Tony #2 and Adam prove to Tony how deep and broad their knowledge of movies from the 80s is.
Note: This shouldn’t imply that these movies are the best, just movies that bring back fond memories.
A complete list of films will follow.
New Segment:
Booster Seat Producers: Kung Fu Panda
Next week:
The Goonies (with a special guest host)
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0 replies on “BSP Episode 064: Geek Movies from the Eighties”
Good show but a little correction, I believe the scene where Conan punches out a camel is from the sequel Conan the Destroyer, a much worse and cheesy film then Conan the Barbarian.
Probably one of the best all around shows with all the 80’s movie geeking. I think I was at least familiar with all of the movies that Tony brought up and I had seen most of them.
Definitely two thumbs up for Kung Fu Panda. We saw it with my three and seven year olds and had a blast. It’s a great thing to have two strong animation studios in Dreamworks and Pixar producing great content like this. Both Wall-E and Clone Wars look promising later this summer. I look forward to a booster seat producer review of Wall-E.
Now, what got missed –
Krull? Battle Beyond the Stars? (ok, that one’s marginal) Ice Pirates? Young Sherlock Holmes?
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t remember Buckaroo Banzai getting a mention, either.
And Princess Bride didn’t make the list? Inconceivable!!!!
Finally, the one that got left off, and thankfully so – Megaforce. While I remember it being super cool back when I was 10, that one has aged very very poorly….or maybe I just grew up too much 🙂
Chris, You may very well be right about that. I know that the camel appears in both movies, but it’s been a few years since I’ve seen either one in its entirety, I normally come in about half way through Barbarian and miss the spot where that takes place.
Ed, Glad to hear you liked the show.
Kung Fu Panda was a good one and there is no doubt that there will be a Wall-E episode of Booster Seat Producers, we were both really excited to get the “here is a bit more plot” trailer in front of KFP.
As far as what got missed, I can honestly say that Krull, Ice Pirates and Buckaroo Banzai were on the list at one point but fell off because I limited myself to 10… there were a few others too, and if there is interest I’ll pull the full list of movies that I started from.
Battle Beyond the Stars… wow… I forgot about that one. Great call.
Young Sherlock Holmes. I’ve never seen it. Is it worth looking at?
Megaforce… OMG! I so wanted one of those flying motorcycles. I remember just enough of that movie to now realize why my best friend’s mom always groaned and left the room during that movie. I also remember it being on heavy rotation during the summer one year on HBO.
As far as The Princess Bride. I’m just not a fan. I know that gets geek points deducted, but it just wasn’t one that really thrilled me, and I didn’t want to put it on a list like that just to bag on it.
Um, just to put this on the table:
Young Sherlock Holmes is fantastic. It’s a great movie.
Hi there! I have to admit that this is the first I’ve tuned into your cast and I did love it, I’ll be listening to it more often, as well as checking out your backlog.
Regarding Ladyhawke, probably my favorite fantasy film – you mention Matthew Broderick as Mouse and as Michelle Pfeiffer’s lover in the movie. Hauer played her lover, Broderick played her “protector” for lack of better term.
Other than that, awesome lists! You named some movies I’ll have to check out when time permits.
I’ve been listening to you guys for a while, and am usually a fan of your podcasts, they’re great for nostalgia and making the work day less grueling, but this episode was surprisingly hard to listen to. It seemed like you didn’t actually talk about or discuss any of the movies, but just listed off a bunch of titles, got told that nobody saw them, and instead of discussing them giving extremely simple plot descriptions. Halfway through, I thought “why wouldn’t you send the list to your co-hosts and see if they knew or cared about any of the movies being discussed!” Especially since I have seen most of these movies, and would get excited when I’d hear the title, thinking there would be some kind of discussion, and then nobody saw it so it’s on to the next movie. A film geek podcast shouldn’t be about people bemoaning their age, young or old, as to why they haven’t seen or can’t remember movies, it should be about people geeking out about films.
By the way, the giant without a heart “movie” mentioned was part of the Jim Henson “the Storyteller” series.
Welcome, Corie.
Glad to have you!
Yeah, if I mentioned Mouse as being her love, that was a misspeak on my part. Thanks for the clarification!
Booster Seat Producers ROCKED!!!
The rest of the show… well… I kind of have to agree with Lucas on this one. Had it’s moments, but you guys do better when you talk about something you have all seen (usually recently) and actually discuss it.
And yes, you lose Numerous geek points with my group for not liking Princess Bride. One of the all time greatest fantasy movies ever made.
And don’t worry… if you have watched the entire Highland TV series (as I have), the latest movie was still confusing crap that should never have seen the light of day… almost as bad as Highlander 2 (or as my group calls it, “That movie we don’t speak of”).
“I’ve never seen it!” Geez, this could be the friggin’ mantra of this episode, just imagine if one day Tony and Adam get a chance to be exposed to movies of the 60s and 70s… Some random thoughts as I’m listening…
Some of my own picks for great “geek” movies of the 80s…
Great movie with a geek in it- Brian DePalma’s Dressed To Kill starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon as the geek in the film- maybe one of my all-time favorite Brian DePalma films. Another film with Keith Gordon, John Carpenter’s version of King’s Christine could also be on this list…
The Road Warrior should be on the list ahead of Beyond Thunderdome– Yeah, this was lower budget than Beyond Thunderdome, but it’s a far, far better movie, and it looks a helluva lot better. And it’s still one of the greatest action movies ever made.
The Original Series of Star Trek is still the best ever- primarily because it was the first thing on TV that did something that really took continuing Sci-Fi very seriously. As far as the lack of conflict between people on the crew, well, take into account the time it was made, and you’ll see that a lot of TV dramas at the time were the same way, but to Trek’s credit, they tackled some issues that contemporary dramas just wouldn’t have gotten near. I get Roddenberry’s reasoning for the time and really do not have any objections over it, especially considering that when the later versions were done (not under Roddenberry) featured characters that were far more bland in comparison.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles was really nicely done, started out great and got stronger as it progressed, very glad to hear that it’s coming back.
What, no mention of Blade Runner? John Carpenter’s The Thing? Escape From New York?
LadyHawke amazes me for the bad rap that people today give it, especially over the music, which I thought was just brilliant and certainly sounding different from anything else remotely like it.
Dragonslayer is actually a very cool movie and it’s visual effects still hold up very well over time. Peter MacNicol is quite good here and it has one hell of a score from Alex North.
With Michael Keaton, add Clean and Sober to the list of great movies that he’s in.
Legend is also quite a cool movie from director Ridley Scott that got a real bad rap at the time, I don’t get it, it’s extremely visually strong.
On the new DVD issue of Eyes Wide Shut, all of those scenes that had been digitally altered in the house have now been restored back to their original form… you’re doing yourself a great disservice if you do not watch this again…
Beastmaster is a lot of fun, but I’d sooner go with another Don Coscarelli movie before this, and that would be the horror/fantasy Phantasm… but then I forget, you guys don’t like the horror films…
I just wanted to add a couple of my own nerd favorites from the 80’s, both of them in the sci-fi realm. First, the absence of Blade Runner was a bit of a shock. The second film is The Last Starfighter. You guys talked a bit about the trope of the arcade scene. Well, I think The Last Starfighter takes it to a wonderful extreme (along with the cheesy end celebration, of course).
Other than that, I think the episode was kind of mixed. There were some awesome choices in there (LadyHawke and the mention of Space Camp), but I agree with some of the other comments on the actual format. If only Tony has seen most of these, there’s just not much in the way of interesting discussion. In many ways, I think it would have been a better blog post than podcast. On the plus side, it did encourage me to dust of my Dark Crystal, Legend, and LadyHawke DVD’s.
Oh, and by the way, Beowulf takes place in Sweden and Denmark. Beowulf is a Swede (from a tribe called the Geats), and the first half of the epic details a fight in and around a Danish mead hall, while the second portion takes place in his native land.
I would have to agree with Lucas and others on the weakness of this episode, but our long term commitment to the crucial dynamics of the show–zero preparedness, rehearsal, and knowledge of the subject matter–remains. We feel that without these steady dynamics, our show would be more professional, easier to listen to, and would likely lose the feel that has contributed to its overall lack of popularity.
I also would like to add that my personal lack of knowledge of 80’s films comes from pretending that I have lived in the year 1974 for the past three years. I think a discussion of 60’s and 70’s movies would be great–but was hampered in this episode by our discussion of a bunch of movies that to my knowledge, hadn’t come out yet.
Thanks to everyone for listening.
Tony #2
6-14-74
I really enjoyed it! Disagreed on some, agreed on others, was flabbergasted at what hadn’t been seen or heard of. I think it was a great rundown of must see classic geek movies of the 80’s. Except for 16 candles.
Time limitations aside I would have also included The Last Starfighter, Explorers, feat. a young Ethan Hawke and Flash Gordon and given a stronger recommendation to Space Camp, Flight Of The Navigator and Dragonslayer, although I havent seen either in a while and its possible that they may not hold up.
Oh, and Holden was AWESOME!
Don’t worry guys, Tony and I worked out an apology for some of the complaints of this episode.