Big Trouble in Little China. An action movie back before there were action movies. Fun all the way through.
Disclaimer: I haven’t seen it in decades so I don’t know whether the Chinese characters are portrayed properly by today’s standards.
The Last Starfighter is another from around that time that just felt good.
The 80s had a lot of movies like that. They didn’t try to be franchises or art films. They were just a couple of hours of fun.
Doc Brown: “What a concept!”
I always enjoy that movie. IIRC it got a luekwarm reception and didn’t do great. It deserved so much better (I think it is much better regarded today).
Kurt Russell had been an actor for a quarter-century at the age of 35, but I think this role on top of being Snake Plissken really broke him out as a star. He deserved it.
Toe Pick!
I walked right by D. B. Sweeney at a hockey game once, and I so wanted to say that to him.
We also like to quote “You should have gotten a got-to girl.”
A comment above mentioning Raul Julia reminded me of Addams Family Values. “The Temptress of Waikiki (pronounced: Wai-KEE-kee).” Joan Cusack was great, too – “All I wanted was Ballerina Barbie.” Wonderful.
I have to go with Flash Gordon - the one with the soundtrack by Queen. It’s one of those movies that’s so bad it’s good.
Basically ALL the really good but not great late 90’s movies as seen so far in this thread.
Thank you. I love the ending.
I love that movie and completely agree. It is my first choice when someone suggests a bad movie night. It’s so bad it’s great and in a fun way too. In the same realm as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (very different movies to be sure but if you like one I suspect you’d like the other).
To me though (just my $0.02) this is a top notch “bad movie” pick and not an “okay movie” pick. Maybe splitting hairs. I love it so happy to go with whatever.
It’s too late at night for me to think about ‘bad movie’ vs. ‘okay’ movie. If we want to vote, I’d go with the consensus.
But it’s always fun to have an excuse to think about Flash Gordon.
The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz.
Streets of Fire. Just a weird fairy-tale-like fantasy set in pseudo-'50s Somewhere City, America. You’ve got a great cast of '80s character actors, unique scenery and costuming, melodrama like something out of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and a killer soundtrack, from original songs by Jim Steinman, to the Blasters belting out some punk-influenced blues covers, to a sterling rendition of Rumble played over the final battle between the Knight in Shining Armor come to save his Damsel in Distress from the Black Knight.
I will never not have fun watching that movie.
Thumbs up for Big Trouble in Little China it’s one of my favorite movies, every piece feels just right.
I’ll throw in Conan the Barbarian with Arnold, of course. Great acting? Not so much, but I like the pacing, the limited use of dialogue, action scenes that aren’t quick cut after quick cut. It’s cinematic comfort food.
Wow, the original Point Break hasn’t been mentioned. It’s better than OK, but not Oscar material for sure. Though they all do a great job.
The cinematography and music is great. Concrete Blond song is in it.
FWIW this movie is free to watch on YouTube:
When I was a child in the 80s I would watch The Beastmaster with Marc Singer and Clash of the Titans with Harry Hamlin repeatedly.
I also watched The Toy with Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason repeatedly but THAT movie has aged badly.
All my favorite movies are okay movies.
I admit to liking Red and Red 2. Some very fine actors having fun.
It’s been a long time since I watched Kelly’s Heroes. Is it an okay movie, a bad movie, or a good movie? It certainly has an impressive number of stars in it.
This thread belatedly tripped a synapse in my brain. The Rocketeer. It was based on a graphic novel about a 1930s superhero who strapped a rocket on his back so he could fly that was a cult fav. The movie recreated the feel of the 1930s better than any, and also became a cult fav. (Some of you with tangled memories of the past, like me, might confuse this with the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men, whose hero had a rocket strapped to his back. The flying scenes were so good that they reused them in several other series with different characters.)
So why belatedly think of this good movie? Because, as I told my idiot self, my avatar is from a poster inside The Rocketeer, from an imaginary Hughes Corp. pavilion in the 1939 World’s Fair. Rocketing into the Future! That’s the emblem of my retrofuturism Flying Cars and Food Pills site, too.
Another movie I haven’t seen in years. Go watch it and tell me if it holds up.