to me that this is what he went and did between Star Wars movies. Like I can't even imagine what he read in this where he went. Yeah. Great. I'm looking forward to this. What's interesting is of course we can't you know talk about the 1980s without glancing over the impact that a young Christian McNichol had on the decade in the early part at least. She was in 1980s little darlings which we talked about and prior to that she was an Emmy-winning TV star. She was on family and she won Emmys for that.

After that, she did White Dog, the pirate movie, and just the way you are, which was kind of the beginning of the end of her movie career. That's going to be an interesting run of stuff. I can't wait to get to White Dog because that's one of the movies I can talk about all afternoon. What she has that is very, very difficult to fake as an actor is when she's thinking,

you can read her face.

Like she is very, very good at communicating what's going on inside of her without talking. She just has one of those movie faces. I'm frankly a little surprised that she wasn't bigger. I think she was really likable. But I also think that right around this time, the writing for girls in their early to mid 20s. There wasn't anything being written for them. What would she have played? Looking at the rest of the decade, I can't like pick out roles that she got screwed out over that she should have been in. There just isn't a lot for people in her age range. Well, Knight, the lights when out in Georgia is if you're a fan of these actors, then it's definitely an interesting curiosity to dig up

and check out.

I think the music for the most part is terrible. I think that the underrated Don Stroud gives a very good performance. And beyond that, I remember very little about this movie. If you've ever been to a film festival, there's this thing that starts to happen, where people refer to the films by the directors who made them. You've seen this Scott where like you hear,

hey, have you seen the new Von Trier,

have you seen the new Hanuky,

have you seen the new PT Anderson,

and they don't call films by the directors who made them. You've seen this Scott where like you hear, Hey, have you seen the new Von Trier?

...