1982 is often bandied about as the best year in movies. Classics like The Thing, Blade Runner and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan happened.
Yet, one shouldn’t sleep on the year of our Lord, 1985. Not only did it bring us New Coke, The Nintendo Entertainment System and Calvin and Hobbes, it gave theatergoer eyeballs plenty to feast on.
Let’s break 1985 down month-by-month, and in the process, try not to break down over all that we have lost…
January
January is a quiet and desolate month, and The Plague Dogs (January 9) did not do much to cheer anyone up.
This animated film from Martin Rosen (Watership Down) is about two dogs who escape vivisection, only to be hunted down by the military. It was the first adult animated film from United Artists and MGM, and they seemed determined to hurt children with it.
Welcome to life, brats!
Blood Simple (January 18) is the next release of note. This was the first film by Joel and Ethan Coen. Blood Simple blended elements of neo-noir, pulp crime and low-budget horror. Starring John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Heday and M. Emmit Walsh, it is still well regarded today.
Fandango (January 25) is a little film with big ramifications. It teamed Kevin Costner with director Kevin Reynolds, and they would go on to collaborate on multiple films, including Waterworld.
Fandango is about a group of college guys who go on one last road trip together. Spielberg produced it through Amblin Entertainment.
February
February is the month of love… for women, at least. Men just try to survive it.
The first film of note is a doozy: Witness (February 8). This proved Harrison Ford could be more than Han Solo and Indiana Jones. He could also be a perv spying on a woman washing herself and kill men with corn.
The next classic is The Breakfast Club (February 15). This is John Hughes’s love letter to teen angst that stars many of the young stars of that era: Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez and more.
I never saw The Breakfast Club during my high school years. That is just as well. I would have thought I had something of value to offer my classmates, which would have resulted in numerous failed attempts at fitting in.
Three other films of note landed that weekend: The Mean Season with Kurt Russell, Turk 182 with Timothy Hutton and Vision Quest with Matthew Modine.
Speaking of my formative years, Vision Quest was a big deal with the wrestlers in my school. Maybe Linda Fiorentino made them feel less gay? Regardless, they enjoyed its soundtrack, which featured Journey, Madonna, Sammy Hagar and Dio.
March
March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb. In 1985 it came in with a rip-off and left with a laugh. Ghoulies released March 2. It tried to capitalize on the success of Gremlins. Surprisingly, it did. It’s $400,000 budget returned $35 million. Plus, its poster of a ghoulie in a toilet is in everyone’s memory bank.
I was all about Chuck Norris in the 1980s, and he didn’t disappoint me. March 2 also saw the release of Mission in Action 2: The Beginning.
Via con Dios, Chuck. Thanks to you, I now know what to do if anyone ties a bag around my head that contains a ravenous rat.
A drama about a boy with a weird face hit theaters the following weekend: Mask. Eric Stoltz, Cher, Sam Elliot and Laura Dern made a viewer believe that true handsomeness can be found within a walnut shell of a face.
Unless the man is under 5’5, of course. Then it doesn’t matter what he looks like. He is ugly just by virtue of being short.
First up from March 14 is Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. It has a questionable title, but no one questions the reality of the animatronic dinosaur that interacted with William Katt and Sean Young. It made everyone read up on the Congo’s Mokele-mbembe.
Jason also returned that weekend with Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Which one is that? Who can tell? There might only be one Friday the 13th film repeatedly recut.
The Last Dragon received a special episode on Red Letter Media with Macauley Culkin. I’ve never seen it. Something about Taimak’s hair makes me vaguely uncomfortable. It’s like he wears a tarred Chia Pet on his scalp.
Next up from March 14 is Porky’s Revenge. The first is a classic; the second is amusing; but the third doesn’t have the same amount of juice. Nevertheless, it’s noteworthy as a time capsule, even as time ran out for the franchise.
Madonna showed up on the movie screen in 1985, as well. Not only was she in Vision Quest, she costarred in Desperately Seeking Susan (March 29). Personally, I’ve never gone looking for her. She is the human equivalent of a McDonalds ash tray.
Remember when Richard Gere tried to bring back the Biblical epic with King David (March 29)? The problem is that Gere is about as historical as a McDonalds ash tray.
Finally, those loveable nuts from the 16th precinct returned March 29. Police Academy 2 blew up the box office, earning $115 million off a $7.5 million budget. Steve Guttenberg came and went like the cicadas, but when he was here, he made his mark.
April
April showers bring one of the most fun Stephen King adaptations: Cat’s Eye (April 12).
It’s an anthology film comprised of three stories that star the likes of James Woods, Robert Hays and Drew Barrymore. Kenneth McMillan also appears.
Poor McMillan forever appears disgusting to me after his turn as Baron Harkonnen in Lynch’s Dune. His performance was so repulsive that it followed him around in every performance. His wife loved him, though. And he only had one. Good on you, McMillan, but your sweaty, pig mug still haunts my dreams.
A forgotten fantasy film released that weekend, as well: Ladyhawke. It starred Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer as cursed lovers/shapeshifters. Matthew Broderick provided comedy relief. The film never quite gels, but it has an interesting aura.
Another forgotten fantasy film had higher aspirations the following week. Directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), The Company of Woods, is a lose, artistic, retelling of Little Red Riding Hood…with werewolves. While The Howling and An American Werewolf in London are held up as the gold standards of werewolf transformations, the transformation depicted in this film remains an indelible image.
The Company of Wolves was also one of Sarah Patterson’s few films. She was another victim of Cannon Film’s hubris. Did you know Cannon Films decided, probably on the back of a napkin, to do a series of musicals based on fairy tales? Cannon’s Snow White starred Patterson, and she retired after it failed. She was only 17 years old.
Just One of the Guys (April 26) deserves mention because it wouldn’t land the same way today. It stars Joyce Hyser (LA Law) as a girl who pretends to be a high school boy so she can have a career as a journalist. It’s a loose adaption of a Shakespeare story, but I bet it still has one boob joke.
Joining the April 26 release date is another one of the seemingly endless crime films Burt Reynolds put out at this time. Stick is an adaption of an Elmore Leonard novel. Burt plays a former bad guy who kills a bunch of other bad guys.
Burt directed Stick, but it was a bad experience. The studio hated his cut, so Burt had to reshoot the entire second half of the movie. Burt reported he gave up on the film and only went through the motions of carrying out the studio’s orders.
May
Code of Silence (May 3) is Chuck Norris’s second film of 1985. It’s a cop drama, but it also has a robot. Chuck does not karate the robot. The robot is on his side, but it is only briefly in the film. My favorite part of Code of Silence is during the final shootout. Chuck calls out to one of the bad guys. The bad guy pops up out of cover and says, “What?”
And Chuck shoots him…
Remember Gotcha! (May 3)?
You do now. A pre-Top Gun (but post-Revenge of the Nerds) Anthony Edwards is man enough to woo Linda Fiorentino while simultaneously playing a paintball game and battling Soviet spies.
If you forgot Gotcha!, there’s no way you forgot Gymkata, which released the same weekend. Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas enters a martial arts contest so he can wish to install a US satellite monitoring station in the fictional country of Parmistan.
You know they were thinking of parmesan cheese when they thought of that name…
Creature (May 8) sucks, but it is an Alien knock-off that stars Klaus Kinski. That deserves some attention. Plus, somehow, someway, in a mystery none of us can comprehend, Roger Corman is not involved in any way with this movie…
Rustler’s Rhapsody (May 10) stars Tom Berenger. It did Bruce Willis’ comedy/western Sunset before Bruce Willis was a gleam in the eye of John McTiernan for Die Hard. For whatever reason, Alien alums David Giler and Walter Hill produced Rustler’s Rhapsody. Maybe they envisioned millions of Gene Autry fans flocking to theaters.
Or maybe they were really, really drunk.
The weekend of May 22 brought out some big hitters.
First, Walther Hill immediately shows up again, directing Richard Pryor in Brewster’s Millions. Pryor plays a man who must spend $30 million to inherit $300 million. John Candy comes along for the ride.
Next up is my personal favorite Rambo movie: Rambo II.
“Murdock…I’m coming to get YOU!”
That’s really all that needs to be said about this film.
But we will say more. George P. Cosmatos. Mud man. Gratuitous camp destruction via helicopter. M-60 recoil jostling steroid muscles. Cameron screenplay. Steven Berkoff attempting to take his Octopussy character to an even higher level of Russian ridiculousness. Martin Kove. What you mean expendable? Not this movie!
While Trancers did not set the box office on fire the same weekend (how could it?) it did lead to a six-film franchise that kept Tim Thomerson in cabbage and Moon Pies. A young Helen Hunt also starred.
Play Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, for May 22, 1985, also saw the world blessed with the James Bond film A View to a Kill. Who doesn’t want to watch a geriatric James Bond woo Tanya Roberts, the most perfect Bond girl ever, while Grace Jones goes full butch and Christopher Walken goes full Walken?
The classic comedy Fletch closes May out. Back then, people didn’t hate Chevy Chase. But honestly, how can you truly hate a man who argued with John Landis on The Three Amigos to the point where Landis left in a huff, and Chase purportedly called after him…
“Don’t go killing anyone today!”
June
The Goonies say “Goonies never say die” on June 7. Lots of people love this film. I can go without it. It’s not my fault, though. I didn’t see the film until I was in my 20s. By then, all the magic within me had been replaced with reality.
Prizzi’s Honor popped up in theaters on June 13. John Huston partnered with Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner to deliver this black comedy about mob assassins. Prizzi’s Honor received eight Academy Award nominations, so it is nowhere as good as Sinners, obviously.
The young adult sci-fi movie D.A.R.Y.L. came out June 14. It is about a robot boy played by Barret Oliver, who escapes his military handlers. Unlike Plague Dogs, it goes better for him.
Oliver was a great child actor, but he left Hollywood early, getting out in 1989. One wonders what soured him? Now he is an artist specializing in old photography.
Nerd!
Larry Cohen’s The Stuff came out the same weekend. Good old Larry Cohen. He is like Roger Corman but a lot more subversive. When he was a kid, he would go sit in movie theaters until closing. The owners had to kick him out. The Stuff is about a mysterious food that is highly addictive and has a gruesome effect on its consumers.
Only a week later, we get another Barret Oliver appearance. He showed up in the old-person sci-fi classic Cocoon, which also starred Steve Guttenberg, who already tore it up with Police Academy 2. Cocoon added another $85 million to Guttenberg’s 1985 tally.
Cocoon also gave Golden Era performers like Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy and others one more chance to shine.
What’s that? Wilford Brimley was only 15 years old during the filming of Cocoon? Wow, it’s crazy what diabee-tus does to a person…
Ron Howard directed Cocoon with his best Steven Spielberg impression. Even the story is very Spielbergian: old people get the fountain of youth from aliens.
Return to Oz hit theaters in conjunction with Cocoon. Return to Oz is a Disney film from when Disney experimented with different formulas. I consider 1985 the last year of the old Disney. Everything that has come since is new Disney.
Clint Eastwood joined the party June 26 with Pale Rider. The film is similar to High Plains Drifter in plot, but has a much more Shane-like sensibility. A mysterious stranger arrives to kill bad guys rather than kill bad guys and rape women.
St. Elmo’s Fire (June 28) closes out the first month of summer. Whatever members of the Brat Pack that didn’t make it into The Breakfast Club appear here.
I have a sudden urge to be a man in motion. I just need a pair of wheels…
July
Fourth of July weekend is time for the humdingers. 1985 is no different. The biggest film of the year landed on this calendar date.
What can one say about Back to the Future? It’s perfect. Yet, when one sits down and pencils it out, it shouldn’t work. At all. A time machine? In a DeLorean?
Yet, work it does. And all it does is keep working. The way Zemeckis and Gale worked the stupid idea of a DeLorean time machine into the climax is a master class of storytelling. This is back when Zemeckis was a filmmaking demigod.
Even a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t survive the power of Back to the Future. Red Sonja got buried the same weekend.
At this point, you might be thinking…it’s the middle of the 1980s. Where is Mel Gibson?
King Mel appears July 10 in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It is my least favorite of all the Max films (behind even Furiosa). It’s too quirky for its own good.
Plus, the addition of Tina Turner really dates it. I feel like Mel is on an episode of Solid Gold rather than in a Mad Max movie.
Neuvo western Silverado released the same week. Lawrence Kasdan wrote and directed. The all-star cast includes Brion James and Joe Seneca. Silverado is a solid adventure with six shooters and horses. It plays better now than in 1985. It came off as a big jarring in 1985 because the ghosts of the original westerns still loomed. They appeared regularly on cable. Plus, TV shows like Gunsmoke and The Rifleman were still in regular rotation.
Against the old guard, Silverado seemed a bit too glitzy. Today, it’s fine.
Joe Dante’s Explorers followed July 17. Explorers is a neat film about kids who build a spaceship…until it falls apart in the third act. This is because the studio cut Dante off during the editing process and said, “Close enough. Let’s release it two months early!”
The studio really wanted those summer dollars.
Another classic shambled into theaters July 19. Romero’s zombie flick Day of the Dead arrived just in time for fans who jonesed for Play-Doh skin to get ripped open.
Helen Slater in The Legend of Billie Jean and Tom Hanks in The Man with One Red Shoe released the same weekend. Christian Slater made his debut in the former, a film about a rape victim on the run that predates Thelma and Louise.
The Tom Hanks movie is a remake of the French film The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, which is a spy comedy. Dabney Coleman also stars. Dabney seemed to be in every single movie made at this time.
The Black Cauldron released July 24. It was the last Disney film animated at the original studio in Burbank. If flopped, but The Great Mouse Detective was a bounce back for Disney the following year. Then came The Little Mermaid, and the rest is history. Disney’s template changed for the New World.
I always considered The Heavenly Kid (July 26) to be a Back to the Future rip-off. Lo and behold, they came out the same year. That kind of shoots that theory down…
The Heavenly Kid is about a man who dies in the past and returns as an angel in the present to help a high school kid be cool.
Kiss of the Spider Woman and National Lampoon’s European Vacation both came out on the last week of July. Kiss of the Spider Woman starred William Hurt and Raul Julia as prisoners in a Brazilian dictatorship. It was a groundbreaking queer film because it was the start of Hollywood celebrating the gay lifestyle.
Before Kiss of the Spider Woman, Hollywood was, “Keep it in the closet.” After Kiss of the Spider Woman, Hollywood trended toward, “How can we teach kids to be gay?”
As for European Vacation, like Guttenberg, Chase was a busy man at this time…
August
August starts with a bang only two days in. Fright Night updates vampires with ideas superior to even Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. Tom Holland wrote and directed, basing his story off one simple question: what if my next door neighbor was a vampire?
Throw in wonderful performances by Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowall, and Fright Night might even be better than The Lost Boys, which mines similar territory.
Next up is a weird confluence of science-based comedy films. Weird Science is another John Hughes film. The simple question Hughes asked is, what if two geeks created a supermodel to take showers with them and the bad guy from The Road Warrior showed up and Bill Paxton turns into a farting blob creature?
Weird Science was also the end of Anthony Michael Hall’s time as the go-to movie geek. Hall then decided he wanted to drink too much beer and become an action dude with Out of Bounds. Go where your heart takes you, Anthony. You gave us so much. Now be free…
The following weekend had Val Kilmer’s Real Genius and My Science Project. All I remember about Real Genius is it has a bunch of popcorn in it at one point. On the other hand, My Science Project has a dinosaur that gets shot with M16s. My Science Project shares a tone with Explorers. The things it does right are not done as well, but at least its third act fits in with the rest of the film.
Meanwhile, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, the Sho Kosugi chop-socky flick Pray for Death and Summer Rental from Carl Reiner and John Candy also hit that weekend.
This barrage of watchable movies rolling out at the same time boggles the mind. Kids cannot comprehend the amount of choice their 1985 counterparts had. It’s like a grocery shopper from East Berlin circa the 1950s dropped into a modern Western supermarket. The sheer number of options would overwhelm them. They’d run down the aisles, gleefully filling their cart with Twinkies, salmon and Hershey Bars until their brain exploded.
Meanwhile, more movies that demanded attention entered the marketplace the weekend of August 16.
Kevin Costner popped up again racing bicycles in American Flyers. Sting raises Jennifer Beals from the dead in The Bride. Tom Hanks mogs it up once more in Volunteers, along with an encore appearance by John Candy.
In addition, The Return of the Living Dead came out. Dan O’Bannon decided to do something more with zombies than have them stumble and moan. This pushes comedy-horror films to yet another level of zany.
Then Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter) directs an Oliver Stone script about a cop, played by Mickey Rourke, taking down Chinese organized crime in Year of the Dragon.
Stop it, you say! I can’t take it anymore!
Oh, but you must because it…simply…does…not…end…
First up, August 23, is the surreal teen comedy Better Off Dead with John Cusak. I saw this movie during a particularly grueling time and had so much fun with it, I almost felt hopeful again…for a few hours, at least.
If anyone wondering what Godzilla was up to, they got their answer with Godzilla 1985.
Finally, Michael J. Fox said, “You know what, having the biggest movie of the year isn’t enough. I’m going to throw Teen Wolf into the mix, as well.”
At this point, August exhausts. Thankfully, we reached its final weekend. Only two movies rose to the top on August 30, but they made lasting impressions.
If there was one thing a boy could not get enough of in the 1980s, it was ninjas. American Ninja, starring Michael Dudikoff satisfied that itch. Sam Firstenberg directed the film for Cannon after his amazing Revenge of the Ninja. If there is one thing to bank on, it is that no one can helm a ninja film like a Jewish director from the Cannon sweatshop.
Finally, Flesh + Blood came out. Starring Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, it’s an “erotic historical adventure.” Because of course it is. How else would Paul Verhoeven enter Hollywood to eventually deliver us Robocop and Total Recall?
September
Finally, we escape the onslaught of summer movies.
Scorsese delivered his weirdest film on September 13: After Hours. It’s a yuppie nightmare that stars Griffin Dunne as an office worker swept into a wild night on the streets.
Peter O’Toole is known for being a great actor. Yet, he made questionable choices. Creator is one of them. Released September 20, it’s a comedy about a man who clones his dead wife. When describing such a plot, most people will think, “Yeah, I could see that happen, if the technology was there.”
But…if you describe a plot where a woman clones her dead husband, no one will believe it. Make of that what you will…
Disney released another normal movie September 27: The Journey of Natty Gann. It is of note only to anyone who fell slightly in love with Meredith Salenger. If you run into such a person, be kind. Don’t judge. It happens. Not that I would know…
But the real kicker that weekend is the THIRD Chuck Norris movie of 1985: Invasion USA. Chuck portrays a terrorist-murdering, almost slasher-like character, who magically appears whenever bad guys need killing. Gleefully terrible, Invasion USA carries new weight in 2026 with the open-borders controversy.
I saw Invasion USA in the theater with my dad. On the way, we spotted a bald eagle. This was unique because bald eagles never appeared in our neck of the woods. Next, the local martial arts school did a demo in the theater before the film. An old lady screamed and broke a board before the previews. We had real communities back then.
October
No one has time for movies in October, right? It’s harvest time. School is back in session. Halloween is on the docket. Surely, movie studios take a break.
Nope.
On October 4 we were blessed with Arnold’s second movie of the year and one of his finest: Commando. Truly, we do fight for love…
Man, Rambo II, Commando and three Chuck Norris movies. Plus, a Clint Eastwood movie, a Mel Gibson movie and another upcoming Stallone movie. No wonder no one needed TRT then.
Jagged Edge happened the same weekend and started Joe Eszterhas’s (Basic Instinct) journey into erotic thrillers. Glenn Close (who for some reason was a sex symbol at that time) is a lawyer who defends a man (Jeff Bridges) accused of murdering his wife.
Blast your trumpet theme October 11 because Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins arrived. The movie has issues, but it had fun ideas. Plus, it starred Fred Ward. He’s my all-time favorite second-tier actor. We were robbed of a series of hard-boiled private eye films that starred Ward. At least we got Cast a Deadly Spell.
The Stephen King werewolf classic Silver Bullet also landed that weekend. You will believe a boy in a wheelchair can defeat a werewolf, with the help of a drunken Gary Busey.
Michael Caine went full Michael Caine in The Holcroft Covenant on October 18. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s favorite film came out that weekend, as well: the New Zealand post-apocalyptic science fiction film The Quiet Earth.
I’m surprised Neil likes anything other than the sound of his own voice…
And boom…another horror classic October 18: Re-Animator. This kooky melding of camp, gore and horror put Stuart Gordon, Brian Yunza, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton on the map. These days Crampton has gone far, far off the map, but everyone lets it slide because she was a poor-man’s Sydney Sweeney before rich-man’s Sydney Sweeney.
November
November 1 marks the return of Charles Bronson with Death Wish 3. Is that the one with the rocket launcher? I can’t remember. I’m still too scarred from Death Wish 2. Man, that was a mean film…
The most homoerotic Nightmare on Elm Street arrived that weekend, as well. The second film in the series is often regarded as a misfit because it is more of a possession/body horror-type film. I kind of dig its vibe, though.
Plus, Mark Patton is oddly effective as the damsel in distress.
But wait, there is more: William Friedkin served up the gaudy To Live and Die in L.A. November 1. It was Heat before Heat. It’s gritty portrayal of neon-noir follows William Peterson as cop trying to defeat a wily counterfeiter played by William Defoe.
Back-to-back horror comedies happened November 8 and November 15: Transylvania 6-5000 and Once Bitten. Once Bitten almost derailed Jim Carrey’s career but he proved too much of a force of nature to be derailed for long.
November 22 gave us our third dose of Steve Guttenberg with Bad Medicine. This film lost about $6 million, though. Fortunately, Guttenberg had Short Circuit on his dance card to carry him to Three Men and a Baby. And then the crazy ride was over. Guttenberg became a Simpson’s joke in “The Stonecutters” episode.
Sharon Stone popped up on everyone’s radar with King Solomon’s Mines (November 22). This film tried to build on the appeal of Indiana Jones, but Richard Chamberlain is no Harrison Ford. The giant spider in it really freaked me out as a kid though. It’s only in the film for about 30 seconds, but that was enough.
Remember when Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshinikov teamed up with American dancer Gregory Hines to end the Cold War with dance? That really happened in White Nights (November 22). This sounds a lot gayer than Kiss of the Spider Woman, but don’t be fooled. Baryshnikov dated prime Jessica Lange…
Finally, more Sylvester Stallone closes out November, and it’s a doozy: Rocky IV. Sly says, “screw you White Nights. I’m not going to dance the Cold War away. I’m going to punch Dolph Lundgren in the face until unilateral peace is achieved. Then I’m going to convince Brigitte Neilsen our height difference doesn’t matter, and it will go poorly…”
Plus, Rocky IV also had a robot…
December
We reach the end of the year. I’m woozy with the scope of it all, yet I find the energy to continue because December 4 is when the greatest young adult movie ever was released, which also has the best post-credits scene of all time. Screw The Hunger Games. Screw Twilight. Simply put, screw them all.
Young adult adventure begins and ends with Young Sherlock Holmes. It’s one of my desert island movies, incredibly fun from beginning to end, filled with great performances, great direction, great writing, great effects and a surprising amount of bite.
December 6 reminds us Eric Roberts was once considered a major up-and-comer. His work in Runaway Train received an Academy Award nomination. He and Jon Voight play a couple of escaped convicts on a train.
A train that is running away.
From its past?
Maybe…
Chevy Chase returns December 6, as well. This time he teams up with SNL alum Dan Aykroyd in the espionage comedy Spies Like Us. Jon Landis directed and did not kill anyone. This movie also gave us our first glimpse of Vanessa Angel.
Romancing the Stone was the film that got Zemeckis to Back to the Future. Its sequel, Jewel of the Nile, dropped December 11. Jewel did not capture the magic of the original, but it still made a healthy dent in the box office with nearly $100 million.
Ridley Scoot joined Tom Cruise, Tim Curry and more importantly, Mia Sara, with his take on fantasy with Legend, which released December 13. This is the movie that burned down the 007 stage at Pinewood studios and put the James Bond franchise in a bit of a state.
The comedy classic Clue also came out on December 13. Colleen Kamp’s bustline gave Sydney Sweeney something to shoot for. Plus, everyone loves when the singing telegram girl gets shot.
December 13 got slated as awards weekend. Oscar bait films The Color Purple, from Spielberg, and Out of Africa, from Pollack were released. Out of Africa won. Hollywood wasn’t having none of that populist Spielberg crap yet.
Even Akria Kurosawa appeared on the American release list December 20 with Ran. That was the same weekend the ambitious, but failed, Enemy Mine released. Dennis Quaid just could not build on his Jaws III momentum at all…
The last film to release in 1985 was Joey, a little-known West German sci-fi horror film about a telekinetic boy who fights a ventriloquist dummy that summons demons.
The insanity of that plot is not the reason to mention it, however. Joey is a Roland Emmerich film. It served as one of his stepping stones to Hollywood, so he could unleash classics like Universal Soldier and Independence Day.
The End
That wraps up the year 1985 in film.
Believe it or not, films of note still exist to explore, but they were not big enough to mention. For example, did you know Sean Cunningham directed a teen thriller starring Lori Loughlin, James Spader, Tom Atkins and Eric Stoltz titled The New Kids?
I did not. It was one of the little movies that got lost among the titans.
Then there’s Ordeal of Innocence, which sounds like one of the made-up titles from the Oscar ceremony in Naked Gun 3. It stars Donald Sutherland, Faye Dunaway and Christopher Plummer in an Agathe Christie mystery.
Did Cannon Films distribute that one? Of course they did!
That’s the 1980s for you. Movies starring major performers got tossed out willy-nilly to try and survive in the marketplace. This created a Darwinian environment where films had to be truly strong to overcome the odds.
And theatergoers reaped the rewards. Pretty much every weekend featured something interesting to watch if a person had an urge to jaunt on down to the local cinema show.
Those were the days, my friend, I thought they’d never end…but they did…
