Movies on DVD: Picks from 1984
Ghostbusters – There were several scary as hell ghost movies made in the 80s. This isn’t one of them. The spooks in this haunted comedy are mostly just merry pranksters. Mostly. One does lay a thick coating of snot on Bill Murray and another one tries to open a door into an evil dimension. But other than that, they’re a hoot.
Murray, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd are three college professors who start a ghostly extermination service after losing their jobs as occult specialists at Columbia University. The idea is that they’ll capture the ghosts in ecto-traps designed my mad scientist Egon – played by Ramis – then store them in the abandoned firehouse they’ve converted into headquarters.
That seems to be working just fine until Alien hottie Sigourney Weaver hands them their first big job, ridding her penthouse of an ancient deity named Gozer. The demon wants to open a portal that will flood New York with evil beasties.
Long story short, Ripley ends up possessed, Rick Moranis scores with her, the apartment gets demolished and the Ghostbusters save the day by blowing up a giant marshmallow man.
If you only know Bill Murray from the arthouse movies he’s making now, check out Ghostbusters on DVD.
The Terminator – Ok, so now we know that people use the Internet just to trade porn. But 20 years ago, how could we assume that a worldwide computer network wouldn’t suddenly develop a case of the ass and decide to wipe out the world?
In case you’re the one person who hasn’t seen The Terminator, that’s the premise of this movie. A computer system called SkyNet achieves self-awareness and decides humans are a disease in need of eradication. It initiates a global nuclear war that destroys most of mankind. The survivors are left to fight a losing war against the machines that have taken over.
The resistance is led by John Connor, son of 80s party girl Sarah Connor. The machines, by then so smart they’d mastered time travel, send cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger back to kill her before she can give birth to the future leader. Michael Biehn is Kyle Reese, the resistance fighter assigned to follow the cyborg back and protect Connor. Of course, he also turns out to be the one who knocks her up.
Reese and the cyborg spend the rest of the movie chasing each other around Los Angeles, shooting and blowing things up, including a police station. Cool, huh? One of the writers calls it “It’s a Wonderful Life, with guns.”
The DVD has several features, including three different versions of the script, seven deleted scenes and a 1992 interview with Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron.
Revenge of the Nerds – This movie is a classic to any guy who was in puberty when it came out, for one simple reason. It had boobs. Lots and lots of boobs. And, as Booger said, it showed bush.
Aside from that, the plot was simple enough. Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards (pre-ER, of course) are nerds away at college for the first time. The sorority girls won’t give them the time of day and the frat boy/jocks make their lives hell. When the frat house burns down, and the nerds – including Booger, Poindexter, Lamar, and foreign exchange student Takashi – are kicked out of the freshmen dorm to make room for the jocks, they decide to fight back by gaining control of the Greek Council.
Somehow, that means panty raids and hidden cameras in the sorority house, and a campus Olympics that the nerds manage to win by a bare margin.
The DVD was released in 2001 as a double feature with the sequel, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise.
The Karate Kid – Forget all the punching and kicking. This movie is about every teenager’s nightmare – being the new, weird kid that nobody likes.
Ralph Macchio is Daniel LaRusso, a Jersey boy who moves to Southern California with his mother. His first day on the West Coast looks promising. He gets invited to a party on the beach and meets one of those classic California blondes, played by a very young Elizabeth Shue. But then her ex-boyfriend shows up with his psychotic buddies from the Cobra Kai dojo, and Daniel’s day goes to crap.
The ex – what we’d call a “stalker” these days – doesn’t agree that the relationship is over. He gives Daniel a beat-down in front of all his new friends, including the girl, and leaves him coughing up sand on the beach. Things get worse when Daniel shows up at his new school and learns that the Cobra Kai baddies are his classmates. He sees a lot of bruises in his future.
For some reason, he keeps antagonizing the Cobras and is saved from a particularly bad beating by his apartment super, the bonsai tree trimming Mr. Miyagi. Turns out Miyagi – played by Pat Morita, who actually didn’t know a thing about karate – is an old-school fighting master.
A few wax-on, wax-off lessons and Daniel is ready to take on the whole Cobra Kai dojo in the All-Valley Karate Tournament. He may look like the biggest sissy in town, but wouldn’t you know it, Daniel beats ’em all.
The cheese factor is high in the movie. But, I dare you to watch it and not cheer a little when he crane-kicks the crap out of Cobra Johnny.
If you buy your DVDs for the features, you might want to just rent this one.
Beverly Hills Cop – Eddie Murphy didn’t always make bad PG comedies. Back in the day, he had a mouth like a sewer and a string of hit comedies. This was one of the first.
Murphy played Axel Foley, undercover Detroit cop and all-around screw-up. When an old friend from Beverly Hills comes home for a visit and is murdered, Foley heads to California to investigate.
The plot has something to do with drugs and coffee and bearer bonds, but it doesn’t really matter. You watch this movie to see Foley making an ass out of Beverly Hills cops Taggart and Rosewood. They get assigned to watch him, he stuffs food in their tailpipe and takes them to a strip club.
Look for Bronson Pinchot (from Perfect Strangers) as a gay art gallery employee named Serge.
Check out the collector’s edition DVD for an updated cast and crew retrospective and a feature on the original casting of the movie.
