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 the calendar with us. It's the 80s all over. When you're time in the moments of the Defineda year, the election of Ronald Reagan had to be first and foremost for Americans in 1980. I'd say the death of John Linden was arguably just as defining for the era that followed, and it was sort of the linearity between what was and what would be. There's not an American who was a lie that year who doesn't clearly remember the furor over the insanely important question who shot JR, And likewise, I suspect you know exactly where you were

when the miracle on IceCard and the US hockey team

with the USSR.

Finally, while you may not remember the event, I would argue that the establishment of the United Negro College Fund in September was a landmark moment that has changed and better to generation of Americans. And there were some awesome movies in 1982. Hi, I'm Drew McQueenie. And as always, I'm joined by my co-host, Scott Weinberg.

Hi everybody.

Welcome to 80s All Over.

And this is our very first wrap-up episode because we have finished our first year of the podcast with 1980 and that's a it's kind of an exciting landmark to have finally gotten through you know our first section of this this experiment. You know we want to thank everybody who has downloaded, listened to, reviewed, recommended,

tweeted, whatever, supported our first 12 episodes. We really, really appreciate it. Every comment we get about the movies we mentioned just means a lot. It really does. One of the things you do is you do send us corrections when we get things wrong and many of you reached out to us after the November episode because we pulled a pretty big boner. Say oops, upside to hate, say oops, upside to hate. Say oops, upside to hate. Yes, we did. I want to thank our mutual friend, Chris Campbell, an excellent film writer and documentary junkie, who politely pointed out the error that Drew made. I'm just getting, I made, we both made it. And it it's an easy one because it's the story is about when

Aeromoris bet Werner Herzog that he wasn't gonna have ever finished gates of heaven and and the end Werner Herzog at a eat a shoe Although that was the bet it was less blank the filmmaker who shot the thing and actually released Werner Herzog Eat a shoe which is a terrific little short film while we didn't mean to slight less blank at all He's an amazing filmmaker in his own right and if you want to see another great Werner Herzog related film

He did a movie called Burden of Dreams about the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzgerald though that is absolutely awesome. Truly amazing. I, uh, Burden of Dreams, I thought I think it was Hulu and it is fascinating. Absolutely. I didn't, I forgot that was also less like kudos to him. There were also there two movies that we will get into in our second segment of the The episode because we left them out inexplicably and it's because there is a little bit of an argument about the release date Technically, I think both of these films opened to some degree in 1979 in the United States But they both qualified for the 1980 Academy Awards and as result, they are definitely grouped with 1980 films

in terms of general memory. So we'll get into those when we start talking about the

Oscars. But first, Scott, I like the way you suggest we break this up with the year, and

we kind of talk about different things that that sum up that year of 1980. And first and

foremost, of course, are the 10 biggest films of the year box office wise.

You know, this will just be fun trivia for movie geek. So we're not going to linger too long on it. But why don't we start at number 10, $57 million. And of course, this is in 1980 money for the Blues brothers. The crazy thing to me is that we're talking at the top 10 list, and number 10 is $57 million. It is a real testament to how different the box office game is now. So number nine was with 58 million, the blue lagoon, which as we discussed trash, genuinely trash. But this goes to my theory that in the early 1980s, America had a truly unpleasant obsession with rook shields. Yes, they did. They also had a slightly less unpleasant obsession with Bert Reynolds, whose smoky and the bandit two is number eight at 66 million. It's interesting because when you look at the top 10 list, exploitation was a big thing back then. And this was that era where certainly they were feeding into that at the box office. So yeah, Smoky and the Bandit 2 was their coal miners daughter was actually a bigger hit $67 million, which is an unbelievable amount for a biopic compared to like everything else that came out that year.

It's Oscar run probably helped it make some money, but I would not have guessed that. I would not have guessed that. The number six film with 69 million is the very clever Goldie-Hon vehicle private Benjamin. That I understand, because that was a phenomenon. That was one of those movies that I remember everybody talking about. and it wasn't just kids, I heard parents talking about.

That's the thing also is there was different buzz

that I listened to back then.

I'm That was one of those movies that I remember everybody talking about. And it wasn't just kids. I heard parents talking about, that's the thing also is there was different buzz that I listened to back then. I would talk to my friends obviously and there was stuff that I was interested in. But I listened to adults talking about movies because I was really curious what was working for them. And this is one of those movies that everybody was talking about in private Benjamin. They all talked about the opening where she kills her husband during sex on their honeymoon and Eileen Brennan was going to everybody talked about when they talked about that movie, how great she was. Right. Well, it's a testament to trying a little bit harder because private Benjamin, you got Goldie Hoan in that kind of vehicle at that moment in her career. That was probably going to be a hit anyway, okay? But you made it smart. you imbued it with some real character and some real wit, not just silly force. And that's her as a producer, like she was smart by that point about what she wanted to be and how she wanted to play that character, the ding dong. The people who just want naive woman in army, they get it. But people who want something a little bit more, they also get it. So that I'm not surprised, private Benjamin was a big hit. Drew, what was number five? A shit pile. Yes, let's just cite it and move on.

Any which way? something a little bit more they also get so that I'm not surprised private Benjamin was a big hit true what was number five a

Shit pile. Yes. Let's just cite it and move on any which way you can

This is the opposite. This is every worst impulse rewarded. Oh my god. That's a terrible film

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