There are a few decades in film history that have been as screwed nuts 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. That's just by near 10 became the first man made object to leave our solar system, something which makes me increasingly jealous of it with each passing day. And speaking of space, Sally Ride became our first US woman to leave the planet, on board Challenger 2. The NHL introduced the five-minute sudden death overtime period in somewhere young Jean-Claude Van Dam celebrated. And finally, Yuri Andropov became president of the Soviet Union, while Pope John Paul II took the time to meet with solidarity leader Lequalisa during his visit to Poland, even as future Pope Palpatine was busy elsewhere. But enough about return of the Jedi, it's time now for June of 1983. Hi everybody, I'm Drew McQueenie and welcome to 80's all over. I'm joined as always by my co-host Scott Weinberg. Hey everybody, how are you? Subscribe. I just wanted to thank everybody out there. My kitty cat Jones passed away last week and I got hundreds of people offering the condolences and support and I just want to say I'm getting better. I'm feeling a little better. It is unbelievable how much it helped to hear from all you people. Rest in peace my beloved kitty and thank you all. That was really, really sweet of you and it really helped me through the time. Drew, let's start off this month with a strange film that breaks one of our cardinal rules. Technically speaking, it didn't even get a release in the United States in 1983, but we are including it why. We're including it because I think it gives us an opportunity to talk about something that happened to La Bacden but doesn't seem to happen now, which is, do you remember ads for this movie, Scott? Do you remember posters? I remember almost nothing about the return of Captain Invincible. This was like shock treatment where there were whole ad campaigns and the movies then never came out theatrically. That is so weird to me that you would spend the money on, you know, national magazine ads, newspaper ads, trailers, whatever, and then just make something disappear. Yeah, this is an Alan Arkin Christopher Lee superhero musical made by Philip Murat Mora in Australia. And it was co-written by one of our guests on our bonus episode, guest Mr. Stephen D'Souza, who informed us that the film was had opened in Australia and it was set to be released in the States by Drew's favorite, Jensen Farley. And they went, Jensen Farley went bankrupt like a week before the release was about to happen. And then the return of Captain Eventable ended up becoming like a cult item on VHS because it was impossible to see in the States. It's a bizarre movie. I know that there is a sort of growing cult for it or an attempted cult for it. I think largely that is centered around the music. There's some overlap with Rocky Horror Picture Show. This movie is a catastrophe though. I'm not a big fleet more a fan in general. This guy that we'll talk about more of his work later in this decade, but he's a guy who I feel kind of like Albert Pion. I feel like inside of him, there is the heart of a guy who knows what movies he's trying to make and wants to make, who's just not getting those movies there who can't quite push the rock up the hill. I give the screenwriters and the producers a little bit of credit, they found the nugget of a cool idea that other films would mine later, which is that he is an out of work, out of touch, old, retired superhero who reluctantly comes back. And so other films like Hancock and The Incredibles have mined these themes much better. And there are a few isolated set pieces that are kind of funny, Alan Arkin, as Captain of Incibel and Christopher Lee as his arch nemesis, at isolated moments, it nails the lunacy that it's going for. But for the most part, it's kind of aimless and not very funny. Yeah. And I think part of the problem is that it's at that point where the people that were making superhero stuff or the people that would make media about superheroes really had grown up superhero fans. So they were coming at it from this sort of outside, hey, I kind of get what superheroes are, but there's I don't feel much love for the genre in this. And I go back to the condor man and the hero at large thing, which is like, don't have an established superhero, but if we can kind of piggyback on the current superhero craze by making a superhero themed movie, they don't stand up so well. Well, Christopher Lee has a musical number at the end of this film that is worth seeing just for the, I can't believe that happened quality of it, but doesn't really transcend the curiosity value, right? Yeah. So moving into our releases for this month, we've talked a lot about airplane and the impact that had on film and how I don't think anybody ever figured out the math from airplane. But you saw studios trying to figure out what made it a hit. How can we reproduce that? And one of the sort of offshoothoot to that was the career of Robert Hayes where man, nobody knew what to do with that guy. I came across this movie in the video store, probably around 8485, and I rented it specifically because Robert Hayes is on the cover and it's called Utilities. Please, turn out your lights. Please don't you see how important it is? If you don't show them how strong we are, they'll keep doing it again and again. I don't mean for a week or a day, but just for a minute, just to show them that they can't keep walking all over us. This is very, very Canadian. This is another of these Canadian movies where it's Canada trying to pass as America, which really sticks out moments like when the FBI shows up. And those are the most Canadian FBI agents I have ever seen in my life, right down to the not really knowing how to use a badge. I'm tired of these like capra wannabe movies. They're very forced. They're not sincere. Hey, there's a social issue. Let's tackle it. And hopefully we get people cheering in the in the aisle by the end of this movie. How much of that do you think is people looking at what network did so beautifully, that Cheffsky tapping into the sort of roiling anger and also hitting these really high satirical notes and guys wishing they could be like Cheffsky? Because I do. I feel like there's their aiming at we're going to show how like they try to pay in pennies, but it's legal currency, but the company won't take it and they kill it all lady in there. Robert Hays is a social worker who gets fed up with the system and fights back against the system by sabotaging them machines and here this movie put me to sleep. There's also a whole totally different movie that's just about Robert Hayes versus Brooke Adams, the cop that he wants to fuck. God bless Brooke Adams because man is she without her. I honestly don't know if I would have finished this movie. I like Robert Hayes, but he is boring in this movie. She adds us a slight pulse to this movie. The script is by among others, David Greenwald, who, Buffy and Angel fans intimately and love and Jim Califf, who later wrote, stake out. And I can kind of see some of what Califf did well later, which is the juggling of plots in what he's trying to do here. But this movie just can't pull any of it together. And the guy who directed it, Harvey Hart, you know, he did a lot of Colombo episodes and a lot of Universal TV and stuff. I feel like a lot of his theatrical features are like this. They're plotting and they, he never really figured out how to nail it in a film. We want to thank all of our listeners who call us, our show like, important to them and that we do a good job of introducing them to classic films. And then we open up our episode

for June 1983 with the Return of Captain Invincible Utilities and something called Stacey's Nights. Oh, in the dark, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, is kind of the first time somebody gave him a big role in a movie and he's not the lead, but he's the engine of the film, I would say. Yeah, he's a card, a blackjack expert who is enlisted by a woman who wants to take down the house and then something horrible happens. And she comes back to get revenge against the casino. Oh, man. I know, I know. And he's not particularly good in it either. You know, it really, this is is one of my I hate to keep breaking out the

sinkley shades. But was this a pilot movie was this a movie that was supposed to be a pilot? It's very possible and look it's weird because there was a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of stuff that got repurposed to theaters that was supposed to be on TV. There's a lot of stuff from TV that are a lot of theatrical stuff that they couldn't figure out how to to release that they would dump to television.

And then there's stuff that like genuine art house giant

Titanic titles like another one we're talking about later this month that started as television in another country, but they're theatrical here. So it was a blurrier line back then. This feels to me like this was going to be a week to week thing where after the end of this stasis put together her oceans 11 team that she can now use to take down guys who are screwing the little guy. When you look at this in utilities, you could make these kinds of films right now. If you wanted to make a movie like Utilities right now and you were smart about it and you wanted to make a movie about how little people are being crushed and how their cities like Flint, I think there's some sharp material to do and it's clear that watching these films right now, the early 80s felt a lot like it does right now, economically and socially. And it's really weird to get that echo where you realize that they're making films about things that feel very much like a concern right this moment again. These social uplift movies will call them a born as prevalent in the 90s. Let's put it that way. Yeah. And you know what else was not prevalent in the 90s? True. God. Oh, God. Is it time to watch another teen sex comedy? It is time to tackle one of the more infamous and dare I say popular teen sex comedies of the era private school. What they're teaching in private school isn't private anymore. Especially if a cherry-vail academy for girls. Are you feeling romantic now, my darling? Where there's no limit. Hi. Hey! Sugar! On what you can learn. Where a guy like Bubba Boregaard at a girl's school like this has the odd stacked against it. 9-1 against an even copping a look. 15-1 against him ever getting a date. 12-22 to 1 against your score in any way, shape or four. It takes Bubba Bowryguard, the animal of the 80s. To make a private school, go public, private school. I recently got into it. There was a dude who, and look, I love the conversations we've had with our listeners and with the Patreons and with the people that are really into the idea of what this show is. I've noticed that there's one guy who really got a bug up his ass about this thing, and he does not like it when I describe these teen movies when I call them sex crimes. I'm gonna say it again here. Private school is wall to wall filled with literal sex crimes. This movie is horrifying. On one hand, I could see how somebody would be annoyed at calling a film a sex crime, but I think that the clear indication here is that these films are filled with things that weren't appropriate then and are crimes now. And it informs the climate of pop culture. Like one of the reasons that I think looking back at this particular moment is interesting and important is because you do realize how there's an entire generation of guys who their early sexualization happened watching these things on HBO and on late night and a lot of these movies they only watched for one thing and look I was a 13 14 year old guy I get it you tuned in because on cinematics at a certain hour there was a chance there were gonna be boobs in a movie if you watched it and a lot of these movies existed to be sold directly to that late night market and to play to that audience. The context in these films is an unrelenting context of guys or boners with feet, women are either sluts or virgins and sex crimes are hilarious. And I feel bad for Betsy Russell who I genuinely think had comic chops and is interesting. And I feel bad for Phoebe K2, we've already established is enormously likable on film. And good. Like if you look at her work in fast times, she plays the comedy of it. She also gets the sadness underneath. She's a real actor giving a real performance. So I want better for these kids. Yeah, there's a, I think there's a reason that Leering is one of my favorite derogatory adjukibs,

because certainly nothing wrong with seeing naked ladies, naked men in a sex comedy and

as a human being enjoying that.

But the problem is that these movies make it feel like it's gross.

The men doing it are gross.

A lot of the women are just, they're either meat or they're rotten.

You can't help but look at these movies and go, this is what you shot on this day. Like this was your big gag, like a beautiful girl, topless, on a horse, and then you're gonna shoot it and then put it in slow motion. That's your big gag. You also have to assume that this was largely greenlit because it's universal based on the success of fast times. We talked about that. out that David had a good film there, but you've got Phoebe Cates and this Ray Walston shows up in it. And then you have little bits and moments like I kind of like the scene in the pharmacy where Martin Mull is clearly stonewalling her and embarrassing her about buying the condoms. And an uncredited Martin Mull. And it's kind of a funny scene in that he knows full well what she's asking for and he's just pushing her button in making it as loud and as demonstrative

as possible and as demonstrative as possible

and asking her questions that she can't answer.

And what's weird about this one is that it's from the producers of private lessons,

which also explains why you silly a crystal pops up as a French teacher.

At some point, they either threw in a halfway sincere romantic story as filler

in the middle of what's basically a movie about a bunch of sloppy nerds who'd prostressed to look at boobs, Matthew Modine and Phoebe Kates are like the romantic leads and you take this movie in another direction with these leads and this could be a well regarded well-remembered teen text comic. Well, yeah, I mean, my god, whose Phoebe Kits is best friend of this, it's Kathleen Wilhoet, who I think is a delightful actor who always is memorable in roles like this. There's no reason that with these elements, you had to make this film, but this film, it's consistently lazy. And I think just consistently, you feel bad for these kids who could have had a better shot at some sort of showcase for who they were. Private school, it's not good. Let's take a quick sidebar into a movie.

We're not really going to cover, but it did come out in 1983 and it starred Rex Harrison, Rod Taylor and Edward Albert. It's called a Time to Die. From the author of The Godfather, starring Rex Harrison, Edward Albert Jr. and Rod Taylor. It's Mario Puzoves, a time to die. He was a young American agent ready to sacrifice his life for his country. Instead, they forced him to sacrifice his comrades. And his young bride. Your wife died in the very first hour. Now he's ready to do anything to crack them down. One by one. No matter where they hide. No matter what the consequences. A time to die. Drew, I know you had trouble tracking it down. A time to die is a World War II thriller about a veteran who is hunting down Nazis and others who killed his wife. It was shot in 1979. It was released in 1983, well passed the sell by date for actors like Rotterdam and Edgar Gaubert based on a novel by Mario Puzzo and it's not very good. Time to die. I think that's fair. Okay, so can I offer up a hot take, Scott? You can. Hold on. Let me put on my coat. Okay, get ready. Wait, wait, wait, let me take off my coat. Why would I put on my coat? Okay, take off the coat, put on the goggles. All right. I think Porquies 2 is probably a better film than the first film. Peewee, Tommy, Bula, meets what kind of man we're doing like that? Wendy, it's my first day today. And the rest of the game, you have to prevent what a U.S. star bouncing back in the never-ending fight to party all night. Porky's too. the next day is I think they realized it was a smash hit and it was pure aisle and we want to try and raise our game just a little bit. But here's the problem Drew, it's not funny. Yeah, it's not, it's really not funny. And they lean heavily on and I give them credit for this. They put Kaki Hunger front and center in this movie as one of the comic heavy lifters. And it almost feels like a huge reaction to how she's treated in that first film. The plot of this film is they wanna do Shakespeare,

there is a religious leader in town

who doesn't want them to do Shakespeare because it's obscene and then they battle over it. And there's a Ku Klux Klan subplot. So it feels like they took that running thread in the first film about anti-Semitism that was so soft-sold and then really leaned into it this time and said, okay, we're gonna try and make them decent kids this time and everybody else all the adults in town are shit and

that's that's the take it's, I think, that you say for your sequel, let's try to have more of a social content, so let's try and have more of a hefty plot, something with the last sum up to it. The other side of that is, you're not making movies with the social conscience. Don't try, just make something that's funny. There are no weird middle ground because it's kind of, you know, like Scott Columbia in this. He was one of the caddies in Caddy Shack whose storyline in that original four-hour cut of the film was equivalent to the storyline of Chevy Chase or Rodney Danger Field or Bill Murray. But he got cut because who gave a shit he was the caddy. And so like there were a lot of actors from that film who were upset and he was one of them.

These guys have been kicking around for a while.

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