Child Of The 1980’s

The period between Christmas and New Year has always been a strange one for TV schedules. The TV stations have not yet bothered to go back to the normal TV schedules, which makes sense since we’re only talking about a couple of days here. However, since many people have returned to work or have other things to do, it’s also not worth putting on any blockbuster films or Christmas specials during this time, so instead the TV schedules get filled with things you’ve probably seen many times before.

Digby The Biggest Dog In The World is a great example of the kind of filler material that the TV stations would show during this TV lapse period during the 1980’s. The film was made in 1973 so it was both old enough and of the right kind of quality to slot perfectly into the schedules. That’s not to say it’s a bad film, just that it’s not exactly a blockbuster. It stars both the late Spike Milligan and Jim Dale, who was in many of the later Carry On films.

The plot centres around the titular Digby, an Old English Sheepdog, who starts off the regular size for a dog, and his young owner Billy. Billy’s Mum Janine and her colleague Jeff both work as scientists at the nearby top secret military base. Funny isn’t it how these military bases are always top secret? Anyway, Janine and Jeff are working on the originally named Project X, which turns out to be a growth serum. No prizes for guessing what happens next…

Read more…

Five years after the first Ghostbusters film, in 1989, the sequel was released. Reuniting us with all the characters from the first film, it was a good film, though as with many sequels, not as good as the original, or at least I didn’t think so. This film fell into the trap of trying to reproduce too much of the first film, a good example of this being when the Ghostbusters mobilise the Statue of Liberty by spraying it with feel good goo. I can imagine some Hollywood executive saying, hey, we need to have the Marshmallow Man back, and since this would have been a ridiculous idea given how the Marshmallow Man came into being, the Statue of Liberty was suggested instead.

This film opens with us seeing major changes to the make up of the Ghostbusters. Egon now works at a research lab for child studies, while Pete Venkman now has is own TV talk show about weird stuff. Ray owns an occult book shop, and he and Winston are the only two who remain as Ghostbusters, but as little more than childrens party entertainers now.

Of course, things don’t stay this way for long, and the Ghostbusters are soon back in action when they discover a large underground river of pink goo flowing under the streets of Manhatten. It seems this river is the outcome of New Yorkers bad feelings towards each other manifesting as some kind of ectoplasmic residue, and it is being tapped into by long dead evil dude Vigo the Carpathian, who is imprisoned in a photograph that is being renovated in a museum where Dana Barrett has been volunteering. Vigo has his eye on Dana’s baby son Oscar (and no, Venkman is not the father!) as a means of re-entering our world. He intends to use Oscars body to bring his own soul back from wherever it is currently trapped.

Read more…

Picking up where the first part left off, Back To The Future Part II was released in 1989, four years after the first film. Both this film and Part III were filmed back to back as there were concerns that Michael J. Fox might start to look too old to play Marty McFly.

Part II is my personal favourite, although it is probably also the most confusing of the trilogy since it involves the most actual time travel of the three films. At the start of the film, Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer are whisked into the future by Doc Brown to “do something about their kids”, Marty Jr. and Marlene (both played by Michael J. Fox). Marlene isn’t in any real trouble but Marty Jr. falls foul of Griff Tannen (Biff’s son) who is going to involve him in a robbery, which leads on to the break up of the McFly family. Doc Brown wants to prevent this, so brings Marty to the year 2015 to pretend to be his son.

Marty angers Griff, which leads on to the well loved hoverboard seen, a recreation of the skateboarding scene from the first film. This alters the future, saving the good name of the McFly party, as Griff smashes into the town hall and the robbery never takes place. Unfortunately, Marty gets a little greedy, and buys a sports almanac from a shop that contains the results of sporting events from the last thirty years. Doc Brown discovers this, and throws the book in a rubbish bin. Trouble is, the elderly Biff Tannen overhears Marty and Doc Brown talking and claims the book for himself, stealing the DeLorean time machine and travelling back to 1955 to give the almanac to his younger self.

Read more…

Since it’s Halloween I figured we ought to have something spooky on the site today and what better than the Tim Burton directed film Beetlejuice. It might not be particularly scary, but it is very funny.

Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) are a young couple who live in a small American backwater town. One day, whilst driving home across one of those weird bridges with a sort of building on that they only seem to have in these small US towns, they swerve to avoid a dog and crash through the side of the bridge. In the next scene we see them arriving back at their house. They don’t initially realise they died in the car crash, but soon the penny drops when Barbara’s hand catches fire and it is not burnt, they no longer seem to have reflections and when Adam tries to retrace his steps to the bridge he finds himself in a strange desert land populated by giant sand worms. Final confirmation is provided when they find a book called The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.

Read more…

For all computer geeks of a certain age (in which I include myself) one of the most fondly remembered films of the 1980’s is Tron, mainly because whilst it may well be a complete flight of fantasy from the real world of computers, it’s use of computer jargon and terminology was fairly accurate.

The story revolves around a young computer programmer named Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who used to work for a software corporation called ENCOM. Dreaming of running his own computer games company, he would design games on the ENCOM computer system after hours. Unfortunately another programmer, Ed Dillinger (David Warner) steals his designs and presents them as his own. This leads to Dillinger eventually becoming boss of ENCOM, whilst Flynn gets fired and ends up running an amusement arcade.

Obviously Flynn is annoyed by this, and he sets out to dig up the dirt on Dillinger. He hacks into the ENCOM computer system but is detected by the Master Control Program (MCP), an AI program developed by Dillinger from a chess computer program he had written. This results in all employees with the same security clearance as Flynn being locked out of the system. This affects another programmer named Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) who is working on a program named Tron that is intended to keep an eye on what the MCP program is doing, among other things.

Read more…

Lt. Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid) is your typical sterotype American movie soldier, full of bravado and a little maverick, but at the end of the day a good guy. Tuck volunteers to test pilot a new scientific breakthrough - a pod named the Kraken II that can be shrunk to microscopic size and injected into living things to aid in medical procedures and the like. Unfortunately, on the day of the test, a group of terrorists attack the lab where the research is happening, and instead of being injected into a rabbit, Tuck finds himself accidentally placed inside unwitting civilian Jack Putter (Martin Short).

Tuck makes contact with Jack by hooking the Kraken’s radio up to his ear drum, as Tuck realises he will need to get out before he runs out of oxygen. Jack is a massic hypochondriac and initially believes he is going mad hearing voices, but soon calms down enough to accept the situation. Just in time, in fact, to be kidnapped by the terrorists who insert their own shrunken pod into him in order to try and flush out Tuck.

Read more…

One of the best films to come from The Muppets creator Jim Henson, and sadly the last film he directed before he died, was the 1986 film Labyrinth. It’s a film with many big names behind it, as it was also produced by George Lucas and Monty Python Terry Jones was involved in the screenplay. It also starred David Bowie as Jareth, the Goblin King, the films baddie.

The film follows the adventures of Sarah Williams (a young Jennifer Connelly) who must brave the titular Labyrinth to rescue her baby brother Toby, a problem of her own doing! Sarah is a daydreamer who loves fantasy stories, which gets her into trouble one evening as she is supposed to be babysitting Toby for her parents. She returns late and is told off, so is in a bit of a bad mood already when Toby starts crying and won’t shut up. She tries reciting some lines from the play (called Labyrinth) that she is learning, which is a story about a girl who is given special powers by the Goblin King. When this fails to calm Toby, she shouts out loud that she wishes The Goblin King would take Toby away.

Read more…

During a test of a group of new prototype military robots, a storm breaks out. Lightning strikes some powerlines, which causes a surge that grounds itself in one of the robots. Surprisingly, the robot doesn’t appear to have been damaged, and with the test aborted the group of robots are ordered back inside. However, it soon becomes apparent that the affected robot - Number 5 - may not have been completely unaffected after all. Number 5 starts to get distracted by things, and eventually ends up being accidentally knocked into the back of a garbage vehicle.

Meanwhile, the absence of Number 5 has been noted, and the military base is locked down. This is done too late however, and the garbage truck leaves with Number 5 still aboard. Number 5 doesn’t stay on the truck for long though, and falls off whilst investigating a butterfly. The security forces from the base track Number 5 down eventually, but in attempting to catch him knock him off a bridge. Luckily Number 5 has a parachute as part of its gadgetry, and it sails down to land on the roof of a catering van owned by a young woman called Stephanie Speck.

Read more…