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. The look at what worked then, what endoers 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. I'm David Walker. And I'm Lois Hart. Now here's the news. President Carter has arrived in for the- CNN went on the air for the very first time,

marking the beginning of the age of the 24-hour news cycle. The U.S. brought back the draft. David Letterman's first TV show for NBC prepared in its daily morning time slot and the Mets drafted a young Darryl Strawberry. Finally in LA, Richard Pryor set himself on fire at an explosion while freebasing cocaine. And you know something I noticed when you run down the street on fire.

People... and explosion while free-basing cocaine. And you know something I noticed when you run down the street on fire, people will move out of your way. Right, they don't fuck around. They get their fuck out of your way. Except for one old drunk, right? It was them. Hey buddy, can we go get a light? Come on, pal, slow up. All babies. A little off the sleeve, what is it? All of that chaos? It's clear that June 1980 was one hell of a month. Hi, this is Scott Weinberg, and I am here live in person with Drew McQueenie. Normally we do this over Skype or whatnot, but this time I'm in Los Angeles, so Drew and I are recording. We're literally a foot away from each other. By the end of this podcast, depending on how things go, if we really started agreeing towards the end here, there may be some making out folks. This is very exciting stuff. It would be like Lady in the tramp with a microphone instead of spaghetti and a meatball. It's funny, I was very excited about the May 1980 podcast

before we did it because I knew like it was a really big

month, there were a lot of classics that came out that

more.

1980 in a weird summer and it's all over the place.

There's a lot of different types of things that came out

this month.

It runs the gamut from completely obscure, forgotten stuff

to big fat classics. And now we're gonna start with one that I think that you like considerably more than I do. I think it's safe to say, or at least do appreciate it more than I do. I call it Saturday Night Cowboy. What do you call it? Urban Cowboy. They were strangers when they met. They were strangers when they married. They lived in the new west where the myth of the cowboy lives on. The dream of being one or finding one. John Travolta, Deborah Winger, Urban Cowboy, rated PG. Let's just say somebody took Saturday night beaver and said if we do it with country music instead of disco music and then they went about making exactly that I am going to might maybe I'll get some grief for this but I think Urban Cowboy is a borderline terrible film. You're not wrong about the fact that it's a very cynical movie. It obviously began as Saturday night fever and was supposed to be version of that. It even started the same way from a magazine article that somebody read about the bull thing and about what was happening in Texas. You know, the movie begins with literally the same scene as Saturday Night Fever where he comes downstairs and his families there and they're wearing breakfast and in Saturday Night Fever it's dinner and it's spaghetti and they're all Italians and they're wife-beaters

and it is the most shorthand, it's stereotypical version of an Italian dinner. And here he comes down and it's, hey, he wants some biscuits and gravy for breakfast and he's got his hat on and he puts the dip in while he's in the car. They go overboard with these southern stuff. so it is so clearly that they're chasing that

having said that

i think that james bridges is a better director then oh much

then They go overboard with these southern stuff. So it is so clearly that they're chasing that. Having said that, I think that James Bridges is a better director than a junkie sort of cynical phone in. And I think what he gets right is Debra Winger. James Bridges was the one that fought for Debra Winger. Famously, Robert Evans on this movie said, she wasn't hot enough to be in the film and tried to fire her. And Bridges was the one that fought for her. I think Bridges and Debra Winger do really good work. She's from the very beginning. She's really dedicated and she's building a character and she's trying really hard to find interesting breaks notes to play and often it looks like Bridges punctuates a scene by just cutting the winger and giving her the last line and whatever it is. She's a fantastic actress throughout the 80s who has salvaged many a terrible screenplay and she is charming and

likable in the film but I think that that just she works as a counterpoint to how to hire some and generic and predictable the rest of the movie is. Well it wasn't supposed to be Travolta though. Originally this was written for Dennis Quaid and Travolta was supposed to be doing American Jigla. And then at the last moment Tervolta ended up picking this screenplay instead. American Jiglao had to get refigured in, that's when Richard Geer got that. But you can see how clearly American Jiglao would have fit Tervolta at that same time as well. Like it was the same kind of character thing that he was chasing that Saturday Fever would have led to very naturally. One thing I really dislike about Urban Cowboy and it's not necessarily the film's fault. It kind of kickstarted the whole line dancing for, you know, suburban middle-aged moms, including mine, oddly enough. Maybe that's why I don't like this movie. I see my dad was a big country music fan and I was raised in a, I'm not a country fan myself and I think it's because I was inundated with it, but the year this was released, 1980, I was living in Texas. We were living in Conroe, which is just outside Houston. So my parents actually went to Gilles. The world of Irving Cowboy was something my that absolutely was part of like fascinated by it at time And I think for him my dad was raised on John Wayne movies and the chance to go out and dress like a cowboy and be a cowboy on his night off I think it was very potent for him at the time and the soundtrack was Fucking gigantic and was everywhere and yeah, there were like at least four or five monster on the present radio hits on this album,

which like it or not, these are genetic cultural moments for huge groups of people. And every cowboy was a very real thing. Scott Glenn makes it work, he never winger makes it work. The film's big mistake, you notice there's one scene in the movie where it's supposed to get the dance where he has sort of a line dance solo. You realize in that moment, movie should have been about country dancing, not about the bulls, because the bulls are ridiculous.

Yeah. And it's a weird fad that where he has sort of a line dance solo, you realize in that moment, the movie should have been about country dancing,

not about the bulls,

because the bulls are ridiculous.

And it's a weird fad that went away very quickly. Travolta as a country dancer would have made more sense. Right, but country dancing is not impressive. Like, is that it, like, just go dancing is. Look at that nonsense, though. Look at the dance floor in this movie. I couldn't do any of what these guys are doing and they're doing it fairly routinely

with their women.

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