This week Gidgit and Angry are counting off their favouites from the year of 1980. With lots of different choices and plenty of feed back from listeners, see if your favourite is there!!
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Great pod cast. I love The Shining but I do understand what Gidgit is saying. Really great lists from both of you. Reminded me to give a lot of these movies another watch.
Great fun – why no quotes for all of them?
I LOVE how I can listen directly from your site. I can pause when I have to put my kids to bed. Then return. I play your podcasts more suitable for my young kids driving them to school so you have a 6 and 9 year old fans now. Love they want to see these films now. Keep on trucking. You are making me think of my favorite films from the 80’s and way too many.
been, enjoying ur pods & espesh top 10s. Ur both sur r old but luv listening.
No The Shining?? Wtf.
Great list, guys and so happy you went with ones you enjoy the most instead of the so-called “best” as it’s more fun this way. The only 2 movies that were mentioned that I haven’t seen are BREAKER MORANT (and as someone who adores Australian cinema, I have no excuse) and John Carpenter’s THE FOG.
When I was 12 years old, I rented both RAGING BULL and ORDINARY PEOPLE from the library. The first one I was bored and put off by this a**hole punching people and the second one moved me to tears, so now you know which one I prefer and so glad Gidget called it out as an honorable mention.
You would be pleased to know that POPEYE, PRIVATE BENJAMIN, THE ELEPHANT MAN, 9 TO 5, and FLASH GORDON would all be in my top 10 as well, with XANADU, FRIDAY THE 13TH and MY BODYGUARD (nice shout-out, Angryman!) as honorable mentions. And of course ORDINARY PEOPLE would be near the top, if not #1. As far as the other 3….
USED CARS: On the hilarious commentary with Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale along with star Kurt Russell, they mention that this film had such a sensational sneak preview that it garnered the highest scores in the history of Columbia Pictures. Naturally, the studio got impatient and decided to bump the movie from August to July WITHOUT an ad campaign and a limited release in only Western part of the U.S., so it opened the same week as AIRPLANE! Everyone went to see AIRPLANE, the movie tanked and the other half of the country didn’t even want it. Kurt Russell quoted one critic on the commentary who had gone to the theater where only AIRPLANE and USED CARS were playing. Everyone had told him that the former was a scream-fest and he knew nothing about the latter; his review covered both movies and Russell quoted this critic’s review verbatim: “There were twice as many laughs in AIRPLANE! but the laughs in USED CARS were *twice as good*!” Needless to say, highly recommend it, especially w/the commentary.
THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS: Thank goodness neither of you included THE SHINING because I think it’s one of the most overrated movies ever and while Gidget hit the nail on the insanity head with her criticism, I will go even further that it still disgusts me how much Kubrick treated Duvall (and her character) during the making of the film and it disgusts me even more when horror fans don’t mention. Not only is WATCHER one of the top 3 scariest movies I’ve ever seen, in my opinion it makes THE SHINING look like Sesame Street. The backstory behind the movie is so legendary I won’t go into it here but let’s just say that the initial premiere froze its entire adult audience cold leading to a spontaneous applause. Yet, Disney despises the film with a passion and will never release it any way shape or form ever again.
FADE TO BLACK: As fellow major cinephiles, this is one you simply don’t want to miss: an introverted movie buff who lives a very sad existence falls in love/lust with a Marilyn Monroe lookalike (played by an Australian!) before cosplaying his favorite movie characters and murdering people! While I adore FRIDAY THE 13TH, this is my personal favorite slasher movie that year, but what’s amazing it is that honors classic non-horrors such as KISS OF DEATH with Richard Widmark. When you include THE CHANGELING (winner of 7 Canadian Genies including Best Picture, rare for a horror film), there are at least 5 horror films I would take in 1980 over THE SHINING.
So, there are some considerations for future October podcasts, especially THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS with Bette Davis which is so underrated (when you read the backstory on it, it will make your heads explode like in SCANNERS, trust me!)