Looking back at the films I remember from the 1980’s I’m always amazed by the number of films that Steven Spielberg has had a hand in. The guy is some kind of film making dynamo, yet most of what he does is also pretty darn good too. Anyway, Spielberg was executive producer on the excellent Gremlins, which was released in 1984. The film was directed by Joe Dante, who along with Spielberg was also behind another favourite film of mine, Innerspace.
Gremlins is a black comedy horror film which revolves around an attack on a small American town carried out by the titular creatures. Things start out innocently enough when Billy Peltzer receives a strange creature as a Christmas gift from his inventor father, who picked it up in a funny little shop deep in New York’s China Town. The creature is called a Mogwai, and is a cute little fella, covered in white and brown fur with huge bush baby like eyes and funny pointy ears. Naming the creature Gizmo, Billy is warned of the three rules of looking after a Mogwai, which are:
- Keep it away from bright light.
- Don’t get it wet.
- Don’t feed it after midnight.
Of course, the three rules all end up getting broken in due course. The first rule doesn’t cause too much trouble, with Gizmo just complaining about the light being too bright, so Billy just dims it for him. No harm done. Unfortunately the second rule gets accidentally broken when a pot of water is knock over and some of it gets on to Gizmo. Poor little Gizmo kicks and screams in agony, his skin pulsing. Eventually, a number of small furry balls pop off of Gizmo, and slowly grow and unfurl to reveal a whole group of new Mogwai.
Indiana Jones is obviously making big news at the moment with the imminent release of the long awaited fourth movie in the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (what a mouthful that is). Whether the new film turns out to be great or not, we can at least console ourselves in the fact that the first film in the series, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is an exciting slice of adventurous fun that is the reason why we’ve had so many “big boulders rolling at the hero” sequences in films and TV shows over the years.
Superman II was released in 1980, so just manages to fly its way into the films of our favourite decade. The first Superman film (full title Superman: The Movie) was a blockbuster success, making the now late Christopher Reeve a household name, and still the actor most people with associate the role with. So much so in fact that it seems the makers of the recent Superman Returns film chose actor Brandon Routh because of his similarities to Christopher Reeve.
The third film in the Back to the Future trilogy was actually released in 1990, but seeing as how I’ve already covered
Flash Gordon has just reappeared on our screens with a new series on the Sci-Fi channel, which reminded me of all the fun to be had from a viewing of the 1980’s Flash Gordon film.
Released in 1989, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure follows the adventures of two school friends from San Dimas, California, who travel through time in a phone booth. They are Bill S. Preston Esq. (played by Alex Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan, (Keanu Reeves).
Five years after the first
Picking up where the