OT: under-rated 80s movies
So my wife is an immigrant and (until recently) did not understand the concept of an "80's movie". Overall, she loves these types of movies, especially because a good amount of them were filmed/set right in our back yard in Chicago. With that, there is a certain "feel" about 80s movies that can make them very unique and time-stamped that cannot be duplicated. For example, Licorice Pizza and Stranger Things tries really hard to capture the 80s aesthetic, but I can see right through it.
So, what are your under-rated 80s movies we all should watch. Mine are:
- To Live and Die in LA
- 3 O'Clock High
- 52 Pick-up
- Class
- Black Rain
- The Return of the Living Dead
- UHF
- Legend
- Angel Heart
- Big Trouble in Little China
- My Bloody Valentine
- Repo Man
Anything to add MgoBlogeratti?
How the fuck could I forget the Jewel of the Nile on my list?
Really good list. Remo Williams, and Less than Zero are totally underrated. And so is All the Right Moves. Craig T Nelson as coach before he became Coach was so prophetic.
Remo Williams was great. I read those crappy dime novels in middle school; blew me away that they actually made a movie.
In and out, like a duck mating!
I took a Korean-American friend of mine to see it. I think it was the first American movie to star a "Korean" (the actor was a Jewish guy) as an action hero. His family watched it a bunch of times just for that.
Do you know why they call it fast food... because it speeds the way to the grave!
Wondered how far I had to scroll for Innerspace! Loved Short Circuit as a kid.
As we continue, let's try to remember that the o.p. is asking for UNDER-RATED films. Not just movies you like or a list of great films. I believe this is just reserved for films that were underappreciated at the time.
So here are more:
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: A cult classic.
The Brother From Another Planet: John Sayles first film--low budget but brilliant.
Extreme Prejudice: Nick Nolte, Powers Booth (playing a drug lord!), and the CIA (!!) all square off, plus Maria Conchita Alonso is there doing her thing. A masterpiece of its kind.
Full Metal Jacket: This film should've won the Academy Award that Platoon got. It's so much better.
Repo Man: Correctly noted by the o.p. A cult classic which features a KILLER theme song by Iggy Pop and an appearance by the Circle Jerks, who are currently on tour.
Bliss: An obscure 1985 Australian film you've never heard of and will probably never see, except I own it on dvd, so...yay for me. Words can't express how much I love this film.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088821/
I just read the synopsis for Bliss. Sounds like a real vacation for the mind!
It's trippy and funny, prescient and deeply philosophical. Truly a vacation for the mind...
Good stuff. I have never watched Extreme Prejudice and it’s currently on Tubi. I’ll watch this weekend.
Do it. Extreme Prejudice is a blast--so much fun.
Any movie I like is underrated.
That's my rule.
Not sure if there’s any reason to consider Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket as “under-rated”, unless the “under-rated” label is based solely on whether it won numerous awards or established some box-office records.
Even then, the film now has a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was the 23rd highest-grossing film of 1987 and grossed about $120 Million by 1998. I consider it to be a classic war film. Plus, how many war films have ended with soldiers singing The Mickey Mouse Club theme song as they walk through a field at night past burning, bombed-out buildings?
Speaking of other films from 1987 that I think are great, but that many people here might not have seen and that might be considered “under-rated” because they didn’t win a lot of awards or set any box-office records:
House of Games – 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Matewan – 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Tin Men – 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the second of Barry Levinson’s “Baltimore films” after Diner
La Bamba – 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Hey, I get you. It really is about me still being fucking pissed that it didn't win Best Picture or Best Director.
+1 for Matewan and House of Games starring the voice of Fat Tony.
Not only did it not WIN Best Picture or Best Director, it was NOT NOMINATED for Best Picture and Kubrick was NOT NOMINATED for Best Director.
If I'm channel surfing and land on Full Metal Jacket, I'll often watch it until the very end, regardless of the point at which I've landed. I've lost tack of the number of times I've watched it. The Oscar for Best Picture of 1987 was awarded to The Last Emperor and its director, Bernardo Bertolucci, won the award for Best Director. I've watched that film once.
One of my high-school friends couldn’t wait to head to Parris Island after graduation. He was a tough wrestler who'd always wanted to join the Marine Corps. Those memorable, final words of Full Metal Jacket reminded me a bit of the first letter I got from him after he’d spent too many nights in the jungles of Vietnam:
- My thoughts drift back to erect nipple wet dreams about Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the Great Homecoming Fu*k Fantasy. I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I'm in a world of sh!t ... yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid.
Full Metal Jacket is one of those films that got better every time I saw it. Understanding what that film was really saying. That all the breaking down of the psyche and weeding out at Parris Island, all that machinery, the suffering and death of the Marines, their bravery in overcoming this. When they finally encounter the enemy they've done all that to finally confront...it's a twelve year old girl who begs them to kill her. All while the Marines stand there bathed in fire and shadows with a red color filter to pop the symbolism. Kubrick forces you to ask yourself...who's the villain here? What did the machinery of war shape those boys we meet at Parris Island, getting their heads shaved, into becoming? The irony of the Mickey Mouse Club theme is icing. Those final lines linger, yes...
The Oscar for Best Picture of 1987 was awarded to The Last Emperor and its director, Bernardo Bertolucci, won the award for Best Director. I've watched that film once.
HBOMax/TCM just yesterday finished its 31 Days of Oscar. My brother and I decided to try to watch all 31 (one a day), giving ourselves 2 vetoes. I saved one of my vetoes for Gone with the Wind and decided to watch The Last Emporer, which I hadn't seen since the late 80's when it came out, and I was considerably younger.
It's immensely sad. Bertolucci in China is everything you'd think/remember it to be. I'm not sure that I'd recommend you do it, but because I did it, I can say that I wasn't disappointed. It's just long. And withering.
"Immensely sad", "long" and "withering" are adjectives that come to mind when I think of The Last Emperor. The final scene got to me and I can still recall it, but posting it here probably would ruin it for those who haven't seen it.
+1 for Brother from Another Planet
As I'm just running through this whole thread today, I noticed you're really hammering the whole "underrated" part of the OP. I think most people are interpreting it more as "slightly obscure" or just ignoring it all together and putting their favorite 80s movies not named Ghostbusters or Top Gun.
That said, I'm surprised to see Full Metal Jacket out of you. I Googled the box office, it was 50m domestic and 120m global. Those were big numbers in 1987. It's Kubrick. Widely revered as one of "the greats." And this thing is quoted a million times over. I'm guessing people quote this movie without even knowing they're quoting the movie.
Love the movie. Maybe It's underrated by someone. I'm not sure failing to win an Oscar is the right bar for that. Conversely, I dont think anyone on the planet argues that Pulp Fiction or Shawshank are underrated. But as the underrated stickler, I thought I'd give you some back. Only without slowly typing out the word "unnnderrr-rattteeddd" for dramatic emphasis. :)
'Legend of Billy Jean'. I just remember watching this as a teenager and thought it was really good. For some reason it stuck in my head. I haven't watched it since.
That’s a good one too! I watched it a couple years ago. Some interesting facts about that movie:
1. The lead actors, Helen Slater and Christian Slater are not at all related, but thought it was weird that they actually dated/hooked-up
2. Yeardley Smith (also in 3 o’Clock High) is in this in one of her earlier roles. She’s the voice of Lisa Simpson for the past 30 years.
I Come in Peace
Released in 1990 but effortlessly 80s.
Porky's
Youngblood
Mischief
Hot Dog The Movie
Stripes
Youngblood! Great add to my list! I think that was Keanu Reeves first feature film. He was the goalie.
Stand By Me and the Keaton/Nicholson Batman are great. Also really liked The Lost Boys and Major League. Was a bit young to know how well received those were at the time, but I’m guessing only lost boys would qualify as underrated
Lost Boys for sure
Secret Admirer
Warriors ('79)
Actually thought Stranger Things does a pretty good job of capturing 80's feel, especially first season.
Agree on season 1 of ST - thought they really nailed that 80s vibe
Also, since he's in the news, Bruce Willis did a Vietnam vet flick called In Country, which is almost impossible to find now but was excellent.
Also strongly recommend Vision Quest with Matthew Modine
- Big Trouble in Little China
- Real Genius
- One Crazy Summer
Red Dawn!
Wolverines!!
When Powers Booth drops in to patiently explain how millions of Russian and Cuban troops could be moved across oceans or vast tracks of land without anybody in the US or NATO noticing...
--Mad max
--Clash of the Titans
--Toxic Waste Avenger
--Reanimator
--Detective School Dropout
--Dolls
--Breaking all the Rules (1985 comedy)
Blues Brothers
/thread
The Serpent and the Rainbow
Underrated Wes Craven film
Was that the voodoo one?
Mac and me
The Highlander
The Stuff
Heavy Metal
Best of the Best
Beastmaster
Clash of the Titans
Flash Gordon
The MST3K riff on Mac and Me is one of their best--it's new.
Also...there can be only one...
Bad Boys with Sean Penn
Iron Eagle
Reform School Girls
March 31st, 2022 at 11:05 PM ^
Yes! Bad Boys was legit awesome. Sean Penn makes a very convincing juvenile delinquent.
CHAPPPPYYYYY!!!
Colors
cleaned up version of what life was really like for me and my unit.
Scary that it was cleaned up. I watched that movie many times and it still kind of shocked me each time.
our gangsters weren't nearly as good looking, but signif parts of the movie were about as close as a hollywood movie could be to real life short of some form of reality t.v. and we had some guys that were really good with the gangsters, and some that were more combative, which is somewhat portrayed in the movie. i wrote a dairy about some of it a couple of years ago when the riots started.
RAD and Predator. That is all.
Fun fact - Predator starred not one, but two future Governors. Fun fact #2 - most of It was filmed near a beach/resort town in Mexico called Mismaloya (sp?). Visited some of the filming locations with my then girlfriend in high school and thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Another fun fact. The original predator was played by Jean Claude Van Damme. But he was replaced because he was being a bitch.
Fun fact #3: Predator featured yet a third gubernatorial candidate—Sonny Landham ran for governor of Kentucky, albeit with much less success than either Arnold or Jesse.