80's schlock movies

e.g. Hook. It was universally panned. When I saw it as a teenager, I thought people were being too hard on it ans it was actually quite enjoyable. Now I see it and thing WTF?

It has the following:

  1. gung ho bloodthirsty lawyers with svelte (ahem) cellphones.
  2. Adults ‘regaining their inner childhood’
  3. Gratuitous shots of Julia Roberts.
  4. e.g. of #3 above. See, tinkerbell really wanted in Peter’s pants and wished she were big enough to do so…wanting him to have an adulterous fling against Wendy’s daughter. uuuuuh really good message to send the kids.

Still. I liked Dustin Hoffman…it was before he did such stellar movies as Outbreak and Sphere.

I just saw Hook for the first time the other day. I was pretty meh about it.

They really wasted Julia Roberts: Ugly haircut, ugly costume, almost no lines, then they lit and shot her scenes as though she was in another movie entirely.

1991

In the original Peter Pan our lass Tinkerbell conspires to have Wendy murdered by the Lost Boys. Tink has some sort of crush on Peter and is insanely jealous of his relationship with Wendy. How’s that for a kid’s story?

Marc

Thanks. I came in here for the same reason.

Howard the Duck. I can’t even… It’s just…

I mean, there’s a duck. From space. Gratuitous nudity, gratuitous musical number, implied cross-species sexual relations, a dude that shoots lasers from his eyes, and Tim Robbins.

I really hope he made this as a way to get his foot in the door.

Yeah yeah 1991. I saw that after I started the OP but figured it was still a schlock 80’s movie. A bunch of thins attributed to the 60’s actually happened in the early 70’s.

But movies that had that ‘everybody can be rich, rich, rich, at the expense of others’ kind of movies…While not expressly about money, Romancing the Stone is one of those movies that just doesn’t quite seem to stand the test of time and typifies an ‘80’s’ movie. (goes to check the date: aaaah 1984. score!)

Don’t forget Principal Rooney possessed by an Old One!

That movie rocked my face when I was kid. I can still sing the theme song by Lea Thompson’s band! I’d like to watch it again just to see how’s it’s aged.

When was Young Einstein made?

Wow, I must really be off this morning.

Could I… fit any more errors into that… post? [/Chandler Voice]

I have to ask, why the 80s? How do the 60s, 70s, and 90s get off? How is the present not just about as crappy a time for movies as there’s ever been?

Hook was awesome if only because Hook never lied to Michael in the process of turning him to the dark side. “Before you were born, your parents had more time, more money, they used to go dancing and to the cinema… they were happier.” Brilliantly evil.

For my contribution to weird movies of the 80’s, I contribute Young Sherlock Holmes: A movie we didn’t know we needed.

The Last American Virgin.

Classic schlock.

Just wanted to add that Hook is a perennial fave in our house - one of the relatively few films we own.

“A man so speedy he is even fast - asleep!”

“Bad form!”

After posting that, I figured I should mention a couple of 80s flicks I consider TRULY schlocky:

I offer you Perfect, and Flash Dance.

Because I’m the right age to remember the 80’s and the late 90’s/2000’s are still within our blind spot. You need a good decade or so to look back on flaires and realise they’re just bell-bottoms with a different name and more cowbell.

Someone thought Harvest Gold was a good idea at one time.