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 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. An average movie ticket was $2.50. Gallantagasc was $1.10 and the number one song in the country was Cindy Loppers' lovely time after time. The second hand done by is your lost, you cannot give your will find me. Time after time. So turbulent month for global politics, Deerogondi ordered an attack on the Golden Temple, setting up a deadly seek uprising. While Pierre Trudeau stepped down as Prime Minister in Canada after serving for 15 years. On the TV game show Press Your Luck, a contestant named Michael Larson managed to win a record busting $110,000 by memorizing the supposedly impossible to memorize, Patron and the Whammy. I still wish Bill Murray had made the movie he wrote about this thing. For the very first time DNA was cloned from extinct animal and I assume John Hammond was involved. Tetris was released in the Soviet Union and another of their fiendish schemes to waste American hours and Donald Duck turned 50 years old, completely done a elaborate birthday party at Disneyland. All of this unfolded while moviegoers were busy getting rocked by one of the biggest months of the decade, we have finally reached June of 1984. Hi everybody, I'm Drew McQueenie and welcome to 80's All Over. I'm joined as always by my co-host Scott Weinberg. Scott, how are you, sir? You know, it's like a video game where you have to hit like a certain checkpoint to move on.

We've had a couple of checkpoints, but this is a big one.

Conversation online since our last episode went up, especially about Templar Doom has been pretty lively. And one of the things that I didn't even mention last time, there was a big part of what we're going to talk about this month is how all the peripheral stuff kind of got me wired into Temple Doom. Do you remember all the interviews the time that they did with Kihoi

Kwan about how he got the job, how he improvised the scene with Harrison Ford where he was cheating at cards and then it ended up in the movie? Those types of things were so important to me as a film fan that summer. This is when I remember giving money, handover fists to magazines and books and soundtracks and toys and anything because it felt like Like just opened the skies up, and everything was being made for me. For me, this month was, again, just because I'm a couple of years behind you, visiting a brand new country, and you're just everywhere you turn, it's something new and exciting. When I look back at this month now, there's films here that I ended up having relationships with later that had nothing to do with Juniv 84, There's films that I never saw until just now for this episode. And it's amazing to me how much you can pack into just over 20 titles in a month. But if there's ever been a month that I think makes the case for what you and I started this podcast for, it's this month. Let's start Juniv 84 with a handful of smaller, lesser known and imported films. Drew, let's start off with an Australian film called Careful.

He might hear you. It's an interesting, weirdly toned little drama about a kid who is stuck in the middle of a custody battle. Both of his aunts after his mother passes, and it's who's going to end up with him. And one home is more affluent than the other, and it's really about what is best for a child when the child has very little agency in any of the decisions being made. what i like about it, it kind of almost plays like a morality tale of, like a fairy tale even, the more well-off aunt is not necessarily the best one for the child. I do like that a lot of it feels like it is the child's perspective, so the adult world happens around him. Yeah, it's interestingly made. I think more than anything, it feels like a showcase for a director because so much of the movie is built around a child's performance where the director's doing a lot of the work. Based on a very popular novel, Port Worth mentioning, let's move on to something also from overseas. This is a British drama, and it's got a really interesting cast let us talk briefly about another country

You were a disgrace to the house you were a disgrace to the entire school. I reckon that's where the full six strokes

I

Should go straight to Mr. Fox and

Give him the names of all the people I've... You have no idea what life in England in the 1930s was like. I know way too much about the English boarding school system for somebody who never went to English boarding school and has no experience with English boarding school. This is a tale of expectations versus delivery. If you were to say, hey, Scott, are you interested in a slightly prim and proper British drama about 1930s boarding school and the upper class snobs who dwell within? I'd say, probably not. Well, it stars a very young colon-worth, rupert-everant and carry-always, all three whom are quite good. Then I dug a little deeper, and I realized that it's a fictional retelling of a true life gentleman who defected from Great Britain many years ago and was a spy for Russia. So once I had that real life context, well, it's an origin story at that point. You know, how do you end up a gay Marxist?

There's interesting subtext here.

I don't know that I think the film is necessarily the most compelling way to dramatize the last. It ambles a little, but I'm watching it and I'm thinking, it would be interesting to pair this movie and what it deals with, and it's politics and it's socio-political themes. We'd pair this up against like taps or lords of discipline.

One of them seems to be dealing with real life politics and real life issues and the other is more like, you know, J.I. Joe. Also the pressures are a lot the same because you're putting these young kids under the supervision of other kids who have been through this system and who have been hazed in their way and who then hand the hazing down. It's just the different system. So here we see with the English school system, the private school system did to those kids, and we see in taps with the military system did. And I do think there's some value in that. I also think there's an awful lot of drama made about English boarding schools. And I can imagine if you are from a cultural background where the entire idea of the money gas system of England is alien to you, these films have got to be like science fiction. They've just got to be set on another planet. But you see a lot of echoes in these films that are about young men in boarding schools and it always seems to stem from, you know, they rebel against the authoritarianism that they are either forced into or initially wanted. There are certain cultural experiences that have been more overshared than others. And I think there's a disproportional amount of English school drama considering how many people around the world aren't English school kids and have never gone through it. I would recommend it. I don't love it. Yeah, the stuff about the pressures of being gay in that environment is interesting and it's well handled. There's some heavy-duty stuff in there and it's worth a look. And now it's time for everyone's favorite television show. Drew's headed to movie, but it's actually a TV movie. Well, release the afterglillian America. So it does count here. Ingmar Bergman's after the rehearsal. Woody Allen is such a huge fan of Ingmar Bergman and his reference to him is work and I think his work is in many ways a response to some of Bergman's work and there's certainly movements of Allen's career where it feels like he was chasing what Bergman was doing. And I think the big difference between the two of them and it really took a film like this one for me to watch now as an older man is I think Bergman is Alan with a conscience. This film is a confessional piece in a lot of ways. It's very personal. It's a difficult piece. A extension of Augustine Berg's dream play. And then the film is what happens at the end of the rehearsal is there is an ongoing conversation between a young actress and her director. You could leave it at that, but I think that doesn't quite explain what the movie is. And what the movie is, I think, is somebody looking back using the framework of a piece of drama that they're going to stage. And then using that as a framework to discuss all of their own flaws and faults and personal sins and their failings. And I think this is a lacerating film. I think Bergman talks about his tendency to sleep with his lead actresses, to exert power over them. I think if you wanted to watch this film from the context now of directors who we are starting to have this conversation about or executives or filmmakers, after the rehearsal is somebody who knows that they've been on the wrong side of that equation dealing with that. There is a choice that's made towards the end of this film, in which an actress explains how much she's willing to do something for a play, how much of herself she's willing to give. And it raises a monstrous question about how much of yourself to give to art. It is an older man's work in the sense that there is real thematic heft. Clearly the thoughts of somebody who has gone through a life of work and is now reflecting on it. This has been trumically new with I called it a movie but it's actually a TV movie that runs 69 minutes in total. And boy did that make a nice appetizer for our next film which really pairs beautifully with it? Let's talk about the executioner part too. When crime took over the city, he came to clean it up. Muggers, rapists and thugs, beware, death was started. The exterminator continued. The execution of Part 2 will finish it. He's ready to make their day, night, down in the alley. Upon the rooftops, he's watching out. Slime, he's waiting, and he will both them away. He's coming to a theater near you rated R from 21st century. Drew. First of all, first of all, Scott, is this a sequel? Nope. Nope. That part too is one of the weirdest things they could have put on this film. And you wanna talk, not a movie? This is barely functionally. I will give you that Ingmar Bergman's after the rehearsal is more of a motion picture than is the executioner part too. You win again, Moriart. Oh, this is bad. All right. Well, it's called the executioner part two research indicates that this was made two years earlier and the exterminator had just been a cult hit and they've some smart producer realized that if we call something the executioner part two, people won't remember that it was called the exterminator. And I don't know if that's true, that may be apocryphal. But I love that. My favorite thing about this movie is how when the guy kills people, he goes, I'll be execution. And it's clearly dubbed later. And it was just so they had an excuse to call it or the news will go, oh, the execution it killed the buddy. He's the executioner. So lazy If you had this poster framed on your wall as like a piece of mid 80s low budget catch, it's a great poster. Oh, terrific poster. And now here's the things, Scott. Back when I was 14, I guess, when I lived in Chetanoga, they took us to the paper and I got to interview or meet the guy who ran the local film Department and he told us about how Preskits worked and about how they got their information from studios and He had a stack of Preskits he was getting rid of and he said any of these you want I was like I'll take all of them give them all to me and so he gave all of the Preskits to me And I took them home and for months I went through the stills and they everything and just inhaled those press kits every element of them. It didn't matter what it was for. So I had a press kit for the executioner part two had never seen the film until now, but remember the cover and was sure it was going to be better than this. It was not. So it's just so cheap. It really, I mean, not to be unkind, but it really looks like somebody would access to an alley and a camera, just basic death wish, knock off. You are executed because I have the execution of you. You are executed. All right, well, you know what you are Drew? What the why? You are the naked face. The naked face. Black from Sydney Sheldon's Shocking Best Seller, the naked face. Suspect or victim, Roger Moore walks the tightrope of terror in the naked face written for the screen and directed by Brian Forbes. A golden, global production coming from Canon. What if I told you that we have a film starring Rod Steiger and Archer, Elliott Gould, David Hedison and Art Carney? You'd be down for that, right? Oh, but wait. Oh, I might. But the lead is roger more mhm uh... first of all brine forbs the director this movie made some decent films he's not a terrible film effort wise is probably a best movie in my opinion yes effort wise is not bad say something went after noon is okay king rats okay like he's done some fine that this is uh... this is not good at all and it's based on the very first novel by Cindy Sheldon, first published novel by him. I've got to assume the book is junk. This feels like sort of a dry run for- The way I love that on the poster, the naked face coming soon to a theater in New York. I gotta assume the book is junk. Rumic. Oh. Yeah Well, that's. It's a psychiatrist who one time testified against police officer in a case. And as a result, when somebody turns up dead in his office, dude, don't, don't strain anything. Roger Moore is a psychiatrist suspected of a murder. That's it. There's your blind. It was. Didn't we just cover this last year, but it was a comedy? No. No, it was still the night. So okay, so a client of Roger Morris is stabbed right on the street and then almost immediately the two cops show up and let me tell you something. This is not a good movie, but if you were to watch the naked face and turn up the volume just a little bit when the two cops played by Rod Stanger and Elliot Gould when they are on screen This is the best cop show we never got a spin off from Elliot Gould playing it totally laid back kind of good cop and then they cut to Rod Stiger and he's like, yeah Son of a bitch bastard. You did it. I know you did it. There's blood on your face right now. I mean, this might be the movie that got him all those overacting gigs later in the decade. It's a remarkable trio of crazy performances because Ellie at Gold, it's not a bad performance but it's crazy when you set it next to Rod Steiger because he's not reacting to how insane Rod Steiger is.. Rodgermore kind of does. And then you throw in Art Carney as the detective who gets hired to investigate this thing while the two cops are also investigating it. And Art Carney is in another television show that's totally different again. It's such a weird collision of things. This is Roger Moore. Did this movie between Octopacy and Voodoo a Kill. I like Roger Moore. He's like a Shatner type. Nobody would ever accuse him of being a Livia, but very likable as a movie star, right? Yeah, he's a charming movie star. He has his niche. And in this film, in particular, he walks through this movie as if he's trying to blame a fart on someone else. and Archer. Oh my my. Throw away. It's almost like they were halfway through the movie and they went, we don't have one woman in this movie. It's also a crazy relic of a period before police work kind of grew up. Police still thought that psychological profiling and psychiatrists were just crazy people. And so Rod Siger's like, youer you crazy head shrinker Yeah, they're the mood. Yes tiger has a bone to pick because Roger Moore the psychiatrist was once a character witness for a mentally ill person who got off on that case But if you really dig all those actors that we mentioned It's not unwatchable and I will say if I seen this film when I was younger, the final scene that Elliot Gould is in would have given me nightmares for years. Not kidding, you know what I'm saying, right? Okay, yeah. Last note, and this is like a fun interactive thing that I would like to do with our listeners. Find the opening credits to the naked face. And tell me if you can't sing the title of the film along to this score So perfectly that you think that he wrote lyrics and they just pulled them at the last minute Yeah, I can hear the naked face. I think you are correct. Alright, well, from the naked face, we move to a film with the same amount of syllables in the title. It's Rutger Hower in Abreed Apart. On a Cherokee Island, lives a man whose life is a secret, and whose soul is a fortress. Only two people can reach him. A woman who desires him. You never even touch me. And a man who may betray him. Alone, each is a force of nature. Together, they are a breed apart. Rutger Hauer. Hauer's booth. Hey boy, I'll be good. Kathleen Turner. A breed apart. Here's my experience with the opening credits of a breed apart. Wait, Kathleen Turner's in this.

Wow, okay.

Well, Paris Booth, all right. The credits start playing. There's this long, Donald Pleasence's in it. Long list of people that sound interesting. I'm like, wow, this sounds kind of interesting. It gets to the very end of the opening credits. I am on board and I am curious. and then the last credit comes up directed by Philippe Morah

and I have never felt more kicked in the nuts

by a momentary surprise, and then he shocked me because it's a pretty decent little movie. Yes, exactly. I would say I've seen probably 10 or 12 of this Schlock master's filmography. We've already covered the Beast Within and Return of Captain Invincible. This is probably his best movie. It is the one that actually plays as a film and is fairly interesting and has a Catholic Internal Performance. I didn't even know existed where she plays a Southern tomato and I am startled by her accent because it's a weird choice. Discover watching and discovering this film is noticing the cheese in it was of course a delight. Not well written, not a pretty good performance. And her character is more or less pointless even though she seems to exist as like the fighting point between our two leads. But that really goes nowhere. Late in the film, there's a romantic subplot that is done so mockishly. There's a bizarre sequence in a barn. I mean, just when the movie is just about Rucker Hauer as a kind of cookie, a Vietnam veteran slash conservationist who is on this mountain and he's protecting these birds from power's booth, who is being paid by the awesomely evil Donald Pleasants to steal these very, very rare Eagles eggs. And you think, okay, there's a setup for a good thriller. And then you also have Brian James, the late, great Brian James, as a piece of shit who makes trouble for everybody. And it goes abroad, one brawl between two men that single-handedly destroys

an entire store.

It's got some nice cinematography.

It's a passable time-waster.

I wouldn't call it something that you have to dig up immediately.

It's a perfectly serviceable little thriller.

And you know what else is fun, Drew?

...