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 McQueenie and Scott Weinberg are ready to review every major film of the decade, one month at a time to look at what worked then, what endurers now, and how it felt to be there when it all went down.

Turn back to Calendar with us.

It's the 80s all over. Music Joseph Gordon Levitt and Paris Hilton were both born on the same day. Frank Sinatra was finally cleared of longstanding charges that he had ties to organized crime allowing him to once again operate a casino in Las Vegas, and Richard Petty pulled off a stunning upset when he went from fifth place to winning and won with his final victory at the Daytona 500. But if we had a Valentine, it was the weird and the varied lineup of films released in February of 1981. Hi everyone, I'm Drew McQueenie and welcome to 80s all over. I'm joined as always by my co-host, Scott Weinberg. Hi everybody, I'm joined by my co-host, Drew McQueenie. Hey, before we get started this week, we wanted to right up front, pay our respects to somebody who we think of as one of the definitive faces and voices of the 80s, a guy who made everything better by being in it and who I think for both of us is iconic. One of those guys that you think of when you think of this decade and these movies. And that is, of course, the Bill Paxton. One of the most iconic, colorful, funny, and welcome character actors. And of course, most people will remember Bill Paxton from his breakout scene stealing performance as Hudson in Aliens. I love Hudson dearly and certainly Aliens was a huge one for me. For me personally though, and we'll talk more about this when we get to this movie, but it was chat in weird science He I knew chat and my friend's brother was chat so when when we saw that movie It was this insane lightning bolt moment of Holy crap. That's not just close. It's like Bill Paxton was studying him. It was amazing. I fell in love with that guy at that point. What I love is that my kids now know him as the guy who's been killed by the terminator, the alien and the predator. And they love him. They adore Bill Paxton because of that role that he plays where he intersects with so many of the things that they adore. Toe, she's a huge John Hughes fan right now. And obviously those three iconic movie monster moments, that's part of what makes him such a legend. He did a lot of, a lot of films in the 80s. His three most important, I would say, were weird science aliens. And then of course, Catherine Biggalow's near dark in which he plays one of the most enjoyably evil vampires you'll ever see. I can't wait to talk about that movie as a whole, but yeah, his performance in that movie is delightful. Like he clearly knows that he's able to go anywhere while playing that character because of how big a character it is. And you see him like pushing to see what he can get away with on film. It's the same thing that you saw in chat.

It's the same thing that you saw in Hudson.

He was really inventive for a guy that people love to make the joke that you got him confused with Bill Pullman. I never got them confused because Bill Paxton was such a giant personality. I don't see how any movie fan worth their salt, whatever get these two men confused and no offense to Bill Pullman who's also a great character actor. I'm leading

man but Bill Paxton, he was just one of those faces that every time he popped up, whether it was in like a big budget action film or something like frailty, which he also directed, a brilliant horror film. It's a real loss for movie fans and it really is a shame that he passed away at 61. He deserved a couple more decades that that gentleman did. It's gonna be nice. Every single time we run into him, as we proceed through this podcast and we get to the other end of the 80s, it's gonna be a delight because that's what it was like every time you ran into him as a filmgoer. I didn't even realize fish heads was such a big part of the 80s for me. It's one of those songs because of Dr. Demento and I was such a standout little moment of surrealism. I knew that song very well and it was certainly a big part of my 80s experience as well. And it wasn't until many years later that I connected the dots and realized Bill Paxton was behind that. And that's one of the things that makes a guy like Bill Paxton. So wonderful when you look at the whole body of work is you don't realize how much texture he added to your overall experience until you look at that big picture. And it's very, very hard to imagine what that decade would have been like without him. Not to belabor the point, but you go around and talk to filmmakers and actors. You won't find a bad word said about Bill Paxton. By all accounts, he was a gentleman, a sweetheart, a funny man, a generous guy. Without getting too modeling, I'd like to say that movies can bring our friends back to life at least temporarily. That's the beauty of what Bill Paxson has done. He may be gone from us, but he'll be immortal, but he will be missed. Well listen, as we get started this week, I just wanted to do a little bit of housekeeping up front. See oops, up side to head, say oops, up side to head. Same. Once again, we pulled the boner. In this case, I'm the one that pulled it. I could not remember for the life of me, the name of the book, Hell Rasers. When I was talking about it, Hell Rasers is the book about the various hard-drinking English actors, and it's the stories of a specific group of them. One of the reasons that I don't feel bad, like mentioning this book, is it's not gossip in the sense that these guys didn't want these stories told. These guys were the ones who told these stories and they seem to take a great deal of pride and the most insane ones. So it doesn't feel like you're speaking out of school when you tell a story about Richard Burton or an Oliver Reed. I got it a little wrong last time. I mentioned that it was Mike Todd who called home. It was Eddie Fisher. So thank you guys for pointing that out and the name of the book is Hellraisers. We'll put a link up to it so that you guys can buy it from Amazon. If you're interested, it's a really fun book. Also, and this is a much bigger boner and I am really embarrassed by this particular boner. We forgot to talk about the theatrical re-release of

Close Encounters in the first time, we wanted more. Now, there is more. Close encounters of the third kind. The special edition rated PG. I do want to talk about movie releases because it was part of our pop culture diet at that point in a much more pronounced way when stuff came back out to theaters It wasn't like one or two theaters or played at the Alamo draft house one night They were like full theatrical releases where they put the posters back out and they did trailers again and some of this stuff You wouldn't get a chance to see any other place again in particular The promise that they were gonna show us the inside of the spaceship and the Spielberg have been thinking about the movie and he had some new ideas and and I remember what a big deal it was that he was going to revise so many of the things that he had thought about the film. So I saw it as soon as he came out theatrically the special edition. I know that my take on it was that he completely and utterly ham-fisted his own movie. If ever the phrase less is more had a better example, this is that. I love close encounters, but that special edition is a really ill-considered re-editive film. Columbia Pictures comes to him and says we want some of that B-roll and we're going to re-release it. We got that B-roll. You know, this is a guy who's made through or four movies at this point.

He's not going to have the clout or the interest

to be like, no, how dare you, I'm not doing that. I mean, he was dissatisfied when he put it out. It was a thing where he did not quite nail the movie. It's like James Cameron and The Abyss. you know when James Cameron put the Abyss out in theaters if you had read the novel for

the Abyss before the film came out you realized there was a shitload of that movie that

was missing and And yeah, but name one director who's fine with their movie when it's done. Nobody wants to get it. But not to that extent. It was the same kind of thing where they really felt like their third act. They just didn't finish. And I know that they can eat it a filmmaker. Lucas is the notorious overreaction version of that, but I get why he wanted to try.

I just wish he could have looked at his film and realized why it didn't need any of it. The special edition is an interesting historical footnote, but I don't know any film fan who considers that the definitive edition. That's clearly a case where the 1977 film is the film and every other version is and there's this alternate weird thing he did one time that's like a disco remix. Having said that, it is now time to jump into the movies for February of 1981. And it's a pretty diverse list. I would not say it is a good list, but it is a diverse list. And there's a lot of ground to cover. First, we're gonna start with a the movie that at the time was kind of a big deal and it's because Robin Cook was sort of the medical world's Michael Crichton. He was hot shit for a moment, writing heightened science fiction where there's a medical threat or a medical issue. And of course, this movie, Sphinx, has nothing to do with medicine in his complete and utter horseshit. Kings to this hiding place of treasures. She has come. I'm an after chief physician and architect for the living God king of the two lands to reverently atone for the disturbance the eternal rest of the king to I'm coming. Leslie Ann Downe. Franklin Jellar.

Maurice Rume.

John Gilgurd.

Stinks.

Many have died to keep the secret. Many will die to learn it. Sphinx, that's a movie. Now... What most... Yes, it is a movie a movie yes what may people may not remember because they weren't alive at this point in time is that the late seventies to the like eighty two i want to say america and much of the world was gripped in egypt mania it was one of those things where for a little while, just already lost their damn full mind about something.

And it certainly wasn't the first time around.

The 30s and the mummy and that whole era of exploration was the first time people went Egypt crazy. But there was a big comeback. And I think it was the King Tut tour that did it. Most people remember that some of the byproducts were Steve Martin's wonderful novelty song, King Tut. and horror films such as 1980s, the Awakening and non-horror films like 1981's Sphinx. So thank you, Pop Culture, for inspiring completely dull and listless movies that are more or less forgotten. It stars Leslie Ann Down as a really inept archaeologist. You're being very kind. I don't know if I've ever seen an adventure-type film where the hero was so frequently in need of rescuing. When Lisa and I watched this film, she was kind of half watching it. She was doing other things and she was walking in out of the room and it was probably an hour in when she said, how many times does she gonna scream and make that sound in this film. And then from that point on, it was probably another 140. Yes, she's constantly put in in jeopardy and does nothing of her own agency to save herself. She's she's your ostensible hero and she's not very capable. Well, it's weird because John Byron, we talked about him on the podcast before when we talked about a heartbeat, which is the film he made about the beat poets and caroac and Cassidy and all that. And that's not a bad movie and it's pretty well written. I think he must have hated the Robin Cookbook that he was adapting here because clearly every story point is thrown away and it's very perfunctory and linear. And even with that being the case, it almost makes no sense how anything unfolds or why I don't get the mystery of any of it. And I remember that coma was a huge hit. coma came out and I guess it was 78 and the book was out before that and had that compelling cover of all the people hanging on the wires and it was one of those high concept hook things where everybody went, ooh, coma. And then they could sell your parts. And coma was an example of like a really simple across the middle high concept movie. And that's why Robin Cook was hot shit. This was the follow up that he then sold to a studio. But you kind of imagine that at some point, some poor asshole at the studio actually had to read the book before they bought it. The book is this, the book is this dull and this inert and makes this little sense. And the character is that much of a drip. I find it hilarious. If you're a fan of John Adams Dracula at all, then you know you're familiar with the Franklin Jell-A of the late 70s where he was being sold as Franklin Jela fuck machine

Women will lose their minds for Franklin Jela and this movie is clearly they are casting him for that value the Franklin Jela Oh my value god bless Franklin Jela. He's a very good actor, but when he's in a bad film

Oh boy, well he has zero chemistry with her

He looks like he would rather be doing anything Oh, he was like treating her as her doctor or something. There is a hilarious scene. We think he's about to seduce her. The music starts to soar and she turns to him and she smacks this horse in the ass and the horse and carriage run away. I'm pretty sure when John Gilgoth exits the movie, you can see him holding his paycheck in his hand. It is bad. He's in literally two scenes. So I mean, if you're a film scholar who's trying to collect the complete works of Sir John Gilgoth, makes things like your last stop. In the same year, we got Sphinx, which came and went,

and it feels like a relic of a 1960 type adventure movie.

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