In the eighties, Hulk Hogan was a titan who stood tall in influence and adoration alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the age of the cold car, Hogan is the hero America wanted. He was blond, large, charismatic, heroic, and garnered a handlebar mustache that made him look like a buff trucker fighting for the country. “No Holds Barred” perfectly demonstrates why Hogan was such a force in the sports world, with a charismatic performance in an otherwise goofy movie.
Let’s face it, the eighties were a grand time for the fantasy genre. Surely, comedy and horror had their days, but fantasy is what I mostly remember. As a kid my parents kept me from watching the more hardcore horror films until I was old enough to handle them, so most of the time I retreated to fantasy. They had distant lands, monsters, demons, and ghosts just the same. And often they were as violent as horror films were. My time spent watching movies were mainly spent with films from the 1980’s, and it’s no surprise that most of my fantasy favorites are from that fun decade. Here are five of my favorite fantasy films of the 80’s. And no, they haven’t aged a bit.
I had such a good time with Kevin Chenault’s road trip dramedy. It’s spewing indie flavor with a lot of its narrative very much in the vein of Wes Anderson. It’s surreal without ever being pretentious, and it’s about two wandering souls questioning their own lives, but never gets saccharine at any moment. I was just won over by minute one, and had a great time watching these two individuals face a harsh world side by side, and travel in to a weird land.
Director Lloyd Kaufman leaves no stone unturned with his return to Tromaville, as he revives his iconic “Nuke Em High” series, except for a modern age. Though it’s teeming with eighties flavor, including mutant punks that delight in mutilating unfortunate victims, Kaufman has a blast destroying most of society’s quirks and obnoxious qualities, including veganism, the obsession over social media, and how political movements are about being trendy and not actually caring. Despite many years to polish their films, and hone their craft, the return to Nuke ‘Em High is still an ugly and offensive film, but damned funny to boot.
Director Michael Davis’ “Beanstalk” has a lot of balls in the air. It wants to squeeze in so many ideas and sub-plots and can never find a proper way to bring them all in to one coherent kids film. There’s a boy named Jack who lives with his mother and discovers large beans that form a humongous beanstalk. Meanwhile, Jack’s mom is going to lose her house, prompting Jack and his mom to go homeless. Meanwhile, there’s a nutty doctor (Margot Kidder is barely recognizable) who believes the mother goose tales to be real, and is preparing to climb the beanstalk, while an evil land developer is planning to knock down the beanstalk, steal Jack’s house, and develop land over the his neighborhood. That’s a lot story, for a movie barely eighty minutes in length!
Whether you love or hate George Romero and his films, there’s no denying that without his zombie movies there wouldn’t be the zombie culture we know today. Surely we might have two or three zombie movies concerning the sleepy servants of voodoo masters, but we wouldn’t have the flesh eating hordes that are currently consuming pop culture and the world as we know it. There’s also a very good interview where filmmaker Alex Cox notes that were it not for “Night of the Living Dead” becoming public domain, there likely would not have been inspiration for filmmakers to offer their own zombie entertainment for horror fans.
In anticipation of the release of “The Dick Van Dyke Show: Classic Mary Tyler Moore Episodes” on DVD and Blu-Ray from Image Entertainment. In Stores today! Dick Van Dyke’s series is back with the complete third season of his iconic series. Van Dyke is as funny as ever, playing Rob Petrie, an average suburban dad who lives with his independent and fierce wife Laura, and their young son Richie. During the day, he works as a comedy writer for “The Alan Brady Show,” the most popular sketch comedy show on television. He doles out comedy and scripts for the celebrity with his writing staff and best friends, Buddy and Sally, two sarcastic and hilarious sidekicks with their own quirks that make Rob’s life difficult but fun.