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 80s all over. Mix Fleet would stop believing in files from bankruptcy and the US government reached an out-of-court settlement in a contentious lawsuit over the use of Agent Orange and Vietnam, and they want you to believe those two things are not related. The USSR officially pulled out of the summer Olympics set for Los Angeles and Nelson Mandela still in prison in South Africa was allowed to see his wife for the first time in 22 years. In two more events, the government wants you to believe weren't related. Ronald Reagan announced that the U.S. would not become involved in the Iran-Iraq war in any significant military fashion in Prince released when Dubs cried. do the math while we run down the movies of May 1984. Hi everybody, I'm Drew McWinney and welcome to 80's all over. I'm joined as always by my co-host, Scott Weinberg. Scott, what's up man? Hello Drew, welcome everyone to AT's all over, which is when we talk about softcore porn repeatedly. But only eight films. So this is where I feel like the 80s is still kind of May is that sleepy month. Where about half of it is a big summer month and about half of it is what the hell are these movies? The idea of May being part of the summer movie season is a relatively new phenomenon. I think it was probably like Steven Summer is the mummy. Probably put the foot on. May is now part of the summer movie season. Yeah, it feels like this month is all revving up and then right at the end of the month, boom, we get a couple of really big titles that are sort of the precursor for next month, which is crazy. I am excited about some of the weirdness of this month, and it certainly starts with an odd little movie, man. How would you describe Neil Jordan's debut feature, Angel, aka Danny Boy? I was psyched for this because I've seen most of Neil Jordan's movies, and you can see a lot of what Neil Jordan's visual signature style became. Danny Boy has some fantastic, moody, darkly lit visuals, but it's plot, which is about a musician who witnesses a double murder and then goes on a very kind of dry, death wish. Very casual rampage. Yeah, casual rampage would have been a good title for this film. It is certainly not bad, but it doesn't have for a short story about 85 minutes. It doesn't have a lot of energy for such a simple movie. A lot of the ideas that Neil Jordan is interested in and a lot of the things that he'll play with over the course of his career are already sort of in place here. I'm starting with the casting of Stephen Raya as the lead. And I think he's really good here. The issue I have with it is that he's kept it a simmer the entire time. And I feel like the movie needs to, at some point, kind of the pulse needs to kick in. This came about because John Bourbon, a shot at Scalibur in Ireland and Neil Jordan got a job working on that. And the woman recognized this guy was a filmmaker and he knew that there was going to be a voice coming out of this kid. So he helped him get this film set up and I think really helped him get his legs under him in the industry. Chris Meng is shot this. It is a early film for him as well. And you can see all the tools that these guys are going to end up using over the course of their career

in a very dry, dry run.

Now we move over to Dürmik Weenie for Michael Radford's Another Time, Another Place.

He is guilty of association with a civilian female and that is a military offense. I would say that the most shocking thing about this is that it is not a remake of the Shongkongri melodrama with Lana Turner, which I assumed it was the entire time i prepared to watch this and then was startled and confused when it turned out to have nothing to do with it a young house wife has an affair with an italian prisoner of war who was working her farm and it is very much melodrama it is engaging but not really my cup of tea generalize they get paid to keep the prisoners of war on their farm and put them to work, as opposed to putting them in a prison somewhere or building camps or anything. It also kind of helped people that were struggling because of the war to put a little extra money in their pocket. So the housewife is much, much younger than her husband. It's like a 20 year difference. And there's very little spark between them to begin with. So when these three Italians are put in the house, there's this connection that she ends up having with one of them. All of that sounds fine, except in a 90 minute movie, it takes a little over an hour before they connect really. And that's a long time. It's not terribly riveting, it's not terribly compelling. This was a first film from Michael Radford, best known for the postman, and it is most notable as the first film shot by Roger Deacon's. It's funny you'd mention that because if you had said at the end, do you realize this was the first feature by Roger Deacon's? I would have said, wait? Really? It's obviously not shot poorly, but it lacks a certain style.

We're gonna actually do another Michael Radford Roger Deacon's film later this year, which is aptly titled, and I'm looking forward to getting that one. It's gonna be a good conversation. Ah, now, Drew, finally, finally, we, I'm so excited. I know, I know, you've been thrilled about this one for weeks.

Griffin done in cold feet.

I knew I couldn't eye this one's all you.

I pride myself on being able to find anything. I could not find Coldfeet. This one's all you. Dude, you missed nothing. It's a very, very, very low budget. Super, super, super New York take on the romantic comedy. It's not quite as bad as can you make a cherry pie.

It is a different kind of Monday, New York,

where everybody's in crappy apartments and crappy offices

and it looks like everything was shot

under a fluorescent bulb.

Griffin done as much as I like him

and I really like Griffin done.

He's the most compelling thing

in most of the movies he made in the 80s.

Even he can't save this. He is a prick. She studies social behavior. They try to have a relationship. No one gives a shit. That's my summary of Cole Feet. Now speaking of nobody giving a shit. True, last month we talked about a totally disposable, unfunny sex comedy produced by Playboy called Prappies In case you thought well maybe they just you know wanted to get something crappy out of their system And now they have primed a pump and now Playboy is prepared to deliver something decent Buck it's time for hard bodies Looking for an old-fashioned movie with good clean fun then grow up and see this one instead Hard body the story of a boy. Just you know, crazy, I'm about to shoot. One special brunette. We're happy to be alone with you. And several hundred bikinis. My kind of bitch. Hard body, ready to go. It was too tame for Playboy Channel, so they sold it to Columbia. You know, this is part of that gold rush of spring break movies. And they're not quite the porkeys films. This is people descending on a vacation town and leaving all their morals and brains of the door. And that's what this genre is. And Mark Griffiths, who made this, we just talked about his debut, running hot, the movie with Eric Stoltz on the run. And I think running hot is 10 times the film, The Hard Bodies is, and I didn't think running hot was particularly good. To me, I always looked at this as the final nail in the fun Teen Sex comedy, because hard bodies is about three middle aged men who go to the beach and hire a hot young hunk to teach them how to hook up. Yeah, and it's him and his buddy played by the the creepy red haired kid from the burbs and children of the corn, who is meant to be appealing here and is really not. It's a movie about creeps teaching other creeps how to be different kinds of creeps. It's never funny. And the overall tone is like no matter how low porkeys or where the boys are, lose it it or up the creek, the goal there, the point there is that these are young people sowing their oats. As obnoxious as it is, we could chalk a lot of this up to they're all under 20. Exactly. There is a difference between that and then the Craven Predatory Nature of this movie. And clearly this guy, Mark Griffiths, if you look at the movies he made, was in this LA scene of I'm making movies that are mainly about bear boobs. And I'm guessing it's a fairly sleazy world who have worked in in that time period. And this one feels authentically grimy, which is part of what I dislike most about. Yeah, and again, it has a lot to do with the fact that it's a grown adult talking to young adults or minors. Oh, there's nobody in the movie who's likable except there is kind of a lead girl who is our heroes on again, off again, girlfriend. And she's played by Teal Roberts. She's of course asked to undress numerous times when she's given dialogue to deliver. She's actually kind of charming and likable. Kane Hatter appears very briefly as a giant nerd and he was also the stunt coordinator for Hardbodies. I'm glad that we've got a couple of years until we have to do the sequel because it is an unpleasant bad film. I-I did want to add one more note regarding hard bodies. Hold that because you may want to make that noise again as we discuss our next movie, which was oddly shot in Memphis, Tennessee, not the location for a lot of teen sex comedies, but it's very least a complaint that it is the home of making the grade. Palmer Woodrow is going to lose his inheritance unless he graduates from Uber Prep. You will actually have to get a job. He hates school, but he's got an idea. Listen to that one. $600 bucks a month to propose to graduate. And where do you propose to find the idiot to do this?

Making the grade.

The story of a rich kid who hires a street kid to finish school for him. Making the grade. Great in R. Start Friday, May 18. Check local listings. All right. Well, yeah, we mentioned making the grade briefly last episode, because it used to be. It was originally titled The the last american preppy

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