The Best of 1984

It’s a weird month, with a lot of little films you’ve never heard of up front. Teen-sex comedies and weird War Games ripoffs and swords and sandals and unfunny celebrity siblings abound. But we’ve also got a Louis Malle film, some genuinely sweet and fun teen comedies, a couple of crazy riffs on fairy tales, and adaptations of both Elmore Leonard and Stephen King. That’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get to it with April of 1985.

March has become one of the coolest months of each season here on ‘80s All Over, and this one’s no exception. Want some crummy TV children’s animation on the bigscreen? We’ve got you covered. Want some terrible sequels to films that shouldn’t have sequels? Yep. Plenty of that. Weird tone-deaf kids films, exploitation films that make us squirm for the wrong reasons, misbegotten star vehicles? Check, check, and check. But we’ve also got a stone-cold teen classic, Eric Stoltz’s best work of the decade, one of the weirdest side trips in John Landis’s career, Madonna’s big screen debut, and Divine on horseback. What more could you ask from March of 1985?

Matt Gourley is a man of very specialized talents. He knows his James Bond (obviously—he co-hosts Earwolf's James Bonding podcast) and he knows his Jason Voorhees (he does the In Voorhees We Trust podcast, too). Scott calls him "a crown prince of podcasting," and he's not really exaggerating at all, what with co-founding SuperEgo, creating I Was There Too, producing Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, and appearing on some of the absolute funniest episodes of Comedy Bang Bang, Never Not Funny, Thrilling Adventure Hour, and more. But truly, his finest hour must be this one, where he shoots the breeze for about an hour about '80s films with Drew and Scott. Join us, won't you?

An Oscar-winning actor directs a bunch of dancers with a dream, Richard Harris hits the road with someone else's kid, and it's time for classy Porky's! We meet Kiefer Sutherland for the first time, Matthew Modine tries to make weight, and Kurt Russell does the serial-killer two-step. All that plus Harrison Ford's best performance, a Jeff Goldblum cult oddity, and the greatest high school movie ever made? Don't you forget about February of 1985.

On this very, very special Patreon bonus episode, Drew and Scott get to sit for a spell with writer/cinematographer/producer/director Peter Hyams, a man responsible for making some of the flat-out ballsiest moves that '80s Hollywood ever saw, not least of which was "I think I'm going to make the follow up to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey." The stories of that film's making are absolute must-hears, but so are the tales of his breaking into the industry, and the rules he had to break to stay there, the time Sean Connery tried yanking his chain on the set of Outland, and the absolute joy both in front and behind the camera during the making of Running Scared with Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal.

It's January, and it's a brand-new season of '80s All Over, so you know what that means? TOILET MONSTERS FOR EVERYONE! Okay, it also means it's time for the Coen Brothers to make their first appearance of the decade, but more importantly, TOILET MONSTERS FOR EVERYONE! Except people who actually watch the movie with the toilet monster on the cover, since there are no toilet monsters in it. Confused? You won't be after you dig into the beginning of the year with us on January of 1985.

Three different pioneers get together for a special Patreon Bonus to discuss the weird wild west days of their youth: Drew & Scott discuss what it was like wandering the wilderness of UHF and VHS and taking that education and turning it into online film critic gold—while Kevin Murphy talks about wandering the wilderness of low-budget cable programming and turning that into culture-defining comedy with his work on Mystery Science Theater 3000. They talk about a bunch of '80s movies (and some not very good ones, too) while they're at it.

We all know the icons—Daniel-san and Mr. Miyagi, Peter, Ray, Winston, and Egon, Gizmo and Stripe, and Freddy Krueger—but 1984 was so much more than that. Before we move on, it's time to review the year's biggest winners at the box-office and at the Oscars, and for Scott and Drew to pick their ten favorite films from a very stacked year. Will you agree? Will you be infuriated? Will Scott remember that The Terminator was released this year? You'll find out all of that and more as we reach the halfway point with the Best of 1984.

EG Daily is known to millions upon millions of people as one of the voices of their childhood: Tommy Pickles from Rugrats, Buttercup in The Powerpuff Girls... but so far as Drew and Scott are concerned, the voices they know her from are from her appearance in '80s films like Streets of Fire, and Fandango, and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains; let's not forget that one little independent art film called Pee Wee's Big Adventure, of course, and yes... she was in Wacko, too.

Michael Keaton was quasi-deadly, Mel Gibson was both in prison and on the farm, and Boogaloo Shrimp was breakin’ again, thank god. Francis Ford Coppola went to Harlem so he could watch Gregory Hines fly, Peter Hyams proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had the biggest balls in Hollywood, and David Lynch went to deep space so he could confuse a generation. We’ve got rancid farce, frustrating star vehicles, and epic adventures. Plus, if you ask real nice, we just might teach you how to do the Neutron Dance. Let’s put a bow on it and stick December 1984 under the tree!